The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  What Gaz had done was the mark of a petty bully. He risked the mission by losing a carrier, all because of a hasty grudge.

  Storming man, Kaladin thought, using his hatred of Gaz to sustain him through the ordeal. Several times after pushing the bridge into place, Kaladin collapsed, feeling sure he’d never be able to stand again. But when Gaz called for them to rise, Kaladin somehow struggled to his feet. It was either that or let Gaz win.

  Why were they going through all of this? What was the point? Why were they running so much? They had to protect their bridge, the precious weight, the cargo. They had to hold up the sky and run, they had to…

  He was growing delirious. Feet, running. One, two, one, two, one, two.

  “Stop!”

  He stopped.

  “Lift!”

  He raised his hands up.

  “Drop!”

  He stepped back, then lowered the bridge.

  “Push!”

  He pushed the bridge.

  Die.

  That last command was his own, added each time. He fell back to the stone, a rockbud hastily withdrawing its vines as he touched them. He closed his eyes, no longer able to care about cramps. He entered a trance, a kind of half sleep, for what seemed like one heartbeat.

  “Rise!”

  He stood, stumbling on bloody feet.

  “Cross!”

  He crossed, not bothering to look at the deadly drop on either side.

  “Pull!”

  He grabbed a handhold and pulled the bridge across the chasm after him.

  “Switch!”

  Kaladin stood up dumbly. He didn’t understand that command; Gaz had never given it before. The troops were forming ranks, moving with that mixture of skittishness and forced relaxation that men often went through before a battle. A few anticipationspren—like red streamers, growing from the ground and whipping in the wind—began to sprout from the rock and wave among the soldiers.

  A battle?

  Gaz grabbed Kaladin’s shoulder and shoved him to the front of the bridge. “Newcomers get to go first at this part, Your Lordship.” The sergeant smiled wickedly.

  Kaladin dumbly picked up the bridge with the others, raising it over his head. The handholds were the same here, but this front row had a notched opening before his face, allowing him to see out. All of the bridgemen had changed positions; the men who had been running in the front moved to the back, and those at the back—including Kaladin and the leathery-faced bridgeman—moved to the front.

  Kaladin didn’t ask the point of it. He didn’t care. He liked the front, though; jogging was easier now that he could see ahead of him.

  The landscape on the plateaus was that of rough stormlands; there were scattered patches of grass, but the stone here was too hard for their seeds to fully burrow into. Rockbuds were more common, growing like bubbles across the entire plateau, imitating rocks about the size of a man’s head. Many of the buds were split, trailing out their vines like thick green tongues. A few were even in bloom.

  After so many hours breathing in the stuffy confines beneath the bridge, running in the front was almost relaxing. Why had they given such a wonderful position to a newcomer?

  “Talenelat’Elin, bearer of all agonies,” said the man to his right, voice horrified. “It’s going to be a bad one. They’re already lined up! It’s going to be a bad one!”

  Kaladin blinked, focusing on the approaching chasm. On the other side of the rift stood a rank of men with marbled crimson and black skin. They were wearing a strange rusty orange armor that covered their forearms, chests, heads, and legs. It took his numbed mind a moment to understand.

  The Parshendi.

  They weren’t like common parshman workers. They were far more muscular, far more solid. They had the bulky build of soldiers, and each one carried a weapon strapped to his back. Some wore dark red and black beards tied with bits of rock, while others were clean-shaven.

  As Kaladin watched, the front row of Parshendi knelt down. They held shortbows, arrows nocked. Not longbows intended to launch arrows high and far. Short, recurve bows to fire straight and quick and strong. An excellent bow to use for killing a group of bridgemen before they could lay their bridge.

  Arriving is the worst part….

  Now, finally, the real nightmare began.

  Gaz hung back, bellowing at the bridge crews to keep going. Kaladin’s instincts screamed at him to get out of the line of fire, but the momentum of the bridge forced him forward. Forced him down the throat of the beast itself, its teeth poised to snap closed.

