Brandon Sanderson - [Stormlight Archive 01]

by The Way of Kings Prime (ALTERNATIVE VERSION) (pdf)

  Merin groaned, slumping against the gunwale, his body fuzzing to

  numbness. Behind him, Tamar and the others watched Merin with rev-

  erent awe.

  Great, Merin thought, leaning back against the ship’s railing and puffing slightly. “Wel ?” he demanded. “Get your men out! We have to attack before they realize there aren’t any Vedens captaining these ships!”

  The men moved. Hundreds flooded over the sides of the ships, gathering

  on the shore. Kalden approached with Merin’s Plate, and Merin allowed

  the man to help him put it on. He had learned something odd about the

  Plate—it interfered with the winds, somehow. While Merin was wearing it,

  he couldn’t push against himself. Neither could he touch a man wearing

  Plate with the winds. Something built into the armor’s magics protected

  men from the effects of his powers.

  This day, however, he didn’t feel that he was going to be pushing with the wind much more. He couldn’t afford to spend the entire battle numb—he

  had already hurt his body too much. He felt as though he could barely

  move, though the Plate lent him some strength, pushing back the fatigue

  of Windrunning.

  Merin forced himself to stand up straight, ignoring his numb, useless

  arm. He took a breath, nodded to Kalden, and the two of them leapt over

  the side of the ship and landed on the shore beyond. He waved to a group

  of several hundred soldiers, then began marching toward the battlefield.

  Other squads followed, forming into quiet ranks at first—moving exactly

  as the Vedens had ordered.

  It wasn’t until they were up close that they broke with what was expected.

  The Veden line stood exposed, its back to Merin’s force, completely unaware.

  Merin summoned his Blade, and held the weapon aloft with his good

  arm, then broke into a Plate-enhanced dash.

  Dalenar commanded an army of dead men. He did what he could,

  directing the battle from the wall-top tower, organizing the forces as

  defensively as possible. Unfortunately, forcing his men to pull back meant further isolating the two halves—one of which he couldn’t even reach with

  his messages.

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 787

  He could only help extend their death throes. He could not save them.

  So this is how it ends, Nolhonarin, he thought, staring out over the battlefield.

  Trapped in a city that isn’t even my own, fighting an enemy I thought was my friend. After Pralir, I thought I was through with war. I thought I would seek my hearth and spend time with my sons.

  He had no sons left. That part hurt the most. Bright, noble Sheneres.

  Charismatic, witty Aredor. And quiet, understanding Renarin. The three

  boys had been so different, yet they had each been a piece of him—and a

  link back to the woman he had loved.

  At least they could be his final thoughts. It wasn’t good for a father to

  live to be the last of his family.

  Jasnah sat behind, trying to help. Most of her old self had returned, but

  the Herald’s death had shaken her, and Dalenar was loath to leave her in

  strategic command again. However, he doubted he had a choice. The men

  were faltering with Taln’s death—they needed a leader, so they could at

  least die knowing whose honor they served.

  He turned to inform her of his decision, but paused as he noticed a

  strange man speaking with the guards at the bottom of the command

  tower. He was dressed as a messenger, but he wore unfamiliar livery.

  Light blue? Dalenar thought. Who wears light blue?

  The guards eventually decided to let the newcomer pass—though they

  accompanied him up to the command center.

  “Lord Dalenar Kholin?” the messenger asked.

  “Yes?” Dalenar responded cautiously.

  “Lord Merin Kholin, commander of the Lakhenran fleet, sends his

  greetings. He would like to know if there are any specific strategies you

  would like his armies to follow.”

  Dalenar frowned, not certain if his mind had snapped, or if the man was

  just spouting nonsense.

  “My Lord!” one of the sub-commanders cried. “Come look!”

  Dalenar glanced out the window. There, at the back of the enemy line,

  he saw an incredible sight. The Lakhenran armies were charging the back

  of the Veden lines.

  Dalenar turned back to the smiling messenger. Hope, an almost un-

  recognizable sensation, glimmered within him. Behind him, Jasnah stood,

  hurrying to the window.

  “Merin?” Dalenar asked. “Young Merin, from Alethkar?”

  “Yes, my lord,” the messenger said. “He freed the Lakhenran from

  Vedenar, and we have come to pay back his heroism. He has told our

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  armies to follow whatever battle commands you or Lady Jasnah might

  recommend.”

  Merin is alive. “My son?” Dalenar demanded. “Renarin. Does he live?”

  The messenger hesitated. “He has suffered a grievous wound, my lord.”

  “But he lives?”

  “Yes, my lord,” the messenger said.

  That is reason enough to continue fighting! “Jasnah, you can command here?”

  “Yes, Uncle,” she promised.

  “Bring my horse!” Dalenar bel owed, replacing his pauldron as he pushed

  past the messenger and rushed down the stairs.

  Merin’s armies crashed against the exposed Veden lines. However,

  Merin himself saw a more ripe target. “Kalden, Tamar!” he yelled, pointing at what was obviously the Veden command center. “Bring your squads!”

