The Way of Kings (Page 50)

Kaladin blinked. The man’s age hadn’t changed, but he didn’t seem nearly as frail. His step was firmer, and his voice had lost its whispering raspiness. He searched through his bottles, mumbling to himself as he read off his labels. “You could just go to the surgeon’s hall. They would charge you far less.”

“Not for a bridgeman,” Kaladin said, grimacing. He’d been turned away. The supplies there were for real soldiers.

“I see,” the apothecary said, setting a jar on the counter, then bending down to poke in some drawers.

Syl flitted over to Kaladin. “Every time he bends I think he’ll snap like a twig.” She was growing able to understand abstract thought, and at a surprisingly rapid pace.

I know what death is…. He still wasn’t certain whether to feel sorry for her or not.

Kaladin picked up the small bottle and undid the cork, smelling what was inside. “Larmic mucus?” He grimaced at the foul smell. “That’s not nearly as effective as the two I asked for.”

“But it’s far cheaper,” the old man said, coming up with a large box. He opened the lid, revealing sterile white bandages. “And you, as has been noted, are a bridgeman.”

“How much for the mucus, then?” He’d been worried about this; his father had never mentioned how much his supplies cost.

“Two bloodmarks for the bottle.”

“That’s what you consider cheap?”

“Lister’s oil costs two sapphire marks.”

“And knobweed sap?” Kaladin said. “I saw some of reeds of it growing just outside of camp! It can’t be that rare.”

“And do you know how much sap comes from a single plant?” the apothecary asked, pointing.

Kaladin hesitated. It wasn’t true sap, but a milky substance that you could squeeze from the stalks. Or so his father had said. “No,” Kaladin admitted.

“A single drop,” the man said. “If you’re lucky. It’s cheaper than lister’s oil, sure, but more expensive than the mucus. Even if the mucus does stink like the Nightwatcher’s own backside.”

“I don’t have that much,” Kaladin said. It was five diamond marks to a garnet. Ten days’ pay to buy one small jar of antiseptic. Stormfather!

The apothecary sniffed. “The needle and gut will cost two clearmarks. Can you afford that, at least?”

“Barely. How much for the bandages? Two full emeralds?”

“They’re just old scraps that I bleached and boiled. Two clearchips an arm length.”

“I’ll give a mark for the box.”

“Very well.” Kaladin reached into his pocket to get the spheres as the old apothecary continued, “You surgeons, all the same. Never give a blink to consider where your supplies come from. You just use them like there will be no end.”

“You can’t put a price on a person’s life,” Kaladin said. One of his father’s sayings. It was the main reason that Lirin had never charged for his services.

Kaladin brought out his four marks. He hesitated when he saw them, however. Only one was still glowing with its soft crystal light. The other three were dull, the bits of diamond barely visible at the center of the drops of glass.

“Here now,” the apothecary said, squinting. “You trying to pass dun spheres off on me?” He snatched one before Kaladin could complain, then fished around under his counter. He brought up a jeweler’s loupe, removing his spectacles and holding the sphere up toward the light. “Ah. No, that’s a real gemstone. You should get your spheres infused, bridgeman. Not everyone is as trusting as I am.”

“They were glowing this morning,” Kaladin protested. “Gaz must have paid me with run-down spheres.”

The apothecary removed his loupe and replaced the spectacles. He selected three marks, including the glowing one.

“Could I have that one?” Kaladin asked.

The apothecary frowned.

“Always keep a glowing sphere in your pocket,” Kaladin said. “It’s good luck.”

“You certain you don’t want a love potion?”

“If you get caught in the dark, you’ll have light,” Kaladin said tersely. “Besides, as you said, most people aren’t as trusting as you.”

Reluctantly, the apothecary traded the infused sphere for the dead one—though he did check it with the loupe to be certain. A dun sphere was worth just as much as an infused one; all you had to do was leave it out in a highstorm, and it would recharge and give off light for a week or so.

Kaladin pocketed the infused sphere and picked up his purchase. He nodded farewell to the apothecary, and Syl joined him as he stepped out into the camp’s street.

He’d spent some of the afternoon listening to soldiers at the mess hall, and he’d learned some things about the warcamps. Things he should have learned weeks ago, but had been too despondent to care about. He now knew about the chrysalises on the plateaus, the gemhearts they contained, and the competition between the highprinces. He understood why Sadeas pushed his men so hard, and he was beginning to see why Sadeas turned around if they got to the plateau later than another army. That wasn’t very common. More often, Sadeas arrived first, and the other Alethi armies that came up behind them had to turn back.

The warcamps were enormous. All told, there were over a hundred thousand troops in the various Alethi camps, many times the population of Hearthstone. And that wasn’t counting the civilians. A mobile warcamp attracted a large array of camp followers; stationary warcamps like these on the Shattered Plains brought even more.

