Brandon Sanderson's Blog, page 27

The Way of Kings Chapter 26 (D)

This early draft chapter corresponds to chapter 26 in the final book.

“I stood in the darkened monastery chamber,” the woman read, standing at the lectern with the tome open before her, “its reaches painted with pools of black where light did not wander. I sat on the floor, thinking of that dark, that Unseen. I could not know, for certain, what was hidden in that night. Yes, previous rooms held walls, sturdy and thick, but could I know without seeing? When all was hidden, what could a man rely upon as True?”

Dalinar stood, listening to the woman read, as he regarded the maps on the wall of his sitting room. They were copies of maps from the Gallery.

“Candle flames,” the woman—Litima—continued reading. The selection was from The Way of Kings, read from the very copy that Gavilar had once owned. “A dozen candles burned themselves to death on the shelf before me. Each of my breaths made them tremble. To them, I was behemoth, to frightened and destroy. And yet, if I strayed too close, they could destroy me. My invisible air, the pulses of life that flowed in and out, could end them freely while my fingers could not do the same without being returned with pain.”

Renarin stood next to Dalinar, wearing a coat of blue and silver, star-shaped epaulets on the shoulders marking him as the son of a Highprince. The youth glanced at Dalinar, looking faintly confused, as if he didn’t know whether he was to be listening to the reading or studying the map.

“I understood in a moment of stillness,” Litima read. “Those flames were like the lives of men. So fragile. So deadly. Left alone, they lit and warmed. Let run rampant, they would destroy the very things they had been set to illuminate. I contemplated those miniature bonfires, each bearing a seed of destruction so potent it could tumble cities and cast kings their knees. In later years, my mind would return to that calm, silent evening, staring at rows of living lights. And I would understand. To be given loyalty is to be invested like a sphere. To be granted the frightful license to destroy not only one’s self, but all beneath one’s care.”

Litima fell still. It was the end of sequence, and she regarded Dalinar, hesitant. Was she to continue?

Dalinar nodded to her. “Thank you, Brightness Litima. That will do.”

The woman—wife to Bendon, one of his officers—nodded in respect. Tall and plump, she wore a gown of violet silk and yellow trim, not as form-fitting as some, accentuated with sashes around the arms and the waist. She gathered her ward from the side of the room and they withdrew. She left the book on the lectern; it belonged to Dalinar, and left Dalinar and Renarin alone in the lavish room.

Dalinar had spent the better part of his life in one warcamp or another; he’d slept in wagons, stone barracks, and tents pulled tight against leeward stone formations. Whatever it took to protect from Highstorms. Compared to that, his current home was virtually a palace. Soulcast into a dozen different chambers with hallways between, it held wood furnishings, fine woven rugs imported up from Maraki, and comfortable sitting chairs. Afternoon wine—orange, as to not be intoxicating—sat on a high-legged serving table in the corner and the walls were lit by clusters of diamond spheres hanging in chandeliers from the corners of the room.

Sometimes, this didn’t feel like a war at all, but a vacation.

Dalinar walked to the lectern and ran his fingers along the thick pages, stained with violet ink. He couldn’t read the words, but he felt he could almost feel them, emanating from the page like Stormlight from a sphere. His latest vision still troubled him. He kept trying to tell himself that it had been a figment of his imaginings, but how could he have fabricated such a vivid experience? There seemed to be too much to it.

Maybe he just wanted to believe the visions. To believe in a time when Alethkar had been a place that others looked toward for protection, a place that had nurtured the Knights Radiant. A place where war and battle had always meant something. Maybe he was desperate to believe that something, out there, was offering him guidance and help.

But to not move against Sadeas? To trust a man who had been his enemy for so long?

His fingers rested on the book, filled with its ridiculous ideals and lofty thoughts. The Radiants had used this text, and so it had been tarnished ever since the War of Loss. Jasnah claimed that the ways of the Radiants had eventually been adapted into the Alethi War Codes. That seemed a particular irony.

Sadeas was making an important ploy against him, their homeland was stressed nearly to breaking, the war was stalled, and suddenly he found himself captivated by the very ideals and stories that had led his brother to downfall. This was the time that the Alethi needed the Blackthorn, not an old, tired soldier who fancied himself a philosopher. Still, his touch was reverent as he closed the leather-bound tome, its pages shuffling, the spine crackling. He took it off the lectern, carrying it over to the bookshelf and placing it into the open place waiting for it.

“Father?” Renarin asked.

“I’m sorry, Renarin. I was lost in thought.”

“You are often troubled after readings from the book. Have you found why Uncle Gavilar quoted it?”

“No. I’ve found something else.”

Renarin cocked his head. “What?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it,” Dalinar said, tapping the spine of the book lightly. “Once this book was considered one of the great masterpieces of political literature. After Gavilar’s death, Jasnah spent years studying its history, seeking the reason he’d been so infatuated with it. She claims that once, kings around the world listened to its teachings daily.”

Renarin’s eyes flickered down to the tattoo hidden on the back of Dalinar’s hand. “Curious.”

Dalinar resisted the urge to pull his hand back. Renarin had a way of making him…well, of making anyone uncomfortable. At times, the lad spoke like a man several times his age.

“Here,” Dalinar said, walking back and pointing at the map. “Instead of wondering at your father’s oddities, help me with this. Rioin has refused my latest offer for an allegiance. Whom should I approach next?”

Renarin hesitated, then allowed his attention to be diverted to the map.

Dalinar continued, “I had hoped Rioin’s recent failures would make him most open to an allegiance. But he was too suspicious.”

Renarin shrugged. “Adolin says you should be far less worried about trying to unify the highprinces, and far more worried about Sadeas’s ploy to destroy us.”

The room fell silent. Renarin had a habit of doing that, felling conversations like an enemy archer on the battlefield hunting officers.

“Your brother is right to worry,” Dalinar said. “But moving against Sadeas would undermine the unity of Alethkar. Sadeas will decide the same thing; he loves this kingdom. He’ll see.”

I hope.

Adolin wanted to take an aggressive stance, refusing Sadeas’s investigators entrance to his camp, then the position of Highprince of Information would become meaningless. That would mean forbidding all of Sadeas’s men entrance, would have to expel any merchants with ties to him. It would be a distinct step away from unifying the camps, and would ruin any chance Dalinar had at being named Highprince of War. If he wouldn’t accept the king’s authority on this, who would?

The alternative, however, was to give Sadeas access. To maybe hand the man the very rope he needed to hang Dalinar.

Sadeas will see, Dalinar thought firmly, remembering the promises of his vision. If he says I tried to kill the king, it will mean war between us. He won’t do it.

Will he?

Bells sounded suddenly outside, echoing with a deep, resounding rings. Dalinar and Renarin froze, counting the bells. Parshendi spotted on the plains. Mid-central quarter of the front line. Soon, smaller, more-high pitched bells sounded—Dalinar’s scouts thought the contested plateau close enough for forces to reach first.

Dalinar dashed across the room, booted feet thumping on the thick Marakian rug. He threw open the door and entered a short hallway, which he charged down, exiting into a much larger hallway, set with Stormlight lamps. Unlike most of the other highprinces, Dalinar had not commissioned tile work for the floor of his complex.

Hand on the pommel of his arming sword, Dalinar hastened down the hallway toward the war room. Attendants and soldiers were already bustling in the hallway, and Dalinar’s door guards followed just behind Renarin.

The rock-walled hallway smelled of mold. That smell lingered, no matter what attempts Dalinar made at dispelling it. There were no windows, just those thick stone walls.

The war room door was open, and Teleb—highofficer on duty—saluted as Dalinar entered. Teleb was a straight-backed lighteyes with long hair he kept in a braid and a blue tattoo on his cheek, marking him as an Oldblood. His wife, Kalami, sat on a high stool on the side of the room with a writing platform. She wore her dark hair long with only two small braids up for propriety’s sake, while the rest it hung down the back of her violet dress, nearly reaching past the top of the stool. She was a historian of note, and had requested permission to record meetings like this one; she planned to scribe a history of the conquest of the Shattered Plains.

“Sir,” Teleb said. “Parshendi scouts spotted taking position on the thirty second plateau in koth sector.” He pointed to the battlemap, which had numbers and glyphs marking the plateaus. Dalinar stepped up to it, a group of other lighteyed officers gathering around him.

“How far away?” Dalinar asked, rubbing his chin.

“Perhaps two hours,” Teleb said, indicating a pathway one of his men had drawn onto the battlemap. “Highprince, sir, I think we have a good chance for this one. Brightlord Aladar will have to traverse these six unclaimed plateaus to reach the contested area, while we have nearly a direct line.”

Dalinar nodded slowly. The rules of the battlefield dictated that the other Highprinces could not cross plateaus that Dalinar controlled. He did, indeed, have the most direct line. That might just be enough to negate his disadvantage of not using mobile bridges.

“Very well,” Dalinar said. “We march. Someone send a runner for Adolin and tell him to don his Plate.”

The officers had too much Alethi decorum to whoop in excitement, but several did nod eagerly. He’d sensed hesitance from them lately; they’d probably heard the rumors spreading in the other warcamps. Well, he would show them that he still had fight in him. Taking a new plateau would do much for their morale.

As the officers scattered, Dalinar’s armor-bearers entered. It had only been a few minutes since the bells had rung, but after five years of fighting here, the machine of war ran smoothly when battle called.

The armor-bearers inspected his boots—checking to be certain the laces were tight—then brought a long padded vest to throw over his uniform. Next, they set the sabadons—the boot-like foot plates—on the ground before him. The insides glowed with the light of the sapphire gemstones—fixed into their setting inside each boot, padded as to not rub.

For a moment, Dalinar was reminded of his vision. The Radiant, his armor glowing with glyphs. Modern Shardplate didn’t glow like that. The gemstones inside were visible only before the armor was donned.

He stepped into sabadons, and the straps tightened of their own accord, fitting around his boots. The greaves came next, going over his legs and knees, locking onto the sabadons. Shardplate wasn’t like inferior plate and maile; there was no mesh of iron underneath and no leather at the seams. Shardplate seams were made of smaller plates, interlocking, overlapping, incredibly intricate. Looking closely, he could see miniscule weavings of wire holding it together. There were no open chinks and very little rubbing or chafing; each piece fit together perfectly, as if it had been crafted specifically for Dalinar.

One always put the armor on from the feet upward. Shardplate was extremely heavy; without the enhanced strength it lent, no man would be able to fight in it. Dalinar stood still as the armor-bearers affixed the Cuisses over his thighs and locked them to culet and fauds across his waist and lower back. A skirt made of small, interlocking plates came next, reach down to just above the knees.

“My lord,” Teleb said, stepping up to him. “Have you given thought to my suggestion with the bridges?”

“You know how I feel about carried bridges, Teleb,” Dalinar said as the armor-bearers locked his breastplate into place, then worked on the rebraces and vambraces for his arms. Already, he could feel the strength of the Plate surging through him.

“We would not have to use the smaller bridges for the assault,” Teleb said. “Just for getting to the contested plateau.”

“We’d still have to bring the chull-carried bridges to get across that last chasm,” Dalinar said. “I’m not convinced that bridge crews would move us any more quickly. Not when we have to wait for those animals.”

Teleb sighed.

Dalinar gritted his teeth. The mark of a good officer was one who accepted orders and fulfilled them, even when he disagreed. But the mark of a great officer was one who did that, but who also tried to innovate and offer suggestions when appropriate.

“You my recruit and train a single bridge crew,” Dalinar said. “We shall see. In these races, even a few minutes could be meaningful.”

Teleb smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

Dalinar waved with his left hand as the armor-bearers locked a gauntlet onto his right. He made a fist, tiny plates scraping. The left gauntlet followed. Then the gorget went on the neck, the paltrons on the shoulders, and finally the helm on his head. The armor bearers affixed the cape to the paltrons last.

Dalinar took a deep breath. Feeling the Thrill build for the approaching battle. He strode from the war room, footfalls firm and solid. Attendants and servants scattered before him, making way as he strode down the hallway. He was like a force—a mighty river washing all before its path. Shardplate was such a strange experience that he remarked on it still. The spring of the step, the momentum the armor seemed to lend him. He wanted to race down the hallway and….

And why not?

Chuckling, he broke into a sprint, dashing down the hallway. Teleb and the others cried out in shock, rushing to keep up. Dalinar outpaced them easily, reaching the front gates of the building complex and leaping through, throwing himself off the long steps leading up to his enclave. Air hissed against the chinks in his armor as he fell, and he exulted, smiling as he slammed against the stone ground. The force cracked the stone beneath him, and he crouched into the impact.

Before him, neat rows of barracks ran through his warcamp, formed in radials with a meeting ground and mess hall at the center of each battalion. Behind him, his officers reached the opening of the enclave, looking down with shock. Renarin was with them, wearing his uniform that had never seen battle, hand raised against the sunlight.

Dalinar felt a moment of foolishness. What was he, a youth just given his first taste of Shardplate? Back to work. Stop playing.

Perform, his infantrylord, saluted as Dalinar strode up. “Second and third battalions are on duty today, Brightlord,” the bald man said. “Gathering ranks to march.”

“First chull bridge division is gathered, Brightlord,” Havarah—the bridgelord—said, striding up. He was a short man, with some Herdazian blood in him as evidenced by the dark, crystalline fingernails, though he didn’t wear a sparkflicker. “I have word from Ashelem that the archery division is ready.”

“Cavalry?” Dalinar asked. “And where is my son?” “Here, father,” called a familiar voice. Adolin—Shardplate painted a deep Kholin blue—made his way through the gathering crowd. His faceplate was up, and he looked eager.

Dalinar nodded. “Excellent. How is…er…”

“Malasha, father,” Adolin said. “She’s well, though annoyed that I wouldn’t let her come with me.”

“She wanted to come into battle?”

Adolin shrugged. “Says she’s curious.”

Dalinar said nothing. Battle was a Masculine art. A woman wanting to come to the battlefield was like…well, like a man wanting to read. Unnatural.

And yet, the vision implied there were woman among the Knights Radiant, he thought as Teleb arrived and appraised Adolin of the situation. Ahead, in the staging area, the battalions were forming ranks, and a squat, uniformed lighteyes hurried up to Dalinar. He had patches of red hair on his otherwise dark Alethi head and a long, red mustache. Ilamar, the cavalrylord.

“Brightlord,” he said, “my apologies. Cavalry is mounted and ready.”

“We march, then,” Dalinar said. “Adolin, we—”

“Brightlord!” a voice said.

Dalinar turned as one of his messengers approached. The darkeyed man wore a brown uniform, marked with blue bands on the arms. He saluted, saying, “Highprince Sadeas has demanded admittance into the warcamp!”

Dalinar glanced at Adolin, who met his eyes.

“He claims the King’s Writ of Investigation grants him the right,” the messenger said hesitantly.

“Admit him,” Dalinar said, causing Adolin to sigh softly.

“Yes, Brightlord,” the messenger said, turning back. One of the lesser officers, Mortent, went with him so that Sadeas could be welcomed and couriered by a lighteyes as befitted his station. Mortent was least among those in attendance; nobody needed ask to know he was the one Dalinar would send.

Adolin joined Dalinar as they marched to the staging field, the various officers gathering behind them. Soldiers who were not currently on duty left their barracks and saluted as Dalinar passed.

“What do you think Sadeas wants?” Dalinar asked.

“Our blood,” Adolin replied, face dark. “Preferably warm, perhaps sweetened with a shot of tallew brandy. This is idiocy. We should lock down the camp!”

Dalinar shot a look at the youth, and Adolin blushed, glancing away. “I’m sorry, father. That was disrespectful.”

“Your opinions always have merit,” Dalinar said, “and you shouldn’t fear share them. But your tone could use some more care.”

“Why is it you’ll challenge and correct me,” Adolin said, “but not face down an eel like Sadeas?”

“He was a friend to my brother when he needed one,” Dalinar said. “And he knows what is best for Alethkar. We will show him respect, Adolin. Even if he does not show it to us. That is my will.”

“Very well,” Adolin said. “But father, you seem to want it both ways. You want to suspect Sadeas and believe in him at the same time. Don’t you see how problematic that is?”

Dalinar had no response for that. Perhaps because he couldn’t decide himself, at times, if the visions were real, or fabrications of his mind.

They soon passed into the staging field. The men had an air of anxious excitement as they formed ranks, spears held high, darkeyed citizen officers standing at the sides with axes on their shoulders. They saluted by rank as Dalinar marched past. At the front of the force, a group of chulls snorted and rummaged at the rocks by their feet; several enormous wagon-like wheeled bridges were connected to them by harnesses.

Gallant and Sureblood—Adolin’s white stallion—waited saddled, reins held loosely by grooms. Ryshadium hardly needed handlers. Once, Gallant had kicked open his stall and made his way to the staging grounds on his own when a groom was too slow in getting him ready. Dalinar patted the midnight stallion on the neck, then swung into the saddle.

He scanned the staging plain, then raised his arm to give the command to move. However, he noticed a group of mounted men riding up to the staging field, led by a figure in dark red Shardplate. Sadeas. Why had he come to the staging grounds?

Dalinar stifled a sigh and gave the command to move, though he remained waiting as Sadeas trotted in his direction. Adolin moved Sureblood over to, but gave Dalinar a glance that seemed to say “Don’t worry, I’ll behave myself.”

As always, Sadeas was a model of fashion, his armor painted, his helm ornamented with a completely different metallic pattern than he had worn last time. This one was shaped like a stylized sunburst. It looked almost like a crown. “Brightlord Sadeas,” Dalinar said. “This is an inconvenient time for your investigation.”

“On the contrary,” Sadeas said, reining in. “It is perfect. I have need to observe your men while marching and speak with some of them. What better time for this than an assault?”

