Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dallet's burned-out eyes looked up at Kaladin in blank shock. A thin white line across his face was the only mark left by the shardblade. Shouts of horror and panic surrounded Kaladin as his men drew in toward their squadleader. Kaladin held his breath. He had lost men before, lost friends, but never had he lost them to such a foe. A single, unbeatable symbol of the injustice of war.

"Sir! The army!" Toorim was shouting in his ear. Soldiers peeled off the line in loose mobs, running back towards the town they had camped near the previous night. The weight of Amaram's advance faultered, then reversed. The Shardbearer charged towards the well-armored wedge at the front of the line. That was where Amaram would be, leading his honor guard.

"He's going to decapitate the army," Kaladin said. He started forward, not knowing what he would do but seeing immediately where he was needed. Toorim held his arm, his grip vice-like.

"Stormblessed!" Toorim shouted shakily, as if he had seen a ghost. "I'd follow you, sir. But the battle is falling apart. We can't stand alone out here."

Kaladin knew he was right. The Shardbearer on his towering black mount charged alone against the center of the line, and the men there broke before even meeting his blade. Off in the other direction, Kaladin heard the trampling of hooves. Spinning, he saw a group of archers fleeing from a squadron of light cavalry. Kaladin leapt into action and issued orders to his sub-squads. He couldn't save Amaram, but maybe he could save a few more lives before the day was over and keep the situation from turning into a full-blown rout.

"Pairwise! Charge!" Kaladin shouted as they neared the enemy. The ten spearmen on his heels immediately split into groups of two. The riders swarmed the archers, who clumped together with short swords or knives held out as their last meager defense.

Kaladin flipped one knife into the air and threw it. The blade buried itself in the back of the nearest horseman. Then he charged two others with his spear raised high. Kaladin let out a roar, and his men followed suit. One horse reared in surprise, tumbling over and crushing its rider's leg. The other rider took Kaladin's spear through the armpit and fell to the ground in a heap. Both horses bolted as Kaladin's men went to work in pairs.

Soon, eight horsemen were cleared away, and the others had taken notice. The other half of Kaladin's squad followed in without pause, grouped more closely to present a wall of raised spears. The miniature phalanx rushed to the aid of the archers and began warding off the startled horsemen.

Kaladin picked up a bundle of javelins from one of the fallen horsemen. Just as the enemy seemed to be regrouping in the face of this new threat, Kaladin began raining missiles down in their general direction. The archers took the hint, and those who still had strung bows loosed arrows on their tormentors. Finally, the cavalry seemed to think better of their attack and bolted off in search of easier prey.

"Thank you, uh, Squadleader," sighed one of the archers as Kaladin approached the impromptu formation. He was lighteyed, and the knots on his shoulder marked him as a captianlord, despite his evident youth. Now that Kaladin was looking at them closely, the entire unit seemed to be lighteyed, the relief on their faces tempered by chagrin at the fact that they had been rescued by darkeyes.

"I know you," the Captainlord said. "Stormblessed, right? I suppose you are as fierce as they say."

"Fierce or lucky," Kaladin said absently. His eyes were back on the main line. The Shardbearer had scattered Amaram's honor guard, and now the entire left flank seemed to be in retreat. Oddly, the enemy infantry hadn't made a move to pursue them yet. The right wing of Amaram's army must have advanced out of view, and perhaps they weren't even aware of the situation.

"Brightlord, since when has Hallaw had a shardbearer among his forces?" Kaladin said.

"Since never," the boy scoffed. "It's a blatant escalation, against all propriety and-"

"And the entire army's been caught off guard in the middle of the final assault." Kaladin pointed out the fleeing men. "Someone needs to rally them before the enemy realizes what bad shape we're in. I've just killed a battalionlord, so their lines may be confused for a time."

"You've what? Well, alright, but who's going to rally the..." The Captainlord trailed off as he noticed Kaladin's glare.

"My men will join yours, and we can pick up more along the way. Come on."

Kaladin's spearmen fell in alongside their squad leader at a brisk march, and the archers followed even before the Captainlord gave the order. The lighteyed officer held his head for a moment before taking his position at the head of the unit to at least give the impression that he was in charge. Together, they numbered just under fifty—not much of a unit, but the only significant mass left on this part of the battlefield. Kaladin assessed the wounded. Only a handful, thankfully, and they could still walk.

As the force moved towards the center of the battlefield, Kaladin signaled his men to fan out widely. The archers seemed to recognize the formation and formed a line just behind the spearmen. A group of stragglers who seemed to have faced the worst of the battle wandered towards their formation group, and Kaladin ran out ahead to intercept them.

"Are you the reserves?" gasped one of the men, a large bearded pikeman who still clung to his weapons despite bleeding badly from a wound across his shoulder.

"Amaram already committed the reserves; we're the... rallying point," Kaladin said with as much confidence as he could muster. Normally, fleeing soldiers would be reorganized behind the lines, but with the battle in disarray, soldiers seemed to be wandering aimlessly, looking in vain for a safe place. "Will you join us?"

The Pikeman looked at Kaladin's mixed force approaching and sighed. Then, with a swift kick, he snapped his pike in half, leaving a length approximately equal to that of Kaladin's own spear. "Aye," he said and fell in beside the other spearmen.

Kaladin tried to tend the men's wounds as they marched, tried to keep his mind off the gnawing thoughts in the back of his head. They encountered more fleeing men as they marched. Some joined, seeing safety in the only apparently unbroken unit on the field. Others refused to rally, their fear overwhelming any honor they'd once possessed. Kaladin stripped the fleeing men of their weapons and ordered them back to camp. Better those too shaken not join them, or else infect the swelling unit with their nerves.

Kaladin encountered one high-ranking officer, a companylord with a shattered arm clutched to his chest, but didn't insist he take command. The man's haunted expression showed he was no longer fit for duty. Instead, Kaladin relayed an order from a fictitious battalionlord to reassemble the troops at camp and prepare for a defense of the town. There was a brief sign of relief on the lightyeye's face as he received a reasonable excuse to quit the battlefield.

Some of the men that joined whispered Kaladin's name: Stormblessed is here. Stormblessed is leading us. His reputation had gotten around, much to Kaladin's irritation. If he were really Stormblessed, he wouldn't be in this Heralds forsaken army fighting a meaningless war. If he were really Stormblessed, he'd have saved Cenn, the boy who looked so much like—

Kaladin realized as the unit crested a hill that they had come upon a place where the lines had met in combat. Bodies were strewn across the ground, dead or in the process of dying. Kaladin's first instinct was to try and save them, but there were too many, all badly injured, and the sounds of battle were not far off. Red rotspren already crawled among the corpses like so many cremlings.

"Gather arrows, javelins, and shields if you need them!" Kaladin shouted. He scanned the horizon. A counterattack was due by now. Where was it? Kaladin's force had more than doubled, almost a full company, but the enemy on this flank had apparently dispersed or been redirected. The lighteyed Captainlord approached him with his head raised conspicuously, attempting to match Kaladin's stature.

"We broke their infantry here; my men were firing from the flanks but got chased off by their cavalry. What did you see of the Shardbearer?" The young man kept his voice steady, but the strain in his eyes was unmistakable.

"He came from behind our lines after Amaram and his guard had committed themselves in the center," Kaladin said. "It must've been contrived before the battle, but..."

"Did you see his honor guard? Any banners at all?"

"No, he rode alone." Kaladin grimaced at the memory. "And he didn't seem to need a guard; no one stood against him."

"Still, that's unusual. If they put the Shardbearer at the head of the vanguard and smashed our center to begin with they could've avoided the whole battle." That was true, Kaladin thought. The sight of the solitary Shardbearer had been bothering him since he'd had time to catch his breath.

"It seems he's run off Amaram's honor guard," Kaladin said, pointing towards a company of perhaps eighty men, some mounted, others on foot, staggering towards them. Their fine, burnished armor was spattered with blood and dust. They weren't broken, but they had lost their banner and, evidently, their general.

Kaladin and the Captainlord shared a glance, then simultaneously ordered their ragtag unit to follow them. Kaladin ran ahead as the Captainlord set the pace of the march. Off in the distance, Kaladin could still hear the clanging of steel on steel. Perhaps the forces on the right had failed to notice the rout on the left, or else they were pinned and unable even to flee. But why hadn't the Shardbearer struck them immediately?

As Kaladin approached the honor guard, a squat, darkeyed sergeant barked at him. "Turn back, boy. Battle's over. Save your men while you still can."

"Is Amaram dead?" Kaladin asked.

"Dead. And General Kedele as well," rasped a mounted lieutenant. A bandage covered a laceration on his throat, and he evidently had trouble speaking. "We're to withdraw and regroup at camp."

"We have men down there dying," Kaladin growled. "We should join up and relieve the right flank together while the enemy is still in disarray."

"Look there, squadleader," spit another horseman with green eyes and a red face. "We have no intention of facing that again." The man was a companylord, probably the highest-ranking officer left in Amaram's honor guard. He pointed his longsword in the direction they had come from. In a low gulley a few hundred paces off, scores, perhaps hundreds, of corpses lay scattered, their armor and weapons in pieces. At the far end, the Sharbearer stood, his massive black horse beside him. He used the massive blade to delicately slice away the armor on a prostrate body, then dismissed it. He knelt, cradling his burnished gold helmet under one arm, and examined the body casually.

Perfect. Kaldin's face twitched. The gruff Sergeant was the only one who seemed to notice, taking a step back and looking up to his superior officers. As Kaladin's force neared, the squadleader began to pace between the two units, his spear held in a ready position.

"Am I to understand that you, the Honor Guard of Absendiar Highmarshal Meridas Amaram, have not only failed to defend your commander but also refuse to even attempt to avenge him?" Kaladin shouted, the wind beginning to bluster. "Am I to understand that the best soldiers on the battlefield would rather surrender honor, surrender their fellow soldiers' lives, than join battle again and win the day in the name of their Highprince? What will Sadeas say after we have allowed his sharpest general to die in vain?"

"Shut your mouth, you impudent cremling!" the Captianlord began to curse, but others among his men faltered. Many looked at their boots, and others gritted their teeth at Kaladin's insults.

"Do what you want, Brightlord; I intend to take what men will follow me and kill that Shardbearer, take his shards, and rescue what remains of Amaram's army," Kaladin said, almost believing his own bravado. Kaladin's squad cheered, and some of the archers did as well. As the wind whipped his hair around him, the whispers started up again: Stormblessed is leading. Stormblessed could do it.

With a scowl, the Captainlord kicked his horse into a walk. Most of the cavalry followed after him, but the squat sergeant stood still. His subsquad and about twenty others stood beside him, shifting their glances between the two darkeyed leaders.

"Did you mean what you said about taking the shards and saving the army?" growled the Sergeant. The man was too old to be a sergeant, too old to be a soldier. Amaram must have kept him in his honor guard for a reason.

"Yes," Kaladin said to his own surprise. Honestly, he had just been riling up the lighteyes, trying to inflame their honor—what little they had left—but it hadn't worked. Now, in front of this man, he had to mean it. "That's exactly what I intend to do."

On the lip of the gully, Kaladin, the Captainlord, the Sergeant, and Coreb, Kal's best sergeant, laid low, observing the Shardbearer. Kaladin had dispersed scouts in all directions. The uneven terrain made visibility a nightmare, but in this fight, it would be to their advantage.

"How are regular men meant to fight Shardbearers?" Kaladin asked. He knew what he would do, the same as with the battalionlord: get close and find the chink in his armor, but he wanted to know how it was supposed to be done.

"You don't," said the Captainlord. "But if you have to: ropes and hammers. Restrain him and break the shardplate. The extremities will freeze if connecting pieces are broken, and if it runs out of stormlight, the whole thing will freeze."

"Could any of your men make a shot this far?" Kaladin said, hoping against hope.

"Possible, but not likely, aiming for just his head. What is he doing?"

"He's defiling the Highmarshal's body," growled the Sergeant. "I have your hammers, Stormblessed, but better kill his horse first. If he suspects an ambush, he'll run."

Suddenly, the Shardbearer looked up. Kaladin thought for a moment that they had been overheard, but he was looking in the opposite direction. Five horsemen had ridden up to the opposite lip of the gully and yelled towards the Shardbearer. He looked up from Amaram's body, almost annoyed at the interruption. He shouted something back, but Kaladin couldn't make it out.

"He's speaking Veden," the Captainlord said. "Where did Hallaw scrape up the spheres to hire a Veden mercenary Shardbearer?"

"Doesn't matter," Kaladin said. The Shardbearer's conversation didn't seem to be very productive. As the horsemen withdrew, Kaladin's scouts returned. They reported that the right flank had been backed up against the wall of a cliff on the other side of the battlefield and was holding off the enemy in a tight phalanx. Meanwhile, a battalion of enemy cavalry was regrouping and preparing either to smash the phalanx or to strike directly at the camp where the wounded and routed were regrouping. Either choice would lead them right by the gully.

"No time," Kaladin said as he made his final decisions. "Brightlord, I need you and half our forces to remain on this near lip. The archers need to keep up a steady stream of fire after the first volley while the rest of us get into position. Don't commit the spearmen unless the Shardbearer tries to escape; fight him from high ground. Coreb, I need you to lead the other half of the men to the other side of the gully. Keep him from escaping there, but also keep a watch out for the cavalry; they could be on us at any time. Sergeant, you and yours are with me."

"I'm with you too," a gruff voice said. Kaladin turned. The Pikeman, who'd first joined up with Kaladin's ragtag band, had crawled up beside them. The big man, Kaladin's equal in height and more muscular, seemed dead set on joining despite the wounds he'd taken.

"Fine," Kaladin said, "does everyone agree?" To his surprise, they did. Without question, the Captainlord and Sergeant set their men in order. Coreb, with Kaladin's squad and a contingent of light infantry, began to make his way around the gully. Kaladin had never been in charge of this many men and never planned anything on this scale. And all for the sake of one man. One lighteyes who had killed hundreds all for the pleasure of looting Amaram's corpse.

