The Way of Kings, Part 1 (The Stormlight Archive #1.1)

“Spears, used by lighteyes?” Drehy said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?” Sigzil said, sounding offended. “I find the Emuli way to be interesting. In some countries, it is seen as displeasing to fight at all. To the Shin, for instance, if you must fight a man, then you have already failed. Killing is, at best, a brutish way of solving problems.”

“You’re not going be like Rock and refuse to fight, are you?” Skar asked, shooting a barely-veiled glare at the Horneater. Rock sniffed and turned his back on the shorter man, kneeling down to shove boots into a large sack.

“No,” Sigzil said. “I think we can all agree that other methods have failed. Perhaps if my master knew I still lived … but no. That is foolish. Yes, I will fight. And if I have to, the spear seems a favorable weapon, though I honestly would prefer to put more distance between myself and my enemies.”

Kaladin frowned. “You mean with a bow?”

Sigzil nodded. “Among my people, the bow is a noble weapon.”

“Do you know how to use one?”

“Alas, no,” Sigzil said. “I would have mentioned it before now if I had such proficiency.”

Kaladin stood up, opening the pouch and depositing the spheres in with the others. “Were there any bows among the bodies?”

The men glanced at each other, several of them shaking heads. Storm it, Kaladin thought. The seed of an idea had begun to sprout in his mind, but that killed it.

“Gather up some of those spears,” he said. “Set them aside. We’ll need them for training.”

“But we have to turn them in,” Malop said. “Not if we don’t take them with us up out of the chasm,” Kaladin said. “Each time we come scavenging, we’ll save a few spears and stash them down here. It shouldn’t take long to gather enough to practice with.”

“How will we get them out when it’s time to escape?” Teft asked, rubbing his chin. “Spears left down here won’t do these lads much good once the real fighting starts.”

“I’ll find a way to get them up,” Kaladin said.

“You say things like that a lot,” Skar noted.

“Leave off, Skar,” Moash said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Kaladin blinked. Had Moash just defended him?

Skar flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Kaladin. I’m just asking, that’s all.”

“I understand. It’s …” Kaladin trailed off as Syl flitted down into the chasm in the form of a curling ribbon.

She landed on a rock outcropping on the wall, taking on her female form. “I found another group of bodies. They’re mostly Parshendi.”

“Any bows?” Kaladin asked. Several of the bridgemen gawked at him until they saw him staring into the air. Then they nodded knowingly to one another.

“I think so,” Syl said. “It’s just down this way. Not too far.”

The bridgemen had mostly finished with these bodies. “Gather up the things,” Kaladin said. “I’ve found us another place to scavenge. We need to gather as much as we can, then stash some in a chasm where it has a good chance of not being washed away.”

The bridgemen picked up their findings, slinging sacks over their shoulders and each man hefting a spear or two. Within moments, they headed down the dank chasm bottom, following Syl. They passed clefts in the ancient rock walls where old, storm-washed bones had gotten lodged, creating a mound of moss-covered femurs, tibia, skulls, and ribs. There wasn’t much salvage among them.

After about a quarter-hour, they came to the place Syl had found. A scattered group of Parshendi dead lay in heaps, mixed with the occasional Alethi in blue. Kaladin knelt beside one of the human bodies. He recognized Dalinar Kholin’s stylized glyphpair sewn on the coat. Why had Dalinar’s army joined Sadeas’s in battle? What had changed?

Kaladin pointed for the men to begin scavenging from the Alethi while he walked over to one of the Parshendi corpses. It was much fresher than Dalinar’s man. They didn’t find nearly as many Parshendi corpses as they did Alethi. Not only were there fewer of them in any given battle, but they were less likely to fall to their deaths into the chasms. Sigzil also guessed that their bodies were more dense than human ones, and didn’t float or wash away as easily.

Kaladin rolled the body onto its side, and the action elicited a sudden hiss from the back of the group of bridgemen. Kaladin turned to see Shen pushing forward in an uncharacteristic display of passion.

Teft moved quickly, grabbing Shen from behind, placing him in a choke hold. The other bridgemen stood, aghast, though several fell into their stances by reflex.

Shen struggled weakly against Teft’s grip. The parshman looked different from his dead cousins; close together, the differences were much more obvious. Shen—like most parshmen—was short and a little plump. Stout, strong, but not threatening. The corpse at Kaladin’s feet, however, was muscled and built like a Horneater, easily as tall as Kaladin and far broader at the shoulders. While both had the marbled skin, the Parshendi had those strange, deep-red growths of armor on the head, chest, arms, and legs.

“Let him go,” Kaladin said, curious.

Teft glanced at him, then reluctantly did as commanded. Shen scrambled over the uneven ground and gently, but firmly, pushed Kaladin away from the corpse. Shen stood back, as if protecting it from Kaladin.

“This thing,” Rock noted, stepping up beside Kaladin, “he has done it before. When Lopen and I take him scavenging.”

“He’s protective of the Parshendi bodies, gancho,” Lopen added. “Like he’d stab you a hundred times for moving one, sure.”

“They’re all like that,” Sigzil said from behind.

Kaladin turned, raising an eyebrow.

“Parshman workers,” Sigzil explained. “They’re allowed to care for their own dead; it’s one of the few things they seem passionate about. They grow irate if anyone else handles the bodies. They wrap them in linen and carry them out into the wilderness and leave them on slabs of stone.”

Kaladin regarded Shen. I wonder… .

“Scavenge from the Parshendi,” Kaladin said to his men. “Teft, you’ll probably have to hold Shen the whole time. I can’t have him trying to stop us.”

Teft shot Kaladin a suffering glance; he still thought they should set Shen at the front of the bridge and let him die. But he did as told, pushing Shen away and getting Moash’s help to hold him.

“And men,” Kaladin noted. “be respectful of the dead.”

“They’re Parshendi!” Leyten objected.

“I know,” Kaladin said. “But it bothers Shen. He’s one of us, so let’s keep his irritation to a minimum.”

The parshman lowered his arms reluctantly and let Teft and Moash pull him away. He seemed resigned. Parshmen were slow of thought. How much did Shen comprehend?

“Didn’t you wish to find a bow?” Sigzil asked, kneeling and slipping a horned Parshendi shortbow out from underneath a body. “The bowstring is gone.”

“There’s another in this fellow’s pouch,” Maps said, pulling something out of another Parshendi corpse’s belt pouch. “Might still be good.”