The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  “The men in Amaram’s army knew they had worse places they could go. You could punish them. These bridgemen know they’ve reached the bottom.” With a sigh, he let some of his tension bleed away. “I’m lucky I got them out of the barrack.”

  “So what do you do now?”

  “I don’t know.” Kaladin glanced to the side, where Gaz still stood chatting with the soldiers. “Actually, yes I do.”

  Gaz caught sight of Kaladin approaching and displayed a look of urgent, wide-eyed horror. He broke off his conversation and hastily rushed around the side of a stack of logs.

  “Syl,” Kaladin said, “could you follow him for me?”

  She smiled, then became a faint line of white, shooting through the air and leaving a trail that vanished slowly. Kaladin stopped where Gaz had been standing.

  Syl zipped back a short time later and reassumed her girlish form. “He’s hiding between those two barracks.” She pointed. “He’s crouched there, watching to see if you follow.”

  With a smile, Kaladin took the long way around the barracks. In the alleyway, he found a figure crouching in the shadows, watching in the other direction. Kaladin crept forward, then grabbed Gaz’s shoulder. Gaz let out a yelp, spinning, swinging. Kaladin caught the fist easily.

  Gaz looked up at Kaladin with horror. “I wasn’t going to lie! Storm you, you don’t have authority anywhere other than on the field. If you hurt me again, I’ll have you—”

  “Calm yourself, Gaz,” Kaladin said, releasing the man. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet, at least.”

  The shorter man backed away, rubbing his shoulder and glaring at Kaladin.

  “Today’s third pass,” Kaladin said. “Payday.”

  “You get your pay in an hour like everyone else.”

  “No. You have it now; I saw you talking to the courier there.” He held out his hand.

  Gaz grumbled, but pulled out a pouch and counted spheres. Tiny, tentative white lights shone at their centers. Diamond marks, each worth five diamond chips. A single chip would buy a loaf of bread.

  Gaz counted out four marks, though there were five days to a week. He handed them to Kaladin, but Kaladin left his hand open, palm forward. “The other one, Gaz.”

  “You said—”

  “Now.”

  Gaz jumped, then pulled out a sphere. “You have a strange way of keeping your word, lordling. You promised me…”

  He trailed off as Kaladin took the sphere he’d just been given and handed it back.

  Gaz frowned.

  “Don’t forget where this comes from, Gaz. I’ll keep to my word, but you aren’t keeping part of my pay. I’m giving it to you. Understand?”

  Gaz looked confused, though he did snatch the sphere from Kaladin’s hand.

  “The money stops coming if something happens to me,” Kaladin said, tucking the other four spheres into his pocket. Then he stepped forward. Kaladin was a tall man, and he loomed over the much shorter Gaz. “Remember our bargain. Stay out of my way.”

  Gaz refused to be intimidated. He spat to the side, the dark spittle clinging to the rock wall, oozing slowly. “I ain’t going to lie for you. If you think one cremstained mark a week will—”

  “I expect only what I said. What is Bridge Four’s camp duty today?”

  “Evening meal. Scrubbing and cleaning.”

  “And bridge duty?”

  “Afternoon shift.”

  That meant the morning would be open. The crew would like that; they could spend payday losing their spheres on gambling or whores, perhaps forgetting for a short time the miserable lives they lived. They’d have to be back for afternoon duty, waiting in the lumberyard in case there was a bridge run. After evening meal, they’d go scrub pots.

  Another wasted day. Kaladin turned to walk back to the lumberyard.

  “You aren’t going to change anything,” Gaz called after him. “Those men are bridgemen for a reason.”

  Kaladin kept walking, Syl zipping down from the roof to land on his shoulder.

  “You don’t have authority,” Gaz called. “You’re not some squadleader on the field. You’re a storming bridgeman. You hear me? You can’t have authority without a rank!”

  Kaladin left the alleyway behind. “He’s wrong.”

  Syl walked around to hang in front of his face, hovering there while he moved. She cocked her head at him.

  “Authority doesn’t come from a rank,” Kaladin said, fingering the spheres in his pocket.

