The Way of Kings (Page 158)

—Dated Shashanan, 1173, 23 seconds pre-death. Subject: a darkeyed youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note.

“And all the world was shattered!” Maps yelled, back arching, eyes wide, flecks of red spittle on his cheeks. “The rocks trembled with their steps, and the stones reached toward the heavens. We die! We die!”

He spasmed one last time, and the light faded from his eyes. Kaladin sat back, crimson blood slick on his hands, the dagger he’d been using as a surgical knife slipping from his fingers and clicking softly against the stone. The affable man lay dead on the stones of a plateau, arrow wound in his left breast open to the air, splitting the birthmark he’d claimed looked like Alethkar.

It’s taking them, Kaladin thought. One by one. Open them up, bleed them out. We’re nothing more than pouches to carry blood. Then we die, rain it down on the stones like a highstorm’s floods.

Until only I remain. I always remain.

A layer of skin, a layer of fat, a layer of muscle, a layer of bone. That was what men were.

The battle raged across the chasm. It might as well have been another kingdom, for all the attention anyone gave the bridgemen. Die die die, then get out of our way.

The members of Bridge Four stood in a solemn ring around Kaladin. “What was that he said at the end?” Skar asked. “The rocks trembled?”

“It was nothing,” said thick-armed Yake. “Just dying delirium. It happens to men, sometimes.”

“More often lately, it seems,” Teft said. He held his hand to his arm, where he’d hastily wrapped a bandage around an arrow wound. He wouldn’t be carrying a bridge anytime soon. Maps’s death and Arik’s death left them with only twenty-six members now. It was barely enough to carry a bridge. The greater heaviness was very noticeable, and they had difficulty keeping up with the other bridge crews. A few more losses, and they’d be in serious trouble.

I should have been faster, Kaladin thought, looking down at Maps splayed open, his insides exposed for the sun to dry. The arrowhead had pierced his lung and lodged in his spine. Could Lirin have saved him? If Kaladin had studied in Kharbranth as his father had wished, would he have learned enough—known enough—to prevent deaths like this?

This happens sometimes, son….

Kaladin raised shaking bloody hands to his face, gripping his head, as memory consumed him. A young girl, a cracked head, a broken leg, an angry father.

Despair, hate, loss, frustration, horror. How could any man live this way? To be a surgeon, to live knowing that you would be too weak to save some? When other men failed, a field of crops got worms in them. When a surgeon failed, someone died.

You have to learn when to care….

As if he could choose. Banish it, like snuffing a lantern. Kaladin bowed beneath the weight. I should have saved him, I should have saved him, I should have saved him.

Maps, Dunny, Amark, Goshel, Dallet, Nalma. Tien.

“Kaladin.” Syl’s voice. “Be strong.”

“If I were strong,” he hissed, “they would live.”

“The other bridgemen still need you. You promised them, Kaladin. You gave your oath.”

Kaladin looked up. The bridgemen seemed anxious and worried. There were only eight of them; Kaladin had sent the others to look for fallen bridgemen from other crews. They’d found three initially, minor wounds that Skar could care for. No runners had come for him. Either the bridge crews had no other wounded, or those wounded were beyond help.

Maybe he should have gone to look, just in case. But—numb—he could not face yet another dying man he could not save. He stumbled to his feet and walked away from the corpse. He stepped up to the chasm and forced himself to fall into the old stance Tukks had taught him.

Feet apart, hands behind his back, clasping forearms. Straight-backed, staring forward. The familiarity brought him strength.

You were wrong, Father, he thought. You said I’d learn to deal with the deaths. And yet here I am. Years later. Same problem.

The bridgemen fell in around him. Lopen approached with a waterskin. Kaladin hesitated, then accepted the skin, washing off his face and hands. The warm water splashed across his skin, then brought welcome coolness as it evaporated. He let out a deep breath, nodding thanks to the short Herdazian man.

Lopen raised an eyebrow, then gestured to the pouch tied to his waist. He had recovered the newest pouch of spheres they’d stuck to the bridge with an arrow. This was the fourth time they’d done that, and had recovered them each without incident.

“Did you have any trouble?” Kaladin asked.

“No, gancho,” Lopen said, smiling widely. “Easy as tripping a Horneater.”

“I heard that,” Rock said gruffly, standing in parade rest a short distance away.

“And the rope?” Kaladin asked.

“I dropped the whole coil right over the side,” Lopen said. “But I didn’t tie the end to anything. Just like you said.”

“Good,” Kaladin said. A rope dangling from a bridge would have just been too obvious. If Hashal or Gaz caught scent of what Kaladin was planning…

And where is Gaz? Kaladin thought. Why didn’t he come on the bridge run?

Lopen gave Kaladin the pouch of spheres, as if eager to be rid of the responsibility. Kaladin accepted it, stuffing it into his trouser pocket.

Lopen retreated, and Kaladin fell back into parade rest. The plateau on the other side of the chasm was long and thin, with steep slopes on the sides. Just as in the last few battles, Dalinar Kholin helped Sadeas’s force. He always arrived late. Perhaps he blamed his slow, chull-pulled bridges. Very convenient. His men often had the luxury of crossing without archery fire.

