The Way of Kings Prime

by Brandon Sanderson

  A spearman approached Taln with a grim expression. The soldier’s eyes bespoke a guilty resolve. He had convinced himself that, as a simple footsoldier, he was not responsible for the immoral decisions of his betters.

  “You should know better,” Taln whispered angrily.

  The spearman thrust with his weapon, and Taln was finally free. No angry monks stopped him this time, no noblemen turned their backs, and no Lady Jasnah appeared to stay his hand.

  It had been centuries since he had last been able to fight back.

  Taln ducked to the side, snatching the spear’s haft and yanking it forward. The soldier yelped, falling off-balance, and Taln grabbed him by the arm, twisting with a firm yank. The arm popped in its joint, and the man screamed in pain as Taln jerked him around, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and slammed his forehead against the stone doorway.

  The soldier slumped to the ground, and Taln kicked the spear up into his hand. He spun it and fell into a fighting stance.

  The other soldiers stared down at their unconscious comrade. The frightened servants fell silent, looking up with hopeful faces.

  “Kill him!” the officer yelled, his foreign words becoming distinct as Taln’s mind decrypted the changes in the Veden language since his departure.

  Taln did not wait for the soldiers to obey. He leapt forward, spinning his spear in a staff-form. The four spearman fell into a line, like battlefield warriors, holding their spears as if to thrust. Taln knocked their weapons aside, slamming the butt of his spear into a head as he spun past. He ducked beneath a spear swipe, turning to ram his weapon through a second man’s side, just below the breastplate. The soldier stumbled to his knees, his death throes twisting the still-impaling spear in Taln’s fingers. Taln dropped the weapon, ducked to the side, and kicked another fallen spear up into his hands. Then he raised it to deflect a third soldier’s thrust.

  Taln jumped backward, spinning his weapon around so the tip faced behind him, then rammed it through the surprised nobleman’s neck. Taln turned, sidestepping a spear thrust, then spun his weapon around and stabbed his attacker in the thigh. The man dropped to one knee, and Taln took him down with a second thrust to the face.

  The final spearman tried a wild thrust, but Taln rapped the haft of his own weapon against the man’s spear three times in blinding succession, stepping forward with each hit, then dropped his spear as he got too close for effectiveness and punched his opponent square in the face.The spearman fell unconscious. Taln spun one final time, cloak billowing as he kicked a third spear into his hand. He raised it carefully, eyeing the fallen men for further danger. The impaled spearman finally jerked to a painful stop, and none of the others moved.

  The room was still. “By the winds . . .” a voice finally whispered. Lhan stood at the doorway, eyes wide with shock.

  Taln lowered his spear, the metal tip clicking against the stone floor. Then he dropped the weapon, waving toward the frightened servants. “See to them,” he ordered Lhan as he moved to check on the servants who had been struck down before he arrived. There were five. A couple of the dead lay clutching makeshift weapons—lengths of wood or kitchen knives. Only one had a pulse, an aging man in the uniform of a citizen courier.

  Taln rolled the injured man onto his side, pressing his hand against the still-bleeding spear wound. He reflexively reached out to the Nahel bond within him, preparing to draw upon the life energy of the thousands who were linked to his Soul Tone.

  And found nothing. He cursed quietly. There would be no healings this Return until he discovered what had happened to his powers. He would have to do things the old-fashioned way. He reached over, sliding a dagger from a dead soldier’s belt, then cut away the wounded man’s shirt. The spear wound was relatively shallow.

  “Father!” a younger woman said, rushing to the man’s side. Lhan gently pulled her away as Taln cleaned the wound with his water flask, then bound it with a strip of cloth from the man’s own cloak. He nodded to Lhan, motioning for him to let the girl attend the fallen man.

  Taln stood, assessing the situation. There were nine servants remaining, minus the wounded man, but four were women and three were children. The two men were an unimpressive pair; obviously brothers, they were spindly, nervous, and dressed in the simple garb of kitchen assistants.

  “You two,” Taln said, kicking a pair of spears into his hands. “Take these.” The two kitchenmen caught the spears in uncertain hands.