  “Where does it come from?”

  “From the men who give it to you. That’s the only way to get it.” He looked back the way he’d come. Gaz hadn’t left the alleyway yet. “Syl, you don’t sleep, do you?”

  “Sleep? A spren?” She seemed amused by the concept.

  “Would you watch over me at night?” he said. “Make sure Gaz doesn’t sneak in and try something while I’m sleeping? He may try to have me killed.”

  “You think he’d actually do that?”

  Kaladin thought for a moment. “No. No, probably not. I’ve known a dozen men like him—petty bullies with just enough power to be annoying. Gaz is a thug, but I don’t think he’s a murderer. Besides, in his opinion, he doesn’t have to hurt me; he just has to wait until I get killed on a bridge run. Still, best to be safe. Watch over me, if you would. Wake me if he tries something.”

  “Sure. But what if he just goes to more important men? Tells them to execute you?”

  Kaladin grimaced. “Then there’s nothing I can do. But I don’t think he’d do that. It would make him look weak before his superiors.”

  Besides, beheading was reserved for bridgemen who wouldn’t run at the Parshendi. So long as he ran, he wouldn’t be executed. In fact, the army leaders seemed hesitant to do much to punish bridgemen at all. One man had committed murder while Kaladin had been a bridgeman, and they’d strung the fool up in a highstorm. But other than that, all Kaladin had seen was a few men get their wages garnished for brawling, and a couple get whipped for being too slow during the early part of a bridge run.

  Minimal punishments. The leaders of this army understood. The lives of bridgemen were as close to hopeless as possible; shove them down too much further, and the bridgemen might just stop caring and let themselves be killed.

  Unfortunately, that also meant that there wouldn’t be much Kaladin could do to punish his own crew, even if he’d had that authority. He had to motivate them in another way. He crossed the lumberyard to where the carpenters were constructing new bridges. After some searching, Kaladin found what he wanted—a thick plank waiting to be fitted into a new portable bridge. A handhold for a bridgeman had been affixed to one side.

  “Can I borrow this?” Kaladin asked a passing carpenter.

  The man raised a hand to scratch a sawdust-powdered head. “Borrow it?”

  “I’ll stay right here in the lumberyard,” Kaladin explained, lifting the board and putting it on his shoulder. It was heavier than he’d expected, and he was thankful for the padded leather vest.

  “We’ll need it eventually…” the carpenter said, but didn’t offer enough of an objection to stop Kaladin from walking away with the plank.

  He chose a level stretch of stone directly in front of the barracks. Then he began to trot from one end of the lumberyard to the other, carrying the board on his shoulder, feeling the heat of the rising sun on his skin. He went back and forth, back and forth. He practiced running, walking, and jogging. He practiced carrying the plank on his shoulder, then carrying it up high, arms stretched out.

  He worked himself ragged. In fact, he felt close to collapsing several times, but every time he did, he found a reserve of strength from somewhere. So he kept moving, teeth gritted against the pain and fatigue, counting his steps to focus. The apprentice carpenter he’d spoken to brought a supervisor over. That supervisor scratched his head beneath his cap, watching Kaladin. Finally, he shrugged, and the two of them withdrew.

  Before long, he drew a small crowd. Workers in the lu
mberyard, some soldiers, and a large number of bridgemen. Some from the other bridge crews called gibes, but the members of Bridge Four were more withdrawn. Many ignored him. Others—grizzled Teft, youthful-faced Dunny, several more—stood watching in a line, as if they couldn’t believe what he was doing.

  Those stares—stunned and hostile though they were—were part of what kept Kaladin going. He also ran to work out his frustration, that boiling, churning pot of anger within. Anger at himself for failing Tien. Anger at the Almighty for creating a world where some dined in luxury while others died carrying bridges.

  It felt surprisingly good to wear himself down in a way he chose. He felt as he had those first few months after Tien’s death, training himself on the spear to forget. When the noon bells rang—calling the soldiers to lunch—Kaladin finally stopped and set the large plank down on the ground. He rolled his shoulder. He’d been running for hours. Where had he found the strength?

