Oathbringer

  Dalinar worried that by the time he reached the top, his quarry would have escaped. However, when he eventually burst onto the top of the ridge, an arrow slammed into his left breast, going straight through the breastplate near the shoulder, nearly throwing him from the saddle.

  Damnation! Dalinar hung on somehow, clenching the reins in one hand, and leaned low, peering ahead as the archer—still a distant figure—stood upon a rocky knob and launched another arrow. And another. Storms, the fellow was quick!

  He jerked Fullnight to one side, then the other, feeling the thrumming sense of the Thrill surge within him. It drove away the pain, let him focus.

  Ahead, the archer finally seemed to grow alarmed, and leaped from his perch to flee.

  Dalinar charged Fullnight over that knob a moment later. The archer turned out to be a man in his twenties wearing rugged clothing, with arms and shoulders that looked like they could have lifted a chull. Dalinar had the option of running him down, but instead galloped Fullnight past and kicked the man in the back, sending him sprawling.

  As Dalinar pulled up his horse, the motion sent a spike of pain through his arm. He forced it down, eyes watering, and turned toward the archer, who lay in a heap amid spilled black arrows.

  Dalinar lurched from the saddle, an arrow sprouting from each shoulder, as his men caught up. He seized the archer and hauled the fellow to his feet, noting the blue tattoo on his cheek. The archer gasped and stared at Dalinar. He expected he was quite a sight, covered in soot from the fires, his face a mask of blood from the nose and the cut scalp, stuck with not one but two arrows.

  “You waited until my helm was off,” Dalinar demanded. “You are an assassin. You were set here specifically to kill me.”

  The man winced, then nodded.

  “Amazing!” Dalinar said, letting go of the fellow. “Show me that shot again. How far is that, Thakka? I’m right, aren’t I? Over three hundred yards?”

  “Almost four,” Thakka said, pulling over his horse. “But with a height advantage.”

  “Still,” Dalinar said, stepping up to the lip of the ridge. He looked back at the befuddled archer. “Well? Grab your bow!”

  “My … bow?” the archer said.

  “Are you deaf, man?” Dalinar snapped. “Go get it!”

  The archer regarded the ten elites on horseback, grim-faced and dangerous, before wisely deciding to obey. He picked up an arrow, then his bow—which was made of a sleek black wood Dalinar didn’t recognize.

  “Went right through my storming armor,” Dalinar muttered, feeling at the arrow that had hit him on the left. That one didn’t seem too bad—it had punctured the steel, but had lost most of its momentum in doing so. The one on his right, though, had cut through the chain and was sending blood down his arm.

  He shook his head, shading his eyes with his left hand, inspecting the battlefield. To his right, the armies clashed, and his main body of elites had come up to press at the flank. The rearguard had found some civilians and was shoving them into the street.

  “Pick a corpse,” Dalinar said, pointing toward an empty square where a skirmish had happened. “Stick an arrow in one down there, if you can.”

  The archer licked his lips, still seeming confused. Finally, he took a spyglass off his belt and studied the area. “The one in blue, near the overturned cart.”

  Dalinar squinted, then nodded. Nearby, Thakka had climbed off his horse and had slid out his sword, resting it on his shoulder. A not-so-subtle warning. The archer drew his bow and launched a single black-fletched arrow. It flew true, sticking into the chosen corpse.

  A single awespren burst around Dalinar, like a ring of blue smoke. “Stormfather! Thakka, before today, I’d have bet you half the princedom that such a shot wasn’t possible.” He turned to the archer. “What’s your name, assassin?”

  The man raised his chin, but didn’t reply.

  “Well, in any case, welcome to my elites,” Dalinar said. “Someone get the fellow a horse.”

  “What?” the archer said. “I tried to kill you!”

  “Yes, from a distance. Which shows remarkably good judgment. I can make use of someone with your skills.”

  “We’re enemies!”

  Dalinar nodded toward the town below, where the beleaguered enemy army was—at long last—surrendering. “Not anymore. Looks like we’re all allies now!”

  The archer spat to the side. “Slaves beneath your brother, the tyrant.”

