The Way of Kings (Page 56)

Ruthar glanced Dalinar’s way and nodded to him—a minor token of respect—then turned to chat with one of his attendants. He cut off, however, as the guards at the doorway stepped aside to let Dalinar enter. Ruthar sniffed in annoyance. Dalinar’s easy access to the king galled the other highprinces.

The king wasn’t in his wardroom, but the wide doors to his balcony were open. Dalinar’s guardsmen waited behind as he stepped out onto the balcony, Renarin hesitantly following. The light outside was dimming as sunset neared. Setting the war palace up high like this was tactically sound, but it meant the place was mercilessly buffeted by storms. That was an old campaign conundrum. Did one choose the best position to weather storms, or did one seize the high ground?

Most would have chosen the former; their warcamps on the edge of the Shattered Plains were unlikely to be attacked, making the advantage of the high ground less important. But kings tended to prefer height. In this instance, Dalinar had encouraged Elhokar, just in case.

The balcony itself was a thick platform of rock cut onto the top of the small peak, edged with an iron railing. The king’s rooms were a Soulcast dome sitting atop the natural formation, with covered ramps and stairways leading to tiers lower on the hillside. Those housed the king’s various attendants: guards, stormwardens, ardents, and distant family members. Dalinar had his own bunker at his warcamp. He refused to call it a palace.

The king leaned against the railing, two guards watching from a distance. Dalinar motioned for Renarin to join them, so that he could speak with the king in private.

The air was cool—spring having come for a time—and it was sweet with the scents of evening: blooming rockbuds and wet stone. Below, the warcamps were starting to come alight, ten sparkling circles filled with watch-fires, cook fires, lamps, and the steady glow of infused gems. Elhokar stared over the camps and toward the Shattered Plains. They were utterly dark, save for the occasional twinkle of a watchpost.

“Do they watch us, from out there?” Elhokar asked as Dalinar joined him.

“We know their raiding bands move at night, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, resting one hand on the iron railing. “I can’t help but think they watch us.”

The king’s uniform had the traditional long coat with buttons up the sides, but it was loose and relaxed, and ruffled lace poked out of the collar and cuffs. His trousers were solid blue, and were cut in the same baggy fashion as Ruthar’s. It all looked so informal to Dalinar. Increasingly, their soldiers were being led by a slack group who dressed in lace and spent their evenings at feasts.

This is what Gavilar foresaw, Dalinar thought. This is why he grew so insistent that we follow the Codes.

“You look thoughtful, Uncle,” Elhokar said.

“Just considering the past, Your Majesty.”

“The past is irrelevant. I only look forward.”

Dalinar was not certain he agreed with either statement.

“I sometimes think I should be able to see the Parshendi,” Elhokar said. “I feel that if I stare long enough, I will find them, pin them down so I can challenge them. I wish they’d just fight me, like men of honor.”

“If they were men of honor,” Dalinar said, clasping his hands behind his back, “then they would not have killed your father as they did.”

“Why did they do it, do you suppose?”

Dalinar shook his head. “That question has churned in my head, over and over, like a boulder tumbling down a hill. Did we off end their honor? Was it some cultural misunderstanding?”

“A cultural misunderstanding would imply that they have a culture. Primitive brutes. Who knows why a horse kicks or an axehound bites? I shouldn’t have asked.”

Dalinar didn’t reply. He’d felt that same disdain, that same anger, in the months following Gavilar’s assassination. He could understand Elhokar’s desire to dismiss these strange, wildland parshmen as little more than animals.

But he’d seen them during those early days. Interacted with them. They were primitive, yes, but not brutes. Not stupid. We never really understood them, he thought. I guess that’s the crux of the problem.

“Elhokar,” he said softly. “It may be time to ask ourselves some difficult questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as how long we will continue this war.”

Elhokar started. He turned, looking at Dalinar. “We’ll keep fighting until the Vengeance Pact is satisfied and my father is avenged!”

“Noble words,” Dalinar said. “But we’ve been away from Alethkar for six years now. Maintaining two far-flung centers of government is not healthy for the kingdom.”

“Kings often go to war for extended periods, Uncle.”

“Rarely do they do it for so long,” Dalinar said, “and rarely do they bring every Shardbearer and Highprince in the kingdom with them. Our resources are strained, and word from home is that the Reshi border encroachments grow increasingly bold. We are still fragmented as a people, slow to trust one another, and the nature of this extended war—without a clear path to victory and with a focus on riches rather than capturing ground—is not helping at all.”

Elhokar sniffed, wind blowing at them atop the peaked rock. “You say there’s no clear path to victory? We’ve been winning! The Parshendi raids are coming less frequently, and aren’t striking as far westward as they once did. We’ve killed thousands of them in battle.”