The archers loosed. Kaladin ran. He stumbled down the slope, spear in hand, but as he reached flat ground, he found his stride, the wind at his back. The Shardbearer looked up just as a hail of arrows fell around him. He raised one impenetrable arm, blocking any missile that might have ended things quickly. His horse did not fare as well. Fletched shafts blossomed in its shoulder, and it made as if to bolt. With an impossibly firm grip, the red-haired Veden took hold of the reins.

No hands left for the Shardblade. Kaladin let out a roar, and the remnants of the honor guard followed suit. The Shardbearer turned green eyes on Kaladin, and suddenly there was surprise. He leapt into the saddle to flee, attempting at the same time to reseat the helmet onto his armor. Then six more arrows planted themselves in the horse's side. The black beast bucked and tumbled over onto its rider. The Shardbearer was down. Kaladin could see him struggling to right himself. With every last breath, Kaladin launched himself towards the fallen man. The seconds passed like hours. Kaladin's breath burned in his chest. The wind blew in his face as if trying to fill his lungs. Kaladin vaulted the Veden's steed, raised his spear to strike, and saw the shardblade appear out of mist in the man's gauntlet.

One swing nearly took out Kaladin's legs as he somersaulted over the prone Shardbearer. He had gotten his helmet on, and now the only visible chink was the thin slit of his visor.

Kaladin landed roughly. The Sergeant and his men had not kept pace with Kaladin. As they approached to surround the Shardbearer, the hulking golden monster lifted himself with one hand and kicked the horse's corpse in their direction. Two men were crushed by it, and the others startled back.

One of the Shardbearers' greaves was cracked and leaked stormlight where the horse had crushed it. He pivoted on that foot, surveying his opponents. His curved, golden shardblade shimmered like a rippling flame, reflecting the pale red stone of the gully. Kaladin rose, spear in hand.

With inhuman speed, the Shardbearer lashed out at the honor guard, a thin wisp replacing his blade as it severed their souls and burned out their eyes. Five more fell before Kaladin could move a muscle. The Sergeant cried out with his hoarse voice and made his best strike with the spiked end of his hammer. It cracked the right vambrace but did not stop the swooping arc of the blade as it passed through the Sergeant's arm. The Shardbearer kicked with his bad leg and sent the old soldier down to the ground with a hollow thud.

Kaladin's senses left him. He launched at the Shardbearer's back and swung his spear without fear. His spear exploded on contact with the Shardbearer's good leg, cracking it only slightly. The rest of the honor guard rushed in from the front, swinging hammers, maces, axes, and glaives with abandon. A haphazard sweep of the blade killed or crippled half of them, their blows landing without effect. The pikeman struck more deliberately, catching the damaged vambrace with the point of his improvised spear. The cracks deepened, and the pikeman retreated in time to avoid the sweep of the blade.

Kaladin discarded his shattered spear and rolled out of the way of a backward swipe of the blade. The Shardbearer turned on him as Kaladin retreated. The Shardbearer walked slowly now, planting both feet cautiously. A rain of arrows pelted his back, but he paid them no mind. Kaladin drew and threw a knife with a flash, but the blade merely glanced off the helm.

Kaladin became aware of the sound of galloping horses. The cavalry must be harassing Coreb's men at the top of the rise. He cursed himself for leading even more men into this death trap. Only a handful of the Sergeant's men were left, too wary to strike the Shardbearer as he pursued Kaladin.

Kaladin climbed the rise out of the gully, scrambling through gravel and sand. Near the top, he tripped on a large rock. The Shardbearer followed methodically. Disarmed and winded, heart aching, Kaladin did the only thing he could think. He picked up the large rock he'd tripped on and launched it with all his force. The Shardbearer attempted to swipe it away with a casual swing but misjudged its speed. The rock impacted the cracked vambrace and shattered it into a million molten pieces.

The gauntlet froze around the shardblade and the Shardbearer's hand, its weight now adding to the weight of the blade. Kaladin picked up a fist-sized rock and threw it overhand. It struck the Shardbearers exposed forearm with an audible crack. The man's helm muffled a guttural scream and he slipped in the gravel, sliding back down the gully. Kaladin slid down too, angling away from the injured Shardbearer. He found himself beside the Sergeant's remaining men. They hadn't run, and neither had the pikeman, who mirrored Kaladin's position on the other side of the honor guard.

Arrows flew overhead, but not towards the Shardbearer. It seemed like the Captainlord's archers were supporting Coreb's men across the gully. Kaladin hoped they were alright, but he had no time to think of them as the Shardbearer rose to his feet.

Kaladin picked up a discarded mace from the ground. The Shardbearer's right arm hung limp at his side now, the blade dragging on the ground. With the left arm raised in a boxing stance, Kaladin sensed panic in his prey like a whitespine on the trail of an injured chull.

Kaladin and the honor guard struck as one. The shardblade rose with much effort, but the Pikeman batted down the arm with a swift swat. The others rained blows on the helm, chest, and legs. The Shardbearer punched wildly, but Kaladin dodged and assaulted him with the mace. Occupied with Kaladin's repeated attacks, the Shardbearer neglected the work of the honor guard. His greaves gave out, first one, then the other, and the Shardbearer collapsed in a heap. He swung his left arm like a mace of his own, but Kaladin struck with ferocious precision. The pauldron shattered under repeated blows. The Shardbearers arm fell limp under the weight of the dead plate.

With evident pain, the Shardbearer raised his right arm in a last, half-hearted slash towards Kaladin. It missed, and Kaladin pinned the broken arm to the ground with his boot. The fight was over, but blood still pounded in Kaladin's skull. He stood over the Shardbearer with a hate unlike any he'd ever felt before, even more visceral and pure than that he felt for Roshone. Bubbling pools of blood appeared around his feat, angerspren feasting. Kaladin had never felt the fabled 'Thrill' before, but he doubted this was it. The battle was over; now he yearned for justice, retribution, revenge. He could hear this man's labored breathing and wished to silence it.

Each strike with the mace reverberated through Kaladin's whole body. The Sharbearer struggled, panted, tried with all his strength to rise but could not. His golden helm bounced off the red stone with a bell-like ring. Violet fearspren wriggled out of the ground around him, mingling with leaking stormlight. They tossed their heads with every blow. The man was saying something in Veden, shouting, but Kaladin didn't care to listen. The final blow smashed the helm with little resistance. The mace landed in the Veden man's face like a brick falling in wet crem. The fearspren ebbed away as their fodder suddenly evaporated.

Kaladin stooped to pry open the Shardbearer's frozen gauntlet. He cracked open the tight fist with the flat of a knife, like cracking boiled lanka claws back in Hearthstone. The shardblade came free and did not disappear. Kaladin grazed the hilt with his fingers but pulled away. It gave him a sinking feeling in his stomach, like his body was rejecting it. The ruby in its pommel flashed white at his touch. Kaladin felt the connection form in the back of his mind like a pulled muscle. The thing looked otherworldly—longer than most men were tall, shimmering gold, etched with glyphs along the entire length. The cramped hilt bent forward against the curve of the blade, large enough for a single gauntleted hand.

Kaladin realized he was shaking. He couldn't tell if it was angst, excitement, or exhaustion, but his hand trembled, both drawn towards the sword and repulsed by it. Suddenly, he realized that he was surrounded by men. His men. Coreb, Hab, Alabet, and Reesh. Acis, Hamel, Raksha, and Navar. Toorim stood mouth-agape, awespren bursting around him. The sound of trampling hooves was receding into the distance. The men who had rallied with him watched from the lip of the gully in mute astonishment. The lighteyed archers were filing in behind the honor guard. The young Captainlord's eyes were closed, his head bent as if in prayer. Two of the surviving men of the honor guard hoisted their Sergeant to his feet. His right arm was turning gray, bladedead, and he breathed shallowly—several ribs likely cracked. He met Kaladin's lost gaze.

"You've got to take it, boy," he grumbled, face hard and pained.

"I can't," Kaladin said, and he meant it. That blade had killed his men, countless others. That blade had taken the Sergeant's arm. The faint sounds of battle echoed in the distance. Clattering, shouting, crying. Men in all directions looked upon Kaladin in expectant silence.

"You have to, boy," the Sergeant said almost in a whisper. "There are more men left to save."

Kaladin looked at his hands and then at the blade. This moment was what every darkeyed soldier dreamed of—what many died seeking. Kaladin dreaded it. Cursed the day he joined Amaram's army. Mourned his own bruised soul. But he had promised.

Kill to protect. Kaladin clasped the shardblade in his hand and raised it over his head.

Chapter Text

Kaladin wiped the sweat from his brow. He was sitting on a boulder a ways off from the main field of battle. Even here, he could see bodies lying at odd angles in all directions. Cracks in the earth drank up their pooling blood like rock buds in the weeping. Soldiers milled about the plain, some tending to the wounded, others looting the dead. In the distance a cheer was being raised, men celebrated being alive. Those nearby watched Kaladin out of the corner of their eyes. Or perhaps they were looking at something else. The only unbloodied sword in sight.

Almost against his will Kaladin’s eyes were drawn to the blade. He could feel its tug even a few feet away. Some part of him wished someone would come and take it away, take back the decision he was forced to make. That would not happen, not after what the entire army had seen him do with it. Kaladin pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, the weariness of the day catching up to him. He wondered if they had changed color yet. What would it mean if they did?

When he had charged the enemy phalanx, their backs turned, death itself in his hands and a hundred men behind him, he felt that he had become the great agent of injustice, just as the Veden Shardbearer had been before. The slaughter, the route, the victory, it was entirely arbitrary. Why should his army be saved while theirs was destroyed? Just because he picked up the blade? Kaladin had killed many soldiers in his few years in Amaram’s army. Today he had easily doubled that number and with only a fraction of the effort. 

Kaladin rubbed his wrist. The wretched thing was too heavy to wield in one hand, and awkward to hold in two. It was designed for use in shardplate, if ‘designed’ was even the right word. Both the plate and blade seemed too perfect, too beautiful to have been made by mortal hands. Whoever this sword was made meant for, none of their kind lived today. 

“Brightlord. Someone is coming.” The looming shadow over Kaladin’s shoulder spoke quietly. It was the massive, bearded pikeman who had joined Kaladin and the honor guard in the assault on the Shardbearer. Kaladin learned his name afterwards: Kavel, an eight year veteran of Amaram’s army. He had never been promoted because pike companies had no use for darkeyed sergeants or squad leaders, but he had been placed in the first rank of the first file, which was the closest equivalent position. 

It took Kaladin a moment to realize Kavel was speaking to him. He followed the tip of Kavel’s spear to the ridgeline a few hundred paces off. A force of mixed infantry bearing Amaram’s colors crested the rise in a loosely ordered formation. Kaladin didn’t move from his rock as they approached. They numbered nearly one thousand all together, but the banners of three battalionlords flew at their head.

“Reinforcements,” Kaladin grunted as he mentally prepared himself for the meeting.

Seeing that the enemy had dispersed, the incoming infantry began to break up, returning soldiers mingling with those who’d been rescued. A platoon of stretcher bearers ran out from the rear of the approaching formation and set about tending to the wounded, the lighteyes taking priority as always. 

With a grimace, Kaladin stood to meet the party of officers who eyed him as they approached. The shardblade flashed gaudily as he retrieved it. He held it upside down at the hilt like a walking stick, its tip stabbing several inches into the hardened crem. The blade drew even more stares now. Men he had rescued whispered to the newcomers, and they whispered back in disbelief. The officers didn’t seem to be in need of rumor, they had clearly heard something of what had happened earlier. 

Kavel joined Kaladin at his side. Despite being just as tired and more wounded than Kaladin himself, he kept a straight back as if presenting himself for inspection alongside his entire company. Kaladin’s squad was not nearby; he had ordered them to perform basic first aid as soon as the enemy army had been dispersed, but some of the men he had first rallied drew in towards him. The officers stopped a few paces away. Kaladin did not salute.

Norby, Kaladin’s own captainlord, stood slack-jawed in undisguised astonishment among the other officers. His battalionlord, Restees, was there too, his bushy eyebrows furrowed in thought. He might outrank them now, Kaladin realized. He would be fourth Dahn, and more significant than any lighteyes short of a general. There were two other battalionlords, an older and a younger, who Kaladin didn’t immediately recognize, and several companylords. As the soldiers began to congregate around the meeting, Kaladin decided he would have to break the silence himself.

“Hallaw’s infantry forces have been routed with heavy casualties. Battalionlord Ordinal took about three hundred men with him to harry their retreat; make sure they don’t turn back on us. I told him not to follow them more than two miles, but...” Kaladin trailed off. Ordinal had seemed almost offended by the suggestion at the time, and marched off without acknowledging him with even a nod. The other battalionlord had at least thanked him for the rescue. “We met some of the cavalry earlier, but they mostly ignored us when they realized we weren’t retreating. I don’t know where they’ve gone, but I sent squads to scout—”

“They assaulted the camp,” said one of the companylords. Kaladin recognized him. It was the one Kaladin had sent back to camp with orders to prepare the defense. His eyes were not lost as they had been, but focused intently on Kaladin and the shardblade. “About three hundred light cavalry. We turned them away as well. Evidently they were on the hunt for fleeing men.” Kaladin nodded respectfully. The man was clearly ashamed of quitting the battlefield, but seemed to be doing his best to redeem himself. 

“My men are tending the wounded as best they can, but many here need surgeons. There are too many to transport. It’d be best if a contingent of surgeons were dispatched here immediately. We can set up a field hospital to deal with the most serious cases, and carry the rest back to camp in time. Prisoners are being held by the cliffs; about five hundred total. Some of them may need attention as well.” 

