The Way of Kings sa-1

by Brandon Sanderson

The men sighed, but did as ordered. The army provided the oil. While the bridgemen were expendable, good hogshide and metal for buckles were not cheap.

  As the men gathered to work, the sun broke through the clouds. The warmth of the light felt good on Kaladin’s rain-wet skin. There was something refreshing about the chill of a highstorm followed by the sun. Tiny rockbud polyps on the side of the building opened, drinking in the wet air. Those would have to be scraped free. Rockbuds would eat away the stone of the walls, creating pockmarks and cracks.

  The buds were a deep crimson. It was Chachel, third day of the week. The slave markets would show new wares. That would mean new bridgemen. Kaladin’s crew was in serious danger. Yake had caught an arrow in the arm during their last run, and Delp had caught one in the neck. There’d been nothing Kaladin could do for him, and with Yake wounded, Kaladin’s team was down to twenty-eight bridge-capable members.

  Sure enough, about an hour into their morning activities-caring for equipment, oiling the bridge, Lopen and Dabbid running to fetch their morning gruel pot and bring it back to the lumberyard-Kaladin caught sight of soldiers leading a line of dirty, shuffling men toward the lumberyard. Kaladin gestured to Teft, and the two of them marched up to meet Gaz.

  “Afore you yell at me,” Gaz said as Kaladin arrived, “understand that I can’t change anything here.” The slaves were bunched up, watched over by a pair of soldiers in wrinkled green coats.

  “You’re bridge sergeant,” Kaladin said. Teft stepped up beside him. He hadn’t gotten a shave, though he’d begun keeping his short, grey beard neatly trimmed.

  “Yeah,” Gaz said, “but I don’t make assignments any more. Brightness Hashal wants to do it herself. In the name of her husband, of course.”

  Kaladin gritted his teeth. She’d starve Bridge Four of members. “So we get nothing.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Gaz said, then spat black spittle to the side. “She gave you one.”

  That’s something, at least, Kaladin thought. There were a good hundred men in the new group. “Which one? He’d better be tall enough to carry a bridge.”

  “Oh, he’s tall enough,” Gaz said, gesturing a few slaves out of the way. “Good worker too.” The men shuffled aside, revealing one man standing at the back. He was a little shorter than average, but he was still tall enough to carry a bridge.

  But he had black and red marbled skin.

  “A parshman?” Kaladin asked. To his side, Teft cursed under his breath.

  “Why not?” Gaz said. “They’re perfect slaves. Never talk back.”

  “But we’re at war with them!” Teft said.

  “We’re at war with a tribe of oddities,” Gaz said. “Those out on the Shattered Plains are right different from the fellows who work for us.”

  That much, at least, was true. There were a lot of parshmen in the warcamp, and-despite their skin markings-there was little similarity between them and the Parshendi warriors. None had the strange growths of armorlike carapace on their skin, for instance. Kaladin eyed the sturdy, bald man. The parshman stared at the ground; he wore only a loincloth, and he had a thickness about him. His fingers were thicker than those of human men, his arms stouter, his thighs wider.

  “He’s domesticated,” Gaz said. “You don’t need to worry.”

  “I thought parshmen were too valuable to use in bridge runs,” Kaladin said.

  “This is just an experiment,” Gaz said. “Brightness Hashal wants to know her options. Finding enough bridgemen has been difficult lately, and parshmen could help fill in holes.”

  “This is foolishness, Gaz,” Teft said. “I don’t care if he’s ‘domesticated’ or not. Asking him to carry a bridge against others of his kind is pure idiocy. What if he betrays us?”

  Gaz shrugged. “We’ll see if that happens.”

  “But-”

  “Leave it, Teft,” Kaladin said. “You, parshman, come with me.” He turned to walk back down the hill. The parshman dutifully followed. Teft cursed and did so as well.

  “What trick are they trying on us, do you think?” Teft asked.

  “I suspect it’s just what he said. A test to see if a parshman can be trusted to run bridges. Perhaps he’ll do as he’s told. Or perhaps he’ll refuse to run, or will try to kill us. She wins regardless.”

