This was asked over in the SB thread. Lithos said that technically anyone can see Archive, as Archive is an Inkspren, but that the size-changing she does (shrinking down to the size of a speck of dust) works just as well on Rock as it does on everyone else.
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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9
The King You Have
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You may say this is impossible. Until I saw it for myself, I would have said the same. The word Investiture is, by design, a catch-all term. Yet what I saw on Ashyn breaks all the rules.
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"Well, hello there, Highprince Sadeas!" The King's Wit spoke with his customary lilting tone, his lips raised into the smirk that was as much a part of his uniform as the black suit and silver sword at his side. "How pleasant to see you here! Are you in the mood to be eating men's food today, rather than men?"
Torol raised a single eyebrow. "Is that a joke about cannibalism, or my preferences?" he asked.
"Can it not be both?" asked Wit, crossing his legs as they dangled from his raised stool. His pale blue eyes glittered with mischief, but Torol noticed dark rings around them.
"Of course it can," Torol said. "But I'd hope His Majesty's Wit would be a bit more decisive than that."
"Oh, come now, Highprince," said Wit. "I know you're familiar with the difference between indecisiveness and multitasking. After all, the sheer number of women you've slept with has no bearing on your devotion to your wife, isn't that right?"
That one… actually stung. More than Torol would have expected. But he didn't show it on his face. "In future, I recommend making one joke well, rather than two badly," he said. "But that is, perhaps, beyond your means. Good day, Wit."
"Have a lovely evening, Brightlord," Wit called after him. "I know that, with you here, none of us will!"
Torol rolled his eyes at the parting shot. Unimaginative, he thought. At best.
King Elhokar's 'feasting basin'—a small hollow below the hill where his Soulcast palace had been raised—had been flooded several months ago by a redirected stream. Five circular islands dotted the water, connected with wooden bridges. Each island bore several tables, but occupancy was limited by design. The flooding had been Torol's own suggestion. By limiting the available space for seating, those seats gained value—which meant that the goodwill King Elhokar bought with each invitation was sharply increased. Twice the flattery among a hundred and fifty invitees was worth far more than half as much among three or even four hundred.
He crossed the first bridge onto the foyer-island. There was no seating here, only a series of ornate fountains and sphere-lit statues, interspersed with low tables bearing light fare. As he passed one, he took a plate bearing a small, palm-sized tart. It was topped with a pale green herbal cream, and when he bit into it he found that the fluffy, buttery dough was stuffed with what was unmistakably Natan fish, spiced to perfection.
To one uneducated in the vagaries of trade in eastern Roshar, it might seem like Natan exports would be easy to find here in southeastern Alethkar. New Natanan, joke of a nation that it was, was nestled just on the other side of the unclaimed hills, built in small cities along the storm-tossed coast. But the highstorms, coupled with the treacherous and underexplored terrain of the Hills, made transportation difficult. Natan spices, dried, were not hard to find in Alethkar. But something as perishable as fresh fish was another matter. It was only possible to transport them in relatively wide gaps between storms, and with the inherent unreliability of the stormwardens, that was always a difficult and dangerous proposition.
Some merchants tried to transport fish and other goods through the highstorms, intending to use the hills for cover. Every so often, one of them even survived.
Torol finished the tart as he crossed the second bridge, making a mental note to compliment King Elhokar's taste. It wasn't even all flattery—it really was a very good tart, and he would have to see if he could poach one of Elhokar's cooks. But more importantly, it was expensive. Even most lighteyes of the third or fourth dahn would only have Natan fish once a year, at most. The king was taking his lessons on the importance of impressions to heart, it seemed.
As Torol crossed the second island, the lesser lighteyes—those of eighth to fifth dahn, generally, as ninth-dahn and tenners were largely unwelcome at the king's feasts—averted their gaze from him. A few tried to catch his eye. When he met their gaze, they typically regretted it, and immediately looked back down at their food.
One comely woman leaned in his direction with a flirtatious fluttering of her eyelashes as he passed by. For a fleeting moment he looked her up and down, noting her beauty, the way her green dress—his colors, was she one of his vassals?—hugged her form and supported her breasts.
She's young enough to be my daughter.
The thought sent a sick thrill through him. He tore his eyes away and swept past, ignoring the single shamespren tumbling through the air beside him like the delicate petal of a Shin flower.
The five islands were arranged in a cross. The bridge from the shore led east to the foyer, and from the foyer, another led east to the tables of the lesser lighteyes. That island connected on its northern side to the men's island, where male lighteyes of fifth and fourth dahn ate, and to the south was the women's island for their female parallels.
But it was the final eastern bridge which Torol crossed. His finger ran along the intricate scrollwork on the railings as he crossed onto the final island. This island was decorated with ornate statues of the Ten Heralds around its edges, facing outward, as if to guard the people drifting among the tables. Here were gathered men and women of second and third dahn, and at the table on the island's far side, flanked by the marble Jezerezeh and Ishi, sat King Elhokar himself.
As Torol stepped onto the island, Elhokar's eyes sought his own. Torol stopped and gave a slight bow—low enough to show deference, but not low enough to draw attention to the exchange. After all, they were still on opposite sides of the islet; it would do Elhokar little good to be seen as too focused on one of his highprinces at this distance. It was forgivable when he paid overly close attention to Dalinar, his uncle, but with Torol he had to maintain a more professional distance. It was something Torol had done his best to drill into the boy.
He was relieved when Elhokar looked away, returning to his conversation with Highprince Aladar. He needed to speak with Elhokar before Dalinar got to him tonight, but he also needed a few minutes first. He cast his eyes over the dining area, looking for—ah, there she was.
Surrounded, as always, by a gaggle of other well-dressed and well-mannered women, Ialai sat watching two of her friends carry on an engaging conversation. He saw the way her entourage looked to her for approval but did not attempt to draw her in. His lips twitched. Not for the first time, he mentally thanked Gavilar for his aid in establishing the match between the two of them. Ialai Sadeas was, in Torol's educated opinion, as close to a perfect wife as a woman could be. She was fiercely loyal, cunning as a knife, and as adept at moving through and controlling the social circles of women as he was those of men. And it helped that she was still, even as she aged, nearly as beautiful as the day they were married.
Tailiah had been blessed with her eyes.
Torol forced himself to keep his smile fixed on his face as he crossed to his wife's table. She saw him coming, and gave him a wide, performative smile. "Ah, husband," she said, waving elegantly in his direction.
He stepped up next to her seat. "Wife," he replied, casting his eye around the table, noting how the other women's conversation had stalled at his approach. A result of Ialai's deliberate call to him. He knew she would tell him anything important later, but it was important that she appear to be merely Sadeas' wife before the other women, rather than his partner and confidante. It would open many doors to both of them. "I'm glad to see you made it here."
"Of course," said Ialai, with an airy disregard meant to signal dismissiveness to anyone listening to their conversation. "Jayla's carriage was very comfortable. We really must see about getting some of those horses from Ruthar, husband. I've never had such a smooth ride across the plains before."
It was probably a true statement. But it was also a clear indication that Ialai had already spoken with Highprince Ruthar's wife about Dalinar's 'decline.' Torol would have to wait until they could discuss in private to learn the details, but this boded well.
The cleft between House Kholin and the other highprincedoms continues to widen, Torol thought. Aloud, however, all he said was, "I will look into it, darling. But I shan't keep you; I'm sure you all have much to discuss, and I really must speak with the king."
"Of course," said Ialai. "Do give him my regards, won't you?"
"I will," Torol promised, and moved on. Behind him, he heard the women's discussion pick up once again—this time, seemingly, comparing the horses of the various highprincedoms with the few remaining Ryshadium bloodlines.
He stepped between the tables. When one particularly drunk lighteyes in Roion's orange and brown colors began flailing a little beyond propriety, Torol deliberately stepped into the path of his arms. When the man glanced up indignantly, Torol shot him a look with one raised eyebrow.
The man quailed, and his friend immediately tugged him away by the arm, apologizing to Torol as he went, leading him off the king's island entirely.
Smiling to himself, Torol walked around the king's long table to where the young man himself was still speaking with Aladar. "Your Majesty," he said. "May I have a word?"
Elhokar glanced up at him with a nod. "Yes, of course, Highprince Sadeas," he said. "Highprince Aladar was just finishing telling me about his latest gemheart capture."
"Ah, yes, Your Majesty," said Aladar, his mouth a stiff line as he stood up. "Well, I hope you will consider my offer if you ever have ambitions to join another hunt."
"I certainly will, Aladar," said Elhokar. "I thank you for the offer."
Aladar bowed stiffly and then turned, leaving the king's side.
Torol took his seat. "You shouldn't have thanked him," he said.
Elhokar blinked. Then he grimaced. "Oh, of course. I would be doing him a favor by joining one of his hunts, not the other way around."
"Precisely," said Torol. "You're learning, Your Majesty, but you haven't yet made these facts into instinct."
"I'm trying," Elhokar whined.
"I know," Torol said soothingly. "And it will come, I promise. You simply must keep trying, and be patient with yourself."
Elhokar sighed. "All right. Thank you, Torol."
It had been Ialai's idea to get Elhokar to start using Torol's given name. It could be framed as a gesture of affection, but it also brought them closer in Elhokar's mind. Just one more of the strokes of political brilliance for which Torol was so thankful of his wife.
"You're quite welcome," said Torol aloud. "Has there been any word on the attempt on your life?"
Elhokar's face fell, and Torol knew he had struck gold. "Uncle Dalinar doesn't believe that my saddle strap was cut," said the young king. "He claims that it just broke. He promised to look into it, but…"
"…But you're not sure he'll treat this with the gravity it deserves," said Torol sympathetically. "I understand. Highprince Dalinar…"
…has a poor track record with protecting his kings from assassins.
"…Can be hard to reason with, at times."
"That's certainly true," grumbled Elhokar. Then he paused, eyeing Torol speculatively. "Actually, given… present circumstances, I wonder if you could give me a second opinion on a suggestion of his?"
"Of course, Your Majesty," said Torol, ignoring the anticipationspren that lanced out of the ground behind Elhokar's chair. Hopefully there wasn't another one where the king could see it. Even if there was, this place was crowded enough that he might assume it was drawn by someone else.
"My uncle said that the Highprinces have grown complacent in their places in the Vengeance Pact," said Elhokar. "He claims that they've let the hunt for gemhearts distract them from the actual goal of the war—vengeance for my father."
For the second time tonight, a shamespren drifted down beside Torol. He saw Elhokar's eyes dart to it, but he ignored it. Hopefully, Elhokar would assume it was someone else's—or that the king had called it himself. "I suppose it's possible," he said, "that some of the highprinces have forgotten what the Parshendi did to us. Particularly those who were not present that night."