“You want to come with us?”

“Why not? I won’t delay you.” He glanced at the chulls, who lurched into motion, pulling the bulky bridges. “I doubt that even should I decide to crawl to the contested plateau, I could slow you any further.”

Dalinar stiffened. To the side Teleb gave the command for the infantry to follow the chull bridges.

“Our soldiers need to be focused on the upcoming battle, Brightlord,” Adolin said. “They should not have to be bothered by inquiries.”

“The King’s will needs to be done,” Sadeas said, shrugging, not even bothering to look at Adolin. “Need I present the writ? Surely you don’t intend to forbid me.”

Dalinar studied his once friend, looking into those eyes, trying to see into the man’s soul. Sadeas lacked his characteristic smirk; he usually wore one of those when he was pleased with how a plot was going. Did he simply know that Dalinar was aware of how to read his expressions, and so masked his emotions?

What do you want with me? Dalinar thought. Are you plotting our downfall, as Adolin fears?

Unite them….

“No need to present anything, Sadeas,” Dalinar said. “My men are at your disposal. If you have need of anything, simply ask. Adolin, with me.”

Dalinar turned Gallant and charged him down the line toward the front of the marching army. Adolin followed, and Sadeas remained behind with his attendants.

The long ride began. The permanent bridges here were his, maintained and guarded by his soldiers and scouts, connecting plateaus that he controlled. All of the gems produced by gemhearts on those plateaus were his, and many of the early plateaus held harvesting operations. Gemhearts didn’t grow well if confined, and so herding them was really more a function of killing any predators nearby and dumping food onto the plateaus.

He spent most of the gems he harvested feeding his army, paying stipends to his officers and wages to his soldiers. Much of the rest went to paying the upkeep of his forces back in Kholinar, which protected his hereditary lands against encroachment.

Sadeas spent the trip riding near the middle of the column of eight thousand. He periodically sent an attendant to pull certain soldiers out of line.

Eight thousand men. A large chunk of his forces; at maximum, he could field around fourteen thousand. Again he wondered what would happen if the Highprinces could be persuaded to work together. How many men could they field? How many directions could they attack from at once?

Conventional wisdom insisted that the competition kept them all strong. When plants competed for space, they grew more able to weather the winds. When animals competed for food, they grew more wily. When men competed for glory, they grew more capable, better able to protect their homeland.

In a way, it was a twisted version of what the female knight had told him. Was it true? Had Alethkar once trained men in battlefield arts, remaining vigilant in case the Voidbringers struck? That was like what the Alethi did now—indeed, what the entire world seemed to do. Only the nobility of it had been stripped away, like the bones of an eel, pulled free so the flesh could be feasted upon.

He continued to ride, thoughtful. The War of Reckoning had stretched so long precisely because it offered a chance to fight against savage Parshendi in a seemingly-endless stream. The highprinces could kill and win glory without having to fight one another. The ardents liked it because it trained soldiers for battle—soldiers whose spirits could join the war for heaven, once they died.

And yet, it felt increasingly pointless to him. Certain plateau pathways forbidden to certain Highlords? Races to see who could attack the Parshendi first? They said they fought for vengeance, but in reality, they fought for gemstones, for prestige, and—ultimately—because they just wanted to be fighting. It was a foolish game with lives as the game pieces.

And it wasn’t just this war, either. What had the other battles of his life gained? The game of them hadn’t been quite so obvious, but the contrived rules had been there. Where and when one could strike. What targets one attacked and which ones were left alone. Had his victories really gained anything useful for his people? War, so they could live and fight more wars? Or die and fight more wars?

Suddenly, his life felt extremely hollow.

They eventually reached the end of the permanent bridges, and had to start waiting for the chull bridges to be lowered across the chasms. The large vehicles were built like siege towers, with enormous wheels and armored sections at the side where soldiers could push. Once the army reached the edge of the chasm, a crank at the back lowered the bridge down like an unbending hinge.

It was a slow process. Dalinar watched from horseback, tapping the side of his hogsleather saddle with an idle hand as his men finally got to cross. Perhaps Teleb was right. Could they use lighter, more portable bridges to get across these early chasms, then resort to the siege-bridges only for the final assault?

A clatter of hooves on rock announced someone riding up the side of the column. Adolin was on the other side of the chasm, leading the advance force. Dalinar frowned, turning. Who was…

Sadeas. The other highprince approached alone. He nodded to Dalinar as he arrived. Was that gesture flippant, or was Dalinar imagining it?

“Your soldiers are quite loyal to you,” Sadeas noted.

“Loyalty is the first lesson of a soldier’s life,” Dalinar said. “I would be worried if these men hadn’t yet mastered it.”

Sadeas sighed. “Really, Dalinar. Must you be so tedious all of the time?”

Dalinar didn’t reply.

“It’s odd, how a leader’s influence can affect his men,” Sadeas noted. “So many of these are just like smaller versions of yourself. Bundles of emotion, wrapped up and tied until they become stiff from the pressure. They’re so sure in some ways, yet so insecure in so many others.”

Dalinar kept his jaw clenched. Don’t trade barbs with him, he told himself. Act with honor, and expect to have honor returned to you.

Sadeas smiled, leaning in, speaking softly. “You want so badly to snap at me, don’t you? Even in the old days, you hated it when someone implied that you were insecure. Of course, back then, your displeasure often ended with a head or two rolling across the stones.”

“I killed many a man who did not deserve death,” Dalinar said. “A man should not fear losing his head because he took one too many sips of wine.”

“Perhaps,” Sadeas said lightly. “Don’t you ever just want to let it out, like you used to? Doesn’t it pound on you inside, like someone trapped inside a large drum? Beating, banging, trying to claw free?”

“Yes,” Dalinar said.

The admission seemed to surprise Sadeas.

“But I don’t,” Dalinar said, eyes forward. “A man’s emotions are what defines him, and control it is the hallmark of true strength. To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.”

Sadeas signed again. “That has the stink of a quote about it, Dalinar. From Gavilar’s little book of virtues, I assume?”

Dalinar hesitated. When had he started quoting The Way of Kings without realizing it?

“Doesn’t bother you at all,” Sadeas said with a sneer, “that the Radiants betrayed us?”

“Legends,” Dalinar found himself saying. “The Recreance, the War of Loss, they are lost in time. What did the Radiants really do? Why did they do it? We don’t really know.”

“We know enough. They used elaborate tricks to imitate great powers and pretend holy calling, then when they were discovered in their falseness, they fled.”

“Their magics were not lies. They were real.”

“Oh?” Sadeas said, amused. “You know this? Didn’t you just call those events ‘lost in time?’ If the Radiants had such marvelous powers, why can nobody reproduce them? Where did those incredible feats go?”

“I don’t know,” Dalinar said softly. “Perhaps we’re just not worthy of them any longer.”

Sadeas snorted. “Listen to yourself. Do you even realize what you’re saying?”

Dalinar felt like looking away in shame. His only proof for what he said were his visions, visions that he doubted. And yet, if Sadeas belittled something, he suddenly wanted stand up for it.

“That book ruined Gavilar,” Sadeas said. “Now it’s doing the same to you. You’re the one playing games, Dalinar. You’ve listened to these stories so much they’ve got your head full of pretend ideals. Nobody ever really lived the way the codes claim.” Sadeas shook his head. “This kingdom grew poor the day Gavilar dug up that cursed book of lies.”

“He once told me that the book saved him,” Dalinar said quietly. “It was about a year before he was assassinated. I remember it vividly, standing beside the Impossible Falls of Kholinar, one evening after returning from the hunt where we met the Parshendi. He said that the book had rescued him. I didn’t understand. But I’m beginning to see.”

“Well, if that is what it means to be rescued, then I’d rather it not rescue you, old friend. Isn’t it better to burn a rug in a moment of glorious flames than let it fade away and wear to nothing?”

Dalinar gritted his teeth, then took a deep breath, calming his rage. “Sadeas,” he said. “We need to work harder to unify the warcamps. I want your help, now that you’re Highprince of Information.”

“To do what?” Sadeas asked, amused.

“To do what needs to be done. For the good of Alethkar.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing, old friend,” Sadeas said, smiling wider. “Perhaps what would be best for Alethkar would be if you were to stop whining so often and start acting like a man again.”

Dalinar closed his eyes. “Do you enjoy my pain so much, Sadeas? Are the taunts that precious to you?”

Sadeas snorted. “Perhaps I taunt you simply because I long to see some of the old spark. Something to remind me of the man I once loved fighting alongside.”

Hoofbeats fell on stone as Sadeas road away, the sounds mingling with the cacophony of thousands of soldiers marching across stone and bridge.

I was not built for this, Dalinar thought. I live your will poorly, Gavilar. I’m sorry.

He sighed, opening his eyes and crossing the bridge, Gallant’s hooves thumping on the wood. Dalinar owned these plateaus as well, though they were close enough to the battle front that the Parshendi frequently raided and burned down permanent bridges.

The Parshendi were so strangely precise. Once a new plateau was taken, they would never return to contest that plateau again—they might raid bridges there, but would never set up a full battle. There was a strange, ritualized feel to it. How he wished he understood why they did what they did.

Of course, he considered, we have our own rituals of battle. I wonder if the Parshendi ever speculate on the oddity of why only one Alethi army ever fights them at a time.

He reached the other side of the bridge and pushed Gallant into a canter alongside the army in search of Adolin.

The next scene, the battle, is nearly identical to what appears in the published book. But the early draft did not include the scene after that, where Dalinar first sees Eshonai in the distance.

Oathbringer is (finally) out!

Well, the day you’ve been (not so patiently) waiting for has finally arrived. Huzzah! I know that this has been a long wait for many of you as my team and I have been working on this book for about 19 months. We thank you for your patience, and we are so excited for you to be able to finally have it in your hands.

If you haven’t had a chance to pick up your copy yet, and you wanted to give it a try before you do, you can read the first 32 chapters on Tor.com. For those of you who have been following the preview chapters, I thank you for your write-in vote for the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards. This is the only year that Oathbringer is eligible and hopefully you’ll be able to read it before final round voting ends on November 27th. (By the way, I’m about to send out my Newsletter to all subscribers, and it has a sneak peak of the final Legion sequel.)

My tour for Oathbringer officially starts this evening in San Diego, but the release party last night was the real kickoff. There were about 1,600 people who came last night; you can see a small portion of them in the photo below, many of whom stayed until the wee hours of the morning. Thank you all for coming out to support the book. I’m starting to think that this author thing might work out for me!

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Below is a list of my tour stops, and you can find full details for each stop on my upcoming events page.

Nov. 14 – San Diego, CA, Mysterious Galaxy

Nov. 15 – San Francisco, CA, Borderlands Books

Nov. 16 – Portland, OR, Powell’s Books

Nov. 18 – Houston, TX, Murder by the Book

Nov. 21 – Chicago, IL, Anderson’s Bookshop

Nov. 28 – London, UK, Forbidden Planet

Nov. 29 – Birmingham, UK, Waterstones

Nov. 29 – Liverpool, UK, Waterstones

Dec. 01 – Leeds, UK, Waterstones

Dec. 01 – Newcastle, UK, Blackwell’s

Dec. 02 – Edinburgh, UK, Waterstones

Dec. 02 – Glasgow, UK, Waterstones

I’d love to see you at one of my signings, but if you can’t make it I understand. Knowing that you’re reading my books is such an honor for me.

The Way of Kings Chapters 23 and 24 (D)

This early draft chapter corresponds to parts of chapter 24, with a bit that went much earlier, into chapter 12. The first scene here was cut entirely, and included the only on-screen appearance of Dalinar’s head Stormwarden, Elthebar, who is mentioned twice by name in the final book.

Toward the bottom you’ll find the end of the original 24, which contains something cut from the final book.

“There will be a Highstorm today, brightlord,” Elthebar said. “I would stake my career on it.”

Dalinar raised an eyebrow as he walked through the market square. “Didn’t you say precisely the same thing three months back, when you were off by two days?”

The robed Stormwarden grew pale faced. He was completely bald and wore a drooping mustache. His sizable paunch jutted out in front of him, making him always seem like he was walking at a strange angle.

“I…er…”

“Everyone knows that highstorms are erratic, Elthebar,” Dalinar said, smiling. “I don’t expect you to get every one right. So perhaps it would be best not to ‘stake your career’ on the Stormfather’s whims.”

“Yes, brightlord,” the man said, blushing.

“Continue with your report, Alahal,” Dalinar said, turning to the woman beside him. In front of them, the merchants of the outer market—a section of ground outside of the warcamps—bustled with activity. It was a haphazard place, with two main crossing thoroughfares and four large quarters of tents and stormwagons. No stone buildings at all. A large number of the merchants were Thaylen, wearing caps, vests, and long, wagging eyebrows. Their business involved taking down tents and stowing supplies in carts. They’d gotten word of the possible highstorm.

“Yes, Brightlord,” she said. “There are complaints about your patrols here. They set up this market precisely because they wanted to be free of warcamp restrictions.”

“They will have to put up with it. I’m not going to let a new city spring up here completely without law or restriction. They’ll follow the king’s charter or be turned away.”

“Yes, brightlord,” the prim woman said. “Of course, brightlord. Very wise.”

Jasnah never simpered that way, he thought.

“We’ve tracked the bad meat to a particular quarter of merchants,” Alahal continued. “We’ll know who sold it soon. As for the sanitation taxes, the merchants are complaining that the extra need to weather the highstorms without walls already strains their finances too much.”

“Tough. They’ll pay.”

“Yes, of course, brightlord. We’ve also gathered lists of stock, and have tabulated them.” She began going over an inventory of items for sale in the market. Dalinar listened with half an ear. He wanted his scribes would know exactly what was being sold and by whom, and he wanted the merchants to know he was watching them. But he didn’t actually need to memorize the lists.

Some loitered nearby, listening in on the conversation. Dalinar stood in an open area of stone, guarded by Niter and the Cobalt Guard, surrounded by attendants.   He nodded as Alahal read off the items, and occasionally made a comment when they struck him, even though it was mostly for show. This sort of thing was becoming natural for him.

When the list was done, Dalinar dismissed Alahal, then gathered his stormwarden and guards and made a pass through the market. It was disorganized and eclectic, exactly the sort of place he’d discouraged in his own warcamp. But he would deal with it here. He had to. Nobody else would.

As he walked, he noted several large merchant’s wagons that had arrow divots in the wood. Had they been attacked by bandits? He’d have to ask Alahal to check on it. Dalinar’s soldiers patrolled for bandits; it was another thing that the other highprinces ignored.

“I must say, brightlord,” Elthebar said, “you are becoming quite the proficient administrator! Why, I remember a time when you dreaded this sort of work.”

“I still dread it,” Dalinar grumbled.

“And yet, you excel at it!”

The man meant it as a compliment, but Dalinar found himself annoyed. Unfortunately, he was getting good at administration and bureaucracy.

What would happen to the warcamps if his soldiers didn’t hunt bandits and if his scribes didn’t make certain the merchants weren’t selling bad goods? What if he stopped making certain each warcamp had access to the Soulcasters to make food? Would it all fall apart, as he feared, or was he just inflating his own usefulness?

He feared that he was making everything too easy for the other highprinces. They whispered that he was growing weak even as he spent most of his days working long hours to make certain they—and Elhokar—could continue their games and their feasts.

Maybe, for all of their good, he should just let it all fall apart. But Gavilar had worked too long to bring them together. Dalinar had to keep it together. For Elhokar, for his memory of his brother. For those commands given in his visions, whatever they were.

After about an hour of walking, he checked the position of the sun, then nodded to Elthebar. “Continue the inspection on my behalf. I’ve got an appointment.”

#

The Gallery of Maps balanced beauty function. The expansive domed structure had been Soulcast of stone, with smooth sides that melded seamlessly with the rock ground. Long and narrow, it was shaped like a loaf of Thaylen bread, and had large skylights in the ceiling, shining down light on formations of shalebark growing in clusters like rocky shelves.

Dalinar passed one of these, a formation of vibrant greens, blues, and faint pinks growing in a knotted pattern as high as his shoulders. The crusty, hard plants had no leaves or stalks; just waving tendrils, like colorful hair that pulled back when Dalinar got too close. Shalebark almost seemed more rock than vegetation. And yet, scholars said it must be a plant for the way it grew and reached toward the light.

Men did that too, he thought, looking up at a bright, sunlit hole above. Once.

Highprince Roion stood in front of one of the maps, hands clasped behind his back, his numerous attendants clogging the other side of the gallery. Roion was a tall, light-skinned man with a full beard cut short. He was thinning on top, and wore his hair long enough for that to be noticeable. Like most of the others, he wore a short, open-fronted jacket, exposing the shirt underneath. The light red collar poked out the top of the coat.

So sloppy, Dalinar thought, though it wasn’t sloppiness that drove Roion to dress this way. It was fashion. Dalinar just wished that current fashion weren’t so…well, sloppy.

“Brightlord Dalinar,” Roion said. “I have difficulty seeing the point of this meeting.”

“Walk with me, Brightlord Roion,” Dalinar said, nodding to the side.

The other man sighed, but joined Dalinar and walked the pathway between clusters of plants and wall of maps. Each map was illuminated by diamonds, their enclosures cupped with mirrored steel to shine light on the maps. Those were inked, in detail, onto brown parchment. The parchment was likely Soulcast; Elhokar had several Soulcasters well attuned to flesh.

Roion’s attendants moved to follow; they included both a cup-bearer and a shield-bearer—the former holding a cup of wine in delicate fingers, the later navigating a large Shardbearer’s shield through the room.

