The Way of Kings

“It’s bound to be more effective,” Kaladin said. “I’m surprised they haven’t tried it before.”

Teft snorted. “That’s because you don’t understand how lighteyes think. Highprinces don’t just want to win the battle, they want to win it by themselves.”

“I wish I’d been recruited in his army instead,” Moash said, almost reverent. The soldiers’ armor gleamed, their ranks obviously well-practiced. Dalinar – the Blackthorn – had done an even better job than Amaram at cultivating a reputation for honesty. People knew of him all the way back in Hearthstone, but Kaladin understood the kinds of corruption a well-polished breastplate could hide.

Though, he thought, that man who protected the whore on the street, he wore blue. Adolin, Dalinar’s son. He seemed genuinely selfless in his defense of the woman.

Kaladin set his jaw, casting aside those thoughts. He would not be taken in again.

He would not.

The fighting grew brutal for a short time, but the Parshendi were overwhelmed – smashed between two opposing forces. Soon, Kaladin’s team led a victorious group of soldiers back to the camps for celebration.

Kaladin rolled the sphere between his fingers. The otherwise pure glass had cooled with a thin line of bubbles permanently frozen along one side. The bubbles were tiny spheres of their own, catching light.

He was on chasm scavenging duty. They’d gotten back from the plateau assault so quickly that Hashal, in defiance of logic or mercy, had sent them down into the chasm that very day. Kaladin continued to turn the sphere in his fingers. Hanging in the very center of it was a large emerald cut in a round shape, with dozens of tiny facets along the sides. A small rim of suspended bubbles clung to the side of gemstone, as if longing to be near its brilliance.

Bright, crystalline green Stormlight shone from inside the glass, lighting Kaladin’s fingers. An emerald broam, the highest denomination of sphere. Worth hundreds of lesser spheres. To bridgemen, this was a fortune. A strangely distant one, for spending it was impossible. Kaladin thought he could see some of the storm’s tempest inside that rock. The light was like… it was like part of the storm, captured by the emerald. The light wasn’t perfectly steady; it just seemed that way compared with the flickering of candles, torches, or lamps. Holding it close, Kaladin could see the light swirling, raging.

“What do we do with it?” Moash asked from Kaladin’s side. Rock stood at Kaladin’s other side. The sky was overcast, making it darker than usual here at the bottom. The cold weather of late had drawn back to spring, though it was uncomfortably chilly.

The men worked efficiently, quickly gathering spears, armor, boots, and spheres from the dead. Because of the short time given them – and because of the exhausting bridge run earlier – Kaladin had decided to forgo spear practice for the day. They’d load up on salvage instead and stow some of it down beneath, to be used for avoiding punishment next time.

As they’d worked, they’d found a lighteyed officer. He had been quite wealthy. This single emerald broam was worth what a bridgeman slave would make in two hundred days. In the same pouch with it, they’d found a collection of chips and marks that totaled slightly more than another emerald broam. Wealth. A fortune. Simply pocket change to a lighteyes.

“With this we could feed those wounded bridgemen for months,” Moash said. “We could buy all the medical supplies we could want. Stormfather! We could probably bribe the camp’s perimeter guards to let us sneak away.’

“This thing will not happen,” Rock said. “Is impossible to get spheres out of the chasms.”

“We could swallow them,” Moash said.

“You would choke. Spheres are too big, eh?”

“I’ll bet I could do it,” Moash said. His eyes glittered, reflecting the verdant Stormlight. “That’s more money than I’ve ever seen. It’s worth the risk.”

“Swallowing won’t work,” Kaladin said. “You think those guards who watch us in the latrines are there to keep us from fleeing? I’ll bet some sodden parshman has to go through our droppings, and I’ve seen them keep record of who visits and how often. We aren’t the first to think of swallowing spheres.”

Moash hesitated, then sighed, crestfallen. “You’re probably right. Storm you, but you are. But we can’t just give it to them, can we?”

“Yes, we can,” Kaladin said, closing his fist around the sphere. The glow was bright enough to make his hand shine. “We’d never be able to spend it. A bridgeman with a full broam? It would give us away.”

“But–” Moash began.

“We give it to them, Moash.” Then he held up the pouch containing the other spheres. “But we find a way to keep these.”

Rock nodded. “Yes. If we give up this expensive sphere, they will think us honest, eh? It will disguise the theft, and they will even give us small reward. But how can we do this thing, keeping the pouch?”