The Way of Kings sa-1

by Brandon Sanderson

  Each member of Bridge Four carried a large wooden shield strapped- tightly now-with red Parshendi bones. Ribs, for the most part, shaped in spiral patterns. Some of the men had tied finger bones to the centers so they would rattle, and others had attached protruding sharp ribs to the sides of their helms, giving them the look of fangs or mandibles.

  The onlookers watched with amazement. It wasn’t the first time they’d seen this armor, but this would be the first run where every man of Bridge Four had it. All together, it made an impressive sight.

  Ten days, with six bridge runs, had allowed Kaladin and his team to perfect their method. Five men to be decoys with five more in the front holding shields and using only one arm to support the bridge. Their numbers were augmented by the wounded they’d saved from other crews, now strong enough to help carry.

  So far-despite six bridge runs-there hadn’t been a single fatality. The other bridgemen were whispering about a miracle. Kaladin didn’t know about that. He just made certain to keep a full pouch of infused spheres with him at all times. Most of the Parshendi archers seemed to focus on him. Somehow, they could tell that he was the center of all this.

  They reached their bridge and formed up, shields strapped to rods on the sides to await use. As they hefted their bridge, a spontaneous round of cheering rose up from the other crews.

  “That’s new,” Teft said from Kaladin’s left.

  “Guess they finally realized what we are,” Kaladin said.

  “And what’s that?”

  Kaladin settled the bridge onto his shoulders. “We’re their champions. Bridge forward!”

  They broke into a trot, leading the way down from the staging yard, ushered by cheers.

  My father is not insane, Adolin thought, alive with energy and excitement as his armorers strapped on his Shardplate.

  Adolin had stewed over Navani’s revelation for days. He’d been wrong in such a horrible way. Dalinar Kholin wasn’t growing weak. He wasn’t getting senile. He wasn’t a coward. Dalinar had been right, and Adolin had been wrong. After much soul searching, Adolin had come to a decision.

  He was glad that he’d been wrong.

  He grinned, flexing the fingers of his Plated hand as the armorers moved to his other side. He didn’t know what the visions meant, or what the implications of those visions would be. His father was some kind of prophet, and that was daunting to consider.

  But for now, it was enough that Dalinar was not insane. It was time to trust him. Stormfather knew, Dalinar had earned that right from his sons.

  The armorers finished with Adolin’s Shardplate. As they stepped away, Adolin hurried out of the armoring room into the sunlight, adjusting to the combined strength, speed, and weight of the Shardplate. Niter and five other members of the Cobalt Guard hastened up, one bringing Sureblood to him. Adolin took the reins, but led the Ryshadium at first, wanting more time to adapt to his Plate.

  They soon entered the staging area. Dalinar’s father, in his Shardplate, was conferring with Teleb and Ilamar. He seemed to tower over them as he pointed eastward. Already, companies of soldiers were moving out onto the lip of the Plains.

  Adolin strode up to his father, eager. In the near distance, he noticed a figure riding down along the eastern rim of the warcamps. The figure wore gleaming red Shardplate.

  “Father?” Adolin said, pointing. “What’s he doing here? Shouldn’t he be waiting for us to ride to his camp?”

  Dalinar looked up. He waved for a groom to bring Gallant, and the two of them mounted. They rode down to intercept Sadeas, trailed by a dozen members of the Cobalt Guard. Did Sadeas want to call off the assault? Was he worried about failing against the Tower again?

  Once they drew close, Dalinar pulled up. “You should be moving, Sadeas. Speed will be important, if we’re to get to the plateau before the Parshendi take the gemheart and go.”

  The highprince nodded. “Agreed, in part. But we need to confer first. Dalinar, this is the Tower we’re assaulting!” He seemed eager.

  “Yes, and?”

  “Damnation, man!” Sadeas said. “You’re the one who told me we needed to find a way to trap a large force of Parshendi on a plateau. The Tower is perfect. They always bring a large force there, and two sides are inaccessible.”

  Adolin found himself nodding. “Yes,” he said. “Father, he’s right. If we can box them in and hit them hard…” The Parshendi normally fled when they took large losses. That was one of the things extending the war so long.

