The Way of Kings sa-1

by Brandon Sanderson

  Dalinar waited beside his men, watching Sadeas’s soldiers fight. He had better give us an opening, he thought. I’m starting to hunger for this plateau.

  Fortunately, Sadeas quickly gained his footing on the Tower and sent a flanking force over to carve out a section of land for Dalinar. They didn’t get entirely into place before Dalinar started moving.

  “One of you bridges, come with me!” he bellowed, barreling to the forefront. He was followed by one of the eight bridge teams Sadeas had lent him.

  Dalinar needed to get onto that plateau. The Parshendi had noticed what was happening and had begun to put pressure on the small company in green and white that Sadeas had sent to defend his entry area. “Bridge crew, there!” Dalinar said, pointing.

  The bridgemen hustled into place, looking relieved that they wouldn’t be asked to place their bridge under fire of arrows. As soon as they got it into position, Dalinar charged across, the Cobalt Guard following. Just ahead, Sadeas’s men broke.

  Dalinar bellowed, closing his gauntleted hands around Oathbringer’s hilt as the sword formed from mist. He crashed into the surging Parshendi line with a wide, two-handed sweep that dropped four men. The Parshendi began to chant in their strange language, singing their war song. Dalinar kicked a corpse aside and began to attack in earnest, frantically defending the foothold Sadeas’s men had gained him. Within minutes, his soldiers surged around him.

  With the Cobalt Guard watching his back, Dalinar waded into the battle, breaking enemy ranks as only a Shardbearer could. He tore pockets through the Parshendi front lines, like a fish leaping from a stream, cutting back and forth, keeping his enemies disorganized. Corpses with burned eyes and slashed clothing made a trail behind him. More and more Alethi troops filled in the holes. Adolin crashed through a group of Parshendi nearby, his own squad of Cobalt Guardsmen a safe distance behind. He brought his whole army across-he needed to ascend quickly, pinning the Parshendi back so they couldn’t escape. Sadeas was to watch the northern and western edges of the Tower.

  The rhythm of the battle sang to Dalinar. The Parshendi chanting, the soldiers grunting and yelling, the Shardblade in his hands and the surging power of the Plate. The Thrill rose within him. Since the nausea didn’t strike him, he carefully let the Blackthorn free, and felt the joy of dominating a battlefield and the disappointment at lacking a worthy foe.

  Where were the Parshendi Shardbearers? He had seen that one in battle weeks ago. Why had he not reappeared? Would they commit so many men to the Tower without sending a Shardbearer?

  Something heavy hit his armor, banging off it, causing a small puff of Stormlight to escape between the joints along his upper arm. Dalinar cursed, raising an arm to protect his face while scanning the near distance. There, he thought, picking out a nearby rock formation where a group of Parshendi stood swinging enormous rock slings with two hands. The head-size stones crashed into Parshendi and Alethi alike, though Dalinar was obviously the target.

  He growled as another one hit, smashing against his forearm, sending a soft jolt through the Shardplate. The blow was strong enough to send a small array of cracks through his right vambrace.

  Dalinar growled and threw himself into a Plate-enhanced run. The Thrill surged more strongly through him, and he rammed his shoulder into a group of Parshendi, scattering them, then spun with his Blade and cut down those too slow to get out of his way. He dodged to the side as a hail of stones fell where he’d been standing, then leaped onto a low boulder. He took two steps and jumped for the ledge where the rock-throwers were standing.

  He grabbed its edge with one hand, holding his Blade with the other. The men atop the small ridge stumbled back, but Dalinar heaved himself up just high enough to swing. Oathbringer cut at their legs, and four men tumbled to the ground, feet dead. Dalinar dropped the Blade-it vanished-and used both hands to heave himself onto the ridge.

  He landed in a crouch, Plate clanking. Several of the remaining Parshendi tried to swing their slings, but Dalinar grabbed a pair of head-size stones from a pile-easily palming them in his gauntleted hands-and flung them at the Parshendi. The stones hit with enough force to toss the slingmen off the formation, crushing their chests.

