The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,284

us. For him to have eyes of red and blue, Kaladin would have to believe that there was at least a small chance the bridge crew could survive. This night, Kaladin had trouble convincing himself.

He’d never been an optimist. He saw the world as it was, or he tried to. That was a problem, though, when the truth he saw was so terrible.

Oh, Stormfather, he thought, feeling the crushing weight of despair as he stared down at his bowl. I’m falling back to the wretch I was. I’m losing my grip on this, on myself.

He couldn’t carry the hopes of all the bridgemen.

He just wasn’t strong enough.

FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AGO

Kaladin pushed past the shrieking Laral and stumbled into the surgery room. Even after years working with his father, the amount of blood in the room was shocking. It was as if someone had dumped out a bucket of bright red paint.

The scent of burned flesh hung in the air. Lirin worked frantically on Brightlord Rillir, Roshone’s son. An evil-looking, tusklike thing jutted from the young man’s abdomen, and his lower right leg was crushed. It hung by only a few tendons, splinters of bone poking out like reeds from the waters of a pond. Brightlord Roshone himself lay on the side table, groaning, eyes squeezed shut as he held his leg, which was pierced by another of the bony spears. Blood leaked from his improvised bandage, flowed down the side of the table, and dripped to the floor to mix with his son’s.

Kaladin stood in the doorway gaping. Laral continued to scream. She clutched the doorframe as several of Roshone’s guards tried to pull her away. Her wails were frantic. “Do something! Work harder! He can’t! He was where it happened and I don’t care and let me go!” The garbled phrases degenerated into screeches. The guards finally got her away.

“Kaladin!” his father snapped. “I need you!”

Shocked into motion, Kaladin entered the room, scrubbing his hands then gathering bandages from the cabinet, stepping in blood. He caught a glimpse of Rillir’s face; much of the skin on the right side had been scraped off. The eyelid was gone, the blue eye itself sliced open at the front, deflated like the skin of a grape pressed for wine.

Kaladin hastened to his father with the bandages. His mother appeared at the doorway a moment later, Tien behind her. She raised a hand to her mouth, then pulled Tien away. He stumbled, looking woozy. She returned in a moment without him.

“Water, Kaladin!” Lirin cried. “Hesina, fetch more. Quickly!”

His mother jumped to help, though she rarely assisted in the surgery anymore. Her hands shook as she grabbed one of the buckets and ran outside. Kaladin took the other bucket, which was full, to his father as Lirin eased the length of bone from the young lighteyes’s gut. Rillir’s remaining eye fluttered, head quivering.

“What is that?” Kaladin asked, pressing the bandage to the wound as his father tossed the strange object aside.

“Whitespine tusk,” his father said. “Water.”

Kaladin grabbed a sponge, dunked it in the bucket, and used it to squeeze water into Rillir’s gut wound. That washed away the blood, giving Lirin a good look at the damage. He quested with his fingers as Kaladin got some needle and thread ready. There was already a tourniquet on the leg. Full amputation would come later.

Lirin hesitated, fingers inside the gaping hole in Rillir’s belly. Kaladin cleaned the wound again. He looked up at his father, concerned.

Lirin pulled his fingers out and walked to Brightlord Roshone. “Bandages, Kaladin,” he said curtly.

Kaladin hurried over, though he shot a look over his shoulder at Rillir. The once-handsome young lighteyes trembled again, spasming. “Father…”

“Bandages!” Lirin said.

“What are you doing, surgeon?” Roshone bellowed. “What of my son?” Painspren swarmed around him.

“Your son is dead,” Lirin said, yanking the tusk free from Roshone’s leg.

The lighteyes bellowed in agony, though Kaladin couldn’t tell if that was because of the tusk or his son. Roshone clenched his jaw as Kaladin pressed the bandage down on his leg. Lirin dunked his hands in the water bucket, then quickly wiped them with knobweed sap to frighten off rotspren.

“My son is not dead,” Roshone growled. “I can see him moving! Tend to him, surgeon.”

“Kaladin, get the dazewater,” Lirin ordered gathering his sewing needle.

Kaladin hurried to the back of the room, steps splashing blood, and threw open the far cupboard. He took out a small flask of clear liquid.

“What are you doing?” Roshone bellowed, trying to