  Dalinar let one of his men help him onto his horse. “If you’d rather be killed, I can respect that. Alternatively, you can join me and name your price.”

  “The life of my brightlord Yezriar,” the archer said. “The heir.”

  “Is that the fellow…?” Dalinar said, looking to Thakka.

  “… That you killed down below? Yes, sir.”

  “He’s got a hole in his chest,” Dalinar said, looking back to the assassin. “Tough break.”

  “You … you monster! Couldn’t you have captured him?”

  “Nah. The other princedoms are digging in their heels. Refuse to recognize my brother’s crown. Games of catch-me with the high lighteyes just encourage people to fight back. If they know we’re out for blood, they’ll think twice.” Dalinar shrugged. “How about this? Join with me, and we won’t pillage the town. What’s left of it, anyway.”

  The man looked down at the surrendering army.

  “You in or not?” Dalinar said. “I promise not to make you shoot anyone you like.”

  “I…”

  “Great!” Dalinar said, turning his horse and trotting off.

  A short time later, when Dalinar’s elites rode up to him, the sullen archer was on a horse with one of the other men. The pain surged in Dalinar’s right arm as the Thrill faded, but it was manageable. He’d need surgeons to look at the arrow wound.

  Once they reached the town again, he sent orders to stop the looting. His men would hate that, but this town wasn’t worth much anyway. The riches would come once they started into the centers of the princedoms.

  He let his horse carry him in a leisurely gait through the town, passing soldiers who had settled down to water themselves and rest from the protracted engagement. His nose still smarted, and he had to forcibly prevent himself from snorting up blood. If it was well and truly broken, that wouldn’t turn out well for him.

  Dalinar kept moving, fighting off the dull sense of … nothingness that often followed a battle. This was the worst time. He could still remember being alive, but now had to face a return to mundanity.

  He’d missed the executions. Sadeas already had the local highprince’s head—and those of his officers—up on spears. Such a showman, Sadeas was. Dalinar passed the grim line, shaking his head, and heard a muttered curse from his new archer. He’d have to talk to the man, reinforce that in striking at Dalinar earlier, he’d shot an arrow at an enemy. That was to be respected. If he tried something against Dalinar or Sadeas now, it would be different. Thakka would already be searching out the fellow’s family.

  “Dalinar?” a voice called.

  He stilled his horse, turning toward the sound. Torol Sadeas—resplendent in golden yellow Shardplate that had already been washed clean—pushed through a cluster of officers. The red-faced young man looked far older than he had a year ago. When they’d started all this, he’d still been a gangly youth. No longer.

  “Dalinar, are those arrows? Stormfather, man, you look like a thornbush! What happened to your face?”

  “A fist,” Dalinar said, then nodded toward the heads on spears. “Nice work.”

  “We lost the crown prince,” Sadeas said. “He’ll mount a resistance.”

  “That would be impressive,” Dalinar said, “considering what I did to him.”

  Sadeas relaxed visibly. “Oh, Dalinar. What would we do without you?”

  “Lose. Someone get me something to drink and a pair of surgeons. In that order. Also, Sadeas, I promised we wouldn’t pillage the city. No looting, no slaves taken.”
/>
  “You what?” Sadeas demanded. “Who did you promise?”

  Dalinar thumbed over his shoulder at the archer.

  “Another one?” Sadeas said with a groan.

  “He’s got amazing aim,” Dalinar said. “Loyal, too.” He glanced to the side, where Sadeas’s soldiers had rounded up some weeping women for Sadeas to pick from.

  “I was looking forward to tonight,” Sadeas noted.

  “And I was looking forward to breathing through my nose. We’ll live. More than can be said for the kids we fought today.”

  “Fine, fine,” Sadeas said, sighing. “I suppose we could spare one town. A symbol that we are not without mercy.” He looked over Dalinar again. “We need to get you some Shards, my friend.”

  “To protect me?”

  “Protect you? Storms, Dalinar, at this point I’m not certain a rockslide could kill you. No, it just makes the rest of us look bad when you accomplish what you do while practically unarmed!”

