The Way of Kings (155 page)

“They’re abandoning him!” Kaladin said. “This was a trap. A setup. Sadeas is leaving Highprince Kholin—and all of his soldiers—to die.” Kaladin scrambled around the end of the bridge, pushing through the soldiers who were coming off it. Moash cursed and followed.

Kaladin wasn’t certain why he elbowed his way up to the next bridge— bridge ten—where Sadeas was crossing. Perhaps he needed to see for certain that Sadeas wasn’t wounded. Perhaps he was still stunned. This was treachery on a grand scale, terrible enough that it made Amaram’s betrayal of Kaladin seem almost trivial.

Sadeas trotted his horse across the bridge, the wood clattering. He was accompanied by two lighteyed men in regular armor, and all three had their helms under their arms, as if they were on parade.

The honor guard stopped Kaladin, looking hostile. He was still close enough to see that Sadeas was, indeed, completely unharmed. He was also close enough to study Sadeas’s proud face as he turned his horse and looked back at the Tower. The second Parshendi army swarmed Kholin’s army, trapping them. Even without that, Kholin had no bridges. He could not retreat.

“I told you, old friend,” Sadeas said, voice soft but distinct, overlapping the distant screams. “I said that honor of yours would get you killed someday.” He shook his head.

Then he turned his horse, trotting it away from the battlefield.

Dalinar cut down a Parshendi warpair. There was always another to replace it. He set his jaw, falling into Windstance and taking the defensive, holding his little rise in the hillside and acting as a rock over which the oncoming Parshendi wave would have to break.

Sadeas had planned this retreat well. His men hadn’t been having trouble; they’d been ordered to fight in a way that they could easily disengage. And he had a full forty bridges to retreat across. Together, that made his abandonment of Dalinar happen quickly, by the scale of battles. Though Dalinar had immediately ordered his men to push forward, hoping to catch Sadeas while the bridges were still set, he hadn’t been nearly quick enough. Sadeas’s bridges were pulling away, the entirety of his army now across.

Adolin fought nearby. They were two tired men in Plate facing an entire army. Their armor had accumulated a frightening number of cracks. None were critical yet, but they did leak precious Stormlight. Wisps of it rose like the songs of dying Parshendi.

“I warned you not to trust him!” Adolin bellowed as he fought, cutting down a pair of Parshendi, then taking a wave of arrows from a team of archers who had set up nearby. The arrows sprayed against Adolin’s armor, scratching the paint. One caught in a crack, widening it.

“I told you,” Adolin continued to yell, lowering his arm from his face and slicing into the next pair of Parshendi just before they landed their hammers on him. “I said he was an eel!”

“I know!” Dalinar yelled back.

“We walked right into this,” Adolin continued, shouting as if he hadn’t heard Dalinar. “We let him take away our bridges. We let him get us onto the plateau before the second wave of Parshendi arrived. We let him control the scouts. We even
suggested
the attack pattern that would leave us surrounded if he didn’t support us!”

“I know.” Dalinar’s heart twisted inside of him.

Sadeas was carrying out a premeditated, carefully planned, and very thorough betrayal. Sadeas hadn’t been overwhelmed, hadn’t retreated for safety—though that was undoubtedly what he would claim when he got back to camp. A disaster, he’d say. Parshendi everywhere. Attacking together had upset the balance, and—unfortunately—he’d been forced to pull out and leave his friend. Oh, perhaps some of Sadeas’s men would talk, tell the truth, and other highprinces would undoubtedly know what really happened. But nobody would challenge Sadeas openly. Not after such a decisive and powerful maneuver.

The people in the warcamps would go along with it. The other highprinces were too displeased with Dalinar to raise a fuss. The only one who might speak up was Elhokar, and Sadeas had his ear. It wrenched Dalinar’s heart. Had it all been an act? Could he really have misjudged Sadeas so completely? What of the investigation clearing Dalinar? What of their plans and reminiscences? All lies?

I saved your life, Sadeas.
Dalinar watched Sadeas’s banner retreat across the staging plateau. Among that distant group, a rider who wore crimson Shardplate turned and looked back. Sadeas, watching Dalinar fighting for his life. That figure paused for a moment, then turned around and rode on.

The Parshendi were surrounding the forward position where Dalinar and Adolin fought just ahead of the army. They were overwhelming his guard. He jumped down and slew another pair of enemies, but earned another blow to his forearm in the process. The Parshendi swarmed around him, and Dalinar’s guard began to buckle.

“Pull away!” he yelled at Adolin, then began to back toward the army proper.

The youth cursed, but did as ordered. Dalinar and Adolin retreated back behind the front line of defense. Dalinar pulled off his cracked helm, panting. He’d been fighting nonstop long enough to get winded, despite his Shardplate. He let one of the guardsmen hand him a waterskin, and Adolin did the same. Dalinar squirted the warm water into his mouth and across his face. It had the metallic taste of stormwater.

Adolin lowered his waterskin, swishing the water in his mouth. He met Dalinar’s eyes, his face haunted and grim. He knew. Just as Dalinar did. Just as the men likely did. There would be no surviving this battle. The Parshendi left no survivors. Dalinar braced himself, waiting for further accusations from Adolin. The boy had been right all along. And whatever the visions were, they had misled Dalinar in at least one respect. Trusting Sadeas had brought them to doom.

Men died just a short distance away, screaming and cursing. Dalinar longed to fight, but he needed to rest himself. Losing a Shardbearer because of fatigue would not serve his men.

“Well?” Dalinar demanded of Adolin. “Say it. I have led us to destruction.”

