The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  Kaladin remained completely unfazed, weaving between them and adjusting his center of balance by bending his knees and positioning his feet. “Combat begins with the legs,” Kaladin said as he evaded the attacks. “I don’t care how fast you are with a jab, how accurate you are with a thrust. If your opponent can trip you, or make you stumble, you’ll lose. Losing means dying.”

  Several of the watching bridgemen tried to imitate Kaladin, crouching down. Skar, Drehy, and Moash had finally decided to try a coordinated rush, planning to all tackle Kaladin at once. Kaladin held up his hand. “Well done, you three.” He motioned them back to stand with the others. They reluctantly broke off their attacks.

  “I’m going to split you into pairs,” Kaladin said. “We’re going to spend all day today—and probably each day this week—working on stances. Learning to maintain one, learning to not lock your knees the moment you’re threatened, learning to hold your center of balance. It will take time, but I promise you if we start here, you’ll learn to be deadly far more quickly. Even if it seems that all you’re doing at first is standing around.”

  The men nodded.

  “Teft,” Kaladin ordered. “Split them into pairs by size and weight, then run them through an elementary forward spear stance.”

  “Aye, sir!” Teft barked. Then he froze, realizing what he’d given away. The speed at which he’d responded made it obvious that Teft had been a soldier. Teft met Kaladin’s eyes and saw that Kaladin knew. The older man scowled, but Kaladin returned a grin. He had a veteran under his command; that was going to make this all a lot easier.

  Teft didn’t feign ignorance, and easily fell into the role of the training sergeant, splitting the men into pairs, correcting their stances. No wonder he never takes off that shirt, Kaladin thought. It probably hides a mess of scars.

  As Teft instructed the men, Kaladin pointed to Rock, gesturing him over.

  “Yes?” Rock asked. The man was so broad of chest that his bridgeman’s vest could barely fasten.

  “You said something before,” Kaladin said. “About fighting being beneath you?”

  “Is true. I am not a fourth son.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “First son and second son are needed for making food,” Rock said, raising a finger. “Is most important. Without food, nobody lives, yes? Third son is craftsman. This is me. I serve proudly. Only fourth son can be warrior. Warriors, they are not needed as much as food or crafts. You see?”

  “Your profession is determined by your birth order?”

  “Yes,” Rock said proudly. “Is best way. On the Peaks, there is always food. Not every family has four sons. So not always is a soldier needed. I cannot fight. What man could do this thing before the Uli’tekanaki?”

  Kaladin shot a glance at Syl. She shrugged, not seeming to care what Rock did. “All right,” he said. “I’ve got something else I want you to do, then. Go grab Lopen, Dabbid…” Kaladin hesitated. “And Shen. Get him too.”

  Rock did so. Lopen was in the line, learning the stances, though Dabbid—as usual—stood off to the side, staring at nothing in particular. Whatever had taken him, it was far worse than regular battle shock. Shen stood beside him, hesitant, as if not certain of his place.

  Rock pulled Lopen out of the line, then grabbed Dabbid and Shen and walked back to Kaladin.

  “Gancho,” Lopen said, with a lazy salute. “Guess I’ll make a poor spearman, with one hand.”

  “That’s all right,” Kaladin said. “I have something else I need you to do. We’ll see trouble from Gaz and our new captain—or at least his wife—if we don’t bring back salvage.”

  “We three cannot do the work of thirty, Kaladin,” Rock said, scratching at his beard. “Is not possible.”

  “Maybe not,” Kaladin said. “But most of our time down in these chasms is spent looking for corpses that haven’t been picked clean. I think we can work a lot faster. We need to work a lot faster, if we’re going to train with the spear. Fortunately, we have an advantage.”

  He held out his hand, and Syl alighted on it. He’d spoken to her earlier, and she’d agreed to his plan. He didn’t notice her doing anything special, but Lopen suddenly gasped. Syl had made herself visible to him.

  “Ah…” Rock said, bowing in respect to Syl. “Like gathering reeds.”

  “Well flick my sparks,” Lopen said. “Rock, you never said it was so pretty!”