Elhokar nodded, tearing his eyes from the shamespren which had settled on the table between them. "Yes," he said. "Uncle Dalinar suggested that they need an authority to focus them. Someone who can approach them more directly than their king can. A Highprince of War."
Torol grimaced. "And he volunteered himself, I assume."
"Yes," said Elhokar. "You don't think it's a good idea?"
"Your uncle and I have had our differences lately," said Torol. It was important that he not appear to be manipulating Elhokar against Dalinar. The boy wasn't stupid—just young, inexperienced, and deeply flawed. The best way to handle this was to draw attention to it, tilting the truth like the shades of a spherelamp, casting his most obvious motivations into the light and allowing his real agendas to lurk outside it. "But even if Dalinar were still the same Blackthorn I fought beside for decades, I would still think this was a bad idea."
"Why?" asked Elhokar. It was spoken with genuine curiosity—the question of a student to his tutor.
Fortunately, Torol had an answer ready. It was even entirely true. "We are Highprinces of Alethkar," he said. "It would gall even the most mild-mannered of us, even Sebarial, to have another man placed above us in war. That is our highest calling. It's what we, as a people, pride ourselves on. It's one thing to be defeated—many of us faced defeat on the battlefield at the hands of your father—but it's another entirely to be subordinated. Not just as a vassal to a king, but as a lesser warrior. Every one of the highprinces would be furious that they were not named Highprince of War."
"That makes sense," said Elhokar, nodding. "I'll tell my uncle that we'll have to find another way, then."
"Well, hold a season," said Torol. "I don't think the idea is entirely meritless."
Elhokar blinked. "But you just told me it was a bad idea?"
"Naming Dalinar Highprince of War is a bad idea," said Torol. "But naming someone to a different specialized office might not be."
Elhokar's eyes widened. "Oh," he said. "Yes, I see."
"I will say," said Torol, "that I don't think your first appointment should be of Dalinar at all. The other Highprinces already whisper that he is too close to you, has too much influence. They worry he is influencing you beyond his right."
Elhokar grimaced. "Sometimes I worry about that, too," he admitted.
Suddenly, all the pieces of the conversation fit together for Torol. "I have an idea," he said. "I think we can make your problems solve one another, Your Majesty."
Elhokar frowned at him. "How so?"
"You may have an assassin on the loose," said Torol, thinking quickly. A logicspren—a very rare spren that he had only seen a few times before—seemed to be coalescing over the table beside him, like a tiny, stationary highstorm. "There is concern that Highprince Dalinar may have too much influence over you. And the Highprinces need to be reminded of your royal authority. What if you appointed Dalinar's most well-known rival—which, I admit, is me—as your Highprince of Information? That office would make me duty-bound to investigate the threat on your life."
Elhokar leaned back thoughtfully. "Huh. That does seem like an elegant solution." Suddenly something dark entered his gaze. He shot Torol a look. "Almost too elegant. Were you planning this, Highprince Sadeas?"
"No," Torol said honestly.
"It strikes me," said Elhokar, "that a man in the position of my Highprince of Information would be very well-placed to—"
"Before you finish that sentence, Your Majesty," said Torol through gritted teeth, as an angerspren began to bubble from the ground at his feet like a pool of boiling blood, "I would ask if you remember just where I was on the night of your father's death."
He remembered that night. His hands shaking as he suggested the exchange. Hurriedly stripping out of his Sadeas colors in exchange for the king's blue while Gavilar disguised himself in his Shardplate. Seeing the man in white out of the corner of his eye as he bustled down the hallway. The certainty—total, terrifying—that he would never see his wife again.
The knowledge that he might see his daughter again soon.
Elhokar paled. A veritable shower of shamespren fell about his shoulders in a drifting rain of red and white. "I… I do remember," he said. "I'm sorry, Torol."
Torol took a deep breath to steady himself. "You have reason to be concerned," he said. "The Assassin in White was not the first attempt on your father's life, only the last. There are many men who would benefit from your death. But you must remember, Your Majesty, that you do have friends. And you must not allow yourself to alienate them."
And you, he told himself, must not allow yourself to be alienated. Remember Gavilar. Remember the dream of a united Alethkar. Remember the Thrill, the glory, of fighting for unity instead of petty skirmishes on tiny borders. Elhokar is not a good king, but he's the one you have.
"You're right, of course," said Elhokar. "I—yes. You're right. And your idea is a good one. In fact…" Quite suddenly, he stood up. "Highprinces and lighteyes!" he called out, and immediately, the feast fell into a hush.
Torol hurried to compose himself, burying his anticipation—and ignoring his anticipationspren—and quickly running through possibilities in case Elhokar called on him to speak.
"I'm sure many of you have heard the rumors regarding the attempt on my life three days ago," said Elhokar. "When my saddle girth was cut during a chasmfiend hunt. Thanks to the vigilance of the King's Guard, and of my uncle, I was never in real danger. However, I consider it wisdom to treat all threats with due seriousness. Therefore, I am appointing Brightlord Torol Sadeas to be my Highprince of Information. It shall be his duty to unearth the truth regarding this—and any future—attempts on my life." He nodded, then sat back down. "There," he said, looking back at Torol. "That's done."
Torol blinked at him. "I—thank you, Your Majesty," he said.
"It isn't a favor to you," Elhokar said. "Your arguments were good. And I do expect you to investigate that strap."
"Of course, Your Majesty," said Torol. He stood and bowed. "I should go," he said. "I suspect your uncle will want to speak with you, and I have people to speak to about this as well. I should begin my investigation at once."
"Of course," said Elhokar, waving a hand. "Go. I'll speak with you later."
Torol turned and left. Almost immediately, he was surrounded by lesser lighteyes, filling his ears with a mixture of congratulations, flattery, and questions. As he planted a smile on his face and began the social dance once more, he examined the tumult of his thoughts.
On the one hand, Elhokar had just given Torol the best opportunity to manipulate both himself and Dalinar he'd had in years. A gemheart of intrigue had practically fallen into his lap, and he had Elhokar to thank.
On the other hand, he hated being taken by surprise. Elhokar was arbitrary, paranoid, and inconsistent; all of which were crippling flaws in a king.
He is the king you have, Torol told himself again.
So there's been some non-Cosmere readers very confused on the SpaceBattles thread. To alleviate their confusion, I've posted a big primer on the story-so-far and linked it in the introduction there. I've also added the Roshar Lore Primer video to the introduction. Since I want to keep the introductions synchronized, I'm going to post both of those things here, starting with the video in this post.
The following video is a fairly comprehensive guide to the background lore of the world of Roshar, which manages not to spoil any part of the canon story.
The world of Roshar is routinely (as in, once every couple weeks) buffeted by cyclic hurricanes which blow from east to west, called highstorms. These highstorms grow weaker as they get further west, so naturally the lands farther to the east are less hospitable. The kingdom of Alethkar, where the action so far has taken place, is the farthest eastward of the human kingdoms.
Alethkar was only unified a few short decades ago by King Gavilar Kholin, a conqueror who unified the ten independent highprincedoms as vassals beneath him. Then, five years ago, King Gavilar was assassinated by a man who has come to be known as the Assassin in White. On that night, his brother was blackout-drunk and unable to assist, and as such Highprince Sadeas took on the role of decoy, to try and draw the assassin after him and away from the king. This ploy failed, and Gavilar was killed.
Credit for the assassination was taken by a race which the Alethi people had only discovered a couple of years prior, known as the Parshendi. They had been present in the capitol city of Kholinar that very night to celebrate the signing of a peace treaty between themselves and the Alethi, and for reasons which the Alethi do not yet understand, they decided that very night to send the human Assassin in White to kill the king. In response to this assassination, the Gavilar's son, the new King Elhokar Kholin, declared the War of Reckoning and called all ten of his vassal highprinces to aid him in conquering the Parshendi in their territory on the Shattered Plains to the south of Alethkar.
It is now five years later. The Shattered Plains, in addition to being the final known stronghold of the Parshendi, are also the habitat of a type of massive crustacean known as a chasmfiend. Chasmfiends have an organ known as a gemheart, which is a very large gemstone capable of being infused with Stormlight, and therefore highly useful both as a source of wealth and for use in Soulcasting, the most common widely-used form of magic among the humans of Roshar. The Vengeance Pact between the ten highprinces has devolved into a contest over these gemhearts rather than a sincere attempt to press inwards towards the heart of the Shattered Plains and the Parshendi stronghold hidden deep within.
Highprince Torol of House Sadeas, a longtime ally of King Gavilar, has pioneered a means of deploying soldiers to seize chasmfiend gemhearts much faster than was previously possible. Since the Shattered Plains are an intraversible landscape of wide chasms between uneven plateaus, bridges are necessary to move soldiers any relevant distance across the Plains. Originally, these bridges were pulled by large beasts of burden known as chulls, or were carried by armored and defended phalanxes of soldiers. Highprince Sadeas theorized that unarmored slaves would be able to carry bridges much faster, albeit with much heavier losses. He was correct, and has achieved significantly more success than many of his rivals in the hunt for chasmfiend gemhearts. Many of the other highprinces have now copied his strategy.
The primary exception to this rule is Highprince Dalinar Kholin, brother to the deceased King Gavilar and uncle to the current King Elhokar. Highprince Dalinar has refused to spend the lives of men in this way, and continues to use slow, armored, chull-pulled bridges. Additionally, he commits a large portion of his army to defensive patrolling and other measures to keep the warcamps relatively civilized and safe for their civilian occupants. As a result, Highprince Dalinar is accruing a reputation for weakness, since despite his close connection to the assassinated king, he is not demonstrating the same level of commitment to the war as the other highprinces. Highprince Sadeas is deliberately fueling these rumors, both because he is still bitter that Dalinar was not present to assist on the night of Gavilar's assassination, and because he knows that he is Dalinar's most relevant rival and that weakening the position of House Kholin can only strengthen him among the other highprincedoms.
This has come to a head in this most recent chapter. King Elhokar recently fell from his horse in the midst of a battle with a chasmfiend as a strap on his saddle snapped, sending the entire thing from the beast's back. He claims this was an assassination attempt on his life. Highprince Dalinar has expressed doubts on the matter. As a result, Highprince Sadeas is in a position to curry favor with the king by taking the investigation over.
That is the plot currently being experienced by Torol and Renarin, although Renarin is also currently involved in the other ongoing plot. That second narrative is regarding the return of the Knights Radiant.