Near the center of the long chamber, they came to the Prime Map, an enormous brown swath of paper fixed in a frame on the wall. It showed the entirety of the Shattered Plains that had been explored. Permanent bridges were drawn in red, and each captured plateau had a blue glyphpair on it, detailing which highprince controlled it. The eastern section of the map grew more vague until the lines vanished entirely.

Dalinar stopped beside this map, and Roion stepped up next to him. The man’s eyes immediately fell to his own plateaus, focused on the far southern side of the battlefront. Of all the highprinces, Roion held the fewest plateaus.

Dalinar reached his hand up, brushing the parchment, inspecting it. Some of the uncaptured plateaus were marked and numbered, foremost of them a large one standing defiantly near the edge of Alethi territory. The Tower, it was being called. A massive, oddly-shaped plateau where the Parshendi had rebuffed the Alethi assaults nine times now.

Dalinar ran his fingers westward. “Highprince Sadeas is doing very well in the mid-north,” Dalinar said, tapping Sadeas’s large swath of glyphpairs.

“Yes,” Roion said, frowning. None of the others were pleased with Sadeas’ success. “One hardly needs to see a map to know that, Dalinar. What is the purpose of this?”

“Look at the scope of it,” Dalinar said. “Five years of dedicated fighting, and nobody has even seen the center of the Shattered Plains.”

“Dalinar,” Roion said. “Surely you aren’t suggesting that we abandon our duty here?”

Dalinar frowned. Nothing in his comments had implied he was thinking that. The rumors had already spread far. “Of course not. My nephew has a duty to seek vengeance. What I am suggesting is that our current efforts are insufficient.”

“I think we’ve done quite well,” Roion said, huffing. “I would point out that you have hardly been a model of inspiration lately.” He nodded to Dalinar’s selection of plateaus near the center of the warcamps, beside those of Sadeas.

Dalinar had originally captured many plateaus, but lately—as he’d dedicated more and more time to administering—he’d been forced to give up fighting time. He didn’t hold as few plateaus as Roion, but he certainly didn’t have as many as Sadeas.

“I would have expected more of the Blackthorn.” Roion glanced at Dalinar, raising an eyebrow.

Dalinar forced himself not to rise to the near-insult. “Roion, we cannot continue to treat this war as a game.”

“All wars are games. The greatest kind, with the pieces lost real lives, the areas captured real sections of land! This is the life for which men exist. To fight, to kill, to win.” The words of Sadees, Sunmaker. The last Alethi king to unite the highprinces, many centuries ago. Gavilar had revered his name, once.

“Recently, a question has started to haunt me,” Dalinar said. “Why? Why do we fight? We don’t enjoy the spoils, we just turn to more war. We fight to get Shardblades, then use those Shardblades to fight to get more Shardblades. It’s a circle, round and round we go, chasing our tails so we can be better at chasing our tails.”

“We fight to prepare ourselves to reclaim heaven and take back what is ours,” Roion said. “Haven’t you been listening to the ardents?”

“Men can train without going to war,” Dalinar said. “And men can fight without it being meaningless. Was it always this way? Were their times when our wars meant something?”

Roion raised an eyebrow, then glanced down at Dalinar’s hand, where his tattoo peeked out from the back of his glove. Dalinar tugged the glove back reflexively.

“You’re making me believe the rumors, Dalinar. They say you’ve lost your edge for battle, that you no longer have a will to fight.” He eyed Dalinar again. “Some are saying that it is time to abdicate for your son.”

“The rumors are wrong,” Dalinar snapped.

“That is—”

“They are wrong,” Dalinar said firmly, “if they claim that I no longer care.” He stepped forward, resting his fingers on the surface of the map again, running them across the rough parchment, toward the unseen Parshendi warcamp. “I care, Roion. I care deeply. About this people. About my nephew. About the future of this war.”

Curse those visions, curse the words of that book. Curse them both to damnation itself! Why can’t I just be the man I once was?

“Well, that is good to hear, I suppose.”

Unite them….

Dalinar turned back to him. “I seem to be the only one who cares about winning, Roion. We are divided, each highprince seeking his own interests first—perhaps exclusively.”

“So you have said before,” Roion said, sighing. “Really, Dalinar, whether or not the rumors are true about you growing weak, you certainly have grown tiresome recently.”

“I repeat myself because nobody seems to be listening. I want you to try a joint fight with me.”

“What?”

“I want to attack together, with the two of us coordinating our efforts for a joint plateau assault. Our chances of winning will go up greatly.”

“Perhaps,” Roion said, “but who would control the gemstone harvesting?”

“I’m certain we could arrange something fair.”

Roion raised an eyebrow, and Dalinar could sense the skepticism in his expression. “And if we capture a Shardblade?”

“Unlikely.”

“But possible.”

It was. Those cursed Parshendi Shardblades had been, in large part, the genesis of this all in the first place. He nearly just said that Roion could have one of they managed to get one, but what of his promise to Renarin?

“Again, I’m certain we could arrange something fair,” Dalinar finally said, the words sounding hollow to him.

“I’m sure.”

Dalinar gritted his teeth. He needed to be bold. “And if I offer them both to you?”

“Excuse me?”

“We try a joint attack. If there’s a Shardblade, you get it. Once we conquer the plateau, the gemstone rights all go to you.”

Roion’s eyes narrowed, his face tightening. His skepticism instantly became suspicion. “An interesting proposal. I shall have to think on it.”

Storm it! Dalinar thought, knowing that Rioin would eventually say no. He wouldn’t believe that Dalinar simply wanted to win the war—he would be looking for hidden motives. The highprinces barely trusted one another enough to work together when there weren’t Shardblades and gems at stake.

“Yes, I’ll think about this,” Rioin said. “Will I be seeing you at the feast this evening?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Dalinar asked with a sigh.

“Well, the stormwardens have been saying that there’s a Highstorm today, you see….”

“I will be there,” Dalinar said flatly.

“Yes, of course,” Rioin said, chuckling. “No reason why you wouldn’t be.” He smiled at Dalinar. Was that smile condescending? Had Sadeas been talking about Dalinar and the storms again?

Rioin withdrew, his attendants following, leaving Dalinar standing before the Prime Map. Looking down on them like this, as if a god far above, gave him perspective. The plateaus looked like close islands, or perhaps fragments set in a massive stained-glass window.

Not for the first time, he felt as if he should be able to make out a pattern to the plateaus. If they could see a larger section of them, perhaps. What would it mean if there was a form to the chasms?

He studied the map. People entered the Gallery from time to time, mostly officers lighteyes coming to study a map. Most of the maps were more detailed than the Prime Map, focused on specific sections of the shattered plains. Dalinar wanted to see the larger view.

He was growing weak. He had to confront that. Increasingly, however, weakness seemed like strength to him. Everyone else was so concerned with looking strong, with proving themselves. Was he really the only one who saw how frivolous that was? Strength for strength’s sake? What good was strength unless you did something with it?

Alethkar was a light, once, he thought, staring at that map. That’s what Gavilar’s book claims. Nohadon was king of Alethkar, so long ago. In the time before the Heralds left.

When had he changed? Even a few months ago, he hadn’t thought this way. He’d followed the Codes only out of respect for Gavilar’s last wishes. He’d listened to The Way of Kings only in order to find some secret message left to him.

But these things were part of him now. I am changing, like Gavilar did. Their accusations are right.

He felt as if he could almost see it. The secret. The thing that had made Gavilar so excited in the months before his death. If Dalinar could stretch just a little farther, squint just a little more, he’d make it out. See the pattern in the lives of men. And finally know…

“Father?”

Dalinar turned as Adolin entered the cavern-like room. The younger man wore a uniform like Dalinar’s, with a long, dark-blue suit coat that buttoned with silver buttons up the sides of the chest. Dalinar shook himself from his revelry. How long had he been standing here?

“How went the meeting with Rioin?” Adolin asked, joining Dalinar beside the map.

“Poorly. I’m proving far worse at peacemaking than I once was at warmaking.”

“There’s no profit in peace.”

“That’s what everyone says. But there was peace, once. How did men survive then?”

“There hasn’t been peace since the Tranquiline Halls,” Adolin said with a smirk. “‘Man’s life on Roshar is conflict.’” A quote from The Arguments.

Dalinar turned to his son, slightly amused. “Quoting scripture at me? You?”

Adolin shrugged. “Well, you see, Malasha is rather religious, and so we’ve been listening to—”

“Wait,” Dalinar said. “Malasha? Who’s that?”

“Daughter of Brightlord Seveks.”

“What happened to that other girl? The short one, with the fondness for silver hair ribbons?”

“Deeli?” Adolin said, laughing. “Father, I stopped courting her over two months back!”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

Dalinar rubbed his chin.

“There have been two in between her and Malasha, father,” Adolin noted. “You really need to pay better attention.”

“Almighty help any man who tries to keep track of your tangled courtships, son.”

Adolin shrugged again, grinning. The smile faded as he looked at the large map of the Shattered Plains. “You’re determined to continue this course, aren’t you, Father? Getting the highprinces to work together?”

“My brother dreamed of unifying Alethkar,” Dalinar said. “Once, I thought he’d achieved it, despite what he claimed. The longer I work with these men, the more I realize that Gavilar was right. We failed. We conquered these men, but we never unified them.”

“And our vengeance?”

“I would love to get my hands on the Parshendi rats who ordered his assassination, son. But five years of war hasn’t brought us any closer to them that I can see. It’s got me thinking. Maybe too much. Jasnah always asked questions that I ignored. Why did the Parshendi assassinate Gavilar in the first place? Why did they sign a treaty, then break it immediately? I’ve only just begun to think about how little we know of them.”

Adolin frowned, but nodded. Almighty be blessed for sending me a son who trusts me, Dalinar thought. He wasn’t certain where he would be without Adolin’s support. The rest of the warcamps could think Dalinar senile or cowardly, but as long as his sons still looked up to him, he could believe he was doing something right.

“The rumors have spread,” Dalinar said. “About my lack of teeth.”

“I know,” Adolin said. “They’re learning better than to say such things aloud when I’m around. Who has been saying it now? I see that he stops.”

“I’m afraid that the talk has passed beyond the reach of your dueling blade, son.” Dalinar shook his head. “We’re going to have to be very careful. I suspect that our enemies have realized I have the power to upset their perfect lives here, and so they’re trying to shame me into retirement.”

“It’s Sadeas.”

“Perhaps,” Dalinar said. “I can’t fathom his purpose, however. Why now, after five years of tolerating one another? There’s more here than appears at first glance.”

“Father, he’s already begun poking around our warcamp, looking for ‘facts’ about that storming broken strap. He’s going to find some imaginary evidence linking us to an attempt to kill the king, then turn Elhokar against us.”

“Perhaps,” Dalinar said. What to do? “Perhaps it’s time to move against him. I worry, though. He and I—”

“Share a purpose,” Adolin said. “So you always say. We can’t let it make us too trusting.”

“Agreed,” Dalinar said with a sigh. “I will ask my scribes to begin formulating a plan.”

It was a dangerous step, one he hated to make. If the two most powerful highprinces turned against one another, it would rip the kingdom apart. But what else could he do?

Unite them….

“Father,” Adolin said, “How could the king do this to us? He’s a fool to—”

“Stop,” Dalinar said, raising a finger. “I’ll suffer no talk like that of our king.”

“Fine,” Adolin said. “But it’s no wonder the way the others are acting, with your own nephew sending a whitespine like Sadeas to sniff at your doings.”

“I’ll speak to Elhokar,” Dalinar said. “Perhaps I can persuade him to end this investigation.”

He hesitated. I have to be wrong. He doesn’t actually suspect me of trying to kill him, does he? Who knew what went on in that mind of Elhokar’s.

Adolin nodded. “Very well. But…I do think there is one thing that has to be asked. You’re frustrated with how the war is proceeding, the king refuses to listen to you, and the rest of the camps treat us as if we were of the tenth nahn. At what point do we just leave? We could pull out, return to Kholinar, and leave them all to their squabbling.”

“Our enemies would see it as running.”

“And what is more important?” Adolin asked frankly. “The truth of the heart or the misperceptions of fools?”

Dalinar smiled, proud to see such wisdom in the normally impetuous lad “It’s a wise suggestion. But we can’t leave Elhokar to them. Besides, I worry what would happen if I weren’t here to keep everything running.”

Adolin raised an eyebrow. “And might it not be good for them all to experience life without you?”

“Unfortunately, proving a point—particularly for our own pride—isn’t worth destroying Alethkar. Our enemies leave us alone because of how strong we are here in the Shattered Plains. If I let this collapse, we’d be in an even worse situation.”

Adolin nodded. “Well, I can’t say I’m sad to stay.”

“Because you want to see the end of the war?”

“Well, yes,” Adolin said. “But I was actually thinking of Malasha. She’s too fair a beauty to leave behind.”

Dalinar snorted. “You’ll have moved on by the end of the week.”

“Father!” Adolin said, growing serious. “Really. I think this time it will last. You have to meet her. She’s perfect.”

Dalinar refrained from pointing out how often his son said such things. Adolin was almost always earnest in relationships, even if he did have trouble with longevity.

The light dimmed above, and Dalinar glanced at the skylights. The sky was thick with clouds. Scrapings sounded atop the roof—servants, pulling stone covers to place on the skylights to keep rain from soaking the Map Gallery. “The highstorm.”

“Stormfather,” Adolin cursed. “I forgot. That’s why I came looking for you. The storm is close. And…well, you know…” Adolin’s voice was clipped with concern.

“I am not some child in need of minding, Adolin,” Dalinar said, perhaps too gruffly. The first of the stone coverings fell into place with an echoing thump, dimming the room. The map diamonds seemed to grow brighter by contrast. “Still,” Dalinar noted, “perhaps we best be on our way.”

Adolin nodded eagerly and the two of them hurried through the large map chamber. It was hollow and empty, the other patrons having retired.

Outside, they stepped into the king’s camp, sky thick with dust and leaves blown ahead of the Stormwall. The air dense with humid anticipation, the sky thickening with clouds.

The Gallery of Map was build on one of the terrace-like sides of the slope where Elhokar had constructed his palace, and their position gave a good view of the ten warcamps, bustling with activity as men rushed this way and that, holding coats or cloaks against the wind. The storm itself was still modestly distant, and the Stormwall not even yet visible.

“Father, perhaps we should stay,” Adolin said, scanning the sky.

“We have time,” Dalinar said, striding away toward steps in the rock down to the plateau bottom. Adolin sighed, but hastened to catch up, and the two of them marched in silence. Dalinar barely kept the urgency from his step—it would unseemly for a highprince to dash through camp like a messenger boy. They weren’t in any danger; any number of buildings in the camps could shelter them. He just didn’t like in public during a highstorm. Perhaps if he’d kept himself sequestered, those rumors never would have started.

He drew attention as he marched. He always drew attention. Even with an impending highstorm, even without a retinue, even without his Plate or Blade. A group of men in brown coats hesitated in their work packing away a tent. A group of soldiers in brown and grey—Highprince Vamah’s colors—stepped aside, whispering to one another. Dalinar Kholin, the Blackthorn. Once one of the greatest Shardbearers Alethkar had ever known.

Dalinar felt their eyes on him, and he had to fight even harder to keep himself from hastening his step. Running would only fuel the rumors.

He felt relieved when he eventually reached the crater-like wall of the Kholin warcamp. Here, the men wore blue and white and the soldiers saluted. They didn’t display the same sense of frantic motion as the other camps. Dalinar’s army had a standing order that all should be ready at all times if a storm was near, and most of the men had already retreated to their enclosures. Their highprince needed to do a better job of following his own restrictions.

“Father…” Adolin said, pointing eastward.

The stormwall hung like a curtain in the air, descending toward the camp. The massive sheet of rain was a foreboding gray, the clouds above onyx black, lit from within by occasional crackles of lightning.

“We can make it,” Dalinar said, breaking into a trot. Appearances could go to Damnation.

“Father!” Adolin said, running up and catching his arm. “I’m sorry.”

The wind whipped at them, and Dalinar gritted his teeth. He glanced at the stormwall again. It was only moments away. Resigned, he nodded to his son.

A nearby guard post had the door open, several soldiers peering out. One waved anxiously. Dalinar joined Adolin, dashing to the stone-walled barrack. The soldiers made room for them; there was a group of servants packed inside as well. In Dalinar’s camp, nobody was forced to weather the tempests in stormtents or wooden shacks.

The occupants seemed shocked to see their Highprince and his heir step in, and several grew pale in the face as the door thumped shut. Their only light that of a few garnet chips hanging in encasings on the walls. One of the men coughed, and a scattering of windblown chips sprayed against the outside of the building.

Dalinar gritted his teeth, trying not to notice the uncomfortable eyes of the men. There was nothing to be done. He could hear the wind howling outside. Perhaps nothing would happen. Perhaps this time…

The storm hit.

It began.

Chapter 24 is nearly identical to chapter 18 in the published book, until after the Starfalls vision:

“What kind of answer is that?” Dalinar bellowed. He shook himself, struggling. Hands held him. Where had they come from? He cursed, batting them away, twisting, trying to break free.

He blinked, mind fuzzy as if having just awakened. He stood in the barrack at the Shattered Plains, a faint rain sprinkling on the ceiling. The storm had passed. Adolin and a group of soldiers held Dalinar down.

Dalinar grew still, mouth open. He had been screaming. The soldiers looked uncomfortable, glancing at each other, not meeting his gaze. If it was like before, he’d have acted out his role in the vision, speaking in gibberish, flailing around.

What if they really are just delusions? he thought, terrified. What is happening to me?

A land without war? What general longed for that? What Shardbearer did not look for chances to test himself against others? What was there, if there were no battles to fight?

Unite them…

“My mind is cleared now, Adolin,” Dalinar said, standing upright. “It is all right.”

