Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

Dalinar walked beside him. So many dead eyes, so many faces twisted in pain. Lighteyed and dark. Pale skin like the Shin and some Horneaters. Dark skin like the Makabaki. Many that could have been Alethi, Veden, or Herdazian.

There were other things, of course. The giant broken stone figures. Parshmen wearing warform, with chitin armor and orange blood. One spot they passed had a whole heap of strange cremlings, burned and smoking. Who would have taken the time to pile up a thousand little crustaceans?

“We fought together,” Yanagawn said.

“How else could we have resisted?” Dalinar said. “To fight the Desolation alone would be madness.”

Yanagawn eyed him. “You wanted to talk to me without the viziers. You wanted me alone! And you can just … you just show me whatever will strengthen your argument!”

“If you accept that I have the power to show you these visions,” Dalinar said, “would that not in itself imply that you should listen to me?”

“The Alethi are dangerous. Do you know what happened the last time the Alethi were in Azir?”

“The Sunmaker’s rule was a long time ago.”

“The viziers have talked about this,” Yanagawn said. “They told me all about it. It started the same way back then, with a warlord uniting the Alethi tribes.”

“Tribes?” Dalinar said. “You’d compare us to the nomads that roam Tu Bayla? Alethkar is one of the most cultured kingdoms on Roshar!”

“Your code of law is barely thirty years old!”

“Your Excellency,” Dalinar said, taking a deep breath, “I doubt this line of conversation will be relevant. Look around us. Look and see what the Desolation will bring.”

He swept his hand across the awful view, and Yanagawn’s temper cooled. It was impossible to feel anything but sorrow when confronted by so much death.

Eventually, Yanagawn turned and started back the way they’d come. Dalinar joined him, hands clasped behind.

“They say,” Yanagawn whispered, “that when the Sunmaker rode out of the passes and into Azir, he had one unexpected problem. He conquered my people too quickly, and didn’t know what to do with all of his captives. He couldn’t leave a fighting population behind him in the towns. There were thousands upon thousands of men he needed to murder.

“Sometimes he’d simply assign the work to his soldiers. Every man was to kill thirty captives—like a child who had to find an armload of firewood before being allowed to play. In other places the Sunmaker declared something arbitrary. Say that every man with hair beyond a certain length was to be slaughtered.

“Before he was struck down with disease by the Heralds, he murdered ten percent of the population of Azir. They say Zawfix was filled with the bones, blown by highstorms into piles as tall as the buildings.”

“I am not my ancestor,” Dalinar said softly.

“You revere him. The Alethi all but worship Sadees. You carry his storming Shardblade.”

“I gave that away.”

They stopped at the edge of the battlefield. The emperor had grit, but didn’t know how to carry himself. He walked with shoulders slumped, and his hands kept reaching for pockets his antiquated clothing didn’t have. He was of low birth—though in Azir, they didn’t properly revere eye color. Navani had once told him it was because there weren’t enough people in Azir with light eyes.

The Sunmaker himself had used this to justify conquering them.

“I am not my ancestor,” Dalinar repeated. “But I do share much with him. A youth of brutality. A lifetime spent at war. I have one advantage he did not.”

“Which is?”

Dalinar met the young man’s eyes. “I’ve lived long enough to see the consequences of what I’ve done.”

Yanagawn nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” a voice piped up. “You’re old.”

Dalinar turned, frowning. That had sounded like a young girl. Why would there be a girl on the battlefield?

“I didn’t expect you to be so old,” the girl said. She sat perched cross-legged on a large boulder nearby. “And you’re not really that black. They call you Blackthorn, but you’re really more like … Dark-tan-thorn. Gawx is more black than you are, and even he’s pretty brownish.”

The young emperor, remarkably, burst into an enormous grin. “Lift! You’re back!” He started climbing up the boulder, heedless of decorum.

“Not quite back,” she said. “Got sidetracked. But I’m close now.”

“What happened in Yeddaw?” Yanagawn said, eager. “You barely gave me any kind of explanation!”

“Those people lie about their food.” She narrowed her eyes at Dalinar as the young emperor slipped down the boulder, then tried to climb up another side.

This is not possible, the Stormfather said in Dalinar’s mind. How did she come here?

“You didn’t bring her in?” Dalinar said softly.

No. This is not possible! How…?

Yanagawn finally attained the top of the boulder and gave the younger girl a hug. She had long dark hair, pale white eyes, and tan skin, though she likely wasn’t Alethi—the face was too round. Reshi, perhaps?

“He’s trying to convince me I should trust him,” Yanagawn said, pointing at Dalinar.

“Don’t,” she said. “He’s got too nice a butt.”

Dalinar cleared his throat. “What?”

“Your butt is too nice. Old guys shouldn’t have tight butts. It means you spend waaay too much time swinging a sword or punching people. You should have an old flabby butt. Then I’d trust you.”

“She … has a thing about butts,” Yanagawn said.

“No I don’t,” the girl said, rolling her eyes. “If someone thinks I’m strange for talking about butts, it’s usually because they’re jealous, ’cuz I’m the only one without something rammed up mine.” She narrowed her eyes at Dalinar, then took the emperor by the arm. “Let’s go.”

“But—” Dalinar said, raising his hand.

“See, you’re learning.” She grinned at him.

Then she and the emperor vanished.

The Stormfather rumbled in frustration. That woman! This is a creation specifically meant to defy my will!

“Woman?” Dalinar asked, shaking his head.

That child is tainted by the Nightwatcher.

“Technically, so am I.”

This is different. This is unnatural. She goes too far. The Stormfather rumbled his discontent, refusing to speak to Dalinar further. He seemed genuinely upset.

In fact, Dalinar was forced to sit and wait until the vision finished. He spent the time staring out over that field of the dead, haunted equally by the future and the past.





You have spoken to one who cannot respond. We, instead, will take your communication to us—though we know not how you located us upon this world.

Moash picked at the mush that Febrth called a “stew.” It tasted like crem.

He stared at the flamespren in their large cookfire, trying to warm himself as Febrth—a Thaylen man with striking Horneater red hair—argued with Graves. The fire’s smoke curled into the air, and the light would be visible for miles across the Frostlands. Graves didn’t care; he figured that if the Everstorm hadn’t cleared the bandits out of the area, two Shardbearers would be more than enough to deal with any who remained.