The Way of Kings sa-1

by Brandon Sanderson

  “He is the one from before, Brightlord,” Matal said, nervous. “The one who…”

  “Ah yes,” Sadeas said. “The ‘miracle.’ And you sent him forward as a decoy like that? One would think that you would be hesitant to dare such measures.”

  “I take full responsibility, Brightlord,” Matal said, putting the best face on it.

  Sadeas regarded the battlefield. “Well, luckily for you, it worked. I suppose I’ll have to promote you now.” He shook his head. “Those savages practically ignored the assault force. All twenty bridges set, most with nary a casualty. It seems like a waste, somehow. Consider yourself commended. Most remarkable, the way that boy dodged…” He kicked his horse into motion, leaving Matal and the bridgemen behind.

  It was the most backhanded promotion Kaladin had ever heard, but that would do. Kaladin smiled broadly as Matal turned to him, eyes enraged.

  “You-” Matal sputtered. “You could have gotten me executed!”

  “Instead I got you promoted,” Kaladin said, Bridge Four forming around him.

  “I should see you strung up anyway.”

  “It’s been tried,” Kaladin said. “Didn’t work. Besides, you know that from now on Sadeas is going to expect me to be out there distracting the archers. Good luck getting any other bridgeman to try that.”

  Matal’s face grew red. He turned and stalked away to check on the other bridge crews. The two nearest-Bridge Seven and Bridge Eighteen-stood looking toward Kaladin and his team. All twenty bridges had been set? Hardly any casualties?

  Stormfather, Kaladin thought. How many archers were firing at me?

  “You did it, Kaladin!” Moash exclaimed. “You found the secret. We need to make this work. Expand it.”

  “I’ll bet I could dodge those arrows, if that were all I was doing,” Skar said. “With enough armor…”

  “We should have more than one,” Moash agreed. “Five or so, running around drawing the Parshendi attacks.”

  “The bones,” Rock said, folding his arms. “This is what made it work. The Parshendi were so mad that they ignored bridge crew. If all five wear the bones of Parshendi…”

  That made Kaladin consider something. He looked back, searching through the bridgemen. Where was Shen?

  There. He was sitting on the rocks, distant, staring forward. Kaladin approached with the others. The parshman looked up at him, face a mask of pain, tears streaking his cheeks. He looked at Kaladin and shuddered visibly, turning away, closing his eyes.

  “He sat down like that the moment he saw what you’d done, lad,” Teft said, rubbing his chin. “Might not be good for bridge runs anymore.”

  Kaladin pulled the carapacetied helm off his head, then ran his fingers through his hair. The carapace stuck to his clothing stank faintly, even though he’d washed it off down below. “We’ll see,” Kaladin said, feeling a twist of guilt. Not nearly enough to overshadow the victory of protecting his men, but enough to dampen it, at least. “For now, there are still many bridge crews that got fired upon. You know what to do.”

  The men nodded, trotting off to search for the wounded. Kaladin set one man to watch over Shen-he wasn’t sure what else to do with the parshman-and tried not to show his exhaustion as he put his sweaty, carapace-covered cap and vest in Lopen’s litter. He knelt down to go through his medical equipment, in case it was needed, and found that his hand was shaking and quivering. He pressed it down against the ground to still it, breathing in and out.

  Cold, clammy skin, he thought. Nausea. Weakness. He was in shock.

  “You all right, lad?” Teft asked, kneeling down beside Kaladin. He still wore a bandage on his arm from the wound he’d taken a few bridge runs back, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from carrying. Not when there were too few as it was.

  “I’ll be fine,” Kaladin said, taking out a waterskin, holding it in a quivering hand. He could barely get the top off.

  “You don’t look-”

  “I’ll be fine,” Kaladin said again, drinking, then lowering the water. “What’s important is that the men are safe.”

  “You going to do this every time. Whenever we go to battle?”

  “Whatever keeps them safe.”

  “You’re not immortal, Kaladin,” Teft said softly. “The Radiants, they could be killed, just like any man. Sooner or later, one of those arrows will find your neck instead of your shoulder.”

  “The Stormlight heals.”

