The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,411

your wits, have you?” Lopen asked, eyeing the bones. “Because if you have, I’ve got a cousin who makes this drink for people who’ve lost their wits, and it might make you better, sure.”

“If I’d lost my wits,” Kaladin said, walking over to a pool of still water to wash off the carapace helm, “would I say that I had?”

“I don’t know,” Lopen said, leaning back. “Maybe. Guess it doesn’t matter if you’re crazy or not.”

“You’d follow a crazy man into battle?”

“Sure,” Lopen said. “If you’re crazy, you’re a good type, and I like you. Not a killing-people-in-their-sleep type of crazy.” He smiled. “Besides. We all follow crazies all the time. Do it every day with lighteyes.”

Kaladin chuckled.

“So what’s this all for?”

Kaladin didn’t answer. He brought the breastplate over to the leather vest, then tied it onto the front with some of the leather straps. He did the same with the cap and the helm, though he eventually had to saw some grooves into the helm with his knife to make it stay.

Once done, Kaladin used the last straps to tie the bones together and attach them to the front of the round wooden shield. The bones rattled as he lifted the shield, but he decided it was good enough.

He took shield, cap, and breastplate and put them all into Lopen’s sack. They barely fit. “All right,” he said, standing up. “Syl, lead us to the short chasm.” They’d spent some time investigating, finding the best place to launch arrows into the bottom of permanent bridges. One bridge in particular was close to Sadeas’s warcamp—so they often traversed it on the way out on a bridge run—and spanned a particularly shallow chasm. Only about forty feet deep, rather than the usual hundred or more.

She nodded, then zipped away, leading them there. Kaladin and Lopen followed. Teft had orders to lead the others back and meet Kaladin at the base of the ladder, but Kaladin and Lopen should be far ahead of them. He spent the hike listening with half an ear as Lopen talked about his extended family.

The more Kaladin thought about what he was planning, the more brazen it seemed. Perhaps Lopen was right to question his sanity. But Kaladin had tried being rational. He’d tried being careful. That had failed; now there wasn’t any more time for logic or care. Hashal obviously intended Bridge Four to be exterminated.

When clever, careful plans failed, it was time to try something desperate.

Lopen cut off suddenly. Kaladin hesitated. The Herdazian man had grown pale-faced and frozen in place. What was…

Scraping. Kaladin froze as well, a panic rising in him. One of the side corridors echoed with a deep grinding sound. Kaladin turned slowly, just in time to catch sight of something large—no, something enormous— moving down the distant chasm. Shadows in the dim light, the sound of chitinous legs scratching on rock. Kaladin held his breath, sweating, but the beast didn’t come in their direction.

The scraping grew softer, then eventually faded. He and Lopen stood immobile for a long time after the last sound had vanished.

Finally, Lopen spoke. “Guess the nearby ones aren’t all dead, eh, gancho?”

“Yeah,” Kaladin said. He jumped suddenly as Syl zipped back to find them. He unconsciously sucked in Stormlight as he did so, and when she alighted in the air, she found him sheepishly glowing.

“What is going on?” she demanded, hands on hips.

“Chasmfiend,” Kaladin said.

“Really?” She sounded excited. “We should chase after it!”

“What?”

“Sure,” she said. “You could fight it, I’ll bet.”

“Syl…”

Her eyes were twinkling with amusement. Just a joke. “Come on.” She zipped away.

He and Lopen stepped more softly now. Eventually Syl landed on the side of the chasm, standing there as if in mockery of when Kaladin had tried to walk up the wall.

Kaladin looked up at the shadow of a wooden bridge forty feet above. This was the shallowest chasm they’d been able to find; they tended to get deeper and deeper the farther eastward you went. More and more, he was certain that trying to escape to the east was impossible. It was too far, and surviving the highstorm floods was too difficult a challenge. The original plan—fighting or bribing the guards, then running—was the best one.

But they needed to live long enough to try that. The bridge above offered an opportunity, if Kaladin could reach it. He hefted his small bag of spheres and his slung sack full of armor and bones over his shoulder. He’d originally intended to have Rock shoot an