The craftsmen nodded to Kaladin as he passed. They were familiar with him now, used to his odd requests, like pieces of lumber long enough for four men to hold and run with to practice keeping cadence with one another. He found a half-finished bridge. It had eventually grown out of that one plank that Kaladin had used.
Kaladin knelt down, inspecting the wood. A group of men worked with a large saw just to his right, slicing thin rounds off a log. Those would probably become chair seats.
He ran his fingers along the smooth hardwood. All mobile bridges were made of a kind of wood called makam. It had a deep brown color, the grain almost hidden, and was both strong and light. The craftsmen had sanded this length smooth, and it smelled of sawdust and musky sap.
“Kaladin?” Syl asked, walking through the air then stepping onto the wood. “You look distant.”
“It’s ironic how well they craft these bridges,” he said. “This army’s carpenters are far more professional than its soldiers.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “The craftsmen want to make bridges that last. The soldiers I listen to, they just want to get to the plateau, grab the gemheart, and get away. It’s like a game to them.”
“That’s astute. You’re getting better and better at observing us.”
She grimaced. “I feel more like I’m remembering things I once knew.”
“Soon you’ll hardly be a spren at all. You’ll be a little translucent philosopher. We’ll have to send you off to a monastery to spend your time in deep, important thoughts.”
“Yes,” she said, “like how to best get the ardents there to accidentally drink a mixture that will turn his mouth blue.” She smiled mischievously.
Kaladin smiled back, but kept running his finger across the wood. He still didn’t understand why they wouldn’t let bridgemen carry shields. Nobody would give him a straight answer on the question. “They use makam because it’s strong enough for its weight to support a heavy cavalry charge,” he said. “We should be able to use this. They deny us shields, but we already carry one on our shoulders.”
“But how would they react if you try that?”
Kaladin stood. “I don’t know, but I also don’t have any other choice.”
Trying this would be a risk. A huge risk. But he’d run out of nonrisky ideas days ago.
“We can hold it here,” Kaladin said, pointing for Rock, Teft, Skar, and Moash. They stood beside a bridge turned up on its side, its underbelly exposed. The bottom was a complicated construction, with eight rows of three positions accommodating up to twenty-four men directly underneath, then sixteen sets of handles-eight on each side-for sixteen more men on the outside. Forty men, running shoulder to shoulder, if they had a full complement.
Each position underneath the bridge had an indentation for the bridgeman’s head, two curved blocks of wood to rest on his shoulders, and two rods for handholds. The bridgemen wore shoulder pads, and those who were shorter wore extras to compensate. Gaz generally tried to assign new bridgemen to crews based on their height.
That didn’t hold for Bridge Four, of course. Bridge Four just got the leftovers.
Kaladin pointed to several rods and struts. “We could grab here, then run straight forward, carrying the bridge on its side to our right at a slant. We put our taller men on the outside and our shorter men on the inside.”
“What good would that do?” Rock asked, frowning.
Kaladin glanced at Gaz, who was watching from nearby. Uncomfortably close. Best not to speak of why he really wanted to carry the bridge on its side. Besides, he didn’t want to get the men’s hopes up until he knew if it would work.
“I just want to experiment,” he said. “If we can shift positions occasionally, it might be easier. Work different muscles.” Syl frowned as she stood on the top of the bridge. She always frowned when Kaladin obscured the truth.
“Gather the men,” Kaladin said, waving to Rock, Teft, Skar, and Moash. He’d named the four as his subsquad commanders, something that bridgemen didn’t normally have. But soldiers worked best in smaller groups of six or eight.
Soldiers, Kaladin thought. Is that how I think of them?
They didn’t fight. But yes, they were soldiers. It was too easy to underestimate men when you considered them to be “just” bridgemen. Charging straight at enemy archers without shields took courage. Even when you were compelled to do it.
He glanced to the side, noticing that Moash hadn’t left with the other three. The narrow-faced man had dark green eyes and brown hair flecked with black.
“Something wrong, soldier?” Kaladin asked.
