The Way of Kings sa-1

by Brandon Sanderson

  Syl fell silent. “Life is hard here,” she finally said. “I don’t know if anyone would blame you.”

  Rock would, he thought. And Teft. They’d worked for that knobweed sap. They didn’t know what it was worth; they thought it was only for healing the sick. If he ran, he’d be betraying them. He’d be abandoning the bridgemen.

  Shove over, you fool, Kaladin thought to himself. You won’t save these bridgemen. Just like you didn’t save Tien. You should run.

  “And then what?” he whispered.

  Syl turned to him. “What?”

  If he ran, what good would it do? A life working for chips in the underbelly of some rotting city? No.

  He couldn’t leave them. Just like he’d never been able to leave anyone who he’d thought needed him. He had to protect them. He had to.

  For Tien. And for his own sanity.

  “Chasm duty,” Gaz said, spitting to the side. The spittle was colored black from the yamma plant he chewed.

  “What?” Kaladin had returned from selling the knobweed to discover that Gaz had changed Bridge Four’s work detail. They weren’t scheduled to be on duty for any bridge runs-their run the day before exempted them. Instead, they were supposed to be assigned to Sadeas’s smithy to help lift ingots and other supplies.

  That sounded like difficult work, but it was actually among the easiest jobs bridgemen got. The blacksmiths felt they didn’t need the extra hands. That, or they presumed that clumsy bridgemen would just get in the way. On smithy duty, you usually only worked a few hours of the shift and could spend the rest lounging.

  Gaz stood with Kaladin in the early afternoon sunlight. “You see,” Gaz said, “you got me thinking the other day. Nobody cares if Bridge Four is given unfair work details. Everyone hates chasm duty. I figured you wouldn’t care.”

  “How much did they pay you?” Kaladin asked, stepping forward.

  “Storm off,” Gaz said, spitting again. “The others resent you. It’ll do your crew good to be seen paying for what you did.”

  “Surviving?”

  Gaz shrugged. “Everyone knows you broke the rules in bringing back those men. If the others do what you did, we’d have each barrack filled with the dying before the leeward side of a month was over!”

  “They’re people, Gaz. If we don’t ‘fill the barracks’ with wounded, it’s because we’re leaving them out there to die.”

  “They’ll die here anyway.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Gaz watched him, eyes narrow. It seemed like he suspected that Kaladin had somehow tricked him in taking the stone-gathering duty. Earlier, Gaz had apparently gone down to the chasm, probably trying to figure out what Kaladin and the other two had been doing.

  Damnation, Kaladin thought. He’d thought he had Gaz cowed enough to stay in line. “We’ll go,” Kaladin snapped, turning away. “But I’m not taking the blame among my men for this one. They’ll know you did it.”

  “Fine,” Gaz called after him. Then, to himself, he continued, “Maybe I’ll get lucky and a chasmfiend will eat the lot of you.”

  Chasm duty. Most bridgemen would rather spend all day hauling stones than get assigned to the chasms.

  With an unlit oil-soaked torch tied to his back, Kaladin climbed down the precarious rope ladder. The chasm was shallow here, only about fifty feet down, but that was enough to take him into a different world. A world where the only natural light came from the rift high in the sky. A world that stayed damp on even the hottest days, a drowned landscape of moss, fungus, and hardy plants that survived in even dim light.

  The chasms were wider at the bottom, perhaps a result of highstorms. They caused enormous floods to crash through the chasms; to be caught in a chasm during a highstorm was death. A sediment of hardened crem smoothed the pathway on the floor of the chasms, though it rose and fell with the varying erosion of the underlying rock. In some few places, the distance from the chasm floor to the edge of the plateau above was only about forty feet. In most places, however, it was closer to a hundred or more.

  Kaladin jumped off the ladder, falling a few feet and landing with a splash in a puddle of rainwater. After lighting the torch, he held it high, peering along the caliginous rift. The sides were slick with a dark green moss, and several thin vines he didn’t recognize trailed down from intermediate ledges above. Bits of bone, wood, and torn cloth lay strewn about or wedged into clefts.