  He jogged over to the carpenter’s station, dripping sweat to the stones, and took a long drink from the water barrel. The carpenters usually chased off bridgemen who tried that, but none said a word as Kaladin slurped down two full ladles of metallic rainwater. He shook the ladle free and nodded to a pair of apprentices, then jogged back to where he’d left the plank.

  Rock—the large, tan-skinned Horneater—was hefting it, frowning.

  Teft noticed Kaladin, then nodded to Rock. “He bet a few of us a chip each that you’d used a lightweight board to impress us.”

  If they could have felt his exhaustion, they wouldn’t have been so skeptical. He forced himself to take the plank from Rock. The large man let it go with a bewildered look, watching as Kaladin ran the plank back to where he’d found it. He waved his thanks to the apprentice, then trotted back to the small cluster of bridgemen. Rock was reluctantly paying out chips on his bet.

  “You’re dismissed for lunch,” Kaladin told them. “We have afternoon bridge duty, so be back here in an hour. Assemble at the mess hall at last bell before sundown. Our camp chore today is cleaning up after supper. Last one to arrive has to do the pots.”

  They gave him bemused expressions as he trotted away from the lumberyard. Two streets away, he ducked into an alleyway and leaned against the wall. Then, wheezing, he sank to the ground and stretched out.

  He felt as if he’d strained every muscle in his body. His legs burned, and when he tried to make his hand into a fist, the fingers were too weak to fully comply. He breathed in and out in deep gasps, coughing. A passing soldier peeked in, but when he saw the bridgeman’s outfit, he left without a word.

  Eventually, Kaladin felt a light touch on his chest. He opened his eyes and found Syl lying prone in the air, face toward his. Her feet were toward the wall, but her posture—indeed, the way her dress hung—made it seem as if she were standing upright, not face toward the ground.

  “Kaladin,” she said, “I have something to tell you.”

  He closed his eyes again.

  “Kaladin, this is important!” He felt a slight jolt of energy on his eyelid. It was a very strange sensation. He grumbled, opening his eyes and forcing himself to sit. She walked in the air, as if circumnavigating an invisible sphere, until she was standing up in the right direction.

  “I have decided,” Syl declared, “that I’m glad you kept your word to Gaz, even if he is a disgusting person.”

  It took Kaladin a moment to realize what she was talking about. “The spheres?”

  She nodded. “I thought you might break your word, but I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “All right. Well, thank you for telling me, I guess.”

  “Kaladin,” she said petulantly, making fists at her side. “This is important.”

  “I…” He trailed off, then rested his head back against the wall. “Syl, I can barely breathe, let alone think. Please. Just tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “I know what a lie is,” she said, moving over and sitting on his knee. “A few weeks ago, I didn’t even understand the concept of lying. But now I’m happy that you didn’t lie. Don’t you see?”

  “No.”

  “I’m changing.” She shivered—it must have been an intentional action, for her entire figure fuzzed for a moment. “I know things I didn’t just a few days ago. It feels so strange.”

  “Well, I guess that’s a good thing. I mean, the more you understand, the better. Right?”

  She looked down. “When I found you near the chasm after the highstorm yesterday,” she whispered, “you were going to kill yourself, weren’t you?”

  Kaladin didn’t respond. Yesterday. That was an eternity ago.

  “I gave you a leaf,” she said. “A poisonous leaf. You could have used it to kill yourself or someone else. That’s what you were probably planning to use it for in the first place, back in the wagons.” She looked back up into his eyes, and her tiny voice seemed terrified. “Today, I know what death is. Why do I know what death is, Kaladin?”

  Kaladin frowned. “You’ve always been odd, for a spren. Even from the start.”

  “From the very start?”

  He hesitated, thinking back. No, the first few times she’d come, she’d acted like any other windspren. Playing pranks on him, sticking his shoe to the floor, then hiding. Even when she’d persisted with him during the months of his slavery, she’d acted mostly like any other spren. Losing interest in things quickly, flitting around.