  Kaladin’s exhaustion and pain fled. He was shocked alert. The bridges charged forward, the men beneath them screaming as they ran. Ran toward death.

  The archers released.

  The first wave killed Kaladin’s leathery-faced friend, dropping him with three separate arrows. The man to Kaladin’s left fell as well—Kaladin hadn’t even seen his face. That man cried out as he dropped, not dead immediately, but the bridge crew trampled him. The bridge got noticeably heavier as men died.

  The Parshendi calmly drew a second volley and launched. To the side, Kaladin barely noticed another of the bridge crews floundering. The Parshendi seemed to focus their fire on certain crews. That one got a full wave of arrows from dozens of archers, and the first three rows of bridgemen dropped and tripped those behind them. Their bridge lurched, skidding on the ground and making a sickening crunch as the mass of bodies fell over one another.

  Arrows zipped past Kaladin, killing the other two men in the front line with him. Several other arrows smacked into the wood around him, one slicing open the skin of his cheek.

  He screamed. In horror, in shock, in pain, in sheer bewilderment. Never before had he felt so powerless in a battle. He’d charged enemy fortifications, he’d run beneath waves of arrows, but he’d always felt a measure of control. He’d had his spear, he’d had his shield, he could fight back.

  Not this time. The bridge crews were like hogs running to the slaughter.

  A third volley flew, and another of the twenty bridge crews fell. Waves of arrows came from the Alethi side as well, falling and striking the Parshendi. Kaladin’s bridge was almost to the chasm. He could see the black eyes of the Parshendi on the other side, could make out the features of their lean marbled faces. All around him, bridgemen were screaming in pain, arrows cutting them out from underneath their bridges. There was a crashing sound as another bridge dropped, its bridgemen slaughtered.

  Behind, Gaz called out. “Lift and down, you fools!”

  The bridge crew lurched to a stop as the Parshendi launched another volley. Men behind Kaladin screamed. The Parshendi firing was interrupted by a return volley from the Alethi army. Though he was shocked senseless, Kaladin’s reflexes knew what do to. Drop the bridge, get into position to push.

  This exposed the bridgemen who had been safe in the back ranks. The Parshendi archers obviously knew this was coming; they prepared and launched one final volley. Arrows struck the bridge in a wave, dropping a half-dozen men, spraying blood across the dark wood. Fearspren—wiggling and violet—sprang up through the wood and wriggled in the air. The bridge lurched, growing much harder to push as they suddenly lost those men.

  Kaladin stumbled, hands slipping. He fell to his knees and pitched out, leaning over the chasm. He barely managed to catch himself.

  He teetered, one hand dangling above the void, the other gripping the edge. His overextended mind wavered with vertigo as he stared down that sheer cliff, down into darkness. The height was beautiful; he’d always loved climbing high rock formations with Tien.

  By reflex, he shoved himself back onto the plateau, scrambling backward. A group of foot soldiers, protected by shields, had taken up positions pushing the bridge. The army’s archers exchanged arrows with the Parshendi as the soldiers pushed the bridge into place and heavy cavalry thundered across, smashing into the Parshendi. Four bridges had fallen, but sixteen had been placed in a row, allowing for an effective charge.
>
  Kaladin tried to move, tried to crawl away from the bridge. But he just collapsed where he was, his body refusing to obey. He couldn’t even roll over onto his stomach.

  I should go… he thought in exhaustion. See if that leathery-faced man is still alive…. Bind his wounds…. Save….

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. To his shame, he just let himself close his eyes and gave himself over to unconsciousness.

  “Kaladin.”

  He didn’t want to open his eyes. To wake meant returning to that awful world of pain. A world where defenseless, exhausted men were made to charge lines of archers.

  That world was the nightmare.

  “Kaladin!” The feminine voice was soft, like a whisper, yet still urgent. “They’re going to leave you. Get up! You’ll die!”

  I can’t…I can’t go back….

  Let me go.

  Something snapped against his face, a slight slap of energy with a sting to it. He cringed. It was nothing compared with his other pains, but somehow it was far more demanding. He raised a hand, swatting. The motion was enough to drive away the last vestiges of stupor.

