Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

How was it that these men somehow naturally ended up surrounding themselves with others of their own rank? They married tenners, drank with tenners, joked with tenners. They had their own jargon and traditions. There was an entire world represented here that Kaladin had never seen, despite it residing right next door to him.

“Some middlers are useful,” Kaladin said. “Some of them are good at dueling. Maybe we could go back and recruit that guy. He was wearing a sword.”

The others looked at him like he was mad.

“Kal, my kip,” Beard said. “Kip” was a slang word that Kaladin hadn’t quite figured out yet. “You’re a good fellow. I like how you see the best in folks. You haven’t even learned to ignore me yet, which most folks decide to do after our first meal together.

“But you’ve got to learn to see the world for how it is. You can’t go around trusting middlers, unless they’re good officers like the highmarshal. Men like that one back there, they’ll strut about telling you everything you should do—but put them on the wall during an attack, and they’ll wet themselves yellower than that suit.”

“They have parties,” Ved agreed. “Best thing for them, really. Keeps them out of our business.”

What a strange mix of emotions. On one hand, he wanted to tell them about Amaram and rant about the injustices done—repeatedly—to those he loved. At the same time … they were mocking Adolin Kholin, who had a shot at the title of best swordsman in all of Alethkar. Yes, his suit was a little bright—but if they would merely spend five minutes talking to him, they’d see he wasn’t so bad.

Kaladin trudged along. It felt wrong to be on patrol without a spear, and he instinctively sought out Syl, who rode the winds above. He’d been given a side sword to carry at his right, a truncheon to carry at his left, and a small round shield. The first thing the Wall Guard had taught him was how to draw the sword by reaching down with his right hand—not lowering his shield—and pulling it free of the sheath.

They wouldn’t use sword or truncheon when the Voidbringers finally assaulted; there were proper pikes up above for that. Down here was a different matter. The large road—it rounded the city alongside the wall—was clear and clean, maintained by the Guard. But most of the streets that branched off it were crowded with people. Nobody but the poorest and most wretched wanted to be this close to the walls.

“How is it,” Ved said, “those refugees can’t get it through their heads that we’re the only thing separating them from the army outside?”

Indeed, many of those they passed on side streets watched the patrol with outright hostility. At least nobody had thrown anything at them today.

“They see that we’re fed,” Noro replied. “They smell food from our barracks. They’re not thinking with their heads, but with their stomachs.”

“Half of those belong to the cult anyway,” Beard noted. “One of these days, I’ll have to infiltrate that. Might have to marry their high priestess, but let me tell you, I’m terrible in a harem. Last time, the other men grew jealous of me taking all the priestess’s attention.”

“She laughed so hard at your offering she got distracted, eh?” Ved asked.

“Actually, there’s a story about—”

“Calm it, Beard,” the lieutenant said. “Let’s get ready for the delivery.” He shifted his shield to his other hand, then took out his truncheon. “Get intimidating, everybody. Truncheons only.”

The group pulled out their wooden cudgels. It felt wrong to have to defend themselves from their own people—brought back memories of being in Amaram’s army, bivouacking near towns. Everyone had always talked about the glories of the army and the fight on the Shattered Plains. And yet, once towns got done gawking, they transitioned to hostility with remarkable speed. An army was the sort of thing everyone wanted to have, so long as it was off doing important things elsewhere.

Noro’s squad met up with another from their platoon—with two squads on the wall for duty, two squads off, and two down here patrolling, they were around forty strong. Together, the twelve men formed up to guard a slow, chull-pulled wagon that left one of their larger barrack warehouses. It carried a mound of closed sacks.

Refugees crowded around, and Kaladin brandished his truncheon. He had to use his shield to shove a man who got too close. Fortunately, this caused others to back away, instead of rushing the wagon.

They rolled inward only one street before stopping at a city square. Syl flitted down and rested on his shoulder. “They … they look like they hate you.”

“Not me,” Kaladin whispered. “The uniform.”

“What … what will you do if they actually attack?”

He didn’t know. He hadn’t come to this city to fight the populace, but if he refused to defend the squad …

“Storming Velalant is late,” Ved grumbled.

“A little more time,” Noro said. “We’ll be fine. The good people know this food goes to them eventually.”

Yes, after they wait hours in line at Velalant’s distribution stations.

Farther into the city—obscured by the gathering crowds—a group of people approached in stark violet, with masks obscuring their faces. Kala din watched uncomfortably as they started whipping their own forearms. Drawing painspren, which climbed from the ground around them, like hands missing the skin. Except these were too large, and the wrong color, and … and didn’t seem human.

“I prayed to the spren of the night and they came to me!” a man at their forefront shouted, raising hands high. “They rid me of my pain!”

“Oh no…” Syl whispered.

“Embrace them! The spren of changes! The spren of a new storm, a new land. A new people!”

Kaladin took Noro by the arm. “Sir, we need to retreat. Get this grain back to the warehouse.”

“We have orders to…” Noro trailed off as he glanced at the increasingly hostile crowd.

Fortunately, a group of some fifty men in blue and red rounded a corner and began shoving aside refugees with rough hands and barked shouts. Noro’s sigh was almost comically loud. The angry crowd broke away as Velalant’s troops surrounded the grain shipment.

“Why do we do this in the daytime?” Kaladin asked one of their officers. “And why don’t you simply come to our warehouse and escort it from there? Why the display?”

A soldier moved him—politely, but firmly—back from the wagon. The troops surrounded it and marched it away, the crowd flowing after them.

When they got back to the wall, Kaladin felt like a man seeing land after swimming all the way to Thaylenah. He pressed his palm against the stone, feeling its cool, rough grain. Drawing a sense of safety from it, much as he would draw out Stormlight. It would have been easy to fight that crowd—they were basically unarmed. But while training prepared you for the mechanics of the fight, the emotions were another thing entirely. Syl huddled on his shoulder, staring back along the street.

“This is all the queen’s fault,” Beard muttered softly. “If she hadn’t killed that ardent…”