Moash blinked in surprise at the use of the word, but he and the others had grown to expect all kinds of unorthodoxy from Kaladin. “Why did you make me leader of a subsquad?”
“Because you resisted my leadership longer than almost any of the others. And you were flat-out more vocal about it than any of them.”
“You made me a squad leader because I refused to obey you?”
“I made you squad leader because you struck me as capable and intelligent. But beyond that, you weren’t swayed too easily. You’re strong-willed. I can use that.”
Moash scratched his chin, with its short beard. “All right then. But unlike Teft and that Horneater, I don’t think you’re a gift straight from the Almighty. I don’t trust you.”
“Then why obey me?”
Moash met his eyes, then shrugged. “Guess I’m curious.” He moved off to gather his squad.
What in the raging winds… Gaz thought, dumbfounded as he watched Bridge Four charge past. What had possessed them to try carrying the bridge to the side?
It required them to clump up in an odd way, forming three rows instead of five, awkwardly clutching the underside of the bridge and holding it off to their right. It was one of the strangest things he’d ever seen. They could barely all fit, and the handholds weren’t made for carrying the bridge that way.
Gaz scratched his head as he watched them pass, then held out a hand, stopping Kaladin as he jogged by. The lordling let go of the bridge and hurried up to Gaz, wiping his brow as the others continued running. “Yes?”
“What is that?” Gaz said, pointing.
“Bridge crew. Carrying what I believe is…yes, it’s a bridge.”
“I didn’t ask for lip,” Gaz snarled. “I want an explanation.”
“Carrying the bridge over our heads gets tiring,” Kaladin said. He was a tall man, tall enough to tower over Gaz. Storm it, I will not be intimidated! “This is a way to use different muscles. Like shifting a pack from one shoulder to the other.”
Gaz glanced to the side. Had something moved in the darkness?
“Gaz?” Kaladin asked.
“Look, lordling,” Gaz said, looking back to him. “Carrying it overhead may be tiring, but carrying it like that is just plain stupid. You look like you’re about to stumble over one another, and the handholds are terrible. You can barely fit the men.”
“Yes,” Kaladin said more softly. “But a lot of the time, only half of a bridge crew will survive a bridge run. We can carry it back this way when there are fewer of us. It will let us shift positions, at least.”
Gaz hesitated. Only half a bridge crew…
If they carried the bridge like that on an actual assault, they’d go slowly, expose themselves. It could be a disaster, for Bridge Four at least.
Gaz smiled. “I like it.”
Kaladin looked shocked. “What?”
“Initiative. Creativity. Yes, keep practicing. I’d very much like to see you make a plateau approach carrying the bridge that way.”
Kaladin narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Gaz said.
“Well then. Perhaps we will.”
Gaz smiled, watching Kaladin retreat. A disaster was exactly what he needed. Now he just had to find some other way to pay Lamaril’s blackmail.
31
Beneath the Skin
SIX YEARS AGO
“Don�
��t make the same mistake I did, son.”
Kal looked up from his folio. His father sat on the other side of the operating room, one hand to his head, half-empty cup of wine in his other. Violet wine, among the strongest of liquors.
Lirin set the cup down, and the deep purple liquid-the color of cremling blood-shivered and trembled. It refracted Stormlight from a couple of spheres sitting on the counter.
“Father?”
“When you get to Kharbranth, stay there.” His voice was slurred. “Don’t get sucked back to this tiny, backward, foolish town. Don’t force your beautiful wife to live away from everyone else she’s ever known or loved.”
Kal’s father didn’t often get drunk; this was a rare night of indulgence. Perhaps because Mother had gone to sleep early, exhausted from her work.
“You’ve always said I should come back,” Kal said softly.
“I’m an idiot.” His back to Kal, he stared at the wall splashed with white light from the spheres. “They don’t want me here. They never wanted me here.”
