Pain flashed up his arm, and he gritted his teeth. A breeze passed over the ship, but he didn’t need a breeze. He needed winds and fury—he needed a storm.
He pushed the pains further, though they horrified him. Not because of their agony, but because of what had happened to Renarin. The pain is only a side-effect, his friend had said. There was something more, a greater price. If he pushed too hard, would he lose his mind too?
If that is what I must suffer, then let it be, he thought, crying out at the pain as he pushed the winds with increasing strength. He focused on his responsibility. Months ago, he had made a mistake—he had broken his oath to Lord Dalenar, and had betrayed his friendship with Aredor. He would set both right at once.
Lord Dalenar needed him.
The ship lurched as the winds strengthened. Merin pushed against forty different sails with a weight that was not his own, driving them forward. Every-thing hurt now, not just his arm. It was like he was tearing himself apart.
Like, he finally realized, he was trying to throw himself into the wind—to become like it, fluid rather than solid. His body resisted, and felt as if it would break, his bones snapping, his flesh ripping apart.
The coast approached, but Merin did not stop the winds. They blew across his vessels like a sudden storm, furious but unilateral. The air roared, sails flapped, and wood lurched. Merin pushed his fleet onward, lining his vessels up along a great swath of the coast. Then, with a final agonizing heave, he slammed the boats up onto the rocky shores themselves, spraying waves of water across the sand and rocks.
His command ship lurched to a stop, nearly throwing Merin over with its force. The pitcher shattered in his hand, fully half of it crumbling to dust from the stress of his mighty effort.
Merin groaned, slumping against the gunwale, his body fuzzing to numbness. Behind him, Tamar and the others watched Merin with reverent awe.
Great, Merin thought, leaning back against the ship’s railing and puffing slightly. “Well?” he demanded. “Get your men out! We have to attack before they realize there aren’t any Vedens captaining these ships!”
The men moved. Hundreds flooded over the sides of the ships, gathering on the shore. Kalden approached with Merin’s Plate, and Merin allowed the man to help him put it on. He had learned something odd about the Plate—it interfered with the winds, somehow. While Merin was wearing it, he couldn’t push against himself. Neither could he touch a man wearing Plate with the winds. Something built into the armor’s magics protected men from the effects of his powers.
This day, however, he didn’t feel that he was going to be pushing with the wind much more. He couldn’t afford to spend the entire battle numb—he had already hurt his body too much. He felt as though he could barely move, though the Plate lent him some strength, pushing back the fatigue of Windrunning.
Merin forced himself to stand up straight, ignoring his numb, useless arm. He took a breath, nodded to Kalden, and the two of them leapt over the side of the ship and landed on the shore beyond. He waved to a group of several hundred soldiers, then began marching toward the battlefield. Other squads followed, forming into quiet ranks at first—moving exactly as the Vedens had ordered.
It wasn’t until they were up close that they broke with what was expected. The Veden line stood exposed, its back to Merin’s force, completely unaware.
Merin summoned his Blade, and held the weapon aloft with his good arm, then broke into a Plate-enhanced dash.
Dalenar commanded an army of dead men. He did what he could, directing the battle from the wall-top tower, organizing the forces as defensively as possible. Unfortunately, forcing his men to pull back meant further isolating the two halves—one of which he couldn’t even reach with his messages.
He could only help extend their death throes. He could not save them. So this is how it ends, Nolhonarin, he thought, staring out over the battlefield. Trapped in a city that isn’t even my own, fighting an enemy I thought was my friend. After Pralir, I thought I was through with war. I thought I would seek my hearth and spend time with my sons.
He had no sons left. That part hurt the most. Bright, noble Sheneres. Charismatic, witty Aredor. And quiet, understanding Renarin. The three boys had been so different, yet they had each been a piece of him—and a link back to the woman he had loved.
At least they could be his final thoughts. It wasn’t good for a father to live to be the last of his family.
