The Way of Kings (160 page)

When Dalinar was about to get away. Apparently the Parshendi Shardbearer had been willing to let his fellows throw themselves at Dalinar when it seemed obvious he would fall. Perhaps they let the regular soldiers try to win Shards, as was done in human armies. Now that Dalinar might escape, the potential loss of a Plate and Blade was too great, and so the Shardbearer had been sent to fight him.

The Shardbearer stepped up, speaking in the thick Parshendi language. Dalinar didn’t understand a word of it. He raised his Blade and fell into stance. The Parshendi said something further, then grunted and stepped forward, swinging.

Dalinar cursed to himself, still blinded in his left eye. He dodged back, swinging his Blade and slapping the enemy’s weapon. The parry shook Dalinar inside his armor. His muscles responded sluggishly. Stormlight still leaked from cracks in his armor, but it was abating. It wouldn’t be much longer before the Plate stopped responding.

The Parshendi Shardbearer attacked again. His stance was unfamiliar to Dalinar, but there was something practiced about it. This wasn’t a savage playing with a powerful weapon. He was a trained Shardbearer. Dalinar was once again forced to parry, something Windstance wasn’t intended do to. His weight-laden muscles were too sluggish to dodge, and his Plate was too cracked to risk letting himself get hit.

The blow nearly threw him out of stance. He clenched his teeth, throwing weight behind his weapon and intentionally overcorrecting as the Parshendi’s next blow came. The Blades met with a furious clang, throwing off a shower of sparks like a bucket of molten metal dashed into the air.

Dalinar recovered quickly and threw himself forward, trying to slam his shoulder into his enemy’s chest. The Parshendi was still full of power, however, his Plate uncracked. He got out of the way and quite nearly hit Dalinar on the back.

Dalinar twisted just in time. Then he turned and leaped onto a small rock formation, then stepped to a higher ledge and managed to reach the top. The Parshendi followed, as Dalinar had hoped. The precarious footing raised the stakes—which was just fine with him. A single blow could ruin Dalinar. That meant taking risks.

As the Parshendi neared the top of the formation, Dalinar attacked, using the advantage of surer footing and high ground. The Parshendi didn’t bother dodging. He took a hit to the helm, which cracked, but gained a chance to swing at Dalinar’s legs.

Dalinar leaped backward, feeling painfully sluggish. He barely got out of the way, and wasn’t able to get in a second strike as the Parshendi climbed atop the formation.

The Parshendi man made an aggressive thrust. Setting his jaw, Dalinar raised his forearm to block and stepped into the attack, praying to the Heralds that his forearm plate would deflect the blow. The Parshendi blade connected, shattering the Plate, sending a shock up Dalinar’s arm. The gauntlet on his fist suddenly felt like a lead weight, but Dalinar kept moving, swinging his blade for his own attack.

Not at the Parshendi’s armor, but at the stone beneath him.

Even as the molten shards of Dalinar’s forearm plate sprayed in the air, he sheared through the rock shelf under his opponent’s feet. The entire section broke free, sending the Shardbearer tumbling backward toward the ground. He hit with a crash.

Dalinar slammed his fist—the one with the broken armguard—into the ground and released the gauntlet. It unlatched and he pulled his hand free into the air, sweat making it feel cold. He left the gauntlet—it wouldn’t work properly now that the forearm piece was gone—and roared as he swung his Blade single-handed. He sliced through another chunk of the rock and sent it falling down toward the Shardbearer.

The Parshendi stumbled to his feet, but the rock smashed down on top of him, sending out a splash of Stormlight and a deep cracking sound. Dalinar climbed down, trying to get to the Parshendi while he was still. Unfortunately, Dalinar’s right leg was dragging, and when he reached the ground, he walked in a limp. If he took the boot off, he wouldn’t be able to hold up the rest of the Shardplate.

