The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,385

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.

The bridgemen fell in around him. Lopen approached with a waterskin. Kaladin hesitated, then accepted the skin, washing off his face and hands. The warm water splashed across his skin, then brought welcome coolness as it evaporated. He let out a deep breath, nodding thanks to the short Herdazian man.

Lopen raised an eyebrow, then gestured to the pouch tied to his waist. He had recovered the newest pouch of spheres they’d stuck to the bridge with an arrow. This was the fourth time they’d done that, and had recovered them each without incident.

“Did you have any trouble?” Kaladin asked.

“No, gancho,” Lopen said, smiling widely. “Easy as tripping a Horneater.”

“I heard that,” Rock said gruffly, standing in parade rest a short distance away.

“And the rope?” Kaladin asked.

“I dropped the whole coil right over the side,” Lopen said. “But I didn’t tie the end to anything. Just like you said.”

“Good,” Kaladin said. A rope dangling from a bridge would have just been too obvious. If Hashal or Gaz caught scent of what Kaladin was planning…

And where is Gaz? Kaladin thought. Why didn’t he come on the bridge run?

Lopen gave Kaladin the pouch of spheres, as if eager to be rid of the responsibility. Kaladin accepted it, stuffing it into his trouser pocket.

Lopen retreated, and Kaladin fell back into parade rest. The plateau on the other side of the chasm was long and thin, with steep slopes on the sides. Just as in the last few battles, Dalinar Kholin helped Sadeas’s force. He always arrived late. Perhaps he blamed his slow, chull-pulled bridges. Very convenient. His men often had the luxury of crossing without archery fire.

Sadeas and Dalinar won more battles this way. Not that it mattered to the bridgemen.

Many people were dying on the other side of the chasm, but