Kaladin was careful not to phrase any of this as an order. The battalionlords in particular seemed edgy and uncertain. The older one, a burly man with ice white hair, made a subtle gesture, and a pair of runners set off back in the direction they had come. 

“Who are you boy,” he said in a rasping voice. He was not focused on the shardblade, but Kaladin himself. Kaladin met the battalionlords eyes, sky blue and intense. All faces turned to Kaladin, expectantly. Before he could respond, Keval was already shouting. 

“His name is Brightlord Kaladin Stormblessed, Avenger of Absidier Highmarshal Meridas Amaram. And the savior of this army.” The Pikeman’s voice resounded deeply across the plain. It cast a hush over the crowd, then mumbles picked up his words. Stormblessed. Stormblessed. 

“Amaram is dead then,” the elder battalionlord continued, unfazed.

“Dead, Yes.” Kaladin took no pleasure in admitting it. He still felt that there was a chance, however slim, that he could’ve saved the Highmarshal, but it was not the time for regrets. “General Kedele too, if reports are to be believed.”

The younger battalionlord looked to his elder and said something under his breath. “Quiet boy,” responded the old man. “That’ll be decided later.”

“If both the Highmarshal and Kedele are dead, then that leaves General Seti in overall command,” said Restees. He’d come out of his contemplative daze and was now looking suspiciously at his fellow battalionlords. “You’ve done well, soldier. Miraculously. No darkeyed man has won shards on the field of battle in living memory, and no one here will forget it. But I can see you’re exhausted now. Melys and I will see the men taken care of and returned to camp. You should go as well, and we can all talk when you’re rested.”

Restees turned to go and the rest seemed inclined to follow, but Kaladin interrupted them. “If General Seti is in command, why isn’t he here?” 

Kaladin’s battalionlord—or his former battalionlord—turned to respond hesitantly. “The General took a wound in battle. He is being tended in camp.”

“They are going to try and take your shards.” Kavel’s breath was warm on Kaladin’s neck. The pikeman looked askance at every unfamiliar soldier who entered within three paces of them, but clearly had no sense for personal space himself. Kaladin’s self appointed bodyguard heeled to his side like a trained axehound. Notably, he stayed on his left, opposite the side Kaladin carried the shardblade, still using it as a walking stick.

“They can try.” Part of Kaladin wanted the shards to be taken. If it came to violence he’d rather every lighteyed officer in camp kill each other over the cursed things than risk his own men’s lives again. It had been luck that had saved them in the gully. If all the enemy cavalry had been sent against them at once, then all of them would have been killed. Instead only one squadron was dispatched and turned away. That still bothered Kaladin, but it wasn’t important at the moment.

“There’s a full suit of shardplate sitting out on the plain somewhere and you’re treating it like spheres in the bank,” Kavel continued earnestly. “You need to claim them properly. Publicly. Once the full set is together, they won’t be able to deny you.”

“The plate is broken, and I have no way to repair it,” Kaladin said. “Even if every man who fought with me pooled his spheres together, I doubt we could squeeze enough stormlight out of them to fix it. Not that any of us even know how.” Kaladin did know the basics of how Shardplate worked. There were infused gemstones hidden somewhere that powered the plate like a fabrial. It could even heal itself when broken. But now that it was broken, that meant the stormlight had run out.

Kavel thought for a moment. “We need to find an ardent. You’re a shardbearer, that means you get ardents who take care of your plate.”

“The only ardents in this army belong to Amaram.”

“Who’s dead. And you avenged him. They owe you.”

Kaladin turned on Kavel, startling the large man. There were equal in height, but Kavel was at least two stonesweight heavier. Nevertheless the pikeman shrank from Kaladin’s gaze. “Why do I have to take the plate?” Kaladin said. “Each man who rushed him in the gully played their part in that fight. Why don’t you go claim it if it’s so important?”

Kaladin stomped away before Kavel could respond. “Because you killed him, Brightlord, you led us. Without you we’d all be fleeing or dead.”

“Quit calling me Brightlord. I only pick up this thing to save the army. And I’m only holding onto it to make sure my men are taken care of. After that I don’t care what happens to it.”

That silenced the pikeman. Kaladin could imagine the astonishment on his face. Kaladin almost couldn’t believe it himself. When he joined Amaram’s army, he had harbored boyhood dreams of winning shards, becoming lighteyed. But he outgrew that fantasy long ago. 

In Hearthstone, the relationship between lighteyes and darkeyes came in only two forms. Roshone was a bloodsucking cremling, but Wistiow had been a kind and generous man. Some lighteyes were good, others were bad, just like everybody else. Or so Kaladin had thought. At war, Kaladin realized that the distinction between light and dark was much more insidious than that. It could make the difference between life and death, reward and sacrifice. How many times had he seen stretcher bearers pass through a field of wounded darkeyes to fetch the one lighteyed officer among them? How often had he seen veterans ruled over by amateurs, the wise commanded by the ignorant, honorable men trampled by petty ambition? Succeeding in such a system spoke against a man's character, not for it. 

So far as Kaladin was concerned, the only lighteyed officer worth following had died earlier that day. Maybe there were some worthy of their titles, Highprinces like Dalinar and Sadeas, but they were on the Shattered Plains fighting the Parshendi. Here, the dregs of lighteyed society scrabbled for every shred of wealth, rank, or influence they could find. Fighting that was like warring against the storm. Since leaving home, Kaladin had learned to fight as well as any man in the army. The hardest lesson to learn was how to turn away from a battle that he couldn’t win.

He found his squad where he had left them, tending to the hastily arranged triage station near where the hardest fighting had taken place. He’d trained them in the basics of field medicine so that they could take care of one another in battle. He was proud to see them using it on others now.

Kaladin was in the habit of bribing the stretcher bearers to visit his squad as often as they did lighteyed units, and it seemed that some of them remembered their agreement. Coreb and Toorim were directing them to the worst cases, those in need of immediate evacuation. They looked up as he approached, looked at the sword, then stood at attention. The stretcher bearers averted their eyes and did as they’d been ordered.

“We’ve tended to about two hundred,” Coreb said.  “Mostly small lacerations. But there are no bandages. We’ve been gathering spare cloth from the dead, but...”

“Surgeons are on their way.” Kaladin pointed in the direction of the camp. “Send back those that can walk and don’t need immediate attention. The stretcher bearers can take the most seriously wounded now, but send the rest to the other parts of the battlefield. There are wounded all over the plain, not just here.” 

Kaladin was thinking of the honor guard back in the gully. Ten had been killed outright by the blade in his hand, most of the rest were crippled by it. But those wounds wouldn’t rot or bleed. Kaladin looked out at the rest of his men busy at work, wrapping wounds and laying out the wounded. Part of him was relieved that his men had been spared that fight in the gully, another part was ashamed of that feeling. 

“What of our dead?” Kaladin asked, his eyes diverted from the two men in front of him.

“Larn and Korater,” Coreb responded solemnly. “Cyn and Lyndel too. Dalet of course and... the new boy, I never learned his name.”

“Cenn,” Kaladin provided. He had been trampled by the Shardbearers horse. The blade hadn’t even touched him, he had froze at the sight of the massive beast and its equally massive rider. But Dallet... Kaladin could see his face now. A thin gray line through his skull, two burned out eyes and a mouth agape in terror. Kaladin’s hand tensed around the shardblade’s hilt. Somewhere on this battlefield there were a swath of men with that same horrified expression. Kaladin had cut them down, left them like a forest of stumpweight trees felled for their wood. 

“What.. did the Brightlords say?” Toorim asked hesitantly. Kaladin thought the man had been shaken by the battle. Every time he looked at Kaladin, it was as if he were seeing a ghost.

“The enemy cavalry attempted to storm the camp, but were turned away. Probably they’ve retreated back to their own camp, but keep watchers out in case they find this place.” With another thousand men in this area, Kaladin didn’t expect the cavalry to strike even if they did come near, but it was never unwise to keep a lookout for danger.

“He meant about you, Sir,” Coreb said seriously. 

“They said I should take a rest.” 

Toorim laughed nervously, Coreb remained solemn. “You should. But you can’t. With Amaram gone, there’s no one to keep those storming fools in line. At least one of them is thinking of claiming those shards for himself, and none of them are above slitting your throat.”

Kavel grunted his agreement. Kaladin was about to tell them both off loudly enough for his whole squad to hear, but he was interrupted by a man running towards them at a dead sprint.

“Brightlord!” he wheezed. “The Companylord. He’s back. And the Sergeant. He won’t.”

“Catch your breath soldier,” Kaladin barked. “And don’t call me that.” He recognized the man now. Both of his hands had turned gray at the wrists. He was one of the men from the honor guard who had charged the shardbearer with him.

“Sergeant Haber, sir. He won’t let Gylan take your shardplate. He’s sitting on the Shardbearer’s chest, waving an axe at anyone who comes near. The Companylord is threatening to have him killed.”

Damnation take the man! Kaladin reacted instantly, hefting the shardblade into an upright position and breaking into a jog. Coreb and Toorim began to follow, but Kaladin waved them off. “Stay with the wounded. I can take care of this myself.” 

Both men looked uncertain but obeyed. Kaladin turned and was surprised to find Kavel running in a different direction. He’d been trying to shake the pikeman since the battle ended, but now felt like he could use an extra spear at his side. It didn’t matter. If it came to a fight, Kaladin didn’t want to risk anybody else’s life for these damned shards.

Sergeant Haber had two axes, one lashed to his blade dead arm, the other held high overhead. He stood on the chestplate of the shardbearer, indifferent to the stares he drew from all around. Even the other members of the honor guard looked at him incredulously. Less amused, the Companylord, Gylan, sat his horse with a coterie of followers from camp. Some were tending to Amaram’s body, but others stood on their guard. 

“Any man who lays a hand on this armor loses the hand! This prize belongs to Stormblessed, and I’ll be damned if anyone even thinks of cheating him!” Haber was shouting at the gathered crowd, his eyes wild. Gylan had not drawn his sword, but his hand itched at the pommel. 

“You’d best see a surgeon about your own hand, Sergeant. It could be your death,” Gylan said  through a tight grin. “I could take it off if you’d like.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Kaladin said. He stood at the lip of the gully looking down on the scene. He became the center of everyone’s attention. The Captainlord’s red face twitched into a grimace. 

“Stormblessed!” Haber shouted. “Is the army saved? Is the enemy nearby?” The man seemed more than slightly unhinged. The battle had been over for more than an hour.
 
Kaladin slid as gracefully as he could down the side of the gully, his shardblade dragging behind him, turning loose rocks into gravel. He watched the captainlord. Kaladin didn’t know what the other officers intended, but this one didn’t bother hiding his feelings. Kaladin had called Gylan out before the battle, besmirched his honor, and now that he held the shards, shamed him. Every lighteyed soldier would like a shardblade, some would kill to have one. Gylan might kill Kaladin just for revenge.

“Do we have a problem, Brightlord,” Kaladin said as he reached the bottom of the gully.

“We only came to retrieve the Highmarshal’s body,” Gylan said, “and we saw you’d left your prize unattended. It was only my intention to return it to camp where it could be cared for.”

The lie was so brazen even his own men looked askance at their companylord. One short, robed woman looked outright amused as she dismounted. As she lowered her hood, Kaladin realized by her shaved head that she was an Ardent. On any other woman the glinting gold on her hand might be a ring or bracelet, but Ardents weren’t permitted such things. She was a Soulcaster too.

“Ah! You must be the one Gylan has been muttering about the whole ride,” she shouted. “To hear him tell it, you’d be a bile spitting lurg out of Marabethia, but you’re much too tall.”

Her humorous tone was wildly inappropriate for a battlefield, there were probably dying men within earshot, but the woman took Kaladin by surprise. He suppressed a smile. 

 “Ardent, am I correct to believe that this plate and blade belong to me?”

“I don’t know, did you kill the man who was previously wearing it?”

“He did!” Haber said. “We all saw it with our own eyes.”

“Then it’s yours. By killing the previous shardbearer in legal combat, you immediately gained the right to claim and bestow the plate and blade as you see fit. From the moment you claimed it, you were also raised to the fourth dahn, equivalent to a battalionlord.” That made all the lighteyes faces twist. The Ardent smiled blithely as if she couldn’t see the red ribbons of anticipationspren whipping around the gully. 

“Then I order Companylord Gylan to return Highmarshal Amaram’s body back to camp.” Kaladin spoke slowly, barely believing his own words. Now was not the time for timidity, he had to be decisive. 

“But of course, Gylan has rights as well,” the Ardent continued. “If Gylan here decides to claim the Right of Challenge over your past grievances, then he is entitled to fight you to the death. And if he kills you, the shards would go to him.” She then looked over toward the Companylord. “Brightlord, please do whatever you are going to do quickly. I wish to inspect the plate.” 

Gylan refocused on Kaladin, shifting like everyone between his face and the blade. Even outnumbered ten to one, Kaladin felt like he could beat this man, but he didn’t want to. Gylan had seen the blade in action as well, and had run from it before. The only difference now is that it was being held by a darkeyes. Kaladin worried that the Companylord’s prejudice was strong enough to overwhelm his instinct for self preservation.

The men around him looked uncertain, then suddenly afraid. A scattering of gravel rolled down into the gully. Kaladin didn’t have to look to know who was there. The lip of the gully bristled  with thirty arrows nocked in short bows. Of course Kavel had fetched Captainlord Yeshal and the archers. 

This sight hadn’t scared the shardbearer, but with only a a handful fighting men, the cavalry were dangerously outnumbered and out of position. Kaladin could see Gylan recalculating the odds in his head. He was weighing a formal challenge against an illegal brawl and didn’t like his chances either way. 

Gylan grunted his disgust. He turned his horse and led off a procession back towards camp. The men tending to Amaram hastily slung their former Highmarshal on the back of a pack horse and followed after their retreating Companylord. Some looked back at Kaladin as they trotted off, again quitting the battlefield in shame. That problem wasn’t going away any time soon. 

