The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

“I thought you said it was taboo to ask about a bridgeman’s past,” Kaladin said.

“You made Rock share, son,” Teft said. “It’s only fair.”

“So if I tell my story, that means you’ll tell yours?”

Teft scowled immediately. “Now look, I ain’t going to—”

“I killed a man,” Kaladin said.

That quieted Teft. Rock perked up. Syl, Kaladin noticed, was still watching with interest. That was odd for her; normally, her attention wavered quickly.

“You killed a man?” Rock said. “And after this thing, they made you a slave? Is not the punishment for murder usually death?”

“It wasn’t murder,” Kaladin said softly, thinking of the scraggly bearded man in the slave wagon who had asked him these same questions. “In fact, I was thanked for it by someone very important.”

He fell silent.

“And?” Teft finally asked.

“And…” Kaladin said, looking down at a reed. Nomon was setting in the west, and the small green disk of Mishim—the final moon—was rising in the east. “And it turns out that lighteyes don’t react very well when you turn down their gifts.”

The others waited for more, but Kaladin fell silent, working on his reeds. It shocked him, how painful it still was to remember those events back in Amaram’s army.

Either the others sensed his mood, or they felt what he’d said was enough, for they each turned back to their work and prodded no further.

Neither point makes the things I have written to you here untrue.

The king’s Gallery of Maps balanced beauty and function. The expansive domed structure of Soulcast stone had smooth sides that melded seamlessly with the rocky ground. It was shaped like a long loaf of Thaylen bread, and had large skylights in the ceiling, allowing the sun to shine down on handsome formations of shalebark.

Dalinar passed one of these, pinks and vibrant greens and blues growing in a gnarled pattern as high as his shoulders. The crusty, hard plants had no true stalks or leaves, just waving tendrils like colorful hair. Except for those, shalebark 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. 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 dark, well-trimmed beard. He was thinning on top. Like most of the others, he wore a short, open-fronted jacket, exposing the shirt underneath. Its red fabric poked out above the jacket’s collar.

So sloppy, Dalinar thought, though it was very fashionable. 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 the clusters of plants and the wall of maps. Roion’s attendants followed; they included both a cupbearer and a shieldbearer.

Each map was illuminated by diamonds, their enclosures made of mirror-polished steel. The maps were inked, in detail, onto unnaturally large, seamless sheets of parchment. Such parchment was obviously Soulcast. Near the center of the chamber they came to the Prime Map, an enormous, detailed map 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 plateaus close to the Alethi side had blue glyphpairs on them, indicating which highprince controlled them. The eastern section of the map grew less detailed until the lines vanished.

In the middle was the contested area, the section of plateaus where the chasmfiends most often came to make their chrysalises. Few came to the near side, where the permanent bridges were. If they did come, it was to hunt, not to pupate.

Controlling the nearby plateaus was still important, as a highprince—by agreement—could not cross a plateau maintained by one of the others unless he had permission. That determined who had the best pathways to the central plateaus, and it also determined who had to maintain the watch-posts and permanent bridges on that plateau. Those plateaus were bought and sold among the highprinces.

A second sheet of parchment to the side of the Prime Map listed each highprince and the number of gemhearts he had won. It was a very Alethi thing to do—maintain motivation by making it very clear who was winning and who lagged behind.

Roion’s eyes immediately went to his own name on the list. Of all the highprinces, Roion had won the fewest gemhearts.

Dalinar reached his hand up to the Prime Map, brushing the parchment. The middle plateaus were named or numbered for ease of reference. Foremost of them was a large plateau that stood defiantly near the Parshendi side. The Tower, it was called. An unusually massive and oddly shaped plateau that the chasmfiends seemed particularly fond of using as a spot for pupating.

Looking at it gave him pause. The size of a contested plateau determined the number of troops you could field on it. The Parshendi usually brought a large force to the Tower, and they had rebuffed the Alethi assaults there twenty-seven times now. No Alethi had ever won a skirmish upon it. Dalinar had been turned back there twice himself.

It was just too close to the Parshendi; they could always get there first and form up, using the slope to give them excellent high ground. But if we could corner them there, he thought, with a large enough force of our own… It could mean trapping and killing a huge number of Parshendi troops. Maybe enough of them to break their ability to wage war on the Plains.

It was something to consider. Before that could happen, however, Dalinar would need alliances. He ran his fingers westward. “Highprince Sadeas has been doing very well lately.” Dalinar tapped Sadeas’s warcamp. “He’s been buying plateaus from other highprinces, making it easier and easier for him to get to the battlefields first.”

“Yes,” Roion said, frowning. “One hardly needs to see a map to know that, Dalinar.”

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

“That’s never been the point. We hold them in, besiege them, starve them out, and force them to come to us. Wasn’t that your plan?”

“Yes, but I never imagined it would take this long. I’ve been thinking that it might be time to change tactics.”

“Why? This one works. Hardly a week goes by without a couple of clashes with the Parshendi. Though, might I point out that you have hardly been a model of inspiration in battle lately.” He nodded to Dalinar’s name on the smaller sheet.

There were a good number of scratches next to his name, noting gemhearts won. But very few of them were fresh.

“There are some who say the Blackthorn has lost his sting,” Roion said. He was careful not to insult Dalinar outright, but he went further than he once would have. News of Dalinar’s actions while trapped in the barrack had spread.

Dalinar forced himself to be calm. “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 prizes captured making for real wealth! This is the life for which men exist. To fight, to kill, to win.” He was quoting the Sunmaker, the last Alethi king to unite the highprinces. Gavilar had once revered his name.