Adolin nodded to the others, and they hesitantly released him. The storm rains still pattered against the barrack, but the men inside were silent. Adolin spoke soothingly to them, making excuses, telling them that his father was simply eager for combat. Dalinar retreated to the back of the barrack room, sitting down on the floor between two rolled up bedrolls, breathing in and out, thinking.

How could a man decide if something like this was real, or madness? Did he dare ignore the visions? And yet, what they said to do…

Act with honor, and honor will aid you.

That made it sound like he wasn’t supposed to move against Sadeas. Insanity.

Adolin eventually came to kneel by him. He brought a waterskin. “Can I do anything for you, father?” he asked, handing it over.

“Thank you. This will do.” He took a drink, then lowered the waterskin. “I have decided not to move against Sadeas.”

Adolin looked shocked. Then his eyes narrowed. “Are you sure that’s…wise?” He blamed the visions. He was right to.

“No,” Dalinar said. “But it is my decision. We will prepare ourselves, but we will aid Sadeas in his investigation and see what he does. We will extend our hand, and see if he takes it.”

“Or if he chops it off,” Adolin said, sounding bitter. He sighed, rising, and stalked away.

Dalinar sat for a moment, then pulled the sleeve of his coat down, exposing the back of his hand. There, in stark red ink, was a tattoo he had never commissioned. It had appeared on his hand that, long ago. The day which had haunted him ever since, the day he’d made the decision that had taken his wife from him.

The tattoo was in the shape of a stylized hourglass, the double eye pattern, ten spheres connected by lines.

The symbol of the Knights Radiant.

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 6

Bridge Four

I’ve spoken before on my creative process. I build books out of good ideas, often developed in isolation until I find the right place for them. (Allomancy and Feruchemy were originally developed separately, for separate books.) When a book doesn’t work, the ideas get broken apart and bounce around in my head some more until I find another place to try them out.

Bridge Four—and the plateau runs—were originally part of Dragonsteel.  Dalinar was too, so that’s not all that surprising, I guess. However, Bridge Four is unique here in that when I decided to move them from Dragonsteel to The Way of Kings, I had already completed both books and felt pretty good about them. They are both important sequences in the Adonalsium Saga, and lifting Bridge Four from Dragonsteel meant taking away its most dynamic, powerful plot structure.

That decision was not easy to make. The problem is, both books were fundamentally flawed. Oh, they were both good, they just weren’t great—and I felt I needed to be doing great in this point of my career. (Hopefully during every point of it.) The Way of Kings had an awesome setting and some great characters, but no focal plot sequence that really punched someone in the gut. Dragonsteel had wonderful ideas, but they never really came together.

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Ben McSweeney’s landscape concept art for The Way of Kings, November 2008.

In the end, I took the best part of the book that otherwise didn’t work and put it into the book that needed a little extra oomph. The moment of decision came when Ben McSweeney, who was doing concept art on the book, sent me a concept he’d done that looked shockingly like the Shattered Plains. (Which, remember, were not even on that planet at that point.) I realized that they would fit the worldbuilding of The Way of Kings better than they ever did Dragonsteel, and that I could put greatshell monsters in them.

So, I ripped apart a book I love to make a (hopefully) better book. Rock came along to Roshar for the ride (he was an original member of Bridge Four in Dragonsteel). I added Teft, who had been left languishing for a decade or so after Mythwalker became Warbreaker and he didn’t make the jump. Bridge Four seemed like a great home for him.

[Assistant Peter’s note: Teft is mostly the same character as Hine from Mythwalker, but also has a character aspect from Voko in that book.]

The Way of Kings Chapter 20 (D)

This early draft chapter corresponds to parts of chapter 18 and all of chapter 22.

Dalinar strode down the hallway of the king’s war palace, booted feet clomping on marble flooring, the sound echoing against stone walls broken by windows on the leeward side. Those windows were the mark that you were living in the stormlands. Inside laits, you could have windows on any side of a building, but here it couldn’t be risked. Shutters could be blown open, glass cracked. Stone was the best protection.

Renarin accompanied him today, along with two scribes and three members of the Cobalt Guard. The former wore sleek gowns after the fashion of Alethi lighteyed women. The latter wore deep blue felt caps and cloaks over silvery breastplates and deep blue trousers. Each was a lighteyes of low rank, able to carry swords for close fighting.

The women were both wives of his officers; Teshav was the ranking of the two. She had streaks of blonde in her otherwise black Alethi hair, which she kept up in an intricate crossing weave. Her pinched face bore a concerned expression. That was normal; she always seemed to need something to worry about.

Dalinar trusted her. Mostly. It was hard to trust anyone completely. Stop it, he thought at himself. You’re starting to sound as paranoid as the king. Still, he’d be very glad for Jasnah’s return. If she ever decided to return.

“Brightlord,” Teshav said, “I can find no corroboration to his majesty’s fears. Nobody reports anyone being near to the saddle or his majesty’s horse. There are no whispers of anyone bragging over the event; usually there’s something, if not from our spies, then from talk among the officers. This time, nothing.”

“The grooms?”

“Say they checked over the saddle,” she said, “but when pressed, they admit that they can’t specifically remember checking the strap. It was a new saddle, not one of his majesty’s favored ones. The most reasonable assumption is that it hadn’t been tested, and it simply broke.” She shook her head. “Carrying a Shardbearer places great strain on both horse and saddle. If there were only some way to tame more Ryshadium….”

“I think you’ll sooner tame the highstorms, brightness. I appreciate your work on this.”

“It is my pleasure to serve, Brightlord. Is there something else you wish of me?”

“Highprince Aladar. He’s begun to talk of taking a short vacation back to Alethkar. I want to know if it’s idle speculation or not.”

“Yes, Brightlord.” Teshav nodded, then withdrew with her ward.

What would it mean if Aladar did want to return? Would Dalinar try to block him? He didn’t trust the highprinces, but at least with them all here, he could keep watch on them. If one of them returned to Alethkar, he could scheme unchecked.

Of course, even a brief visit might help stabilize their homeland. Hadn’t Dalinar complained of the danger Alethkar suffered by having all ten of its highprinces away at war? Shouldn’t he encourage them to spend some time back at their estates?

Which was more important? Stability, or keeping them under his thumb? Blood of my fathers, he thought. I wasn’t built for this politicking and scheming. I was built to hold a sword and charge down enemies.

Renarin turned to watch Teshav leave, beskpeckled eyes curious. He never complained about being ordered to attend his father. Perhaps he found it boring; but until he decided what he wished to do with his life, he would learn the ways of being a highprince, just in case tragedy befell Adolin.

The hallways of the king’s palace were growing more rich by the week. Once, this hallway had been just another soulcast stone tunnel. As Elhokar settled in, he had ordered changes. Windows cut in the leeward side. Marble tiling set into the floor. The walls carved with reliefs, wood trim at the corners. Dalinar and Renarin passed a group of stonemasons carefully cutting a scene of Nalan’Elin, eyes spraying out sunlight, sword of retribution held over his head. Stonecutting was the only visual art that was Masculine instead of Feminine.

Elhokar had shipped in this particular group from Kholinar itself. The king would not order such finery if he weren’t intending to remain here for some time yet. I need to change that. The war had to be won. No more playing. Elhokar had said he could offer a plan; well, he had one. It was bold, but hopefully that would appeal to the young king.

Unite them…

He’d suffered another vision two nights before, during the highstorm. Different, unique, but ending with those insistent words.

He was going mad. That was the best answer. And yet, here he was, trying to do what was demanded.

Because, mad or not, it felt right.

They reached the king’s antechamber, an open room guarded by ten members of the King’s guard, dressed in crimson and gold. Dalinar recognized each face; he had personally organized the King’s Guard, and continued to oversee it.

Highprince Ruthar waited to see the king, brawny arms folded. He wore a short black beard that went around his mouth, but was shaved at the sides, and wore an outfit of bright red and blue silk. The coat was cut short through the bottom and front, and did not button. It was almost more of a vest with sleeves, a token nod to traditional Alethi uniform. The shirt underneath was ruffled and white, and Ruthar’s trousers were loose, with wide cuffs.

Ruthar glanced at Dalinar and sniffed quietly, turning to chat with one of his attendants. He cut off, however, as the guards at the doorway stepping aside and letting Dalinar enter. Ruthar sniffed again. Dalinar’s access to the king galled the other highprinces.

The king wasn’t in his sitting room, but the wide doors to his balcony were open. Dalinar waved for his guardsmen to wait behind, then stepped out onto the balcony, Renarin hesitantly joining him. The light outside was dim. It was evening, near sunset.

The king’s war palace complex sat atop a rock formation overlooking the ten warcamps. It was a tactically sound location, but also one which would be strongly buffeted by storms. That was always a difficult decision. Did one choose to be low and squat to withstand storms, or did one seize the high ground?

In this case, most would have chosen opposite of the king; their warcamps on the edge of the Shattered Plains were unlikely to be attacked, and so the advantage of the high ground was unimportant. The near-walls of the craters not only broke the wind, but offered some protection.

But kings had a tendency to prefer height. Dalinar had encouraged Elhokar to take the position, just in case. The balcony itself was a thick platform of rock cut onto the top of the small peak. It was edged with a railing of iron, and the king’s rooms were a Soulcast dome sitting atop the natural formation, with covered hallways leading to lower tiers on the hillside. Those housed the king’s various attendants: guards, stormwardens, ardents, and distant family members.

Dalinar his own bunker inside his warcamp. He refused to call it a palace.

The king leaned against the ailing with a pair of guardsmen watching a short distance away. The air was sweet with the scents of evening: rockbuds blooming, the air chill with spring air. The warcamp craters were starting to come alight. Ten circles filled with watchfires, cook fires, lamps, and infused gems.

As he so often did, Elhokar stared eastward, stormward, over the camps and toward the Shattered plains. They were dark and black, without light save for the occasional watchpost. From this distance, those were so weak as to seem nothing more than candles.

“Do they watch us, from out there?” Elhokar asked as Dalinar joined him.

“We know their raiding bands move at night, your majesty,” Dalinar said, resting one hand on the iron railing. “I can’t help but think they watch us.”

The king’s uniform had the traditional long coat with buttons on the sides, but it was loose and relaxed, and ruffled lace poked out of the collar and cuffs. His trousers were of a solid red, and were cut after the baggy fashion that Ruthar had shown. It all looked so…informal to Dalinar. Increasingly, their soldiers were being led by a group who spent their days dressed in lace and their evenings attending feasts and parties.

This is what Gavilar foresaw, Dalinar realized. This is why he became so insistent that we follow the Codes.

At first, Dalinar had followed them out of shame for being drunk when his brother was murdered. But now he was beginning to see. Things needed to change. “Nephew,” he said. “You told me I could bring you a plan, a way to change things here at the Shattered plains. Well, I have a proposal for you.”

The king raised an eyebrow.

“I want you to name me Highprince of War.”

Elhokar didn’t laugh; that was a good sign. There hadn’t been a Highprince of War in Alethkar for centuries. The princedoms were too fractured, too untrusting, to be grouped beneath the command of a single man. They obeyed Elhokar as their king, but that unity—reintroduced to them by Elhokar’s father—was still a fragile thing.

“The others would revolt, Dalinar,” the king finally said. “You know they would. They barely accept my leadership. Why come with such a ridiculous request?”

“Look below? What do you see?”

“Warcamps.”

“Cities, Elhokar,” Dalinar said. “Would you have this place become the new capital of Alethkar? This remote backwater has been the king’s seat for five years now! The longer we stay here, the more we drain from our homeland—the more lighteyes move here, the more soldiers come seeking their fortunes, the more of their families they collect. How long until someone decides to strike with a determined campaign against our homeland? With the king, all ten highprinces, and nearly every Shardbearer in the kingdom absent, taking Alethkar would be almost laughably easy!”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Elhokar said. “The Reshi are too frightened and the Vedens too careful. They know the wealth and the Shardblades we’ve found here. They could seize Alethkar for a time, but would face our wrath soon.”

“And you’d abandon the campaign here to recapture your homeland?”

“Of course,” Elhokar said, though he hesitated a moment before saying it.

“We’d have to start all over once we returned,” Dalinar said. “What is more important, Elhokar? The pride of your highprinces, or avenging your father’s death?”

Elhokar fell silent. “They’d assassinate me,” he finally said. “You can’t bring back the old ways. If I tried to exercise that kind of authority over them, I’d be dead within a week’s time.”

“But if we were—”

“No, uncle,” Elhokar said, voice firm. “You don’t even take the current threats on my life seriously.”

Dalinar sighed. “Your majesty,” he said carefully. “I do take threats to your life seriously. My scribes and attendants have looked into the strap. My leatherworkers, think it must have gone without proper oil. Today, I had a report that nobody has taken credit for trying to kill you, even in rumor. Nobody saw anything suspicious, and the grooms didn’t check as closely as they should have. It was worn. It broke.”

“No,” Elhokar said. “It was cut, uncle.”

“For what purpose, Elhokar? A fall from horseback wouldn’t kill you!”

“I don’t know,” Elhokar said, face growing red. “You should be trying to find out what their plan was, rather than pestering me with some arrogant quest to become overlord of the entire army!”

Dalinar gritted his teeth. “I do this for you, Elhokar.”

Elhokar met his eyes for a moment, and his eyes flashed with suspicion again.

Blood of my fathers! Dalinar thought. He’s getting worse.

Elhokar’s expression softened a moment later, however, and he seemed to relax. Whatever he’d seen in Dalinar’s eyes had comforted him. But Dalinar could not forget that flash of suspicion.

“I know you try for the best, uncle,” Elhokar said. “But you have to admit that you’ve been erratic lately. The way you react to storms, your infatuation with that book of my father’s…”

“I’m trying to understand him.”

“He grew weak at the end,” Elhokar said. “Everyone knows it. I won’t make his same mistakes, and you should avoid them as well. I would not see you tread his same path, speaking making concessions to our enemies, signing treaties with everyone, preaching the words of a book written by the Lost Radiants.”

“They didn’t write it,” Dalinar said immediately. “It was their inspiration, but Nohadon was its author.”

Elhokar glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. See. You defend it.

Dalinar glanced at Renarin. The quite youth was watching the two of them with interest. What did those eyes see? He always seemed to pick things out of conversations that no other man would notice, yet often missed the most important points at the same time.

“You are getting weak, uncle,” Elhokar said softly, drawing his attention back. “I will not exploit that weakness. But others will.”

“I am not getting weak.” Dalinar forced himself—yet again—to be calm. Was it supposed to be this hard to maintain decorum? “This conversation has gone off path. The highprinces need a single leader to force them to work together. I promise, if I am named Highprince of War, I would see you protected.”

“Like you saw my father protected?”

Dalinar cut off, snapping his mouth closed. To the side, Renarin gasped softly.

Elhokar leaned down on the iron railing. “I should not have spoken that. It was uncalled for.”

“No,” Dalinar said. “No, it was one of the truest things you have said to me, Elhokar. Perhaps you are right to distrust my protection.”

Elhokar glanced at him, growing curious. “Why is it you react that way?”

“What way?”

“Once, if someone had said that do you, you’d have summoned your Blade and demanded a duel! Now you agree with me instead.”

“I…” Why had he reacted that way?.

“My father started refusing duels, near the end.” Elhokar tapped idly on the railing. “I see why you wish for the chance to be Highprince of War, and you may have a point. But the others very much like the arrangement as it stands.”

“Because it allows them to sport against one another. Because it gives them a near-endless sequence of battles, spaced as to not upset their schedule of socializing. Because there are riches to be had without great sacrifice.” Dalinar stepped forward. “If we are going to win, we’ll need to upset them. We’ll need them to start working together, rather than competing against one another. We need to…we need to unite them!”

“Perhaps,” the king said. “Perhaps. If you can show me that the highprinces are willing to work with you, Uncle, then I’ll consider your offer. Go to them, not me. Convince them, and you will convince me. Is that satisfactory?”

Dalinar sighed. It wasn’t what he wanted, but perhaps it was the best he could have hoped for. “Very well.”

“Good,” the king said, standing up. “Then let us part for now. Tonight’s feast approaches, and I still have to hear what Ruthar wishes of me.”

#

The air was still cool as Dalinar and his sons arrived at the feasting basin. His stormwardens projected another few weeks of spring, followed by a return to summer. Hopefully, it wouldn’t turn to winter instead; ice and snow were not welcome additions to the already-precarious plateau fighting.

The king’s feasts always happened outdoors, in a place at the foot of Elhokar’s palace hill. If the stormwardens spoke of a highstorm—or if more mundane weather turned bad—then the feast was canceled. Dalinar was glad for the outdoor location. Even with ornamentation, Soulcast barracks often like caverns, too suffocating and enveloping to house a good feast.

The feast basin was constructed like a group of small stone islands. Wide, circular dining sections rose like large turtle shells from a shallow stream of water. The effect had been fabricated—the king’s Soulcasters had diverted the water from a nearby river to flood the basin.

Almost reminds me of Sela Tales, Dalinar thought as he crossed the first bridge. And the everlake.

There were five islands, and the railings of the bridges connecting them bore delicate engravings. The woodwork was so fine that after each feast, the railings had to be disassembled and stowed, lest highstorm shatter them. Tonight, flowers floated in the slow current. Occasionally, a miniature boat sailed past, bearing an infused gemstone and lighting the flowers around it.

Dalinar, Renarin, and Adolin stepped onto the first dining platform. “One cup of blue,” Dalinar said to his sons. “After that, stay to the orange.”

Adolin sighed audibly. “Couldn’t we, just this once—”

“So long as you are of my house, you follow the Codes. My will is firm on this, Adolin.”

“Fine,” Adolin said. “Come on, Renarin.” The two split off from Dalinar, remaining on the first platform, where the younger lighteyes congregated.