The Knights Radiant were an order of magically-empowered warriors and scholars who defended mankind against a series of cyclic apocalypses known as the Desolations. During the Desolations (at least, according to religious tradition), a race of beings known as the Voidbringers would return to Roshar from Damnation (hell) to destroy humanity. Each time, they were repelled by the ten Heralds chosen by the Almighty and the Knights Radiant who served them. However, about 4500 years ago, the Desolations came to a permanent end with Aharietiam, the Last Desolation. Roughly 2000 years later, on a day known as the Recreance, the Knights Radiant abandoned their calling for reasons lost to history. Since then, they have been condemned by the ardentia (the priesthood of the Vorin religion) as traitors. None are known by the common people or most scholars to have existed in the intervening two millennia.
However, according to Glys, Renarin's bond with him makes Renarin one of the first of at least a few Knights Radiant returning to the world now. Glys also claims that King Elhokar is being scouted by a different type of spren known as a Cryptic for the same purpose. Though the characters themselves do not yet know this explicitly, Sarus' bond with Archive and Kaladin's bond with Syl are also markers that they are beginning to be initiated as Knights Radiant.
Below are more significant spoilers for canon. Most of this will be explained in this story in one capacity or another, but if you want more clarity on what's happening right now, read on.
Why the Knights Radiant are returning now is not yet clear to the characters. However, the prologue shows that the evil god Odium, who rules over the creatures that humans know as Voidbringers (who call themselves the Fused) has been overtaken by Melkor. In canon (and also here) Odium and the Fused are imprisoned on Braize (the planet which the humans remember as Damnation) by a work of incredible magic called the Oathpact, which requires that the ten Heralds return to Damnation with them after every Desolation. If any of the Heralds allows the Voidbringers to pass into Roshar, a new Desolation begins. As such, the Fused tortured the Heralds to force them to break and allow them passage.
Heralds killed on Roshar automatically return to Braize. At Aharietiam, the Last Desolation, only one herald was killed—Talenel, nicknamed Taln. Taln was also, coincidentally, the only herald who had never once broken to allow the Voidbringers and Odium back into Roshar. It was theorized by the other Heralds that if they didn't return to Braize, Taln might be able to hold back Odium for a long time on his own, whereas any of them was at risk of breaking in a matter of years if not months. As such, the other nine Heralds abandoned the weapons which symbolized their office, the Honorblades, and went their separate ways, abandoning Taln to torture and solitude.
Despite this, Taln has never broken. 4500 years have passed since Aharietiam, and he has held back Odium all this time. However, the prologue ended with two events. First, Odium's previous Vessel, Rayse, had his consciousness overtaken by Melkor Bauglimar. Second, the Herald Chanarach finally died and was summoned back to Braize. Whether she has broken, or will break, remains to be seen—but in canon, a new Desolation began at the end of Book 2; and, by Word of God, we know that Talenel did not break to cause it.
There are more details that are relevant, but I think this is enough to get the gist of what's happening so far. Apologies for pinging anyone who knew all this already!
@Lithos Maitreya - Your most recent chapter, The King You Have, you seem to be suggesting that Torol Sadeas will move against Elokar and House Kholin earlier than is canon. Am I understanding correctly?
@Lithos Maitreya - Your most recent chapter, The King You Have, you seem to be suggesting that Torol Sadeas will move against Elokar and House Kholin earlier than is canon. Am I understanding correctly?
My goal with Torol's chapters is simultaneously to show his own perspective on why he does and would do the things he did in canon, and also to lay the groundwork for divergences when they appear. I don't want to confirm when that will be.
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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10
Comfort
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The people of Ashyn are doomed, by the way. More so than they were already. These new powers have them killing one another in droves.
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Sarus had been treated with knobweed sap once, after an accident in the training grounds had ended with the point of a spear lodged in his hip. The wound had healed surprisingly quickly, according to the physician, but he had still applied sap to the wound daily until the scab had darkened and fallen off on its own.
"Is many of these reeds," Rock observed, looking at the bundle between them.
"Which is why I'm glad I don't have to do this on my own," Kaladin said wryly. "Hopefully Murk will also be up to helping us tomorrow." Murk's head injury needed rest to heal, according to Kaladin, so he had been released from this late-night duty.
Rock chuckled and sat down, his thick calves dangling over the edge of the chasm. Sarus followed suit, already picking up one of the thin reeds. He broke off the fuzzy bulb at the top, then lowered the broken point towards the bottle as Kaladin had and squeezed out the sap. Syl watched them work, hovering a few feet past the ledge, her blue dress pressed against the backs of her legs as if she was seated on an invisible chair.
"Why are you doing these things?" Rock asked suddenly, after several minutes of silent work.
"What things?" Kaladin asked.
"Caring for these men. Saving me. Now, trying to heal the others. Why?"
"They're my men," said Kaladin simply, as if that was answer enough.
"How are they yours?" Rock asked. "They are slaves and servants to Sadeas."
"I'm their bridgeleader," said Kaladin.
"Which means nothing," Rock said. "It means you get to run in back. Only you don't."
"It means whatever we decide it means," Kaladin said. "And I've decided it means I'm responsible for all of you."
"Why?"
There was silence for a moment. "Because it's better," Kaladin said finally, "than the alternative."
"What is this alternative?" Rock asked.
"Death," Kaladin said.
"We will all die anyway, eventually," Rock pointed out. "Unless you can make us stop running bridges."
"I disagree," said Kaladin. "In theory, every soldier has a chance of dying in every battle. That doesn't make their deaths inevitable. The trick is to last enough battles to get out the other side."
Sarus let out a breath. Did Kaladin actually believe that stupid rumor about being set free after a hundred runs? Surely he wasn't that foolish. Surely Sarus wasn't following a man whose only hope he could break with a single word?
"You think we can survive a hundred runs?" Rock asked. "Win our freedom?"
"I don't think they'd set us free even if we did," Kaladin said. "Storms, I wouldn't be surprised if Tesh here had already survived a hundred runs."
Sarus nodded.
Kaladin started. "Wait, really?"
I thought you said you wouldn't be surprised. Sarus nodded again, still staring down at the reed between his fingers. He thought about trying to sign a number, but he'd long since forgotten how many runs he'd done anyway.
"Impossible," Rock said. "No one survives so many runs, least of all in the front row."
Sarus shrugged. Sure, it was impossible. That was the joke, and his life was the punchline.
"Sometimes I wish you could speak," Kaladin said quietly. "You must have a Damnation of a story."
Sarus shrugged once again, tossing his spent knobweed into the chasm and picking up another.
"Were you always silent?" Kaladin asked.
Sarus shook his head.
"Is it temporary, then?"
Sarus froze with his fingers halfway down his reed. Was it temporary? Would he ever speak again? After a long, long moment, he nodded, then continued his work.
"Then I can wait for the story," said Kaladin with a satisfied nod. Then he turned to Rock. "What about you, Rock? What's your story? You're from the Horneater Peaks, right?"
"Yes," said Rock. "I came down with my nuatoma—is like your lighteyes, this thing, only their eyes are not light—to duel for Shards."
"What, did Sadeas insult your nua—what was that word?"
"Nuatoma. And, no, is not like that. We Unkalaki have no Shards, not Blade or Plate. Many nuatoma see this thing as source of great shame. Sometimes, brave nuatoma come down to challenge lowlander Shardbearers for theirs."
"What, without any Shards?"
"Yes," said Rock. "This thing, we know it will not be easy. And in order to entice the lowlanders to the duel, our nuatoma must offer much—often, all their possessions—if they are defeated. But we keep trying, and one day, a nuatoma will win, and then we will have Shards."
"One set of Shards," Kaladin said. "Still not exactly enough to compete with Alethkar or Jah Keved."
"Or even Thaylenah or Selay," Rock said. "But it is as many as are in Herdaz, and more than are now in Iri or the Purelake. One is a beginning. From a beginning, we can grow." He shrugged. "But my nuatoma lost, so now I am a bridgeman."
"You were your nuatoma's slave," Kaladin interpreted, "and as one of his possessions, you were offered to Sadeas as collateral?"
"Not his slave," Rock said. "I was his family."
"Wait." Kaladin leaned back. "That'd make you a Horneater lighteyes, wouldn't it?"
"This is not how the Unkalaki do things," said Rock. "Among the Unkalaki, a nuatoma's family are his servants. His close family, maybe they are like lighteyes, but I was only umarti'a—cousin."
"Huh." Kaladin let out a breath. "Well, that's a new way of doing things."
"Is not new. Is very old." Rock chuckled. "You airsick lowlanders have strange traditions. And you say same about Unkalaki."
"I'd guess everybody says that about everybody else, wouldn't you?"
"This thing is true," said Rock.
"Anyway, if it's any comfort," said Kaladin, "there's no way they'd have let your nautoma walk away with Sadeas' Plate."
"You know this?" Rock asked.
"Lighteyes are only much for tradition when it suits them," Kaladin said. "The story that a darkeyes who kills a Shardbearer becomes a lighteyes is the same as the story that a bridgeman who runs a hundred bridges goes free—a lie to keep us docile."
Sarus grimaced. There were lighteyes who would give up their Shards if they were beaten, and there were lighteyes who would honor the terms of a duel that had lost their Shards to an untrained darkeyes. But Torol Sadeas was not such a man, and nor were the people he surrounded himself with.
"This thing, it is not comforting," Rock said. Then he heaved a sigh. "But I think you are right."
-x-x-x-
The next two days passed by in much the same way. The mornings were spent on drills, running the plank up and down the barracks with Kaladin. The afternoons were spent on duty out gathering stones, and surreptitiously hunting for reeds. In the evenings, late into the night, Kaladin, Rock, and Sarus would all gather on the edge of the Honor Chasm and empty reeds into the bottle.
Each morning, Kaladin applied antiseptic to the wounded. They were already showing improvement. The unconscious one—Teft, Sarus had learned—was no longer crawling with rotspren, and Murk's stutter was growing less pronounced by the day.
On the third night, Murk had actually asked if he could join them. "My headaches are almost gone," he'd said to Kaladin. "I'm feeling m-much better."
Kaladin's lips had twitched. "I'm glad," he'd said, "but take at least one more night to see if that stutter goes away."
By now, Sarus was exhausted after three nights harvesting sap past third moonrise. He was hungry after sharing his food for all that time. And, of course, there had been a bridge run.
It was a good day for the bridge crews. They arrived before the Parshendi, which meant safety. But the Alethi line had eventually buckled against the Parshendi assault, so Sadeas would be winning no gemheart today.
After the run, Kaladin returned to the barrack, then emerged with the bottle of antiseptic. "It's about full, Tesh," he told Sarus in a low voice. "Full enough to sell, I think. There's an apothecary I think I can get some spheres out of in exchange, which we can use to buy food for the wounded."
Sarus cocked his head, giving the bottle a significant look.
"Teft's wounds have closed now," Kaladin said. "If we're lucky, he won't reopen them, at least not before we can gather more sap. And he needs food, too, not just antiseptic."
