The Decoy
POV: dalinar
Summary
Four hours after the chasmfiend kill, Adolin walks the wreckage on the viewing plateau gathering casualty reports — nearly fifty dead and a hundred wounded among unarmed scribes and attendants. Dalinar, whom the other lighteyes are no longer mocking, stands at the eastern edge watching the lights of the chasmfiend-watchtowers wink across the Plains, thinking on the six-year siege. His original plan had been to starve the Parshendi against the impassable eastern spires; he had not anticipated the gemhearts, which turned the war into a competitive sport. The original goal — vengeance for Gavilar — has been nearly forgotten. The whispered phrase Unite them and the visions cycle through his head.
In the pavilion Sadeas needles him in front of the king over Sadeas's three recent gemheart wins and over his own bridge crews: at first he tried armor and shields, but the Parshendi ignored the bridgemen and shot his soldiers, so he made the bridges light and the bridgemen expendable and the Parshendi can no longer stop firing at them. "The prize is worth any cost." Dalinar disagrees flatly: this is a war, not a contest. The means by which we win are as important as the victory itself. The Alethi in the pavilion are visibly shocked at the un-Alethi line.
Underneath it all, Gavilar's dying request — find the most important words a man can say — runs through Dalinar's head as a quote from The Way of Kings. He has been quietly listening to readings from the ancient book almost daily — it was used by the Lost Radiants as a guide but was written by the ordinary man Nohadon; among other passages it tells of a king who climbed down from his carriage to help a man carry a stone, and argues that a leader should serve those he leads. He keeps the interest quiet because the book is associated with heresy.
Elhokar catches him on the way out and asks about the girth. The torn saddle strap — the one that threw the king at the start of the hunt — has a smoother edge along one side. The Kholins are not leatherworkers, but it could have been cut. The king is sure of it: someone is trying to kill him, perhaps someone on this very hunt. Dalinar hands the strap to Adolin to take to experts, urges his nephew not to leap to conclusions, and notes a flicker of suspicion in the king's eyes that lands on the Kholin men themselves. The replacement bridge crew arrives — one of Sadeas's, full of human refuse — and bears the army home. Dalinar climbs onto the bridge nodding his thanks, and remembers another passage from the book: the bridgemen are the lowest in the army, yet they bear the weight of kings.