Jasnah sat behind, trying to help. Most of her old self had returned, but the Herald’s death had shaken her, and Dalenar was loath to leave her in strategic command again. However, he doubted he had a choice. The men were faltering with Taln’s death—they needed a leader, so they could at least die knowing whose honor they served.
He turned to inform her of his decision, but paused as he noticed a strange man speaking with the guards at the bottom of the command tower. He was dressed as a messenger, but he wore unfamiliar livery.
Light blue? Dalenar thought. Who wears light blue?
The guards eventually decided to let the newcomer pass—though they accompanied him up to the command center.
“Lord Dalenar Kholin?” the messenger asked.
“Yes?” Dalenar responded cautiously.
“Lord Merin Kholin, commander of the Lakhenran fleet, sends his greetings. He would like to know if there are any specific strategies you would like his armies to follow.”
Dalenar frowned, not certain if his mind had snapped, or if the man was just spouting nonsense.
“My Lord!” one of the sub-commanders cried. “Come look!”
Dalenar glanced out the window. There, at the back of the enemy line, he saw an incredible sight. The Lakhenran armies were charging the back of the Veden lines.
Dalenar turned back to the smiling messenger. Hope, an almost unrecognizable sensation, glimmered within him. Behind him, Jasnah stood, hurrying to the window.
“Merin?” Dalenar asked. “Young Merin, from Alethkar?”
“Yes, my lord,” the messenger said. “He freed the Lakhenran from Vedenar, and we have come to pay back his heroism. He has told our armies to follow whatever battle commands you or Lady Jasnah might recommend.”
Merin is alive. “My son?” Dalenar demanded. “Renarin. Does he live?”
The messenger hesitated. “He has suffered a grievous wound, my lord.”
“But he lives?”
“Yes, my lord,” the messenger said.
That is reason enough to continue fighting! “Jasnah, you can command here?”
“Yes, Uncle,” she promised.
“Bring my horse!” Dalenar bellowed, replacing his pauldron as he pushed past the messenger and rushed down the stairs.
Merin’s armies crashed against the exposed Veden lines. However, Merin himself saw a more ripe target. “Kalden, Tamar!” he yelled, pointing at what was obviously the Veden command center. “Bring your squads!”
Three hundred men broke off the main column, following Merin as he rushed the chaotic command center. The Vedens reacted with alarm, calling out in their foreign tongue.
Three men in Shardplate stood around a table at the center of the camp. Merin rushed the first one, barely allowing the man enough time to raise his Blade to initiate a duel.
Merin spun, striking with a fluid blow. The Shardbearer raised his weapon to block the obvious attack, and Merin skepped his Blade, phasing it briefly into smoke. His Blade passed through that of his opponent, a small bit of smoke puffing free. It winked back into existence just as it slammed into the man’s throatguard. The Shardbearer stumbled back, stunned, and Merin threw his weight into a second swing, shearing the man’s head from his shoulders.
Merin didn’t stop to pause as he moved onto the second Shardbearer. To his side, Kalden attacked the third man.
Merin engaged his opponent, attacking quickly, not giving the man time to react. To Merin’s side, several people watched the duels—an older man in stormkeeper’s robes, and a tall, red-haired man wi
th a commanding bearing stood out. Within moments of the attack on the command center, the tall man was surrounded by nervous guards. He wore no Plate, but Merin saw smoke forming around his hand as he calmly watched the battle’s proceedings. This is their leader, Merin decided.
Merin’s current opponent was not very good. Short of stature and aging, the man fought like one practiced with a Blade—but not a master of it. Merin needed no winds or skepping to turn aside the man’s attack, then slam a couple of blows against his shoulders.
“I yield!” the man cried, lowering his Blade and holding out his hands.
Merin snorted, slapping the Blade out of the man’s hands. Several soldiers ran up to take the Veden prisoner—already, Merin’s men had secured most of the camp. Some Veden soldiers from the main line were making an attempt to fight through to their commanders, but someone was rallying the Aleth near the castle. The Veden army had gone from a powerful aggressor to a defender smashed between three different enemy forces.
