Rathalas

Rathalas, also known as the Rift, located in the region of the Eastern Crownlands, was once a city near central Alethkar. It was burned to the ground in and was never rebuilt.
==Description==
It was a chasm city, difficult to spot from specific directions; an entire city that had been built inside a rip in the ground.
There were plains around a lake near the city, and the riverbed there was dry, except during storms.
The rockbuds there drank so fully of the local water supply that they'd grown to enormous sizes. Some were taller than a man's waist, and the vines they produced were as thick as Dalinar's wrist.
There was a ring of stone that surrounded the Rift, and it was built on platforms, rising up along the widening sides of that ring of stone. To Dalinar, it was little wonder the people thought so highly of themselves as to resist; their city was grand, a monument of human ingenuity and grit.
==Characteristics==
The city was large enough to house tens of thousands of people.
==Rifters==
The people of Rathalas were sometimes referred to as Rifters. They had a distinct nasal accent.
The Rifters had gotten the better of Dalinar twice before his final attack upon the city. He believes he should've learned the first time.
==History==
According to Gavilar, the Rifters demanded Dalinar's Shardblade back, claiming that Tanalan's heir had returned,* and that he deserved the Blade, as Dalinar never won it in a true contest.
Gavilar believed that he could nip this thing with politics. He didn't want a show of force to be his only method of maintaining unity, or Elhokar would spend his entire life putting out fires after he was gone. He needed people to start thinking of Alethkar as a unified kingdom, not separate regions always looking for an advantage against one another.
According to Havar, rumor had it that the Rifters waned to set up their own highprince, the son of the old one (i.e., Tanalan). Dalinar told him that they wouldn't be going to the Rift. That his brother could handle the Rift with diplomacy.
Later, however, there weren't enough boats for an amphibious attack on Rathalas, so Dalinar was forced to use a more conventional assault. He marched down from the west - having sent Adolin back to Kholinar - and assigned Sadeas and his forces to come in from the east. They converged toward the Rift.
Dalinar's forces approached the walls of Rathalas, where the rebels had gathered, but Dalinar wouldn't camp for long outside, not exposed to the storms.
In beginning the attack upon the city, no Shardbearers led; Dalinar was too weak, and his Shardplate was in shambles. Sadeas never liked exposing himself too early, and Teleb couldn't rush in alone. So, the army did it the mundane way, sending men to be crushed by stones or impaled by arrows as they carried ladders. They broke through eventually, securing a section of the wall in a furious, bloody fight.
Soon thereafter, soldiers unplugged barrels of oil, then began dropping them down, soaking the upper levels of the city. Flaming brands followed, starting struts and walkways on fire. The very foundations of the city were flammable.
Shortly thereafter, screams and cries of pain could be heard. Calls for mercy. People flooded from buildings, shouting in terror, fleeing on walkways and steps toward the basin below. Many buildings burned, trapping others inside.
When Dalinar sees the ensuing destruction, he thinks to himself that it was like looking into Damnation itself.
After having observed the continuing extent of the damage and having captured the heir, Dalinar learns from him that Evi had come to the city to negotiate with them and that Dalinar's actions there had been responsible for her death. He then kills the heir by strangling him.
Sadeas and Dalinar were publicly censured by the king for the loss of the city. Sadeas would later be responsible for spinning a story about what had happened.. There is some contradiction between this and what Adolin had heard: that Sadeas himself burned the city in retribution for the death of Evi.
==Notes==
*Dalinar was supposed to have dealt with the heir when he won his Shardblade there.
He remembered a weeping child holding a Shardblade. The father, lying broken and dead behind.
Adolin believes that Sadeas burned the city to the ground in retribution for his mother Evi's death.
==References==
Category:Cities