  Syl smiled broadly.

  “Be respectful,” Rock said. “Is not for you to speak of her in that way, little person.”

  The men knew about Syl, of course. Kaladin didn’t speak of her, but they saw him talking to the air, and Rock had explained.

  “Lopen,” Kaladin said. “Syl can move far more quickly than a bridgeman. She will search out places for you to gather, and you four can pick through things quickly.”

  “Dangerous,” Rock said. “What if we meet chasmfiend while alone?”

  “Unfortunately, we can’t come back empty-handed. The last thing we want is Hashal deciding to send Gaz down to supervise.”

  Lopen snorted. “He’d never do that, gancho. Too much work down here.”

  “Too dangerous too,” Rock added.

  “Everyone says that,” Kaladin said. “But I’ve never seen more than these scrapes on the walls.”

  “They’re down here,” Rock said. “Is not just legend. Just before you came, half a bridge crew was killed. Eaten. Most beasts come to the middle plateaus, but there are some who come this far.”

  “Well, I hate to put you in danger, but unless we try this, we’ll have chasm duty taken from us and we’ll end up cleaning latrines instead.”

  “All right, gancho,” Lopen said. “I’ll go.”

  “As will I,” Rock said. “With ali’i’kamura to protect, perhaps it will be safe.”

  “I intend to teach you to fight eventually,” Kaladin said. Then as Rock frowned, Kaladin hastily added, “You, Lopen, I mean. One arm doesn’t mean you’re useless. You’ll be at a disadvantage, but there are things I can teach you to deal with that. Right now a scavenger is more important to us than another spear.”

  “Sounds swift to me.” Lopen gestured to Dabbid, and the two walked over to gather sacks for the collecting. Rock moved to join them, but Kaladin took his arm.

  “I haven’t given up on finding an easier way out of here than fighting,” Kaladin said to him. “If we never returned, Gaz and the others would probably just assume that a chasmfiend got us. If there’s some way to reach the other side…”

  Rock looked skeptical. “Many have searched for this thing.”

  “The eastern edge is open.”

  “Yes,” Rock said, laughing, “and when you are able to travel that far without being eaten by chasmfiend or killed in floods, I shall name you my kaluk’i’iki.”

  Kaladin raised an eyebrow.

  “Only a woman can be kaluk’i’iki,” Rock said, as if that explained the joke.

  “Wife?”

  Rock laughed even louder. “No, no. Airsick lowlanders. Ha!”

  “Great. Look, see if you can memorize the chasms, perhaps make a map of some kind. I suspect that most who come down here stick to the established routes. That means we’re much more likely to find salvage down side passages; that’s where I’ll be sending Syl.”

  “Side passages?” Rock said, still amused. “One might begin to think you want me to be eaten. Ha, and by a greatshell. They are supposed to be tasted, not tasting.”

  “I—”

  “No, no,” Rock said. “Is a good plan. I only jest. I can be careful, and this will be good for me to do, since I do not wish to fight.”

  “Thank you. Maybe you’ll happen upon a place we could climb out.”

  “I will do this thing,” Rock said, nodding. “But we cannot simply climb out. The army has many scouts on the Plains. Is how they know when chasmfiends come to pupate, eh? They will see us, and we will not be able to cross chasms without bridge.”

&n
bsp; It was a good argument, unfortunately. Climb up here, and they’d be seen. Climb out in the middle, and they’d be stuck on plateaus without anywhere to go. Climb out closer to the Parshendi areas, and they’d be found by their scouts. That was assuming they could get out of the chasms. Though some were as shallow as forty or fifty feet, many were well over a hundred feet deep.

  Syl zipped away to lead Rock and his crew, and Kaladin moved back to the main body of bridgemen to help Teft correct stances. It was difficult work; the first day always was. The bridgemen were sloppy and uncertain.

  But they also showed remarkable resolve. Kaladin had never worked with a group who made fewer complaints. The bridgemen didn’t ask for a break. They didn’t shoot him resentful glances when he pushed them harder. The scowls they bore were at their own foibles, angry at themselves for not learning faster.

