The revelers gave him wide berth, noting both his mood and his clothing. He made his way to the palace—the way was sure to him, even if much of the cityscape had changed over the centuries. At the palace gates, a pair of guards moved to bar him entrance, but Taln hefted his Shardblade off his shoulder and presented it mutely. The soldiers quickly flushed at their mistake, bowing.
The palace was well-maintained. Rich, indeed, but not as gaudy as the one at Ral Eram. Taln was beginning to suspect that he would indeed like this Dalenar, as Jasnah had implied. The palace hallways were busy with servants bearing the remnants of the evening feast, and Taln’s stomach that shouldn’t need food growled hungrily. He ignored its protests for the moment, following the flow of people toward the main feast hall.
The room was oddly quiet. He turned the corner, expecting to see people sitting at their segregated tables, lethargically drinking away the end of the feast. Instead, he found a solemn gathering. The nobility were seated quietly at their tables as they watched something at the front of the room.
Meridas stood—wearing what appeared to be a new outfit—before the kneeling Jasnah. Her dress was a deep blue, not as ornate as the one in which she had escaped from the palace, but gossamer and beautiful nonetheless. Her hair was done up in one of her traditional Aleth braids, her face properly made up, her head bowed as she listened to the Vorin monk preach.
It had been a long time, but the Vorin ceremonies had been fairly immutable since the Eighth Epoch. Taln recognized the wedding quite easily.
He stood, stunned, simply staring.
We’ve reached civilization now, he realized after a moment’s stupefaction. She was engaged to Meridas. Now that a proper ceremony can be performed . . .
That was why she had approached him earlier. That was why she had been so impatient that he make a choice between Herald and man. Taln had thought her solution of waiting a year a simple delay, but it had been more than that. Without a promise from him, she would do what was expected of her. Considering her dedication to Alethkar, it was amazing she would even consider otherwise . . .
Suddenly he realized that he wasn’t the only one who had been forced to consider abandoning everything that he was. He wanted to look away, but he could not. Heralds were not supposed to feel like such fools. They were supposed to be immune to such pain in their hearts. They were supposed to be perfect, not prone to foolish sentimentality . . . or love.
But he had never made a very good Herald.
Jasnah reached up and took Meridas’s hand, and the room’s men cheered while the women nodded to each other approvingly. Jasnah stood. It was over. She was married.
And Taln understood that he had allowed something very, very precious to blow away with the wind.
chapter 78
Dalenar 8
Despair killed as many of Dalenar’s men as did skirmishes with the Veden army. They simply gave up, sitting down or collapsing against the stone, knowing that their companions couldn’t pause long to encourage them onward.
Even those who kept going seemed to have lost heart. They knew that they marched toward their doom. A final stand at Teth-Kanar would be no more meaningful to them than a final stand on the empty plains. They would die either way, and their country would fall to the invaders.
Perhaps this is how the soldiers of Pralir felt, during those last months, Dalenar thought as he urged the men forward, giving encouragement where he could.
Behind him, Elhokar’s army provided cover. The Vedens had gotten too close again, and one of the armies had needed to provide time for the other to retreat. After the disastrous ambush several weeks before, both leaders had determined that there would be no more joint ventures.
Dalenar reined his horse in as he reached the lip of the Rift of Northal. Too wide and steep-sided to be a lait, the Rift was a massive crack in the ground. Dalenar loathed using it as a pathway, for it would provide his enemies with the high ground—not to mention an easy trail to follow.
However, at the army’s current rate, there wouldn’t be enough men to fight even if they did reach Teth-Kanar. The bed of the Rift was a steady decline, far easier to march along than farmland hills. It also provided a direct path to the Teth Lait. Taking the Rift would cut as much as a week off their march.
The Aleth army’s situation was too dire for caution. They would have to risk danger from above. Dalenar pulled his horse back, watching the curving line of his forces pass him and begin down the decline. Fortunately, the side of the Rift sloped here, allowing for the army to move down. The natural stone ramp was narrow enough that the column of men bunched up somewhat at the lip, waiting their turn to begin downward, but it was wide enough to be manageable.