  “It could mean a turning point in the war,” Sadeas said, eyes alight. “My scribes estimate that they have no more than twenty or thirty thousand troops left. The Parshendi will commit ten thousand here-they always do. But if we can corner and kill all of them, we could nearly destroy their ability to wage war on these Plains.”

  “It’ll work, Father,” Adolin said eagerly. “This could be what we’ve been waiting for-what you’ve been waiting for. A way to turn the war, a way to deal enough damage to the Parshendi that they can’t afford to keep fighting!”

  “We need troops, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “Lots of them. How many men could you field, at maximum?”

  “On short notice?” Dalinar said. “Eight thousand, perhaps.”

  “It will have to do,” Sadeas said. “I’ve managed to mobilize about seven thousand. We’ll bring them all. Get your eight thousand to my camp, and we’ll take every one of my bridge crews and march together. The Parshendi will get there first-it’s inevitable with a plateau that close to their side-but if we can be fast enough, we can corner them on the plateau. Then we’ll show them what a real Alethi army is capable of!”

  “I won’t risk lives on your bridges, Sadeas,” Dalinar said. “I don’t know that I can agree to a completely joint assault.”

  “Bah,” Sadeas said. “I’ve got a new way of using bridgemen, one that doesn’t use nearly as many lives. Their casualties have dropped to almost nothing.”

  “Really?” Dalinar said. “Is it because of those bridgemen with armor? What made you change?”

  Sadeas shrugged. “Perhaps you’re getting through to me. Regardless, we need to go now. Together. With as many troops as they’ll have, I can’t risk engaging them and waiting for you to catch up. I want to go together and assault as closely together as we can manage. If you’re still worried about the bridgemen, I can attack first and gain a foothold, then let you cross without risking bridgeman lives.”

  Dalinar looked thoughtful.

  Come on, Father, Adolin thought. You’ve been waiting for a chance to hit the Parshendi hard. This is it!

  “Very well,” Dalinar said. “Adolin, send messengers to mobilize the Fourth through Eighth Divisions. Prepare the men to march. Let’s end this war.”

  65

  The Tower

  “I see them. They are the rocks. They are the vengeful spirits. Eyes of red.”

  — Kakakes 1173, 8 seconds pre-death. A darkeyed young woman of fifteen. Subject was reportedly mentally unstable since childhood.

  Several hours later, Dalinar stood with Sadeas on a rock formation overlooking the Tower itself. It had been a hard, long march. This was a distant plateau, as far eastward as they had ever struck. Plateaus beyond this point were impossible to take. The Parshendi could arrive so quickly that they had the gemheart out before the Alethi arrived. Sometimes that happened with the Tower as well.

  Dalinar searched. “I see it,” he said, pointing. “They don’t have the gemheart out yet!” A ring of Parshendi were pounding on the chrysalis. Its shell was like thick stone, however. It was still holding.

  “You should be glad you’re using my bridges, old friend.” Sadeas shaded his face with a gauntleted hand. “Those chasms might be too wide for a Shardbearer to jump.”

  Dalinar nodded. The Tower was enormous; even its huge size on the maps didn’t do it justice. Unlike other plateaus, it wasn’t level-instead, it was shaped like an enormous wedge that dipped toward the west, pointing a large cliff face in the stormward
direction. It was too steep-and the chasms too wide-to approach from the east or south. Only three adjacent plateaus could provide staging areas for assaults, all along the western or northwestern side.

  The chasms between these plateaus were unusually large, almost too wide for the bridges to span. On the nearby staging plateaus, thousands upon thousands of soldiers in blue or red were gathered, one color per plateau. Combined, they made for a larger force than Dalinar had ever seen brought against the Parshendi.

  The Parshendi numbers were as large as anticipated. There were at least ten thousand of them lining up. This would be a full-scale battle, the kind Dalinar had been hoping for, the kind that would let them pit a huge number of Alethi against a large Parshendi force.

  This could be it. The turning point in the war. Win this day, and everything would change.