Dalinar continued forward, crossing onto the middle island. This central one was for lesser lighteyes to mingle. To the left and right lay the segregated dining islands—men’s island on the right, woman’s island to the left. The three central platforms, however, were for the genders to mix. One for youths, one for lesser lighteyes, one for those of high rank.

Around him, lesser lighteyes important enough—or favored enough—to be invited took advantage of their king’s hospitality. Soulcast food was mundane and bland, but the king’s lavish feasts always served imported spices and exotic meats. Dalinar could smell it on the air, roasting pork…even chickens. It had been a long time since he’d been served meat from one of the strange, Shin flying creatures.

A darkeyed servant passed, wearing a gauzy red robe, carrying a tray bearing orange crab legs. Dalinar’s stomach grumbled, but he didn’t reach for a shell. He continued forward, weaving around groups of revelers with goblets of wine. Most drank violet, the most intoxicating—but most flavorful—of wines.

Nobody wore uniforms. Some few men wore the small, half-chested coats, but many had given up on pretense, wearing smooth, silk shirts with ruffled cuffs and matching slippers on their feet. The material glistened in the lanternlight, and not a few of them shot glances at Dalinar, appraising him, weighing him.

He could remember a day not so long ago when, at a feast like this, he would have been swarmed by acquaintances and attendants, eager for a fun evening of wine and revelry. Now, nobody approached him. They gave way before him, sometimes reluctantly, but they did not provoke him. Elhokar might think his uncle was growing weak, but his reputation quelled most others.

Still, there were a number of odd looks. Dalinar ignored them, hand resting lightly on the pommel of his arming sword. He was one of the few who wore a weapon.

The revelation he’d made earlier, about the Codes, seemed a simple thing. Why had it taken him so long to see? He’d assumed that the Codes were just about protecting the camp. Always be in uniform, always be armed, never become drunken. Ever vigilant while the under threat of attack.

Yet, if that were the case, the others were right to ignore the Codes. The Parshendi would probably never attack, and if they did, scouts would give warning. So why bother with all of those prohibitions?

Except, it wasn’t just about the threats of attack. It was about something more—it was about giving the men commanders they could rely upon, and about treating war with the solemnity it deserved. It was about not turning a battlefield into a party.

In a way, the Codes were about showing the common soldiers that you were part of what they did. They had to remain on watch, vigilant. So should you.

If a king is seen helping with the load of the poorest of men…. The line sprang into his mind. Perhaps those poorest of men will help him with his own load, so invisible, yet so daunting…

Dalinar froze, standing amidst the revelers, shocked. It made sense, suddenly. The words from The Way of Kings made sense to him.

Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought. Once, he’d called his brother a fool for seeking wisdom from the sacred text of the Radiants. Now that same text was slipping into his mind unbidden. Maybe he had been listening to the thing too much.

He continued, approaching the bridge to the king’s island. Lantern poles ringed it, burning with blue stormlight. A firepit dominated the center of the platform, deep red coals simmering in its bowels, radiating warmth. Elhokar sat at his table just behind the firepit, and several highprinces ate with him. Tables at the sides of the plateau were occupied by men or women—never both at the same time—dining.

The rest of this chapter is nearly identical to the published version of chapter 22.

The Way of Kings Chapter 18 (D)

This early draft chapter corresponds to parts of chapter 15 and chapter 18. You may notice that some lines appearing in the final book are here spoken by other characters.

Four hours after the hunt, Dalinar and the others still waited on their plateau. The mound that had been the chasmfiend lay immobile in the dimming evening light. It had destroyed the bridge leading back to the warcamps. Fortunately, some soldiers had been trapped on the other side, and they’d gone to fetch a bridge crew.

Dalinar’s surgeons tended the wounded. Perhaps his army could have found their way back to the warcamps by another route, but that would have taken as much time as waiting. With so many wounded, the bridge crew was a better choice.

Dalinar stood with gauntleted hands clasped behind his back, cloak fluttering out behind, facing eastward. The Shattered Plains spread before him, a landscape broken and rent. Somewhere out there was the mythical center of the plains, where the Parshendi made their base camp.

Five years, they had fought. The Parshendi supply dumps must have been enormous. They’d prepared for this war. They’d killed Gavilar, then retreated here to use these Herald-forsaken chasms like hundreds of moats and fortifications. The Parshendi could leap extremely far. They knew this would be the perfect place for them to hold.

How long had these plains stood? Had they been whole, once? Were these furrows like the wrinkles on an aged man’s face, growing with the advancing years? Those cliff sides were so steep, that they didn’t seem like natural rock formations.

These plains are like the promises of men, he thought. Neither breaks accidentally. Something happened here. Just like it happened to the honor of the Alethi nobility.

Grim thoughts for a grim time.

Faint laughter tinkled across the plateau. Dalinar turned to the side; Elhokar’s attendants had set up in the pavilion, enjoying wine and refreshments, the comforts offering reason Elhokar to stay and wait. The massive open-sided tent was stained violet and yellow, and a calm wind tugged at the thick canvas. A highstorm might arrive tonight, the Stormwardens said. Almighty send that the army was back to the camp by then.

Highstorms. Visions.

Unite them….

What was he to make of what he’d seen? Did he really think that the Almighty himself had spoken to him? Dalinar Kholin, the Blackthorn, a brutal warlord who had abandoned his brother to assassination?

Unite them….

Sadeas was in the pavilion, speaking animatedly. He had removed his helm, revealing a head of thick black hair that curled and tumbled around his shoulders. How many hunts had he and Dalinar been on, back when Gavilar lived? Even then, Sadeas had been fond of fashion; many men had foolishly assumed that made him weak. True, Dalinar had been the one with the reputation a duelist and a warrior, but that was only because Sadeas had been more cunning. He’d wanted to be known as someone you could talk to, persuade.

The visions seemed to call for Dalinar to bring the highprinces together. To do what Gavilar had always dreamed of doing, of forging Alethkar back into a single kingdom, rather than ten loosely connected princedoms.

Did you somehow send these visions to me, brother? Dalinar wondered. That was foolishness. Likely, there was a simpler reason for the things he saw. The reason men whispered of: that he was simply overtaxed of mind, and seeing things that weren’t there.

Suddenly, Dalinar noticed something. Sadeas and Vamah were there, in the pavilion, but where was the king? He felt an irrational moment of panic. Elhokar! Was he safe?

Of course he was. Dalinar’s eyes quickly found the king just outside the canopy. He stood as Dalinar did, looking eastward over the Shattered Plains. He looked so regal in his golden Shardplate, his cape fluttered behind him in the calm breeze.

Sadeas is right. I am paranoid. Dalinar still hadn’t been able to rid himself of that worry. It was remnant of a night five years ago, when he’d found his brother dead. The Assassin in White.

I’m sorry, brother, he thought, remembering the words they’d found scrawled in blood beside the King. You must find the most important words a man can say…

It was a quote from The Way of Kings, the book Gavilar had taken to studying in the months before his death. But what did the quote mean? Dalinar had listened to the book’s words time and time again, yet the meaning eluded him.

He avoided the other question, whether his brother had learned forbidden writing. Things had been…odd around Gavilar near the end.

Best not to think too much on that night. Dalinar crossed the plateau, his steel boots crunching against the stone, and stepped up beside the king. Elhokar was so determined, so driven sometimes. He didn’t think about costs, only about objectives, which was why he applauded Sadeas’s use of bridges.

He wasn’t a bad man. There were many worse. And if he didn’t live up to his father’s legacy…well, that was more the fault of the father’s success than the son’s failure.

“You look thoughtful, Uncle,” Elhokar said.

“Just considering the past, your majesty.”

Elhokar looked back across the plains. “The past is irrelevant. I only look forward.”

If that were true, Dalinar thought, we wouldn’t be fighting this war.

“I sometimes think I should be able to see the Parshendi,” Elhokar said. “I feel that if I stare long enough, I will seek them out, find where they are so I can challenge them. I wish they’d just fight me, like men of honor.”

“If they were men of honor,” Dalinar said, clasping his hands behind his back, “then they would not have killed your father as they did.”

“Why did they do it, do you suppose?”

Dalinar shook his head. “That question has churned in my head, over and over, like a boulder tumbling down a hill. Did we offend their honor? Was it some cultural misunderstanding, perhaps?”

“A cultural misunderstanding would imply that they have a culture. Primitive brutes. Who knows why a horse kicks its rider or an axehound bites its master? I shouldn’t have even asked.”

Dalinar didn’t reply. He’d felt that same distain, that same anger, in the months following Gavilar’s assassination. He could understand Elhokar’s desire to dismiss these strange, wildland parshmen as nothing more than animals.

But…he’d seen them during those early days. Interacted with them. They were primitive, but not brutes. Not stupid. We never really understood them, he thought. I guess that’s the crux of the problem.

“Elhokar,” he said softly. “It may be time to ask ourselves some difficult questions.”

Elhokar looked at him sharply, proud face outlined in gold by the enveloping helm. “You’re not talking about giving up again, are you?”

“I never suggested that,” Dalinar said, meeting the king’s gaze. “And I do not intend to. But I also will not keep silent —it is my honor and my duty to ask you difficult questions. For the good of Alethkar.”

Elhokar held his gaze for a moment, then seemed to relax. “Very well. Ask.”

“How much are we willing to give, in order to get vengeance?”

“Everything,” the king said immediately.

“And if it costs the things your father worked for? Do we honor his memory by undermining his vision for Alethkar, all to get revenge in his name?”

The king fell silent.

“You pursue the Parshendi,” Dalinar said. “That is good. But you can’t let your passion for them blind you to the needs of your kingdom. The highprinces worry me. The Vengeance Pact has kept them channeled, but what will happen once we win? Will we shatter back into what we were before? I think we need to find a way to forge them together more, to unite them. We fight this war as if we were ten different nations, fighting beside one another but not together.”

The king didn’t respond immediately. He turned away from Dalinar, seeming distracted by something.

“You think I’m a poor king, don’t you, Uncle?” he finally asked.

“What?” Dalinar said. “Of course not!”

“You always talk about what I should be doing, and where I am lacking. Tell me truthfully, uncle. When you look into this helm, do you wish you saw my father’s face instead?”

“Of course I do,” Dalinar said.

Elhokar’s expression darkened.

Dalinar laid a gauntleted hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’d be a poor brother if I didn’t wish that Gavilar had lived. I failed him—it was the grandest, most terrible failure of my life. I let that bastard Shin slaughter him while I drank and laughed. It is the type of mistake I’ll never make again.”

He held Elhokar’s expression, raising a finger. “But just because I loved your father does not mean that I think you a failure. Alethkar itself could have collapsed at Gavilar’s death, but you organized and executed our counter-attack. You are a fine king. I simply offer advice for more that could be done.”

The king nodded slowly. “You’ve been listening to readings from that book again, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“You complain about my dogged pursuit of the Parshendi,” the king said. “And yet, you pursue just as persistently in your own way. It’s been five years. Do you really expect to find something now? Some meaning my father left behind?”

Dalinar didn’t respond.

“There is no hidden clue or meaning, Uncle. My father was dying. He spoke some random thought. A quote from that tarnished book.”

He ‘spoke’ some random thought? Dalinar thought. He wrote it. Either that, or the assassin did. Elhokar didn’t like to confront the idea that his father might have known how to write.

“The book is…a curious work,” Dalinar said, removing his hand from Elhokar’s shoulder. “I still don’t know what to make of it. Is it a collection of stories? A discussion on how men should act? Or is it something deeper? I feel that if I study longer, see past the pages, I can decipher what Gavilar meant for me to know….”

“You sound like him, you know,” Elhokar said.

“Him?”

“My father. Near the end. When he began to act…erratically.”

Dalinar blushed. “Surely I’m not so bad as that.”

“Perhaps.” Elhokar’s eyes narrowed. “But this is how he was. Talking about an end to war, fascinated by the Lost Radiants, insisting everyone follow the Codes…”

Dalinar remembered those days—and his own arguments with Gavilar. What honor can we find on a battlefield while our people starve? the king had once asked him. Is it honor when our lighteyes plot and scheme like eels in a bucket, slithering over one another and trying to bite each other on the tails?

Dalinar hadn’t been surprised when Gavilar had been killed; he’d been surprised that the knife hadn’t come from one of the other highprinces. Gavilar had never been popular, but at least he had always been respected—up until the end, when the strange notions had taken over his mind.

“I’m not trying to get you to retreat,” Dalinar said firmly. “Leave a battlefield with an enemy still in control? The shame would destroy us.”

Elhokar nodded in agreement.

“But what I am doing is asking you to consider. There has to be a better way to approach the war.”

“Sadeas already has a better way already. His bridge methods other the last six months have captured twice as many plateaus as any other of the Highprinces.”

“Capturing plateaus is meaningless,” Dalinar said. “All of this is meaningless if we don’t come closer to defeating the Parshendi. You can’t tell me that you enjoy watching the Highprinces squabble over gemhearts, practically ignoring our real purpose of being here.”

Elhokar fell silent, looking displeased.

“Elhokar,” Dalinar said, “we need to stop playing. You know I’m right.”

“I don’t know it,” Elhokar said. He released a breath. “But you may have a point. If you can come up with a better way, I will listen.”

Finally, Dalinar thought. “I’ll do just that. Give me a few days.”

“You have them.”

Metal footsteps ground on the rock behind. Dalinar turned, steeling himself as he recognized Sadeas. The round-faced, ruddy-cheeked man carried his helm under his shoulder, letting down the dark curls of his hair. He and Dalinar exchanged a suffering nods, and Sadeas turned pointedly toward the king. “Your majesty. Can we not be on our way? I’m certain that we Shardbearers could leap the chasm. You and I could be back to the warcamps.”

“Dalinar won’t leave his men,” Elhokar said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

“He wouldn’t have to join us.”

“True,” Elhokar said, turning to look over his shoulder. “But there’s something I’ve been waiting for…”

Dalinar followed his gaze. Adolin was approaching. Like Sadeas, the lad still wore his Shardplate save the helm. That exposed a head full of shoulder-length blonde and black hair, wet with sweat and sticking up at a dozen different directions. He had a handsome face, something he hadn’t gotten from Dalinar. The Blackthorn hadn’t ever been known as handsome, not even when he’d been young. His nose was too wide, his face too blockish. He was a soldier, and looked like one.

“Father,” Adolin said, approaching, “can I speak to you for a moment?”

“What is it you wish to say, cousin?” Elhokar said. “Is it about the task I gave you?”

Task? Dalinar thought.

Adolin met the king’s gaze levelly. Like Dalinar, Adolin was of the Second dahn. He was required to show the king deference, but he was not required to bow.

Peace, son, Dalinar thought to Adolin. The demands of honor were often more strict than those of law or rank. Elhokar needed to be able to trust his family, at least, to show him respect. There was already far too much talk about Elhokar’s youth and recklessness.

Adolin, wisely, nodded in deference. “I didn’t want to offend, your majesty. I just wanted to get my father’s opinion before bothering you.”

Good lad, Dalinar thought.

“You needn’t worry about that,” Elhokar said. “Speak. What did you discover?”

Adolin took a deep, calming breath. He held up a gauntleted fist, opening it, revealing a two pieces of hogskin leather. “Father, his majesty asked me to inspect his saddle.”

“You saw how I broke free during the fight,” Elhokar said. “The entire saddle came off.”

Dalinar and Sadeas nodded.

“Well,” Adolin said, sounding hesitant. “These pieces are the two broken sides of the king’s main saddle strap. It…well, it looks like the strap might have been cut.”

Dalinar frowned, reaching for the strap pieces, but Elhokar moved first, snatching the two lengths of leather. “I knew it!” the king said, holding them up and inspecting them.

“Curious,” Dalinar said, thoughtful.

To the side, Sadeas gave Dalinar a covert eye-roll. He thinks we’re being paranoid.

And, well, maybe he was right. “How certain are we that it was cut?” Dalinar asked.

“Not very,” Adolin said. He stepped up to the king and ran his finger along the ripped portion of strap. “The tear is smoother along one side. Like it was cut and weakened, so that it would rip when there was too much stress on it.”

“I think I can see it,” Elhokar said, nodding.

Dalinar took the straps, pinching the pieces of leather between gauntleted fingers. He could see what Adolin was talking about, but he couldn’t decide if it really had been cut, or if it was just a function of the way the strap had ripped.

“I keep telling you, Uncle,” Elhokar said softly. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

“This doesn’t mean anything,” Dalinar said, glancing at Sadeas. “We don’t even know if the strap was cut or not.”

“It was,” Elhokar said. “They want me. Like they got to my father.”

“Surely you don’t think the Parshendi did this.”

“I don’t know who did it.” Elhokar frowned. “Perhaps someone on this very hunt.”

What was he implying? The majority of the people on this hunt were Dalinar’s men. Was he saying that they had tried to kill the king?

“Your majesty,” Dalinar said frankly, “you rode the horse the entire way here. You’d have noticed if someone sneaked underneath and cut at the saddle straps.”

“You don’t believe me,” Elhokar said flatly. “You never believe me.”

Dalinar took a deep breath. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that you shouldn’t leap to conclusions. I’ll look into it, but this would be a terribly awkward way to try to kill you. A fall from horseback won’t even bother a man wearing Plate.”

“Yes, but during a hunt?” Elhokar said. “Perhaps they wanted the chasmfiend to kill me.”

“We weren’t supposed to be in danger from the hunt,” Dalinar said. “We were supposed to pelt the greatshell from a distance until it was weak, then ride up and butcher it. You’d never have been in danger.”

Elhokar narrowed his eyes, looking at Dalinar. Dalinar felt a shock. It was almost like…almost like the king was suspicious of him!