Sarus nodded.
"I'll be back soon," he said. Something like a weak grin crossed his face. "Keep the men out of trouble?"
Sarus rolled his eyes. Kaladin, chuckling, went on his way, and Sarus returned to the barrack.
Murk looked up from his bunk near the door as Sarus walked in. However, when he saw that Kaladin had not come in with him, he sighed and laid back down.
Sarus crossed the barrack and sat on his bunk, leaning forward onto his knees. Archive leapt, light as a speck of dust, from his shoulder to his arm, a single black fleck against his tanned skin. "One is glaring at you," she observed.
Sarus looked up. She was right—Moash was glowering across the rows of bunks, though he looked away when Sarus met his eyes. Sarus watched him leave the building.
"They see you as an extension of Kaladin," said Archive. "They resent Kaladin, and they resent you by extension."
Sarus nodded.
"Why?" Archive asked.
Sarus' brow twitched downwards. Why what?
Why did they see him as an extension of Kaladin? That part was easy—to most men, for whom speech was the easiest and readiest way to interact with the world and one another, a man who did not speak was little more than an animal. To them, he was little more than Kaladin's pet or beast of burden. Which of those, he suspected, varied from bridgeman to bridgeman.
Why did they resent Kaladin? Sarus could understand it. He had been quick to accept Kaladin's outstretched hand, but that was a consequence of his exhaustion more than his despair. He was, quite literally, bored of hopelessness. These men had not passed through the night storm of forsaken terror into the doldrums of mundanity as he had, and so to them Kaladin's attempts to look to the future only served as a reminder of the inevitability of all of their deaths. They were afraid, and Kaladin served to remind them what they were afraid to lose.
"I hope," said Archive quietly, "that a day for me to hear those thoughts will be."
Sarus grimaced and looked down at the floor between his feet, keeping his eyes firmly away from the speck of darkness on his arm.
The barrack door burst open. "Gaz has changed our rotation," Kaladin said, eyes hooded with quiet anger. "We're on chasm duty. Everyone up."
-x-x-x-
Sarus had been down in the chasms many times in the past five years, but there was still something alien about them.
Following Kaladin down the swaying rope ladder, he watched the light slowly dim as he descended further from the narrow crack high above. The ladder dangled from the chasm's edge, but the walls tapered outward like a narrow bell, so the line of descending bridgemen dangled just far enough into the open air to leave them with no rock to catch if they should slip on the rain-soaked rungs. The chasm was relatively shallow here, as it was at all of the standard entry points—only about fifty feet, from fissure to depth. But that was enough distance to separate worlds.
Kaladin was first to jump off the ladder, a few rungs from the bottom. His sandals hit the ground with an audible splash. Sarus followed, landing in a large puddle about ankle-deep. Murk was next, followed by Rock. Murk cursed as the big Horneater sent water splashing as high as his elbows when he landed. "Careful there," said the smaller man. It was the first time Sarus had worked near Murk since the bridge run three days ago. The man was small and wiry, with arms slightly too long for his torso. The lump on the back of his head had all but disappeared now.
"Sorry," grunted Rock.
As more bridgemen dropped down into the puddle, Sarus watched Kaladin pull his torch from the sling on his back, stick it under his arm, and pull out his flint and steel. It took a few tries to light it, but when it did, the otherworldly depths were dimly revealed.
Scuttling cremlings scattered in the light. Tubular fungi grew in clusters along the walls, their flesh an eerie, jaundiced yellow. Gray-green moss grew in streaks, and fragments of wood, cloth, and bone hung suspended among tendrils of creeping vine and embedded in cracks in the rock. The floor of the chasm was a smooth, almost polished expanse of lumpy crem, deposited and smoothed in layers by thousands of years of highstorms.
A short distance from the wall lay a broken figure, body twisted and mangled by the long fall. It was a bridgeman from one of the other crews. The stink of the corpse was filling the chasm, and Sarus watched Kaladin cover his nose with one hand as he knelt beside the man.
He must have thrown himself down here sometime in the past two days, Sarus realized. If he had been here before the highstorm, it would have washed him away. He sighed, averting his gaze.
"May you find a place of honor in the Tranquiline Halls," Kaladin said quietly. "And may we find better ends than you." He stood and, torch held aloft, led the way deep into the chasms.
"Chasm duty" was glorified grave-robbing, only without any glory and with corpses who had no graves. Parshendi and Alethi alike fell into the chasms in every battle, and the supplies they carried still had some value. The greater value, Sarus knew, was keeping bridgemen busy. They would descend into the dark with empty sacks, and emerge with them laden with bloody spoils, only to have their loot confiscated the moment they reached the surface again.
Sarus had once seen a bridgeman find an amethyst broam down here and try to sneak it past the sentries. He would have managed, if only the bridgeman beside him hadn't informed on him. Both men had died the very next bridge run.
"I heard a whole crew got eaten by a chasmfiend down here, once," said Murk in a hushed voice as they descended further into the dark. The chasm floor sloped downward, and they had to take small steps to avoid slipping on the slick, damp crem.
"If they all disappeared," said Rock, "maybe they just fled. Deserted."
"No way out of these chasms without a ladder," said Murk. "Pretty useless way to desert, I'd think."
Sarus glanced up at the narrow sliver of blue, almost seventy feet above them by now. The story was partially true. A whole bridge crew had disappeared down here. The only inaccuracy was the assumption that it had only happened once.
"Reminds me of a slot canyon," said Murk darkly, shooting a glare skyward. "Always hated them, back home. This is worse, though."
There had been no slot canyons in the central plains of the Sadeas Highprincedom, where Sarus had grown up. They were narrow fissures running beside tall mountains, where water and wind left deep furrows as highstorms were deflected away by the rock face. They mostly appeared in the Roion and Kholin Highprincedoms to the east, and seldom as far west as the Sadeas lands on the border of Herdaz. Murk had most likely come from one of those dominances. Sarus wondered how he had ended up in the Sadeas bridge crews.
"What is this thing, slot canyon?" Rock asked.
"You don't have them in the Peaks?" Murk asked.
"They don't really show up any further west than Danidan," Kaladin said. "So I doubt they have them all the way in the Horneater Peaks."
"Must be nice," grumbled Murk. "It's a slit in the land beside a mountain. They make the Weeping feel like a highstorm if you're in one of them. This is even deeper, and even further east, without the Unclaimed Hills to break the stormwalls. This would be worse."
"Too much water?"
"Way too much water, getting anywhere it can. Including inside you."
"So long as it also gets outside you," Rock said with a grin. "Would give you bath, which you need."
"I'll have you know," sniffed Murk, "that I am the pinnacle of Alethi fragrance. If anyone needs a bath, it's your Horneater hide."
Rock laughed. The sound echoed in the dark. Sarus' heart stuttered, and he was suddenly conscious that he was witnessing something that, maybe, had never happened before since these plains were formed, eons ago. For who would laugh at the bottom of a chasm?
The chatter continued. Sarus saw Kaladin glance back, and then smile to himself. Sarus followed his gaze to see that the rest of the crew seemed to be drawing nearer to their little band at the head of the column, like moths drawn to the flame of their conversation.
"You know, Rock," Kaladin said suddenly, "I think you might be onto something with your talk of airsickness. Certainly smells sickly enough down here. Is it like that for you all over Alethkar?"
"A little bit," said Rock. "Less stink of corpses, more stink of Alethi. Is not quite as bad. Only nearly so."
"I don't think that's all Alethi," said Kaladin. "Only bridgemen who don't get to bathe very often."
"And non-bridgemen who choose not to," said Murk. "I knew a man once who refused to bathe more than once a month—bad for the complexion, he said. Now that was an airsick one. And so were all of us, whenever we had to be within a dozen paces of him."
The conversation continued, but it petered out as they came upon a confluence of multiple chasms, where a combination of the merging channels and a low hollow in the floor seemed to have given bodies a place to collect as they were swept along by the water. Most of the men were dressed in Sadeas green and white, but there were a few in Kholin blue and Ruthar red. There were no Parshendi in the group. Sarus had a sneaking suspicion that the Parshendi sent their own crews down into the chasms to collect their fallen. It would just be the next in a long litany of ways that they were more civilized than his own people.
They began collecting the fallen men's gear. First they pulled the corpses into a line for inspection, then started down that line, taking armor, boots, belts, weapons.
Sarus was just pulling the boots off a lighteyed footsoldier when he heard Moash's voice call out, "What are you hoping to do, lordling?"
Sarus turned. Kaladin stood a few paces apart from the rest of the group, his hands on a long two-handed spear. He leaned against it, stooped over the pile of other weapons, eyes closed. He looked like an old man, wizened and bent by long years and many cares.
"Going to jam that thing into your own gut?" Moash jeered. "Rid us all of you?"
Other men joined in the gibes. They mostly spoke to each other, rather than to Kaladin, but it was the sort of speech that was meant to be heard by the subject being discussed more than the one to whom it was addressed.
"It's his fault we're down here," said one man. "If he hadn't gotten Gaz to send us to stone duty the other day…"
"Running us ragged just so he can feel important," said another. "Who does he think he's fooling?"
"Sent us to gather rocks just to shove us around, now this…"
"I'd bet a skymark he's never held a spear in his life!"
Sarus straightened. Moash's gaze darted in his direction. As Sarus took a step towards him, he saw the man's eyes widen. The men immediately nearest Sarus seemed to shrink from him as he strode forward.
But before he had crossed even half the distance to Moash, Kaladin moved, and suddenly the entire chasm seemed to orbit around him. Sarus stopped and stared.
Kaladin had shifted his weight and whirled the spear around himself in a single, fluid motion. The point was held down and outward, at a careful, guarding angle. Sarus recognized that exact stance—an adapted form of the duelist's Stonestance, commonly used by darkeyed soldiers with the longspear.
And then, his eyes still shut, Kaladin danced. He wove the spear through the air around him with a speed and grace to match any duelist Sarus had ever seen. The point of the spear trailed a thin, glittering thread of water droplets as it passed, like Talenel's tears streaking in the dark. And, weaving in and around the weapon, Syl danced as a ribbon of blue-white light, bright as Nomon on a dark night.
All around Sarus, the men fell silent and stared. Sarus understood them. He, too, felt the same awe. That candle-flame that he had felt in Kaladin several nights ago, the light the bridgeleader had shared with him, seemed suddenly to blaze, illuminating the gloom of the chasm like a second sun.
For an instant, Sarus was no longer looking at a man in the gloom performing a kata, but a girl with flowers in her dark hair, green eyes sparkling as she gazed at him, a silver flute glittering between her fingers.
His heart seized. The old bitterness, the envy, surged in him again, mingled with sorrow and grief.