Merin pointed at the Veden leader within his Blade. “Take this man captive,” he told his men. “Unless, of course, he wants to duel me with that Blade of—”
Movement flashed at the edge of Merin’s vision. Before he could turn, before he could raise his weapon in defense, he caught a glimpse of a small man in loose clothing dashing toward him. The man carried a long, efficient-looking knife.
Merin recognized him. The Shin warrior—the one who had taken him captive on the plains of Alethkar. The man with the unnaturally fluid step.
Merin’s reaction was sudden and guttural. Even as the Shin man jumped at him, Merin summoned the winds. Pain flared in his wrist, and the winds curled and twisted around him. A column of air smashed into the Shin man, throwing him backward, ripping the knife from his fingers.
The Shin warrior was tossed across the camp in a blast of wind. He smashed through the map table, then crumpled to the ground on the other side. Merin stood breathing deeply for a moment, trying to fight away the flaring pain in his wrist. To his side, Kalden wasn’t faring very well in his duel—the man had only received his Blade a short few weeks before, and he had very little sparring experience. Merin spun, turning toward the Veden leader—who was now ringed by two tensets of Lakhenran spearmen. The man stood alone. Where was the other, the old stormkeeper? The aged man had disappeared.
Merin raised his Blade commandingly toward the Veden leader. “You lead these forces, do you not?”
The imperious man regarded Merin and the Lakhenran troops as if they were merely curiosities. He glanced toward the Shin warrior.
“The Windrunner,” the Veden leader said, looking back at Merin.
“Yes,” Merin said.
“I was warned about you,” the Veden said. “It occurs to me that my source should have been a little more specific.”
“Command your army to surrender!” Merin ordered, trying to maintain his confident attitude. Something about this man was unnerving.
“I did nothing wrong,” the man decided. “I made no errors of judgement or mistakes. I could not have known that the Lakhenrans would betray me.” He paused, studying Merin. “I lost by a fluke.”
“Give the command!” Merin said, glancing toward Kalden. His friend wouldn’t concede the duel, no matter how much better his opponent was than he.
The Veden leader frowned, then glanced toward his forces. Merin had been on enough battlefields to tell that the Veden army was not faring well. Surrounded and suddenly outnumbered, it would not last long.
“Very well,” the Veden man said. “The day is yours.”
EPILOGUE
It took a special kind of man to claim he was a god and to actually have people believe him. In the Vorin tradition, humility was a sign of nobility, and a man seeking to take leadership upon himself was immediately suspect. To set oneself up as a Herald . . . well, to accomplish the deed successfully would take an incredible combination indeed. He would have to be humble but not self-effacing, powerful but not domineering. He would have to be an excellent leader and a fine warrior, yet be as wise as an aged stormkeeper. He would need straightforwardness in purpose, yet retain an indefinable weight of mystery about him.
He would need to be the greatest of men.
You made me want to believe, Jasnah thought, laying a hand on Taln’s cold cheek. And that’s more than I’ve ever felt before.
Taln lay on a stone altar in the funeral tent. A sheet covered the lower half of his body, but he was naked from the waist up. Only one wound marred his body—a small thing, really, placed expertly between his ribs. It seemed a mockery that such a mighty man had been felled by a wound so seemingly innocent.
I always told him to wear Shardplate, Jasnah thought. But he never would. Such a stubborn man you were, Talenel’Elin.
Perhaps she had let the men rely upon him too much. The logical, prudent Jasnah should have foreseen the damage his death would cause to morale. Yet she realized now that she too had come to rely upon him. Too much? Perhaps. One side effect of being heartless was that one rarely had to deal with emotional shock. She had been far too unprepared for the backlash of grief she had felt at his death.
A crowd had gathered outside—she could hear their shuffling and their murmuring. Many now claimed that they had always seen through Taln’s façade, that they had only pretended to believe because they knew it was good for troop cohesion. Others were still faithful. They waited for the final proof Taln had promised them, if inadvertently.