  “The Stormlight helps your body heal. That’s different, I’m thinking.” Teft laid a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “We can’t lose you, lad. The men need you.”

  “I’m not going to avoid putting myself in danger, Teft. And I’m not going to leave the men to face a storm of arrows if I can do something about it.”

  “Well,” Teft said, “you are going to let a few of us go out there with you. The bridge can manage with twenty-five, if it has to. That leaves us a few extra, just like Rock said. And I’ll bet some of those wounded from the other crews we saved are well enough to begin helping carry. They won’t dare send them back to their own crews, not so long as Bridge Four is doing what you did today, and helping the whole assault work.”

  “I…” Kaladin trailed off. He could imagine Dallet doing something like this. He’d always said that as sergeant, part of his job was to keep Kaladin alive. “All right.”

  Teft nodded, rising.

  “You were a spearman, Teft,” Kaladin said. “Don’t try to deny it. How did you end up here, in these bridge crews?”

  “It’s where I belong.” Teft turned away to supervise the search for wounded.

  Kaladin sat down, then lay back, waiting for the shock to wear off. To the south, the other army-flying the blue of Dalinar Kholin-had arrived. They crossed to an adjacent plateau.

  Kaladin closed his eyes to recover. Eventually, he heard something and opened his eyes. Syl sat cross-legged on his chest. Behind her, Dalinar Kholin’s army had begun an assault onto the battlefield, and they managed to do so without getting fired on. Sadeas had the Parshendi cut off.

  “That was amazing,” Kaladin said to Syl. “What I did with the arrows.”

  “Still think you’re cursed?”

  “No. I know I’m not.” He looked up at the overcast sky. “But that means the failures were all just me. I let Tien die, I failed my spearmen, the slaves I tried to rescue, Tarah…” He hadn’t thought of her in some time. His failure with her had been different from the others, but a failure it was nonetheless. “If there’s no curse or bad luck, no god above being angry at me-I have to live with knowing that with a little more eff ort-a little more practice or skill-I could have saved them.”

  Syl frowned more deeply. “Kaladin, you need to get over this. Those things aren’t your fault.”

  “That’s what my father always used to say.” He smiled faintly. “‘Overcome your guilt, Kaladin. Care, but not too much. Take responsibility, but don’t blame yourself.’ Protect, save, help-but know when to give up. They’re such precarious ledges to walk. How do I do it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know any of this, Kaladin. But you’re ripping yourself apart. Inside and out.”

  Kaladin stared at the sky above. “It was wondrous. I was a storm, Syl. The Parshendi couldn’t touch me. The arrows were nothing.”

  “You’re too new to this. You pushed yourself too hard.”

  “‘Save them,’” Kaladin whispered. “‘Do the impossible, Kaladin. But don’t push yourself too hard. But also don’t feel guilty if you fail.’ Precarious ledges, Syl. So narrow…”

  Some of his men returned with a wounded man, a square-faced Thaylen fellow with an arrow in the shoulder. Kaladin went to work. His hands were still shaking slightly, but not nearly as badly as they had been.

  The bridgemen clustered around, watching. He’d started training Rock, Drehy, and Skar already, but with all of them watching, Kaladin found himself explaining. “If you put pressure here, you can slow the blood flow. This isn’t too dangerous a wound,
though it probably doesn’t feel too good…”-the patient grimaced his agreement-“…and the real problem will come from infection. Wash the wound to make sure there aren’t any slivers of wood or bits of metal left, then sew it. The muscles and skin of the shoulder here are going to get worked, so you need a strong thread to hold the wound together. Now…”

  “Kaladin,” Lopen said, sounding worried.

  “Wha?” Kaladin said, distracted, still working.

  “Kaladin!”

  Lopen had called him by his name, rather than saying gancho. Kaladin stood up, turning to see the short Herdazian man standing at the back of the crowd, pointing at the chasm. The battle had moved farther north, but a group of Parshendi had punched through Sadeas’s line. They had bows.

  Kaladin watched, stunned, as the group of Parshendi fell into formation and nocked. Fifty arrows, all pointed at Kaladin’s crew. The Parshendi didn’t seem to care that they were exposing themselves to attack from behind. They seemed focused on only one thing.

  Destroying Kaladin and his men.

