The Way of Kings

What was that voice?

He glanced back across the chasm, toward where Sadeas – well outside of bow range – sat with his attendants. Dalinar could sense the disapproval in his ex-friend’s posture. Dalinar and Adolin risked themselves, taking a dangerous leap across the chasm. An assault of the type Sadeas had pioneered would cost more lives. But how many lives would Dalinar’s army lose if one of its Shardbearers was pushed into the chasm?

Gallant charged across the bridge alongside a line of soldiers, who cheered for the Ryshadium. He slowed near Dalinar, who grabbed the reins. Right now, he was needed. His men were fighting and dying, and this was not a time for regret or second-guessing.

A Plate-enhanced jump put him in the saddle. Then, Shardblade raised high, he charged into battle to kill for his men. That was not what the Radiants had fought for. But at least it was something.

They won the battle.

Dalinar stepped back, feeling fatigued as Adolin did the honors of harvesting the gemheart. The chrysalis itself sat like an enormous, oblong rockbud, fifteen feet tall and attached to the uneven stone ground by something that looked like crem. There were bodies all around it, some human, others Parshendi. The Parshendi had tried to get into it quickly and flee, but they’d only managed to get a few cracks into the shell.

The fighting had been most furious here, around the chrysalis. Dalinar rested back against a shelf of rock and pulled his helm off, exposing a sweaty head to the cool breeze. The sun was high overhead; the battle had lasted two hours or so.

Adolin worked efficiently, using his Shardblade with care to shave off a section of the outside of the chrysalis. Then he expertly plunged it in, killing the pupating creature but avoiding the region with the gemheart.

Just like that, the creature was dead. Now the Shardblade could cut it, and Adolin carved away sections of flesh. Purple ichor spurted out as he reached in, questing for the gemheart. The soldiers cheered as he pulled it free, gloryspren hovering above the entire army like hundreds of spheres of light.

Dalinar found himself walking away, helm held in his left hand. He crossed the battlefield, passing surgeons tending the wounded and teams who were carrying his dead back to the bridges. There were sleds behind the chull carts for them, so they could be burned properly back at camp.

There were a lot of Parshendi corpses. Looking at them now, he was neither disgusted nor excited. Just exhausted.

He’d gone to battle dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. Never before had he felt as he had this day. That revulsion had distracted him, and that could have gotten him killed. Battle was no time for reflection; you had to keep your mind on what you were doing.

The Thrill had seemed subdued the entire battle, and he hadn’t fought nearly as well as he once had. This battle should have brought him clarity. Instead, his troubles seemed magnified. Blood of my fathers, he thought, stepping up to the top of a small rock hill. What is happening to me?

His weakness today seemed the latest, and most potent, argument to fuel what Adolin – and, indeed, what many others – said about him. He stood atop the hill, looking eastward, toward the Origin. His eyes went that direction so often. Why? What was–

He froze, noticing a group of Parshendi on a nearby plateau. His scouts watched them warily; it was the army that Dalinar’s people had driven off. Though they’d killed a lot of Parshendi today, the vast majority had still escaped, retreating when they realized the battle was lost to them. That was one of the reasons the war was lasting so long. The Parshendi understood strategic retreat.

This army stood in ranks, grouped in warpairs. A commanding figure stood at their head, a large Parshendi in glittering armor. Shardplate. Even at a distance, it was easy to tell the difference between it and something more mundane.

That Shardbearer hadn’t been here during the battle itself. Why come now? Had he arrived too late?

The armored figure and the rest of the Parshendi turned and left, leaping across the chasm behind them and fleeing back toward their unseen haven at the center of the Plains.

27 Chasm Duty

If anything I have said makes a glimmer of sense to you, I trust that you’ll call them off. Or maybe you could astound me and ask them to do something productive for once.

Kaladin pushed his way into the apothecary’s shop, the door banging shut behind him. As before, the aged man pretended to be feeble, feeling his way with a cane until he recognized Kaladin. Then he stood up straighter. “Oh. It’s you.”