Dalenar remained where he was, mounted, his Shardplate’s scars hidden by the darkening dusk sky. Hopefully, the sight of him sitting confidently would give the men strength.
Unfortunately, Dalenar had trouble persuading himself to be anything but pessimistic regarding the army’s chances. He had worked through every version of the Teth-Kanar battle he could envision, and they all ended with his defeat. His army was too fractured, its men too despondent, and the enemy was just too strong. He kept trying to convince himself that the Almighty would see them to victory, but he wondered. What had Alethkar done to deserve deliverance? Conquer Pralir? Bicker with itself, forcing its soldiers to fight brother against brother? Perhaps Alethkar had already been judged, and the Veden army was a form of divine retribution.
An hour passed as his army moved down the ramp, but Elhokar held off the Vedens long enough—barely. The king’s withdrawing forces began to arrive at the ramp just as the last of Dalenar’s army was reaching the bottom of the Rift. Dalenar saluted the Shardbearer at the head of Elhokar’s troop, then urged his horse down the rift, leaving the king to his fate. If the withdrawal were handled poorly, the Vedens would box Elhokar up against the side of the rift, and his army would be slaughtered.
The bottom of the Rift lay in shadow. Dalenar wanted to call camp for the evening, but he couldn’t risk stopping where the Veden forces could attack so easily from above. He gave the order to continue marching, moving his men away from the base of the ramp to make room for Elhokar’s forces.
He rode with his men, urging them onward. They seemed so few now—barely ten thousand. He had to work to keep the despair out of his voice as he gave his orders. After he was certain they were on their way, he left Echathen in command and rode back to check on Elhokar’s progress.
Even as he approached, he could see that something was wrong. Elhokar’s army had reached the bottom of the Rift safely, and there appeared to be no pursuit from above. At first, Dalenar was confused as to what had prompted his initial feeling of wrongness. He called halt to his honor guard, holding up a hand and staring ahead with a frown.
And then he saw it. The ramp was gone. Or, at least, half of it was. If he missed his guess, the other half would soon follow.
Dalenar cursed, kicking his horse into motion, forcing his honor guard to break into a marching-jog to keep up. He rounded Elhokar’s forces, making for the ramp. The king himself, golden armor stained red from the fighting above, stood at the base of the ramp. However, he was not the source of Dalenar’s attention.
A group of figures stood on the ramp, their forms barely lit by the evening light. Light flashed before them—crystalline, refracted light. The figures wore black.
“What are you doing here!” Dalenar demanded, throwing himself off of his horse and stalking toward Elhokar.
The king turned. He bore a wound on the bottom of his cheek, probably from a spear-thrust, and his eyes gave Dalenar pause. He hadn’t seen the boy since their meeting weeks before, beneath the tent of parlay outside Crossguard. There was something different about Elhokar—the same youthful arrogance remained, but there was a hardness that hadn’t been there before.
“I am doing what must be done, uncle,” Elhokar said.
“You are using Awakeners in combat!” Dalenar
yelled, waving toward the forms above. “Have you no sense of honor or propriety?”
“Have you no love for your men?” Elhokar snapped. “Is your storm-cursed honor more valuable to you than they are? Besides, this isn’t combat. The fighting ended an hour ago. I’m just making certain our people have half a chance traveling down this deathtrap of a chasm! This ramp is the only way down on this side for miles.”
Light flashed from above, a chunk of rock changing from stone to fire, then vanishing. A column of smoke was rising in the dark sky as well—the Awakeners would be using all three destruction Essences. Fire, air, and smoke.
Dalenar shivered. Besides during his Charan, he had only seen Awakeners perform their art twice, and both times it had been by accident. A perpetual glow hung before the creatures as they called forth the power of their gems, then released their fury upon the stone rampway. They worked incredibly fast, Remaking thousands of brickweights of stone in a matter of a few minutes.
