The Way of Kings

Sigzil froze. Then he suddenly stood up straight and stalked away from the barrack without looking back.

“Now why is he acting like this thing?” Rock asked. “I am not ashamed of being cook. Why is he ashamed of being Worldsinger?”

“Worldsinger?” Kaladin asked.

Rock shrugged. “I do not know much. Are strange people. Say they must travel to each kingdom and tell the people there of other kingdoms. Is a kind of storyteller, though they are thinking of themselves as much more.”

“He’s probably some kind of brightlord in his country,” Moash said. “The way he talks. Wonder how he ended up with us cremlings.”

“Hey,” Dunny said, joining them. “What’d you do to Sigzil? He promised to tell me about my homeland.”

“Homeland?” Moash said to the younger man. “You’re from Alethkar.”

“Sigzil said these violet eyes of mine aren’t native to Alethkar. He thinks I must have Veden blood in me.”

“Your eyes aren’t violet,” Moash said.

“Sure they are,” Dunny said. “You can see it in bright sunlight. They’re just really dark.”

“Ha!” Rock said. “If you are from Vedenar, we are cousins! The Peaks are near Vedenar. Sometimes the people there have good red hair, like us!”

“Be glad that someone didn’t mistake your eyes for red, Dunny,” Kaladin said. “Moash, Rock, go gather your subsquads and pass the word to Teft and Skar. I want the men oiling their vests and sandals against the humidity.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he had black and red marbled skin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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