The Way of Kings

by Brandon Sanderson

  “What do you see?” Laral demanded.

  “Brown snarlbrush. Looks like it’s probably dead.”

  “The Origin is out there,” she said, pointing. “This is the stormlands. Father says we’re here to be a windbreak for more timid lands to the west.” She turned to him. “We’ve got a noble heritage, Kal, darkeyes and light-eyes alike. That’s why the best warriors have always been from Alethkar. Highprince Sadeas, General Amaram…King Gavilar himself.”

  “I suppose.”

  She sighed exaggeratedly. “I hate talking to you when you’re like this, you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you are now. You know. Moping around, sighing.”

  “You’re the one who just sighed, Laral.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She stepped down from the rock, walking over to go pout. She did that sometimes. Kal stayed where he was, looking eastward. He wasn’t sure how he felt. His father really wanted him to be a surgeon, but he wavered. It wasn’t just because of the stories, the excitement and wonder of them. He felt that by being a soldier, he could change things. Really change them. A part of him dreamed of going to war, of protecting Alethkar, of fighting alongside heroic lighteyes. Of doing good someplace other than a little town that nobody important ever visited.

  He sat down. Sometimes he dreamed like that. Other times, he found it hard to care about anything. His dreary feelings were like a black eel, coiled inside of him. The snarlbrush out there survived the storms by growing together densely about the bases of the mighty markel trees. Their bark was coated with stone, their branches thick as a man’s leg. But now the snarlbrush was dead. It hadn’t survived. Pulling together hadn’t been enough for it.

  “Kaladin?” a voice asked from behind him.

  He turned to find Tien. Tien was ten years old, two years Kal’s junior, though he looked much younger. While other kids called him a runt, Lirin said that Tien just hadn’t hit his height yet. But, well, with those round, flushed cheeks and that slight build, Tien did look like a boy half his age. “Kaladin,” he said, eyes wide, hands cupped together. “What are you looking at?”

  “Dead weeds,” Kal said.

  “Oh. Well, you need to see this.”

  “What is it?”

  Tien opened his hands to reveal a small stone, weathered on all sides but with a jagged break on the bottom. Kal picked it up, looking it over. He couldn’t see anything distinctive about it at all. In fact, it was dull.

  “It’s just a rock,” Kal said.

  “Not just a rock,” Tien said, taking out his canteen. He wetted his thumb, then rubbed it on the flat side of the stone. The wetness darkened the stone, and made visible an array of white patterns in the rock. “See?” Tien asked, handing it back.

  The strata of the rock alternated white, brown, black. The pattern was remarkable. Of course, it was still just a rock. But for some reason, Kal found himself smiling. “That’s nice, Tien.” He moved to hand the rock back.

  Tien shook his head. “I found it for you. To make you feel better.”

  “I…” It was just a stupid rock. Yet, inexplicably, Kal did feel better. “Thanks. Hey, you know what? I’ll bet there’s a lurg or two hiding in these rocks somewhere. Want to see if we can find one?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Tien said. He laughed and began moving down the rocks. Kal moved to follow, but paused, remembering something his father had said.

  He poured some water on his hand from his own canteen and flung it at the brown snarlbrush. Wherever sprayed droplets fell, the brush grew instantly green, as if he were throwing paint. The brush wasn’t dead; it just dried out, waiting for the storms to come. Kal watched the patches of green slowly fade back to tan as the water was absorbed.

  “Kaladin!” Tien yelled. He often used Kal’s full name, even though Kal had asked him not to. “Is this one?”

  Kal moved down across the boulders, pocketing the rock he’d been given. As he did so, he passed Laral. She was looking westward, toward her family’s mansion. Her father was the citylord of Hearthstone. Kal found his eyes lingering on her again. That hair of hers was beautiful, with the two stark colors.

  She turned to Kal and frowned.

  “We’re going to hunt some lurgs,” he explained, smiling and gesturing toward Tien. “Come on.”

  “You’re cheerful suddenly.”

  “I don’t know. I feel better.”

  “How does he do that? I wonder.”

  “Who does what?”

  “Your brother,” Laral said, looking toward Tien. “He changes you.”

