Thank you, he thought.
* * *
Dalinar rode Gallant back across the bridge from Roion’s plateau, nursing a bloody wound at his side. Stupid. He should have seen that spear. He’d been too focused on that red lightning and the quickly shifting Parshendi fighting pairs.
The truth, Dalinar thought, sliding from his horse so a surgeon could inspect the wound, is that you’re an old man now. Perhaps not by the measuring of lifespans, as he was only in his fifties, but by the yardstick of soldiers he was certainly old. Without Shardplate to assist, he was getting slow, getting weak. Killing was a young man’s game, if only because the old men fell first.
That cursed rain kept coming, so he escaped it under one of Navani’s pavilions. The archers kept the Parshendi from following across the chasm to harry Roion’s beleaguered retreat. With the help of the bowmen, Dalinar had successfully saved the highprince’s army, half of it at least—but they’d lost the entire northern plateau. Roion rode across to safety, followed by an exhausted Captain Khal on foot—General Khal’s son wore his own Plate and bore Teleb’s Blade, which he’d blessedly recovered from the corpse after the other man had fallen.
They’d been forced to leave the body, and the Plate. Just as bad, the Parshendi singing continued unabated. Despite the soldiers saved, this was a terrible defeat.
Dalinar undid his breastplate and sat down with a grunt as the surgeon ordered him a stool. He suffered the woman’s ministration, though he knew the wound was not terrible. It was bad—any wound was bad on the battlefield, particularly if it impaired the sword arm—but it wouldn’t kill him.
“Storms,” the surgeon said. “Highprince, you’re all scars under here. How many times have you been wounded in the shoulder?”
“Can’t remember.”
“How can you still use your arm?”
“Training and practice.”
“That’s not how it works…” she whispered, eyes wide. “I mean… storms…”
“Just sew the thing up,” he said. “Yes, I’ll stay off the battlefield today. No, I won’t stress it. Yes, I’ve heard all the lectures before.”
He shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. He’d told himself he wouldn’t ride into battle anymore. He was supposed to be a politician now, not a warlord.
But once in a while, the Blackthorn needed to come out. The men needed it. Storms, he needed it. The—
Navani thundered into the tent.
Too late. He sighed as she stalked up to him, passing this tent’s fabrial—which glowed on a little pedestal, collecting water around it in a shimmering globe. That water streamed off along two metal rods at the sides of the fabrial, spilling onto the ground, then running out of the tent and over the plateau’s edge.
He looked up at Navani grimly, expecting to be dressed down like a recruit who had forgotten his whetstone. Instead, she took him by his good side, then pulled him close.
“No reprimand?” Dalinar asked.
“We’re at war,” she whispered. “And we’re losing, aren’t we?”
Dalinar glanced at the archers, who were running low on arrows. He didn’t speak too loudly, lest they hear. “Yes.” The surgeon glanced at him, then lowered her head and kept sewing.
“You rode to battle when someone needed you,” Navani said. “You saved the lives of a highprince and his soldiers. Why would you expect anger from me?”
“Because you’re you.” He reached up with his good hand and ran his fingers through her hair.
“Adolin has won his plateau,” Navani said. “The Parshendi there are scattered and routed. Aladar holds. Roion has failed, but we’re still evenly matched. So how are we losing? I can sense that we are, from your face, but I don’t see it.”
“An even match is a loss for us,” Dalinar said. He could feel it building. Distant, to the west. “If they complete that song, then as Rlain warned, that is the end.”
The surgeon finished as best she could, wrapping the wound and giving Dalinar leave to replace his shirt and coat, which would hold the bandage tight. Once dressed, he climbed to his feet, intending to go to the command tent and get an update on the situation from General Khal. He was interrupted as Roion burst into the pavilion.
“Dalinar!” the tall, balding man rushed in, grabbing him by the arm. The bad one. Dalinar winced. “It’s a storming bloodbath out there! We’re dead. Storms, we’re dead!”
Nearby archers shuffled, their arrows spent. A sea of red eyes gathered on the plateau across the chasm, smoldering coals in the darkness.
For all that Dalinar wanted to slap Roion, that wasn’t the sort of thing you did to a highprince, even a hysterical one. Instead, he towed Roion out of the pavilion. The rain—now a full-blown storm—felt icy as it washed over his soaked uniform.
“Control yourself, Brightlord,” Dalinar said sternly. “Adolin has won his plateau. Not all is as bad as it seems.”
“It should not end this way,” the Almighty said.
Storm it! Dalinar shoved Roion away and strode out into the center of the plateau, looking up toward the sky. “Answer me! Let me know if you can hear me!”
“I can.”
Finally. Some progress. “Are you the Almighty?”
“I said I am not, child of Honor.”
“Then what are you?”
I AM THAT WHICH BRINGS LIGHT AND DARKNESS. The voice took on more of a rumbling, distant quality.
“The Stormfather,” Dalinar said. “Are you a Herald?”
NO.
“Then are you a spren or a god?”
BOTH.
“What is the point of talking to me?” Dalinar shouted at the sky. “What is happening?”
THEY CALL FOR A STORM. MY OPPOSITE. DEADLY.
“How do we stop it?”
YOU DON’T.
“There has to be a way!”
I BRING YOU A STORM OF CLEANSING. IT WILL CARRY AWAY YOUR CORPSES. THIS IS ALL I CAN DO.
“No! Don’t you dare abandon us!”
YOU MAKE DEMANDS OF ME, YOUR GOD?
“You aren’t my god. You were never my god! You are a shadow, a lie!”
Distant thunder rumbled ominously. The rain beat harder against Dalinar’s face.
I AM CALLED. I MUST GO. A DAUGHTER DISOBEYS. YOU WILL SEE NO FURTHER VISIONS, CHILD OF HONOR. THIS IS THE END.
FAREWELL.
“Stormfather!” Dalinar yelled. “There has to be a way! I will not die here!”
Silence. Not even thunder. People had gathered around Dalinar: soldiers, scribes, messengers, Roion and Navani. Frightened people.
“Don’t abandon us,” Dalinar said, voice trailing off. “Please…”
* * *
Moash stepped forward, his faceplate up, his face pained. “Kaladin?”
“I had to make the choice that would let me sleep at night, Moash,” Kaladin said wearily, standing before the unconscious form of the king. Blood pooled around Kaladin’s boot from the wounds he’d reopened. Light-headed, he had to lean on his spear to keep on his feet.
“You said he was trustworthy,” Graves said, turning toward Moash, his voice ringing inside his Shardplate helm. “You promised me, Moash!”