The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,194

keep your head. But I hate that feeling of killing while calm and cold. I’ve seen that those who care fight harder, longer, and better than those who don’t. It’s the difference between mercenaries and real soldiers. It’s the difference between fighting to defend your homeland and fighting on foreign soil.

It’s good to care when you fight, so long as you don’t let it consume you. Don’t try to stop yourself from feeling. You’ll hate who you become.

The spear quivered in Kaladin’s fingers, as if begging him to swing it, spin it, dance with it.

“What are you planning to do, lordling?” a voice called. “Going to ram that spear into your own gut?”

Kaladin glanced up at the speaker. Moash—still one of Kaladin’s biggest detractors—stood near the line of corpses. How had he known to call Kaladin “lordling”? Had he been talking to Gaz?

“He claims he’s a deserter,” Moash said to Narm, the man working next to him. “Says he was some important soldier, a squadleader or the like. But Gaz says that’s all stupid boasting. They wouldn’t send a man to the bridges if he actually knew how to fight.”

Kaladin lowered the spear.

Moash smirked, turning back to his work. Others, however, had now noticed Kaladin. “Look at him,” Sigzil said. “Ho, bridgeleader! You think that you’re grand? That you are better than us? You think pretending that we’re your own personal troop of soldiers will change anything?”

“Leave him alone,” Drehy said. He shoved Sigzil as he passed. “At least he tries.”

Earless Jacks snorted, pulling a boot free from a dead foot. “He cares about looking important. Even if he was in the army, I’ll bet he spent his days cleaning out latrines.”

It appeared that there was something that would pull the bridgemen out of their silent stupors: loathing for Kaladin. Others began talking, calling gibes.

“…his fault we’re down here…”

“…wants to run us ragged during our only free time, just so he can feel important…”

“…sent us to carry rocks to show us he could shove us around…”

“…bet he’s never held a spear in his life.”

Kaladin closed his eyes, listening to their scorn, rubbing his fingers on the wood.

Never held a spear in his life. Maybe if he’d never picked up that first spear, none of this would have happened.

He felt the smooth wood, slick with rainwater, memories jumbling in his head. Training to forget, training to get vengeance, training to learn and make sense of what had happened.

Without thinking about it, he snapped the spear up under his arm into a guard position, point down. Water droplets from its length sprayed across his back.

Moash cut off in the middle of another gibe. The bridgemen sputtered to a stop. The chasm became quiet.

And Kaladin was in another place.

He was listening to Tukks chide him.

He was listening to Tien laugh.

He was hearing his mother tease him in her clever, witty way.

He was on the battlefield, surrounded by enemies but ringed by friends.

He was listening to his father tell him with a sneer in his voice that spears were only for killing. You could not kill to protect.

He was alone in a chasm deep beneath the earth, holding the spear of a fallen man, fingers gripping the wet wood, a faint dripping coming from somewhere distant.

Strength surged through him as he spun the spear up into an advanced kata. His body moved of its own accord, going through the forms he’d trained in so frequently. The spear danced in his fingers, comfortable, an extension of himself. He spun with it, swinging it around and around, across his neck, over his arm, in and out of jabs and swings. Though it had been months since he’d even held a weapon, his muscles knew what to do. It was as if the spear itself knew what to do.

Tension melted away, frustration melted away, and his body sighed in contentment even as he worked it furiously. This was familiar. This was welcome. This was what it had been created to do.

Men had always told Kaladin that he fought like nobody else. He’d felt it on the first day he’d picked up a quarterstaff, though Tukks’s advice had helped him refine and channel what he could do. Kaladin had cared when he fought. He’d never fought empty or cold. He fought to keep his men alive.

Of all the recruits in his cohort, he had learned the quickest. How to hold the spear, how to stand to spar. He’d done it almost without instruction. That had shocked Tukks. But