  Someone splashed to the ground beside him. Teft cursed, looking down at his soaked legs and trousers as he stepped out of the large puddle. “Storms take that cremling Gaz,” the aging bridgeman muttered. “Sending us down here when it isn’t our turn. I’ll have his beans for this.”

  “I am certain that he is very scared of you,” Rock said, stepping down off the ladder onto a dry spot. “Is probably back in camp crying in fear.”

  “Storm off,” Teft said, shaking the water from his left leg. The two of them carried unlit torches. Kaladin lit his with a flint and steel, but the others did not. They needed to ration the torches.

  The other men of Bridge Four began to gather near the bottom of the ladder, staying in a clump. Every fourth man lit his torch, but the light didn’t do much to dispel the gloom; it just allowed Kaladin to see more of the unnatural landscape. Strange, tube-shaped fungi grew in cracks. They were a wan yellow, like the skin of a child with jaundice. Scuttling cremlings moved away from the light. The tiny crustaceans were a translucent reddish color; as one scrambled past on the wall, he realized that he could see its internal organs through its shell.

  The light also revealed a twisted, broken figure at the base of the chasm wall a short distance away. Kaladin raised his torch and stepped up to it. It was beginning to stink already. He raised a hand, unconsciously covering his nose and mouth as he knelt down.

  It was a bridgeman, or had been, from one of the other crews. He was fresh. If he’d been here longer than a few days, the highstorm would have washed him away to some distant place. Bridge Four gathered behind Kaladin, looking silently at the one who had chosen to throw himself into the chasm.

  “May you someday find a place of honor in the Tranquiline Halls, fallen brother,” Kaladin said, his voice echoing. “And may we find a better end than you.” He stood, holding his torch high, and led the way past the dead sentry. His crew followed nervously.

  Kaladin had quickly understood the basic tactics of fighting on the Shattered Plains. You wanted to advance forcefully, pressing your enemy to the plateau’s edge. That was why the battles often turned bloody for the Alethi, who usually arrived after the Parshendi.

  The Alethi had bridges, while these odd Eastern parshmen could leap most chasms, given a running start. But both had trouble when squeezed toward the cliffs, and that generally resulted in soldiers losing their footing and tumbling into the void. The numbers were significant enough for the Alethi to want to recover lost equipment. And so bridgemen were sent on chasm duty. It was like barrow robbing, only without the barrows.

  They carried sacks, and would spend hours walking around, looking for the corpses of the fallen, searching for anything of value. Spheres, breastplates, caps, weapons. Some days, when a plateau run was recent, they could try to make their way all the way out to where it had happened and scavenge from those bodies. But highstorms generally made that futile. Wait even a few days, and the bodies would be washed someplace else.

  Beyond that, the chasms were a bewildering maze, and getting to a specific contested plateau and then returning in a reasonable time was near impossible. General wisdom was to wait for a highstorm to push the bodies toward the Alethi side of the Plains-highstorms always came east to west, after all-and then send bridgemen down to search them out.

  That meant a lot of random wandering. But over the years, enough bodies had fallen that it wasn’t too difficult to find places to harvest. The crew was required to bring up a specific amount of salvage or face docked pay for the week, but the quota wasn’t onerous. Enough to keep the bridgemen working, but no
t enough to force them to fully exert themselves. Like most bridgeman work, this was meant to keep them occupied as much as anything else.

  As they walked down the first chasm, some of his men got out their sacks and picked up pieces of salvage they passed. A helmet here, a shield there. They kept a keen watch for spheres. Finding a valuable fallen sphere would result in a small reward for the whole crew. They weren’t allowed to bring their own spheres or possessions into the chasm, of course. And on their way out, they were searched thoroughly. The humiliation of that search-which included any place a sphere might be hidden-was part of the reason chasm duty was so loathed.

  But only a part. As they walked, the chasm floor widened to about fifteen feet. Here, marks scarred the walls, gashes where the moss had been scraped away, the stone itself scored. The bridgemen tried not to look at those marks. Occasionally, chasmfiends stalked these pathways, searching for either carrion or a suitable plateau to pupate upon. Encountering one of them was uncommon, but possible.

