“We aren’t turning around?”
His friend chuckled wryly. “Lad, we aren’t nearly there yet. Be glad we aren’t. Arriving is the worst part.”
And so the nightmare began its second phase. They crossed the bridge, pulled it over behind them, then lifted it up on sore shoulders once more. They jogged across the plateau. At the other side, they lowered the bridge again to span another chasm. The army crossed, then it was back to carrying the bridge again.
They repeated this a good dozen times. They did get to rest between carries, but Kaladin was so sore and overworked that the brief respites weren’t enough. He barely caught his breath each time before being forced to pick up the bridge again.
They were expected to be quick about it. The bridgemen got to rest while the army crossed, but they had to make up the time by jogging across the plateaus—passing the ranks of soldiers—so that they could arrive at the next chasm before the army. At one point, his leathery-faced friend warned him that if they didn’t have their bridge in place quickly enough, they’d be punished with whippings when they returned to camp.
Gaz gave orders, cursing the bridgemen, kicking them when they moved too slowly, never doing any real work. It didn’t take long for Kaladin to nurture a seething hatred of the scrawny, scarfaced man. That was odd; he hadn’t felt hatred for his other sergeants. It was their job to curse at the men and keep them motivated.
That wasn’t what burned Kaladin. Gaz had sent him on this trip without sandals or a vest. Despite his bandages, Kaladin would bear scars from his work this day. He’d be so bruised and stiff in the morning that he’d be unable to walk.
What Gaz had done was the mark of a petty bully. He risked the mission by losing a carrier, all because of a hasty grudge.
Storming man, Kaladin thought, using his hatred of Gaz to sustain him through the ordeal. Several times after pushing the bridge into place, Kaladin collapsed, feeling sure he’d never be able to stand again. But when Gaz called for them to rise, Kaladin somehow struggled to his feet. It was either that or let Gaz win.
Why were they going through all of this? What was the point? Why were they running so much? They had to protect their bridge, the precious weight, the cargo. They had to hold up the sky and run, they had to…
He was growing delirious. Feet, running. One, two, one, two, one, two.
“Stop!”
He stopped.
“Lift!”
He raised his hands up.
“Drop!”
He stepped back, then lowered the bridge.
“Push!”
He pushed the bridge.
Die.
That last command was his own, added each time. He fell back to the stone, a rockbud hastily withdrawing its vines as he touched them. He closed his eyes, no longer able to care about cramps. He entered a trance, a kind of half sleep, for what seemed like one heartbeat.
“Rise!”
He stood, stumbling on bloody feet.
“Cross!”
He crossed, not bothering to look at the deadly drop on either side.
“Pull!”
He grabbed a handhold and pulled the bridge across the chasm after him.
“Switch!”
Kaladin stood up dumbly. He didn’t understand that command; Gaz had never given it before. The troops were forming ranks, moving with that mixture of skittishness and forced relaxation that men often went through before a battle. A few anticipationspren—like red streamers, growing from the ground and whipping in the wind—began to sprout from the rock and wave among the soldiers.
A battle?
Gaz grabbed Kaladin’s shoulder and shoved him to the front of the bridge. “Newcomers get to go first at this part, Your Lordship.” The sergeant smiled wickedly.
Kaladin dumbly picked up the bridge with the others, raising it over his head. The handholds were the same here, but this front row had a notched opening before his face, allowing him to see out. All of the bridgemen had changed positions; the men who had been running in the front moved to the back, and those at the back—including Kaladin and the leathery-faced bridgeman—moved to the front.
Kaladin didn’t ask the point of it. He didn’t care. He liked the front, though; jogging was easier now that he could see ahead of him.
The landscape on the plateaus was that of rough stormlands; there were scattered patches of grass, but the stone here was too hard for their seeds to fully burrow into. Rockbuds were more common, growing like bubbles across the entire plateau, imitating rocks about the size of a man’s head. Many of the buds were split, trailing out their vines like thick green tongues. A few were even in bloom.
After so many hours breathing in the stuffy confines beneath the bridge, running in the front was almost relaxing. Why had they given such a wonderful position to a newcomer?
“Talenelat’Elin, bearer of all agonies,” said the man to his right, voice horrified. “It’s going to be a bad one. They’re already lined up! It’s going to be a bad one!”
Kaladin blinked, focusing on the approaching chasm. On the other side of the rift stood a rank of men with marbled crimson and black skin. They were wearing a strange rusty orange armor that covered their forearms, chests, heads, and legs. It took his numbed mind a moment to understand.
The Parshendi.
They weren’t like common parshman workers. They were far more muscular, far more solid. They had the bulky build of soldiers, and each one carried a weapon strapped to his back. Some wore dark red and black beards tied with bits of rock, while others were clean-shaven.
As Kaladin watched, the front row of Parshendi knelt down. They held shortbows, arrows nocked. Not longbows intended to launch arrows high and far. Short, recurve bows to fire straight and quick and strong. An excellent bow to use for killing a group of bridgemen before they could lay their bridge.