The Ardent approached the Shardbearer's corpse unfazed. Even when Haber gestured half heartedly with an axe, she simply pushed it aside and knelt to inspect the plate. The old man looked to Kaladin for orders, his eyes wild and lost. 

“Thank you, Haber,” Kaladin said gently, “For the loyalty you showed me. You can put down the axes now, I think Captainlord Yeshal has security under control.” 

The old man nodded. The other men of the honor guard looked worried about him. Kaladin barely knew the man, but evidently something had pushed him over the edge. Losing Amaram must’ve been the start, then his men, then his arm. Haber had lost more in the past few hours than most could handle. 

Kaladin left him with the other men who had been crippled by the shardblade. He hated to see their wounds, they way their arms simply fell limp in their laps. If Gylan had attacked, Kaladin didn’t know that he could even use the blade against him or his followers. The sword was simply unfair to fight with. 

Kaladin tried to put thoughts of fighting out of his mind. Everyone here now was a friend or ally. Unlike most of the lighteyes, Yeshal seemed perfectly at peace with Kaladin. Granted, he had been willing to follow orders even before Kaladin claimed the shardblade. Kavel was back on guard duty with a self-satisfied expression. 

The only stranger left in the gully was the Ardent, who was busy disassembling the shardplate piece by piece. Kaladin approached her slowly, waiting until she had noticed him. She glanced at his face, but ignored him in favor of the plate. Kaladin stabbed the shardblade into the ground more aggressively than he intended, but still the Ardent did not acknowledge his presence. 

“So what are you, my... shardplate attendant now?” he asked.

“That’s a strange question,” she said, not looking up. “Did Amaram will his Ardents over to you with his dying breath?”

“No.”

“Then why would you think I belong to you?” 

“Do you serve Gylan then?”

“Almighty above,” she laughed. “Not for all the gems in the Thaylen reserve. Amaram does have a potential heir in camp, one Companylord Sheler if you’re familiar. A similarly odious man, but thankfully I won’t be his property either.”

“Then who?” 

The Ardent tapped two hidden levers on the inside of the shardplate and the entire cuirass popped off. She lifted it with great effort, then handed it over to Kaladin. The chestplate was heavy, it probably weighed as much as the Ardent herself, all five feet of her. 

“I belong to Highprince Sadeas himself. I was only loaned to Amaram to support him in the war.” She displayed her uncovered safe hand scandalously. Kavel averted his gaze, and began acting as if he had some other duty to attend to. Kaladin kept the surprise off his face and examined her unusual jewelry. On her hand, several gemstones were suspended in gold chains attached to her rings and bracelet. “It makes metal. Not quite useful enough for the Shattered Plains, but good enough to help out here.”

Kaladin had heard of soulcasting, knew it was used in camp, but never thought he’d get so close to a real soulcaster. He set down the cuirass and examined the neat piles the Ardent had made of the many pieces of the plate. He averted his gaze from the mess of a man being slowly revealed under the armor.

“You learned this on the Highprince's plate?”

“I did have that opportunity, yes.” She was trying to pull out the backplate, and he helped her by lifting the corpse a few inches. The smashed face seemed to stare Kaladin dead in the eye until he let it back down. The rotspren had already taken up residence.

“Uh- How is the Highprince? Personally, I mean. What is he like?” Kaladin thought this was the most bizarre conversation he had ever had, speaking casually with an Ardent over the corpse of a shardbearer. 

“I never spoke to the Highprince much. I mostly served his wife, Brightlady Ialai. She picked me out of the Ardentia herself and brought me to the Shattered Plains for a year, then sent me back here to keep an eye on Amaram.”

“Keep an eye on him? Like a spy?”

“A spy in plain sight,” she said, wiping her hands with a spare rag. “I’m of the Devotary of Sincerity. That means I try to tell the truth all the time. I never concealed my purpose from the Highmarshal, and I reported all goings on in camp by spanread.”

“Amaram was an honorable man,” Kaladin said. “What reason did Sadeas have to question him?”

“Spies are like locks, they keep men honest,” said the Ardent, as if explaining herself to a child. “If Amaram’s loyalty was suspect, I’m sure the Highprince would never have given him command of this army in the first place. But you don’t have to worry about your sworn enemies betraying you. And there is no harm in establishing multiple avenues of communication. Amaram and I often differed in our reports to Brightlady Ialai, and not because one of us was lying to her.”

“I suppose she will be getting a lot of different reports about today.” Kaladin didn’t have much experience with spanreads, but he knew that just about every lighteyed woman in camp had one. Before nightfall, the rumors of this day would scatter all over the kingdom. “Why aren’t you writing to her now?”

“I thought you’d appreciate some help with your shardplate.” Kaladin couldn’t tell if her smile was genuine or sarcastic. “I don’t intend to write to her until I can tell her something no one else can.”

“Something about me?” 

“Something about something important.” The Ardent stood, looking Kaladin face to face for the first time. Her eyes were light purple, and it seemed she had shaved her eyebrows off along with the rest of her hair. Where they ought to have been was a light white fuzz. Kaladin realized she was searching his eyes as well. He wondered if they had turned yet. 

“Do you have anything to tell me?” she asked innocently. She was a spy, but of all the schemers he’d met today, she seemed the most forthright. 

She is lighteyed, Kaladin reminded himself. Even if she's an Ardent now, she was raised to think politically, to exploit a situation. She doesn’t need to know anything about me.

“The Shardbearer was not Alethi,” Kaladin said, pointing to the corpse. Her forehead wrinkled where eyebrows were meant to be. “We heard him speaking Veden, and he didn’t seem to understand Alethi very well. Or just didn’t want to listen to Hallaw’s men.”

“Do you think he was a mercenary?” Suddenly her attention turned away from Kaladin and the armor, and instead she began to search the corpse.

“It’s possible,” Kaladin said. “But I doubt it. More like an assassin. He rode without a guard, and ignored the battle after shattering the honor guard. No, he came here for Amaram. When we found him here, he was searching Amaram’s corpse the same way you’re searching his now.”

The Ardent stopped what she was doing, looked back to where Amaram’s body had been, and sighed. “You wouldn’t happen to have searched the Highmarshal’s body yourself have you?”

“Nope. There was a battle to win. And Sergeant Haber has a thing about corpses.”

“Then I guess Gylan might get a consolation prize afterall. I just hope they don’t soulcast him before I take a look myself.” 

The Ardent turned back to the Veden’s body, searching every sleeve and pocket in the clothes he wore under the shardplate. She retrieved a small knife from her own voluminous sleeves, and stared ripping out every seam in every garment the corpse was wearing. Just before Kaladin thought things might get disrespectful, she pulled out a long strip of cloth, which had been sewn into the inner lining of the man’s padded doublet. The cloth was plain white cotton embroidered with a long multicolored glyphward. The hand that had stitched it was crude yet legible. 

“Nan... Chach... Thath... Tsameth...Merem khakh,” Kaladin read aloud, much to the Ardent’s surprise. “Asking the Heralds to bring justice and death upon Amaram, I guess. Oroho... Kalak... Roshar... Ha! If the cremling wanted eternal peace he sure had a funny way of finding it.”

“You read glyphs well,” the Ardent said with a flash of a grin. 

“My mother was very religious,” Kaladin said, silently kicking himself. “I’ve seen more glyphwards than a surgeon sees bandages.”

“I guess he was as well,” the Ardent said, suddenly thoughtful. “But it’s an odd prayer for a devout man to make.”

“Every man has his Calling. Even assassins. And I bet nearly every soldier on either side of this battle burnt a glyph or said a prayer to a similar effect.”

“Peace Eternal for Roshar,” she read out slowly. Kaladin saw the contradiction now. Warfare was the highest Calling for men, the surest way into the Tranquiline Halls. For most Vorins, praying to the Almighty for eternal peace was borderline heretical, like asking mercy for a Voidbringer. Kaladin had been raised with nearly the opposite of the mainstream Vorin worldview due his father's pacifism.

“What do you suppose this all means?”

“I suppose nothing,” the Ardent said, rising to her feet. “It’s not for me to draw conclusions. I only relate the facts. Brightlady Ialai will have her opinions as will the Highprince.”

“Sure, but the army is going to want answers as well.”

“Brightlord,” she said, suddenly formal, “You've been helpful to me, so I will give you this piece of advice. Keep what you believe to yourself. Wait for Sadeas to send orders. It is better for you if the army is focused on Hallaw and finishing this little boundary dispute before looking towards Jah Keved.”

“That’s an odd thing for someone from the Devotary of Sincerity to say,” Kaladin said with a frown.

“Ignorance is never insincere, Brightlord, we are all more ignorant than we believe.” With that she turned back to her horse, mounted, and rode off. Kaladin watched her leave, his mind on the advice she had given before realizing he hadn’t even asked her name.

“Strange women,” Kavel said, returning to his usual position.

“Odd even for an Ardent, I’d reckon.” Kaladin couldn’t decide how he felt about her. At first she seemed to be goading him and Gylan to fight. Then it seemed like she was almost flirting with him. Flirting over a dead body. 

“Did you place her accent? She can’t be Alethi...”

“Southern, I think,” Kaladin said. Even after all this time in the army, Kaladin hadn’t traveled very far from home, but he had met men from all over the kingdom. “Dumadari or thereabouts? Might even be Thaylen.” 

“A Thaylen would never shave her eyebrows,” Kavel said sagely, “But she definitely does have the south sea about her. Oh, I know it! The one city with more foreigners than citizens. Even the locals grow up sounding like they’re from somewhere else.”

“What? Where?” Kaladin said, his mind already moving on to other things.

“Kharbranth,” Kavel declared. 

Kaladin agreed, that made the most sense. “I wonder how she found her way to Alethkar.”

Chapter Text

Kavel followed Kaladin from the gully back to camp, awkwardly suggesting how he should deal with his manifold worries. He thought the battalionlords were the greatest threat, even more so than Gylan. Kaladin would be their direct rival, no matter what, and they’d be competing for the missing general titles too. Even when Kaladin laid down to rest, it had taken an unsubtle hint from Coreb to get Kavel to leave. The man was loyal, without doubt, but the hero worship grated on Kaladin in a way he found impossible to explain. It was worse than everyone thinking he was lucky or ‘Stormblessed’—Kavel saw him as more than a man. 

Kaladin was not more than a man. His aching limbs proved that. According to Vorin tradition, the Almighty gave Shardblades to humanity to send the Voidbringers back to Damnation. Kaladin used his as a walking stick as he hobbled into camp. Streams of dust leapt and fell around his ankles, exhaustionspren dancing merrily.  As night fell, the camp lit up with small fires and the smell of food, but Kaladin didn’t eat. He stabbed his shardblade up to the hilt in the hardened crem of the earth—it was the only way in which he felt safe around the blade—and laid back on his sleeping mat. After most battles, Kaladin could sleep like the dead, regardless of what was going on in camp. There were plenty of sounds out tonight. Drinking songs and unstifled laughter. Moaning wounded and men screaming out in their sleep. None of that bothered Kaladin; he had heard it all before. Instead, his own squad’s hushed conversation kept him awake.

“Maybe you need to smash em’ to get the light out,” Hab said, ripping off a bite of flatbread. “Spheres ain’t known to give it up easy.”

“Are you a storming idiot?” grumbled Alabet. “Do you think lighteyes smash up a thousand diamond chips every time they need to recharge a spanreed?”

“How am I s’posed to know? If you’re such a storming scholar, why don’t you figure it out?”

“They leave the gems out in the storm, same as everyone else,” Hamel said from under his pillow. Unable to find sleep, he had been trying to resolve the conversation for twenty minutes. “There’s nothing we can do until the next storm.”

“You know that’s not true!” Acis whined. “I’ve seen the lighteyes with heating fabrials in their tents even in the middle of the weeping.” He was one of the youngest in the squad and used to brag about volunteering for duty rather than being drafted. It had taken time for Kaladin to explain to him that volunteering spoke more against his wisdom than for his bravery. “We’re the best squad in the army, aren’t we? We’re not too stupid to use a fabrial!”

“Speak for yourself,” Toorim said under his breath. “I think being a dunnard is what got me sent here in the first place.”

“And we wouldn’t have you any other way, Too’,” chuckled Raksha, and the rest of the men joined in laughing and celebrating their collective stupidity. 

“It doesn’t matter how we recharge the gems.” Navar stood at the door, nominally on watch, but spoke through the tent flap. The cold of the night gave his voice a hard edge. “The problem is the gems we’re missing.”

That was true. The men had helped lug the shardplate back to camp, one man per piece and two men for the backplate and breastplate. They’d tried to conceal them in cloth, but Kaladin doubted anyone in camp had been fooled. Now the plate lay on the floor of their tent in two dozen segments, minus several shattered pieces that seemed to have melted away. Two out of ten gems were unaccounted for. Kaladin did not seriously suspect his men of stealing them. In all likelihood, they were shattered during the fight. But each gem in the plate was a smokestone the size of his thumb. 

Kaladin had been calculating their value in his head. A fresh recruit made twenty clearmarks a week, two hundred per month, until he earned his first stripe of veterancy. Two hundred clearmarks were about equal to five middle-weight broams. It was difficult to compare the massive gems in the shardplate to those embedded in spheres, but they were easily twenty times the size of a broam, too big to even fit inside a standard glass sphere. Adding a premium on top of their value in weight, each gem could be worth as much as five months wages. 

There’s a fortune sitting in this tent, even forgetting the shards. Kaladin couldn’t blame someone tempted by that. He’d won a fortune worthy of a king, treasures even Highprinces yearned after. Would it be wrong for his men to steal a scrap of his prize for themselves? Kaladin heard the hollow clinking of glass on metal.

“Reesh, you chull-brain,” groaned Raksha. “What in the nine hells are you doing?”