  Kaladin screamed the alarm, but he felt so sluggish, so tired. The bridgemen around him turned as the archers drew. Sadeas’s men normally defended the chasm to keep Parshendi from pushing over the bridges and cutting off their escape. But this time, noticing that the archers weren’t trying to drop the bridges, the soldiers didn’t hasten to stop them. They left the bridgemen to die, instead cutting off the Parshendi route to the bridges themselves.

  Kaladin’s men were exposed. Perfect targets. No, Kaladin thought. No! It can’t happen like this. Not after-

  A force crashed into the Parshendi line. A single figure in slate-grey armor, wielding a sword as long as many men were tall. The Shardbearer swept through the distracted archers with urgency, slicing into their ranks. Arrows flew toward Kaladin’s team, but they were loosed too early, aimed poorly. A few came close as the bridgemen ducked for cover, but nobody was hit.

  Parshendi fell before the sweeping Blade of the Shardbearer, some toppling into the chasm, others scrambling back. The rest died with burned-out eyes. In seconds, the squad of fifty archers had been reduced to corpses.

  The Shardbearer’s honor guard caught up with him. He turned, armor seeming to glow as he raised his Blade in a salute of respect toward the bridgemen. Then he charged off in another direction.

  “That was him,” Drehy said, standing up. “Dalinar Kholin. The king’s uncle!”

  “He saved us!” Lopen said.

  “Bah.” Moash dusted himself off. “He just saw a group of undefended archers and took the chance to strike. Lighteyes don’t care about us. Right, Kaladin?”

  Kaladin stared at the place where the archers had stood. In one moment, he could have lost it all.

  “Kaladin?” Moash said.

  “You’re right,” Kaladin found himself saying. “Just an opportunity taken.”

  Except, why raise the Blade toward Kaladin?

  “From now on,” Kaladin said, “we pull back farther after the soldiers cross. They used to ignore us after the battle began, but they won’t any longer. What I did today-what we’re all going to be doing soon-will make them mighty angry. Angry enough to be stupid, but also angry enough to see us dead. For now, Leyten, Narm, find good scouting points and watch the field. I want to know if any Parshendi make moves toward that chasm. I’ll get this man bandaged and we’ll pull back.”

  The two scouts ran off, and Kaladin turned back to the man with the wounded shoulder.

  Moash knelt beside him. “An assault against a prepared foe without any bridges lost, a Shardbearer coincidentally coming to our rescue, Sadeas himself complimenting us. You almost make me think I should get one of those armbands.”

  Kaladin glanced down at the prayer. It was stained with blood from a slice on his arm that the vanishing Stormlight hadn’t quite been able to heal.

  “Wait to see if we escape.” Kaladin finished his stitching. “That’s the real test.”

  63

  Fear

  “I wish to sleep. I know now why you do what you do, and I hate you for it. I will not speak of the truths I see.”

  — Kakashah 1173, 142 seconds pre-death. A Shin sailor, left behind by his crew, reportedly for bringing them ill luck. Sample largely useless.

  “You see?” Leyten turned the piece of carapace over in his hands. “If we carve it up at the edge, it encourages a blade-or in this case an arrow-to deflect away from the face. Wouldn’t want to spoil that pretty grin of yours.”

  Kaladin smiled, taking back the piece of armor. Leyten had carved it expertly, putting in holes for leather straps to affix it to the jerkin. The chasm was cold and dark at night. With the sky hidden, it felt like a cavern. Only the occasional sparkle of a star high above revealed otherwise.

  “How soon can you have them done?” he asked Leyten.

  “All five? By the end of the night, likely. The real trick was discovering how to work it.” He knocked on the carapace with the back of his knuckles. “Amazing stuff. Nearly as hard as steel, but half the weight. Hard to cut or break. But if you drill, it shapes easily.”

  “Good,” Kaladin said. “Because I don’t want five sets. I want one for each man in the crew.”

  Leyten raised an eyebrow.

  “If they’re going to start letting us wear armor,” Kaladin said, “everyone gets a suit. Except Shen, of course.” Matal had agreed to let them leave him behind on the bridge runs; he wouldn’t even look at Kaladin now.