  “Kelek’s breath,” Teft cursed. “Darker than a Horneater’s stomach, our situation is. She’ll see us dead, Kaladin.”

  “I know.” He glanced over his shoulder at the parshman. He was a little taller than most, his face a little wider, but they all looked about the same to Kaladin.

  The other members of Bridge Four had lined up by the time Kaladin returned. They watched the approaching parshman with surprise and disbelief. Kaladin stopped before them, Teft at his side, the parshman behind. It made him itch, to have one of them behind him. He casually stepped to the side. The parshman just stood there, eyes downward, shoulders slumped.

  Kaladin glanced at the others. They had guessed, and they were growing hostile.

  Stormfather, Kaladin thought. There is something lower in this world than a bridgeman. A parshman bridgeman. Parshmen might cost more than most slaves, but so did a chull. In fact, the comparison was a good one, because parshmen were worked like animals.

  Seeing the reaction of the others made Kaladin pity the creature. And that made him mad at himself. Did he always have to react this way? This parshman was dangerous, a distraction for the other men, a factor they couldn’t depend on.

  A liability.

  Turn a liability into an advantage whenever you can.. Those words had been spoken by a man who cared only for his own skin.

  Storm it, Kaladin thought. I’m a fool. A downright, sodden idiot. This isn’t the same. Not at all. “Parshman,” he asked. “Do you have a name?”

  The man shook his head. Parshmen rarely spoke. They could, but you had to prod them into it.

  “Well, we’ll have to call you something,” Kaladin said. “How about Shen?”

  The man shrugged.

  “All right then,” Kaladin said to the others. “This is Shen. He’s one of us now.”

  “A parshman?” Lopen asked, lounging beside the barrack. “I don’t like him, gancho. Look how he stares at me.”

  “He’ll kill us while we sleep,” Moash added.

  “No, this is good,” Skar said. “We can just have him run at the front. He’ll take an arrow for one of us.”

  Syl alighted on Kaladin’s shoulder, looking down at the parshman. Her eyes were sorrowful.

  If you were to overthrow the lighteyes and place yourselves in power, abuses would still happen. They’d just happen to other people.

  But this was a parshman.

  Gotta do what you can to stay alive….

  “No,” Kaladin said. “Shen is one of us now. I don’t care what he was before. I don’t care what any of you were. We’re Bridge Four. So is he.”

  “But-” Skar began.

  “No,” Kaladin said. “We not going to treat him like the lighteyes treat us, Skar. That’s all there is to it. Rock, find him a vest and sandals.”

  The bridgemen split up, all save Teft. “What about…our plans?” Teft asked quietly.

  “We proceed,” Kaladin said.

  Teft looked uncomfortable about that.

  “What’s he going to do, Teft?” Kaladin asked. “Tell on us? I’ve never heard a parshman say more than a single word at a time. I doubt he could act as a spy.”

  “I don’t know,” Teft grumbled. “But I’ve never liked them. They seem to be able to talk to each other, without making any sounds. I don’t like the way they look.”

  “Teft,” Kaladin said flatly, “if we rejected bridgemen based on their looks, we’d have kicked you out weeks ago for that face of yours.”

  Teft grunted. Then he smiled.

  “What?” Kaladin asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just…for a moment, you reminded me of better days. Afore this storm came crashing down on me. You realiz
e the odds, don’t you? Fighting our way free, escaping a man like Sadeas?”

  Kaladin nodded solemnly.

  “Good,” Teft said. “Well, since you aren’t inclined to do it, I’ll keep an eye on our friend ‘Shen’ over there. You can thank me after I stop him from sticking a knife in your back.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry.”

  “You’re young,” Teft said. “I’m old.”

  “That makes you wiser, presumably?”

  “Damnation no,” Teft said. “The only thing it proves is that I’ve more experience staying alive than you. I’ll watch him. You just train the rest of this sorry lot to…” He trailed off, looking around. “To keep from tripping over their own feet the moment someone threatens them. You understand?”

  Kaladin nodded. That sounded much like something one of Kaladin’s old sergeants would say. Teft was insistent on not talking about his past, but he never had seemed as beaten down as most of the others.