Kaladin fell still, the spear point perfectly still, suspended in the final stance of the kata. His eyes opened. Then, with seeming reluctance, he fell out of his stance and let the spear fall from his fingers into the weapon pile. Sarus thought he heard the bridgeleader whisper an apology to the weapon as it fell among the rest.
Then Kaladin turned and seemed to notice all of them staring at him. "Back to work!" he ordered. "I don't want to be down here by dusk."
Not a single man complained as they returned to work. Kaladin, meanwhile, turned and saw where Sarus, Rock, and Murk were all standing near one another. He flushed slightly as he approached them. Syl landed on his shoulder.
"Jezrien's left ear, Kaladin," Murk said quietly. "What was that?"
"Just a kata," Kaladin mumbled, seemingly embarrassed. "A soldier's workout. More showy than it is useful."
Not quite true, as Sarus knew. Katas were advanced drills. Once a warrior knew his way around the basics of what he could do with his weapon, a kata was meant to show him the ways in which those moves could be strung together, how they could flow into one another, and allow him to experiment with when one or another might be useful. True, that was more true for duelists' katas than the adapted forms used by spearmen and footsoldiers—some of the moves made far less sense when adapted to the longspear than they had for the Shardbearers who originally conceived them—but the principle remained.
"Never seen a soldier work out like that," Murk said. "And there was some kind of spren around you, too. Like a streak of light."
"You could see that?" Rock asked, startled.
Sarus, too, glanced at Murk in surprise, before shooting Syl a look where she sat on Kaladin's shoulder. She sat primly, avoiding all of their gazes.
"Of course I could see it," Murk said. "Bit hard to miss, wasn't it?"
Kaladin tore his eyes from Syl, shaking his head. "It was nothing."
"This thing is not true," said Rock. "Perhaps you should challenge Shardbearer!"
"No." The sudden vehemence in Kaladin's voice surprised Sarus. The bridgeleader seemed to notice it himself a moment later, averting his eyes from them. "Besides," he muttered, "I tried that once." He ran his eyes over the bridge crew. "Where's Dunny, anyway?"
"Wait," Murk said. "Back up a season. You—"
"Where," said Kaladin, with all the firmness of a cliff face, "is Dunny?"
Sarus pointed to where Dunny had rounded a bend shortly before Kaladin had begun his performance.
"He found some Parshendi," said Murk. "Doubt they have much we can use, though."
"Their weapons, they are nice," said Rock. "And some wear gemstones in their beards."
"Not to mention the armor," said Kaladin.
That brought Sarus up short. Sometimes, he forgot that even though Kaladin had been in the crew so long, there were some things he still, by sheer coincidence, hadn't seen yet.
"Well, yes," said Rock, "but we cannot use this thing."
"Why not?" Kaladin asked.
"Never seen a Parshendi up close, have you?" Murk asked. "Come on, I'll show you."
They rounded the bend to where Dunny was lining up the Parshendi corpses. There were four of them. Sarus hoped that, if the Parshendi did send crews to retrieve their dead, they didn't seek to find these four in the next hour or so.
Murk knelt beside one. "Come here," he said. "See if you can see what's wrong with this picture."
Kaladin knelt beside him. Sarus saw the moment realization crossed his face. "There's no straps," he said wonderingly.
Murk nodded, reached down and trying to pry away a pauldron. The skin of the Parshendi's shoulder moved with it. "They grow their own armor," he said. "It's not something they wear on top, like us."
"Don't let the name fool you," Murk warned. "They may be called parshmen who can think, but they're no more like the parshmen we have in Alethkar than they are like you or me."
It wasn't the last realization Kaladin was to have over the Parshendi corpses. He held up one of their knives to his torch, squinting. "Tesh," he said, glancing at Sarus. "Can you read glyphs?"
Sarus nodded.
Kaladin flipped the knife in his hand, so that one side of the flat was facing in Sarus' direction. "You recognize these?"
Sarus squinted. Those… were not modern glyphs. Or, if they were, they were engraved in such an ornate calligraphic style as to be illegible. He shook his head.
Kaladin shrugged. "Me neither," he said. "But look at this." He pointed at a figure engraved on the hilt. "I'd swear this is a Herald. Jezerezeh or Nalan."
Sarus cocked his head, looking closely. He… would have guessed Talenelat, actually, based on the corded hair.
"The Parshendi out here are supposed to be barbarians without culture," Kaladin said. "Where did they get something like this?"
Sarus gave him a look that, he hoped, conveyed his incredulity. Kaladin flushed. "What?"
You've been out here for weeks, Sarus thought. You've been suffering one of the worst things a slave in Alethkar can be made to suffer. You've been watching the Parshendi compete with the Sadeas soldiers for gemhearts all this time. And yet you still buy that they're subhuman barbarians?
For a moment, he toyed with the idea of saying something. But instead he just sighed, stood up, and returned to the rest of the crew. There was more looting to be done.
As he walked away, he heard Murk ask Kaladin, "Do you know how long Tesh has been here?"
"Too long," said Kaladin.
-x-x-x-
That night, Rock served a homemade Horneater stew just outside the Bridge Four barrack. And as the men gathered around the fire, eating good food and joining in a song with Rock and Dunny, Sarus watched the glacier of despair begin, at long last, to melt away.
As he watched them—even some of the complainers and naysayers—talking and even laughing in the twilight, Sarus found a smile spreading across his face. Everyone was eating, which meant that even those who weren't taking part in the community that Kaladin was building had no choice but to be exposed to it. Soon enough they, like Sarus, would realize that despair wasn't really a thing worth fighting to maintain. He suspected many more of the men would join him and Kaladin for drills the following morning.
Then, suddenly, a voice Sarus didn't recognize groaned from inside the barrack. Sarus blinked, turned from the fire, and stepped inside.
The older man, Teft, who had been lying injured in the barrack for three days, was stirring. He seemed to be trying to sit up, grunting in pain and exertion.
Sarus stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. Teft blinked up at him, growing still. "What…?" he mumbled. "Where…?" He blinked again, and his eyes seemed to clear. His face fell. "Oh. Is this Damnation, or am I really back at the barrack?"
Sarus gave him a wry look.
"The barrack, then," sighed Teft. Then he sniffed. "What smells so good?"
Sarus gestured for him to wait, then stepped back outside. Rock gave him a quizzical look as he took another bowl of stew and brought it inside to Teft. He set it on the edge of the bed, then helped the older man to sit up.
Teft stared up at the bridgeleader. "Suppose I am," he said. "And I suppose I have you to thank."
Sarus looked away, and found that he was smiling.
"They have found hope," said Archive from her perch on his shoulder, her voice a bare whisper in his ear, far too soft to be heard by any of the other bridgemen.
But they hadn't, Sarus knew. Every one of these men still knew that they were going to die. They still knew that they were bridgemen, doomed to die pathetic deaths on the plateaus. They had just been persuaded to forget it tonight.
They had not found hope. But they had found comfort. And tonight, that was enough.
Oh boy a long one today! The more you tease about Sarus' history the more fascinated I am. Nice to see his intelligence and wisdom at work here in just a few quick thoughts about the Parshendi and their civilization.
NaNoWriMo update: I have finished drafting Part One, which clocks in at 26 chapters, and I have written over 37,000 words in the past nine days. There is a lot of stuff coming up that I am very excited to share with you all.
NaNoWriMo update: I have finished drafting Part One, which clocks in at 26 chapters, and I have written over 37,000 words in the past nine days. There is a lot of stuff coming up that I am very excited to share with you all.
Ashyn's lingering civilization will not survive the next few decades.
-x-x-x-
Four men sat on the edge of a chasm. It was their ninth night of knobweed milking, and Murk's first. He'd had no symptoms for the past two days, so Kaladin had given him permission to join them starting tonight. He'd be lying if he claimed not to be relieved. Another pair of hands would speed up the process considerably, and though Teft's condition was improving, he still needed regular treatment. He was also unfit for duty, which meant any food he ate needed to be bought or shared. For that, they needed funds, and for that, they needed this antiseptic. His deal with the apothecary didn't yield many spheres, but it was just enough to keep everyone alive. So far.
"Where'd you learn to use a spear like that, anyway?" Murk asked between knobweed reeds, breaking the soft silence of the night. "Like you did a few days ago on chasm duty."
Kaladin paused with his fingers halfway down another reed. He didn't really want to discuss it. But can I really keep my story close while trying so hard to get the rest of the crew to open up?
"I was a soldier," he said finally. "Before…" He paused, then just gestured at the brands on his forehead.
"On the plains?" Murk asked.
"No. Fighting in border skirmishes within the Sadeas Highprincedom."
"How can there be border skirmishes within a Highprincedom?" asked Rock.
"Between Highprince Sadeas' vassals," Murk told him. "It was common in the days before the unification, and in some Highprincedoms it's still not rare."
Kaladin glanced at Murk. With the absence of his headaches and stutter, a personality was starting to shine through like the sun breaking through summer clouds. "You know a lot about lighteyed politics?"
Murk paused in the act of picking up another reed. "I… studied it, for a while."
"An Alethi man, studying history?" Rock said. "This thing seems unusual. In my experience, the only study your people engage in is learning new and more imaginative ways to impale your enemies."
Kaladin thought of his surgeon father. "Not all of us," he said.
"No," said Murk. "In Alethi society, war is the highest Calling; that doesn't make it the only Calling."
"You're an ardent," Kaladin realized.
Murk looked down, his face shrouded from the moonlight. "Not anymore."
Kaladin stared at the wiry man, reed forgotten between his fingertips. "How did an ardent end up here?"
"Same as you, I imagine." A ribbon of grey, billowing in the wind, drifted down around Murk's shoulders before vanishing. Kaladin recognized it as a gloomspren. "I made my lighteyes angry."
There was a soft exhalation on Kaladin's other side. He glanced over. Tesh's eyes were a dark grey the color of a highstorm.
Kaladin was certain, by now—the man's eyes changed color. They ranged from a moderate grey on the lighter end of dark eyes, to pitch black with no color to speak of. He had no idea how that was possible, but there was also no particular reason he would have learned. His abbreviated education had focused on more practical knowledge than more theoretical concepts about the body.
"Tesh, I've been wondering," said Murk, leaning forward and following Kaladin's gaze. "I've heard of slaves who said something to offend their masters, and were punished with… well. I was just wondering if there's a physical reason you don't speak."
Tesh looked over at them, his brow very faintly furrowed. His expressions, Kaladin had noticed, tended to be largely flat, as if the sustained horror of his situation had deadened his ability to feel. Kaladin couldn't relate, but he could sympathize. He had seen it before. The silent man opened his mouth and stretched his tongue out momentarily, before closing it again and turning back to his reeds.