  Dalinar smiled, then began throwing more stones. As the last Parshendi fell off the ledge, Dalinar spun, summoning Oathbringer and looking over the battlefield. A spear wall of blue and reflective steel struggled against black and red Parshendi. Dalinar’s men did well, pressing the Parshendi up to the southeast, where they would be trapped. Adolin led this eff ort, Shardplate gleaming.

  Breathing deeply from the Thrill now, Dalinar held his Shardblade up above his head, reflecting sunlight. Below, his men cheered, sending up calls that rose above the Parshendi war chant. Gloryspren sprouted around him.

  Stormfather, but it felt good to be winning again. He threw himself off the rock formation, for once not taking the slow and careful way down. He fell amid a group of Parshendi, crashing to the stones, blue Stormlight rising from his armor. He spun, slaying, remembering years spent fighting alongside Gavilar. Winning, conquering.

  He and Gavilar had created something during those years. A solidified, cohesive nation out of something fractured. Like master potters reconstructing a fine ceramic that had been dropped. With a roar, Dalinar cut through the line of Parshendi, to where the Cobalt Guard was fighting to catch up to him. “We press them!” he bellowed. “Pass the word! All companies up the side of the Tower!”

  Soldiers raised spears and runners went to deliver his orders. Dalinar spun and charged into the Parshendi, pushing himself-and his army- forward. To the north, Sadeas’s forces were stalled. Well, Dalinar’s force would do the work for him. If Dalinar could spear forward here, he could slice the Parshendi in half, then crush the northern side against Sadeas and the southern side against the cliff edge.

  His army surged forward behind him, and the Thrill bubbled within. It was power. Strength greater than Shardplate. Vitality greater than youth. Skill greater than a lifetime of practice. A fever of power. Parshendi after Parshendi fell before his Blade. He couldn’t cut their flesh, yet he sheared through their ranks. The momentum of their attacks often carried their corpses stumbling past him even as their eyes burned. The Parshendi started to break, running away or falling back. He grinned behind his near-translucent visor.

  This was life. This was control. Gavilar had been the leader, the momentum, and the essence of their conquest. But Dalinar had been the warrior. Their opponents had surrendered to Gavilar’s rule, but the Blackthorn-he was the man who had scattered them, the one who had dueled their leaders and slain their best Shardbearers.

  Dalinar screamed at the Parshendi, and their entire line bent, then shattered. The Alethi surged forward, cheering. Dalinar joined his men, charging at their forefront to run down the fleeing Parshendi warpairs as they fled to the north or south, trying to join larger groups who held there.

  He reached a pair. One turned to hold him off with a hammer, but Dalinar cut him down in passing, then grabbed the other Parshendi and threw him down with a twist of the arm. Grinning, Dalinar raised his Blade high over his head, looming over the soldier.

  The Parshendi rolled awkwardly, holding his arm, no doubt shattered as he was thrown down. He looked up at Dalinar, terrified, fearspren appearing around him.

  He was only a youth.

  Dalinar froze, Blade held above his head, muscles taut. Those eyes… that face… Parshendi might not be human, but their features-their expressions-were the same. Save for the marbled skin and the strange growths of carapace armor, this boy could have been a groom in Dalinar’s stable. What did he see above him? A faceless monster in impervious armor? What was this youth’s story? He would only have been a boy when Gavilar had been assassinated.

  Dalinar stumbled backward, the Thrill vanishing. One of the Cobalt Guardsmen passed by, casually ramming a sword into the Parshendi boy’s neck. Dalinar raised a hand, but it was over too quickly for him to stop. The soldier didn’t noti
ce Dalinar’s gesture.

  Dalinar lowered his hand. His men were rushing around him, rolling over the fleeing Parshendi. The majority of the Parshendi still fought, resisting Sadeas on one side and Dalinar’s force on the other. The eastern plateau edge was just a short distance to Dalinar’s right-he had come up against the Parshendi force like a spear, slicing it through the center, splitting it off to the north and south.

  Around him lay the dead. Many of them had fallen face-down, taken in the back by spears or arrows from Dalinar’s forces. Some Parshendi were still alive, though dying. They hummed or whispered to themselves a strange, haunting song. The one they sang as they waited to die.