The look was gone in a second. Had Dalinar imagined it? Stormfather! he thought. A healthy sense of suspicion was important in a king. But in Elhokar, that sense seemed increasingly backward. He was suspicious when he should have been skeptical, yet rushed heedless into danger when he should have been wary.

From behind, Vamah began calling to the king. Elhokar glanced at him and nodded. “This isn’t over, uncle,” he said, turning back to Dalinar. “Look into that strap.”

“I will.”

Elhokar motioned to Sadeas, and the two of them moved over to the pavilion, armor clinking.

“Sorry,” Adolin said softly. He held the strap up, looking at it by the light of the late afternoon sun. “I was hoping you’d have a better way to present it to him.”

“You did what you could.”

“It does seem like an awfully strange way to try to kill a Shardbearer,” Adolin said. “But I could swear this looks cut… Do you think one of the highprinces may have tried something?”

“Maybe,” Dalinar said. “But I doubt it. So long as Elhokar rules, they get to fight in this war their way, adding wealth in their pockets with each plateau won. He doesn’t make many demands of them. I think they like having him as their king.”

“Men can want the throne for no other reason than the distinction.”

Dalinar nodded. “When we return, see if anyone has been bragging too much of late. Also, check to see if Rioin is still bitter about Wit’s insult at the feast last week.” Wit himself had been caught on the other side of the chasm, and had returned with the group fetching the bridges. “Have Talata go over the contracts Bethab sent for the use of his chulls. In previous contracts, he’s tried to slip in language that would imply that he has preference in succession. He’s been bold ever since Brightness Navani left.”

Adolin nodded.

“Stormfather, but this kind of thing makes my head hurt,” Dalinar said. “I sometimes wish I could just pound some sense into the lot of them.”

“You could, you know.”

“No,” he said sighing. “I couldn’t.” They were at war with an external foe; the Codes had been placed to keep the Alethi lighteyes from squabbling while fighting an external foe.

For nearly twenty years, the ten Highprinces had been kept from going to war with one another. First by Gavilar’s leadership, and now by the Vengeance Pact. Dalinar would not upset that to satisfy a foolish itch.

“Tale the strap,” Dalinar said. “Have a leatherworker back in camp look it over, then talk to our stable hands. See what they can tell you.” He hesitated. “And double the king’s guard. Just in case.”

Adolin nodded. They were the king’s house. By tradition—tradition few men bothered to follow anymore—the king’s defense was on their shoulders. The youth turned, watching the king accept a cup of emerald wine from Sadeas.

Adolin’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think—”

“No,” Dalinar interrupted.

“Sadeas is an eel,” Adolin said.

“He protects the king,” Dalinar said. “Don’t let your personal dislike of him cloud your ability to reason friend from foe.” He looked at the pavilion. “I know how Sadeas thinks. He likes Elhokar, which is more than can be said of most of the others. He’s the only one of the lot that I’d be certain I could trust the king’s safety to.”

Adolin sighed. “Very well.”

“Good,” Dalinar said, noticing something in the distance to the west. “Go, return to your troops. I think I see that bridge crew coming.”

Adolin moved off to do as told, Plate clinking. The armor still bore web-like cracks across the breastplate, though it had stopped leaking Stormlight. The armor would repair itself, with time. It would reform even if it was completely shattered.

Adolin was right to be way of Sadeas. Dalinar hadn’t forgiven the highprince—Dalinar might have lain drunk while Gavilar died, but Sadeas had been the one to suggest the doomed plan to lead away a body-double. Sadeas had fled, pretending to be Gavilar while the king himself fought for his life, alone.

That guilt forged them together. Dalinar stood, hands clasped behind his back, watching Sadeas, Vamah, and Elhokar. Vamah—who had been so bitter before—now laughed with Sadeas as if nothing had happened.

Elhokar’s comments about Gavilar set him thinking. Was he acting like his brother? Erratic? Weak?

Oddly, he found himself thinking about the things Gavilar had once said. Is this it? the former king’s voice returned to him. We maneuver and scheme, Dalinar, daggers held carefully behind our backs while we paint smiles on our faces. We lead our people to war after war. For glory. For honor. But for who’s glory, and who’s honor?

Is this really what the Almighty wants?

Speeches like that one had made him sound weak to his soldiers. He had seemed infatuated by times when there had been peace, times when the Lost Radiants had been known as the Knights Radiant instead.

Dalinar’s eyes flickered to his gauntleted left hand.

The Code, the old ways, had been Gavilar’s first step toward achieving whatever mysterious goals had driven him. And then there was that book, the book that the Radiants had held as their holy text.

Treat men fair, and expect like treatment, he’d once said. The example of a man’s life is more important than the deeds he accomplishes. It was a quote from The Way of Kings.

Foolishness. It sounded like pure foolishness. Act like the book taught, and you’d just be taken advantage of. What was the good of that? Besides, the Radiants had been just as corrupt as everyone else. Their sacred book was nothing more than a bucket of white paint, used to make the order look pretty and keep people from seeing their insides.

Dalinar sighed and strode across the plateau, passing the corpse of the mighty chasmfiend. Rockbuds had split and sent out vines to lap up the blackish purple blood. Cremlings scuttled about, feeding off their fallen, gargantuan brother. A few of the soldiers harvested the carapace from the beast’s breast; there were uses for such things.

He checked on Gallant, who was being cared for by grooms. The horse’s scrapes had been bandaged, and he was no longer favoring his leg. Dalinar patted the large stallion on the neck, looking into those deep black eyes. The horse seemed…ashamed. “It wasn’t your fault you threw me, Gallant,” Dalinar said in a soothing voice. “I’m just glad you weren’t harmed too badly.” He turned to the groom. “Give him extra feed this evening, and two crispmellons.”

“Brightlord,” the youthful groom said. “Yes sir. But…he won’t eat extra food, if we give it to him.”

“He will tonight,” Dalinar said, patting the Ryshadium’s neck again. “He only eats it when he feels he deserves it, son.”

The lad seemed confused. Like most of them, he thought of Ryshadium as just another breed of horse. A man couldn’t really understand until he’d had one accept him as rider. It was like wearing Shardplate; an experience that was completely indescribable.

“You’ll eat both of those crispmellons,” Dalinar said, pointing at the horse. “You deserve them.”

Gallant blew out between his lips, making a blustering noise.

“You do,” Dalinar said. “You strong enough to carry me?”

The horse blew out again, seeming content. Dalinar nodded to the groom. “Thank you, son. I’ll take him now.”

“Yes, brightlord.”

Dalinar swung into the saddle. The bridge crew was pushing its bridge the gap between plateaus. It was one of Sadeas’s crews, constructed from a mix-match of human refuse. Foreigners, deserters, thieves, and slaves. Dalinar probably shouldn’t have been bothered by how they were treated; they deserved their punishment. Still, the frightful way Sadeas chewed through them put Dalinar on edge. How long would it be before he could no longer populate the bridge crews with those who deserved this fate? Did any man, even a deserter, deserve such a fate?

I once saw a spindly man carrying a stone larger than his head upon his back, Dalinar thought, a passage from The Way of Kings coming to his head unbidden. He stumbled beneath the weight, shirtless beneath the sun, wearing only a loincloth. He tottered down a busy thoroughfare. People made way for him. Not because they sympathized with him, it seemed, but because they feared the momentum of his steps. You cannot stop one such as this.

The monarch is like this man, stumbling along, the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. Many will give way before him, but so few seem willing to step in and take hold of the stone, to help carry it. They do not wish to attach themselves to the work, lest they condemn themselves to a life full of extra burdens.

I left my carriage that day and picked up the stone, lifting it for the man. I believe my guards were embarrassed. One can ignore a poor wretch with no shirt doing such work, but few can ignore a king participating in the same. Perhaps we should switch our places more often. If a king is seen helping with the load of the poorest of men, perhaps those poorest of men will help him with his own load, so invisible, yet so daunting.

It had been one of Gavilar’s favorite passages. Even so, Dalinar was surprised that he could remember it word for word. He turned Gallant and clopped up onto the bridge, then nodded his thanks to the bridgemen. They were the lowest in the army, and yet they bore the weight of kings.

Yes, he thought, dissatisfied. Sadeas’s treatment of them is despicable. The Codes had a purpose. How could a man expect soldiers to follow him if they knew he hid behind his armor and rank? Wasn’t that true cowardice?

Stormfather, he thought with shock. I am beginning to sound like Gavilar. Elhokar is right.

Behind him, the main body of troops began to cross the bridge beneath Adolin’s command. The lad had replaced his helm, and he directed from horseback, speaking with a firm voice to the captains and sergeants, letting them carry out the details. Just like Dalinar had taught him. Many men would assume that a withdrawal like this to be a simple thing, but that would be a mistake. They had wounded to care for and a king to protect. If the Parshendi had been waiting for an ideal time to strike, this would be it, when the sun was near to setting and the troops were tired.

The king rode out after the first squadron of troops, Wit having returned, and now riding at his side. Sadeas, Dalinar noted, rode behind, where Wit couldn’t get at him. He shouldn’t have had to worry; the King’s Wit was only supposed to abuse who incurred the king’s disfavor.

This Wit was particularly zealous. Nobody was safe around his tongue; he even made subtle remarks about the king himself, which was downright odd. Ordinarily, Dalinar would have expected Wit to have been assassinated by now. But he had, remarkably, survived for months.

I don’t even know which family he came from, Dalinar realized. Even though he’s been here for…. How long had it been? A year? Dalinar generally ignored the Wits, as they seemed to like making sport of him in particular.

There was something different about this one. His mind was more keen, his tongue more sharp. He treated the position like it had been long ago, dressing in muted colors, eschewing the colorful costumes of his more recent predecessors. This Wit did not juggle, sing, or dance. He was not a court bard. He was a sword, crafting insults, speaking in the place of the king.

Dalinar gestured toward Adolin, then pointed, indicating that he intended to ride on ahead. Adolin waved in acknowledgement from the middle of the group of advisors and captains, and Dalinar rode Gallant on.

Before long, a horse approached from behind. It trotted up beside Gallant, bearing Renarin. The youth’s legs were tied to the saddle, just in case he slipped from it and fell. Renarin bore one of his characteristic expressions, eyes forward, staring as if at nothing. Some people thought him emotionless, but he was just frequently preoccupied. Renarin did show emotion, you just had to know him well to spot it. For instance, the flash of guilt he displayed—eyes quickly darting away, shoulders slouching—when he glanced at Dalinar.

“Why did you rush into the battle like that?” Dalinar asked. “I thought you knew better.”

Renarin looked down again, but he surprised Dalinar by responding. “And what would you done, Father, if it had been me that was in danger?”

“I don’t fault your bravery, I fault your wisdom. Stormfather, son! What if you’d had one of your fits?”

“Then perhaps it the monster would have swept me off the plateau,” Renarin said bitterly, “so that I could stop being such a useless drain on everyone’s time.”

“Don’t say such things,” Dalinar said sharply. “Not even in jest.”

“You taught your sons to be honest, Father. My words weren’t jest.”

“You aren’t useless.”

“I can’t fight.”

“Fighting is not the only thing of value a man can do.”

“Maybe not,” Renarin said, “but little else matters when your homeland is at war.” The youth’s hands tightened on his reins.

Youth, Dalinar thought. I still see him that way, though he’s nearly to his twentieth summer. It was too easy to fall into the habit of dismissing Renarin because of his quiet nature and his physical ailments.

“You are right, of course, Father,” Renarin finally said, speaking in that quiet voice of his. “I am not the first son of a hero to be born without any skill in warfare. The others all got along. So shall I. Likely I will end up as citylord of a small town. Assuming I don’t tuck myself away in the Devotehood.”

“You may make your own decision,” Dalinar said firmly, guiding Gallant around a cluster of winterbloom polyps, their black spines raised to the wind. Many a lighteyed family pressed their unwanted sons or daughters into Devotehood service, where they would be away from the public eye. But Dalinar had hesitated.

A second son didn’t inherit, but he was a good insurance in case something happened to the first. And if the first son survived…well, then, the second son should be able to decide his own path in life. The first gained riches and position, but had his path chosen for him. The only thing the second son got was freedom. Dalinar would not take that way.

He understood. He was a second son himself.

“You are a good father,” Renarin said suddenly, looking at him. “When I saw you on the field, knocked down, I just…well, I had to move. Sometimes, I wish I could go with you into battle like Adolin.”

“He has his talents,” Dalinar said, “and you have your own. Don’t malign what the Almighty gave you, son.”

Renarin sighed, but nodded.

How would I react, Dalinar thought, if I were forbidden to fight? Kept back with the women and the merchants each time the horn was called? They’d given up on teaching Renarin the sword soon after his first few attempts. His fits grew more frequent when he was excited or stressed. Beyond that, he was often tired, and unable to work for long periods.

Dalinar would have been bitter, particularly against Adolin. In fact, Dalinar had often been envious of Gavilar during their youths. Renarin, however, was Adolin’s greatest supporter. He all but worshipped his elder brother. And he was brave enough to run into the middle of a battlefield where a nightmare creature was smashing spearmen and tossing aside Shardbearers.

That one is less fragile than you think him, Wit had said.

Dalinar cleared his throat. “Perhaps it is time to try training you again in the sword.”

Renarin glanced at him. “My constitution—”

“Won’t matter a bit if we get you into a set of Plate and give you a Blade,” Dalinar said. “This armor can make weak men strong, and a Shardblade is nearly as light as air itself.”

“Father,” Renarin said flatly, “I’ll never be a Shardbearer. You yourself say that Blades and Plate we win from the Parshendi must go to the most skilled warriors.”

It still bothered Dalinar that the Parshendi—barbarians, Elhokar called them—somehow had access to Shards. Where had they found them? Those weapons were one of the great mysteries of this war, perhaps as daunting as Gavilar’s assassination.

Dalinar had defeated three Parshendi Shardbearers during his fighting on the Shattered Plains. He’d shocked the others by delivering them up to Elhokar for gifting to a worthy soldier. That was how Sadeas had gotten his Plate.

“None of the other highprinces give up their spoils to the king,” Dalinar said. “And who would fault me if—for once, I made a gift to my son?”

Renarin displayed an unusual level of emotion, eyes opening wider, face eager. “You are serious?”

“I give you my oath, son. The next Blade and Plate I capture will go to you.” He smiled. “To be honest, I’d do it simply for the joy of seeing Sadeas’s face when you become a full Shardbearer. Beyond that, if your strength is made even to others, I expect that your natural skill will make you shine.”

Renarin sat back on his horse, looking shocked but excited. Shardplate wouldn’t stop the fits, even if it did make up for Renarin’s blood-weakness. It was entirely possible that the boy would still prove to be a poor warrior, and if that were the case, Dalinar would have to take the Shards and give them up to a someone who could actually use them.

But Renarin would have a chance. Dalinar would see to it. I know what it’s like to be a second son, he thought, overshadowed by an older brother you love yet envy at the same time. Stormfather, but I do.

I still feel that way.

Annotation The Way of Kings Chapter 5

One of the problems with The Way of Kings Prime was it had too many characters competing for the limelight. It lacked focus. One could argue that the published The Way of Kings is kind of all over the place itself—indeed, a lot of the plot threads don’t connect until the end. (And then only in some limited ways.)

In the published book, I feel it works. Yes, the book is expansive, but we really only have two locations for our plot: the Shattered Plains and Kharbranth. In Prime, Jasnah and Taln both had major sections of the plot, in addition to Kaladin, Dalinar, Szeth, and the character Shallan replaced. It was just too much, and the thing never pulled together.

Fixing this was one of my main goals for revising the book. I started The Way of Kings over from scratch during 2009, between writing The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight. I knew I needed a tighter narrative.

At the end, I moved Jasnah and Taln out of the book for the most part. They will have stories later in the series, but for this book, Jasnah isn’t a viewpoint character.

I’ll dig into Soulcasting at another time.

Show Spoiler (56 More Words)
Rescuing Taravangian’s granddaughter

So, Taravangian set this entire thing up. He wanted to see Jasnah’s Soulcaster in action. He had the resources to get through that rock, if he’d wanted to—but he wanted to see Jasnah work, and he wanted to have an opportunity to interact with her. His eyes have been on her for a while.

Roshar’s Date System

[Assistant Peter’s note: This post was written back in May by Karen Ahlstrom, Brandon’s continuity editor, but again it slipped through the cracks. I’m sorry, Karen!]

I knew I’d have to deal with it sometime, and it finally caught up with me today. My Master Cosmere Timeline spreadsheet has far too many relative dates, and not enough absolutes.

Roshar’s date system

The biggest reason I have put it off is that the date system Brandon made up is both supremely logical and at the same time totally crazy. A year has five hundred days, but there’s also a thousand-day cycle with different highstorms around the new year. In each year there are ten months of fifty days each. The months are broken into ten five-day weeks. The date indicates what year, month, week of the month, and day of the week it is and looks like this: 1173.8.4.3. It is impossible for me to do the math in my head to decide what the date would be 37 days ago, so I don’t use the dates in my reckoning, and only calculate them as an afterthought. This dating system is also a hassle because two weeks in our world is almost three weeks there, and a month there is almost two of ours, and when writing Brandon doesn’t even pretend to pay attention to those differences.

Day numbers in The Way of Kings

But then we have to talk about my relative date system. The timeline of The Way of Kings is a mess. The story for Shallan starts more than 100 days earlier than Dalinar’s storyline. And Kaladin is roughly 50 days different from that. So for that book I had to pick a day when I knew there was crossover between the viewpoints and work forward and back from there. So a date in The Way of Kings might be marked on my spreadsheet as D 23 or K -57.