Each of the ten warcamps filled its own crater, and was filled with an incongruous mix of Soulcast buildings, shanties, and tents. Some merchants, like the apothecary, had the money to build a wooden structure. Those who lived in tents took them down for storms, then paid for shelter elsewhere. Even within the crater, the stormwinds were strong, particularly where the outer wall was low or broken. Some places—like the lumberyard—were completely exposed.

The street bustled with the usual crowd. Women in skirts and blouses—the wives, sisters, or daughters of the soldiers, merchants, or craftsmen. Workers in trousers or overalls. A large number of soldiers in leathers, carrying spear and shield. All were Sadeas’s men. Soldiers of one camp didn’t mix with those of another, and you stayed away from another brightlord’s crater unless you had business there.

Kaladin shook his head in dismay.

“What?” Syl asked, settling on his shoulder.

“I hadn’t expected there to be so much discord among the camps here. I thought it would all be one king’s army, unified.”

“People are discord,” Syl said.

“What does that mean?”

“You all act differently and think differently. Nothing else is like that—animals act alike, and all spren are, in a sense, virtually the same individual. There’s harmony in that. But not in you—it seems that no two of you can agree on anything. All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that’s why you so often want to kill each other.”

“But not all windspren act alike,” Kaladin said, opening the box and tucking some of the bandages into the pocket he’d sewn into the inside of his leather vest. “You’re proof of that.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Maybe now you can see why it bothers me so.”

Kaladin didn’t know how to respond to that. Eventually, he reached the lumberyard. A few members of Bridge Four lounged in the shade on the east side of their barrack. It would be interesting to see one of those barracks get made—they were Soulcast directly from air into stone. Unfortunately, Soulcastings happened at night, and under strict guard to keep the holy rite from being witnessed by anyone other than ardents or very high-ranking lighteyes.

The first afternoon bell sounded right as Kaladin reached the barrack, and he caught a glare from Gaz for nearly being late for bridge duty. Most of that “duty” would be spent sitting around, waiting for the horns to blow. Well, Kaladin didn’t intend to waste time. He couldn’t risk tiring himself by carrying the plank, not when a bridge run could be imminent, but perhaps he could do some stretches or—

A horn sounded in the air, crisp and clean. It was like the mythical horn that was said to guide the souls of the brave to heaven’s battlefield. Kaladin froze. As always, he waited for the second blast, an irrational part of him needing to hear confirmation. It came, sounding a pattern indicating the location of the pupating chasmfiend.

Soldiers began to scramble toward the staging area beside the lumberyard; others ran into camp to fetch their gear. “Line up!” Kaladin shouted, dashing up to the bridgemen. “Storm you! Every man in a line!”

They ignored him. Some of the men weren’t wearing their vests, and they clogged the barrack doorway, all trying to get in. Those who had their vests ran for the bridge. Kaladin followed, frustrated. Once there, the men gathered around the bridge in a carefully prearranged manner. Each man got a chance to be in the best position: running in front up to the chasm, then moving to the relative safety of the back for the final approach.

There was a strict rotation, and errors were neither made nor tolerated. Bridge crews had a brutal system of self-management: If a man tried to cheat, the others forced him to run the final approach in front. That sort of thing was supposed to be forbidden, but Gaz turned a blind eye toward cheaters. He also refused bribes to let men change positions. Perhaps he knew that the only stability—the only hope—the bridgemen had was in their rotation. Life wasn’t fair, being a bridgeman wasn’t fair, but at least if you ran the deathline and survived, the next time you got to run at the back.

There was one exception. As bridgeleader, Kaladin got to run in the front most of the way, then move to the back for the assault. His was the safest position in the group, though no bridgeman was truly safe. Kaladin was like a moldy crust on a starving man’s plate; not the first bite, but still doomed.

He got into position. Yake, Dunny, and Malop were the last stragglers. Once they’d taken their places, Kaladin commanded the men to lift. He was half surprised to be obeyed, but there was almost always a bridgeleader to give commands during a run. The voice changed, but the simple orders did not. Lift, run, lower.

Twenty bridges charged down from the lumberyard and toward the Shattered Plains. Kaladin noticed a group of bridgemen from Bridge Seven watching with relief. They’d been on duty until the first afternoon bell; they’d avoided this run by mere moments.

The bridgemen worked hard. It wasn’t just because of threats of beatings—they ran so hard because they wanted to arrive at the target plateau before the Parshendi did. If they did so, there would be no arrows, no death. And so running their bridges was the one thing the bridgemen did without reservation or laziness. Though many hated their lives, they still clung to them with white-knuckled fervor.

They clomped across the first of the permanent bridges. Kaladin’s muscles groaned in protest at being worked again so soon, but he tried not to dwell on his fatigue. The highstorm’s rains from the night before meant that most plants were still open, rockbuds spewing out vines, flowering branzahs reaching clawlike branches out of crevices toward the sky. There were also occasional prickletacs: the needly, stone-limbed little shrubs Kaladin had noticed his first time through the area. Water pooled in the numerous crevices and depressions on the surface of the uneven plateau.