He gritted his teeth, stopping as the Parshendi stood up. He’d been too slow. The Parshendi’s armor, though cracked in several places, was nowhere near as strained as Dalinar’s. Impressively, he’d managed to retain his Shardblade. He leveled his armored head at Dalinar, eyes hidden behind the slit in the helm. Around them, the other Parshendi watched silently, forming a ring, but not interfering.

Dalinar raised his Blade, holding it in one gauntleted hand and one bare one. The breeze was cold on his clammy, exposed hand.

There was no use running. He fought here.

For the first time in many, many months, Kaladin felt fully awake and alive.

The beauty of the spear, whistling in the air. The unity of body and mind, hands and feet reacting instantly, faster than thoughts could be formed. The clarity and familiarity of the old spear forms, learned during the most terrible time in his life.

His weapon was an extension of himself; he moved it as easily and instinctively as he did his fingers. Spinning, he cut through the Parshendi, bringing retribution to those who had slaughtered so many of his friends. Repayment for each and every arrow loosed at his flesh.

With Stormlight making an ecstatic pulse within him, he felt a rhythm to the battle. Almost like the beat of the Parshendi song.

And they did sing. They’d recovered from seeing him drink in the Stormlight and speak the Words of the Second Ideal. They now attacked in waves, fervently trying to get to the bridge and knock it free. Some had leaped to the other side to attack from that direction, but Moash had led bridgemen to respond there. Amazingly, they held.

Syl twirled around Kaladin in a blur, riding the waves of Stormlight that rose from his skin, moving like a leaf on the winds of a storm. Enraptured. He’d never seen her like this before.

He didn’t break his attacks—in a way, there was only
one
attack, as each strike flowed directly into the next. His spear never stopped, and together with his men, he pushed the Parshendi back, accepting each challenge as they stepped forward in pairs.

Killing. Slaughtering. Blood flew in the air and the dying groaned at his feet. He tried not to pay too much attention to that. They were the enemy. Yet the sheer glory of what he did seemed at odds with the desolation he caused.

He was protecting. He was saving. Yet he was killing. How could something so terrible be so beautiful at the same time?

He ducked the swing of a fine silvery sword, then brought his spear around to the side, crushing ribs. He spun the spear, shattering its already fractured length against the side of the Parshendi’s comrade. He threw the remains at a third man, then caught a new spear as Lopen tossed it to him. The Herdazian was collecting them from the fallen Alethi nearby to give to Kaladin when needed.

When you engaged a man, you learned something about him. Were your enemies careful and precise? Did they bully their way forward, aggressive and domineering? Did they spout curses to make you enraged? Were they ruthless, or did they leave an obviously incapacitated man to live?

He was impressed by the Parshendi. He fought dozens of them, each with a slightly different style of combat. It seemed they were sending only two or four at him at a time. Their attacks were careful and controlled, and each pair fought as a team. They seemed to respect him for his skill.

Most telling, they seemed to back away from fighting Skar or Teft, who were wounded, instead focusing on Kaladin, Moash, and the other spearmen who showed the most skill. These were not the wild, uncultured savages he had been led to expect. These were professional soldiers who held to an honorable battlefield ethic he had found absent in most of the Alethi. In them, he found what he’d always hoped he would find in the soldiers of the Shattered Plains.

That realization rocked him. He found himself
respecting
the Parshendi as he killed them.

In the end, the storm within drove him forward. He had chosen a course, and these Parshendi would slaughter Dalinar Kholin’s army without a moment’s regret. Kaladin had committed himself. He would see himself and his men through it.

He wasn’t certain how long he fought. Bridge Four held out remarkably well. Surely they didn’t fight for very long, otherwise they would have been overwhelmed. Yet the multitude of wounded and dying Parshendi around Kaladin seemed to indicate hours.

He was both relieved and oddly disappointed when a figure in Plate broke through the Parshendi ranks, releasing a flood of soldiers in blue. Kaladin reluctantly stepped back, heart thumping, the storm within dampened. The light had stopped streaming off his skin noticeably. The continual supply of Parshendi with gems in their braids had kept him fueled during the early part of the fight, but the later ones had come to him without gemstones. Another indication that they weren’t the simpleminded subhumans the lighteyes claimed they were. They’d seen what he was doing, and even if they hadn’t understood it, they’d countered it.