  Tien’s head popped up behind some stones and he waved eagerly, bouncing up and down with excitement.

  “It’s just hard to be gloomy when he’s around,” Kal said. “Come on. Do you want to watch the lurg or not?”

  “I suppose,” Laral said with a sigh. She held out a hand toward him.

  “What’s that for?” Kal asked, looking at her hand.

  “To help me down.”

  “Laral, you’re a better climber than me or Tien. You don’t need help.”

  “It’s polite, stupid,” she said, proffering her hand more insistently. Kal sighed and took it, then she proceeded to hop down without even leaning on it or needing his help. She, he thought, has been acting very strange lately.

  The two of them joined Tien, who jumped down into a hollow between some boulders. The younger boy pointed eagerly. A silky patch of white grew in a crevice on the rock. It was made of tiny threads spun together into a ball about the size of a boy’s fist.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” Tien asked. “That is one?”

  Kal lifted the flask and poured water down the side of the stone onto the patch of white. The threads dissolved in the simulated rainwater, the cocoon melting to reveal a small creature with slick brown and green skin. The lurg had six legs that it used to grip the stone, and its eyes were in the center of its back. It hopped off the stone, searching for insects. Tien laughed, watching it bounce from rock to rock, sticking to the stones. It left behind patches of mucus wherever it landed.

  Kal leaned back against the stone, watching his brother, remembering days—not so long ago—when chasing lurgs had been more exciting.

  “So,” Laral said, folding her arms. “What are you going to do? If your father tries to send you to Kharbranth?”

  “I don’t know,” Kal said. “The surgeons won’t take anyone before their sixteenth Weeping, so I’ve got time to think.” The best surgeons and healers trained in Kharbranth. Everyone knew that. The city was said to have more hospitals than taverns.

  “It sounds like your father is forcing you to do what he wants, not what you want,” Laral said.

  “That’s the way everyone does it,” Kal said, scratching his head. “The other boys don’t mind becoming farmers because their fathers were farmers, and Ral just became the new town carpenter. He didn’t mind that it was what his father did. Why should I mind being a surgeon?”

  “I just—” Laral looked angry. “Kal, if you go to war and find a Shardblade, then you’d be a lighteyes…. I mean…Oh, this is useless.” She settled back, folding her arms even more tightly.

  Kal scratched his head. She really was acting oddly. “I wouldn’t mind going to war, winning honor and all that. Mostly, I’d like to travel. See what other lands are like.” He’d heard tales of exotic animals, like enormous crustaceans or eels that sang. Of Rall Elorim, City of Shadows, or Kurth, City of Lightning.

  He’d spent a lot of time studying these last few years. Kal’s mother said he should be allowed to have a childhood, rather than focusing so much on his future. Lirin argued that the tests to be admitted by the Kharbranthian surgeons were very rigorous. If Kal wanted a chance with them, he’d have to begin learning early.

  And yet, to become a soldier…The other boys dreamed of joining the army, of fighting with King Gavilar. There was talk of going to war with Jah Keved, once and for all. What would it be like, to finally se
e some of the heroes from stories? To fight with Highprince Sadeas, or Dalinar the Blackthorn?

  Eventually, the lurg realized that it had been tricked. It settled down on a rock to spin its cocoon again. Kal grabbed a small, weathered stone off the ground, then laid a hand on Tien’s shoulder, stopping the boy from prodding the tired amphibian. Kal moved forward and nudged the lurg with two fingers, making it hop off the boulder and onto his stone. He handed this to Tien, who watched with wide eyes as the lurg spun its cocoon, spitting out the wet silk and using tiny hands to shape it. That cocoon would be watertight from the inside, sealed by dried mucus, but rainwater outside would dissolve the sack.

  Kal smiled, then lifted the flask and drank. This was cool, clean water, which had already had the crem settled out. Crem—the sludgy brown material that fell with rainwater—could make a man sick. Everybody knew that, not just surgeons. You always let water sit for a day, then poured off the fresh water on top and used the crem to make pottery.

  The lurg eventually finished its cocoon. Tien immediately reached for the flask.