  “All right,” Kaladin said, “make sure the men take care of their equipment.”

  “What will you be doing?”

  “Walking,” Kaladin said. “And thinking.”

  An hour later, Kaladin still wandered Sadeas’s warcamp. He’d need to return to the lumberyard soon; his men were on chasm duty again, and had been given only a few free hours to care for equipment.

  As a youth, he hadn’t understood why his father had often gone walking to think. The older Kaladin grew, the more he found himself imitating his father’s habits. Walking, moving, it did something to his mind. The constant passing of tents, colors cycling, men bustling-it created a sense of change, and it made his thoughts want to move as well.

  Don’t hedge bets with your life, Kaladin, Durk had always said. Don’t put in a chip when you have a pocket full of marks. Bet them all or leave the table.

  Syl danced before him, jumping from shoulder to shoulder in the crowded street. Occasionally she’d land on the head of someone passing in the other direction and sit there, legs crossed, as she passed Kaladin. All his spheres were on the table. He was determined to help the bridgemen. But something itched at him, a worry that he couldn’t yet explain.

  “You seem troubled,” Syl said, landing on his shoulder. She wore a cap and jacket over her usual dress, as if imitating nearby shop keepers. They passed the apothecary’s shop. Kaladin barely bothered to glance at it. He had no knobweed sap to sell. He’d run out of supplies soon.

  He’d told his men that he’d train them to fight, but that would take time. And once they were trained, how would they get spears out of the chasms to use in the escape? Sneaking them out would be tough, considering how they were searched. They could just start fighting at the search itself, but that would only put the entire warcamp on alert.

  Problems, problems. The more he thought, the more impossible his task seemed.

  He made way for a couple of soldiers in forest-green coats. Their brown eyes marked them as common citizens, but the white knots on their shoulders meant they were citizen officers. Squadleaders and sergeants.

  “Kaladin?” Syl asked.

  “Getting the bridgemen out is as large a task as I’ve ever faced. Much more difficult than my other escape attempts as a slave, and I failed at each of those. I can’t help wondering if I’m setting myself up for another disaster.”

  “It will be different this time, Kaladin,” Syl said. “I can feel it.”

  “That sounds like something Tien would have said. His death proves that words don’t change anything, Syl. Before you ask, I’m not sinking into despair again. But I can’t ignore what has happened to me. It started with Tien. Since that moment, it seems that every time I’ve specifically picked people to protect, they’ve ended up dead. Every time. It’s enough to make me wonder if the Almighty himself hates me.”

  She frowned. “I think you’re being foolish. Besides, if anything, he’d hate the people who died, not you. You lived.”

  “I suppose it’s self-centered to make it all about me. But, Syl, I survive, every time, when almost nobody else does. Over and over again. My old spearman’s squad, the first bridge crew I ran with, numerous slaves I tried to help escape. There’s a pattern. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore.”

  “Maybe the Almighty is preserving you,” Syl said.”

  Kaladin hesitated on the street; a passing soldier cursed and shoved him aside. Something about this whole conversation was wrong. Kaladin moved over beside a rain barrel set between two sturdy stone-walled shops.

  “Syl,” he said. “You mentioned the Almighty.”

  “You did first.”

  “Ignore that for now. Do you believe in the Almighty? Do you know if he really exists?”

  Syl cocked her head. “I don’t know. Huh. Well, there are a lot of things I don’t know. But I should know this one. I think. Maybe?” She seemed very perplexed.

  “I’m not sure if I believe,” Kaladin said, looking out at the street. “My mother did, and my father always spoke of the Heralds with reverence. I think he believed too, but maybe just because of the traditions of healing that are said to have come from the Heralds. The ardents ignore us bridgemen. They used to visit the soldiers, when I was in Amaram’s army, but I haven’t seen a single one in the lumberyard. I haven’t given it much thought. Believing never seemed to help any of the soldiers.”

  “So if you don’t believe, then there’s no reason to think that the Almighty hates you.”

