The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,384

said triumphantly. “Dalinar, once in a while, it appears that senile old brain of yours can come up with a good idea or two!”

“We’re the same age, Sadeas.” Dalinar noted as messengers approached, bearing reports from the rest of the battlefield.

“Spread the word,” Sadeas proclaimed. “Tonight, all my soldiers will feast as if they were lighteyes!” He smiled as his soldiers helped him to his feet, and Adolin moved over to take the scout reports. Sadeas waved away the help insisting he could stand despite his wound, and began calling for his officers.

Dalinar turned to seek out Gallant and make sure the horse’s wound was cared for. As he did, however, Sadeas caught his arm.

“I should be dead,” Sadeas said softly.

“Perhaps.”

“I didn’t see much. But I thought I saw you alone. Where was your honor guard?”

“I had to leave it behind,” Dalinar said. “It was the only way to get to you in time.”

Sadeas frowned. “That was a terrible risk, Dalinar. Why?”

“You do not abandon your allies on the battlefield. Not unless there’s no recourse. It is one of the Codes.”

Sadeas shook his head. “That honor of yours is going to get you killed, Dalinar.” He seemed bemused. “Not that I feel like offering a complaint about it this day!”

“If I should die,” Dalinar said, “then I would do so having lived my life right. It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there.”

“The Codes?”

“No. The Way of Kings.”

“That storming book.”

“That storming book saved your life today, Sadeas,” Dalinar said. “I think I’m starting to understand what Gavilar saw in it.”

Sadeas scowled at that, though he glanced at his armor, lying in pieces nearby. He shook his head. “Perhaps I shall let you tell me what you mean. I’d like to understand you again, old friend. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever really did.” He let go of Dalinar’s arm. “Someone bring me my storming horse! Where are my officers?”

Dalinar left, and quickly found several members of his guard seeing to Gallant. As he joined them, he was struck by the sheer number of corpses on the ground. They ran in a line where he had punched through the Parshendi ranks to get to Sadeas, a trail of death.

He looked back to where he’d made his stand. Dozens dead. Perhaps hundreds.

Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought. Did I do that? He hadn’t killed in such numbers since the early days of helping Gavilar unite Alethkar. And he hadn’t grown sick at the sight of death since his youth.

Yet now he found himself revolted, barely able to keep his stomach under control. He would not retch on the battlefield. His men should not see that.

He stumbled away, one hand to his head, the other carrying his helm. He should be exulting. But he couldn’t. He just…couldn’t.

You will need luck trying to understand me, Sadeas, he thought. Because I’m having Damnation’s own trouble trying to do so myself.

“I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw.”

—Dated Shashanan, 1173, 23 seconds pre-death. Subject: a darkeyed youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note.

“And all the world was shattered!” Maps yelled, back arching, eyes wide, flecks of red spittle on his cheeks. “The rocks trembled with their steps, and the stones reached toward the heavens. We die! We die!”

He spasmed one last time, and the light faded from his eyes. Kaladin sat back, crimson blood slick on his hands, the dagger he’d been using as a surgical knife slipping from his fingers and clicking softly against the stone. The affable man lay dead on the stones of a plateau, arrow wound in his left breast open to the air, splitting the birthmark he’d claimed looked like Alethkar.

It’s taking them, Kaladin thought. One by one. Open them up, bleed them out. We’re nothing more than pouches to carry blood. Then we die, rain it down on the stones like a highstorm’s floods.

Until only I remain. I always remain.

A layer of skin, a layer of fat, a layer of muscle, a layer of bone. That was what men were.

The battle raged across the chasm. It might as well have been another kingdom, for all the attention anyone gave the bridgemen. Die die die, then get out of our way.

The members of Bridge Four stood in a