“I—”

“This is
my
fault,” Dalinar said. “I should never have risked our house for those foolish dreams.”

“No,” Adolin said. He sounded surprised at himself for saying it. “No, Father. It’s not your fault.”

Dalinar stared at his son. That was not what he’d expected to hear.

“What would you have done differently?” Adolin asked. “Would you stop trying to make something better of Alethkar? Would you become like Sadeas and the others? No. I wouldn’t have you become that man, Father, regardless of what it would gain us. I wish to the Heralds that we hadn’t let Sadeas trick us into this, but I will not blame you for his deceit.”

Adolin reached over, gripping Dalinar’s Plate-covered arm. “You are right to follow the Codes. You were right to try to unite Alethkar. And I was a fool for fighting you on it every step along the path. Perhaps if I hadn’t spent so much time distracting you, we would have seen this day coming.”

Dalinar blinked, dumbfounded. This was
Adolin
speaking those words? What had changed in the boy? And why did he speak these words now, at the dawn of Dalinar’s greatest failure?

And yet, as the words hung in the air, Dalinar felt his guilt evaporating, blown away by the screams of the dying. It
was
a selfish emotion.

Would he have had himself change? Yes, he could have been more cautious. He could have been warier of Sadeas. But would he have given up on the Codes? Would he have become the same pitiless killer he’d been as a youth?

No.

Did it matter that the visions had been wrong about Sadeas? Was he ashamed of the man that they, and the readings from the book, had made him become? The final piece fell into place inside of him, the final cornerstone, and he found that he was no longer worried. The confusion was gone. He knew what to do, at long last. No more questions. No more uncertainty.

He reached up, gripping Adolin’s arm. “Thank you.”

Adolin nodded curtly. He was still angry, Dalinar could see, but he chose to follow Dalinar—and part of following a leader was supporting him even when the battle turned against him.

Then they released one another and Dalinar turned to the soldiers around them. “It is time for us to fight,” he said, voice growing louder. “And we do so not because we seek the glory of men, but because the other options are worse. We follow the Codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become. We stand here on this battlefield alone because of who we are.”

The members of the Cobalt Guard standing in a ring began to turn, one at a time, looking toward him. Beyond them, reserve soldiers—lighteyed and dark—gathered closer, eyes terrified, but faces resolute.

“Death is the end of all men!” Dalinar bellowed. “What is the measure of him once he is gone? The wealth he accumulated and left for his heirs to squabble over? The glory he obtained, only to be passed on to those who slew him? The lofty positions he held through happenstance?

“No. We fight here because we understand. The end is the same. It is the
path
that separates men. When we taste that end, we will do so with our heads held high, eyes to the sun.”

He held out a hand, summoning Oathbringer. “I am not ashamed of what I have become,” he shouted, and found it to be true. It felt so strange to be free of guilt. “Other men may debase themselves to destroy me. Let them have their glory. For I will retain mine!”

The Shardblade formed, dropping into his hand.

The men did not cheer, but they
did
stand taller, straight-backed. A little of the terror retreated. Adolin shoved his helm on, his own Blade appearing in his hand, coated in condensation. He nodded.

Together they charged back into the battle.

And so I die,
Dalinar thought, crashing into the Parshendi ranks. There he found peace. An unexpected emotion on the field of battle, but all the more welcome for that.

He did, however, discover one regret: He was leaving poor Renarin as Kholin highprince, in over his head and surrounded by enemies grown fat on the flesh of his father and brother.

I never did deliver that Shardplate I promised him,
Dalinar thought.
He will have to make his way without it. Honor of our ancestors protect you, son.

Stay strong—and learn wisdom more quickly than your father did.

Farewell.

“Let me no longer hurt! Let me no longer weep! Daigonarthis! The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it!”

—Tanatesach 1173, 28 seconds pre-death. A darkeyed female street juggler. Note similarity to sample 1172-89.

Bridge Four lagged behind the rest of the army. With two wounded and four men needed to carry them, the bridge weighed them down. Fortunately, Sadeas had brought nearly every bridge crew on this run, including eight to lend to Dalinar. That meant the army didn’t need to wait for Kaladin’s team in order to cross.

Exhaustion saturated Kaladin, and the bridge on his shoulders seemed made of stone. He hadn’t felt so tired since his first days as a bridgeman. Syl hovered in front of him, watching with concern as he marched at the head of his men, sweat drenching the sides of his face, struggling over the uneven ground of the plateau.

Ahead, the last of Sadeas’s army was bunched along the chasm, crossing. The staging plateau was nearly empty. The sheer awful audacity of what Sadeas had done twisted at Kaladin’s insides. He thought what had been done to him had been horrible. But here, Sadeas callously condemned thousands of men, lighteyed and dark. Supposed allies. That betrayal seemed to weigh as heavy on Kaladin as the bridge itself. It pressed on him, made him gasp for breath.

Was there no hope for men? They killed those they should have loved. What good was it to fight, what good was it to win, if there was no difference between ally and enemy? What was victory? Meaningless. What did the deaths of Kaladin’s friends and colleagues mean? Nothing. The entire world was a pustule, sickeningly green and infested with corruption.

Numb, Kaladin and the others reached the chasm, though they were too late to help with the transfer. The men he’d sent ahead were there, Teft looking grim, Skar leaning on a spear to support his wounded leg. A small group of dead spearmen lay nearby. Sadeas’s soldiers retrieved their wounded, when possible, but some died as they were helped along. They’d abandoned some of those here; Sadeas was obviously in a hurry to leave the scene.