“Ma always said to throw in your dun spheres with some full‘ns,” Reesh said in his distinctive drawl. “The light rubs off on ‘em in your pocket. Maybe the same'll work here.”

“That’s a myth!” said Raksha, but various other voices mumbled in agreement. Soon there was a cacophony of spilling spheres, and stormlight illuminated the tent’s canopy. Kaladin opened one eye to get a look at their antics. Laying out in the center of the tent, the upturned breastplate overflowed with spheres. His men huddled around the white light like a campfire, debating the efficacy of their scheme.

“Cover that up,” Coreb ordered, himself groggy from sleep. One of the men threw a spare blanket over the breastplate. In that moment, Kaladin saw the goblet of spheres in his father's hands, masked men at a door, banished by light. The people of Hearthstone used to give their spare spheres to support his family, but one jealous lighteyes turned them against his father. Now hundreds of powerful, grasping hands threatened him, and yet he knew his squad would never forsake him. Hope and fear, shame and pride, knotted themselves around his heart, warm and tender. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. He turned away from the center of the tent to hide his face. 

The weight of emotion he had put off during the day was raining down upon him now, as it always did after a battle. Only unconsciousness ever gave him relief, and even that was broken up by episodes of panic and grief in his dreams. Some men drank to calm their minds, but it had never worked for Kaladin. That only made him lose control. Instead, he let the exhaustion of his body and soul carry him off. His departing thought was that he would do anything to protect the men in this tent. 

“Sir. Sir!” Toorim shook Kaladin by the shoulder. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and the only light in the tent leaked from under the blanket covering the breastplate. Kaladin realized he had fallen asleep with the shardblade’s hilt in his hand. The bond felt stronger in the back of his head, like a headache without the pain. 

“What?” he said, his voice gruff and mumbling.

“Someone from Amaram’s staff,” Toorim whispered, “calls himself Thybon. He’s waiting for you.” He looked anxiously over his shoulder, as if being watched. 

“What does he want?”

“A meeting, he says. And...” Toorim trailed off for a moment, looking sheepish. “I think there’s going to be another meeting later between the Battalionlords. You’ve got to be there.”

“Fine,” Kaladin grumbled. Normally, he followed a strict routine each morning, cleaning himself, his clothes, and his sleeping area. Now, he simply stuffed his sleeping mat and blanket into a corner. He dressed in his uniform, stained and dusty as it was, while considering what a lighteyed meeting might entail. As he pulled on his boots, an idea occurred to him. 

Kaladin retrieved the shardblade and began making deep cuts in the cremstone underfoot. Toorim watched, silently confused. He traced the shape of where his sleeping mat had been and then made two angled cuts at the head and foot of his sleeping area. He was surprised at how quietly and effortlessly the blade slashed through several feet of stone. He finished it off with several horizontal cuts. Then he whispered his orders in Toorim’s ear. 

“Once I’m gone, wake up a few men and haul up those slabs of crem. Store the plate in the cavity underneath, then cover it back up with wetcrem. If it’s not convincing, throw my mat back over it.” Toorim looked bewildered, but nodded.

“Yes, sir.” He whispered. “Be careful, sir. We... I mean, you need to protect yourself at all times.” 

Kaladin patted him on the shoulder as he ducked through the tent flaps. A stiff wind met him outside as the faintest signs of dawn crested the horizon. Navar stood guard, a tired frown on his face. In the lane between tents, a squat, bearded man waited, one hand in his waistcoat pocket, the other holding a lantern filled with spheres.

“Where are we going, Brightlord?” Kaladin said, shardblade stabbed point down in the crem. 

“Brightlord Stormblessed, it would be my honor to host you this morning,” Thybon said with a conceited bow. “I believe you and I have much to discuss.” 

“You’re not an officer,” Kaladin observed aloud. He had no uniform, no knots on his shoulder, not even a sword at his waist. 

“No,” he said, a hint of displeasure in his voice. “I was Highmarshal Amaram’s Chief Stormwarden and a close friend and advisor as well. I think it is only right for me to offer my thanks to you for avenging his death.”

Kaladin bowed slightly, unsure of his rank relative to this man. “Revenge is cold comfort. I’m sorry I couldn’t save the Highmarshal. His death is a great loss to the army.”

“Indeed, but still, there is much business that must be tended to today.” 

Undeniably, that was true. Yesterday’s fight in the gully had felt like the decisive moment of his life, but today he would see what owning a shardblade truly meant for him. There were probably plots already in motion—hushed conversations held the night before. It was stupid of him to let himself fall asleep so early, even in his state of exhaustion. 

“I wish to break my fast with you as well,” said Thybon with a grin, “if that is to your pleasure.” 

Kaladin waved away several gnatlike hungerspren and signed. “Navar,” he said, and the groggy spearman jumped to attention. “The squad’s only orders today are to guard this tent. You and Coreb are in charge. Ignore anything from any officer other than Restees. If he personally gives you an order, delay and send a runner to me. Until I return, I want no fewer than two guards on the door and ten men inside. If Kavel, Yeshal, or anyone else comes by, tell them I’m at the warcenter. Understood?” Navar responded in the affirmative, and ducked inside to retrieve another guard.

“You have taken to command quite naturally,” Thybon said as they began to walk. “One would think you were born to it.”

“I was already in command when I claimed the shards.”

“Ah, yes, I remember,” he laughed. “Amaram remarked on your speedy rise to me once, the youngest man ever named squadleader, in his own recollection. But that is all the more to my point: command does call to you, and the Almighty provides. Was it an honor to be raised to the fifth Nahn?”

“I was born to the second Nahn; my father was—" Kaladin cut himself off. This man did not need to know who his father was or what he did that made him second Nahn. “He was always insistent that I reach my potential. To... fulfill my calling.”

“Think of how proud he’ll be now, then!” Thybon seemed to be putting on an act of joviality, patting Kaladin on the back and praising him. “Forth Dahn is an eternity away from the second Nahn. But I doubt you have reached the end of your destiny yet. There is—”

“My hope,” Kaladin continued, expressing himself honestly, “was to one day be transferred to the Shattered Plains and be allowed to help avenge the death of the King.”

“Indeed, every shardbearer in the kingdom has congregated on the plains. I’m sure you’ll get your wish soon, now.”

“Quite soon,” Kaladin said as they neared the warcenter. “My enlistment is due to end in a matter of weeks. I intend to depart for the Shattered Plains immediately and pledge myself to the King himself.”

The Stormwarden’s hand clenched at the handle of the warcenter door for a beat too long, then he proceeded forward. Kaladin carried the shardblade delicately through the doorway. The warcenter wasn’t really a building; just ten chull wagons lined up next to one another, but the inside was well appointed with all the amenities of a lighteyed mansion, short of running water. Thybon led Kaladin to a small spherelit table and called in a servant to bring them tea. 

Sitting with the blade was a feat of its own. It couldn’t be set down tip-first without cutting a hole in the wooden floors. And Kaladin didn’t feel at all safe with it resting on his shoulder or, Almighty forbid, his lap. He opted to lay it flat on the table. Too late, he realized this might be interpreted as a veiled threat. Thybon sat across from him, tapping his rings on the table as they waited for refreshments, his eyes flicking down to the sword every few seconds. 

The servant returned, a girl no older than Kaladin himself. She looked down at the table where the shardblade was resting, her eyes wide. Kaladin nudged the blade out of the way, pointing it a little more towards Thybon. 

“Pardon me,” Kaladin said with a nod. The serving girl deposited a plate with several lavis scones piled up and a saucer of jam-like gravy. She poured each cup of tea from the same pot and garnished them with what looked like a dry, woody stem. 

“Ingo tea with curlbark,” Thybon said, taking an eager sip, “imported from Rira. It warms you up like a Veden red, but without the headache afterwards.” Kaladin drank hesitantly, the unfamiliar drink intriguing him. The garnish gave the tea a subtle heat and sweetness, and the aroma was wonderful. “Curlbark is one of those spices the Ardents of old overlooked when assigning men and women’s foods. Meridas and I used to debate its place according to Vorin theology. In many ways, he was a staunch traditionalist, but on this matter, he vacillated. One day it was too harsh for a woman, the next too delicate for a man. What do you think, Brightlord?”     

“It’s good,” Kaladin said, “but I really couldn’t say. My mother never made separate meals for the family. She just served what she could get her hands on—sweet, spicy, savory, or sour. It didn’t matter much to us.” For some reason, that intrigued the Stormwarden. Kaladin realized he had shifted Thybon’s perception of him somehow. He was being too honest, too careless. It didn’t matter if something seemed irrelevant; the lighteyes would read into any scrap of information about him. 

“The Almighty has endless mercy for a mother doing her best,” Thybon said between bites of scone, “but Meridas thought men of his rank were held to a higher standard. He took his responsibilities, his role in society, very seriously.”

“I only spoke to him once, but from that conversation, I got the same view of the man.” Kaladin saw the honor in Amaram for doing his duty, even if that duty was neither glamorous nor especially virtuous. The border conflict had been going on for years without result. A proper war, Kaladin thought, would not be prolonged unnecessarily. 

“I think you are a man cut from the same cloth.” Thybon steepled his fingers before him. “I believe he would trust you to look out for this army. In fact, I think you might even be the best choice to lead this army.”

“What?” Kaladin pulled back from the table. The statement was absurd to even contemplate. “General Seti should be in command. He is the highest-ranking officer left in the army.”

“Seti has not regained consciousness. Even if he does, I doubt he will be in any condition to lead, at least not in the field. I heard tell of your exploits in the field. No, not just killing the shardbearer. That took guts and skill. But rallying a unit behind you. One hundred and fifty men. As a darkeyes!” Thybon rubbed his hands together. “That blade was destined for your hands; the fourth dahn is only the beginning for you, if you play your hand carefully.” 

Kaladin frowned. The man was flattering him, leading him on, but to what end? Maybe he did think he could ride Kaladin’s coattails now that his former patron had died. Or perhaps he was part of some other conspiracy. Kaladin chewed a scone to buy time and washed it down with the tea.

“What does Highprince Sadeas think of all this?” Kaladin asked abruptly.

“Sadeas?” Thybon was taken off guard. “I wrote to him by spanreed last night. He... wishes to reward your service in battle. Lands near Tomat, I believe, and a considerable bonus in spheres. A stipend for the maintenance of your plate as well. He sees your potential just as I do.”

“I meant about the army. The war. What does Sadeas think about that?” Kaladin stuffed another scone into his mouth. The stormwarden seemed to have lost his train of thought.

“He... knows of its condition generally and wants Hallaw’s forces dispersed at once. He hasn’t decided on a replacement for Amaram, and his choices are quite narrow. That is why you should—”

“I don’t care about land.” Kaladin found that he was actually repulsed by the idea of ruling over darkeyed farmers in some village he’d never seen before. “Does he want me here or on the Shattered Plains?”

“He hasn’t said yet... but I suggested to him that with our forces greatly depleted, a shardbearer could be decisive. You are the most important man in the army at this moment.”

Kaladin ignored the flattery. He had caught Thybon in a minor lie. Sadeas didn’t necessarily see anything in him other than a shardbearer. It was Thybon who wanted him here. He wanted Kaladin to take command. He wanted to help. 

“He has me until the end of my enlistment, about five weeks from now. After that, I will be free to swear myself to any Highprince in Alethkar.” Kaladin paused and read the panic on Thybon’s face. Why does he care so much about this war? Kaladin wondered. 

“If I am to serve beyond my original enlistment, I want my position in camp secured. An honor guard of my choosing. An equal seat among the other Battalionlords. Further rewards can come when the conflict is finished.” 

“What do you mean finished?” Thybon said, startled by Kaladin’s flurry of demands.

“Hallaw, of course. I want him defeated once and for all; his army disbanded; whatever trifling issue started this, settled. After that, I will go to the Shattered Plains.”

A grin broke out on Thybon’s face as he began to expound on what could be achieved both in the army and on the plains. Kaladin paid little attention. The Stormwarden thought he had inspired him to seek command, but Kaladin always intended to assert himself. Thybon only gave him a legitimate pretext. 

He followed the squat man into the study. He reached for the spanreed on the desk, hesitated, then hastily called for a female scribe. The man can write , Kaladin thought, I bet he was writing to Sadeas himself last night. Whoever this man was, he was not merely a friend of Amaram’s or an agent of Sadeas. He had his own agenda, which, for some reason, involved Kaladin now.

Whatever his game, at least it wasn’t openly hostile. Kaladin needed some kind of ally, even one with ulterior motives, and he was unlikely to find any other kind in camp. More importantly, he needed a way to communicate directly with Sadeas; in fact, he’d like to have multiple. If ardents and stormwardens could be spies, any scribe could be passing information to someone. Lighteyes never tired of scheming; it was the art they all sought to perfect, and Kaladin was only a novice. He needed to start practicing immediately if he wanted to keep ahead of their plots.

Thybon had just begun to dictate a message to Sadeas when there was a knock at the warcenter door. Kaladin reached it just after a servant answered, “Stormblessed,” Yeshal said, ignoring the servant's protest, “They’re assembling the Battalionlords. Redelin’s been called, Restees too. They’re meeting somewhere in town. I don’t know where.”

Kaladin said a hasty goodbye to Thybon, who seemed to be oblivious to the urgency of the moment. Sadeas might make any number of promises, but the Highprince was thousands of miles away. Kaladin’s nominal position in camp would mean nothing if the other officers didn’t acknowledge it. Kaladin swiped the remaining scones off his plate as he followed Yeshal out of the warcenter and up the main lane of the camp towards town. 

“What were you doing with the stormwarden?” Yeshal asked. Twisting black anxietyspren framed his face.

“Letting him flatter me,” Kaladin said with a mouthful of scone. 

“Thybon’s more dangerous than he looks. Amaram trusted him above even his generals and gave him many of the more unsavory tasks in camp.”

“Like what?”

“Spying. Slave trading. Discreet affairs, you know.”

