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One week after losing Dunny, Kaladin stood on another plateau, watching a battle proceed. This time, however, he didn’t have to save the dying. They’d actually arrived before the Parshendi. A rare but welcome event. Sadeas’s army was now holding out at the center of the plateau, protecting the chrysalis while some of his soldiers cut into it.
The Parshendi kept leaping over the line and attacking the men working on the chrysalis. He’s getting surrounded, Kaladin thought. It didn’t look good, which would mean a miserable return trip. Sadeas’s men were bad enough when, arriving second, they were rebuffed. Losing the gemheart after arriving first…would leave them even more frustrated.
“Kaladin!” a voice said. Kaladin spun to see Rock trotting up. Was someone wounded? “Have you seen this thing?” The Horneater pointed.
Kaladin turned, following his gesture. Another army was approaching on an adjacent plateau. Kaladin raised eyebrows; the banners flapped blue, and the soldiers were obviously Alethi.
“A little late, aren’t they?” Moash asked, standing beside Kaladin.
“It happens,” Kaladin said. Occasionally another highprince would arrive after Sadeas got to the plateau. More often, Sadeas arrived first, and the other Alethi army had to turn around. Usually they didn’t get this close before doing so.
“That’s the standard of Dalinar Kholin,” Skar said, joining them.
“Dalinar,” Moash said appreciatively. “They say he doesn’t use bridgemen.”
“How does he cross the chasms, then?” Kaladin asked.
The answer soon became obvious. This new army had enormous, siege-tower-like bridges pulled by chulls. They rumbled across the uneven plateaus, often having to pick their way around rifts in the stone. They must be terribly slow, Kaladin thought. But, in trade, the army wouldn’t have to approach the chasm while being fired on. They could hide behind those bridges.
“Dalinar Kholin,” Moash said. “They say he’s a true lighteyes, like the men from the old days. A man of honor and of oaths.”
Kaladin snorted. “I’ve seen plenty of lighteyes with that same reputation, and I’ve been disappointed by them every time. I’ll tell you about Brightlord Amaram sometime.”
“Amaram?” Skar asked. “The Shardbearer?”
“You’ve heard of that?” Kaladin asked.
“Sure,” Skar said. “He’s supposed to be on his way here. Everyone’s talking about it in the taverns. Were you with him when he won his Shards?”
“No,” Kaladin said softly. “Nobody was.”
Dalinar Kholin’s army approached across the plateau to the south. Amazingly, Dalinar’s army came right up to the battlefield plateau.
“He’s attacking?” Moash said, scratching his head. “Maybe he figures that Sadeas will lose, and wants to take a stab at it after he retreats.”
“No,” Kaladin said, frowning. “He’s joining the battle.”
The Parshendi army sent over some archers to fire on Dalinar’s army, but their arrows bounced off the chulls without causing any harm. A group of soldiers unhooked the bridges and pushed them into place while Dalinar’s archers set up and exchanged fire with the Parshendi.
“Does it seem Sadeas took fewer soldiers with him this run?” Sigzil asked, joining the group watching Dalinar’s army. “Perhaps he planned for this. Could be why he was willing to commit like he did, letting himself get surrounded.”
The bridges could be cranked to lower and extend; there was some marvelous engineering at work. As they began to work, something decidedly strange happened: Two Shardbearers, likely Dalinar and his son, leaped across the chasm and began attacking the Parshendi. The distraction let the soldiers get the large bridges into place, and some heavy cavalry charged across to help. It was a completely different method of doing a bridge assault, and Kaladin found himself considering the implications.
“He really is joining the battle,” Moash said. “I think they’re going to work together.”
“It’s bound to be more effective,” Kaladin said. “I’m surprised they haven’t tried it before.”
Teft snorted. “That’s because you don’t understand how lighteyes think. Highprinces don’t just want to win the battle, they want to win it by themselves.”
“I wish I’d been recruited in his army instead,” Moash said, almost reverent. The soldiers’ armor gleamed, their ranks obviously well-practiced. Dalinar—the Blackthorn—had done an even better job than Amaram at cultivating a reputation for honesty. People knew of him all the way back in Hearthstone, but Kaladin understood the kinds of corruption a well-polished breastplate could hide.
Though, he thought, that man who protected the whore on the street, he wore blue. Adolin, Dalinar’s son. He seemed genuinely selfless in his defense of the woman.
Kaladin set his jaw, casting aside those thoughts. He would not be taken in again.
He would not.
The fighting grew brutal for a short time, but the Parshendi were overwhelmed—smashed between two opposing forces. Soon, Kaladin’s team led a victorious group of soldiers back to the camps for celebration.
Kaladin rolled the sphere between his fingers. The otherwise pure glass had cooled with a thin line of bubbles permanently frozen along one side. The bubbles were tiny spheres of their own, catching light.
He was on chasm scavenging duty. They’d gotten back from the plateau assault so quickly that Hashal, in defiance of logic or mercy, had sent them down into the chasm that very day. Kaladin continued to turn the sphere in his fingers. Hanging in the very center of it was a large emerald cut in a round shape, with dozens of tiny facets along the sides. A small rim of suspended bubbles clung to the side of gemstone, as if longing to be near its brilliance.
Bright, crystalline green Stormlight shone from inside the glass, lighting Kaladin’s fingers. An emerald broam, the highest denomination of sphere. Worth hundreds of lesser spheres. To bridgemen, this was a fortune. A strangely distant one, for spending it was impossible. Kaladin thought he could see some of the storm’s tempest inside that rock. The light was like…it was like part of the storm, captured by the emerald. The light wasn’t perfectly steady; it just seemed that way compared with the flickering of candles, torches, or lamps. Holding it close, Kaladin could see the light swirling, raging.
“What do we do with it?” Moash asked from Kaladin’s side. Rock stood at Kaladin’s other side. The sky was overcast, making it darker than usual here at the bottom. The cold weather of late had drawn back to spring, though it was uncomfortably chilly.
The men worked efficiently, quickly gathering spears, armor, boots, and spheres from the dead. Because of the short time given them—and because of the exhausting bridge run earlier—Kaladin had decided to forgo spear practice for the day. They’d load up on salvage instead and stow some of it down beneath, to be used for avoiding punishment next time.
As they’d worked, they’d found a lighteyed officer. He had been quite wealthy. This single emerald broam was worth what a bridgeman slave would make in two hundred days. In the same pouch with it, they’d found a collection of chips and marks that totaled slightly more than another emerald broam. Wealth. A fortune. Simply pocket change to a lighteyes.