"I guess that's a relief," said Murk. He looked at Kaladin. "You ever hear him say anything, Kaladin?"
"Not a word."
"Is this thing common?" Rock asked. "A special kind of lowlander airsickness?"
"No," said Kaladin. "I've heard of it before, and I've seen men who didn't speak much, but never someone who was so completely silent for so long." He studied Tesh, who seemed content to continue emptying knobweed into the bottle with an air of aloof serenity, as if completely unbothered by their conversation. "Do you mind us discussing you, Tesh?"
Tesh shook his head.
"This thing feels strange, though," said Rock. "It is as if you are not here."
Kaladin didn't know how he expected Tesh to respond, but it wasn't for Tesh's mouth to twist into a tiny, wry smile, and for his head to bow in a small nod.
-x-x-x-
In the thirteen days since Kaladin's first run as bridgeleader, Bridge Four had seen its numbers replenished with four new recruits: Lesk, Brils, Evenk, and Foran. This was less than any of the other bridge crews, but they hadn't had another lethal run since that day.
That streak changed the day after Murk joined in on knobweed duty. It wasn't an awful run, by bridgeman standards, but it was more than bad enough by Kaladin's. One death—Rens—and three injuries.
Drehy had caught an arrow in the arm, but the wound had been clean and with just a few days rest, and so long as he didn't have to bear the weight of the bridge on that arm, Kaladin was confident he'd make a full recovery. The other two injuries had been the two men in the front row with Kaladin, Tesh, and poor Rens.
Treff had come out fairly well. He'd been on Kaladin's immediate left, and a few arrows had grazed his arms and torso. He'd lost a fair amount of blood on the battlefield, but the wounds themselves weren't too severe. Once they bore him back atop the bridge and got some food and water into him, and once Kaladin had changed his bandages and applied a fresh layer of antiseptic, he improved rapidly. He was even on his feet before sundown.
The most severe injury of the run, however, had been Moash. He had been on the outside of the front row, to the right of Tesh, when a Parshendi arrow had hit him directly in the gut. It was a stroke of incredible fortune that the man was alive at all. The arrow had punctured the man's stomach, but only very, very slightly. Kaladin had been forced to stitch the organ shut first before he could close the wound itself, and Moash had bled the entire time.
Yet somehow, the man had still been breathing when they returned to the camp. He even woke up just three days later.
Kaladin marched up to the door of the barracks, a jug in his hand, preparing to force the unconscious man to drink again, but he was brought up short by the sound of voices speaking quietly just on the other side of the wall.
"I just don't understand," Moash was saying quietly.
"Me neither, lad," said Teft. "But—well, I can't say I'm not grateful."
"You don't get it," said Moash. "After that first run—I refused to share my food. I told him I'd rather he left me out there than that I starve back here. So why…?"
Kaladin pushed the door open. The two men looked at him, Teft sitting up while Moash remained prone. "Well," said Kaladin, "if nothing else, no one has to go hungry anymore to feed you." He stepped up to Moash's bedside. "How's your pain?" he asked.
"Bad," said Moash, "but manageable."
"Good. Try not to move any part of your torso today, and we'll see if you're doing better tomorrow. For now, I can feed you."
Moash winced. "Must you?"
"I thought you didn't want to die a slow death back here."
"I can feed him, Kaladin," said Teft. "I'm doing well enough for it."
"Sure," said Kaladin, handing him the jug. "Tesh'll be along with a tray from the mess. Only liquids for Moash, for now."
Teft thanked him, and Kaladin turned to leave.
"You want an apology?"
Kaladin looked back, frowning at Moash. The man wouldn't meet his gaze, and it wasn't just because his position made the angle difficult.
Moash wasn't charismatic in the traditional sense. Kaladin had met charismatic men—Amaram was a charismatic man. But Moash had a surly self-confidence that, to his fellow desperate wretches, had been infectious. He hadn't led the malcontents, nothing so organized as that, but he had always been the first to grumble, protest, or jeer at every decision Kaladin made. And when he did, other men followed suit.
"Moash," said Kaladin. "I don't need you to share your food. I don't need you to like me, and I definitely don't need your apology. I have just one thing I'd like from you."
"…What is it?"
"Stop making this harder for me," said Kaladin. "There are thirty-two people in this crew. If you want me to leave you behind next time, that's your affair. But stop making it more difficult for me to protect the others."
"Why does it matter so much to you?" Moash asked. "Aren't you just delaying the inevitable? We're all still bridgemen. We're doomed, Kaladin."
"Do you know how I became bridgeleader, Moash?"
"I assume Gaz came by and gave you the job?"
"Do Gaz and I seem friendly to you?"
Moash didn't answer.
"The night before I asked your name," Kaladin said. "The night before I asked all of your names, I went out into the last drizzle of the highstorm. Guess where I was going."
"The Honor Chasm."
"I looked down into that chasm, and…" Kaladin stopped. His eyes caught on Syl where she sat, invisible to the two injured men, suspended in the air above Moash's head. She smiled at him. "I realized," he said, "that I wasn't ready to give up. Not yet." He looked down at Moash. "And I think that if you were actually as certain as you pretend to be that we're all doomed, you'd have thrown yourself down there already."
"Maybe so," said Moash after a long pause. And that was all he said.
"Kaladin," Rock ducked his head in the door. "The crew is assembling by the bridge, and Tesh is returning with the food."
Kaladin nodded at him. "I'll be out in a minute," he said. As Rock shut the door again, Kaladin turned back to Moash. "You've been unconscious for three days," he said. "In that time, I've managed to get every member of this crew to start drilling with me and Tesh. I'm not asking you to join us, even once you're able. But I am asking you not to be the reason any of the men stop drilling. Can you do that?"
"Or you'll stop feeding me?"
"No," Kaladin said. "No, I'll keep feeding you even if you make things more difficult for me."
"That's what I don't understand," said Moash. "Why?"
"Because I decided not to give up on Bridge Four," said Kaladin. "And you're part of Bridge Four, Moash, whether either of us likes it or not. Teft, don't let him move around."
"Aye, Kaladin."
Kaladin turned just in time to see Tesh walking in with a tray. He placed it on Moash's lap, then handed a bowl of broth to Teft. He pointed at the bowl, then at Moash—all without once looking at Moash's face.
"Sure," said Teft, "I can feed him."
"Remember, no solids yet," Kaladin said. "Water and broth only."
"Understood, sir."
Tesh walked past Kaladin and left the barrack. He didn't meet Kaladin's gaze on his way out, but Kaladin saw that his eyes were barely a shade lighter than black.
"Call if you need me," said Kaladin. "Not you, Moash—no shouting. We'll be drilling near the barracks."
Then he turned and stepped outside. Twenty-nine men stood beside their bridge, watching him and Tesh as they rejoined the group. "All right," said Kaladin. "There's something I want to try today."
It had occurred to him the previous night while he'd been applying antiseptic to Moash's wounds. He could talk all he wanted about how he hadn't given up on Bridge Four, but all the determination in the world wasn't going to stop a Parshendi arrow. Bridge Four might be losing fewer men than any of the other bridges with each run, but the past two bad runs had both cost them at least one. He had already failed seven men. Rens, Adis, Corl, Koorm, Skar, Jaks, Dabbid. If he didn't want to fail the rest, he needed something actionable.
Bridgemen were not allowed armor or shields. But they carried a massive wooden construct on their backs—a construct that had taken more arrows than any bridgeman without leaving more than a mark. And Kaladin could use that.
"I call it," Kaladin said, "side carry."
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After nearly a week of drilling, Kaladin could honestly say that the crew was better at carrying the bridge on its side.
In the same way that a one-legged axehound is faster than one with no legs, he thought grimly.
Gaz had given his blessing for Bridge Four to use side carry on a run. Kaladin suspected he thought the maneuver would slow them down and might get Kaladin killed. He might even be right.
He called a halt to the drill and let his men go towards the water barrels. As he watched them, Syl darted out in front of him. "They don't understand why you want them to carry the bridge like that," she said.
"I know."
"I heard Sigzil and Malop talking about it."
"Were they complaining?"
"Yes. Wait, no, not really." She looked momentarily confused, then hesitant. "No, I guess not. They sounded more like they were questioning it out of habit than really complaining."
Kaladin nodded. "Still dangerous, but not as much so. That kind of talk can feed itself; the men can push each other further towards mutiny than any one of them would reach alone. But if they're not seriously complaining, then we still have time."
"Why are you having them carry the bridge like this?" Syl asked. "They're right that it's slower."
"Yes," said Kaladin. He glanced around, just in case Gaz was watching. He wasn't. Instead, he was standing on the other side of the yard, talking to Lamaril as the lighteyes led a troop of men into the camp. New bridgemen.
More hands would be a great help. Side carry was harder, and even though his men were much better trained than the rest of the bridge crews, it was much easier to drop the bridge when they were holding it awkwardly alongside themselves. Bridge Four was already moderately undermanned, since neither Teft nor Moash was fit for runs yet. But the last time new recruits had come through, Gaz hadn't sent a single one his way.
He couldn't let that happen again.
"I'll tell you later," he told Syl, then jogged in Gaz's direction.
The overseer was separating the men into groups. "You three, you're in Bridge Nine. You four, Bridge Twelve. You and… you, Bridge Two.
Kaladin watched as Gaz sorted all twenty-two new recruits. Not a single one was assigned to Bridge Four. Not this time. "Gaz."
Gaz jumped and whirled to face him. Kaladin realized he'd been standing on the man's blind side. "Storming—what, Lordling?"
"Bridge Four is down to thirty fighting members," he said.
"Thirty-two, if you count the invalids you're smuggling food to," countered Gaz.
"They can't carry the bridge," Kaladin said. "Where they sleep is my affair. Making sure the bridge crews can run is yours."
Gaz grumbled something mutinous under his breath. "Bridge Three is down to twenty-six."
"Yes, and you just gave them eight new members. Along with the other fourteen you gave to bridges that aren't as understaffed as mine."
"You only lost one man on the last run, and—"
"Do you think Lamaril will thank you if my bridge doesn't make it to the chasm?" Kaladin demanded.
"That's Brightlord Lamaril to you." But Gaz had a pensive, downward curve to his lips now. "…Fine. You can have one man."
"One man of my choice."
"Fine. They're all equally worthless."
Kaladin turned to the group, which was already clustering based on their new assignments. A taller man would be especially helpful for side carrying, he mused, and for slaves, most of these men were well fed. That one might even have soldier's training—
"Hey, gancho!" a voice called. "Hey! I think you want me, sure!"
Kaladin turned. The man who had spoken was short and spindly, in spite of a hint of a paunch around his stomach. His accent was Herdazian, and he was waving at Kaladin—with his only arm. What had this poor fool done to get assigned to the bridge crews with only one arm? Whatever crew got him would put him in the deathpoint and be rid of him on his first run.