Dalenar turned back to the king. Perhaps the boy was right, but Dalenar wasn’t in the mood to admit so. Elhokar’s frustrating refusal to work with him over the last few weeks had worn down barriers of patience. “You should have consulted me,” Dalenar said.
“Why?” Elhokar spat back. “I am still king, Uncle, despite your little proclamation back at Crossguard. I rule Alethkar, and your armies travel here by my choice. Be glad I haven’t ordered you executed yet!”
“You may be king in name, boy,” Dalenar said. “But you have never been king in my heart, nor have you been one in the hearts of your people! They can remember a time when a true man held the throne—the man you might resemble, but the king you will never be. How Nolhonarin birthed such an idiot of a son, I will never know!”
“Be gone!” Elhokar shouted, his face red. Smoke formed in his hand as he pointed, his Shardblade coming to life.
Dalenar gritted his teeth, then spun and marched toward his horse. As he walked, he couldn’t help but notice the faces of those around him. His honor guard and Elhokar’s, regular soldiers from the force, and servants carrying supplies had all stopped to watch the exchange. Their eyes were haunted as they watched Dalenar mount up and ride away.
chapter 79
Jek 12
Jeksonsonvallano, Truthless of Shinavar, shook his head to himself. For a people with a supposed ‘warrior tradition,’ the Veden noblemen certainly found a good number of reasons to avoid entering combat personally.
Perhaps it was just his company. Ilhadal Davar, despite all his boisterousness, obviously had very little actual combat experience. A lifetime of sycophantry had not prepared him for the demands of high-level leadership, especially of the martial variety. He was obviously relieved when Ahven made few overt moves to enter the fighting, for it allowed Ilhadal himself to remain back as well.
The Idiot King was probably restrained more by practicality than by fear. His philosophy of leadership demanded that he keep himself from danger—for if he fell or were seriously wounded, the men would have no one to look to for strength. As a result, Ahven stayed near the fighting, but rarely entered himself—and when he did attack, he always struck against demoralized groups of light infantry, making a great show of cutting down the poor men with his Shardblade.
Most of the time, however, Ahven simply rode behind the ranks, presenting the perfect image of an inspiring king at war, giving his men encouragement.
Not that they needed it. Jek scanned the battlefield, which was scattered with relatively few bodies. The Aleth forces had fled again, as expected. Though Ahven pushed his forces hard to follow, he was having a great deal of trouble cornering the Aleths. His force was not only larger, but he was in hostile, unfamiliar territory. He couldn’t afford to be as frantic in his movement as Elhokar’s forces.
The Idiot King was obviously annoyed with the continued harrying. Jek moved his horse up beside Ahven’s, studying the king’s face. The day’s battle had been a quick one, barely even worth stopping. The Aleths had disengaged shortly after the fighting began, a move that had cost them a number of losses.
“Why did they do it?” Jek asked after catching the king’s attention.
Ahven shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Dalenar and Elhokar struggle against one another for leadership of the armies. This smacks of the king’s impetuousness, rather than Dalenar’s caution. Elhokar thinks himself a clever man; it’s probably some kind of trick or delaying tactic.”
Jek nodded, glancing to the side as Ilhadal Davar rode up on a fine stallion—too fine, in fact. An old Shin adage said “Never ride a horse better bred than yourself, lest men wonder if you should be carrying it instead.” The House Leader, of course, had seen no combat—not that there had been much time for him to have done so, had he been inclined.
“This is your fault, Vedenel,” Ilhadal announced as his horse pulled up.
Ahven raised an eyebrow. Behind him, soldiers picked through the field, ending the lives of any living Aleths and calling for the healers when they found a Veden survivor.
“My fault?” Ahven asked. “I am not the one who ordered the Aleths to retreat again.”
