The Way of Kings

“I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw.”

– Dated Shashanan, 1173, 23 seconds pre-death. Subject: a darkeyed youth of sixteen years. Sample is of particular note.

“And all the world was shattered!” Maps yelled, back arching, eyes wide, flecks of red spittle on his cheeks. “The rocks trembled with their steps, and the stones reached toward the heavens. We die! We die!”

He spasmed one last time, and the light faded from his eyes. Kaladin sat back, crimson blood slick on his hands, the dagger he’d been using as a surgical knife slipping from his fingers and clicking softly against the stone. The affable man lay dead on the stones of a plateau, arrow wound in his left breast open to the air, splitting the birthmark he’d claimed looked like Alethkar.

It’s taking them, Kaladin thought. One by one. Open them up, bleed them out. We’re nothing more than pouches to carry blood. Then we die, rain it down on the stones like a highstorm’s floods.

Until only I remain. I always remain.

A layer of skin, a layer of fat, a layer of muscle, a layer of bone. That was what men were.

The battle raged across the chasm. It might as well have been another kingdom, for all the attention anyone gave the bridgemen. Die die die, then get out of our way.

The members of Bridge Four stood in a solemn ring around Kaladin. “What was that he said at the end?” Skar asked. “The rocks trembled?”

“It was nothing,” said thick-armed Yake. “Just dying delirium. It happens to men, sometimes.”

“More often lately, it seems,” Teft said. He held his hand to his arm, where he’d hastily wrapped a bandage around an arrow wound. He wouldn’t be carrying a bridge anytime soon. Maps’s death and Arik’s death left them with only twenty-six members now. It was barely enough to carry a bridge. The greater heaviness was very noticeable, and they had difficulty keeping up with the other bridge crews. A few more losses, and they’d be in serious trouble.

I should have been faster, Kaladin thought, looking down at Maps splayed open, his insides exposed for the sun to dry. The arrowhead had pierced his lung and lodged in his spine. Could Lirin have saved him? If Kaladin had studied in Kharbranth as his father had wished, would he have learned enough – known enough – to prevent deaths like this?

This happens sometimes, son…

Kaladin raised shaking bloody hands to his face, gripping his head, as memory consumed him. A young girl, a cracked head, a broken leg, an angry father.

Despair, hate, loss, frustration, horror. How could any man live this way? To be a surgeon, to live knowing that you would be too weak to save some? When other men failed, a field of crops got worms in them. When a surgeon failed, someone died.

You have to learn when to care…

As if he could choose. Banish it, like snuffing a lantern. Kaladin bowed beneath the weight. I should have saved him, I should have saved him, I should have saved him.

Maps, Dunny, Amark, Goshel, Dallet, Nalma. Tien.

“Kaladin.” Syl’s voice. “Be strong.”

“If I were strong,” he hissed, “they would live.”

“The other bridgemen still need you. You promised them, Kaladin. You gave your oath.”

Kaladin looked up. The bridgemen seemed anxious and worried. There were only eight of them; Kaladin had sent the others to look for fallen bridgemen from other crews. They’d found three initially, minor wounds that Skar could care for. No runners had come for him. Either the bridge crews had no other wounded, or those wounded were beyond help.

Maybe he should have gone to look, just in case. But – numb – he could not face yet another dying man he could not save. He stumbled to his feet and walked away from the corpse. He stepped up to the chasm and forced himself to fall into the old stance Tukks had taught him.

Feet apart, hands behind his back, clasping forearms. Straight-backed, staring forward. The familiarity brought him strength.

You were wrong, Father, he thought. You said I’d learn to deal with the deaths. And yet here I am. Years later. Same problem.