  Dalinar shaded his eyes as well, helm under his arm. He noted with satisfaction that Sadeas’s scouting crews were crossing to adjacent plateaus where they could watch for Parshendi reinforcements. Just because the Parshendi had brought so many at first didn’t mean that there were no other Parshendi forces waiting to flank them. Dalinar and Sadeas wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.

  “Come with me,” Sadeas said. “Let us assault them together! A single grand wave of attack, across forty bridges!”

  Dalinar looked down at the bridge crews; many of their members were lying exhausted on the plateau. Awaiting-likely dreading-their next task. Very few of them wore the armor Sadeas had spoken of. Hundreds of them would be slaughtered in the assault if they attacked together. But was that any different from what Dalinar did, asking his men to charge into battle to seize the plateau? Weren’t they all part of the same army?

  The cracks. He couldn’t let them get wider. If he was going to be with Navani, he had to prove to himself he could remain firm in the other areas. “No,” he said. “I will attack, but only after you’ve made a landing point for my bridge crews. Even that is more than I should allow. Never force your men to do as you yourself would not.”

  “You do charge the Parshendi!”

  “I’d never do it carrying one of those bridges,” Dalinar said. “I’m sorry, old friend. It’s not a judgment of you. It is what I must do.”

  Sadeas shook his head, pulling on his helmet. “Well, it will have to do. We still planning on dining together tonight to discuss strategy?”

  “I assume so. Unless Elhokar has a fit for both of us missing his feast.”

  Sadeas snorted. “He’s going to have to grow accustomed to it. Six years of feasting every night is growing tedious. Besides, I doubt he’ll feel anything but elation after we win this day and leave the Parshendi down a full third of their soldiers. See you on the battlefield.”

  Dalinar nodded and Sadeas jumped off the rock formation, dropping down to the surface below and joining his officers. Dalinar lingered, looking over at the Tower. It was not only larger than most plateaus, it was rougher, covered with lumpish rock formations of hardened crem. The patterns were rolling and smooth, yet very uneven-like a field full of short walls covered by a blanket of snow.

  The southeastern tip of the plateau rose to a point overlooking the Plains. The two plateaus they’d use were on the middle of the west side; Sadeas would take the northern one and Dalinar would assault from one just below it, once Sadeas had cleared a landing for him.

  We need to push the Parshendi to the southeast, Dalinar thought, rubbing his chin, corner them there. Everything hinged on that. The chrysalis was up near the top, so the Parshendi were already situated in a good position for Dalinar and Sadeas to push them back against the cliff edge. The Parshendi would probably allow this, as it would give them the high ground.

  If a second Parshendi army came, it would be separated from the others. The Alethi could focus on the Parshendi trapped atop the Tower while holding a defensive formation against the new arrivals. It would work.

  He felt himself growing excited. He hopped down to a shorter outcropping, then walked down a few steplike clefts to reach the plateau floor, where his officers waited. He then rounded the rock formation, investigating Adolin’s progress. The young man stood in his Shardplate, directing the companies as they crossed Sadeas’s mobile bridges onto the southern staging plateau. In the near distance, Sadeas’s men were forming up for the assault.

  That group of armored bridgemen stood out, preparing at the front center of the formation of bridge crews. Why were they allowed armor? Why not the others as well? It looked like Parshendi carapace. Dalinar shook his head. The assault began, bridge crews running out ahead of Sadeas’s army, approaching the Tower first.

  “Where would you like to make our assault, Father?” Adolin asked, summoning his Shardblade and resting it on his pauldron, sharp side up.

  “There,” Dalinar said, pointing to a spot on their staging plateau. “Get the men ready.”

  Adolin nodded, shouting the orders.

  In the distance, bridgemen began to die. Heralds guide your paths, you poor men, Dalinar thought. As well as my own.

  Kaladin danced with the wind.

  Arrows streamed around him, passing close, nearly kissing him with their painted scragglebark fletching. He had to let them get close, had to make the Parshendi feel they were near to killing him.

  Despite four other bridgemen drawing their attention, despite the other men of Bridge Four behind armored with the skeletons of fallen Parshendi, most of the archers focused on Kaladin. He was a symbol. A living banner to destroy.