  Kal held the flask high. “It’ll be tired, Tien. It won’t jump around anymore.”

  “Oh.”

  Kal lowered the flask, patting his brother’s shoulder. “I put it on that stone so you could carry it around. You can get it out later.” He smiled. “Or you could drop it in Father’s bathwater through the window.”

  Tien grinned at that prospect. Kal ruffled the boy’s dark hair. “Go see if you can find another cocoon. If we catch two, you’ll have one to play with and one to slip into the bathwater.”

  Tien carefully set the rock aside, then scampered up over the boulders. The hillside here had broken during a highstorm several months back. Shattered, as if it had been hit by the fist of some enormous creature. People said that it could have been a home that got destroyed. They burned prayers of thanks to the Almighty while at the same time whispering of dangerous things that moved in the darkness at full storm. Were the Voidbringers behind the destruction, or had it been the shades of the Lost Radiants?

  Laral was looking toward the mansion again. She smoothed her dress nervously—lately she took far more care, not getting her clothes dirty as she once had.

  “You still thinking about war?” Kal asked.

  “Um. Yes. I am.”

  “Make sense,” he said. An army had come through recruiting just a few weeks back and had picked up a few of the older boys, though only after Citylord Wistiow had given permission. “What do you think broke the rocks here, during the highstorm?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  Kal looked eastward. What sent the storms? His father said no ship had ever sailed for the Origin of Storms and returned safely. Few ships ever even left the coast. Being caught on the open seas during a storm meant death, so the stories said.

  He took another sip from his flask, then capped it, saving the rest in case Tien found another lurg. Distant men worked the fields, wearing overalls, laced brown shirts, and sturdy boots. It was worming season. A single worm could ruin an entire polyp’s worth of grain. It would incubate inside, slowly eating as the grain grew. When you finally opened up the polyp in the fall, all you’d find was a big fat slug the size of two men’s hands. And so they searched in the spring, going over each polyp. Where they found a burrow, they’d stick in a reed tipped with sugar, which the worm would latch on to. You pulled it out and squished it under your heel, then patched the hole with crem.

  It could take weeks to properly worm a field, and farmers usually went over their hills three or four times, fertilizing as they went. Kal had heard the process described a hundred times over. You didn’t live in a town like Hearthstone without listening to men gripe about worms.

  Oddly, he noticed a group older boys gathering at the foot of one of the hills. He recognized all of them, of course. Jost and Jest, brothers. Mord, Tift, Naget, Khav, and others. They each had solid, Alethi darkeyes names. Not like Kaladin’s own name. It was different.

  “Why aren’t they worming?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Laral said, shifting her attention to the boys. She got an odd look in her eyes. “Let’s go see.” She started down the hillside before Kal had a chance to object.

  He scratched his head, looking toward Tien. “We’re going down to the hillside there.”

  A youthful head popped up behind a boulder. Tien nodded energetically, then turned back to his searching. Kal slipped off the boulder and walked down the slope after Laral. She reached the boys, and they regarded her with uncomfortable expressions. She’d never spent much time with them, not like she had with Kal and Tien. Her father and his were pretty good friends, for all that one was lighteyed and the other dark.

  Laral took a perch on a nearby rock, waiting and saying nothing. Kal walked up. Why had she wanted to come down here, if she wasn’t going to talk to the other boys?

  “Ho, Jost,” Kal said. Senior among the boys at fourteen, Jost was nearly a man—and he looked it too. His chest was broad beyond his years, his legs thick and stocky, like those of his father. He was holding a length of wood from a sapling that had been shaved into a rough approximation of a quarterstaff. “Why aren’t you worming?”

  It was the wrong thing to say, and Kal knew it immediately. Several of the boys’ expressions darkened. It was a sore point to them that Kal never had to work the hills. His protests—that he spent hours upon hours memorizing muscles, bones, and cures—fell on uncaring ears. All they saw was a boy who got to spend his days in the shade while they toiled in the burning sun.

  “Old Tarn found a patch of polyps that ain’t growing right,” Jost finally said, shooting a glance at Laral. “Let us go for the day while they talked over whether to try another planting there, or just let them grow and see what comes of it.”