Kaladin grinned and hefted his shardblade. “I’m lucky I got out alive.”

Chapter Text

The town was smaller than Hearthstone but densely packed. The buildings huddled on the leeward side of the tallest hill in the valley, with each roof descending gradually in height. The buildings carved into the base of the hill were the largest, and they shrank towards the outskirts of town. Two conical pillars marked the western gate. The glyph for 'Wind' was carved on one, and the glyph for 'Break' was carved on the other, but in Kaladin's opinion, they were in the wrong order.

Kaladin and Yeshal drew a pack of onlookers as they entered the town. Evidently, its citizens had heard of what had transpired the previous day, but they wanted to see with their own eyes. Kaladin attempted to clear a path by carefully waving his shardblade ahead of him, but most didn't seem to appreciate the danger of the blade. Some children even reached up to touch it before Kaladin lifted it beyond their reach. These people had only ever heard of shardblades; a darkeyed soldier winning shards not ten miles out of town was more than enough to excite them.

"Brightlord! Brightlord!" one boy screamed, "Conscript me! Conscript me! I can fight, but Father won't let me volunteer!" He couldn't have been more than fourteen, short, skinny, and pimple-faced. Kaladin pushed him back with one hand. The boy stumbled back into the crowd. His hurt expression stung, but Kaladin hoped that hurt kept him out of the army for a few more years at least.

Kaladin scanned the street for a building that might host a gathering of lighteyes but only found the squat dwellings of farmers. The people in the crowd reminded him of his neighbors back in Hearthstone, all dressed simply in dirty overalls and threadbare skirts. All except one. A young man in a long green coat stood near the back of the throng staring at Kaladin. He tried to hide his face behind an upturned collar, but Kaladin recognized him. It was the young battalionlord from the previous day, recognizable by the gilt scabbard he failed to conceal under his coat.

"Captain," Kaladin said, "do you recognize that man back there?"

"Zem Melys," Yeshal said. "If he's here, his father is certainly nearby."

At the sound of his own name, the youth nearly jumped out of his boots. With a shocked expression, he dove into an alleyway. Kaladin shoved his way through the crowd and dived into the alleyway with Yeshal on his heels. The alley turned twice before emptying into the town square, where a market was being held. Sifting through the throng of shoppers, Zem struggled forward, stooping to hide among the crowd. If there was any doubt as to his identity, he occasionally glanced backwards towards the alley, blue eyes clearly visible in the daylight.

"Does he think he's hiding like that?" Kaladin wondered aloud.

"Zem's not the brightest," Yeshal admitted. "His father arranged his appointment as Battalionlord. Amaram did it as a favor to the old man but demanded he balance out his son's inexperience with his own service. Melys is a veteran of the Unification Wars. Mean bastard, but sometimes that's what you want."

Zem slipped into a large stormshelter adjacent to the town hall. Guards posted at the door let him pass without question. Kaladin breathed deeply and debated his options. The battalionlords had called this meeting without notifying him and took deliberate steps to hide their location. That meant that this wasn't a trap for him; there weren't a dozen men inside waiting to jump him, but he wasn't welcome either. Not all the battalionlords viewed him as an enemy. Pereshal had been grateful the day before, and Restees had at least been cordial.

"Did you talk to your Battalionlord last night?" Kaladin asked.

"Redelin asked me about you, of course," Yeshal said with a smirk.

"And?"

"And I told him the truth. You saved us. You led us. You won those shards fairly."

"And what did he think of that?"

"He sighed and waved me off like he was bored. That's usually a good sign, though. It means he can't find anything specific to complain about."

That at least seemed more promising than his relationship with Battalionlord Ordinal. He had outright resented Kaladin for rescuing the right flank and led his men in pursuit of the enemy in an attempt to salvage his fragile pride.

Altogether, Ordinal could be counted as hostile and Pershal as friendly, while Restees, Redelin, and the two Melys's were more or less undecided. Each of them had their own schemes in the works and viewed Kaladin as an unreliable variable at best. By inserting himself, Kaladin could worsen his position among them, pushing one or more of them into open hostility. But Kaladin needed to insert himself. If even two joined together against him, he would be in serious danger.

"I'm going in, Captain. Tell my squad where I am."

"Are you sure?" Yeshal's concern was not feigned. "Maybe I should bring my men here."

"No, that'd be too provocative." Kaladin imagined a bloody civil war in the camp and shuddered. The lighteyes in camp envied him; he had felt their looks as he left camp, but that didn't mean they deserved to die. "I have a task for you and your men when you get back to camp."

Yeshal raised an eyebrow. "What did you have in mind?"

Kaladin dismissed the guards at the door to the stormshelter with a wave. They gave little resistance, the shardblade offering a convincing argument in his favor. He entered the room with as much false bravado as he could summon, silencing the conversation underway.

All six battalionlords huddled at one end of a long marklewood table. The elder Melys sat at the head of the table with his son and Ordinal to his right, Restees, Redinal, and Pereshal to his left. Restees twitched his mustache, and young Melys averted his gaze; the others simply stared at him. Kaladin laid his shardblade flat on the table and took a seat at the far end looking straight towards Melys. He leaned back in the chair, affecting his ease, and gestured for the conversation to continue.

"What do you think you're doing, boy?" Melys said, hands balled into fists, brilliant blue eyes locked onto Kaladin's.

"Did your boy not tell you I was coming?" Kaladin said. Zem flinched. His father's glare flashed over to the young man a moment before returning to Kaladin.

"Was he invited to this meeting?" Ordinal whined in a high-pitched voice. "Which one of you did it?" He kept his head waxed and oiled such that as he looked between his fellow officers, the whole room was reflected on his scalp. Kaladin couldn't put an age to him, appearing either twenty-five or fifty depending on his expression.

"Your messengers must have missed me. I was up early meeting with Thybon and negotiating the new terms of my service."

"Thybon does not have the authority to negotiate on behalf of this army," Melys growled.

"I made use of his scribe and spanreed. Sadeas generously offered me lands and titles for my fealty. Seeing as I won my shards in his service, he wished for me to join his Princedom and serve as one of his shardbearers here or on the Shattered Plains." Kaladin hoped that Thybon hadn't been lying to him about that, but it didn't really matter. He could see on their faces that these men all believed it. "But I declined those terms."

"You fool!" Pereshal exclaimed, an injured look on his face.

"Would you really throw away your reputation on your first day as a lighteyes?" Redelin said, bemused.

"His eyes aren't light yet," growled Ordinal. He had his hand on a short dagger at his belt. Kaladin tapped one finger on his shardblade too.

"I made an oath to Amaram. Four years of service. That was three years, nine months, and five weeks ago. I have five weeks left in this army. I told Sadeas that I would serve out the rest of my contract no matter what. If he wanted to keep me in his service after that date, he would need to give me command of my own battalion, an honor guard fit for a Shardbearer composed of men of my choosing alone. Drawn from any unit in the army or recruited as I see fit."

The others at the table were stunned. His demands were cheap for a shardbearer but a direct challenge to their authority. Officers did not give up their soldiers easily; Kaladin had paid enough bribes in his career to know that. He could see a storm churning in each of their heads. With the power to choose any soldier in the army, he would be the only one of them with a full-strength battalion.

Good. He wasn't merely a jumped-up spearman to them anymore. He had acted with the instinctive grasping ambition expected of a lighteyed Alethi. But to turn down lands and titles for a military command? That might seem almost too Alethi to be believed. Whatever the lighteyes said about war being a man's highest calling, they sought wealth above all. Kaladin was ready to prove that he was different.

"Our army has been decimated and decapitated. But the enemy failed to destroy us. Whatever agreement Sadeas and I come to, you'll need me and my shards these next five weeks. If plans are laid immediately, we can strike Hallaw's forces before they've recovered. Once my shardplate is repaired, we can seize the initiative and finish this conflict once and for all." Kaladin saw the battalionlords exchange glances. All but Redelin seemed unamused.

"Is that not why this meeting has been called? Is it not up to us to make the army ready for battle?" Kaladin meant it as a rhetorical question, but he saw now that they truly weren't planning on making an attack at all. Just as he was about to insist on the necessity of action, Restees stood. Kaladin had only spoken to his former battalionlord on a handful of occasions: twice when he had been promoted and twice for disciplinary actions. The look on his face now resembled the later, not the former.

"This meeting was called," Restees said, a hard edge rising in his voice, "to prepare recommendations to Highprince Sedeas on the topic of promotions and recruitment. Only a Highprince can name a man to the fifth Dahn or above. As you so eloquently put it, the army has been decimated and decapitated; two generals, four battalionlords, and thirteen companylords are dead or captured. We still haven't tallied the number of lesser officers lost or injured in yesterday's engagement, but the number could easily be over two hundred. At least a thousand of our soldiers still lie out on that plain, rotting, and twice that number are wounded in camp." Restees paused his account of the dead, leaving the stormshelter in silence. Kaladin's bravado withered under his verbal assault.

"This army is not going to make any kind of offensive movement for at least the next week. Shardbearer or no. We are as bloodied and bleeding as Hallaw, and so far as we know, he isn't dead. Our last General has not regained consciousness, and the surgeon cannot tell whether he will live or die. Neither you nor I nor all of us in combination have been given the authority to lead this army into battle. So until Seti recovers or one of us is promoted by order of our Highprince, no one is going anywhere."

"You are free to celebrate your rise in station on your own, Stormblessed, but we here are gathered to grapple with our common disaster. Burn the dead, tend the wounded, and advise our Highprince. As a man raised by the laws of Alethkar to the fourth Dahn, you have a right to attend councils of war among men of the same rank in the same army. But until Sadeas confirms your position in the army, you have no authority in it. You sit in council at our pleasure. If you insist on interrupting these proceedings with your irrelevant personal agenda, I will have you escorted out. Is that storming clear?"

Kaladin could not find his words. He nodded in involuntary meekness. He had been reprimanded before, but never like that. Kaladin thought that only darkeyes got chewed out. This was evidently the lighteyed version: a thorough and frank dressing down.

Early in his career, Sergeant Tukks used to accost him with every curse in the Alethi language and more than a few that he'd invented. Those episodes had been scary at first but always humorous on recollection. Even though Kaladin couldn't care less about what Restees thought of him, his words actually stung.

In all his career as a soldier, Kaladin had never been accused of being callous or coldhearted. Every night he felt the weight of the men he'd lost, the lives he had taken. You have to learn when to care...and when to let go... His father's words. Tukks had said the opposite. Care about winning. Care about those you defend. You have to care about something.

As he slumped back in his chair, the battalionlords went back to discussing the state of the army. Ordinal grinned nastily at Kaladin before rejoining the discussion.

Redelin's smirk was less malicious but not any more sympathetic. The attention refocused around Restees rather than Melys, much to the older man's annoyance.

Kaladin half listened, half thought on what Restees had said. Somewhere in the act of being a lighteyes this morning, he had lost sight of what he really cared about. His men came first, and after that, the entire army. His position, his relation to these men, to Sadeas, it was only a means to an end. Now more than ever, he had to remember who he was: a darkeyed spearman from Hearthstone. A surgeon's son. Even if his eyes changed, he would always be that man.

Once the battalionlords finished their accounting of casualties and decided on a plan for recruiting men to replace the fallen, they moved to another subject. "Promotions," Restees said, "We should consolidate the lighteyed companies, salvage their officers for darkeyed units, and promote the most veteran among the rank and file."

"Obviously," grumbled Ordinal, "but which ones?"

"The cavalry first," said Restees. "So few of them left. They're not going to be useful. The rest of Amaram's honor guard as well. They should all be incorporated with the depleted heavy infantry companies."

Pereshal stroked his chin thoughtfully. "They won't like that. Cavalry never like being turned into foot soldiers; it's a demotion to them."

"They abandoned the High Marshal," old Melys sneered. "I saw it with my own eyes. As soon as the Shardbearer fell upon them, they scattered. Drove the whole army into a route. Cowards!"

"Not everyone can be as ornery as a feral boar," muttered Redelin.

"Courage," Melys continued, "is a dead art among this filth. In my day, men lined up and begged to serve their Highprince in his guard. Sadeas, Gavilar, the Blackthorne. When you held up their banner, you swore to die before you let it touch the ground. And when a shardbearer took the field, you ran towards him, not away."

"Not all the honor guard ran away," Kaladin said without thinking. The other turned to him in surprise, Melys most of all. "Sergeant Haber and his men joined me in the attack. Out of twenty men, more than half are dead. Only three have all their limbs intact." It was four counting Kavel, but he wasn't part of the honor guard.

"What happened with the Shardbearer?" said an unfamiliar voice. It was Zem Melys speaking for the first time in the entire meeting. "That's important too, right? How did you kill him?" Zem's father looked mildly displeased, but the others awaited the answer as well.

Kaladin sighed. He supposed the whole story had to be told at some point. He narrated the events of the previous day, from the appearance of the shardbearer to his defeat, as quickly as he could. He avoided uncomfortable details, like usurping Yeshal's command and giving false orders to the companylord, but he couldn't entirely omit his speech before the honor guard.

"The officers turned me down. One actually called me an impudent cremling," Kaladin said. "They left, but the Sergeant remained. His men too. And some others." The thought of those men's bravery almost brought a tear to Kaladin's eye. He remembered the selfish thought after the battle—that at least his own men hadn't fallen in the fight—and cursed himself.

"Impudent cremling, eh?" The elder Melys chuckled. "Sounds like Gylan, the prancing axehound."

Kaladin continued the story, speeding through the plan and final attack. He barely mentioned how he killed the shardbearer, the memory of it uncomfortable to recall. Now that he had used the blade in battle, the anger he felt towards the shardbearer seemed almost hypocritical.

"And then the Sergeant told me I had to pick up the sword. So I did." Kaladin leaned back in the chair and looked at the blade before him. Glyphs ran up its length so intricate Kaladin couldn't immediately translate them. The battalionlords seemed to catch his mood and took a pause as he ended the story.