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Day numbers in Words of Radiance and Oathbringer

For Words of Radiance I started over at day 1 for that book. Those numbers count up until the new year which is day 71. Oathbringer starts just after the new year, so I used the day of the year for my book-specific day number. Of course switching systems at the start of each book made it hard for me to calculate just how many days there were between events in WOR and OB. So I put in another column which indicated a relative number of days counting before and after the arbitrary date of the end of WOR.

Flashback dates

The next problem I dealt with were the line items that say something like “five years ago” for their date. With more than a year of onscreen time from the first chapters of The Way of Kings to the end of Oathbringer, it’s really necessary to note that it’s five years before what event with a solid date. Once I have a date to assign to it, I also have to decide how exact the date is. When I come back three years from now I will need to know whether this date is firm, or if it would be okay to put it three or four months on either side.

Putting it all together

When Peter found an error in the spreadsheet one day, I decided to match a serial number to each date after the year 1160 (which makes for easy calculating), and make that my absolute day number from here until forever (though I’ll probably still make a book relative date, since it’s a useful way to talk about things with the rest of the team). To find the Roshar dates from the serial numbers I made another spreadsheet with a vlookup table for the dates and serial numbers, then translated all the dates from the three books into that single new system (finding several more errors as I went).

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The Way of Kings Chapter 16 (D)

This chapter is largely the same as chapter 13 in the final book, with a major difference at the end. You should be able to see why Brandon made this change.

Ten heartbeats.

One.

That was how long it took to summon a Shardblade. If Dalinar’s heart was racing, the time passed more quickly. If he was relaxed, it took longer.

Two.

On the battlefield, the passing of those beats could stretch like an eternity.

Three.

The chasmfiend slammed an arm down, smashing the bridge. Soldiers screamed, plunging into the chasm. Elhokar and Dalinar dashed forward on Plate-enhanced limbs, capes flapping.

Four.

It towered like a mountain of interlocking carapace, the shade of dark violet ink. Dalinar could see why the Parshendi called these things gods. It had a twisted, arrowhead like face, with a mouth full of barbed mandibles. While it was vaguely crustacean, this was no bulky, placid chull. It had four wicked claws, each the size of horses, and a dozen smaller legs that clutched to the side of the plateau.

Five.

Chitin made a grinding noise against stone as the creature stepped out onto the plateau, snatching a cart-pulling chull with a swift claw.

Six.

“To arms, to arms!” Elhokar bellowed. “Archers, fire!”

Seven.

“Don’t let it escape us! Make it angry!”

The creature cracked the chull’s shell—boulder-like pieces clattering to the plateau—then stuffed the beast into its maw. The chull stopped bleating.

Eight.

Dalinar leaped a rocky shelf, throwing himself into the air. He sailed a good four yards before slamming into the ground, throwing up chips of rock.

Nine.

The chasmfiend bellowed a high-pitched, screeching sound, then another. Somehow it trumpeted with four voices, overlapping one another.

Archers drew. Elhokar yelled orders, his golden cloak flapping.

Dalinar held forth his hand.

Ten!

His Shardblade—Oathbringer—formed in his hand, coalescing from mist, appearing as the tenth beat of his heart thudded in his chest. Six feet long from tip to hilt, the Blade might have been impractical and unwieldy in the hands of any man not wearing Shardplate. To Dalinar, it felt perfect. He’d carried Oathbringer since his youth, Bonding it when he was twenty Weapings old. It was long and slightly curved, over a handspan wide, with wave-like barbs near the hilt. It pulled up at the tip like a fisherman’s hook, and was wet with cold dew.

It was a part of him, this sword. At times, he felt he could sense energy racing along its blade. Eagerness. It was said that a man never knew life itself until he charged into battle with both Plate and Blade.

“Make it angry!” Elhokar bellowed again, his Shardblade—Sunraiser—springing from mist into his hand. It was long and thin with a large crossguard, and was etched up the sides with the ten founding glyphs.

Keeping the chasmfiend angry didn’t seem like it would be difficult, though it was standard practice against greatshells. Unless they were enraged, most would retreat once they’d eaten.

The creature screamed its multi-voiced wail again, slamming a claw down among the gathered soldiers. Men screamed; bones crumpled.

Archers loosed, aiming for the head. A hundred shafts zipped into the air, but only a few hit the soft muscle between plates of chitin. Behind them, Sadeas was calling for his grandbow. Dalinar couldn’t wait for that—the creature was here, dangerous, killing his men. The bow would take too long.

This was a job for the Blade.

Adolin charged into view just ahead, riding Sureblood. The army’s other horses—even the warhorses—panicked as the chasmfiend attacked, but the white Ryshadium stallion steady. In a moment, Gallant was there, trotting beside Dalinar. Dalinar grabbed the reins and heaved himself into the air with Plate-enhanced legs, swinging up into the saddle. The weight of his landing might have strained the back of a regular horse, but Gallant was made of stronger stone than that.

Elhokar closed his helm as Dalinar rode past, the sides misting. Dalinar reached up, slamming down his own helm down, and the sides misted, locking into place. The slit at the front gave him a good view, but the real beauty was in how it became faintly translucent to him when the faceplate was down. You still needed eyeslits—looking through the sides was like looking through dirty glass—but it was incredibly helpful nonetheless.

Dalinar and Adolin rode into the shade of the enormous beast. Soldiers scrambled about, clutching spears. They’d hadn’t been trained to fight thirty-foot tall monsters, and it was a testament to their valor that they formed up anyway, trying to draw attention away from the archers.

Arrows hailed down, bouncing off of the carapace and becoming nearly as deadly to the troops below as they were to the Chasmfiend. Dalinar raised his left arm—the right held Oathbringer—shading his eyeslits as an arrow clanged off his helm.

Adolin fell back as the beast swung at another batch of soldiers, crushing them with one of its claws. “I’ll take left,” Adolin yelled, voice muffled by his helm.

Dalinar nodded curtly, cutting Gallant to the right, galloping past a group of dazed soldiers and into sunlight again as the chasmfiend raised a foreclaw for another sweep. Dalinar raced under the arm, transferring Oathbringer to his left hand and holding the sword out to the side, slashing it through one of the chasmfiend’s trunk-like legs.

The blade sheered the thick chitin with barely a tug of resistance. Yet, as always, it didn’t cut living flesh—though it killed the leg as surely as it had been cut free. The large, trunk-like limb slipped, falling numb and useless.

The monster roared with its deep, overlapping, trumpeting voices. On the other side, Dalinar could make out Adolin slicing at a leg too.

The creature shook, turning toward Dalinar, bringing the last of its body up onto the plateau top. The two legs that had been cut dragged lifelessly. The monster was long and narrow, like a crayfish, and had a flattened tail. It walked on fourteen legs. How many could it lose before collapsing?

Dalinar rounded Gallant, meeting up with Adolin, whose blue Shardplate was gleaming, cloak streaming behind him. They switched sides as they turned in wide arcs, each heading for another leg.

“Meet your enemy, monster!” a new voice bellowed.

Dalinar turned. The king had found his mount and had managed to get it under control. Vengeance wasn’t a Ryshadium, but the animal was of the best Shin stock. Elhokar charged, Blade held above his head, golden Shardplate gleaming.

“The legs, Elhokar!” Dalinar screamed, turning to gallop toward the king.

Elhokar ignored him, charging directly for the beast’s chest. Dalinar cursed, heeling Gallant as the monster swung. Elhokar turned at the last moment, leaning low, ducking under the blow.

The chasmfiend’s claw hit stone with a cracking sound. It trumped in anger at missing Elhokar, the sound echoing through chasms.

The king veered toward Dalinar, riding past him in a rush. “I’m distracting it, you fool. Keep attacking!”

“I have the Ryshadium!” Dalinar yelled back at him. “I’ll distract—I’m faster!”

Elhokar ignored him again, riding around in a wide circle. Dalinar sighed. Elhokar, characteristically, could not be contained. So Dalinar did as told, rounding to the side for another approach, Gallant’s hooves beating against the stone ground. The king drew the monster’s direct attention, and Dalinar was able to ride in and slam his blade through another leg. It fell lifeless, the nerve inside dead.

The beast screamed four screams and turned toward Dalinar. But as it did, Adolin rode past on the other side, cutting at another leg with a deft strike. The leg slumped, and arrows rained down as archers continued to fire.

The creature shook, confused at the attacks coming from every side. It was getting weak, and Dalinar commanded the foot soldiers to retreat toward the pavilion. Perhaps it was time to back away and fire arrows, maybe even let the beast limp away; killing it now wasn’t worth risking lives.

He called to the king, who rode—Blade held out to the side—a short distance away. The king glanced at him, but obviously didn’t hear. As the chasmfiend loomed in the background, Elhokar turned Vengeance in a sharp right turn toward Dalinar.

There was a soft snapping sound, and suddenly the king—and his saddle—was tumbling through the air.

Dalinar cursed, reigning in Challenge. Elhokar slammed to the ground, dropping his Shardblade. The weapon fuzzed back to mist, vanishing.

“Elhokar!” Dalinar bellowed, turning Challenge. The king rolled, cape wrapping around his body, then came to a rest. He lay dazed for a moment; the armor cracked on one shoulder, leaking stormlight. The Plate would have cushioned the fall. He’d be all right.

Unless….

A claw loomed above the king. Dalinar felt a moment of panic, charging Gallant back. He was going to be too slow! The beast would—

An enormous arrow slammed into Chasmfiend’s head, cracking chitin. Purple spurted free, causing the beast to trump in agony. Dalinar spun in the saddle.

Sadeas stood in his red Plate a distance away, taking another arrow from an attendant. He drew, launching the thick bolt into the Chasmfiend’s shoulder, making a loud crack in the air.

Dalinar raised Oathbringer toward him. Sadeas acknowledged, raising his bow. They were not friends, and they did not like one another.

But they would see the king protected.

“Get to safety!” Dalinar yelled, turning and charging past Elhokar as the king stumbled to his feet.

He moved in at the beast, getting its attention. More of Sadeas’s arrows flew true, but the monster began to ignore them. Its sluggishness began to vanish, and its bleats became angry, wild, crazed. It was growing truly enraged. This was the most dangerous part.

It smashed a claw to the ground just beside Gallant, throwing chips of stone into the air. Dalinar hunkered low, careful to keep his Shardblade to the side in a ready posture. He turned Gallant to the side, hopefully drawing the creature’s attention from the king.

“Are you a god!” Elhokar bellowed.

Dalinar groaned, looking over his shoulder. Elhokar strode toward the beast, hand to the side.

“I defy you, creature!” Elhokar screamed. “I claim your life! They will see their gods crushed, just as they will see their king dead at my feet and their cities burned! I defy you!”

Fool man! Dalinar thought, rounding Gallant.

Elhokar’s Shardblade formed back in his hands, and he charged toward the monster’s chest, swinging his Blade at its torso. He cut free a piece of chitin—chitin, like a person’s hair or nails, could be cut by a Blade—then slammed his weapon into the monster’s chest.

The beast roared, shaking, knocking Elhokar free and turning. That movement, unfortunately, brought its tail at Dalinar. He cursed, yanking Challenge in a tight turn, but the tail came too quickly. Before he knew what had happened, Dalinar found himself rolling on the ground, Oathbringer tumbling from his fingers and slicing a gash in the stone ground before puffing to mist.

“Father!” a distant voice yelled.

Dalinar came to a rest on the stones, dizzy. He raised his head to see Gallant stumbling to his feet. Blessedly, the horse hadn’t broken a leg. However, the animal was bleeding from scrapes and was favoring one leg.

“Homeward!” Dalinar said. The command word would send the horse away. Unlike Elhokar, it would obey.

Dalinar climbed to his feet, shaking his head. A scraping sound came from his left, and Dalinar cringed, spinning just in time for the chasmfiend’s tale to take him in the chest, tossing him backward.

Again the world lurched, and metal hit stone with a grinding cacophony. He slid on stone.

No! he thought, getting a gauntleted hand beneath him and heaving, using the momentum to throw himself up to his feet. As the sky spun before him, something seemed to right, as if the Plate itself knew which way was up. He landed—still moving, feet grinding on stone.

He charged toward the king, beginning the process of summoning his Shardblade again. Ten heartbeats. An eternity.

The stalwart archers continued to fire, and more than a few of their shafts bristled form the chasmfiend’s face. It ignored them, though Sadeas’s larger arrows still seemed to distract it. Adolin had sheered through two more legs, and the creature was walked with a lopsided gait, four of its legs on one side laying dead and immobile.

“Father!”

Dalinar turned to see Renarin—dressed in blue—riding across the rocky ground toward him. “Father, are you well?”

“Fool boy!” Dalinar said, pointing. “Go!”

“But—”

“You’re unarmored and unarmed!” Dalinar bellowed. “Get back before you get yourself killed!”

Renarin pulled his horse halt.

“GO!”

Renarin galloped away. Dalinar gritted his teeth, continuing forward, Oathbringer misting into existence in his waiting hand. Adolin—stalwart as always—had dismounted beside the king. Elhokar continued to hack at the beast’s lower torso, and sections of skin blackened and died when the Shardblade struck. Adolin stood behind, trying to keep the claws busy.

Unfortunately, there were four claws and only one of Adolin. Two swung at him at once, and though Adolin sliced a chunk out of one, he didn’t see the other sweeping down at his back.

Dalinar called out too late. Shardplate snapped as the claw tossed Adolin into the air. He hit the ground a moment later, rolling. His Plate didn’t shatter, thank the Heralds, but the breastpiece and side cracked, glowing and leaking trails of white smoke.

Adolin moved lethargically. He was alive. Not time to think about him now. Dalinar was getting close—going by foot seemed so slow—and he raced toward one of the beast’s legs.

The king stood alone before the enormous beast, sword aloft. He dodged to the side as a claw fell, and the entire plateau seemed to shake from the hit.

Elhokar twisted, sheering through the creature’s arm at the base of the claw. The blow hit nerve, and the claw died, hanging limply from the joint. The chasmfiend reflexively pulled back.

Dalinar hacked his Blade through a leg on the right side. It fell dead, but the beast ignored him. It was so enraged by pain that it didn’t even notice another hurt. It swung at Elhokar again, bringing down two claws at once.

“Elhokar!” Dalinar yelled. “There are two!”

The king dodged the first, then looked up just in time to face the descending claw. He dropped his Blade, raised his hands, and…

And he caught the claw. He bent beneath the blow, going down on one knee, and the air rang with a resounding clang of carapace against armor.

But he caught it.

Stormfather! Dalinar thought. He was stunned for a moment, watching Elhokar in golden Plate stand beneath the weight of a creature dozens of feet tall. The king held back the claw and matched its strength, though the Plate of his gauntlets and shoulders began to crack, spiderwebs of light moving down the ancient metal.

Dalinar finally shook himself into motion. Cursing his aging reflexes, he ran forward and swung through one of the remaining legs on the beast’s right side.

That was enough. The final legs couldn’t hold the weight, particularly with the monster trying so hard to crush Elhokar. The last legs on that side snapped with a sickening crunch, spraying out violet ichor, and the beast toppled to the side.

Dalinar threw himself to the ground, rolling out of the way as a leg slapped the stone earth beside him. He looked up in time to see Elhokar jump forward and ram his Blade it into what passed for the beast’s neck. The creature’s carapace-lined, monochrome eyes blackened and shriveled, smoke twisting into the air.

Dalinar heaved a sigh of relief. He stood as Elhokar plunged his Blade into the chasmfiend’s quivering chest; now that the beast was dead, the Blade could slice its flesh like it did anything else.

Violet ichor spurted out as Elhokar dropped his blade and reached into the wound, questing with Plate enhanced arms, grabbing something. He ripped free the beast’s heartstone—the gemstone that grew within all crustaceans of this size. It was lumpish and uncut, but it was a pure amethyst and as big as a man’s head. It would be worth a fortune.

Elhokar held aloft the grisly prize, and Dalinar’s soldiers yelled in victory.

The Way of Kings Chapter 15 (D)

This chapter continues the theme from the previous deleted scene, but it also references some major concepts that were changed in the final book. Gemhearts are quite different, “capturing plateaus” is a thing in this war, and Dalinar has a mysterious tattoo…

This chapter also corresponds to parts of chapter 12 and chapter 15 in the published version.

The hunting party eventually approached the final plateau, the place where they would rest while the huntmaster and his men baited the Chasmfiend.

Dalinar had spent most of the ride in thought, disturbed by some of the things Sadeas had said. Was he causing his nephew’s paranoia? Was Dalinar too strict? Why did he follow the Codes, when every other lighteyes in the king’s army scoffed?

On the night Gavilar’s death, the king had only asked one thing of Dalinar. Follow the Code tonight, brother. We may not be at war, but there is something odd upon the winds…

Gavilar retired to his rooms for sleep, and Dalinar had ignored his brother’s request, finding joy in the revelry. The Codes stated that no officer should be drunk on a night when the kingdom was threatened by war. It was a good prohibition.

If you didn’t follow it, you risked spending an evening unconscious on the floor while your brother was murdered.

Dalinar rode up to the next-to-last bridge, holding position at the side as the king and his retinue crossed. Highprince Vamah didn’t look at him, though Sadeas gave him an insufferable smirk. Many of the other lighteyed men wore only the token nods to uniform—small jackets that were open at the front, displaying silk underneath. Those scarves on the neck and wrists were the latest fashion. They were also ridiculous.

The Codes stated that during war an officer was to be in uniform, ready for battle, at all times. And yet, what did it matter? The Parshendi were on the defensive, and had never attacked the warcamps. What redemption could Dalinar think to obtain by following the Code now, five years after it mattered?