  Their whispered songs rose like the curses of spirits on Soul’s March. Dalinar had always found the death song the most beautiful of all he had heard from the Parshendi. It seemed to cut through the grunts, clangs, and screams of the nearby battle. As always, each Parshendi’s song was in perfect time with that of his fellows. It was as if they could all hear the same melody somewhere far away, singing along through sputtering, bloodied lips, with rasping breath.

  The Codes, Dalinar thought, turning toward his fighting men. Never ask of your men a sacrifice you wouldn’t make yourself. Never make them fight in conditions you would refuse to fight in yourself. Never ask a man to perform an act you wouldn’t soil your own hands doing.

  He felt sick. This wasn’t beautiful. This wasn’t glorious. This wasn’t strength, power, or life. This was revolting, repellent, and ghastly.

  But they killed Gavilar! he thought, searching for a way to overcome the sickness he suddenly felt.

  Unite them….

  Roshar had been united, once. Had that included the Parshendi?

  You don’t know if you can trust the visions or not, he told himself, his honor guard forming up behind him. They could be from the Nightwatcher or the Voidbringers. Or something else entirely.

  In that moment, the objections felt weak. What had the visions wanted him to do? Bring peace to Alethkar, unite his people, act with justice and honor. Could he not judge the visions based on those results?

  He raised his Shardblade to his shoulder, walking solemnly among the fallen toward the northern line, where the Parshendi were trapped between his men and Sadeas’s. His sickness grew stronger.

  What was happening to him?

  “Father!” Adolin’s shout was frantic.

  Dalinar turned toward his son, who was running to him. The young man’s Plate was sprayed with Parshendi blood, but as always his Blade gleamed.

  “What do we do?” Adolin asked, panting.

  “About what?” Dalinar asked.

  Adolin turned, pointing to the west-toward the plateau south of the one from which Dalinar’s army had begun their assault over an hour ago. There, leaping across the wide chasm, was an enormous second army of Parshendi.

  Dalinar slammed his visor up, fresh air washing across his sweaty face. He stepped forward. He’d anticipated this possibility, but someone should have given warning. Where were the scouts? What was-

  He felt a chill.

  Shaking, he scrambled toward one of the smooth, bulging formations of rock that were plentiful on the Tower.

  “Father?” Adolin said, running after him.

  Dalinar climbed, seeking the top of the formation, dropping his Shardblade. He crested the rise and stood looking northward over his troops and the Parshendi. Northward, toward Sadeas. Adolin climbed up beside him, gauntleted hand slapping up his visor.

  “Oh no…” he whispered.

  Sadeas’s army was retreating across the chasm to the northern staging plateau. Half of it was across already. The eight groups of bridgemen he’d lent Dalinar had pulled back and were gone.

  Sadeas was abandoning Dalinar and his troops, leaving them surrounded on three sides by Parshendi, alone on the Shattered Plains. And he was taking all of his bridges with him.

  66

  Codes

  “That chanting, that singing, those rasping voices.”

  — Kaktach 1173, 16 seconds pre-death. A middle-aged potter. Reported seeing strange dreams during highstorms during the last two years.

  Kaladin wearily unwrapped Skar’s wound to inspect his stitches and change the bandage. The arrow had hit on the right side of the ankle, deflecting off the knob of the fibula and scraping down through the muscles on the side of the foot.

  “You were very lucky, Skar,” Kaladin said, putting on the new bandage. “You’ll walk on this again, assuming you do not put weight on it until it’s healed. We’ll have some of the men carry you back to camp.”

  Behind them, the screaming, pounding, pulsing battle raged on. The fighting was distant now, focused on the eastern edge of the plateau. To Kaladin’s right, Teft drank as Lopen poured water into his mouth. The older man scowled, taking the waterskin from Lopen with his good hand. “I’m not an invalid,” he snapped. He’d gotten over his initial dizziness, though he was weak.

  Kaladin sat back, feeling drained. When Stormlight faded away, it left him exhausted. That should pass soon; it had been over an hour since the initial assault. He carried a few more infused spheres in his pouch; he forced himself to resist the urge to suck in their Light.

  He stood up, meaning to gather some men to carry Moash and Teft toward the far side of the plateau, just in case the battle went poorly and they had to retreat. That wasn’t likely; the Alethi soldiers had been doing well the last time he’d checked.

  He scanned the battlefield again. What he saw made him freeze.

  Sadeas was retreating.