"What do you mean he told you to take the shards?" Zem asked eventually.

"I promised I would," Kaladin said plainly. "I promised to rescue the army."

Ordinal scoffed at that, but Zem nodded, engrossed in the story.

"What he means, boy," interrupted the elder Melys, "is why did you hesitate? And why didn't any of the others take the blade if you didn't do it immediately?"

"I don't know," Kaladin answered to both questions.

"You said the man's hair was red..." Redelin said, contemplative. "A Veden on our battlefield killing for the enemy. That explains where he came from, but not how or why."

"It doesn't explain where the shards came from at all," Pereshal said. He stood and leaned over to look at the shardblade. "My tutor made me learn the name of every shardblade held in the five Vorin kingdoms, and I can promise you, this one doesn't match any of the prints I studied."

Melys slammed the table. "Bringing foreign shards into a battle between Alethi—It's a disgrace!"

"I wonder if Highprince Vamah arranged it," Redelin mused, "or if Hallaw acted on his own. I'd bet there's a bit of extra tension on the Shattered Plains, whatever the case." The entire table concurred, tacitly accepting the assumption that the shardbearer was a hired mercenary. Kaladin wanted to say that the shardbearer had probably been an assassin, but he held himself back. The female ardent he spoke to yesterday already possessed that information and was in direct communication with Sadeas. Rumor of an assassin wielding shards would summon images of the assassin in white who killed King Gavilar. A story like that might complicate the situation substantially. With all ten highprinces already committed to the war on the shattered plains, who knew what such a rumor might trigger for Alethkar?

"Promotions," Restees said firmly, bringing the room back on topic. "We need two more Battalionlords, at least. Stormblessed will be one and-"

"We need more than two Battalionlords," Melys grumbled under his breath. "One or more of us will be promoted. Seti may recover, Almighty willing, but his leg is shattered. He cannot lead in the field." There was no question in Kaladin's mind who Melys meant by 'one of us'. The man seemed ambitious to a fault.

"It is not our place to suggest promotions to the third Dahn," Restees said. "We will make our need known, and the Highprince will decide."

"You mean the Brightlady will decide," scoffed Melys. "Trust me, Sadeas doesn't pay us any mind. He's too busy scheming in the warcamps and hunting chasmfiends. We must make our will known."

"Could you be any more obvious, Melys?" Redelin snorted. "The Highprince is never going to name you Highmarshal, not after what you did. Let that dream die already, so one of us can enjoy our day in the sun."

The old man looked like he might kill Redelin then and there. Despite his dandyish affect, Redelin seemed ready for a fight as well. Restees held them both back as angerspren bubbled up around their feet.

"Restees is the better choice," Pereshal said. "He's fought under Amaram the longest."

"I would never presume either to suggest this to the Highprince or to put myself before Melys." Restees's voice hardened again, just as it had with Kaladin. He pushed Melys and Redelin back into their seats. "But I can see the point in nominating more potential Battalionlords, if only for the sake of recruitment."

"Gylan is first in line," Ordinal said. He had remained quiet most of the meeting, but his attention peaked during Kaladin's story. He'd evidently identified another enemy of Kaladin's.

"What use is a craven Battalionlord?" Melys grumbled. "Ishamar would be better, though that man is near to craven. Sheler's practically useless as well, but Sadeas would approve."

The conversation broke down into an endless stream of names, most of which Kaladin didn't know. Restees called through a door in the back of the stormshelter and a stream of ardents filed in with records relating to all the soldiers in camp. Soon each man had an ardent at his shoulder reading while others shuffled behind them, setting down and taking away one text after another.

Ordinal and Redelin seemed to think ancestry factored into a candidate's qualifications as an officer, focusing on family histories and personal titles. Old Melys cared about an officer's service record above all else, while Pereshal concerned himself with informal social hierarchy in camp. Meanwhile, Restees silently sorted through hundreds of lighteyes of the seventh and eighth dahn, searching for candidates with the basic qualifications necessary for low-level officer positions.

Kaladin found himself fully excluded from the conversation now. Across the table, Zem Melys seemed to slump back in his chair while his father argued with Ordinal. The young man looked over at Kaladin, and they shared a silent shrug. It seemed that both of them were out of their depth.

A male ardent read to Kaladin from a massive catalog of lighteyed houses and their members in the Sedeas princedom. He flipped between pages seeking likely candidates for the honor guard, but Kaladin offered minimal feedback. Glyphpairs headed each page, and Kaladin copied them down on a spare parchment as he listened. His notes were disorganized, almost useless, but he used to study his father's anatomy manuals this way, drawing glyphs in soft crem as a mnemonic ritual. Even so, the names of a hundred privileged lighteyes entered and exited Kaladin' mind like a cistern overflowing in a highstorm. Just as the ardent was finishing off the last of the captainlords, Kaladin spied a glyph he had passed over.

"Melhak Ishi," Kaladin read. "Which house is that?" Beneath the glyph were two passages in the women's script, one extensive, the other only a few lines long.

"Brightlord Melys and his son," the ardent said, "would you like me to read?"

Kaladin looked over at the elder Melys. He was busy speaking to Restees, who had scribbled a few dozen lighteyed glyphpairs on a sheet of paper. "Go ahead, ardent," Kaladin said.

"Dakal Melys, born in Kholinar, began his career as a heavy infantryman in service to the Kholin Princedom prior to Gavilar Kholin's rise to prominence. Upon the ascension of Gavilar to the rank of Highprince, Melys joined his honor guard. At the commencement of the first of the Wars of Unification, he was appointed as a Captainlord under the young Dalinar Kholin. He continued in his service throughout the Unification, participating in eight campaigns and rising to the rank of General."

"A few years prior to the death of King Gavilar, he had a falling out with the Kholins. The cause or nature of this falling is not clear. He formally seceded from the Kholin Princedom in the year 1164, joining the Sadeas Princedom as a Highlord. Nonetheless, he attended King Gavilar's feast, celebrating the treaty with the Parshendi. He was among the first to swear to the Vengeance Pact following the King's assassination. He led a division on the Shattered Plains for two years under Highprince Sadeas before he suddenly resigned his position and returned to Alethkar."

"As punishment for abandoning the Vengeance Pact, he was demoted to the fourth Dahn. One year later, while seeking a position for his son, he offered his services to Absidier Highmarshal Meridas Amaram—"

"I know the rest," Kaladin interrupted, thoughts swirling in his head. "What Dahn was he born into, Ardent?"

"The tenth, Brightlord. In fact, he was born without a house name. He adopted the name Melys when he joined the Kholin honor guard."

The man was more mysterious now than before. Kaladin had never met a tenner. All lighteyes in the military were automatically promoted to the eighth dahn. Supposedly, tenners living in cities were scarcely above darkeyes, though Kaladin doubted it.

Melhak Ishi, Kaladin translated the glyphpair silently. Journey of Ishi'Elin? The Herald of Luck... Lucky Journey? No... Ishi also meant Ten. Journey of the Tenner. Melys had named himself after the tenth Dahn and his journey out of it.

Perhaps that explained his initial dislike of Kaladin. Melys had clawed his way nearly to the top of the lighteyed social order by strength and sweat alone, where Kaladin leapt to his rank in a single battle. Perhaps Melys had a right to question his qualifications, but Kaladin didn't take him at face value either. Just because the man had been a tenner didn't mean he deserved to rise so far. Lighteyes advanced in rank through deceit as often as valor, if not more.

Kaladin traced the glyph absently. He still wondered what would motivate a man who spent his entire life serving the Kholins to suddenly turn away from them. Then there was the question of what happened on the Shattered Plains. He swore vengeance and then reneged only two years later. For what? He clearly wasn't tired of soldiering. No doubt if he wished for retirement, he had an estate somewhere to grow old in, but he was here instead, overshadowing his son and barking at whoever defied him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kaladin noticed the female ardent from the previous day walking into the stormshelter carrying a bundle of scrolls. She looked at him as well, surprised but not displeased at his presence. She deposited all but one of the scrolls and casually brought it over to Kaladin. With a look, she dismissed the male ardent who'd been reading to him and took his position herself.

"You seem to have done well for yourself," she said as she pushed the shardblade out of the way with one finger and unrolled the scroll.

"Well enough, Restees nearly bit my head off like a boiled cremling earlier," Kaladin said under his breath. "How did the, uh, Brightlady receive your letter?"

"Well enough," she tapped the parchment with her ungloved safehand. "How does a hundred square miles just outside of Tomat sound to you?" A detailed map of the Sadeas Princedom lay before them. She pointed to a small quarter to the west, near the border with Jah Keved. Illustrations of low wedge-shaped huts surrounded by vinebuds decorated the region.

"I already told Thybon, I'm not interested in land. What I want is a command. A battalion of my own choosing."

She looked befuddled. "Y'know, that's what he's trying to buy from you, right? Your service as a shardbearer. You can't owe him fealty if he doesn't grant you anything first."

"I haven't offered my fealty, but my service he can have until this war is over. What I want is protection for me and my men. Recognition of my station and achievements. Enough money to maintain the shardplate. People to..." Kaladin trailed off. He needed people who knew how to take care of the plate, but that meant ardents. Slaves, if only in name. Could he really own someone? He turned down the land for this exact reason. He wanted nothing less than to rule over a bunch of strangers.

The ardent touched him on the shoulder. "The Highprince needs a reason to believe he can trust you. If he gives you land, then you are invested in the Princedom, you'll have something to lose."

Kaladin wondered how much Melys lost when he broke with the Kholins. "I haven't earned any lands," he said. "And I haven't decided who to swear my blade to. But I want Hallaw defeated. I want to protect this army. Our interests align. Is that not enough?"

"Not nearly enough." The ardent seemed to see past Kaladin's eyes and frowned. "You know you'll have to accept this at some point, even if you swear yourself to another Princedom. No one will trust you if you go about untethered."

"I'll weather that storm when it comes," Kaladin grumbled. It seemed the bonds of feudalism were closing in on him. He needed to find an alternative—a believable cause for loyalty. Believable to a lighteyes at least. The idea popped into his head, fully formed.

Kaladin stood and turned towards the ardent, putting his back to the rest of the room. She tried to step backwards, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. He paused for a moment, then leaned towards her. "You," Kaladin said. "Tell him I want you. On loan, same arrangement as Amaram."

She smirked. "Only that, huh?" Kaladin held her gaze, attempting to conceal any emotion on his face. The ardent studied him cautiously. Kaladin did not feel as good an actor as he needed to be.

"You think it's too much?" he asked.

"I think what you really want is this," she said, placing her safe hand on his chest, over his heart. The rings and gems of her soulcaster glittered over his dusty uniform. Kaladin had actually forgotten about the soulcaster and now felt the gravity of the situation he was in. Lighteyes soulcast their dead into stone; could she soulcast a living man into metal? She smiled at his change of expression. "Hmm. Perhaps that will be acceptable."

Kaladin leaned back to sit on the table. "I also want to make some suggestions," said under his breath, "for the army's sake, not mine."

The ardent scanned the battalionlords on the other side of the room. "What did you have in mind?"

Chapter Text

The war council broke for a midday meal. Servants brought out baskets of steamed skrip, their shells already cracked. To the side, they served bowls of sour curry and plates of thin salted biscuits. Kaladin watched Pereshal pull the meat out of the skrips shell, dip it in the curry, and eat it with the biscuit. It hardly seemed filling, but Kaladin followed along and was surprised to find that he enjoyed it.

A gray-haired man decanting wine offered him something called a 'Reshi Blue' and Kaladin accepted. As the wine filled a fine bronze goblet, Kaladin realized he'd made a mistake. He rarely drank and never drank to excess, but he recognized the smell of hard alcohol disguised with fruit and nectar. Many darkeyed soldiers drank a liquor like this, though uncolored. It accounted for the majority of disciplinary problems day to day and more than a few unnecessary casualties. Some men even drank it before going into battle to dull their nerves.

Kaladin wasn't facing a battle, but his nerves were frayed. He could take the drink but thought better of it. If he wanted this scheme to work out, he'd have to keep his wits about him. He pushed the full cup to the side and ignored it. He was sure it would ruin the taste of the food anyway.

The meal progressed amiably enough. The battalionlords joined in quiet conversations with those seated near them, splitting into two groups of three. On one side, Redelin bantered casually with Pereshal and prodded Restees with occasional barbs. Restees fended him off effortlessly. "If soldiering is disagreeable to you, Redelin," he said, between sips of pale wine, "perhaps you could find more suitable employment at court—as the King's Wit."

On the other side of the table, Zem and Ordinal listened to the elder Melys, who carried on a diatribe against cowardice almost without pause. "Half-trained men could be forgiven, but when the tip of the spear, the finest in the army, break and run, they doom the rest to flight. It is a disease—fear—fatal and contagious. Not all men can make themselves immune, but a soldier must at least try. An officer must succeed. And we plan on promoting these weaklings?"

Zem emptied his crystal goblet and finished half his skrip before he got a word in. "Be reasonable, Father. Someone needs to fill the gap."

The former group seemed decidedly friendlier, while the latter got along with a sort of stiff formality. Kaladin wished to join in, but he was seated so far from them that it would be impossible for them to speak without including the entire table. He resigned himself to his meal, listening passively to their chatter.

After a few minutes, a messenger boy entered the room unannounced. He bowed awkwardly and rushed to Restees's side. The two exchanged a hushed conversation before Restees dismissed the boy.

"Word on Seti's condition," he said, grabbing the entire room's attention. "According to the Chief Surgeon, Seti took some food and water this morning. He was coherent but not strong enough to stay awake long. In the few words he could manage, he entrusted us with the task of safeguarding the army."

"What does 'us' mean?" Ordinal said. "We six, he meant, surely."

"The message didn't specify. I don't know if he was made aware of Stormblessed at all."