  Dalinar shrugged. He didn’t wait for the wine or the surgeons, but instead led his horse back to gather his elites and reinforce the orders to guard the city from looting. Once finished, he walked his horse across smoldering ground to his camp.

  He was done living for the day. It would be weeks, maybe months, before he got another opportunity.

  I know that many women who read this will see it only as further proof that I am the godless heretic everyone claims.

  —From Oathbringer, preface

  Two days after Sadeas was found dead, the Everstorm came again.

  Dalinar walked through his chambers in Urithiru, pulled by the unnatural storm. Bare feet on cold rock. He passed Navani—who sat at the writing desk working on her memoirs again—and stepped onto his balcony, which hung straight out over the cliffs beneath Urithiru.

  He could feel something, his ears popping, cold—even more cold than usual—blowing in from the west. And something else. An inner chill.

  “Is that you, Stormfather?” Dalinar whispered. “This feeling of dread?”

  This thing is not natural, the Stormfather said. It is unknown.

  “It didn’t come before, during the earlier Desolations?”

  No. It is new.

  As always, the Stormfather’s voice was far off, like very distant thunder. The Stormfather didn’t always reply to Dalinar, and didn’t remain near him. That was to be expected; he was the soul of the storm. He could not—should not—be contained.

  And yet, there was an almost childish petulance to the way he sometimes ignored Dalinar’s questions. It seemed that sometimes he did so merely because he didn’t want Dalinar to think that he would come whenever called.

  The Everstorm appeared in the distance, its black clouds lit from within by crackling red lightning. It was low enough in the sky that—fortunately—its top wouldn’t reach Urithiru. It surged like a cavalry, trampling the calm, ordinary clouds below.

  Dalinar forced himself to watch that wave of darkness flow around Urithiru’s plateau. Soon it seemed as if their lonely tower were a lighthouse looking over a dark, deadly sea.

  It was hauntingly silent. Those red lightning bolts didn’t rumble with thunder in the proper way. He heard the occasional crack, stark and shocking, like a hundred branches snapping at once. But the sounds didn’t seem to match the flashes of red light that rose from deep within.

  The storm was so quiet, in fact, that he was able to hear the telltale rustle of cloth as Navani slipped up behind him. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing against his back, resting her head against his shoulder. His eyes flickered down, and he noticed that she’d removed the glove from her safehand. It was barely visible in the dark: slender, gorgeous fingers—delicate, with the nails painted a blushing red. He saw it by the light of the first moon above, and by the intermittent flashes of the storm beneath.

  “Any further word from the west?” Dalinar whispered. The Everstorm was slower than a highstorm, and had hit Shinovar many hours before. It did not recharge spheres, even if you left them out during the entire Everstorm.

  “The spanreeds are abuzz. The monarchs are delaying a response, but I suspect that soon they’ll realize they have to listen to us.”

  “I think you underestimate the stubbornness a crown can press into a man or woman’s mind, Navani.”

  Dalinar had been out during his share of highstorms, particularly in his youth. He’d watched the chaos of the stormwall pushing rocks and refuse before it, the sky-splitting lightning, the claps of thunder. Highstorms were the ultimate expression of nature’s power: wild, untamed, sent to remind man of his insignificance.

  However, highstorms never seemed hateful. This storm was different. It felt vengeful.

  Staring into that blackness below, Dalinar thought he could see what it had done. A series of impressions, thrown at him in anger. The storm’s experiences as it had slowly crossed Roshar.

  Houses ripped apart, screams of the occupants lost to the tempest.

  People caught in their fields, running in a panic before the unpredicted storm.

  Cities blasted with lightning. Towns cast into shadow. Fields swept barren.

  And vast seas of glowing red eyes, coming awake like spheres suddenly renewed with Stormlight.

  Dalinar hissed out a long, slow breath, the impressions fading. “Was that real?” he whispered.

  Yes, the Stormfather said. The enemy rides this storm. He’s aware of you, Dalinar.