  “I . . . my lord—” one began.

  “I know,” Taln interrupted. “You don’t know how to use them. Try and look like you do.” He tossed a third spear to Lhan. “Same for you.” He nodded to the four women. “Two of you, fashion a litter from that nobleman’s cloak and the two remaining spears so we can pull the wounded man behind us. One of you, watch after the children. And you . . .” The final woman was a stout, middle-aged scullery maid with a wrinkled, unfrightened expression. Taln tossed her the nobleman’s sword. She caught it with surprise. “They won’t expect you to be armed,” Taln said. “Find a way to exploit their ignorance. Let’s move.”

  As the women crafted their litter, Taln gathered daggers from the fallen soldiers. He kept two and gave the other three to the unarmed women. Then he told the servants to remain still for a moment as he ducked back into the hallway and checked the eastern ramp.

  It was now guarded by another squadron of soldiers.

  Taln gritted his teeth, then made his way back to the room. The women were still working on the litter when Taln re-entered. As Taln tried to decide what to do, Lhan approached him. “It appears I was wrong about you again,” the monk said. “Where did you learn to . . .”

  Lhan trailed off as Taln regarded him with a suffering expression.

  “Oh, right,” Lhan mumbled. “Three-thousand-year-old pseudo-divinity. Well, got any holy powers that will get us out of the palace?”

  Taln snorted, tucking one of his daggers into the knife-fold on the inside of his cloak. “You’re the one who wanted to stay and help.”

  Lhan looked helplessly at the spear in his hand, then down at the dead servants and soldiers. He gritted his teeth. “Right. Where next, then?”

  Taln shook his head. “Your first instinct was right. We need to leave. I can’t fight an entire army.”

  “Do you think they intend to . . .?”

  “Kill everyone in the palace?” Taln asked. “Probably. That would be the easiest way to insure that no one gets out to warn the city guard. They’ll likely take a few hostages from among the upper nobility to use as leverage against Elhokar, but it’s doubtful that even those will survive the invasion.”

  “The upper nobility . . .” Lhan said. “You mean, like Lady Jasnah?”

  Taln paused. Yes. Exactly like Lady Jasnah. Why did the thought bother him? He owed the woman nothing. Or did he? She had saved his life, perhaps twice. Though she thought him a madman, she had seen to his care, even his comfort, during his stay in Ral Eram.

  He had seen the way that hostage women, even nobility, were often treated by their captors.

  The ramps were blocked, the palace sealed. In better circumstances, perhaps he could have taken the Oathgates and stopped the flow of soldiers, but he didn’t have the manpower to attempt such a dangerous move. There were, however, other ways out of the building—ways known only to those who had been present when the foundations were lain.

  It was on the way. If he took them to the cellars, he would pass through the Aleth royal quarters. It would probably be only a short stop to check and see if Lady Jasnah were still alive, assuming he knew specifically which rooms belonged to her.

  Taln turned, regarding the steady-backed maid, who had taken command of the small group of maids and was directing the construction of the litter. The woman worked efficiently—her presence was obviously a comfort to the younger girls, and they had almost completed their task.

  “Woman,” Taln said.

  She turned. “Denia, my lord.”

  “Denia,”
Taln said. “Do you know which quarters belong to . . .”

  “Lady Jasnah, my lord?” She asked. “The lady was to be married today. Do you want her quarters, or her husband’s quarters?”

  Married? Taln thought with shock. “Her quarters,” he finally decided. It was as good a choice as any.

  “I can show you then, my lord,” the chambermaid said. “Once we reach the proper section.”

  Taln nodded to himself, stepping out the eastern door and listening in the hallway beyond. He heard faint sounds of battle coming from the rightmost corridor. “This way,” he said, waving his nervous group forward.

  “That way?” Lhan asked. “But that’s the direction of the fighting!”