  Three hundred men broke off the main column, following Merin as he

  rushed the chaotic command center. The Vedens reacted with alarm, cal ing

  out in their foreign tongue.

  Three men in Shardplate stood around a table at the center of the camp.

  Merin rushed the first one, barely allowing the man enough time to raise

  his Blade to initiate a duel.

  Merin spun, striking with a fluid blow. The Shardbearer raised his weapon

  to block the obvious attack, and Merin skepped his Blade, phasing it briefly into smoke. His Blade passed through that of his opponent, a small bit of

  smoke puffing free. It winked back into existence just as it slammed into the man’s throatguard. The Shardbearer stumbled back, stunned, and Merin

  threw his weight into a second swing, shearing the man’s head from his

  shoulders.

  Merin didn’t stop to pause as he moved onto the second Shardbearer. To

  his side, Kalden attacked the third man.

  Merin engaged his opponent, attacking quickly, not giving the man time

  to react. To Merin’s side, several people watched the duels—an older man in stormkeeper’s robes, and a tall, red-haired man with a commanding bearing

  stood out. Within moments of the attack on the command center, the tall

  man was surrounded by nervous guards. He wore no Plate, but Merin

  saw smoke forming around his hand as he calmly watched the battle’s

  proceedings. This is their leader, Merin decided.

  Merin’s current opponent was not very good. Short of stature and aging,

  the man fought like one practiced with a Blade—but not a master of it.

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 789

  Merin needed no winds or skepping to turn aside the man’s attack, then slam a couple of blows against his shoulders.

  “I yield!” the man cried, lowering his Blad
e and holding out his hands.

  Merin snorted, slapping the Blade out of the man’s hands. Several

  soldiers ran up to take the Veden prisoner—already, Merin’s men had

  secured most of the camp. Some Veden soldiers from the main line were

  making an attempt to fight through to their commanders, but someone

  was rallying the Aleth near the castle. The Veden army had gone from a

  powerful aggressor to a defender smashed between three different enemy

  forces.

  Merin pointed at the Veden leader within his Blade. “Take this man

  captive,” he told his men. “Unless, of course, he wants to duel me with

  that Blade of—”

  Movement flashed at the edge of Merin’s vision. Before he could turn,

  before he could raise his weapon in defense, he caught a glimpse of a

  small man in loose clothing dashing toward him. The man carried a long,

  efficient-looking knife.

  Merin recognized him. The Shin warrior—the one who had taken him

  captive on the plains of Alethkar. The man with the unnaturally fluid step.

  Merin’s reaction was sudden and guttural. Even as the Shin man jumped

  at him, Merin summoned the winds. Pain flared in his wrist, and the winds

  curled and twisted around him. A column of air smashed into the Shin

  man, throwing him backward, ripping the knife from his fingers.

  The Shin warrior was tossed across the camp in a blast of wind. He

  smashed through the map table, then crumpled to the ground on the other

  side. Merin stood breathing deeply for a moment, trying to fight away the

  flaring pain in his wrist. To his side, Kalden wasn’t faring very well in his duel—the man had only received his Blade a short few weeks before, and he

  had very little sparring experience. Merin spun, turning toward the Veden

  leader—who was now ringed by two tensets of Lakhenran spearmen. The

  man stood alone. Where was the other, the old stormkeeper? The aged man

  had disappeared.

  Merin raised his Blade commandingly toward the Veden leader. “You

  lead these forces, do you not?”

  The imperious man regarded Merin and the Lakhenran troops as if they

  were merely curiosities. He glanced toward the Shin warrior.

  “The Windrunner,” the Veden leader said, looking back at Merin.

  “Yes,” Merin said.

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  “I was warned about you,” the Veden said. “It occurs to me that my source

  should have been a little more specific.”

  “Command your army to surrender!” Merin ordered, trying to maintain

  his confident attitude. Something about this man was unnerving.

  “I did nothing wrong,” the man decided. “I made no errors of judgement

  or mistakes. I could not have known that the Lakhenrans would betray

  me.” He paused, studying Merin. “I lost by a fluke.”

  “Give the command!” Merin said, glancing toward Kalden. His friend

  wouldn’t concede the duel, no matter how much better his opponent was

  than he.

  The Veden leader frowned, then glanced toward his forces. Merin had

  been on enough battlefields to tell that the Veden army was not faring well.

  Surrounded and suddenly outnumbered, it would not last long.

  “Very well,” the Veden man said. “The day is yours.”

  EPILOGUE

  It took a special kind of man to claim he was a god and to actually

  have people believe him. In the Vorin tradition, humility was a sign of

  nobility, and a man seeking to take leadership upon himself was imme-

  diately suspect. To set oneself up as a Herald . . . well, to accomplish the deed successfully would take an incredible combination indeed. He would

  have to be humble but not self-effacing, powerful but not domineering. He

  would have to be an excellent leader and a fine warrior, yet be as wise as an aged stormkeeper. He would need straightforwardness in purpose, yet

  retain an indefinable weight of mystery about him.

  He would need to be the greatest of men.