When Heralds die, their bodies turn to smoke. He had spoken the words in the Holy City, when explaining why there were no bones to accompany the buried Shardblades. It was a popular legend, known to many of the people. Heralds were not truly human, despite their form. When they died, their bodies were taken to the Dwelling to await the next Return.
Taln did not turn to smoke. Jasnah didn’t want to let the people dwell on this fact. Barely a few hours had passed since the final battle with Vedenar, but she had ordered his pyre readied anyway.
Oh, Taln . . . she thought. She wanted to weep, but there was nothing within to give. That was another side-effect of being heartless.
Besides, what reason did she have to complain or grieve? She had received what she had always desired, had she not? A strong political union that gave her a great deal of power, a king who respected her and gave her freedom to be involved in his affairs. With Meridas as her husband and Dalenar as her king, she would always be at the center of Alethkar’s workings. She had never wanted love—love was for people who couldn’t hope for something supposedly greater. Power.
What a waste my life has been, she thought with a sudden feeling of sickness.
“My . . . lady?” a guard asked from the tent door.
Jasnah turned. “Yes?”
“There is a man here,” the guard said hesitantly. “He . . . well, my lady, he claims to know the Lord Herald.”
Jasnah frowned. “Know? Know how?”
“He claims to be the man’s brother-in-law,” the soldier explained.
Jasnah felt a chill. “Let him in.”
The man who entered was of humble stature. He had a ring of baldness at the top of his head, and he appeared to have a nervous twitch of the fingers. He kept his eyes low, though he did glance at Taln’s corpse.
“What is this foolishness you told my guard?” Jasnah asked.
“I’m sorry for being foolish, my lady,” the man said quickly, his voice thick with a Riemak accent. “But, I do speak the truth. That man, the Lord Herald . . . well, his other name is Taven. He married my sister, my lady. We come from a village in Riemak—Callenhas. Your army passed it on the way north, back when you were there . . .”
He looked up hopefully, as if expecting her to remember the village.
“Go on,” Jasnah said. “Why didn’t you speak of this earlier?”
“Well, my lady,” the man said with embarrassment. “Taven seemed to be doing so well for himself, you see. And when I spoke to him that once, he didn’t
even seem to recognize me. I figured that he either didn’t want me to tell others about him, or that he didn’t right remember himself. Ever since the accident happened . . . well, Taven never was right in the head after that.”
Jasnah eyed the man critically. Come to seek after some compensation by claiming to be Taln’s relative? That would be a very bold move, and this man doesn’t seem the type. “What proof do you have of these allegations?” she asked.
“Proof, my lady?” the man asked, as if he had never considered that she would ask such of him. “Well, I don’t know. Taven did have a rather strange birthmark on the back of his neck.”
Jasnah relaxed. She had seen no such thing while helping prepare the body for its cremation. The man was either mistaken or lying.
“It’s there, right near the hairline, my lady,” the man promised. “You should look.”
Jasnah paused. Near the hairline . . . she might not have seen it, if Taln’s hair were in the way.
She didn’t want to look. However, the logical side of her was fed up with being ignored. She reached out, turning his head and pushing back the hair. She paused.
“What did this birthmark look like?”
“Um, an oval sort of shape, my lady,” the man said. “Or, at least I think that’s what it was. He was kind of sensitive about people looking at it, he was.”
Jasnah lowered her hand, then placed Taln’s head back in its restful position. The birthmark was there, and the mystery had been solved. She had been right all along. Why did that make her feel so depressed?
“Tell me about him,” she requested. “You say . . . that he was married?”
“Well, he was when my sister was still alive,” the peasant said. “Taven was always a special man—he could make people listen to what he had to say. They liked him, even when they first met him. He grew up in Callenhas, in the house next to my own, but he left when he was just a lad. He promised my sister he’d come back, and he did, some five years later. Said he’d spent the time training with a mercenary group—learning to fight, he said. He was tired of Callenhas being pushed around by any bandit or thief who decided to force us to give him a levy.
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