  “Except,” Kaladin said, “if there is no Almighty, there might be something else. I don’t know. A lot of the soldiers I knew were superstitious. They’d talk about things like the Old Magic and the Nightwatcher, things that could bring a man bad luck. I scoffed at them. But how long can I continue to ignore that possibility? What if all of these failures can be traced to something like that?”

  Syl looked disturbed. The cap and jacket she’d been wearing dissolved to mist, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled by his comments.

  Odium reigns….

  “Syl,” he said, frowning, thinking back to his strange dream. “Have you ever heard of something called Odium? I don’t mean the feeling, I mean…a person, or something called by that name.”

  Syl suddenly hissed. It was a feral, disturbing sound. She zipped off his shoulder, becoming a darting streak of light, and shot up underneath the eaves of the next building.

  He blinked. “Syl?” he called, drawing the attention of a couple of passing washwomen. The spren did not reappear. Kaladin folded his arms. That word had set her off. Why?

  A loud series of curses interrupted his thoughts. Kaladin spun as a man burst out of a handsome stone building across the street and shoved a half-naked woman out in front of him. The man had bright blue eyes, and his coat-carried over one arm-had red knots on the shoulder. A lighteyed officer, not very high-ranking. Perhaps seventh dahn.

  The half-dressed woman fell to the ground. She held the loose front of the dress to her chest, crying, her long black hair down and tied with two red ribbons. The dress was that of a lighteyed woman, except that both sleeves were short, safehand exposed. A courtesan.

  The officer continued to curse as he pulled on his coat. He didn’t do up the buttons. Instead, he stepped forward and kicked the whore in the belly. She gasped, painspren pulling from the ground and gathering around her. Nobody on the street paused, though most did hurry on their way, heads down.

  Kaladin growled, jumping into the roadway, pushing his way past a group of soldiers. Then he stopped. Three men in blue stepped out of the crowd, moving purposefully between the fallen woman and the officer in red. Only one was lighteyed, judging by the knots on his shoulders. Golden knots. A high-ranking man indeed, second or third dahn. These obviously weren’t from Sadeas’s army, not with those well-pressed blue coats.

  Sadeas’s officer hesitated. The officer in blue rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. The other two were holding fine halberds with gleaming half-moon heads.

  A g
roup of soldiers in red moved out of the crowd and began to surround those in blue. The air grew tense, and Kaladin realized that the street-bustling just moments ago-was quickly emptying. He stood practically alone, the only one watching the three men in blue, now surrounded by seven in red. The woman was still on the ground, sniffling. She huddled next to the blue garbed officer.

  The man who had kicked her-a thick-browed brute with a mop of uncombed black hair-began to button up the right side of his coat. “You don’t belong here, friends. It seems you wandered into the wrong warcamp.”

  “We have legitimate business,” said the officer in blue. He had light golden hair, speckled with Alethi black, and a handsome face. He held his hand before him as if wishing to shake hands with Sadeas’s officer. “Come now,” he said affably. “Whatever your problem with this woman, I’m sure it can be resolved without anger or violence.”

  Kaladin moved back under the overhang where Syl had hidden.

  “She’s a whore,” Sadeas’s man said.

  “I can see that,” replied the man in blue. He kept his hand out.

  The officer in red spat on it.

  “I see,” said the blond man. He pulled his hand back, and twisting lines of mist gathered in the air, coalescing in his hands as he raised them to an offensive posture. A massive sword appeared, as long as a man is tall.

  It dripped with water that condensed along its cold, glimmering length. It was beautiful, long and sinuous, its single edge rippled like an eel and curved up into a point. The back bore delicate ridges, like crystal formations.

  Sadeas’s officer stumbled away and fell, his face pale. The soldiers in red scattered. The officer cursed at them-as vile a curse as Kaladin had ever heard-but none returned to help him. With a final glare, he scrambled up the steps back into the building.

  The door slammed, leaving the roadway eerily silent. Kaladin was the only one on the street besides the soldiers in blue and the fallen courtesan. The Shardbearer gave Kaladin a glance, but obviously judged him no threat. He thrust his sword into the stones; the blade sank in easily and stood with its hilt toward the sky.

  The young Shardbearer then gave his hand to the fallen whore. “What did you do to him, out of curiosity?”