He had enough Light to keep him from collapsing. But as the Alethi pushed back the Parshendi, Kaladin realized how timely their arrival had been.

I need to be very careful with this,
he thought. The storm within made him thirst for motion and attack, but using it drained his body. The more of it he used, and the faster he used it, the worse it was when he ran out.

Alethi soldiers took up perimeter defense on both sides of the bridge, and the exhausted bridgemen fell back, many sitting down and holding wounds. Kaladin hurried over to them. “Report!”

“Three dead,” Rock said grimly, kneeling beside bodies he’d laid out. Malop, Earless Jaks, and Narm.

Kaladin frowned in sorrow.
Be glad the rest live,
he told himself. It was easy to think. Hard to accept. “How are the rest of you?”

Five more had serious wounds, but Rock and Lopen had seen to them. Those two were learning quite well from Kaladin’s instruction. There was little more Kaladin could do for the wounded. He glanced at Malop’s body. The man had taken an axe cut to the arm, severing it and splintering the bone. He’d died from blood loss. If Kaladin hadn’t been fighting, he might have been able to—

No. No regrets for the moment.

“Pull back across,” he said to the bridgemen, pointing. “Teft, you’re in command. Moash, you strong enough to stay with me?”

“Sure am,” Moash said, a grin on his bloody face. He looked excited, not exhausted. All three of the dead had been on his side, but he and the others had fought remarkably well.

The other bridgemen retreated. Kaladin turned to inspect the Alethi soldiers. It was like looking into a triage tent. Every man had a wound of some sort. The ones at the center stumbled and limped. Those at the outsides still fought, their uniforms bloodied and torn. The retreat had dissolved into chaos.

He made his way through the wounded, waving for them to cross the bridge. Some did as he said. Others stood about, looking dazed. Kaladin rushed up to one group that seemed better off than most. “Who’s in command here?”

“It…” The soldier’s face had been cut across the cheek. “Brightlord Dalinar.”

“Immediate command. Who’s your captain?”

“Dead,” the man said. “And my companylord. And his second.”

Stormfather,
Kaladin thought. “Across the bridge with you,” he said, then moved on. “I need an officer! Who’s in command of the retreat?”

Ahead, he could make out a figure in scratched blue Shardplate, fighting at the front of group. That would be Dalinar’s son Adolin. He was busy holding the Parshendi off; bothering him would not be wise.

“Over here,” a man called. “I’ve found Brightlord Havar! He’s commander of the rear guard!”

Finally
, Kaladin thought, rushing through the chaos to find a bearded lighteyed man lying on the ground, coughing blood. Kaladin looked him over, noting the enormous gut wound. “Who’s his second?”

“Dead,” said the man beside the commander. He was lighteyed.

“And you are?” Kaladin asked.

“Nacomb Gaval.” He looked young, younger than Kaladin.

“You’re promoted,” Kaladin said. “Get these men across the bridge as quickly as possible. If anyone asks, you’ve been given a field commission as commander of the rear guard. If anyone claims to outrank you, send them to me.”

The man started. “Promoted… Who are you? Can you
do
that?”

“Someone needs to,” Kaladin snapped. “Go. Get to work.”

“I—”

“
Go!
” Kaladin bellowed.

Remarkably, the lighteyed man saluted him and began yelling for his squad. Kholin’s men were wounded, battered, and dazed, but they were well trained. Once someone took command, orders passed quickly. Squads crossed the bridge, falling into marching formations. Likely, in the confusion, they clung to these familiar patterns.

Within minutes, the central mass of Kholin’s army was flowing across the bridge like sand in an hourglass. The ring of fighting contracted. Still, men screamed and died in the anarchic tumult of sword against shield and spear against metal.