Sadeas and Dalinar won more battles this way. Not that it mattered to the bridgemen.

Many people were dying on the other side of the chasm, but Kaladin didn’t feel a thing for them. No itch to heal them, no desire to help. Kaladin could thank Hav for that, for training him to think in terms of “us” and “them.” In a way, Kaladin had learned what his father had talked about. In the wrong way, but it was something. Protect the “us,” destroy the “them.” A soldier had to think like that. So Kaladin hated the Parshendi. They were the enemy. If he hadn’t learned to divide his mind like that, war would have destroyed him.

Perhaps it had done so anyway.

As he watched the battle, he focused on one thing in particular to distract himself. How did the Parshendi treat their dead? Their actions seemed irregular. The Parshendi soldiers rarely disturbed their dead after they fell; they’d take roundabout paths of attack to avoid dead bodies. And when the Alethi marched over the Parshendi dead, they formed points of terrible conflict.

Did the Alethi notice? Probably not. But he could see that the Parshendi revered their dead—revered them to the extent that they would endanger the living to preserve the corpses of the fallen. Kaladin could use that. He would use that. Somehow.

The Alethi eventually won the battle. Before long, Kaladin and his team were slogging back across the plateau, carrying their bridge, three wounded lashed to the top. They had found only those three, and a part of Kaladin felt sick inside as he realized another part of him was glad. He had already rescued some fifteen men from other bridge crews, and it was straining their resources—even with the money from the pouches—to feed them. Their barrack was crowded with the wounded.

Bridge Four reached a chasm, and Kaladin moved to lower his burden. The process was rote to him now. Lower the bridge, quickly untie the wounded, push the bridge across the chasm. Kaladin checked on the three wounded. Every man he rescued this way seemed bemused at what he’d done, even though he’d been doing it for weeks now. Satisfied that they were all right, he moved to stand at parade rest while the soldiers crossed.

Bridge Four fell in around him. Increasingly, they earned scowls from the soldiers—both darkeyed and lighteyed—who crossed. “Why do they do that?” Moash said quietly as a passing soldier tossed an overripe pile-vine fruit at the bridgemen. Moash wiped the stringy, red fruit from his face, then sighed and fell back into his stance. Kaladin had never asked them to join him, but they did it each time.

“When I fought in Amaram’s army,” Kaladin said, “I dreamed about joining the troops at the Shattered Plains. Everyone knew that the soldiers left in Alethkar were the dregs. We imagined the real soldiers, off fighting in the glorious war to bring retribution to those who had killed our king. Those soldiers would treat their fellows with fairness. Their discipline would be firm. Each would be an expert with the spear, and he would not break rank on the battlefield.”

To the side, Teft snorted quietly.

Kaladin turned to Moash. “Why do they treat us so, Moash? Because they know they should be better than they are. Because they see discipline in bridgemen, and it embarrasses them. Rather than bettering themselves, they take the easier road of jeering at us.”

“Dalinar Kholin’s soldiers don’t act like that,” Skar said from just behind Kaladin. “His men march in straight ranks. There is order in their camp. If they’re on duty, they don’t leave their coats unbuttoned or lounge about.”

Will I never stop hearing about Dalinar storming Kholin? Kaladin thought.

Men had spoken that way of Amaram. How easy it was to ignore a blackened heart if you dressed it in a pressed uniform and a reputation for honesty.

Several hours later, the sweaty and exhausted group of bridgemen tramped up the incline to the lumberyard. They dumped their bridge in its resting place. It was getting late; Kaladin would have to purchase food immediately if they were going to have supplies for the evening stew. He wiped his hands on his towel as the members of Bridge Four lined up.

“You’re dismissed for evening activities,” he said. “We have chasm duty early tomorrow. Morning bridge practice will have to be moved to late afternoon.”

The bridgemen nodded, then Moash raised a hand. As one, the bridgemen raised their arms and crossed them, wrists together, hands in fists. It had the look of a practiced effort. After that, they trotted away.

Kaladin raised an eyebrow, tucking his towel into his belt. Teft hung back, smiling.

“What was that?” Kaladin asked.

“The men wanted a salute,” Teft said. “We can’t use a regular military salute—not with the spearmen already thinking we’re too bigheaded. So I taught them my old squad salute.”

“When?”

“This morning. While you were getting our schedule from Hashal.”

Kaladin smiled. Odd, how he could still do that. Nearby, the other nineteen bridge crews on today’s run dropped off their bridges, one by one. Had Bridge Four once looked like them, with those ragged beards and haunted expressions? None of them spoke to one another. Some few glanced at Kaladin as they passed, but they looked down as soon as they saw he was watching. They’d stopped treating Bridge Four with the contempt they’d once shown. Curiously, they now seemed to regard Kaladin’s crew as they did everyone else in camp—as people above them. They hastened to avoid his notice.

Poor sodden fools, Kaladin thought. Could he, maybe, persuade Hashal to let him take a few into Bridge Four? He could the use extra men, and seeing those slumped figures twisted his heart.