  “Yesterday, I didn’t know what death was,” she said. “Today I do. Months ago, I didn’t know I was acting oddly for a spren, but I grew to realize that I was. How do I even know how a spren is supposed to act?” She shrank down, looking smaller. “What’s happening to me? What am I?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “Shouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what I am either. A bridgeman? A surgeon? A soldier? A slave? Those are all just labels. Inside, I’m me. A very different me than I was a year ago, but I can’t worry about that, so I just keep moving and hope my feet take me where I need to go.”

  “You aren’t angry at me for bringing you that leaf?”

  “Syl, if you hadn’t interrupted me, I’d have stepped off into the chasm. That leaf was what I needed. It was the right thing, somehow.”

  She smiled, and watched as Kaladin began to stretch. Once he finished, he stood and stepped out onto the street again, mostly recovered from his exhaustion. She zipped into the air and rested on his shoulder, sitting with her arms back and her feet hanging down in front, like a girl on the side of a cliff. “I’m glad you’re not angry. Though I do think that you’re to blame for what’s happening to me. Before I met you, I never had to think about death or lying.”

  “That’s how I am,” he said dryly. “Bringing death and lies wherever I go. Me and the Nightwatcher.”

  She frowned.

  “That was—” he began.

  “Yes,” she said. “That was sarcasm.” She cocked her head. “I know what sarcasm is.” Then she smiled deviously. “I know what sarcasm is!”

  Stormfather, Kaladin thought, looking into those gleeful little eyes. That strikes me as ominous.

  “So, wait,” he said. “This sort of thing has never happened to you before?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything farther back than about a year ago, when I first saw you.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s not odd,” Syl said, shrugging translucent shoulders. “Most spren don’t have long memories.” She hesitated. “I don’t know why I know that.”

  “Well, maybe this is normal. You could have gone through this cycle before, but you’ve just forgotten it.”

  “That’s not very comforting. I don’t like the idea of forgetting.”

  “But don’t death and lying make you uncomfortable?”

  “They do. But, if I were to lose these memories…” She glanced into the air, and Kaladin traced her movements, noting a pair of windspren darting through the sky on a gusting breeze, uncaring and free.<
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  “Scared to go onward,” Kaladin said, “but terrified to go back to what you were.”

  She nodded.

  “I know how you feel,” he said. “Come on. I need to eat, and there are some things I want to pick up after lunch.”

  You do not agree with my quest. I understand that, so much as it is possible to understand someone with whom I disagree so completely.

  Four hours after the chasmfiend attack, Adolin was still overseeing the cleanup. In the struggle, the monster had destroyed the bridge leading back to the warcamps. Fortunately, some soldiers had been left on the other side, and they’d gone to fetch a bridge crew.

  Adolin walked amid the soldiers, gathering reports as the late afternoon sun inched toward the horizon. The air had a musty, moldy scent. The smell of greatshell blood. The beast itself lay where it had fallen, chest cut open. Some soldiers were harvesting its carapace amid cremlings that had come out to feast on the carcass. To Adolin’s left, long lines of men lay in rows, using cloaks or shirts as pillows on the ragged plateau surface. Surgeons from Dalinar’s army tended them. Adolin blessed his father for always bringing the surgeons, even on a routine expedition like this one.

  He continued on his way, still wearing his Shardplate. The troops could have made their way back to the warcamps by another route—there was still a bridge on the other side, leading farther out onto the Plains. They could have moved eastward, then wrapped back around. Dalinar, however, had made the call—much to Sadeas’s dismay—that they would wait and tend the wounded, resting the few hours it would take to get a bridge crew.

  Adolin glanced toward the pavilion, which tinkled with laughter. Several large rubies glowed brightly, set atop poles, with worked golden tines holding them in place. They were fabrials that gave off heat, though there was no fire involved. He didn’t understand how fabrials worked, though the more spectacular ones needed large gemstones to function.

  Once again, the other lighteyes enjoyed their leisure while he worked. This time he didn’t mind. He would have found it difficult to enjoy himself after such a disaster. And it had been a disaster. A minor lighteyed officer approached, carrying a final list of casualties. The man’s wife read it, then they left him with the sheet and retreated.