  Not a vision of the past. Not some possibility of the future. His kingdom, his people, his entire world was being attacked. He drew a deep breath. At the very least, this wasn’t the singular tempest that they’d experienced when the Everstorm had clashed with the highstorm for the first time. This seemed less powerful. It wouldn’t tear down cities, but it did rain destruction upon them—and the winds would attack in bursts, hostile, even deliberate.

  The enemy seemed more interested in preying upon the small towns. The fields. The people caught unaware.

  Though it was not as destructive as he’d feared, it would still leave thousands dead. It would leave cities broken, particularly those without shelter to the west. More importantly, it would steal the parshmen laborers and turn them into Voidbringers, loosed on the public.

  All in all, this storm would exact a price in blood from Roshar that hadn’t been seen since … well, since the Desolations.

  He lifted his hand to grasp Navani’s, as she in turn held to him. “You did what you could, Dalinar,” she whispered after a time watching. “Don’t insist on carrying this failure as a burden.”

  “I won’t.”

  She released him and turned him around, away from the sight of the storm. She wore a dressing gown, not fit to go about in public, but also not precisely immodest.

  Save for that hand, with which she caressed his chin. “I,” she whispered, “don’t believe you, Dalinar Kholin. I can read the truth in the tightness of your muscles, the set of your jaw. I know that you, while being crushed beneath a boulder, would insist that you’ve got it under control and ask to see field reports from your men.”

  The scent of her was intoxicating. And those entrancing, brilliant violet eyes.

  “You need to relax, Dalinar,” she said.

  “Navani…” he said.

  She looked at him, questioning, so beautiful. Far more gorgeous than when they’d been young. He’d swear it. For how could anyone be as beautiful as she was now?

  He seized her by the back of the head and pulled her mouth to his own. Passion woke within him. She pressed her body to his, breasts pushing against him through the thin gown. He drank of her lips, her mouth, her scent. Passionspren fluttered around them like crystal flakes of snow.

  Dalinar stopped himself and stepped back.

  “Dalinar,” she said as he pulled away. “Your stubborn refusal to get seduced is making me question my feminine wiles.”

  “Control is important to me, Navani,” he said, his voice hoarse. He gripped the stone balcony wall, whi
te knuckled. “You know how I was, what I became, when I was a man with no control. I will not surrender now.”

  She sighed and sidled up to him, pulling his arm free of the stone, then slipping under it. “I won’t push you, but I need to know. Is this how it’s going to continue? Teasing, dancing on the edge?”

  “No,” he said, staring out over the darkness of the storm. “That would be an exercise in futility. A general knows not to set himself up for battles he cannot win.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll find a way to do it right. With oaths.”

  The oaths were vital. The promise, the act of being bound together.

  “How?” she said, then poked him in the chest. “I’m as religious as the next woman—more than most, actually. But Kadash turned us down, as did Ladent, even Rushu. She squeaked when I mentioned it and literally ran away.”

  “Chanada,” Dalinar said, speaking of the senior ardent of the warcamps. “She spoke to Kadash, and had him go to each of the ardents. She probably did it the moment she heard we were courting.”

  “So no ardent will marry us,” Navani said. “They consider us siblings. You’re stretching to find an impossible accommodation; continue with this, and it’s going to leave a lady wondering if you actually care.”

  “Have you ever thought that?” Dalinar said. “Sincerely.”

  “Well … no.”

  “You are the woman I love,” Dalinar said, pulling her tight. “A woman I have always loved.”

  “Then who cares?” she said. “Let the ardents hie to Damnation, with ribbons around their ankles.”

  “Blasphemous.”

  “I’m not the one telling everyone that God is dead.”

  “Not everyone,” Dalinar said. He sighed, letting go of her—with reluctance—and walked back into his rooms, where a brazier of coal radiated welcome warmth, as well as the room’s only light. They had recovered his fabrial heating device from the warcamps, but didn’t yet have the Stormlight to run it. The scholars had discovered long chains and cages, apparently used for lowering spheres down into the storms, so they’d be able to renew their spheres—if the highstorms ever returned. In other parts of the world, the Weeping had restarted, then fitfully stopped. It might start again. Or the proper storms might start up. Nobody knew, and the Stormfather refused to enlighten him.