The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

The other soldiers—including some of the archers who now filled the wall top—gave him strange looks. Dalinar cursed softly, glancing back out at the shadowy oncoming force. He had a foreboding itch in the back of his skull. Ignoring the odd looks, he hefted his spear and ran down the walkway of the wall top, reaching a set of stairs. They were built in switchbacks, running in zigzags straight down the tall wall, with no railing. He’d been on such fortifications before, and knew how to keep his eyes focused on the steps to avoid vertigo.

He reached the bottom and—spear resting on his shoulder—struck out to find someone in charge. The buildings of Feverstone Keep were blocky and utilitarian, built up against one another along the rock walls of the natural rift. Most had square raincatchers on top. With good food stores—or, if lucky, a Soulcaster—such a fortification could withstand a siege for years.

He couldn’t read the rank insignias, but he could recognize an officer when he saw one standing in a blood-red cloak with a group of honor guards. He had no mail, just a shiny bronze breastplate over leather, and was conferring with one of the scouts. Dalinar hurried up.

Only then did he see that the man’s eyes were dark brown. That gave Dalinar a shock of incredulity. Those around him treated the man like a brightlord.

“…the Order of the Stonewards, my lord,” the still-mounted scout was saying. “And a large number of Windrunners. All on foot.”

“But why?” the darkeyed officer demanded. “Why are Radiants coming here? They should be fighting the devils on the front lines!”

“My lord,” the scout said, “our orders were to return as soon as we identified them.”

“Well, go back and find out why they’re here!” the officer bellowed, causing the scout to flinch, then turn to ride away.

The Radiants. They were usually connected to Dalinar’s visions in one way or another. As the officer began to call commands to his attendants, telling them to prep empty bunkers for the knights, Dalinar followed the scout toward the wall. Men crowded near the kill slits there, peering out at the plain. Like those above, these wore motley uniforms that looked pieced together. They weren’t a ragged bunch, but were obviously wearing secondhand leavings.

The scout rode through a sally port as Dalinar entered the shadow of the enormous wall, walking up to the back of a crowd of soldiers. “What is it?” he asked.

“The Radiants,” one of the men said. “They’ve broken into a run.”

“It’s almost like they’re going to attack,” said another. He chuckled at how ridiculous that sounded, though there was an edge of uncertainty to his voice.

What? Dalinar thought, anxious. “Let me through.”

Surprisingly, the men parted. As Dalinar pushed by, he could sense their confusion. He’d given the command with the authority of a highprince and a lighteyes, and they’d obeyed instinctively. Now that they saw him, they were uncertain. What was this simple guardsman doing ordering them about?

He didn’t give them a chance to question him. He climbed onto the platform against the wall, where a rectangular kill slit looked through the wall and onto the plain. It was too small for a man to get through, but wide enough for archers to fire out. Through it, Dalinar saw that the approaching soldiers had formed a distinct line. Men and women in gleaming Shardplate charged forward. The scout pulled to a halt, looking at the charging Shardbearers. They ran shoulder to shoulder, not a single one of place. Like a crystalline wave. As they drew closer, Dalinar could see that their Plate was unpainted, but it glowed either blue or amber at the joints and across glyphs at the front, as with other Radiants he’d seen in his visions.

“They don’t have their Shardblades out,” Dalinar said. “That’s a good sign.”

The scout outside backed his horse up. There looked to be a good two hundred Shardbearers out there. Alethkar owned some twenty Blades, Jah Keved a similar number. If one added up all the rest in the world, there might be enough total to equal the two powerful Vorin kingdoms. That meant, so far as he knew, there were less than hundred Blades in all of the world. And here he saw two hundred Shardbearers gathered in one army. It was mind-numbing.

The Radiants slowed, falling into a trot, then a walk. The soldiers around Dalinar grew still. The leading Radiants stopped in a line, immobile. Suddenly, others began to fall from the sky. They hit with the sound of rock cracking, puffs of Stormlight blossoming from their figures. These all glowed blue.

Soon, there were some three hundred Radiants out on the field. They began summoning their Blades. The weapons appeared in their hands, like fog forming and condensing. It was done in silence. Their visors were down.

“If them charging without swords was a good sign,” whispered one of the men beside Dalinar, “then what does this mean?”

A suspicion began to rise within Dalinar, the horror that he might know what this vision was about to show him. The scout, at last unnerved, turned his horse and galloped back to the keep, screaming for the door to be opened to him. As if a little wood and stone would be a protection against hundreds of Shardbearers. A single man with Plate and Blade was almost an army unto himself, and that wasn’t accounting for the strange powers these people had.

The soldiers pulled the sally port open for the scout. Making a snap decision, Dalinar leaped down and charged to the opening. Behind, the officer Dalinar had seen earlier was clearing a path for himself to walk up to the kill slit.

Dalinar reached the open door, darting through it just after the scout charged back into the courtyard. Men called after Dalinar, terrified. He ignored them, running out onto the open plain. The expansive, straight wall stretched above him, like a highway up to the sun itself. The Radiants were still distant, though they’d stopped within bowshot. Transfixed by the beautiful figures, Dalinar slowed, then stopped about a hundred feet away.

One knight stepped ahead of his companions, his brilliant cape a rich blue. His Shardblade of rippling steel had intricate carvings along the center. He held it toward the keep for a moment.

Then he drove it point-first into the stone plain. Dalinar blinked. The Shardbearer removed his helm, exposing a handsome head with blond hair and pale skin, light as that of a man from Shinovar. He tossed the helm to the ground beside his blade. It rolled slightly as the Shardbearer made fists in his gauntlets, arms at his sides. He opened his palms wide, and the gauntlets fell free to the rocky ground.

He turned, his Shardplate falling off his body—breastplate dropping free, greaves slipping off. Underneath, he wore a rumpled blue uniform. He stepped free of his bootlike sabatons and continued to walk away, Shardplate and Shardblade—the most precious treasures any man could own—tossed to the ground and abandoned like refuse.

The others began to follow suit. Hundreds of men and women, driving Shardblades into the stone and then removing their Plate. The sound of metal hitting stone came like rain. Then like thunder.

Dalinar found himself running forward. The door behind him opened and some curious soldiers left the keep. Dalinar reached the Shardblades. They sprouted from the rock like glittering silver trees, a forest of weapons. They glowed softly in a way his own Shardblade never had, but as he dashed among them, their light started to fade.

A terrible feeling struck him. A sense of immense tragedy, of pain and betrayal. Stopping where he stood, he gasped, hand to his chest. What was happening? What was that dreadful feeling, that screaming he swore he could almost hear?