“And if you’re in the middle of a siege?” Toh asked.
“Sieges are rare out here, Brightlord Toh,” Gavilar said, chuckling.
“Surely there are cities with fortifications,” Toh said. “Your famed Kholinar has majestic walls, does it not?” The Westerner had a thick accent and spoke in a clipped, annoying way. Sounded silly.
“You’re forgetting about Soulcasters,” Gavilar said. “Yes, sieges happen now and then, but it’s very hard to starve out a city’s soldiers while there are Soulcasters and emeralds to make food. Instead we usually break down the walls quickly, or—more commonly—we seize the high ground and use that vantage to pound the city for a while.”
Toh nodded, seeming fascinated. “Soulcasters. We have not these things in Rira or Iri. Fascinating, fascinating … And so many Shards here. Perhaps half the world’s wealth of Blades and Plates, all contained in Vorin kingdoms. The Heralds themselves favor you.”
Dalinar took a long pull on his wine. Outside, thunder shook the bunker. The highstorm was in full force now.
Inside, servants brought out slabs of pork and lanka claws for the men, cooked in a savory broth. The women dined elsewhere, including, he’d heard, Toh’s sister. Dalinar hadn’t met her yet. The two Western lighteyes had arrived barely an hour before the storm hit.
The hall soon echoed with the sounds of people chatting. Dalinar tore into his lanka claws, cracking them with the bottom of his mug and biting out the meat. This feast seemed too polite. Where was the music, the laughter? The women? Eating in separate rooms?
Life had been different these last few years of conquest. The final four highprinces stood firm in their unified front. The once-frantic fighting had stalled. More and more of Gavilar’s time was required by the administration of his kingdom—which was half as big as they wanted it to be, but still demanding.
Politics. Gavilar and Sadeas didn’t make Dalinar play at it too often, but he still had to sit at feasts like this one, rather than dining with his men. He sucked on a claw, watching Gavilar talk to the foreigner. Storms. Gavilar actually looked regal, with his beard combed like that, glowing gemstones on his fingers. He wore a uniform of the newer style. Formal, rigid. Dalinar instead wore his skirtlike takama and an open overshirt that went down to midthigh, his chest bare.
Sadeas held court with a group of lesser lighteyes at a table across the hall. Every one of that group had been carefully chosen: men with uncertain loyalties. He’d talk, persuade, convince. And if he was worried, he’d find ways to eliminate them. Not with assassins, of course. They all found that sort of thing distasteful; it wasn’t the Alethi way. Instead, they’d maneuver the man into a duel with Dalinar, or would position him at the front of an assault. Ialai, Sadeas’s wife, spent an impressive amount of time cooking up new schemes for getting rid of problematic allies.
Dalinar finished the claws, then turned toward his pork, a succulent slab of meat swimming in gravy. The food was better at this feast. He just wished that he didn’t feel so useless here. Gavilar made alliances; Sadeas dealt with problems. Those two could treat a feast hall like a battlefield.
Dalinar reached to his side for his knife so he could cut the pork. Except the knife wasn’t there.
Damnation. He’d lent it to Teleb, hadn’t he? He stared down at the pork, smelling its peppery sauce, his mouth watering. He reached to eat with his fingers, then thought to look up. Everyone else was eating primly, with utensils. But the servers had forgotten to bring him a knife.
Damnation again. He sat back, wagging his mug for more wine. Nearby, Gavilar and that foreigner continued their chat.
“Your campaign here has been impressive, Brightlord Kholin,” Toh said. “One sees a glint of your ancestor in you, the great Sunmaker.”
“Hopefully,” Gavilar noted, “my accomplishments won’t be as ephemeral as his.”
“Ephemeral! He reforged Alethkar, Brightlord! You shouldn’t speak so of one like him. You’re his descendant, correct?”
“We all are,” Gavilar said. “House Kholin, House Sadeas … all ten princedoms. Their founders were his sons, you know. So yes, signs of his touch are here—yet his empire didn’t last even a single generation past his death. Leaves me wondering what was wrong with his vision, his planning, that his great empire broke apart so quickly.”
The storm rumbled. Dalinar tried to catch the attention of a servant to request a dinner knife, but they were too busy scuttling about, seeing to the needs of other demanding feastgoers.
He sighed, then stood—stretching—and walked to the door, holding his empty mug. Lost in thought, he threw aside the bar on the door, then shoved open the massive wooden construction and stepped outside.
A sheet of icy rain suddenly washed over his skin, and wind blasted him fiercely enough that he stumbled. The highstorm was at its raging height, lightning blasting down like vengeful attacks from the Heralds.
Dalinar struck out into the storm, his overshirt whipping about him. Gavilar talked more and more about things like legacy, the kingdom, responsibility. What had happened to the fun of the fight, to riding into battle laughing?
Thunder crashed, and the periodic strikes of lightning were barely enough to see by. Still, Dalinar knew his way around well enough. This was a highstorm waystop, a place built to house patrolling armies during storms. He and Gavilar had been positioned at this one for a good four months now, drawing tribute from the nearby farms and menacing House Evavakh from just inside its borders.
Dalinar found the particular bunker he was looking for and pounded on the door. No response. So he summoned his Shardblade, slid the tip between the double doors, and sliced the bar inside. He pushed open the door to find a group of wide-eyed armed men scrambling into defensive lines, surrounded by fearspren, weapons held in nervous grips.
“Teleb,” Dalinar said, standing in the doorway. “Did I lend you my belt knife? My favorite one, with the whitespine ivory on the grip?”
The tall soldier, who stood in the second rank of terrified men, gaped at him. “Uh … your knife, Brightlord?”
“Lost the thing somewhere,” Dalinar said. “I lent it to you, didn’t I?”
“I gave it back, sir,” Teleb said. “You used it to pry that splinter out of your saddle, remember?”
“Damnation. You’re right. What did I do with that blasted thing?” Dalinar left the doorway and strode back out into the storm.
Perhaps Dalinar’s worries had more to do with himself than they did Gavilar. The Kholin battles were so calculated these days—and these last months had been more about what happened off the battlefield than on it. It all seemed to leave Dalinar behind like the discarded shell of a cremling after it molted.
An explosive burst of wind drove him against the wall, and he stumbled, then stepped backward, driven by instincts he couldn’t define. A large boulder slammed into the wall, then bounced away. Dalinar glanced and saw something luminous in the distance: a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly glowing legs.
Dalinar stepped back up to the feast hall, gave the whatever-it-was a rude gesture, then pushed open the door—throwing aside two servants who had been holding it closed—and strode back in. Streaming with water, he walked up to the high table, where he flopped into his chair and set down his mug. Wonderful. Now he was wet and he still couldn’t eat his pork.