  Kal nodded, feeling awkward as he stood before the nine boys. They were sweaty, the knees of their trousers stained with crem and patched from rubbing stone. But Kal was clean, wearing a fine pair of trousers his mother had purchased just a few weeks before. His father had sent him and Tien out for the day while he tended to something at the citylord’s manor. Kal would pay for the break with late-night studying by Stormlight, but no use explaining that to the other boys.

  “So, er,” Kal said, “what were you all talking about?”

  Rather than answering, Naget said, “Kal, you know things.” Light haired and spindly, he was the tallest of the bunch. “Don’t you? About the world and the like?”

  “Yeah,” Kal said, scratching his head. “Sometimes.”

  “You ever heard of a darkeyes becoming a lighteyes?” Naget asked.

  “Sure,” Kal said. “It can happen, Father says. Wealthy darkeyed merchants marry lowborn lighteyes and join their family. Then maybe have lighteyed children. That sort of thing.”

  “No, not like that,” Khav said. He had low eyebrows and always seemed to have a perpetual scowl on his face. “You know. Real darkeyes. Like us.”

  Not like you, the tone seemed to imply. Kal’s family were the only one of second nahn in the town. Everyone else was fourth or fifth, and Kal’s rank made them uncomfortable around him. His father’s strange profession didn’t help either.

  It all left Kal feeling distinctly out-of-place.

  “You know how it can happen,” Kal said. “Ask Laral. She was just talking about it. If a man wins a Shardblade on the battlefield, his eyes become light.”

  “That’s right,” Laral said. “Everybody knows it. Even a slave could become a lighteyes if he won a Shardblade.”

  The boys nodded; they all had brown, black, or other dark-colored eyes. Winning a Shardblade was one of the main reasons common men went to war. In Vorin kingdoms, everyone had a chance to rise. It was, as Kal’s father would say, a fundamental tenet of their society.

  “Yeah,” Naget said impatiently. “But have you ever heard of it happening? Not just in stories, I mean. Does it happen for real?”

  “Sure,” Kal said. “It must. Ot
herwise, why would so many men go to war?”

  “Because,” Jest said, “we’ve gotta prepare men to fight for the Tranquiline Halls. We’ve gotta send soldiers to the Heralds. The ardents are always talking of it.”

  “In the same breaths that they tell us it’s all right to be a farmer too,” Khav said. “Like, farming’s some lonely second place or something.”

  “Hey,” Tift said. “My fah’s a farmer, and he’s right good at it. It’s a noble Calling! All your fahs are farmers.”

  “All right, fine,” Jost said. “But we ain’t talking of that. We’re talking of Shardbearers. You go to war, you can win a Shardblade and become a light-eyes. My fah, see, he should have been given that Shardblade. But the man who was with him, he took it while my fah was knocked out. Told the officer that he’d been the one to kill the Shardbearer, so he got the Blade, and my fah—”

  He was cut off by Laral’s tinkling laughter. Kal frowned. That was a different kind of laughter than he normally heard from her, much more subdued and kind of annoying. “Jost, you’re claiming your father won a Shardblade?” she said.

  “No. It was taken from him,” the larger boy said.

  “Didn’t your father fight in the wastescum skirmishes up north?” Laral said. “Tell him, Kaladin.”

  “She’s right, Jost. There weren’t any Shardbearers there—just Reshi raiders who thought they’d take advantage of the new king. They’ve never had any Shardblades. If your father saw one, he must be remembering incorrectly.”

  “Remembering incorrectly?” Jost said.

  “Er, sure,” Kal said quickly. “I’m not saying he’s lying, Jost. He just might have some trauma-induced hallucinations, or something like that.”

  The boys grew silent, looking at Kal. One scratched his head.

  Jost spat to the side. He seemed to be watching Laral from the corner of his eye. She pointedly looked at Kal and smiled at him.

  “You always got to make a man feel like an idiot, don’t you, Kal?” Jost said.

  “What? No, I—”

  “You want to make my fah sound like a fool,” Jost said, face red. “And you want to make me sound stupid. Well, some of us ain’t lucky enough to spend our days eating fruit and laying about. We’ve got to work.”