  Kaladin spun between arrows, slapping them away with his shield. A storm raged inside him, as if his blood had been sucked away and replaced with stormwinds. It made his fingertips tingle with energy. Ahead, the Parshendi sang their angry, chanting song. The song for one who blasphemed against their dead.

  Kaladin stayed at the front of the decoys, letting the arrows fall close. Daring them. Taunting them. Demanding they kill him until the arrows stopped falling and the wind stilled.

  Kaladin came to rest, breath held to contain the storm within. The Parshendi reluctantly fell back before Sadeas’s force. An enormous force, as far as plateau assaults went. Thousands of men and thirty-two bridges. Despite Kaladin’s distraction, five bridges had been dropped, the men carrying them slaughtered.

  None of the soldiers rushing across the chasm had made any specific eff ort to attack the archers firing on Kaladin, but the weight of numbers had forced them away. A few gave Kaladin loathing gazes, making an odd gesture by cupping a hand to the right ear and pointing at him before finally retreating.

  Kaladin released his breath, Stormlight pulsing away from him. He had to walk a very fine line, drawing in enough Stormlight to stay alive, but not so much that it was visible to the watching soldiers.

  The Tower rose ahead of him, a slab of stone that dipped toward the west. The chasm was so wide that he’d worried the men would drop the bridge into the chasm as they tried to place it. On the other side, Sadeas had arrayed his forces in a cupping shape, pushing the Parshendi back away, trying to give Dalinar an opening.

  Perhaps attacking this way served to protect Dalinar’s pristine image. He wouldn’t make bridgemen die. Not directly, at least. Never mind that he stood on the backs of the men who had fallen to get Sadeas across. Their corpses were his true bridge.

  “Kaladin!” a voice called from behind.

  Kaladin spun. One of his men was wounded. Storm it! he thought, dashing up to Bridge Four. There was enough Stormlight still pulsing in his veins to stave off exhaustion. He’d grown complacent. Six bridge runs without a casualty. He should have realized it couldn’t last. He pushed through the collected bridgemen to find Skar on the ground, holding his foot, red blood seeping between his fingers.

  “Arrow in the foot,” Skar said through gritted teeth. “In the storming foot! Who gets hit in the foot?”

  “Kaladin!” Moash’s voice said, urgent. The bridgemen split as Moash brought Teft in, an arrow sprouting from his shoulder between carapace
breastplate and arm.

  “Storm it!” Kaladin said, helping Moash set Teft down. The older bridgeman looked dazed. The arrow had dug deep into the muscle. “Somebody get pressure on Skar’s foot and wrap it until I can look at it. Teft, can you hear me?”

  “I’m sorry, lad,” Teft mumbled, eyes glassy. “I’m…”

  “You’re all right,” Kaladin said, hurriedly taking some bandages from Lopen, then nodding grimly. Lopen would heat a knife for cauterizing. “Who else?”

  “Everyone else is accounted for,” Drehy said. “Teft was trying to hide his wound. He must have taken it when we were shoving the bridge across.”

  Kaladin pressed gauze against the wound, then gestured for Lopen to hurry with the heated knife. “I want our scouts watching. Make sure the Parshendi don’t try a stunt like they did a few weeks back! If they jump across that plateau to get at Bridge Four, we’re dead.”

  “Is all right,” Rock said, shading his eyes. “Sadeas is keeping his men in this area. No Parshendi will get through.”

  The knife came, and Kaladin held it hesitantly, a curl of smoke rising from its length. Teft had lost too much blood; there was no risking a sewing. But with the twist of the knife, Kaladin risked some bad scarring. That could leave the aging bridgeman with a stiff ness that would hurt his ability to wield a spear.

  Reluctantly, Kaladin pressed the knife into the wound, the flesh hissing and blood drying to black crisps. Painspren wiggled out of the ground, sinewy and orange. In a surgery, you could sew. But on the field, this was often the only way.

  “I’m sorry, Teft.” He shook his head as he continued to work.

  Men began to scream. Arrows hit wood and flesh, sounding like distant woodsmen swinging axes.