Kal looked down at his folio. It contained drawings of dissected bodies, the muscles splayed and pulled out. The drawings were so detailed. Each had glyphpairs to designate every part, and he’d committed those to memory. Now he studied the procedures, delving into the bodies of men long dead.
Once, Laral had told him that men weren’t supposed to see beneath the skin. These folios, with their pictures, were part of what made everyone so mistrustful of Lirin. Seeing beneath was like seeing beneath the clothing, only worse.
Lirin poured himself more wine. How much the world could change in a short time. Kal pulled his coat close against the chill. A season of winter had come, but they couldn’t afford charcoal for the brazier, for patients no longer gave offerings. Lirin hadn’t stopped healing or surgery. The townspeople had simply stopped their donations, all at a word from Roshone.
“He shouldn’t be able to do this,” Kal whispered.
“But he can,” Lirin said. He wore a white shirt and black vest atop tan trousers. The vest was unbuttoned, the front flaps hanging down by his sides, like the skin pulled back from the torsos of the men in Kal’s drawings.
“We could spend the spheres,” Kal said hesitantly.
“Those are for your education,” Lirin snapped. “If I could send you now, I would.”
Kal’s father and mother had sent a letter to the surgeons in Kharbranth, asking them to let Kal take the entry tests early. They’d responded in the negative.
“He wants us to spend them,” Lirin said, words slurred. “That’s why he said what he did. He’s trying to bully us into needing those spheres.”
Roshone’s words to the townspeople hadn’t exactly been a command. He’d just implied that if Kal’s father was too foolish to charge, then he shouldn’t be paid. The next day, people had stopped donating.
The townsfolk regarded Roshone with a confusing mixture of adoration and fear. In Kal’s opinion, he didn’t deserve either. Obviously, the man had been banished to Hearthstone because he was so bitter and flawed. He clearly didn’t deserve to be among the real lighteyes, who fought for vengeance on the Shattered Plains.
“Why do the people try so hard to please him?” Kal asked of his father’s back. “They never reacted this way around Brightlord Wistiow.”
“They do it because Roshone is unappeasable.”
Kal frowned. Was that the wine talking?
Kal’s father turned, his eyes reflecting pure Stormlight. In those eyes, Kal saw a surprising lucidity. He wasn’t so drunk after all. “Brightlord Wistiow let men do as they wished. And so they ignored him. Roshone lets them know he finds them contemptible. And so they scramble to please him.”
“That makes no sense,” Kal said.
“It is the way of things,” Lirin said, playing with one of the spheres on the table, rolling it beneath his finger. “You’ll have to learn this, Kal. When men perceive the world as being right, we are content. But if we see a hole-a deficiency-we scramble to fill it.”
“You make it sound noble, what they do.”
“It is in a way,” Lirin said. He sighed. “I shouldn’t be so hard on our neighbors. They’re petty, yes, but it’s the pettiness of the ignorant. I’m not disgusted by them. I’m disgusted by the one who manipulates them. A man like Roshone can take what is honest and true in men and twist it into a mess of sludge to walk on.” He took a sip, finishing the wine.
“We should just spend the spheres,” Kal said. “Or send them somewhere, to a moneylender or something. If they were gone, he’d leave us alone.”
“No,” Lirin said softly. “Roshone is not the kind to spare a man once he is beaten. He’s the type who keeps kicking. I don’t know what political mistake landed him in this place, but he obviously can’t get revenge on his rivals. So we’re all he has.” Lirin paused. “Poor fool.”
Poor fool? Kal thought. He’s trying to destroy our lives, and that’s all Father can say?
What of the stories men sang at the hearths? Tales of clever herdsmen outwitting and overthrowing a foolish lighteyed man. There were dozens of variations, and Kal had heard them all. Shouldn’t Lirin fight back somehow? Do something other than sit and wait?
But he didn’t say anything; he knew exactly what Lirin would say. Let me worry about it. Get back to your studies.