  Leyten nodded. “All right, then. Better get me some help, though.”

  “You can use the wounded men. We’ll cart out as much carapace as we can find.”

  His success had translated to an easier time for Bridge Four. Kaladin had pled that his men needed time to find carapace, and Hashal-not knowing any better-had reduced the scavenging quota. She was already pretending-quite smoothly-that the armor had been her idea the entire time, and was ignoring the question of where it had come from in the first place. When she met Kaladin’s eyes, however, he saw worry. What else would he try? So far, she hadn’t dared remove him. Not while he brought her so much praise from Sadeas.

  “How did an apprentice armorer end up as a bridgeman anyway?” Kaladin asked as Leyten settled back down to work. He was a thick-armed man, stout and oval-faced with light hair. “Craftsmen don’t usually get thrown away.”

  Leyten shrugged. “When a piece of armor breaks and a lighteyes takes an arrow in the shoulder, someone has to take the blame. I’m convinced my master keeps an extra apprentice especially for those kinds of situation.”

  “Well, his loss is our good fortune. You’re going to keep us alive.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.” He smiled. “Can’t do much worse on the armor than you did yourself, though. It’s amazing that breastplate didn’t fall off halfway through!”

  Kaladin patted the bridgeman on the shoulder, then left him to his work, surrounded by a small ring of topaz chips; Kaladin had gotten permission to bring them, explaining his men needed light to work on the armor. Nearby, Lopen, Rock, and Dabbid were returning with another load of salvage. Syl zipped ahead, leading them.

  Kaladin walked down the chasm, a garnet sphere looped in a small leather carrier at his belt for light. The chasm branched here, making a large triangular intersection-a perfect place for spear training. Wide enough to give the men room to practice, yet far enough from any permanent bridges that scouts weren’t likely to hear echoes.

  Kaladin gave the initial instructions each day, then let Teft lead the practice. The men worked by sphere light, small piles of diamond chips at the corners of the intersection, barely enough to see by. Never thought I’d envy those days practicing beneath the hot sun back in Amaram’s army, he thought.

  He walked up to gap-toothed Hobber and corrected his stance, then showed him how to set his weight behind his spear thrusts. The bridgemen were progressing quickly, and the fundamentals were proving their merit. Some were training with the spear and the shield, pra
cticing stances where they held lighter spears up beside the head with the shield raised.

  The most skilled were Skar and Moash. In fact, Moash was surprisingly good. Kaladin walked to the side, watching the hawk-faced man. He was focused, eyes intense, jaw set. He moved in attack after attack, the dozen spheres giving him an equal number of shadows.

  Kaladin remembered feeling such dedication. He’d spent a year like that, after Tien’s death, driving himself to exhaustion each day. Determined to get better. Determined never to let another person die because of his lack of skill. He’d become the best in his squad, then the best in his company. Some said he’d been the best spearmen in Amaram’s army.

  What would have happened to him, if Tarah hadn’t coaxed him out of his single-minded dedication? Would he have burned himself out, as she’d claimed?

  “Moash,” Kaladin called.

  Moash paused, turning toward Kaladin. He didn’t fall out of stance.

  Kaladin waved him to approach, and Moash reluctantly trotted over. Lopen had left a few waterskins for them, hanging by their cords from a cluster of haspers. Kaladin pulled a skin free, tossing it to Moash. The other man took a drink, then wiped his mouth.

  “You’re getting good,” Kaladin said. “You’re probably the best we have.”

  “Thanks,” Moash said.

  “I’ve noticed you keep training when Teft lets the other men take breaks. Dedication is good, but don’t work yourself ragged. I want you to be one of the decoys.”

  Moash smiled broadly. Each of the men had volunteered to be one of the four who would join Kaladin distracting the Parshendi. It was amazing. Months ago, Moash-along with the others-had eagerly placed the new or the weak at the front of the bridge to catch arrows. Now, to a man, they volunteered for the most dangerous jobs.

  Do you realize what you could have in these men, Sadeas? Kaladin thought. If you weren’t so busy thinking of how to get them killed?

  “So what is it for you?” Kaladin said, nodding toward the dim practice ground. “Why do you work so hard? What is it you hunt?”