The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,82

the road, wondering if he would be discovered and executed—hoping he’d be discovered and executed—until a passing merchant had cared enough to inquire. By then, Szeth had stood only in a loincloth. His honor had forced him to discard the white clothing, as it would have made him easier to recognize. He had to preserve himself so that he could suffer.

After a short explanation that left out incriminating details, Szeth had found himself riding in the back of the merchant’s cart. The merchant—a man named Avado—had been clever enough to realize that in the wake of the king’s death, foreigners might be treated poorly. He’d made his way to Jah Keved, never knowing that he harbored Gavilar’s murderer as his serving man.

The Alethi didn’t search for him. They assumed that he, the infamous “Assassin in White,” had retreated with the Parshendi. They probably expected to discover him in the middle of the Shattered Plains.

The miners eventually tired of Took’s increasingly slurred stories. They bid him farewell, ignoring his broad hints that another cup of beer would prompt him to tell his greatest tale: that of the time when he’d seen the Nightwatcher herself and stolen a sphere that glowed black at night. That tale always discomforted Szeth, as it reminded him of the strange black sphere Gavilar had given him. He’d hidden that carefully in Jah Keved. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t want to risk a master taking it from him.

When nobody offered Took another drink, he reluctantly stumbled from his chair and waved Szeth to follow him from the tavern. The street was dark outside. This town, Ironsway, had a proper town square, several hundred homes, and three different taverns. That made it practically a metropolis for Bavland—the small, mostly-ignored stretch of land just south of the Horneater Peaks. The area was technically part of Jah Keved, but even its highprince tended to stay away from it.

Szeth followed his master through the streets toward the poorer district. Took was too cheap to pay for a room in the nice, or even modest, areas of a town. Szeth looked over his shoulder, wishing that the Second Sister—known as Nomon to these Easterners—had risen to give a little more light.

Took stumbled drunkenly, then fell over in the street. Szeth sighed. It would not be the first night he carried his master home to his bed. He knelt to lift Took.

He froze. A warm liquid was pooling beneath his master’s body. Only then did he notice the knife in Took’s neck.

Szeth instantly came alert as a group of footpads slipped out of the alleyway. One raised a hand, the knife in it reflecting starlight, preparing to throw at Szeth. He tensed. There were infused spheres he could draw upon in Took’s pouch.

“Wait,” hissed one of the footpads.

The man with the knife paused. Another man came closer, inspecting Szeth. “He’s Shin. Won’t hurt a cremling.”

Others pulled the corpse into the alleyway. The one with the knife raised his weapon again. “He could still yell.”

“Then why hasn’t he? Oi’m telling you, they’re harmless. Almost like parshmen. We can sell him.”

“Maybe,” the second said. “He’s terrified. Look at ’im.”

“Come ’ere,” the first footpad said, waving Szeth forward.

He obeyed, walking into the alley, which was suddenly illuminated as the other footpads pulled open Took’s pouch.

“Kelek,” one of them said, “hardly worth the effort. A handful of chips and two marks, not a single broam in the lot.”

“Oi’m telling you,” the first man said. “We can sell this fellow as a slave. People like Shin servants.”

“He’s just a kid.”

“Nah. They all look like that. Hey, whacha got there?” The man plucked a twinkling, sphere-sized chunk of rock from the hand of the man counting the spheres. It was fairly ordinary, a simple piece of rock with a few quartz crystals set into it and a rusty vein of iron on one side. “What is this?”

“Worthless,” one of the men said.

“I am required to tell you,” Szeth said quietly, “that you are holding my Oathstone. So long as you possess it, you are my master.”

“What’s that?” one of the footpads said, standing.

The first one closed his hand around the stone, shooting a wary glance at the others. He looked back at Szeth. “Your master? What does that mean exactly, in precise terms and all?”

“I must obey you,” Szeth said. “In all things, though I will not follow an order to kill myself.” He also couldn’t be ordered to give up his Blade, but there