"You can use me, gon," said the man, pronouncing the final word like gone. "We Herdazians are great fighters. One time three men came at me, and sure, they were drunk, but I did beat them."
Kaladin looked the man in the eye. He was smiling. He clearly had no idea what awaited him in the bridge crews, any more than Kaladin had when he first arrived. No one would be smiling if they did.
But even taking that into account… this one-armed man with years-old slave brands was somehow managing to smile in the face of an uncertain fate which, he had to realize, would not be good.
I was just thinking that the men could easily push each other to mutiny if their complaining discouraged one another, he thought. This man's optimism might be just what I need to counteract that.
That was the rational part of him. The tactician, the soldier, the squadleader.
The elder brother in him just thought, Tien.
"Very well," he said aloud. "I'll take the Herdazian in the back."
"You're joking," said Gaz.
The one-armed man strolled up to Kaladin, his grin somehow even wider. "Thanks, gancho! You'll be glad you got me."
Kaladin gestured for him to follow, then turned to leave. As he passed Gaz, the bridge sergeant called after him, "You pushed me that hard so that you could pick that?"
Kaladin ignored him, instead turning to his new recruit as they walked. "Why did you want to come with me?" he asked. "You don't know anything about the different crews."
"You were only picking one," said the man. "That means the one man gets to be special, sure. Besides, I've got a good feeling about you. It's in your eyes. A man's eyes never lie, I've always said. What's a bridge crew?"
Kaladin noticed that he had started smiling without even realizing it. After weeks of forcing smiles onto his face for the benefit of the crew, it was startling. "You'll see," he said, already dreading having to watch this man slowly learn what he had been condemned to. "What's your name?"
"Lopen," said the man. "Some of my cousins call me the Lopen, because none of them has ever heard of another Lopen. I've asked around a lot, too. Hundreds. Not a one has ever heard of another Lopen." The man spoke so quickly and brightly that Kaladin had to wonder if he ever stopped to breathe.
As they reached the crew, already starting to assemble at the bridge again, Rock looked Lopen up and down. "Is new member?" he asked. At Kaladin's affirmation, he sighed. "The only kind Gaz would give us, I assume. This thing, it is to be expected. He will give us only the most useless of bridgemen from now on."
Kaladin almost said something in agreement, but hesitated—both because Syl would probably not be happy with the lie, and because he doubted Lopen would either.
Before he could find something to say, Rock continued. "This new way of carrying the bridge. I do not think it is very—"
A horn call sounded. The entire crew fell as silent as Tesh, conversations dying at once. Bridge Four was on duty. A second horn rang out.
Then the third.
"Line up!" Kaladin ordered. "Let's move!" As his men quickly moved themselves into position, he turned to Lopen. "You see that rain barrel?" he asked, pointing. "Get some waterskins from the carpenters' assistants—tell them you're from Bridge Four, they told me I could borrow some—and fill up as many as you can. Catch up to us down the hill."
"Sure, gancho," said the Lopen, saluting and dashing off.
He returned before the other bridges were in position—and, to Kaladin's surprise and displeasure, Teft was with him. "Did I say you were cleared for duty?" he demanded.
Teft grinned at him. "You just got us a one-armed bridgeman, sir," he said. "Least I've got all four limbs."
"You said to get as many as I could carry," said Lopen, gesturing with a small pallet he and Teft were carrying between them, laden high with bulging waterskins. "Well, I got this from the carpenters. Couldn't carry it by myself, sure, but the old man saw me and offered to help."
"I figured, if you were letting one kind of cripple out for light duty, why not another?" said Teft wryly.
Kaladin gritted his teeth. "If your wounds reopen," he growled, "you are going to sit down and stay on whatever plateau we're on right then until we come back to fetch you, understand?"
"Perfectly clear, sir."
The other bridges were catching up with them now. Kaladin took a deep breath. "Fine. Let's move!"
Murk looked down, his face shrouded from the moonlight. "Not anymore."
Kaladin stared at the wiry man, reed forgotten between his fingertips. "How did an ardent end up here?"
"Same as you, I imagine." A ribbon of grey, billowing in the wind, drifted down around Murk's shoulders before vanishing. Kaladin recognized it as a gloomspren. "I made my lighteyes angry."
Murk is a remarkable character. I am still trying to figure out how your original character garnered so much attention.
But, I am each time reveal a bit of Murk.
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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12
Execution
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The thing giving them their power does not show itself directly. Even the most private of Shards, such as Endowment, are at least willing to allow themselves to be discovered.
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Torol stood perfectly still in the center of his forward command tent. Servants bustled around him, bearing fragments of his red shardplate and attaching them to his harness. Outside, he heard the army mobilizing.
The tent flap billowed inward as General Latharil pushed his way inside. He was commander of the third of Torol's ten battalions, and it was his patrol that had sounded the horn.
"Brightlord," said Latharil, stopping one step inside the tent and bowing. He was a large man, a few inches taller than Torol himself—at least, when Torol wasn't wearing the thick boots of his Plate. His face was sharply angled, with high cheekbones over thin cheeks, and his eyes were a pale, washed-out blue.
Sadeas nodded shortly as a servant affixed one of his pauldrons over his shoulder. "Where is the chrysalis this time, General?"
"Far," said the man grimly. "Brightness Pelah is charting a course now, but her initial estimate was that we would need to make nearly forty crossings using the portable bridges."
Forty crossings. That was madness. Most incursions required fewer than fifteen crossings over the portable bridges, once the army had cleared the network of permanent bridges near the camp. Every crossing was a delay, both because getting the men across the narrow bridge was slow, and because even once they had done so, the smaller plateaus were often not wide enough for the bridge crews to catch up with the army before they reached the next chasm. "How much of that is pushing inward? If the chrysalis is closer to another Highprince's camp, there's no point in even trying to make this run."
"My watchmen know that, Brightlord," said Latharil, with just the tiniest hint of reproach in his voice. "We would not have called the muster if it was closer to one of the other camps than ours, not at that distance. It's almost directly inward. The only force we'll be competing with is the Parshendi."
"And they will provide significant competition," mused Torol, "assuming we're right that their headquarters are at the center of the Plains." He had made only one incursion of this length before, and that one had been more south than east, and thus had ended far closer to the warcamps. He had been competing primarily against Roion, that day, and that had been before Roion had adopted Sadeas' more efficient bridge crews.
"It will be difficult, if not impossible, to beat them to the chrysalis, Highprince," said Latharil. "We will have to make a crossing under fire."
"Of course. But if gemhearts weren't worth running into Parshendi archers, they wouldn't be worth the rest of this trouble, either. Which battalions are on duty today?"
"The First, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth, Brightlord."
Torol frowned, then pointed his newly gauntleted hand at Balar, his steward, who stood on the side of the tent overseeing the servants. "Is that imbecile Matal still in command of the Ninth?"
"No, Highprince. He has been replaced with Brightlord Latalar, per your orders."
Torol's steward was a lighteyes of the seventh dahn, with deep violet eyes and a moderately corpulent frame. Torol preferred the servants who waited on him when he was out of his armor not to be in peak condition.
Some might call it paranoia. He might have called it the same, six years ago.
"Avarak Matal," continued Balar, "is still awaiting reassignment. His wife has already sent a missive on his behalf, which I have forwarded to Brightness Ialai."
"Good," Torol said. "We'll come up with something suitably humbling." Matal had embarrassed himself—and, by extension, Sadeas—at the king's most recent feast, and more importantly in front of several Kholin officers. His rank was sufficient that Torol couldn't turn him out of the warcamp completely without scandal, but there were plenty of positions in the army which had enough of a veneer of decency to fool outsiders while still humiliating the man before his peers.
A servant affixed the last plate of Torol's armor, and they all stepped back to allow him to pass. He swept past Latharil out of the tent.
His horse was already saddled and waiting just a few paces from the tent. It wasn't a Ryshadium—and the fact that half the Kholins had one of the beasts while he didn't still burned—but for an ordinary horse, Nomar was exceedingly large. A powerful warhorse of excellent breeding, he had never once faltered under the weight of Torol's Plate. Torol dreaded the day when the stallion would inevitably grow too old to carry him into battle. He didn't know where he'd find another of Nomar's caliber, unless he managed to find the time to breed it before that day came.
He climbed onto the stallion's back and nodded to Latharil. "Join your men, General," he said. "I'll see you on the battlefield."
"Yes, Brightlord." Latharil saluted and dashed off.
Torol turned to Balar, standing at the entrance to the tent. "I likely won't return until after dinnertime," he said. "Tell Ialai that she needn't wait for me, but I'd appreciate her company on my return."
"Of course, Highprince."
Torol turned and spurred his horse on.
His officers and guard regiment formed around him as he took his position near the center of the army column, slowing Nomar to a gentle trot. Torol always pushed his infantry, and the army moved faster than many of the others—especially the Kholin army, with their chull-pulled bridges—but an infantry column moving at a dead run was still no faster than a light canter for the cavalry, and that would have left his army exhausted by the time they met the Parshendi.
Especially on a march like this one. He doubted any of the other highprinces would have even tried to make an assault on a chrysalis forty chasms beyond the innermost permanent bridges. Which was exactly why the very idea had him so eager—the Thrill was already thrumming in his veins, like an axehound barely held back from its quarry by the discipline of its master. The Parshendi would be ready for him. The battle would be fierce.
But, paradoxically, that meant the risks were lower. Sure, there was always a chance that he might die, but the Parshendi were clearly running out of Shardbearers—only one battle in a dozen saw an enemy Shard on the field—and without an enemy with Shardblades, the risk to a commander in Plate was negligible. The real risk in a plateau assault was the risk of shame—of an embarrassing defeat and a humiliating march back to the warcamp, visible to the sentries of all the other highprinces. But on a run to a plateau this distant, the shame of a defeat would be moderate at worst.
And the glory of a victory would be enormous.
He could see his own anticipation mirrored in the officers around him, and embodied in the anticipationspren bursting up around the hooves of their horses in streaks of red. None of them had the benefit of Shardplate to protect them, but that didn't matter to most—like any good Alethi men, they were hungry for the glory to be won, as thirsty for the Thrill to fill them up as a drunkard was for wine.
Latharil joined him as they crossed the second plateau, still well within the network of permanent bridges. "The sentries have identified the location of the chrysalis, Brightlord," he said. "It's the Tower."
Torol's heart leapt. The Tower was a famous plateau. It wasn't quite forty plateaus away—only thirty-two from the permanent bridge network—but its reputation preceded it. The Tower was taller than any of its immediate neighbors and sloped away from the warcamps. More than twenty battles had been fought on that plateau, at least one by every single highprince, and every single one of them had ended in a Parshendi victory.