  And they got it. After just a few hours, the more talented of them—Moash at the forefront—started to change into fighting men. Their stances grew firmer, more confident. When they should have been feeling exhausted and frustrated, they were more determined.

  Kaladin stepped back, watching Moash fall into his stance after Teft shoved him. It was a resetting exercise—Moash would let Teft knock him backward, then would scramble back and set his feet. Time and time again. The purpose was to train oneself to revert to the stance without thinking. Kaladin normally wouldn’t have started resetting exercises until the second or third day. Yet here, Moash was drinking it in after only two hours. There were two others—Drehy and Skar—who were nearly as quick to learn.

  Kaladin leaned back against the stone wall. Cold water leaked down the rock beside him, and a frillbloom plant hesitantly opened its fanlike fronds beside his head: two wide, orange leaves, with spines on the tips, unfolding like opening fists.

  Is it their bridgeman training? Kaladin wondered. Or is it their passion? He had given them a chance to fight back. That kind of opportunity changed a man.

  Watching them stand resolute and capable in stances they had only been just been taught, Kaladin realized something. These men—cast off by the army, forced to work themselves near to death, then fed extra food by Kaladin’s careful planning—were the most fit, training-ready recruits he’d ever been given.

  By seeking to beat them down, Sadeas had prepared them to excel.

  “Flame and char. Skin so terrible. Eyes like pits of blackness.”

  —A quote from the Iviad probably needs no reference notation, but this comes from line 482, should I need to locate it quickly.

  Shallan awoke in a small white room.

  She sat up, feeling oddly healthy. Bright sunlight illuminated the window’s gossamer white shades, bursting through the cloth and into the room. Shallan frowned, shaking her muddled head. She felt as if she should be burned toes to ears, her skin flaking off. But that was just a memory. She had the cut on her arm, but otherwise she felt perfectly well.

  A rustling sound. She turned to see a nurse hurrying away down a white hallway outside; the woman had apparently seen Shallan sit up, and was now taking the news to someone.

  I’m in the hospital, Shallan thought. Moved to a private room.

  A soldier peeked in, inspecting Shallan. It was apparently a guarded room.

  “What happened?” she called to him. “I was poisoned, wasn’t I?” She felt a sudden shock of alarm. “Kabsal! Is he all right?”

  The guard just turned back to his post. Shallan began to crawl out of bed, but he looked in again, glaring at her. She yelped despite herself, pulling up the sheet and settling back. She still wore one of the hospital robes, much like a soft bathing robe.

  How long had she been unconscious? Why was she—

  The Soulcaster! she realized. I gave it back to Jasnah.

  The next half hour was one of the most miserable in Shallan’s life. She spent it suffering the periodic glares of the guard and feeling nauseated. What had happened?

  Finally, Jasnah appeared at the other end of the hallway. She was wearing a different dress, black with light grey piping. She strode toward the room like an arrow and dismissed the guard with a single word as she passed. The man hurried away, his boots louder on the stone floor than Jasnah’s slippers.

  Jasnah came in, and though she made no accusations, her glare was so hostile that Shallan wanted to crawl under her covers and hide. No. She wanted to crawl under the bed, dig down into the floor itself, and put stone between herself and those eyes.

  She settled for looking downward in shame.

  “You were wise to return the Soulcaster,” Jasnah said, voice like ice. “It saved your life. I saved your life.”

  “Thank you,” Shallan whispered.

  “Who are you working with? Which devotary bribed you to steal the fabrial?”

  “None of them, Brightness. I stole it of my own volition.”

  “Protecting them does you no good. Eventually you will tell me the truth.”

  “It is the truth,” Shallan said, looking up, feeling a hint of defiance. “It’s why I became your ward in the first place. To steal that Soulcaster.”

  “Yes, but for whom?”

  “For me,” Shallan said. “Is it so hard to believe that I could act for myself? Am I such a miserable failure that the only rational answer is to assume I was duped or manipulated?”

  “You have no grounds to raise your voice to me, child,” Jasnah said evenly. “And you have every reason to remember your place.”

  Shallan looked down again.

  Jasnah was silent for a time. Finally, she sighed. “What were you thinking, child?”