  “Kelek, but I hate this place,” Teft said, walking beside Kaladin. “I heard that once an entire bridge crew got eaten by a chasmfiend, one at a time, after it backed them into a dead end. It just sat there, picking them off as they tried to run past.”

  Rock chuckled. “If they were all eaten, then who was returning to tell this story?”

  Teft rubbed his chin. “I dunno. Maybe they just never returned.”

  “Then perhaps they fled. Deserting.”

  “No,” Teft said. “You can’t get out of these chasms without a ladder.” He glanced upward, toward the narrow rift of blue seventy feet above, following the curve of the plateau.

  Kaladin glanced up as well. That blue sky seemed so distant. Unreachable. Like the light of the Halls themselves. And even if you could climb out at one of the shallower areas, you’d either be trapped on the Plains without a way to cross chasms, or you’d be close enough to the Alethi side that the scouts would spot you crossing the permanent bridges. You could try going eastward, toward where the plateaus were worn away to the point that they were just spires. But that would take weeks of walking, and would require surviving multiple highstorms.

  “You ever been in a slot canyon when rains come, Rock?” Teft asked, perhaps thinking along the same lines.

  “No,” Rock replied. “On the Peaks, we have not these things. They only exist where foolish men choose to live.”

  “You live here, Rock,” Kaladin noted.

  “And I am foolish,” the large Horneater said, chuckling. “Did you not notice this thing?” These last two days had changed him a great deal. He was more affable, returning in some measure to what Kaladin assumed was his normal personality.

  “I was talking,” Teft said, “about slot canyons. You want to guess what will happen if we get trapped down here in a highstorm?”

  “Lots of water, I guess,” Rock said.

  “Lots of water, looking to go any place it can,” Teft said. “It gathers into enormous waves and goes crashing through these confined spaces with enough force to toss boulders. In fact, an ordinary rain will feel like a highstorm down here. A highstorm…well, this would probably be the worst place in Roshar to be when one hits.”

  Rock frowned at that, glancing upward. “Best not to be caught in the storm, then.”

  “Yeah,” Teft said.

  “Though, Teft,” Rock added, “it would give you bath, which you very much need.”

  “Hey,” Teft grumbled. “Is that a comment on how I smell?”

  “No,” Rock said. “Is comment on what I have to smell. Sometimes, I am thinking that a Parshendi arrow in the eye would be better than smelling entire bridge crew enclosed in barrack at night!”

  Teft chuckled. “I’d take offense at that if it weren’t true.” He sniffed at the damp, moldy chasm air. “This place ain’t much better. It smells worse than a Horneater’s boots in winter down here.” He hesitated. “Er, no offense. I mean personally.”

  Kaladin smiled, then glanced back. The thirty or so other bridgemen followed like ghosts. A few seemed to be edging close to Kaladin’s group, as if trying to listen in without being obvious.

  “Teft,” Kaladin said. “‘Smells worse than a Horneater’s boots’? How in the Halls isn’t he supposed to take offense at that phrase?”

  “It’s just an expression,” Teft said, scowling. “It was out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.”

  “Alas,” Rock said, pulling a tuft of moss off the wall, inspecting it as they walked. “Your insult has offended me. If we were at the Peaks, we would have to duel in the traditional alil’tiki’i fashion.”

  “Which is what?” Teft asked. “With spears?”

  Rock laughed. “No, no. We upon the Peaks are not barbarians like you down here.”

  “How then?” Kaladin asked, genuinely curious.

  “Well,” Rock said, dropping the moss and dusting off his hands, “is involving much mudbeer and singing.”

  “How’s that a duel?”

  “He who can still sing after the most drinks is winner. Plus, soon, everyone is so drunk that they probably forget what argument was about.”

  Teft laughed. “Beats knives at dawn, I suppose.”

  “I guess that depends,” Kaladin said.

  “Upon what?” Teft asked.

  “On whether or not you’re a knife merchant. Eh, Dunny?”

  The other two glanced to the side, where Dunny had moved up close to listen. The spindly youth jumped and blushed. “Er-I-”

  Rock chuckled at Kaladin’s words. “Dunny,” he said to the youth. “Is odd name. What is meaning of it?”

