“I’ll be right back,” Syl said, dropping off his chest, taking the form of a falling stone, then changing into windblown leaves near the ground and fluttering away, curving to the right. The lumberyard was empty. Kaladin could smell the crisp, chill air, the land bracing for a highstorm. The lull, it was called, when the wind fell still, the air cold, the pressure dropping, the humidity rising right before a storm.
A few seconds later, Rock poked his head around the wall, Syl on his shoulder. He crept up to Kaladin, a nervous Teft following. They were joined by Moash; despite the latter’s protests that he didn’t trust Kaladin, he looked almost as concerned as the other two.
“Lordling?” Moash said. “You awake?”
“I’m conscious,” Kaladin croaked. “Everyone get back from the battle all right?”
“All of our men, sure enough,” Teft said, scratching at his beard. “But we lost the battle. It was a disaster. Over two hundred bridgemen dead. Those who survived were only enough to carry eleven bridges.”
Two hundred men, Kaladin thought. That’s my fault. I protected my own at the cost of others. I was too hasty.
Bridgemen aren’t supposed to survive. There’s something about that. He wouldn’t be able to ask Lamaril. That man had gotten what he deserved, though. If Kaladin had the ability to choose, such would be the end of all lighteyes, the king included.
“We wanted to say something,” Rock said. “Is from all of the men. Most wouldn’t come out. Highstorm coming, and–”
“It’s all right,” Kaladin whispered.
Teft nudged Rock to continue.
“Well, is this. We will remember you. Bridge Four, we won’t go back to how we were. Maybe all of us will die, but we’ll show the new ones. Fires at night. Laughter. Living. We’ll make a tradition out of it. For you.” Rock and Teft knew about the knobweed. They could keep earning extra money to pay for things.
“You did this for us,” Moash put in. “We’d have died on that field. Perhaps as many as died in the other bridge crews. This way, we’re only going to lose one.”
“I say it isn’t right, what they’re doing,” Teft said with a scowl. “We talked about cutting you down…”
“No,” Kaladin said. “That would only earn you a similar punishment.”
The three men shared glances. It seemed they’d come to the same conclusion.
“What did Sadeas say?” Kaladin asked. “About me.”
“That he understood how a bridgeman would want to save his life,” Teft said, “even at others’ expense. He called you a selfish coward, but acted like that was all that could be expected.”
“He says he’s letting the Stormfather judge you,” Moash added. “Jezerezeh, king of Heralds. He says that if you deserve to live, you will…” He trailed off. He knew as well as the others that unprotected men didn’t survive highstorms, not like this.
“I want you three to do something for me,” Kaladin said, closing his eyes against the blood trickling down his face from his lip, which he’d cracked open by speaking.
“Anything, Kaladin,” Rock said.
“I want you to go back into the barrack and tell the men to come out after the storm. Tell them to look up at me tied here. Tell them I’ll open my eyes and look back at them, and they’ll know that I survived.”
The three bridgemen fell silent.
“Yes, of course, Kaladin,” Teft said. “We’ll do it.”
“Tell them,” Kaladin continued, voice firmer, “that it won’t end here. Tell them I chose not to take my own life, and so there’s no way in Damnation I’m going to give it up to Sadeas.”
Rock smiled one of those broad smiles of his. “By the uli’tekanaki, Kaladin. I almost believe you’ll do it.”
“Here,” Teft said, handing him something. “For luck.”
Kaladin took the object in a weak, bloodstained hand. It was a sphere, a full skymark. It was dun, the Stormlight gone from it. Carry a sphere with you into the storm, the old saying said, and at least you’ll have light by which to see.
“It’s all we were able to save from your pouch,” Teft said. “Gaz and Lamaril got the rest. We complained, but what were we to do?”
“Thank you,” Kaladin said.
Moash and Rock retreated to the safety of the barrack, Syl leaving Rock’s shoulder to stay with Kaladin. Teft lingered too, as if thinking to spend the storm with Kaladin. He eventually shook his head, muttering, and joined the others. Kaladin thought he heard the man calling himself a coward.
The door to the barrack shut. Kaladin fingered the smooth glass sphere. The sky was darkening, and not just because the sun was setting. Blackness gathered. The highstorm.
Syl walked up the side of the wall, then sat down on it, looking at him, tiny face somber. “You told them you’d survive. What happens if you don’t?”
Kaladin’s head was pounding with his pulse. “My mother would cringe if she knew how quickly the other soldiers taught me to gamble. First night in Amaram’s army, and they had me playing for spheres.”
“Kaladin?” Syl said.
“Sorry,” Kaladin said, rocking his head from side to side. “What you said, it reminded me of that night. There’s a term in gambling, you see. ‘In for all,’ they say. It’s when you put all of your money on one bet.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m putting it all on the long bet,” Kaladin whispered. “If I die, then they’ll come out, shake their heads, and tell themselves they knew it would happen. But if I live, they’ll remember it. And it will give them hope. They might see it as a miracle.”
Syl was silent for a moment. “Do you want to be a miracle?”
“No,” Kaladin whispered. “But for them, I will be.”
It was a desperate, foolish hope. The eastern horizon, inverted in his sight, was growing darker. From this perspective, the storm was like the shadow of some enormous beast lumbering across the ground. He felt the disturbing fuzziness of a person who had been hit too hard on the head. Concussion. That was what it was called. He was having trouble thinking, but he didn’t want to fall unconscious. He wanted to stare at the highstorm straight on, though it terrified him. He felt the same panic he’d felt looking down into the black chasm, back when he’d nearly killed himself. It was the fear of what he could not see, what he could not know.
The stormwall approached, the visible curtain of rain and wind at the advent of a highstorm. It was a massive wave of water, dirt, and rocks, hundreds of feet high, thousands upon thousands of windspren zipping before it.
In battle, he’d been able to fight his way to safety with the skill of his spear. When he’d stepped to the edge of the chasm, there had been a line of retreat. This time, there was nothing. No way to fight or avoid that black beast, that shadow spanning the entirety of the horizon, plunging the world into an early night. The eastern edge of the crater that made the warcamp had been worn away, and Bridge Four’s barrack was first in its row. There was nothing between him and the Plains. Nothing between him and the storm.
Staring at that raging, blustering, churning wave of wind-pushed water and debris, Kaladin felt as if he were watching the end of the world descend upon him.
He took a deep breath, the pain of his ribs forgotten, as the stormwall crossed the lumberyard in a flash and slammed into him.
35
A Light by Which to See
“Though many wished Urithiru to be built in Alethela, it was obvious that it could not be. And so it was that we asked for it to be placed westward, in the place nearest to Honor.”