Soldiers raised spears and runners went to deliver his orders. Dalinar spun and charged into the Parshendi, pushing himself – and his army – forward. To the north, Sadeas’s forces were stalled. Well, Dalinar’s force would do the work for him. If Dalinar could spear forward here, he could slice the Parshendi in half, then crush the northern side against Sadeas and the southern side against the cliff edge.
His army surged forward behind him, and the Thrill bubbled within. It was power. Strength greater than Shardplate. Vitality greater than youth. Skill greater than a lifetime of practice. A fever of power. Parshendi after Parshendi fell before his Blade. He couldn’t cut their flesh, yet he sheared through their ranks. The momentum of their attacks often carried their corpses stumbling past him even as their eyes burned. The Parshendi started to break, running away or falling back. He grinned behind his near-translucent visor.
This was life. This was control. Gavilar had been the leader, the momentum, and the essence of their conquest. But Dalinar had been the warrior. Their opponents had surrendered to Gavilar’s rule, but the Blackthorn – he was the man who had scattered them, the one who had dueled their leaders and slain their best Shardbearers.
Dalinar screamed at the Parshendi, and their entire line bent, then shattered. The Alethi surged forward, cheering. Dalinar joined his men, charging at their forefront to run down the fleeing Parshendi warpairs as they fled to the north or south, trying to join larger groups who held there.
He reached a pair. One turned to hold him off with a hammer, but Dalinar cut him down in passing, then grabbed the other Parshendi and threw him down with a twist of the arm. Grinning, Dalinar raised his Blade high over his head, looming over the soldier.
The Parshendi rolled awkwardly, holding his arm, no doubt shattered as he was thrown down. He looked up at Dalinar, terrified, fearspren appearing around him.
He was only a youth.
Dalinar froze, Blade held above his head, muscles taut. Those eyes… that face… Parshendi might not be human, but their features – their expressions – were the same. Save for the marbled skin and the strange growths of carapace armor, this boy could have been a groom in Dalinar’s stable. What did he see above him? A faceless monster in impervious armor? What was this youth’s story? He would only have been a boy when Gavilar had been assassinated.
Dalinar stumbled backward, the Thrill vanishing. One of the Cobalt Guardsmen passed by, casually ramming a sword into the Parshendi boy’s neck. Dalinar raised a hand, but it was over too quickly for him to stop. The soldier didn’t notice Dalinar’s gesture.
Dalinar lowered his hand. His men were rushing around him, rolling over the fleeing Parshendi. The majority of the Parshendi still fought, resisting Sadeas on one side and Dalinar’s force on the other. The eastern plateau edge was just a short distance to Dalinar’s right – he had come up against the Parshendi force like a spear, slicing it through the center, splitting it off to the north and south.
Around him lay the dead. Many of them had fallen face-down, taken in the back by spears or arrows from Dalinar’s forces. Some Parshendi were still alive, though dying. They hummed or whispered to themselves a strange, haunting song. The one they sang as they waited to die.
Their whispered songs rose like the curses of spirits on Soul’s March. Dalinar had always found the death song the most beautiful of all he had heard from the Parshendi. It seemed to cut through the grunts, clangs, and screams of the nearby battle. As always, each Parshendi’s song was in perfect time with that of his fellows. It was as if they could all hear the same melody somewhere far away, singing along through sputtering, bloodied lips, with rasping breath.
The Codes, Dalinar thought, turning toward his fighting men. Never ask of your men a sacrifice you wouldn’t make yourself. Never make them fight in conditions you would refuse to fight in yourself. Never ask a man to perform an act you wouldn’t soil your own hands doing.
He felt sick. This wasn’t beautiful. This wasn’t glorious. This wasn’t strength, power, or life. This was revolting, repellent, and ghastly.
But they killed Gavilar! he thought, searching for a way to overcome the sickness he suddenly felt.
Unite them…
Roshar had been united, once. Had that included the Parshendi?
You don’t know if you can trust the visions or not, he told himself, his honor guard forming up behind him. They could be from the Nightwatcher or the Voidbringers. Or something else entirely.
In that moment, the objections felt weak. What had the visions wanted him to do? Bring peace to Alethkar, unite his people, act with justice and honor. Could he not judge the visions based on those results?
He raised his Shardblade to his shoulder, walking solemnly among the fallen toward the northern line, where the Parshendi were trapped between his men and Sadeas’s. His sickness grew stronger.
What was happening to him?
“Father!” Adolin’s shout was frantic.
Dalinar turned toward his son, who was running to him. The young man’s Plate was sprayed with Parshendi blood, but as always his Blade gleamed.
“What do we do?” Adolin asked, panting.
“About what?” Dalinar asked.
Adolin turned, pointing to the west – toward the plateau south of the one from which Dalinar’s army had begun their assault over an hour ago. There, leaping across the wide chasm, was an enormous second army of Parshendi.
Dalinar slammed his visor up, fresh air washing across his sweaty face. He stepped forward. He’d anticipated this possibility, but someone should have given warning. Where were the scouts? What was–
He felt a chill.
Shaking, he scrambled toward one of the smooth, bulging formations of rock that were plentiful on the Tower.
“Father?” Adolin said, running after him.
Dalinar climbed, seeking the top of the formation, dropping his Shardblade. He crested the rise and stood looking northward over his troops and the Parshendi. Northward, toward Sadeas. Adolin climbed up beside him, gauntleted hand slapping up his visor.
“Oh no…” he whispered.
Sadeas’s army was retreating across the chasm to the northern staging plateau. Half of it was across already. The eight groups of bridgemen he’d lent Dalinar had pulled back and were gone.
Sadeas was abandoning Dalinar and his troops, leaving them surrounded on three sides by Parshendi, alone on the Shattered Plains. And he was taking all of his bridges with him.
66
Codes
“That chanting, that singing, those rasping voices.”
Kaladin wearily unwrapped Skar’s wound to inspect his stitches and change the bandage. The arrow had hit on the right side of the ankle, deflecting off the knob of the fibula and scraping down through the muscles on the side of the foot.
“You were very lucky, Skar,” Kaladin said, putting on the new bandage. “You’ll walk on this again, assuming you do not put weight on it until it’s healed. We’ll have some of the men carry you back to camp.”
Behind them, the screaming, pounding, pulsing battle raged on. The fighting was distant now, focused on the eastern edge of the plateau. To Kaladin’s right, Teft drank as Lopen poured water into his mouth. The older man scowled, taking the waterskin from Lopen with his good hand. “I’m not an invalid,” he snapped. He’d gotten over his initial dizziness, though he was weak.