  “Meaning?” Dunny asked. “I don’t know. Names don’t always have a meaning.”

  Rock shook his head, displeased. “Lowlanders. How are you to know who you are if your name has no meaning?”

  “So your name means something?” Teft asked. “Nu…ma…nu…”

  “Numuhukumakiaki’aialunamor,” Rock said, the native Horneater sounds flowing easily from his lips. “Of course. Is description of very special rock my father discovered the day before my birth.”

  “So your name is a whole sentence?” Dunny asked, uncertain-as if he wasn’t sure he belonged.

  “Is poem,” Rock said. “On the Peaks, everyone’s name is poem.”

  “Is that so?” Teft said, scratching at his beard. “Must make calling the family at mealtime a bit of a chore.”

  Rock laughed. “True, true. Is also making for some interesting arguments. Usually, the best insults on the Peaks are in the form of a poem, one which is similar in composition and rhyme to the person’s name.”

  “Kelek,” Teft muttered. “Sounds like a lot of work.”

  “Is why most arguments end in drinking, perhaps,” Rock said.

  Dunny smiled hesitantly. “Hey you big buffoon, you smell like a wet hog, so go out by the moon, and jump yourself in the bog.”

  Rock laughed riotously, his booming voice echoing down the chasm. “Is good, is good,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Simple, but good.”

  “That almost had the sound of a song to it, Dunny,” Kaladin said.

  “Well, it was the first thing that came to mind. I put it to the tune of ‘Mari’s Two Lovers’ to get the beat right.”

  “You can sing?” Rock asked. “I must be hearing.”

  “But-” Dunny said.

  “Sing!” Rock commanded, pointing.

  Dunny yelped, but obeyed, breaking into a song that wasn’t familiar to Kaladin. It was an amusing tale involving a woman and twin brothers who she thought were the same person. Dunny’s voice was a pure tenor, and he seemed to have more confidence when he sang than when he spoke.

  He was good. Once he moved to the second verse, Rock began humming in a deep voice, providing a harmony. The Horneater was obviously very practiced at song. Kaladin glanced back at the other bridgemen, hoping to pull some more into the conversation or the song. He smiled at Skar, but got only a scowl in return. Moash and Sigzil-th
e dark-skinned Azish man-wouldn’t even look at him. Peet looked only at his feet.

  When the song was finished, Teft clapped appreciatively. “That’s a better performance than I’ve heard at many an inn.”

  “Is good to meet a lowlander who can sing,” Rock said, stooping down to pick up a helm and stuff it in his bag. This particular chasm didn’t seem to have much in the way of salvage this time. “I had begun thinking you were all as tone deaf as my father’s old axehound. Ha!”

  Dunny blushed, but seemed to walk more confidently.

  They continued, occasionally passing turns or rifts in the stone where the waters had deposited large clusters of salvage. Here, the work turned more gruesome, and they’d often have to pull out corpses or piles of bones to get what they wanted, gagging at the scent. Kaladin told them to leave the more sickening or rotted bodies for now. Rotspren tended to cluster around the dead. If they didn’t find enough salvage later, they could get those on the way back.

  At every intersection or branch, Kaladin made a white mark on the wall with a piece of chalk. That was the bridgeleader’s duty, and he took it seriously. He wouldn’t have his crew getting lost out in these rifts.

  As they walked and worked, Kaladin kept the conversation going. He laughed-forced himself to laugh-with them. If that laugher felt hollow to him, the others didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps they felt as he did, that even forced laughter was preferable to going back to the self-absorbed, mournful silence that cloaked most bridgemen.

  Before long, Dunny was laughing and talking with Teft and Rock, his shyness faded. A few others hovered just behind-Yake, Maps, a couple of others-like wild creatures drawn to the light and warmth of a fire. Kaladin tried to draw them into the conversation, but it didn’t work, so eventually he just let them be.

  Eventually, they reached a place with a significant number of fresh corpses. Kaladin wasn’t sure what combination of waterflow had made this section of chasm a good place for that-it looked the same as other stretches. A little narrower perhaps. Sometimes they could go to the same nooks and find good salvage there; other times, those were empty, but other places would have dozens of corpses.