  “Where there is fighting, there is resistance,” Taln said. “And that is where we want to be. Come.”

  chapter 41

  Jasnah 9

  The Vorin wedding ceremony was an archaic tradition, a remnant of epochs when the religion had held far more sway than it did in modern Roshar. Vorinism hadn’t had any real power since the turn of the epoch, when the Oathshard Kings had proclaimed the cycle of Returns broke. The religion’s eventual decision to stop warning about Stormshades and Returns—accepting as canonical the reports that the Heralds themselves had declared the Khothen defeated—had only weakened its stance further.

  In modern Roshar it was fashionable to profess Vorin allegiance, but few noblemen gave much thought to the Almighty’s supposed whims beyond paying their tributes and attending the occasional reading from the Arguments. The monasteries were no longer the political power they once had been.

  Still, tradition was the foremost law of Aleth noble culture, and even a professed heretic such as Jasnah could not escape a Vorin wedding. Of course, as much as she was displeased by her forced submission to the Almighty’s ‘approval’ of her union, the emotion could not compete with her distaste of the man she was to marry.

  Meridas stood with the air of smug satisfaction of a man who thought himself responsible for far more than he could legitimately take credit. He wore a fashionable pair of long leather boots, a pair of loose trousers bulging out over the top, and a militarily-cut overshirt with wide cuffs. His cloak was blue, of course, to signify his union with the Kholin house, and it matched Jasnah’s talla, which Meridas himself had purchased and sent to her. It was a fabulously extravagant gown, dressed with frills and colored with the deepest of blue dyes. The left sleeve, traditionally long, was tiered with overlapping swaths of light blue silk down to the cuff, which ended just short of her ankles.

  The location for the ceremony was the Eleventh Hall. The wedding was attended mostly by women, for their men were at war beside their king. Her brother himself was noticeably absent. Elhokar’s official reason was the pressing need to respond to Jezenrosh’s attempted assassination. The truth, Jasnah suspected, was more private. She had seen Elhokar several times before he left the palace to join his troops, and each time he had been unable to meet her eyes. It did not surprise her that he had chosen not to attend the wedding.

  The ceremony began, and Jasnah noted with distaste that Lhardon, the obsequious First Monk of Peacehome, had been chosen to officiate. Lhardon stood at the front of the room beside Meridas, beaming at the importance of his position—and probably thinking of the generous tribute her brother would have given Peacehome in exchange for performing the ceremony. The First Monk began with an overdone speech, then waved for a hundred candle-bearing monks to enter the hall, lighting the way for Jasnah to approach.

  She did so, trying to keep her head high and her face expressionless, despite her sickened stomach. Shinri had disappeared the night of the dueling competition—undoubtedly Elhokar had assumed the girl knew too much, and had ordered her silenced. The thought made Jasnah despair; Shinri had done nothing wrong other than to associate with Jasnah. Her death, like those of Nelshenden and Kemnar, could be attributed directly to Jasnah’s foolish devotion to her brother.

  Jasnah had spent the last few weeks locked within her rooms, only allowed freedom when escorted by a tenset soldiers sworn to Meridas. Every letter she scribed was confiscated by the guards, presumably to be translated by monks and likely destroyed. Those responses which did come had been opened and perused, and were always of little use. She had hoped that some of her more subtle pleas for aid might go unnoticed by her captors, but she suspected that Meridas himself was the one looking through her letters. For an unmarried man such as himself to excel so wonderfully at politics, he had likely been forced to learn some traditionally feminine skills.

  When she reached the front of the room, Jasnah knelt on the cushion, bowing her head before the standing form of the man who would soon be her husband. She knelt with resignation, not without hope. Though her skin squirmed at the thought of Meridas touching her, she had never expected anything but a marriage of necessity. For now, there was little she could do against the men who had betrayed her. However, the wife of a Parshen was a powerful woman, and men were creatures of short memory, quick to laxness and presumed victory. She had seen that her brother kept his throne during the chaotic years following their father’s death. She could see it lost to him during the uncertain years of conquest.

  The ceremony proceeded, Jasnah kneeling in the uncomfortable position as Lhardon droned on, quoting from the Arguments and The Way of Kings. He drew upon the formal Vorin ceremonial texts as well, quoting passages that implied nobility was granted and suffered by the monks—passages that would never have been tolerated outside a wedding speech.