  He tried to open his eyes. One refused, blood from a cut on his cheek having run down and crusted around the eyelid. The sun had moved. Hours had passed. He groaned—sitting up, rubbing the dried blood from his eye. The ground near him was littered with bodies. The air smelled of blood and worse.

  A pair of sorry bridgemen were shaking each man in turn, checking for life, then pulling the vests and sandals off their bodies, shooing away the cremlings feeding on the bodies. The men would never have checked on Kaladin. He didn’t have anything for them to take. They’d have left him with the corpses, stranded on the plateau.

  Kaladin’s windspren flitted through the air above him, moving anxiously. He rubbed his jaw where she’d struck him. Large spren like her could move small objects and give little pinches of energy. That made them all the more annoying.

  This time, it had probably saved Kaladin’s life. He groaned at all the places where he hurt. “Do you have a name, spirit?” he asked, forcing himself to his battered feet.

  On the plateau the army had crossed to, soldiers were picking through the corpses of the dead Parshendi, looking for something. Harvesting equipment, maybe? It appeared that Sadeas’s force had won. At least, there didn’t seem to be any Parshendi still alive. They’d either been killed or had fled.

  The plateau they’d fought on seemed exactly like the others they’d crossed. The only thing that was different here was that there was a large lump of…something in the center of the plateau. It looked like an enormous rockbud, perhaps some kind of chrysalis or shell, a good twenty feet tall. One side had been hacked open, exposing slimy innards. He hadn’t noticed it on the initial charge; the archers had demanded all of his attention.

  “A name,” the windspren said, her voice distant. “Yes. I do have a name.” She seemed surprised as she looked at Kaladin. “Why do I have a name?”

  “How should I know?” Kaladin said, forcing himself to move. His feet blazed with pain. He could barely limp.

  The nearby bridgemen looked to him with surprise, but he ignored them, limping across the plateau until he found the corpse of a bridgeman who still had his vest and shoes. It was the leathery-faced man who had been so kind to him, dead with an arrow through the neck. Kaladin ignored those shocked eyes, staring blankly into the sky, and harvested the man’s clothing—leather vest, leather sandals, lacing shirt stained red with blood. Kaladin felt disgusted with himself, but he wasn’t going to count on Gaz giving him clothing.

  Kaladin sat down and used the cleaner parts of the shirt to change his improvised bandages, then put on the vest and sandals, trying to keep from moving too much. A breeze now blew, carrying away the scents of blood and the sounds of soldiers calling to one another. The cavalry was already forming up, as if eager to return.

  “A name,” the windspren said, walking through the air to stand beside his face. She was in the shape of a young woman, complete with flowing skirt and delicate feet. “Sylphrena.”

  “Sylphrena,” Kaladin repeated, tying on the sandals.

  “Syl,” the spirit said. She cocked her head. “That’s amusing. It appears that I have a nickname.”

  “Congratulations.” Kaladin stood up again, wobbling.

  To the side, Gaz stood with hands on hips, shield tied to his back. “You,” he said, pointing at Kaladin. He then gestured to the bridge.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Kaladin said, looking as the remnants of the bridge crew—fewer than half of their previous number remained—gathered around the bridge.

  “Either carry or stay behind,” Gaz said. He seemed angry about something.

  I was supposed to die, Kaladin realized. That’s why he didn’t care if I had a vest or sandals. I was at the front. Kaladin was the only one on the first row who had lived.

  Kaladin nearly sat down and let them leave him. But dying of thirst on a lonely plateau was not the way he’d choose to go. He stumbled over to the bridge.

  “Don’t worry,” said one of the other bridgemen. “They’ll let us go slow this time, take lots of breaks. And we’ll have a few soldiers to help—takes at least twenty-five men to lift a bridge.”

  Kaladin sighed, getting into place as some unfortunate soldiers joined them. Together, they heaved the bridge into the air. It was terribly heavy, but they managed it, somehow.