“Not enough,” Dalinar said. “They still come in strength. The siege is straining us as much as, or more than, it is them.”

“Weren’t you the one to suggest this tactic in the first place?”

“I was a different man, then, flush with grief and anger.”

“And you no longer feel those things?” Elhokar was incredulous. “Uncle, I can’t believe I’m hearing this! You aren’t seriously suggesting that I abandon the war, are you? You’d have me slink home, like a scolded axehound?”

“I said they were difficult questions, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said, keeping his anger in check. It was taxing. “But they must be considered.”

Elhokar breathed out, annoyed. “It’s true, what Sadeas and the others whisper. You’re changing, Uncle. It has something to do with those episodes of yours, doesn’t it?”

“They are unimportant, Elhokar. Listen to me! What are we willing to give, in order to get vengeance?”

“Anything.”

“And if that means everything your father worked for? Do we honor his memory by undermining his vision for Alethkar, all to get revenge in his name?”

The king hesitated.

“You pursue the Parshendi,” Dalinar said. “That is laudable. But you can’t let your passion for just retribution blind you to the needs of our kingdom. The Vengeance Pact has kept the highprinces channeled, but what will happen once we win? Will we shatter? I think we need to forge them together, to unite them. We fight this war as if we were ten different nations, fighting beside one another but not with one another.”

The king didn’t respond immediately. The words, finally, seemed to be sinking in. He was a good man, and shared more with his father than others chose to admit.

He turned away from Dalinar, leaning against the railing. “You think I’m a poor king, don’t you, Uncle?”

“What? Of course not!”

“You always talk about what I should be doing, and where I am lacking. Tell me truthfully, Uncle. When you look at me, do you wish you saw my father’s face instead?”

“Of course I do,” Dalinar said.

Elhokar’s expression darkened.

Dalinar laid a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’d be a poor brother if I didn’t wish that Gavilar had lived. I failed him—it was the greatest, most terrible failure of my life.” Elhokar turned to him, and Dalinar held his gaze, raising a finger. “But just because I loved your father does not mean that I think you are a failure. Nor does it mean I do not love you in your own right. Alethkar itself could have collapsed upon Gavilar’s death, but you organized and executed our counterattack. You are a fine king.”

The king nodded slowly. “You’ve been listening to readings from that book again, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“You sound like him, you know,” Elhokar said, turning back to look eastward again. “Near the end. When he began to act…erratically.”

“Surely I’m not so bad as that.”

“Perhaps. But this is much like how he was. Talking about an end to war, fascinated by the Lost Radiants, insisting everyone follow the Codes…”

Dalinar remembered those days—and his own arguments with Gavilar. What honor can we find on a battlefield while our people starve? the king had once asked him. Is it honor when our lighteyes plot and scheme like eels in a bucket, slithering over one another and trying to bite each other’s tails?

Dalinar had reacted poorly to his words. Just as Elhokar was reacting to his words now. Stormfather! I am starting to sound like him, aren’t I?

That was troubling, yet somehow encouraging at the same time. Either way, Dalinar realized something. Adolin was right. Elhokar—and the highprinces with him—would never respond to a suggestion that they retreat. Dalinar was approaching the conversation in the wrong way. Almighty be blessed for sending me a son willing to speak his mind.

“Perhaps you are right, Your Majesty,” Dalinar said. “End the war? Leave a battlefield with an enemy still in control? That would shame us.”

Elhokar nodded in agreement. “I’m glad you see sense.”

“But something does have to change. We need a better way to fight.”

“Sadeas has a better way already. I spoke of his bridges to you. They work so well, and he’s captured so many gemhearts.”

“Gemhearts are meaningless,” Dalinar said. “All of this is meaningless if we don’t find a way to get the vengeance we all want. You can’t tell me you enjoy watching the highprinces squabble, practically ignoring our real purpose in being here.”

Elhokar fell silent, looking displeased.

Unite them. He remembered those words, booming in his head. “Elhokar,” he said, an idea occurring to him. “Do you remember what Sadeas and I spoke of to you when we first came here to war? The specialization of the highprinces?”

“Yes,” Elhokar said. In the distant past, each of the ten highprinces in Alethkar had been given a specific charge for the governing of the kingdom. One had been the ultimate law in regard to merchants, and his troops had patrolled the roadways of all ten princedoms. Another had administrated judges and magistrates.

Gavilar had been very taken by the idea. He claimed it was a clever device, meant to force the highprinces to work together. Once, this system had forced them to submit to one another’s authority. Things hadn’t been done that way in centuries, ever since the fragmenting of Alethkar into ten autonomous princedoms.

“Elhokar, what if you named me Highprince of War?” Dalinar asked.