Arriving is the worst part….
Now, finally, the real nightmare began.
Gaz hung back, bellowing at the bridge crews to keep going. Kaladin’s instincts screamed at him to get out of the line of fire, but the momentum of the bridge forced him forward. Forced him down the throat of the beast itself, its teeth poised to snap closed.
Kaladin’s exhaustion and pain fled. He was shocked alert. The bridges charged forward, the men beneath them screaming as they ran. Ran toward death.
The archers released.
The first wave killed Kaladin’s leathery-faced friend, dropping him with three separate arrows. The man to Kaladin’s left fell as well—Kaladin hadn’t even seen his face. That man cried out as he dropped, not dead immediately, but the bridge crew trampled him. The bridge got noticeably heavier as men died.
The Parshendi calmly drew a second volley and launched. To the side, Kaladin barely noticed another of the bridge crews floundering. The Parshendi seemed to focus their fire on certain crews. That one got a full wave of arrows from dozens of archers, and the first three rows of bridgemen dropped and tripped those behind them. Their bridge lurched, skidding on the ground and making a sickening crunch as the mass of bodies fell over one another.
Arrows zipped past Kaladin, killing the other two men in the front line with him. Several other arrows smacked into the wood around him, one slicing open the skin of his cheek.
He screamed. In horror, in shock, in pain, in sheer bewilderment. Never before had he felt so powerless in a battle. He’d charged enemy fortifications, he’d run beneath waves of arrows, but he’d always felt a measure of control. He’d had his spear, he’d had his shield, he could fight back.
Not this time. The bridge crews were like hogs running to the slaughter.
A third volley flew, and another of the twenty bridge crews fell. Waves of arrows came from the Alethi side as well, falling and striking the Parshendi. Kaladin’s bridge was almost to the chasm. He could see the black eyes of the Parshendi on the other side, could make out the features of their lean marbled faces. All around him, bridgemen were screaming in pain, arrows cutting them out from underneath their bridges. There was a crashing sound as another bridge dropped, its bridgemen slaughtered.
Behind, Gaz called out. “Lift and down, you fools!”
The bridge crew lurched to a stop as the Parshendi launched another volley. Men behind Kaladin screamed. The Parshendi firing was interrupted by a return volley from the Alethi army. Though he was shocked senseless, Kaladin’s reflexes knew what do to. Drop the bridge, get into position to push.
This exposed the bridgemen who had been safe in the back ranks. The Parshendi archers obviously knew this was coming; they prepared and launched one final volley. Arrows struck the bridge in a wave, dropping a half-dozen men, spraying blood across the dark wood. Fearspren—wiggling and violet—sprang up through the wood and wriggled in the air. The bridge lurched, growing much harder to push as they suddenly lost those men.
Kaladin stumbled, hands slipping. He fell to his knees and pitched out, leaning over the chasm. He barely managed to catch himself.
He teetered, one hand dangling above the void, the other gripping the edge. His overextended mind wavered with vertigo as he stared down that sheer cliff, down into darkness. The height was beautiful; he’d always loved climbing high rock formations with Tien.
By reflex, he shoved himself back onto the plateau, scrambling backward. A group of foot soldiers, protected by shields, had taken up positions pushing the bridge. The army’s archers exchanged arrows with the Parshendi as the soldiers pushed the bridge into place and heavy cavalry thundered across, smashing into the Parshendi. Four bridges had fallen, but sixteen had been placed in a row, allowing for an effective charge.
Kaladin tried to move, tried to crawl away from the bridge. But he just collapsed where he was, his body refusing to obey. He couldn’t even roll over onto his stomach.
I should go… he thought in exhaustion. See if that leathery-faced man is still alive…. Bind his wounds…. Save….
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. To his shame, he just let himself close his eyes and gave himself over to unconsciousness.
“Kaladin.”
He didn’t want to open his eyes. To wake meant returning to that awful world of pain. A world where defenseless, exhausted men were made to charge lines of archers.
That world was the nightmare.
“Kaladin!” The feminine voice was soft, like a whisper, yet still urgent. “They’re going to leave you. Get up! You’ll die!”
I can’t…I can’t go back….
Let me go.
Something snapped against his face, a slight slap of energy with a sting to it. He cringed. It was nothing compared with his other pains, but somehow it was far more demanding. He raised a hand, swatting. The motion was enough to drive away the last vestiges of stupor.
He tried to open his eyes. One refused, blood from a cut on his cheek having run down and crusted around the eyelid. The sun had moved. Hours had passed. He groaned—sitting up, rubbing the dried blood from his eye. The ground near him was littered with bodies. The air smelled of blood and worse.
A pair of sorry bridgemen were shaking each man in turn, checking for life, then pulling the vests and sandals off their bodies, shooing away the cremlings feeding on the bodies. The men would never have checked on Kaladin. He didn’t have anything for them to take. They’d have left him with the corpses, stranded on the plateau.