If Torol won today, the glory would be more than enormous. It would be groundbreaking. House Sadeas would become the unquestioned military leader among all ten highprincedoms, cleanly supplanting Kholin's already crumbling reputation.
"Good," he said to Latharil, unable either to hide his smile or to banish the single gloryspren that was already bursting into golden light beside Nomar's ear. "Very good."
After several minutes, the column slowed as the mobile bridges were placed across the first chasm. The army split into twenty lines, each moving to cross one of the bridges.
Torol spurred Nomar to the column crossing Bridge Four.
He kept his face neutral as the horse's hooves echoed resoundingly against the wood of the bridge. He ignored the black eyes glaring at him with an emotion he could not have named even if he cared.
Bridge Four had changed. He could not help but notice, even as he kept his eyes forward and his face impassive. Where once the wretches had all cast themselves down like the barely-formed lumps of men they were, now they stood in something like formation, drinking from waterskins.
It was Bridge Four, he remembered, that had apparently retrieved its wounded from their recent bridge run. He had ordered that the wounded be denied food—partly to conserve resources that were better allocated to more valuable men, and partly out of a hope that one particular bridgeman might be among the injured who would be condemned to slow starvation. However, this seemed only to have hardened the men somehow.
Perhaps there was something special about their current bridgeleader, he mused, Nomar's hooves thumping hollowly against the wood of the bridge. Whoever the man was, he had somehow managed to turn a gaggle of thirty or so creatures unworthy to be called men into something that bore a vague resemblance to an organized group. He would have to see who that bridgeleader was. Torol prided himself on his efficiency. If the man was as talented a leader as he appeared, he was wasted on slave's work in the bridge crews.
As he left the bridge behind, Torol finally allowed a grim smile to bloom across his lips. The sight of those black eyes in his peripheral vision, burning with impotent fire, always left him feeling darkly satisfied.
You left me helpless to act, boy, he thought. Now I do the same to you. It was better than he deserved, but even as angry as Torol still was, he was still a pragmatist. Better the boy die a slow death being useful than an equally slow death keeping a trained torturer busy.
It wasn't joy that he felt whenever he crossed Bridge Four and felt those jet-dark eyes following him, far from the almost pale grey that had once looked up at him in the half-light. Indeed, if anything, it brought him back to one of the most joyless moments of his life. But it did bring satisfaction—to know that the man responsible for the awful night that had left him in worse pain than a hundred battle wounds was suffering for his crime.
That satisfaction came to him again and again on the long march. The sun drifted lazily overhead, wheeling along the aquamarine bowl of the sky in its long, early-autumn arc. It never passed directly overhead, this far south, instead staying always a little north of the center of the sky. He hadn't ever noticed something like that before, but after five years on the same front, the difference between this southern sky and the northern one of his home made him nostalgic. He wasn't homesick, but he did long for the days before he had come down here.
Before things had all gone wrong. Before the Rift. Before Dalinar had collapsed like a crumbling pillar. Before Gavilar had been assassinated and succeeded by an inept boy-king.
Before his daughter had died, not to the blade of an assassin, but to the hand of someone who should have been protecting her from them.
At long last, they reached the penultimate chasm. From here, he could see the chrysalis with his own eyes, tightly bound to the stone of the Tower. The Parshendi were busily hacking away at its shell, struggling to break it open. They had not reached the gemheart yet.
He smiled, watching his cavalry begin forming their ranks, watching the infantry marshal behind them, lowering spears and raising shields. The Parshendi might still manage to get it before he broke their line, but he hadn't missed the contest. For the Thrill—which now rose up in him joyfully—that was enough.
The bridge crews began their final run. His eyes found Bridge Four.
He frowned. What on Roshar were they doing? The crew seemed to be carrying their bridge on one side, perpendicular to themselves. The position slowed them visibly—despite having run ahead of most of the other crews across all the other plateaus, now they were lagging behind, and exposing themselves to more Parshendi fire. What on earth would possess them to hold the bridge like a…
He realized what was about to happen an instant before it did. The crew of bridge four swung about like a door being shut. The wood of the bridge interposed between the bridgemen and the archers. And the Parshendi weren't stupid enough to waste arrows on what amounted to a tower shield the width of a regiment.
His smile slid off his face as he stared at the massacre unfolding before his eyes. It was almost comical. A man less well-educated in warfare wouldn't have expected the change from twenty targets to nineteen to make such a radical difference. But someone like that would have missed a few key factors.
First, on an assault where the Parshendi had already formed their firing line, often only a dozen or so bridges made it to the chasm. The Parshendi only needed to kill between five and fifteen bridgemen to bring down a bridge, after all.
Second, even those bridges that did make it to the chasm typically lost the majority of the men they could afford to lose without falling anyway.
Third, with the loss of one target, the Parshendi did not evenly distribute their newly available arrows evenly among the other crews. No—the Parshendi were better-trained than that. Their archers always fired at the nearest available crew. That meant that, instead of nineteen bridges each facing about five percent more fire, he had seventeen facing roughly the same amount, and two which each faced half again as many arrows as before.
Of course, those two bridges fell. And then the archers redirected their fire to the next two bridges. And the next. And the next. Twice as many archers were freed by the fall of every successive bridge, so each time a bridge fell, the fire the next bridges were facing grew exponentially worse.
Even that might not have been crippling. But when the other bridge crews saw what Bridge Four had done, they tried to emulate it. But Bridge Four had clearly trained in what must be a difficult maneuver. The rest had not. They stumbled. They dropped bridges. Even those that kept them in their hands slowed to a crawl.
Normally, a Parshendi firing line could only bring down between four and eight bridges before the crew pushed it across the chasm and allowed his army to attack. Today, they felled fourteen.
His heavy cavalry charged across the bridges once they were in place, but there simply wasn't enough space for his men to cross in the necessary numbers. His men fought bravely, but a cavalry charge needed an unbroken line. Two horsemen could cross a bridge side by side, but with only six bridges—bridges which had been placed erratically, over more than ninety seconds when all twenty crews normally took less than a third of that—that was only twelve chargers trying to break the Parshendi line. Brave men died, their bodies, and those of their steeds, falling into the chasm to become fodder for fiends and cremlings. This far into the Plains, he would never be able to retrieve their gear, either.
Bridge Four had lost him this battle. All he could do now was minimize his losses.
He turned to his generals, all of whom sat in stunned silence astride their own horses, staring in horror at the carnage. "Order the remaining cavalry to fall back!" he barked. "Send the spearmen and shock infantry to hold the bridges and give the cavalry an avenue of retreat! Sound the withdrawal! Now, Damnation take you!"
The men jumped to obey. Torol caught Latharil's arm as he spurred his horse. "Find me Lamaril," he said through gritted teeth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bridge collapse into the chasm.
"Alive or dead, Brightlord?"
"Preferably alive." The punishment should always outstrip the severity of the crime. He remembered saying that to a shaking boy, staring up at him in terror. One man had lost him his daughter, and he had been condemned to slavery in the bridge crews. Lamaril had cost him a battle. "A quick death at the end of a spear is too good for him."
As Latharil nodded and cantered away, he stared at the inanimate wood of Bridge Four stretching across the chasm. At the men in rags, huddled in a hollow beside it. He couldn't make out individuals, but he saw a few men—including one lighteyes, perhaps Lamaril—approaching the crew. As they converged upon one of the bridgemen, most likely the bridgeleader, another bridge fell into the chasm, stranding even more of his men on the Tower.
Torol felt his fists, white-knuckled, shaking on Nomar's reins. He forced them to still by pressing them into the saddle. Not ten minutes ago, Torol had been contemplating the promotion of Bridge Four's bridgeleader. Now, the man had cemented his position as Torol's second-least favorite bridgeman. He would not survive the experience.
It was too much to expect a darkeyed slave to be a tactical genius, to know anything about military strategy. That was supposed to be Lamaril's job—to make sure the thugs on the crews did nothing to jeopardize Torol's efforts. But knowingly or not, that bridgeleader had cost Torol a battle. He would need to be punished. More than punished—made an example of.
What was a suitably spectacular method of execution? He had inspired his men. He had nearly managed to turn the wretches of Bridge Four into something resembling Alethi.
Let them feel his death, he thought. Let them hear him begging. Let them stew in the certainty that his fate is what awaits any of them who try to follow his example.
A highstorm was slated to come a little after nightfall. Torol would have the man strung up on his own barrack's outer wall and left to its mercy. It was a form of execution as traditional as it was brutal. The following morning, his men would step outside and see the ruined meat the storm had left behind, and every one of those men would know better than to try and carry on its legacy.
As the army withdrew, and the bridges were pulled back across the chasm, he turned his horse away and began the long ride back to camp.
@Lithos Maitreya - You absolutely captured Tolor in this chapter. If Brandon Sanderson wrote the Stormlight Archives in third-person omniscient perspective like Frank Herbert did with Dune, something like this chapter would have appeared prior to Kaladin being strung up.
An excellent and well done chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
I do believe you have cracked Sanderson's writing code.
I mean I can't exactly blame him either. It takes a special kind of asshole to blame and punish a man for teaching his men how not to get massacred. That's not something easy to plan around.
You're correct. I mentioned at the start of the thread that this was something I was struggling with. I have (I think) solved that problem, but my solution is going to take a while to come fully to fruition. I totally respect not being willing to wait for that.
To be fair, this isn't a part of canon where one extra character in the position Sarus is in can really do much to change things besides what's been shown barring out-of-context knowledge/powers, and the alternate viewpoints at least have been interesting to see.
To be fair, this isn't a part of canon where one extra character in the position Sarus is in can really do much to change things besides what's been shown barring out-of-context knowledge/powers, and the alternate viewpoints at least have been interesting to see.
I semi agree, I love the writing, but I think the issue is that even in the context they are in, Sarus just doesn't seem to have any agency. I don't think he's done quite literally anything that has changed the results of what's happened, just been an extra trusted hand for Kaladin to use.
Sarus has at least equal theoretical power to Kaladin in this situation - he's a proto-Radiant with a spren - but he's just far too content to follow and mope.
To be fair, the numerous chapters where Kaladin was moping before actually taking charge of Bridge Four were the most sloggy parts of the book when I read it through, and we've skipped a lot of that here, but that means that we're seeing Kaladin acting and Sarus just following while just getting glimpses of Sarus' backstory and explanations as the PoV shifts through the chapters.
I think this works fine in the book, because you can slog through and get to the point where the action happens. I think it will be fine once the story is completed. The issue is that it doesn't work so well for a web serial, because if you're invested in Sarus' story and the changes its made to canon, well, you aren't getting much of that for months on end.