Sighing, Kal settled back in his chair, opening his folio again. The surgery room was dim, lit by the four spheres on the table and a single one Kal used for reading. Lirin kept most of the spheres closed up in their cupboard, hidden away. Kal held up his own sphere, lighting the page. There were longer explanations of procedures in the back that his mother could read to him. She was the only woman in the town who could read, though Lirin said it wasn’t uncommon among wellborn darkeyed women in the cities.
As he studied, Kal idly pulled something from his pocket. A rock that had been sitting on his chair for him when he’d come in to study. He recognized it as a favorite one that Tien had been carrying around recently. Now he’d left it for Kaladin; he often did that, hoping that his older brother would be able to see the beauty in it too, though they all just looked like ordinary rocks. He’d have to ask Tien what he found so special about this particular one. There was always something.
Tien spent his days now learning carpentry from Ral, one of the men in the town. Lirin had set him to it reluctantly; he’d been hoping for another surgery assistant, but Tien couldn’t stand the sight of blood. He froze every time, and hadn’t gotten used to it. That was troubling. Kal had hoped that his father would have Tien as an assistant when he left. And Kal was leaving, one way or another. He hadn’t decided between the army or Kharbranth, though in recent months, he’d begun leaning toward becoming a spearman.
If he took that route, he’d have to do it stealthily, once he was old enough that the recruiters would take him over his parents’ objections. Fifteen would probably be old enough. Five more months. For now, he figured that knowing the muscles-and vital parts of a body-would be pretty useful for either a surgeon or a spearman.
A thump came at the door. Kal jumped. It hadn’t been a knock, but a thump. It came again. It sounded like something heavy pushing or slamming against the wood.
“What in the stormwinds?” Lirin said, rising from his stool. He crossed the small room; his undone vest brushed the operating table, button scraping the wood.
Another thump. Kal scrambled out of his chair, closing the folio. At fourteen and a half, he was nearly as tall as his father now. A scraping came at the door, like nails or claws. Kal raised a hand toward his father, suddenly terrified. It was late at night, dark in the room, and the town was silent.
There was something outside. It sounded like a beast. Inhuman. A den of whitespines were said to be making trouble nearby, striking at travelers on the roadway. Kal had an image in his head of the reptilian creatures, as big as horses but with carapace across their backs. Was one of them sniffing at the door? Brushing it, trying to force its way
in?
“Father!” Kal yelped.
Lirin pulled open the door. The dim light of the spheres revealed not a monster, but a man wearing black clothing. He had a long metal bar in his hands, and he wore a black wool mask with holes cut for the eyes. Kal felt his heart race in panic as the would-be intruder leapt backward.
“Didn’t expect to find anyone inside, did you?” Kal’s father said. “It’s been years since there was a theft in the town. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Give us the spheres!” a voice called out of the darkness. Another figure moved in the shadows, and then another.
Stormfather! Kal clutched the folio to his chest with trembling hands. How many are there? Highwaymen, come to rob the town! Such things happened. More and more frequently these days, Kal’s father said.
How could Lirin be so calm?
“Those spheres ain’t yours,” another voice called.
“Is that so?” Kal’s father said. “Does that make them yours? You think he’d let you keep them?” Kal’s father spoke as if they weren’t bandits from outside the town. Kal crept forward to stand just behind his father, frightened-but at the same time ashamed of that fear. The men in the darkness were shadowy, nightmarish things, moving back and forth, faces of black.
“We’ll give them to him,” one voice said.
“No need for this to get violent, Lirin,” another added. “You ain’t going to spend them anyway.”
Kal’s father snorted. He ducked into the room. Kal cried out, moving back as Lirin threw open the cabinet where he kept the spheres. He grabbed the large glass goblet that he stored them in; it was covered with a black cloth.
“You want them?” Lirin called, walking to the doorway, passing Kal.
“Father?” Kal said, panicked.
“You want the light for yourself?” Lirin’s voice grew louder. “Here!”
He pulled the cloth free. The goblet exploded with fiery radiance, the brightness nearly blinding. Kal raised his arm. His father was a shadowed silhouette that seemed to hold the sun itself in its fingers.
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