“We wouldn’t have this problem if you had waited to attack Crossguard,” Ilhadal announced, as if he had suddenly become a master of tactics. At least his Shardplate, bronze in color and ornamented with engraved stallions, hid his age-fattened body and drooping muscles.
“Waiting another day would have done nothing, Davar,” Ahven said. “If Dalenar or Elhokar had won decisively before we attacked, we’d only be fighting a smaller force, which would make them even more difficult to follow.”
Ilhadal snorted his reply, but he did not argue. Ahven turned northeast, scanning the terrain. Dusk was approaching, however, and it was growing increasingly difficult to make out distant forms in the darkness. Even if it had been light, there probably wouldn’t have been much to see—the scouts said that the land sloped downward ahead of them, into a chasm that wasn’t quite a lait. The Aleth forces must have found a pathway down. That would leave them vulnerable, however, with the Vedens on the high ground above.
Ahven turned his horse to the south, toward where the men were setting up evening camp. He kicked his horse into a trot, not bothering to bid Ilhadal farewell or order Jek to follow.
“They’re probably marching through the night,” Ahven decided. “A desperate move. Their current pace already forces them to abandon the wounded and the weak—by marching all night, they will lose even more men to fatigue. But where are they going? Khardinar would provide safety, but it is a good distance away. Palanor is the best fortified in the area, but it was probably depleted of troops long ago. Teth-Kanar? It has ships, and Elhokar could flee—but how would he have been able to persuade Dalenar to go along with such a plan?”
The king paced slowly in his tent’s main chamber. Ahven obviously didn’t want any interjections from Jek—the few comments Jek had tried to make had been ignored. Balenmar sat on the other side of the room, content in his thoughts. The old advisor didn’t seem concerned about the king’s state of mind—however, he rarely seemed to care very much about Ahven’s mood.
“The seers still see very little,” Ahven continued. “And some of the generals are beginning to wonder if that idiot Ilhadal is right—they think that the Aleths must be leading us along some elaborate trap.”
Jek frowned. The disappearance of the girl Shinri had produced a quite unexpected effect on Ahven. He seemed more unstable, less in-control, than he once had been. Her disappearance seemed like such a small failure, but it obviously meant far more to Ahven. During the last few weeks, the king had become prone to pacing and mumbling, as he did now, trying to vocally work through problems that he had once solved in his head.
“If only they would have their minstrels play! I would know their feelings, perhaps know which of the two truly leads. It’s like they cannot decide themselves, and they take turns making decisions . . .”
A knock came from the entrance post
outside—but, of course, Ahven couldn’t hear it. Jek had to get the king’s attention, pointing at the tent flaps as the knock came again.
“Come in,” Ahven ordered, pausing in his walkings.
“My lord,” a guard said, poking his head in the flap. “A messenger has arrived. He says his message is important”
“Show him in,” Ahven said with a wave of his hand.
The messenger entered shortly, then went to one knee before his king.
“My lord,” the messenger said eagerly. “I have just come from the city of Ramvar, on the eastern coast of Alethkar. We have made contact with the Lakhenran fleet. They say that they are on course, and that there were no problems with their launch.”
Ahven paused, then took a deep breath and nodded. “Good. Go deliver the same message to each of the First Generals in the army, then finally to Ilhadal Davar.”
The messenger nodded, then retreated. As he left, the same guard from before poked his head into the tent again. This time, his face was confused.
“My lord . . .” he said, “I apologize for bothering you again, but it appears that you have . . . a visitor.”
Ahven frowned. “Who?”
The guard parted the flaps, and a red-haired woman strode into the room. She wore a deep brown cloak, tied closed as if to hide her in the night, and held a young boy in her arms. There was something familiar about her features.
“Nanavah?” Ahven said with stupefaction. “What are you doing here?”
“Avy?” the woman asked, looking at him with amazed eyes. “It is you. They said that you . . . I mean . . . blessed be the Almighty!”
The Way of Kings Prime Page 88