The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,296

and stagnant pools of water, good only for growing cremling larvae.

The bridgemen clustered together unconsciously as they always did in this fell place. Kaladin walked in front, and Syl fell silent. He gave Teft the chalk to mark directions, and didn’t pause to pick up salvage. But neither did he walk too quickly. The other bridgemen were hushed behind them, speaking in occasional whispers too low to echo. As if their words were strangled by the gloom.

Rock eventually moved up to walk beside Kaladin. “Is difficult job, we have been given. But we are bridgemen! Life, it is difficult, eh? Is nothing new. We must have plan. How do we fight next?”

“There is no next fight, Rock.”

“But we have won grand victory! Look, not days ago, you were delirious. You should have died. I know this thing. But instead, you walk, strong as any other man. Ha! Stronger. Is miracle. The Uli’tekanaki guide you.”

“It’s not a miracle, Rock,” Kaladin said. “It’s more of a curse.”

“How is that a curse, my friend?” Rock asked, chuckling. He jumped up and into a puddle and laughed louder as it splashed Teft, who was walking just behind. The large Horneater could be remarkably childlike at times. “Living, this thing is no curse!”

“It is if it brings me back to watch you all die,” Kaladin said. “Better I shouldn’t have survived that storm. I’m just going to end up dead from a Parshendi arrow. We all are.”

Rock looked troubled. When Kaladin offered nothing more, he withdrew. They continued, uncomfortably passing sections of scarred wall where chasmfiends had left their marks. Eventually they stumbled across a heap of bodies deposited by the highstorms. Kaladin stopped, holding up his torch, the other bridgemen peeking around him. Some fifty people had been washed into a recess in the rock, a small dead-end side passage in the stone.

The bodies were piled there, a wall of the dead, arms hanging out, reeds and flotsam stuck between them. Kaladin saw at a glance that the corpses were old enough to begin bloating and rotting. Behind him, one of the men retched, which caused a few of the others to do so as well. The scent was terrible, the corpses slashed and ripped into by cremlings and larger carrion beasts, many of which scuttled away from the light. A disembodied hand lay nearby, and a trail of blood led away. There were also fresh scrapes in the lichen as high as fifteen feet up the wall. A chasmfiend had ripped one of the bodies loose to devour. It might come back for the others.

Kaladin didn’t retch. He shoved his half-burned torch between two large stones, then got to work, pulling bodies from the pile. At least they weren’t rotted enough to come apart. The bridgemen slowly filled in around him, working. Kaladin let his mind grow numb, not thinking.

Once the bodies were down, the bridgemen laid them in a line. Then they began pulling off their armor, searching their pockets, taking knives from belts. Kaladin left gathering the spears to the others, working by himself off to the side.

Teft knelt beside Kaladin, rolling over a body with a head smashed by the fall. The shorter man began to undo the straps on the fallen man’s breastplate. “Do you want to talk?”

Kaladin didn’t say anything. He just kept working. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about what will happen. Just survive.

Don’t care, but don’t despair. Just be.

“Kaladin.” Teft’s voice was like a knife, digging into Kaladin’s shell, making him squirm.

“If I wanted to talk,” Kaladin grumbled, “would I be working here by myself?”

“Fair enough,” Teft said. He finally got the breastplate strap undone. “The other men are confused, son. They want to know what we’re going to do next.”

Kaladin sighed, then stood, turning to look at the bridgemen. “I don’t know what to do! If we try to protect ourselves, Sadeas will have us punished! We’re bait, and we’re going to die. There’s nothing I can do about it! It’s hopeless.”

The bridgemen regarded him with shock.

Kaladin turned from them and went back to work, kneeling beside Teft. “There,” he said. “I explained it to them.”

“Idiot,” Teft said under his breath. “After all you’ve done, you’re abandoning us now?”

To the side, the bridgemen turned back to work. Kaladin caught a few of them grumbling. “Bastard,” Moash said. “I said this would happen.”

“Abandoning you?” Kaladin hissed to Teft. Just let me be. Let me go back to apathy. At least then there’s no pain.