  “My father is dead.”

  “So?”

  “He was not well liked, Brightness. Actually, he was hated, and our family is bankrupt. My brothers are trying to put up a strong front by pretending he still lives. But…” Dared she tell Jasnah that her father had possessed a Soulcaster? Doing so wouldn’t help excuse what Shallan had done, and might get her family more deeply into trouble. “We needed something. An edge. A way to earn money quickly, or create money.”

  Jasnah was silent again. When she finally spoke, she sounded faintly amused. “You thought your salvation lay in enraging not only all the entire ardentia, but Alethkar? Do you realize what my brother would have done if he’d learned of this?”

  Shallan looked away, feeling both foolish and ashamed.

  Jasnah sighed. “Sometimes I forget how young you are. I can see how the theft might have looked tempting to you. It was stupid nonetheless. I’ve arranged passage back to Jah Keved. You will leave in the morning.”

  “I—” It was more than she deserved. “Thank you.”

  “Your friend, the ardent, is dead.”

  Shallan looked up, dismayed. “What happened?”

  “The bread was poisoned. Backbreaker powder. Very lethal, dusted over the bread to look like flour. I suspect the bread was similarly treated every time he visited. His goal was to get me to eat a piece.”

  “But I ate a lot of that bread!”

  “The jam had the antidote,” Jasnah said. “We found it in several empty jars he’d used.”

  “It can’t be!”

  “I’ve begun investigating,” Jasnah said. “I should have done so immediately. Nobody quite remembers where this ‘Kabsal’ came from. Though he spoke familiarly of the other ardents to you and me, they knew him only vaguely.”

  “Then he…”

  “He was playing you, child. The whole time, he was using you to get to me. To spy on what I was doing, to kill me if he could.” She spoke of it so evenly, so emotionlessly. “I believe he used much more of the powder during this last attempt, more than he’d ever used before, perhaps hoping to get me to breathe it in. He realized this would be his last opportunity. It turned against him, however, working more quickly than he’d anticipated.”

  Someone had almost killed her. Not someone, Kabsal. No wonder he’d been so eager to get her to taste the jam!

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Shall
an,” Jasnah said. “I can see now why you tried to end your own life. It was the guilt.”

  She hadn’t tried to kill herself. But what good would it do to admit that? Jasnah was taking pity on her; best not to give her reason not to. But what of the strange things Shallan had seen and experienced? Might Jasnah have an explanation for them?

  Looking at Jasnah, seeing the cold rage hidden behind her calm exterior, frightened Shallan enough that her questions about the symbolheads and the strange place she’d visited died on her lips. How had Shallan ever thought of herself as brave? She wasn’t brave. She was a fool. She remembered the times her father’s rage had echoed through the house. Jasnah’s quieter, move justified anger was no less daunting.

  “Well, you will need to learn to live with your guilt,” Jasnah said. “You might not have escaped with my fabrial, but you have thrown away a very promising career. This foolish scheme will stain your life for decades. No woman will take you as a ward now. You threw it away.” She shook her head in distaste. “I hate being wrong.”

  With that, she turned to leave.

  Shallan raised a hand. I have to apologize. I have to say something. “Jasnah?”

  The woman did not look back, and the guard did not return.

  Shallan curled up under the sheet, stomach in knots, feeling so sick that—for a moment—she wished that she’d actually dug that shard of glass in a little deeper. Or maybe that Jasnah hadn’t been quick enough with the Soulcaster to save her.

  She’d lost it all. No fabrial to protect her family, no wardship to continue her studies. No Kabsal. She’d never actually had him in the first place.

  Her tears dampened the sheets as the sunlight outside faded, then vanished. Nobody came to check on her.

  Nobody cared.

  ONE YEAR AGO

  Kaladin sat quietly in the waiting room of Amaram’s wooden warcenter. It was constructed of a dozen study sections that could be disconnected and pulled by chulls. Kaladin sat beside a window, looking out at the camp. There was a hole where Kaladin’s squad had been housed. He could make it out from where he sat. Their tents had been broken down and given to other squads.