  Kaladin walked, feeling numb. He’d thought that there was nothing more life could do to him, nothing worse than the slave’s brand with a shash, nothing worse than losing all he had to the war, nothing more terrible than failing those he’d sworn to protect.

  It appeared that he’d been wrong. There had been something more they could do to him. One final torment the world had reserved just for Kaladin.

  And it was called Bridge Four.

  “They are aflame. They burn. They bring the darkness when they come, and so all you can see is that their skin is aflame. Burn, burn, burn….”

  —Collected on Palahishev, 1172, 21 seconds pre-death. Subject was a baker’s apprentice.

  Shallan hurried down the hallway with its burnt-orange colorings, the ceiling and upper walls now stained by the passing of black smoke from Jasnah’s Soulcasting. Hopefully, the paintings on the walls hadn’t been ruined.

  Ahead, a small group of parshmen arrived, bearing rags, buckets, and stepladders to use in wiping off the soot. They bowed to her as she passed, uttering no words. Parshmen could speak, but they rarely did so. Many seemed mute. As a child, she’d found the patterns of their marbled skin beautiful. That had been before her father forbade her to spend any time with the parshmen.

  She turned her mind to her task. How was she going to convince Jasnah Kholin, one of the most powerful women in the world, to change her mind about taking Shallan as a ward? The woman was obviously stubborn; she had spent years resisting the devotaries’ attempts at reconciliation.

  She reentered the broad main cavern, with its lofty stone ceiling and bustling, well-dressed occupants. She felt daunted, but that brief glimpse of the Soulcaster seduced her. Her family, House Davar, had prospered in recent years, coming out of obscurity. This had primarily been because of her father’s skill in politics—he had been hated by many, but his ruthlessness had carried him far. So had the wealth lent by the discovery of several important new marble deposits on Davar lands.

  Shallan had never known enough to be suspicious of that wealth’s origins. Every time the family had exhausted one of its quarries, her father had gone out with his surveyor and discovered a new one. Only after interrogating the surveyor had Shallan and her brothers discovered the truth: Her father, using his forbidden Soulcaster, had been creating new deposits at a careful rate. Not enough to be suspicious. Just enough to give him the money he needed to further his political goals.

  Nobody knew where he’d gotten the fabrial, which she now carried in her safepouch. It was unusable, d
amaged on the same disastrous evening that her father had died. Don’t think about that, she told herself forcefully.

  They’d had a jeweler repair the broken Soulcaster, but it no longer worked. Their house steward—one of her father’s close confidants, an advisor named Luesh—had been trained to use the device, and he could no longer make it function.

  Her father’s debts and promises were outrageous. Their choices were limited. Her family had some time—perhaps as long as a year—before the missed payments became egregious, and before her father’s absence became obvious. For once, her family’s isolated, backcountry estates were an advantage, providing a reason that communications were being delayed. Her brothers were scrambling, writing letters in her father’s name, making a few appearances and spreading rumors that Brightlord Davar was planning something big.

  All to give her time to make good on her bold plan. Find Jasnah Kholin. Become her ward. Learn where she kept her Soulcaster. Then replace it with the nonfunctional one.

  With the fabrial, they’d be able to make new quarries and restore their wealth. They’d be able to make food to feed their house soldiers. With enough wealth in hand to pay off debts and make bribes, they could announce their father’s death and not suffer destruction.

  Shallan hesitated in the main hallway, considering her next move. What she planned to do was very risky. She’d have to escape without implicating herself in the theft. Though she’d devoted much thought to that, she still didn’t know how she’d manage it. But Jasnah was known to have many enemies. There had to be a way to pin the fabrial’s “breaking” on them instead.

  That step would come later. For now, Shallan had to convince Jasnah to accept her as a ward. All other results were unacceptable.

  Nervously, Shallan held her arms in the sign of need, covered safehand bent across her chest and touching the elbow of her freehand, which was raised with fingers outspread. A woman approached, wearing the well-starched white laced shirt and black skirt that were the universal sign of a master-servant.