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.
“I know that look, lad,” Teft said. “Why is it you always have to help everyone?”
“Bah,” Kaladin said. “I can’t even protect Bridge Four. Here, let me look at that arm of yours.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Kaladin grabbed his arm anyway, peeling away the blood-crusted bandage. The cut was long, but shallow.
“We need antiseptic on this,” Kaladin said, noting a few red rotspren crawling around on the wound. “I should probably sew it up.”
“It’s not that bad!”
“Still,” Kaladin said, waving for Teft to follow as he approached one of the rain barrels alongside the lumberyard. The wound was shallow enough that Teft would probably be able to show the others spear thrusts and blocks tomorrow during chasm duty, but that was no excuse for leaving it alone to fester or scar.
At the rain barrel, Kaladin washed out the wound, then called for Lopen—who was standing in the shade beside the barrack—to bring his medical equipment. The Herdazian man gave that salute again, though he did it with one arm, and sauntered away to get the pack.
“So, lad,” Teft said. “How do you feel? Any odd experiences lately?”
Kaladin frowned, looking up from the arm. “Storm it, Teft! That’s the fifth time in two days you’ve asked me that. What are you getting at?”
“Nothing, nothing!”
“It is something,” Kaladin said. “What is it you’re digging for, Teft? I—”
“Gancho,” Lopen said, walking up, carrying the medical supply pack over his shoulder. “Here you go.”
Kaladin glanced at him, then reluctantly accepted the pack. He pulled the drawstrings open. “We’ll want to—”
A quick motion came from Teft. Like a punch being thrown.
Kaladin moved by reflex, taking in a sharp breath, moving to a defensive stance, arms up, one hand a fist, the other back to block.
Something blossomed within Kaladin. Like a deep breath drawn in, like a burning liquor injected directly into his blood. A powerful wave pulsed through his body. Energy, strength, awareness. It was like the body’s natur
al alert response to danger, only it was a hundredfold more intense.
Kaladin caught Teft’s fist, moving blurringly quick. Teft froze.
“What are you doing?” Kaladin demanded.
Teft was smiling. He stepped back, pulling his fist free. “Kelek,” he said, shaking his hand. “That’s some grip you’ve got.”
“Why did you try to strike me?”
“I wanted to see something,” Teft said. “You’re holding that pouch of spheres Lopen gave you, you see, and your own pouch with what we’ve gathered lately. More Stormlight than you’ve probably ever carried, at least recently.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Kaladin demanded. What was that heat inside of him, that burning in his veins?
“Gancho,” Lopen said, his voice awed. “You’re glowing.”
Kaladin frowned. What is he—
And then he noticed it. It was very faint, but it was there, wisps of luminescent smoke curling up from his skin. Like steam coming off a bowl of hot water on a cold winter night.
Shaking, Kaladin put the medical pack on the broad rim of the water barrel. He felt a moment of coldness on his skin. What was that? Shocked, he raised his other hand, looking at the wisps streaming off of it.
“What did you do to me?” he demanded, looking up at Teft.
The older bridgeman was still smiling.
“Answer me!” Kaladin said, stepping forward, grabbing the front of Teft’s shirt. Stormfather, but I feel strong!
“I didn’t do anything, lad,” Teft said. “You’ve been doing this for a while now. I caught you feeding off Stormlight when you were sick.”
Stormlight. Kaladin hastily released Teft, fishing at the pouch of spheres in his pocket. He yanked it free and pulled it open.
It was dark inside. All five gemstones had been drained. The white light streaming from Kaladin’s skin faintly illuminated the inside of the bag.
“Now that’s something,” Lopen said from the side. Kaladin spun to find the Herdazian man bending down and looking at the medical pack. Why was that so important?
Then Kaladin saw it. He thought he’d set the pack on the rim of the barrel, but in his haste he’d just pressed it against the side of the barrel. The pack now clung to the wood. Stuck there, hanging as if from an invisible hook. Faintly streaming light, just like Kaladin. As Kaladin watched, the light faded, and the pack slumped free and fell to the ground.
Kaladin raised a hand to his forehead, looking from the surprised Lopen to the curious Teft. Then he glanced around the lumberyard, frantic. Nobody else was looking at them; in the sunlight, the vapors were too faint to see from a distance.
Stormfather…what…how…
He caught sight of a familiar shape above. Syl moved like a blown leaf, tossed this way and that, leisurely, faint.
She did it! Kaladin thought. What has she done to me?
He stumbled away from Lopen and Teft, running toward Syl. His footsteps propelling him forward with too much speed. “Syl!” he bellowed, stopping beneath her.
She zipped down to hover before him, changing from a leaf to a young woman standing in the air. “Yes?”
Kaladin glanced around. “Come with me,” he said, hurrying to one of the alleys between barracks. He pressed himself up against a wall, standing in the shade, breathing in and out. Nobody could see him here.
Syl alighted in the air before him, hands behind her back, looking closely at him. “You’re glowing.”
“What have you done to me?”
She cocked her head, then shrugged.
“Syl…” he said threateningly, though he wasn’t certain what harm he could do a spren.
“I don’t know, Kaladin,” she said frankly, sitting down, her legs hanging over the side of the invisible platform. “I can…I can only faintly remember things I used to know so well. This world, interacting with men.”
“But you did do something.”
“We have done something. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t you. But together…” She shrugged again.
“That isn’t very helpful.”
She grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Kaladin raised a hand. In the shade, the light streaming off of him was more obvious. If someone walked by…“How do I get rid of it?”
“Why do you want to get rid of it?”
“Well, because…I…Because.”
Syl didn’t respond.
Something occurred to Kaladin. Something, perhaps, he should have asked long ago. “You’re not a windspren, are you?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
“What are you, then?”
“I don’t know. I bind things.”
Bind things. When she played pranks, she made items stick together. Shoes stuck to the ground and made men trip. People reached for their jackets hanging on hooks and couldn’t pull them free. Kaladin reached down, picking a stone up off the ground. It was as big as his palm, weathered smooth by highstorm winds and rain. He pressed it against the wall of the barrack and willed his Light into the stone.
He felt a chill. The rock began to stream with luminescent vapors. When Kaladin pulled his hand away, the stone remained where it was, clinging to the side of the building.
Kaladin leaned close, squinting. He thought he could faintly make out tiny spren, dark blue and shaped like little splashes of ink, clustering around the place where the rock met the wall.
“Bindspren,” Syl said, walking up beside his head; she was still standing in the air.
“They’re holding the rock in place.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re attracted to what you’ve done in affixing the stone there.”
“That’s not how it works. Is it?”
“Do rotspren cause sickness,” Syl said idly, “or are they attracted to it?”
“Everyone knows they cause it.”
“And do windspren cause the wind? Rainspren cause the rain? Flamespren cause fires?”
He hesitated. No, they didn’t. Did they? “This is pointless. I need to find out how to get rid of this light, not study it.”
“And why,” Syl repeated, “must you get rid of it? Kaladin, you’ve heard the stories. Men who walked on walls, men who bound the storms to them. Windrunners. Why would you want to be rid of something like this?”
Kaladin struggled to define it. The healing, the way he never got hit, running at the front of the bridge…Yes, he’d known something odd was happening. Why did it frighten him so? Was it because he feared being set apart, like his father always was as the surgeon in Hearthstone? Or was it something greater?
“I’m doing what the Radiants did,” he said.
“That’s what I just said.”
“I’ve been wondering if I’m bad luck, or if I’ve run afoul of something like the Old Magic. Maybe this explains it! The Almighty cursed the Lost Radiants for betraying mankind. What if I’m cursed too, because of what I’m doing?”
“Kaladin,” she said, “you are not cursed.”
“You just said you don’t know what’s happening.” He paced in the alleyway. To the side, the rock finally plopped free and clattered to the ground. “Can you say, with all certainty, that what I’m doing might not have drawn bad luck down upon me? Do you know enough to deny it completely, Syl?”
She stood in the air, her arms folded, saying nothing.
“This…thing,” Kaladin said, gesturing toward the stone. “It isn’t natural. The Radiants betrayed mankind. Their powers left them, and they were cursed. Everyone knows the legends.” He looked down at his hands, still glowing, though more faintly than before. “Whatever we’ve done, whatever has happened to me, I’ve somehow brought upon myself their same curse. That’s why everyone around me dies when I try to help them.”
“And you think I’m a curse?” she asked him.
“I…Well, you said you’re part of it, and…”
She strode forward, pointing at him, a tiny, irate woman hanging in the air. “So you think I’ve
caused all of this? Your failures? The deaths?”
Kaladin didn’t respond. He realized almost immediately that silence might be the worst response. Syl—surprisingly human in her emotions—spun in the air with a wounded look and zipped away, forming a ribbon of light.
I’m overreacting, he told himself. He was just so unsettled. He leaned back against the wall, hand to head. Before he had time to collect his thoughts, shadows darkened the entry to the alleyway. Teft and Lopen.
“Rock talkers!” Lopen said. “You really shine in shade, gancho!”
Teft gripped Lopen’s shoulder. “He’s not going to tell anyone, lad. I’ll make certain of it.”
“Yeah, gancho,” Lopen said. “I swore I’d say nothing. You can trust a Herdazian.”
Kaladin looked at the two, overwhelmed. He pushed past them, running out of the alley and across the lumberyard, fleeing from watching eyes.
By the time night drew close, the light had long since stopped streaming from Kaladin’s body. It had faded like a fire going out, and had only taken a few minutes to vanish.
Kaladin walked southward along the edge of the Shattered Plains, in that transitional area between the warcamps and the Plains themselves. In some areas—like at the staging area near Sadeas’s lumbercamp—there was a soft slope leading down between the two. At other points, there was a short ridge, eight or so feet tall. He passed one of these now, rocks to his right, open Plains to his left.
Hollows, crevasses, and nooks scored the rock. Some shadowed sections here still hid pools of water from the highstorms days ago. Creatures still scuttled around the rocks, though the cooling evening air would soon drive them to hide. He passed a place pocked with small, water-filled holes; cremlings—multilegged, bearing tiny claws, their elongated bodies plated with carapace—lapped and fed at the edges. A small tentacle snapped out, yanking one down into the hole. Probably a grasper.
Grass grew up the side of the ridge beside him, and the blades peeked from their holes. Bunches of fingermoss sprouted like flowers amid the green. The bright pink and purple fingermoss tendrils were reminiscent of tentacles themselves, waving at him in the wind. When he passed, the timid grass pulled back, but the fingermoss was bolder. The clumps would only pull into their shells if he tapped the rock near them.
The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The) Page 98