  You made me want to believe, Jasnah thought, laying a hand on Taln’s cold cheek. And that’s more than I’ve ever felt before.

  Taln lay on a stone altar in the funeral tent. A sheet covered the lower

  half of his body, but he was naked from the waist up. Only one wound

  marred his body—a small thing, really, placed expertly between his ribs.

  It seemed a mockery that such a mighty man had been felled by a wound

  so seemingly innocent.

  I always told him to wear Shardplate, Jasnah thought. But he never would.

  Such a stubborn man you were, Talenel’Elin.

  Perhaps she had let the men rely upon him too much. The logical, prudent

  Jasnah should have foreseen the damage his death would cause to morale.

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  Yet she realized now that she too had come to rely upon him. Too much?

  Perhaps. One side effect of being heartless was that one rarely had to deal with emotional shock. She had been far too unprepared for the backlash

  of grief she had felt at his death.

  A crowd had gathered outside—she could hear their shuffling and their

  murmuring. Many now claimed that they had always seen through Taln’s

  façade, that they had only pretended to believe because they knew it was

  good for troop cohesion. Others were still faithful. They waited for the final proof Taln had promised them, if inadvertently.

  When Heralds die, their bodies turn to smoke. He had spoken the words in the Holy City, when explaining why there were no bones to accompany the

  buried Shardblades. It was a popular legend, known to many of the people.

  Heralds were not truly human, despite their form. When they died, their

  bodies were taken to the Dwelling to await the next Return.

  Taln did not turn to smoke. Jasnah didn’t want to let the people dwell on

  this fact. Barely a few hours had passed since the final battle with Vedenar, but she had ordered his pyre readied anyway.

  Oh, Taln . . . she thought. She wanted to weep, but there was nothing within to give. That was another side-effect of being heartless.

  Besides, what reason did she have to complain or grieve? She had

  received what she had always desired, had she not? A strong political union that gave her a great deal of power, a king who respected her and gave

  her freedom to be involved in his affairs. With Meridas as her husband

  and Dalenar as her king, she would always be at the center of Alethkar’s

  workings. She had never wanted love—love was for people who couldn’t

  hope for something supposedly greater. Power.

  What a waste my life has been, she thought with a sudden feeling of sickness.

  “My . . . lady?” a guard asked from the tent door.

  Jasnah turned. “Yes?”

  “There is a man here,” the guard said hesitantly. “He . . . well, my lady, he claims to know the Lord Herald.”

  Jasnah frowned. “Know? Know how?”

  “He claims to be the man’s brother-in-law,” the soldier explained.

  Jasnah felt a chill. “Let him in.”

  The man who entered was of humble stature. He had a ring of baldness

  at the top of his head, and he appeared to have a nervous twitch of the

  fingers. He kept his eyes low, though he did glance at Taln’s corpse.

  “What is this foolishness you told my guard?” Jasnah asked.

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 793

  “I�
�m sorry for being foolish, my lady,” the man said quickly, his voice

  thick with a Riemak accent. “But, I do speak the truth. That man, the Lord Herald . . . well, his other name is Taven. He married my sister, my lady.

  We come from a village in Riemak—Callenhas. Your army passed it on

  the way north, back when you were there . . .”

  He looked up hopefully, as if expecting her to remember the village.

  “Go on,” Jasnah said. “Why didn’t you speak of this earlier?”

  “Well, my lady,” the man said with embarrassment. “Taven seemed to

  be doing so well for himself, you see. And when I spoke to him that once,

  he didn’t even seem to recognize me. I figured that he either didn’t want

  me to tell others about him, or that he didn’t right remember himself. Ever since the accident happened . . . well, Taven never was right in the head

  after that.”

  Jasnah eyed the man critically. Come to seek after some compensation by claiming to be Taln’s relative? That would be a very bold move, and this man doesn’t seem the type. “What proof do you have of these allegations?” she asked.

  “Proof, my lady?” the man asked, as if he had never considered that

  she would ask such of him. “Well, I don’t know. Taven did have a rather

  strange birthmark on the back of his neck.”

  Jasnah relaxed. She had seen no such thing while helping prepare the

  body for its cremation. The man was either mistaken or lying.

  “It’s there, right near the hairline, my lady,” the man promised. “You

  should look.”

  Jasnah paused. Near the hairline . . . she might not have seen it, if Taln’s hair were in the way.

  She didn’t want to look. However, the logical side of her was fed up

  with being ignored. She reached out, turning his head and pushing back

  the hair. She paused.

  “What did this birthmark look like?”

  “Um, an oval sort of shape, my lady,” the man said. “Or, at least I think

  that’s what it was. He was kind of sensitive about people looking at it, he was.”

  Jasnah lowered her hand, then placed Taln’s head back in its restful

  position. The birthmark was there, and the mystery had been solved. She

  had been right all along. Why did that make her feel so depressed?

  “Tell me about him,” she requested. “You say . . . that he was married?”

  “Wel , he was when my sister was still alive,” the peasant said. “Taven was always a special man—he could make people listen to what he had to say.