they had been.
The bridgemen clustered around, watching. He’d started training Rock, Drehy, and Skar already, but with all of them watching, Kaladin found himself explaining. “If you put pressure here, you can slow the blood flow. This isn’t too dangerous a wound, though it probably doesn’t feel too good…”—the patient grimaced his agreement—“…and the real problem will come from infection. Wash the wound to make sure there aren’t any slivers of wood or bits of metal left, then sew it. The muscles and skin of the shoulder here are going to get worked, so you need a strong thread to hold the wound together. Now…”
“Kaladin,” Lopen said, sounding worried.
“Wha?” Kaladin said, distracted, still working.
“Kaladin!”
Lopen had called him by his name, rather than saying gancho. Kaladin stood up, turning to see the short Herdazian man standing at the back of the crowd, pointing at the chasm. The battle had moved farther north, but a group of Parshendi had punched through Sadeas’s line. They had bows.
Kaladin watched, stunned, as the group of Parshendi fell into formation and nocked. Fifty arrows, all pointed at Kaladin’s crew. The Parshendi didn’t seem to care that they were exposing themselves to attack from behind. They seemed focused on only one thing.
Destroying Kaladin and his men.
Kaladin screamed the alarm, but he felt so sluggish, so tired. The bridgemen around him turned as the archers drew. Sadeas’s men normally defended the chasm to keep Parshendi from pushing over the bridges and cutting off their escape. But this time, noticing that the archers weren’t trying to drop the bridges, the soldiers didn’t hasten to stop them. They left the bridgemen to die, instead cutting off the Parshendi route to the bridges themselves.
Kaladin’s men were exposed. Perfect targets. No, Kaladin thought. No! It can’t happen like this. Not after—
A force crashed into the Parshendi line. A single figure in slate-grey armor, wielding a sword as long as many men were tall. The Shardbearer swept through the distracted archers with urgency, slicing into their ranks. Arrows flew toward Kaladin’s team, but they were loosed too early, aimed poorly. A few came close as the bridgemen ducked for cover, but nobody was hit.
Parshendi fell before the sweeping Blade of the Shardbearer, some toppling into the chasm, others scrambling back. The rest died with burned-out eyes. In seconds, the squad of fifty archers had been reduced to corpses.
The Shardbearer’s honor guard caught up with him. He turned, armor seeming to glow as he raised his Blade in a salute of respect toward the bridgemen. Then he charged off in another direction.
“That was him,” Drehy said, standing up. “Dalinar Kholin. The king’s uncle!”
“He saved us!” Lopen said.
“Bah.” Moash dusted himself off. “He just saw a group of undefended archers and took the chance to strike. Lighteyes don’t care about us. Right, Kaladin?”
Kaladin stared at the place where the archers had stood. In one moment, he could have lost it all.
“Kaladin?” Moash said.
“You’re right,” Kaladin found himself saying. “Just an opportunity taken.”
Except, why raise the Blade toward Kaladin?
“From now on,” Kaladin said, “we pull back farther after the soldiers cross. They used to ignore us after the battle began, but they won’t any longer. What I did today—what we’re all going to be doing soon—will make them mighty angry. Angry enough to be stupid, but also angry enough to see us dead. For now, Leyten, Narm, find good scouting points and watch the field. I want to know if any Parshendi make moves toward that chasm. I’ll get this man bandaged and we’ll pull back.”
The two scouts ran off, and Kaladin turned back to the man with the wounded shoulder.
Moash knelt beside him. “An assault against a prepared foe without any bridges lost, a Shardbearer coincidentally coming to our rescue, Sadeas himself complimenting us. You almost make me think I should get one of those armbands.”
Kaladin glanced down at the prayer. It was stained with blood from a slice on his arm that the vanishing Stormlight hadn’t quite been able to heal.
“Wait to see if we escape.” Kaladin finished his stitching. “That’s the real test.”
“I wish to sleep. I know now why you do what you do, and I hate you for it. I will not speak of the truths I see.”
—Kakashah 1173, 142 seconds pre-death. A Shin sailor, left behind by his crew, reportedly for bringing them ill luck. Sample largely useless.
“You see?” Leyten turned the piece of carapace over in his hands. “If we carve it up at the edge, it encourages a