  At first, it seemed so impossible that Kaladin couldn’t accept it. Was Sadeas bringing his men around to attack in another direction? But no, the rear guard was already across the bridges, and Sadeas’s banner was approaching. Was the highprince wounded?

  “Drehy, Leyten, grab Skar. Rock and Peet, you take Teft. Hustle to the western side of the plateau in preparation to flee. The rest of you, get into bridge positions.”

  The men, only now noticing what was going on, responded with anxiety.

  “Moash, you’re with me,” Kaladin said, hastening toward their bridge.

  Moash hurried up beside Kaladin. “What’s going on?”

  “Sadeas is pulling out,” Kaladin said, watching the tide of Sadeas’s men in green slide away from the Parshendi lines like wax melting. “There’s no reason to. The battle’s barely begun, and his forces were winning. I can only think that Sadeas must have been wounded.”

  “Why would they withdraw the entire army for that?” Moash said. “You don’t think he is…”

  “His banner still flies,” Kaladin said. “So he’s probably not dead. Unless they left it up to keep the men from panicking.”

  He and Moash reached the side of the bridge. Behind, the rest of the crew hastened to form a line. Matal was on the other side of the chasm, speaking with the commander of the rear guard. After a quick exchange, Matal crossed and began to run down the line of bridge crews, calling for them to prepare to carry. He glanced at Kaladin’s team, but saw they were already ready, and so hurried on.

  To Kaladin’s right, on the adjacent plateau-the one where Dalinar had launched his assault-the eight lent bridge crews pulled away from the battlefield, crossing over to Kaladin’s plateau. A lighteyed officer Kaladin didn’t recognize was giving them orders. Beyond them, farther to the southwest, a new Parshendi force had arrived, and was pouring onto the Tower.

  Sadeas rode up to the chasm. The paint on his Shardplate gleamed in the sun; it didn’t bear a single scratch. In fact, his entire honor guard was unharmed. Though they had gone over to the Tower, they had disengaged the enemy and come back. Why?

  And then Kaladin saw it. Dalinar Kholin’s force, fighting on the upper middle slope of the wedge, was now surrounded. This new Parshendi force was flooding into sections that Sadeas had held, supposedly protecting Dalinar’s retreat.

  “They’re abandoning him!” Kaladin said. “This was a trap. A setup. Sadeas is le
aving Highprince Kholin-and all of his soldiers-to die.” Kaladin scrambled around the end of the bridge, pushing through the soldiers who were coming off it. Moash cursed and followed.

  Kaladin wasn’t certain why he elbowed his way up to the next bridge- bridge ten-where Sadeas was crossing. Perhaps he needed to see for certain that Sadeas wasn’t wounded. Perhaps he was still stunned. This was treachery on a grand scale, terrible enough that it made Amaram’s betrayal of Kaladin seem almost trivial.

  Sadeas trotted his horse across the bridge, the wood clattering. He was accompanied by two lighteyed men in regular armor, and all three had their helms under their arms, as if they were on parade.

  The honor guard stopped Kaladin, looking hostile. He was still close enough to see that Sadeas was, indeed, completely unharmed. He was also close enough to study Sadeas’s proud face as he turned his horse and looked back at the Tower. The second Parshendi army swarmed Kholin’s army, trapping them. Even without that, Kholin had no bridges. He could not retreat.

  “I told you, old friend,” Sadeas said, voice soft but distinct, overlapping the distant screams. “I said that honor of yours would get you killed someday.” He shook his head.

  Then he turned his horse, trotting it away from the battlefield.

  Dalinar cut down a Parshendi warpair. There was always another to replace it. He set his jaw, falling into Windstance and taking the defensive, holding his little rise in the hillside and acting as a rock over which the oncoming Parshendi wave would have to break.

  Sadeas had planned this retreat well. His men hadn’t been having trouble; they’d been ordered to fight in a way that they could easily disengage. And he had a full forty bridges to retreat across. Together, that made his abandonment of Dalinar happen quickly, by the scale of battles. Though Dalinar had immediately ordered his men to push forward, hoping to catch Sadeas while the bridges were still set, he hadn’t been nearly quick enough. Sadeas’s bridges were pulling away, the entirety of his army now across.