  Soon the time came for the final piece of the ceremony. Lhardon proffered his blessing, and Meridas extended his hand to accept Jasnah as his own.

  Jasnah looked up at Meridas, regarding the oily merchant in his finery, his hand proffered. When she took that hand, she would legally be his, bound by promise to protect his interests and his power.

  The room was silent as she stared at the open palm. Lhardon coughed uncomfortably, and women in the crowd shot each other nervous glances.

  Can I do it? Jasnah wondered. Political necessity or not, can I marry the man who killed Nelshenden?

  The door burst open, a sudden breeze causing candles to flicker. Heads turned to regard a bloodied soldier. “My lord!” the man cried, stumbling forward, monks and noblewomen shuffling away like scattering rodents. “The palace is under assault!”

  “What foolishness is this?” Meridas demanded, lowering his hand.

  The soldier held his side, blood dripping between fingers. “The Oathgates, my lord. They have been breached!”

  Meridas paused, then white smoke formed around his hand. “Take my wife to my chambers!” he commanded four men of his honor guard as his Blade appeared in his hand. “The rest of you, come with me.”

  The soldiers pulled her to her feet, several ladies in waiting scrambling forward to help Jasnah gather up her extensive blue seasilk train. The soldiers nervously led her from the room, the monks and other nobility staying behind, muttering amongst themselves in uncertain voices.

  The Oathgates, breached? It was unlikely. The Gates had been designed so that no such thing could happen—no king, even one of the infamously noble kings of the original Oathpact, would allow an uncontrollable portal into the center of his capital city. Both sides of a gate had to be opened by Awakeners before passage was possible.

  Unlikely, true, but not impossible. An Awakener spy could have been sent—a young one, new to his power. One who had not lost his sensitivity to the outside world, but instead retained his ambition and interest in politics. If such an Awakener could have found his way to the Oathgate chamber, opening their side . . .

  But who would invade? Dalenar? Had he joined with Jezenrosh? Somehow Jasnah couldn’t see her stately uncle working in such a devious manner. Thalenah, then? King Amelin was said to be very lax with his Awakeners, allowing them free rein of the city. Ral Eram was even more depleted of troops and Shardbearers than it had been during the extended Prallah campaign—Elhokar wanted to make
quick work of Jezenrosh, attacking with flare before his allies remembered how wearied they were of war. What if the First Capital had proven too tempting a gem for an outside invader?

  Such were her thoughts as the guards rushed her toward the Aleth section of the palace. She was so wrapped up in her machinations that she didn’t notice the attack until the first guard fell dead.

  Jasnah stumbled back in shock as the man died, her ladies screaming in horror. Meridas’s soldiers leapt into action, defending themselves against a group of armed attackers who burst from a doorway at the side. The attackers had superior numbers, however, and they quickly overwhelmed the three men. In a matter of seconds, all three of Meridas’s soldiers had fallen. Jasnah looked for escape, but knew that her dress would keep her from moving with any speed. She would easily—

  Jasnah froze, realizing with shock that she recognized one of the attackers. “Kemnar?” she asked incredulously.

  Kemnar bowed slightly, motioning for his men to secure the hallway. “My lady,” he said.

  Jasnah exhaled in relief, holding up her dress and stepping over a guard’s body. Her lady attendants cowered behind her, confused. She had thought Kemnar dead for certain—she should have known better. “It took you long enough,” she said.

  Kemnar smiled toothily. He bore a fresh scar on his face, one that came dangerously close to his right eye. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Elhokar knew I escaped. Had half the soldiers in the city looking for me. Fortunately, I know a number of people who’ve made quite a profession out of not being found.”

  “Kemnar!” one of the men shouted. She recognized several of them from her personal guard. The others were new to her. “There is fighting coming from this direction.”

  “Gather up the fallen swords,” Kemnar ordered, stepping forward and picking up Jasnah’s train. “We’ll probably be tight for funds, and we should be able to pawn them. Watch that corridor—I don’t want any surprises.” He looked at her. “Sorry about this, my lady,” he said, taking his sword and beginning to slice off the back of her dress.