Soon, Adolin came trotting up—he’d gone to check the rear guard—accompanied by his younger brother. Lanky Renarin wore a deep blue uniform that was nearly black and rode a bay mare that was dwarfed by Adolin’s massive Ryshadium warhorse. Renarin was the only lighteyes on the hunt who wore spectacles. The others avoided them, as they were considered unattractive.

Dalinar shook his head. When had men in Alethkar begun worrying more about fashion than their ability to see properly?

Dalinar nodded to his sons, froze. A figure in black was riding quickly across the plain behind them. Dalinar tensed, and Adolin—noticing his father’s reaction—turned with a sharp motion, holding his hand to the side as if to summon his Shardblade.

Adolin relaxed a moment later. “It’s all right, father.” His eyes were among the most keen in the camp, and soon Dalinar saw what Adolin had. This man was no threat. At least, not to anything but their egos.

“Wit!” Adolin called, waving to the newcomer. Tall and thin, the King’s Wit road comfortably on a black gelding. He had a long, thin sword tied to his waist—though, as far as Dalinar knew, the man had never drawn it. It was mostly a symbol.

Wit wore a stiff coat and trousers of all black, a color matched by his deep onyx hair. He had blue eyes, but he wasn’t really a lighteyes. Nor was he a darkeyes. He was…well, he was the King’s Wit. That was a category all its own.

Dalinar and his sons waited for the man. Wit reined in when he grew close, wearing one of those keen smiles of his. “Ah, young Prince Adolin!” he exclaimed. “You actually managed to pry yourself away from the camp’s young women long enough to join this hunt? I’m surprised at you.”

Adolin laughed. “I actually invited a few of them along to watch.”

“Oh? And so they’re ahead?”

“Well,” Adolin said, floundering. “Actually, none came. It turns out they each thought I’d invited only them, you see… And, well…”

Wit laughed, then nodded to Dalinar. “Your lordship.”

“Wit,” Dalinar said stiffly.

“And young Prince Renarin!”

Renarin kept his eyes down.

“No words for me, Renarin?” Wit said, amused.

Renarin said nothing.

“He thinks you’ll mock him if he speaks to you, Wit,” Adolin noted. “Earlier, he told he’d determined not to say anything near you.”

“Wonderful!” Wit exclaimed. “Then I can say whatever I wish, and he’ll not object?”

Renarin hesitated.

Wit leaned in to Adolin. “You should have seen the night Prince Renarin and I had two days back, walking the streets of the warcamp. We came across these two sisters, you see, blue eyed and—”

“That’s a lie!” Renarin said, blushing.

“Very well,” Wit said without missing a beat, “there were actually three sisters, but Prince Renarin quite unfairly ended up with two of them, and I didn’t wish to malign my reputation by admitting—”

“Wit,” Dalinar cut in.

The black-clad man looked to him.

Dalinar gave him a level glance. “Perhaps you should restrict your mockery to those who deserve it.”

“Brightlord Dalinar. I believe that was what I was doing.”

Dalinar gritted his teeth. There was no call for picking on Renarin. The quiet lad offended nobody. Dalinar opened his mouth to call Wit to his place, but the tall man nudged his horse up beside Dalinar’s.

“Those who ‘deserve’ my mockery are those who can benefit from it, Brightlord Dalinar,” He said softly. “That one is less fragile than you think him.” He winked in an insufferable way, then turned his horse to continue on over the bridge.

Adolin shook his head. “Stormwinds, but I like that man. Best Wit we’ve had in ages!”

“I find him unnerving,” Renarin said softly.

“That’s half the fun!” Adolin said. They crossed the bridge, passing Wit, who had stopped to torment a group of officers—lighteyes of low enough rank that they needed to work in the army and earn a wage. Several of them laughed while Wit poked fun at another.

Dalinar rode on with his sons. At the head of the army, they found the king with his entourage. “Dalinar,” the king called. “Sadeas tells me his army secured another plateau yesterday.”

“He did indeed,” Dalinar said.

“You didn’t mention this?” Elhokar said.

I was under the impression that you paid attention in your morning briefings, nephew, Dalinar thought, but stopped himself. Stormfather. When did I grow this bitter? Wit had put him in a bad mood.

“I’m sorry, your majesty,” Dalinar said. “Brightlord Sadeas’s army has been fighting quite vigorously over the last few months.”

“It’s his bridges,” Elhokar said. “They work more efficiently than yours.”

“I rank second in camp for most plateaus won,” Dalinar said stiffly.

“Yes, but Sadeas was saying that if one looks only at bridges captured this year, you’re last.”

Dalinar gave the other highprince a level gaze. Sadeas just shrugged. They were allies, but they were not friends. Not any longer.

“Your majesty,” Dalinar said. “Sadeas’s bridges cost large numbers of lives.”

“And if by ending the war sooner, those lives end up saving even more lives?” Sadeas asked smoothly.

“The Codes state that a general may not ask a man to do anything he himself would not do. Tell me, Sadeas. Would you run at the front of those bridges you use?”

“I wouldn’t eat gruel either,” Sadeas said dryly, “or cut ditches. The bridge runners serve a very important function. Surely you can’t argue with how effective they’ve been.”

“Sometimes,” Dalinar said, “the costs are not worth the prize. The process by which achieve victory is as important as the victory itself.”

Sadeas looked at Dalinar incredulously. “The prize is worth any cost, Brightlord Dalinar.”

“It is a war,” Dalinar said. “Not a contest.”

“Everything is a contest,” Sadeas said with a wave of the hand. “Any interaction between men is a contest between who will succeed and who will fail. And some are failing quite spectacularly.”

“My father is one of the most renowned warriors in Alethkar!” Adolin snapped, nudging his horse forward.

“Adolin, still yourself,” Dalinar said, waving curtly with a gauntleted hand.

Adolin gritted his teeth, hand to his side, as if itching to summon his Shardblade. Renarin nudged his horse forward—he had watched the exchange with his usual reserved solemnity—and placed a hand on Adolin’s arm. Reluctantly, Adolin backed down.

The boy was too hot-headed sometimes, but that was youth. Dalinar was the one to blame. Adolin could sense the hostility his father felt toward Sadeas, and was confused by the allegiance they maintained at the same time. Dalinar couldn’t blame him. Truth was, he didn’t know how to regard Sadeas himself, half the time.

Sadeas turned to Dalinar, eyes twinkling. “One son can barely control himself, and the other is incompetent. This is your legacy, old friend?”

“Yes. I am proud of them both, Sadeas.”

“The firebrand I can understand,” Sadeas said. “You were impetuous like him once. We both were, I’ll admit. But the other one? The useless one?”

Renarin flushed, looking down. Adolin snapped his head up, eyes alight with anger. He thrust his hand to the side again.

“Adolin!” Dalinar said, meeting the boy’s eyes, making him back down again.

“I believe that is quite enough, Sadeas,” Elhokar said, watching idly from the side, gleaming in his golden Shardplate. He always allowed his highprinces to struggle for influence, as if he believed that it made them all stronger for it. Dalinar couldn’t fault him; it was generally considered the best method of rule.

Oddly, it had begun to itch at Dalinar lately. He looked at Sadeas, feeling an odd longing for earlier days. Days when Dalinar, Sadeas, and Gavilar had been so close. At times, it struck Dalinar as tragic how things had changed between them.

Gather them. Unite them….

“Quite enough, you say?” a new voice added. “I believe that one word alone from Sadeas is ‘quite enough’ for anyone.”   Hoofbeats marked Wit riding up to the group astride his midnight black gelding.

“Wit!” Elhokar exclaimed. “You made it!”

“I felt it my duty, your majesty,” Wit said, bowing. “I wouldn’t want you to be taken advantage of during this ride.”

“I’ve been well so far.”

“And yet, still Witless,” Wit noted. “I should hate to think of what would happen should you be in need of insults.”

Insults were supposed to be beneath lighteyes ranked as highly as the king: hence the King’s Wit. Just as one used gloves when forced to touch something vile, the king retained a Wit so he didn’t have to debase himself by lowering to the level of rudeness or offensiveness.

“Brightlord Sadeas,” Wit said energetically. “I’m terribly sorry to see you here.”

“I should think,” Sadeas said dryly, “that you would be happy to see me, Wit. I always seem to provide you with such entertainment.”

“That is unfortunately true,” Wit said.

“Unfortunately?”

“Yes. You see, Sadeas, you make it too easy. An uneducated, half-brained serving boy with a hangover could make insult of you. I am left without need to stretch myself. Your nature makes mockery of my mockery.   And so it is that through sheer stupidity, you make me look incompetent.”

“Really, Elhokar,” Sadeas said, turning to the king. “Must we deal with this…creature?”

“I like him,” Elhokar said, smiling. “He makes me laugh.”

“At the expense of those who are loyal to you.”

“Expense?” Wit cut in, “Sadeas, I don’t believe you’ve ever paid me a sphere. Though no, please, don’t offer. I can’t take your money, as I know how many others you must pay to give you what you wish of them.”

Sadeas flushed at that, but kept his temper. “A whore joke, Wit?” he asked flatly. “Is that the best you can manage?”

Wit shrugged. “I point out truths when I see them, Brightlord Sadeas. Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be insluts.”

Sadeas froze, then grew red faced as he worked through the words. “You are a fool.”

“If the Wit is a fool, then it is a sorry state for men. I shall offer you this, Sadeas. If you can speak with your next breath, yet say nothing ridiculous, I will leave you alone for the rest of the day.”

Sadeas frowned. “Well, I think that shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“And yet you failed,” Wit said, sighing. “For you said ‘I think’ and I can imagine of nothing so ridiculous as the concept of you thinking. What of you, young Prince Renarin? Your father wishes me to leave you alone. Can you speak, yet say nothing ridiculous?”

Renarin hesitated, still riding beside his bother. Dalinar grew tense. “Well,” Renarin said, “I believe I’ll just say the words ‘nothing ridiculous.’ Will that satisfy you?”

Wit laughed. “Yes, I suppose it will at that. Very clever. If Brightlord Sadeas should lose himself and finally kill me, perhaps you can be King’s Wit in my stead. You seem to have the mind for it.”

Renarin perked up, which darkened Sadeas’s mood further. Dalinar eyed the highprince; his hand had gone to his sword. Not a Shardblade, but a nobleman’s arming sword. Plenty deadly; Dalinar had fought beside Sadeas on many occasions, and the man was and expert swordsman.

Wit leaned forward. “So what of it, Sadeas?” he asked softly. “You going to do Alethkar a favor and rid it of us both?”

Killing the king King’s Wit was legal. But in so doing, Sadeas would forfeit his title and lands. Most men found it to be a poor trade.

Sadeas slowly removed his hand from the hilt of his sword, then nodded curtly to the king and rode a short distance away, his followers clustered around him.

“Wit,” Elhokar said, “he has my favor. There’s no need to torment him so.”

“I disagree,” Wit said. “The king’s favor may be torment enough for most men, but not him.” Wit winked, turning his horse and riding past Dalinar. “Some men,” Wit said under his breath to Dalinar, “need to be shoved in order to knock them down. Others need be shoved in order to make them stand up.”

He continued on by, and Dalinar turned, wondering at the cryptic words.

“I like him,” Adolin repeated.

“I…might be persuaded to agree,” Dalinar said, rubbing his chin.

Adolin lowered his eyes. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper at Sadeas. I’m sorry.”

“Almighty knows I’ve made the same mistake a few times myself. But remember that our houses are allied. We seek the same goals. Come.”

On the other side of the chasm, they finally arrived at the hunting site. It was a medium plateau, perhaps five hundred yards across. Like most, it was populated by hearty plants accustomed to being exposed to storms. There were some boulders, probably dropped by highstorms—pockets of wind during the storms were said to be able to hurl boulders distances of up to several miles. Almost as if something inside the storm were tossing them about in some tempestuous game.

Moving among the boulders and plans were slugs, crabs, leggins, or other types of cremlings. A snail, about as large as a man’s fist, climbed across an formation of shalebark beside Dalinar. The snail had deep red flesh and a rock-colored shell. Such rough looking things, the snails were. Just slugs with shells.

They were, however, the driving force behind this war.

The snails had many names. Gripaw’s Follies, stigwelks, spherelings. But most people called them by their common name: gemhearts. When allowed to grow to their largest—about the size of a man’s head—these creatures would begin growing a gemstone inside of them. A few years spent herding and caring for them could result in a harvest of wealth.

And to think, Dalinar thought, still riding, they lived here all this time. Within reach. Gemhearts were thought to have gone extinct with the scouring of Aimia. Who could have guessed that another location where they’d live and thrive would be discovered, and so relatively close to the borders of Alethkar?

The gemhearts—and, to an extent, the chasmfiends—were the reason Elhokar had been able to get the ten highprinces to swear a Vengeance Pact. They cared about bringing justice to the Parshendi, but the chance to capture these valuable plateaus—the only place where the snails would thrive and grow to their full size—was of even keener interest to them.

Dalinar kept riding. The snail was too small to have gemstone yet, and likely wouldn’t grow—in the wild—large enough to produce one. It took careful cultivation, and only the plateaus very closest to the Alethi camps currently held herding operations. The Parshendi had a tendency to raid and burn any farms that were built too far out.

As they approached the center of the plateau, they were met by the day’s huntmaster, Bashin. He was a short man with a sizable paunch and a wide-brimmed hat atop his head. He was a darkeyes of the first nahn, the highest and most prestigious rank a darkeyes could have, worthy enough of marrying into a lighteyed family that might need an infusion of wealth. Bashin wore rugged clothing—a leather overcoat and a sturdy, thick-fibered suit underneath, tied at the waist with a dark brown leather belt. He bowed to Elhokar and Dalinar. “Your majesty! Wonderful timing! We’ve just tossed down the bait.”

“Excellent,” Elhokar said, climbing from the saddle. Dalinar joined him, dropping to the stones, Shardplate clinking softly. “How long will it take?”

“Two or three hours is likely,” Bashin said, taking the reins of the king’s horse. “We’ve set up over there.” He pointed toward the next plateau over, which was much smaller than the current one. A group of hunters led a lumbering chull around the perimeter, towing a rope that drooped over the side of the cliff. That rope would carry the bait.

“We’re using pig corpses,” Bashin explained. “And we poured pig’s blood over the sides. The beast has been spotted near a good dozen times; he’s got his nest nearby, for certain. Once he catches the scent of that blood, he’ll make its way up. We’ll lose a group of wild hogs on that plateaus as distractions, and you can set up to begin pelting him with arrows.”

They had brought grandbows: large steel bows with thick cords, almost as large as a ballista. They had such a strong pull that only a Shardbearer could draw them, and they fired shafts as thick as three fingers. They were newer creations, devised by Alethi engineers through the use of fabrial science, and required a small infused gemstone to keep their strings from losing their spring.

Some had started calling the bows Shardbows, but Dalinar didn’t like the term. Shardblades and Shardplate…these were something special. Relics from another time, a time when the Radiants had walked the earth, a time before the War of Loss and the betrayal of the knightly orders.

No science had yielded the secrets of Shardblades. For all the wonder of modern creations, they fell short of these weapons. It made Dalinar want to believe the stories that said Shardblades and Shardplate weren’t creations of science, but something different. Something special, given by the Almighty himself.

In light of that, calling the bows Shardbows seemed arrogant. He found himself glancing at his hand, and the tattoo hidden by his gauntlet. A tattoo he’d not given himself, but had received—against his will—on the day he’d lost memory of his wife.

The huntmaster led Elhokar and Dalinar to a pavilion at the center of the plateau. Here, the attendants and soldiers would be safe to watch the Shardbearers confront and kill the greatshell on the next plateau over. The king’s banner flapped above the pavilion—Elhokar and Dalinar had spotted it earlier—and a small refreshment station had been erected. A soldier at the back was setting up the rack of four grandbows. They were curved and dangerous-looking, with thick black shafts in four quivers beside them.

Dalinar and Elhokar stepped into the pavilion’s shade as Adolin brought the bulk of the army across the bridge. Elhokar’s attendants had already crossed, and were walking to the pavilion, chatting among themselves.

“I think you’ll have a fine day for the hunt,” Bashin said. “Judging by reports, the beast is a big one. Larger than you’ve ever slain before, Brightlord.”

“Gavilar always wanted to slay one of these,” Dalinar said wistfully. “We came here to Natanatan hunting them, actually. But certain discoveries distracted us.”

Bashin nodded. Those ‘certain discoveries’ had been the Parshendi. A tribe of parshmen who somehow existed on their own, without direction.

The chull pulling the bait bleated in the distance.

“It’ll be real important for you to go for the legs on this beast, my lord,” Bashin said. Pre-hunt advice was one of Bashin’s duties, and he took those seriously. That was one of the reasons Dalinar used him. “Chasmfiends, well, you know how nasty they can get.   With one this big, use a distraction and come in from….” He trailed off, then groaned, cursing softly. “Storms take that animal. I swear, the man who trained it must have been daft.”

He was looking across at the next plateau. The chull who had been towing the bait was lumbering away from the chasm with a slow—yet determined—chull gait. Its handlers were yelling, running after it.

“I’m sorry, your majesty,” Bashin said. “It’s been doing this all day.”

The chull bleated in a gravelly voice. Something seemed wrong to Dalinar.

“We can send for another one,” Elhokar said, “it shouldn’t take too long to—”

“Bashin?” Dalinar said, feeling an icy chill. “Shouldn’t there be bait on the end of that beast’s rope?”

The huntmaster froze. The rope the chull was towing was frayed at the end.

Something dark—something mind-numbingly enormous—climbed onto the plateau on thick, chitinous legs. Not the small plateau the hunt was supposed to take place, but on the one where Dalinar and Elhokar stood. The plateau filled with attendants, scribes, and unexpecting soldiers.

“Aw, damnation,” Bashin said.