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“Retreating from the Shattered Plains could be a good idea,” Dalinar said carefully. “But not if it is to begin another war with someone else. We must stabilize and unify our people.”
Elhokar sighed. “Chasing the assassin is only an idle thought right now. Perhaps we won’t need it. I hear that your eff orts with Sadeas have been fruitful.”
“They have indeed, Your Majesty,” Sadeas said, sounding proud—perhaps a little smug. “Though Dalinar still insists on using his own, slow bridges. Sometimes, my forces are nearly wiped out before he arrives. This would work better if Dalinar would use modern bridge tactics.”
“The waste of life…” Dalinar said.
“Is acceptable,” Sadeas said. “They’re mostly slaves, Dalinar. It’s an honor for them to have a chance to participate in some small way.”
I doubt they see it in that light.
“I wish you’d at least try my way,” Sadeas continued. “What we’ve been doing so far has worked, but I worry that the Parshendi will continue to send two armies against us. I don’t relish the idea of fighting both on my own before you arrive.”
Dalinar hesitated. That would be a problem. But to give up the siege bridges?
“Well, why not a compromise?” Elhokar said. “Next plateau assault, Uncle, you let Sadeas’s bridgemen help you for the initial march to the contested plateau. Sadeas has plenty of extra bridge crews he could lend you. He could still rush on ahead with a smaller army, but you’d follow more quickly than you have been, using his bridge crews.”
“That would be the same as using my own bridge crews,” Dalinar said.
“Not necessarily,” Elhokar said. “You’ve said that the Parshendi can rarely set up and fire on you once Sadeas engages them. Sadeas’s men can start the assault as usual, and you can join once he’s secured a foothold for you.”
“Yes…” Sadeas said, thoughtful. “The bridgemen you use will be safe, and you won’t be costing any additional lives. But you’ll arrive at the plateau to help me twice as quickly.”
“What if you can’t distract the Parshendi well enough?” Dalinar asked. “What if they still set up archers to fire on my bridgemen when I cross?”
“Then we’ll retreat,” Sadeas said with a sigh. “And we’ll call it a failed experiment. But at least we’ll have tried. This is how you get ahead, old friend. You try new things.”
Dalinar scratched his chin in thought.
“Oh, go on, Dalinar,” Elhokar said. “He took your suggestion to attack together. Try it once his way.”
“Very well,” Dalinar said. “We will see how it works.”
“Excellent,” Elhokar said, standing. “And now, I believe I’ll go congratulate your son. That bout was exciting!”
Dalinar hadn’t found it particularly exciting—Adolin’s opponent hadn’t ever held the upper hand. But that was the best kind of battle. Dalinar didn’t buy the arguments about a ‘good’ fight being a close one. When you won, it was always better to win quickly and with extreme advantage.
Dalinar and Sadeas stood in respect as the king descended the stairlike stone outcroppings toward the sandy floor below. Dalinar then turned to Sadeas. “I should be leaving. Send me a clerk to detail the plateaus you feel we could try this maneuver on. Next time one of them is up for assault, I’ll march my army to your staging area and we’ll leave together. You and the smaller, quicker group can go on ahead, and we’ll catch up once you’re in position.”
Sadeas nodded.
Dalinar turned to climb up the steps toward the ramp out.
“Dalinar,” Sadeas called after him.
Dalinar looked back at the other highprince. Sadeas’s scarf fluttered in a gust of wind, his arms folded, the metallic golden embroidery glistening. “Send me one of your clerks as well. With a copy of that book of Gavilar’s. It may amuse me to hear its other stories.”
Dalinar smiled. “I will do so, Sadeas.”
“Above the final void I hang, friends behind, friends before. The feast I must drink clings to their faces, and the words I must speak spark in my mind. The old oaths will be spoken anew.”
—Dated Betabanan, 1173, 45 seconds pre-death. Subject: a lighteyed child of five years. Diction improved remarkably when giving sample.
Kaladin glared at the three glowing topaz spheres on the ground in front of him. The barrack was dark, empty save for Teft and himself. Lopen leaned in the sunlit doorway, watching with a casual air. Outside, Rock called out commands to the other bridgemen. Kaladin had them working on battle formations. Nothing overt. It would be construed as practice for bridge carrying, but he was actually training them to obey orders and rearrange themselves efficiently.
The three little spheres—only chips—lit the stone ground around themselves in little tan rings. Kaladin focused on them, holding his breath, willing the light into him.
Nothing happened.
He tried harder, staring into their depths.
Nothing happened.
He picked one up, cupping it in his palm, raising it so that he could see the light and nothing else. He could pick out the details of the storm, the shifting, spinning vortex of light. He commanded it, willed it, begged it.
Nothing happened.
He groaned, lying back on the rock, staring at the ceiling.
“Maybe you don’t want it badly enough,” Teft said.
“I want it as badly as I know how. It won’t budge, Teft.”
Teft grunted and picked up one of the spheres.
“Maybe we’re wrong about me,” Kaladin said. It seemed poetically appropriate that the moment he accepted this strange, frightening part of himself, he couldn’t make it work. “It could have been a trick of the sunlight.”
“A trick of the sunlight,” Teft said flatly. “Sticking a bag to the barrel was a trick of the light.”
“All right. Then maybe it was some odd fluke, something that happened just that once.”
“And when you were wounded,” Teft said, “and whenever on a bridge run you needed an extra burst of strength or endurance.”
Kaladin let out a frustrated sigh and tapped his head back lightly against the rock floor a few times. “Well, if I’m one of these Radiants you keep talking about, why can’t I do anything?”
“I figure,” the grizzled bridgeman said, rolling the sphere in his fingers, “that you’re like a baby, making his legs work. At first it just kind of happens. Slowly, he figures how to make them move on purpose. You just need practice.”
“I’ve spent a week staring at spheres, Teft. How much practice can it take?”
“Well, more than you’ve had, obviously.”
Kaladin rolled his eyes and sat back up. “Why am I listening to you? You’ve admitted that you don’t know any more than I do.”
“I don’t know anything about using the Stormlight,” Teft said, scowling. “But I know what should happen.”
“According to stories that contradict one another. You’ve told me that the Radiants could fly and walk on walls.”
