Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,64

keep the larger object in the air. The thing had four fins on it, like an arrow. They’d started with two wings—which Navani had thought would make the vehicle fly better, but which had made it pull upward uncontrollably once a Windrunner Lashed it.

He hopped down from his perch. Syl whirled in a long arc around the old pillar at this edge of the plateau. Tall, with steps along the outside, it had become a perfect scout nest. Rlain said it had been used in Parshendi ceremonies, but he hadn’t known its original purpose. Much of these ruins—the remnants of a once-grand city that had stood during the shadowdays—baffled them.

Perhaps the two Heralds could explain the pillar. Had they walked here? Unfortunately—considering that one of them was full-on delusional and the other dabbled in it now and then—he wasn’t certain they’d be useful in this.

He wanted to get to Urithiru as quickly as possible. Before people had a chance to start talking to him again, trying—with forced laughs—to cheer him up. He walked over to Dalinar, who was taking a report from the battalionlord who commanded Narak. Oddly, Navani hadn’t emerged from her vehicle yet. Perhaps she was lost in her research.

“Permission to take the first group back, sir,” Kaladin said. “I want to go clean up.”

“A moment, Highmarshal,” Dalinar said to Kaladin, scanning the written report. The battalionlord, a gruff fellow with an Oldblood tattoo, looked away pointedly.

Though Dalinar had never said he’d moved to written reports specifically to make his officers confront the idea of a man reading, Kaladin could see the showmanship in the way he held up the sheet and nodded to himself as he read.

“What happened to Brightness Ialai is regrettable,” Dalinar said. “See that her decision to take her own life is published. I authorize a full occupation of the warcamps. See it done.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the battalionlord said. Dalinar was a king now, officially recognized by the coalition of monarchs as ruler of Urithiru—a station separate from Jasnah’s queenship over Alethkar. In acknowledgment of this, Dalinar had officially renounced any idea of being a “highking” over any other monarch.

Dalinar handed the sheet to the battalionlord, then nodded to Kaladin. They walked off from the others, then a little further, to a section of the base between two Soulcast grain shelters. The king didn’t speak at first, but Kaladin knew this trick. It was an old disciplinary tactic—you left silence hanging in the air. That made your man begin explaining himself first. Well, Kaladin didn’t bite.

Dalinar studied him, taking note of his burned and bloodied uniform. Finally, he spoke. “I have multiple reports of you and your soldiers letting enemy Fused go once you’ve wounded them.”

Kaladin relaxed immediately. That was what Dalinar wanted to talk about?

“I think we’re starting to reach a kind of understanding with them, sir,” Kaladin said. “The Heavenly Ones fight with honor. I let one of them go today. In turn, their leader—Leshwi—released one of my men instead of killing him.”

“This isn’t a game, son,” Dalinar said. “This isn’t about who gets first blood. We’re literally fighting for the existence of our people.”

“I know,” Kaladin said quickly. “But this can serve us. You’ve noticed already how they’ll hold back and attack us one-on-one, so long as we play by their rules. Considering how many more Heavenly Ones there are than Windrunners, I think we want to encourage this kind of encounter. Killing them is barely an inconvenience, as they’ll be reborn. But each of ours they kill requires training an entirely new Windrunner. Getting back wounded for wounded favors us.”

“You never did want to fight the parshmen,” Dalinar said. “Even when you first joined my army, you didn’t want to be sent against the Parshendi.”

“I didn’t like the idea of killing people who showed us honor, sir.”

“Does it strike you as odd to find it among them?” Dalinar asked. “The Almighty—Honor himself—was our god. The one their god killed.”

“I used to think it odd. But sir, wasn’t Honor their god before he was ours?”

That was one of the revelations that had shaken the foundation of the Radiants—both ancient and new. Though many of the orders had accepted the truth as an oddity and moved on, many Windrunners had not. Nor had Dalinar; Kaladin could see the way he winced whenever the idea was discussed.

This world had belonged to the singers with Honor as their god. Until humans had arrived, bringing Odium.

“All of this highlights a bigger problem,” Dalinar said. “This