"What did he say about Seti's chances?" Pereshal asked.

"He'll live, but recovery will take some time." Restees turned to Melys. "It's as you said, he'll never lead in the field again. But he remains the highest-ranking officer in this army."

"We'd better write to Sadeas then," Pereshal sighed. "We have Seti's blessing and only need the Highprince's approval to move forward with the reorganization."

Restees shook his head. "We should agree on our recommendations as a war council before we contact the Highprince. Better to speak to him with one voice."

Redelin swirled a crystal goblet of amber wine. "Do you really think we'll come to a unanimous decision?"

"A simple majority will do, I think."

"What constitutes a majority in this body?" Redelin mused. "Ordinal had a point—are we a council of six or seven?"

"Of course Stormblessed must be included," Pereshal said earnestly. "By every custom in Alethkar, he is our equal or better."

At that, Ordinal raised his voice. "Seti was clear; we may act on his behalf. This dunnard has nothing to do with it!"

"You're the dunnard if you believe that. If Seti had been informed—"

"This is so typical of you. Always looking for the next boot to kiss to get ahead. If your rockbuds are really that shriveled—"

Melys and Restees frowned as the argument escalated. Redelin threw fire on the debate, supporting Pereshal one moment and Ordinal the next, evidently enjoying the conflict. Zem tried to speak up once but was shouted down. Clearly, the rivalry between Pereshal and Ordinal predated this particular debate.

Just as it seemed the argument might escalate to violence, Melys struck the table three times, hard enough to shake dishes on the other side. Kaladin narrowly saved his undrunk wine from tipping over. Melys didn't take the same care with his own. The goblet shattered on impact, scattering shards of glass and red droplets of wine across the table.

"Silence! Or may the Ten Deaths damn you both!" He bellowed. The room obediently fell silent. "The boy either is a Battalionlord or he isn't. That decision can only be made by the Highprince. So there's nothing to do but write to him and find out."

Ordinal grumbled, but the rest agreed with Melys. Redelin looked disappointed that his fun had been ruined. As servants rushed to clean up the mess of glass and wine, Restees called in a pair of scribes with a spanreed and writing board. They fiddled with the board, paper, and inkwell before setting up the reed and turning the gemstone one notch to the right. The ruby pulsed slowly like a red coal in a dying fire. Kaladin wanted to ask how it worked but feared it would make him seem like a darkeyed rube.

"The first order of business should be the status of the army," Melys said, eyes shifting between Ordinal and Pereshal. "That should be uncontroversial."

"Call in the surgeon," Pereshal said, "he can give information on Seti and the other wounded."

Restees sent a runner, and a few minutes later Ven, the chief surgeon, entered the stormshelter. He eyed Kaladin, and Kaladin returned his gaze. He knew the surgeon better than most officers—he had paid Ven half his wages in bribes to ensure the stretcher bearers would tend to his men. When he first enlisted in the army, he thought he might apply for a position as a surgeon's assistant, but once he saw his first battle, he began to realize why his father never accepted payment for his services. To introduce spheres or status into that profession poisoned it, made it something almost despicable.

Ven bowed deeply to the assembled officers, which they returned with a slight nod. Dark shadows hung under his eyes, and he blinked frequently as if trying to remain awake. "My staff has worked through the night attempting to save the worst cases—" he began, but Restees interrupted him with a raised hand.

"You can give your report to the Highprince himself," Restees said dismissively. "Take a seat."

Awkwardly, Ven sat next to Pereshal. No one offered him any wine or food or thought to explain the situation to him further. The battalionlords all went back to eating, drinking, and conversing among themselves as the spanreed pulsed in its place. Ven glanced at the shardblade on the table, then away. He was the nearest to Kaladin now, only one seat away.

"Many Shardblade wounds at the field hospital last night?" Kaladin asked darkly.

The surgeon looked at him, eyebrows raised. "A few, yes. Dead arms mostly, but a few with more complicated injuries." He looked back at the blade. "I was taught to mend tears in the flesh, but that thing rends the soul apart. I don't know how to sow that back together."

"More complicated, how?"

"Partial cuts through the abdomen, not severing the spine. It leaves only a thin gray line, often without any pain. Many men think the blade missed them until an organ starts to fail. I had a scribe write to a colleague of mine in Kharbranth, and he transcribed everything he had on sharblade wounds for me. It seems that if it's a kidney or lung, they may survive, but the stomach or liver is a death sentence. Organs do not die partially. If they are pierced, they simply fail. The exception is the intestines. For some reason, if there are an even number of slices through the intestines, only the portion between cuts will die. It is possible to cut out the blade-dead sections and reattach the healthy ends, though it's very risky. Necessary, but risky."

"Have you attempted such a surgery yet?" Kaladin asked.

Ven grimaced. "It's hard to tell between a wound that's pierced the guts and one that's only cut the skin and flesh. These 'flesh wounds' are not debilitating, but the surgery can be fatal. I'll wait until one of them shows symptoms. I won't cut a man without cause."

Kaladin didn't envy the man—already swarmed with ordinary patients—now tasked with an operation few surgeons on Roshar have ever successfully performed. "When my rank is confirmed, I can try to secure you some additional spheres, more staff."

Ven looked up in surprise. "Brightlord, you don't have to bribe me; I will prioritize your men in battle if you demand it."

"It's not a bribe," Kaladin sighed. "This army is facing some hard fighting. We need more surgeons and medics." Ven still looked doubtful. "I also want those men with shardblade wounds cared for," Kaladin said. "I intend to find a place for them myself."

That seemed to make even less sense to the surgeon, but he nodded his thanks. As they turned back to the others, the spanreed's gem went solid red. The scribe placed the reed just above a point in the top left sheet of paper, holding it still for a moment. When the gem flashed again, she looked up at the assembled battalionlords.

"Highprince Sadeas," Redelin began without consulting the others, "we wish you glory and triumph in the name of the Almighty."

Dutifully, the scribe copied the greeting as it was said before returning the tip of the reed to the left of the page. "Indeed, and may we all find our places high in the Tranquiline Halls," the scribe read. "This is Brightlady Ialai Sadeas speaking—the Highprince has only just been called away on a plateau run. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

"Assembled are—" Redelin began, but Melys suddenly grabbed the scribe's wrist before she could write. "Oh, be easy on the girl," Redelin said, clearly pleased to have gotten a reaction. "I am only dictating the ordinary pleasantries."

"Do not transmit anything until the whole body gives its assent," Melys said, the scribe's arm still clenched in his fist. She nodded anxiously, and he released her.

With a sigh, Redelin began again. "Assembled are the senior surviving officers of the Army of Absidier Highmarshal Meridas Amaram—Phubar Pereshal, Kallem Restees, Havar Ordinal, Zem Melys, Elash Melys, and Varik Redelin." He looked around the table, hands open, looking for approval.

"Chief Surgeon Ven and Shardbearer Kaladin Stormblessed are present as well," Restees added. They all nodded, and the scribe transcribed.

"What is the state of Seti? What are his chances of recovery?" the scribe read. The rest of the table turned to Ven.

Standing stiffly, he began his report. "Seti awoke briefly this morning long enough to give over command to this council, but only remained awake a few minutes. He suffered a deep wound in his right thigh from a thrust spear and a concussion from a shield. He lost a great deal of blood, but the greatest danger is over. I suspect he will regain consciousness again soon."

"And the state of the army?"

Restees enumerated the same casualty estimates he had mentioned earlier, emphasizing the need for replacement officers, before Ven began his report on the wounded. "There were eighteen hundred and twenty two total wounded reported in camp last night, of whom one hundred and twenty have since succumbed to their wounds. Approximately twelve hundred suffer from minor injuries and may be ready for combat within a few weeks. The remaining suffer from more serious wounds, unlikely to recover within the month. Many of these will never be fit soldiers again, I'm afraid."

Those numbers were grim, but better than Kaladin had thought. He had been wounded on several occasions, as had many of his men. They had been counted by the surgeons, but Kaladin was often left to look after the cuts himself. He knew in his heart that half of those reported as simply dead in battle could have been saved if there were more stretcher bearers and surgeons dedicated to saving darkeyes.

"The Highprince left orders for the reorganization of the army," the scribe read, nearing the end of the page. She hastily replaced the paper and reset the spanreed in the top left corner. Kaladin fidgeted in his seat. This was the moment of truth, the moment in which his plans either bore fruit or turned to crem in his mouth.

"Brightlords Restees and Melys are hereby promoted to the rank of Division General and the third Dahn. Brightlord Seti is granted the temporary title of Absidier Highmarshal and overall command of all forces in the Sadeas Princedom." Kaladin smiled. It was just as he had suggested to the ardent. Promoted alone, either Melys or Restees would dominate the army. Promoted together, and each would balance the influence of the other.

"Kaladin Stormblessed is granted the rank of Battalionlord upon the conditions outlined in our most recent correspondence. Do you accept these honors as they are given?"

Restees rose to attention with a swift salute. "I accept this honor and pledge my eternal loyalty to Highprince Sadeas and his House, in the name of the Almighty."

Slowly Melys stood, his knees cracking. He gave his oath in much the same way as Restees, though with the tired expression of one who had given his oath a thousand times. He spoke in a flat tone closer to contempt than gratitude. When he was done, all eyes turned on Kaladin.

"I accept this honor," he began, "and pledge my service to the Sadeas Princedom in the army of Brightlord Seti. I swear by my honor as a soldier to defend this army against all enemies and to obey the orders of my superiors." Restees eyed him skeptically, but Melys sat without comment.

"In the name of the Highprince, I accept your pledges," the scribe read. "What advice does this council give to their Highprince on the matter of the reorganization?"

Restees was the first to speak, holding off the scribe for the moment. "The ten attrited battalions should be consolidated into seven full strength, with two more raised from new recruits. That would suppose four new Battalionlords, not counting Stormblessed."

Melys nodded his agreement. "The two newly raised battalions should be under Seti along with Stormblessed," he said. "The Shardbearer must be under the overall commander."

"Gylan is senior most among the Companylords," Restees said cautiously, anticipating Melys's displeasure. "Sheler also has a claim, being Amaram's heir."

Melys grunted. "Fine. Put them in the reserve, set them to recruiting. At least it'll keep them out of our hair for a few weeks. Then each of us can choose one more."

Each newly minted general paused a moment, thinking of their preferred subordinate to promote. "Norby," Restees said without explanation, but Kaladin understood. Norby had been his companylord, the best lighteyed source of information on him, and now immune from being drafted into his battalion.

"Gresh," Melys added, "Commander of my heavy infantry. He doesn't shy away from a fight."

Restees looked for the assent of the others gathered around the table. Pereshal nodded, while Ordinal frowned without a word.

"So did we argue about voting for no reason?" Redelin asked with a sly grin. Just as Restees was about to respond, he waved him off. "No matter, General. I think you both made fine selections."

Kaladin reluctantly nodded his agreement. He didn't want either Sheler or Gylan as his fellow battalionlords, but if they were sent off, they'd at least be out of camp for a few weeks. With Zem's shrug, the scribe transmitted the message.

"Promotions to the fifth dahn may be recommended by individual commanders at need. For now, let us move on to more important topics—the progress of the war."

This was what Kaladin had been so eager to discuss when he arrived this morning. Why has this border conflict gone on for so many years? Why does it seem like the armies come to blows and break apart to no long-term strategic effect? What even brought the Sadeas and Vamah Princedoms to war in the first place?

"Vamah has been adamantly denying our allegations that he brought foreign shards into a conflict between Princedoms, but court opinion has turned against him. Everyone believes that he lost a treasonous gamble and now is simply trying to obfuscate his shame. Now is the perfect time to seize all the lands up to the Zephyr and secure our claims later."

It was no more than Kaladin suspected—the war had no pretext other than claiming land. He wanted to be angry, but all he felt was bleak disappointment. He already knew that lighteyes only sought wealth, power, and prestige, but as an enlisted man, he could ignore the big picture. Only his squad mattered before, during, and after battle. The war served only as a backdrop for their day-to-day problems.

"What's the point of securing claims if you're going to take the land first anyway?" Kaladin muttered under his breath. Ven and Pereshal turned towards him, but the other continued on as before.

"Hallaw will withdraw in order to recoup his losses," Melys said. "Scouts have him marching south toward Michim's Crossing. He'll join up with the garrison there and send for reinforcements."

"If we could beat him to the river—" Ordinal began, but Restees held up a hand.

"With his advantage in light cavalry, we'll never get close to his army. We'll be held up by the rear guard actions and never catch the main force."

"Michim's Crossing is well fortified," Melys grumbled. "An assault is not advisable, and neither is a siege. Damnation! We're back in the same position as last year. We are left in possession of the field, free to march through the entire territory except the one town worth holding."

"But the situation is not the same as last year," Redelin said, twirling his empty cup on the table. "We have a shardbearer now."

All eyes turned toward Kaladin, and this time they waited for him to speak. The scribe copied the conversation down, her eyes flicking between the assembled officers.

"I don't know much about shards," Kaladin admitted honestly. "It seems to me that no place is truly fortified against plate and blade. I could breach the walls at will or sever the trusses of the bridge and cut off their supplies."

"Risky," Melys said, shaking his head.

"I agree," Kaladin said. "Regardless of how we breach their defenses, there are going to be thousands of soldiers waiting in that city, expecting me. I know better than anyone—a shardbearer is not invincible. Taking the city by storm is not an option, not with their numbers."

"Putting it to siege is no more likely to succeed," Ordinal said. "Even without the bridge, they can resupply via boat or soulcaster. And the army will be vulnerable, camped on the Michim Flats."

"This last campaign won't be repeated," Melys grumbled. "Even if we march through every town and village in the region, they won't seek battle. Not with a shardbearer in the field. They'll send out their cavalry like whitespines to pick us apart in detail."

The table went quiet. Even Redelin seemed sobered by their predicament. Kaladin gingerly lifted his shardblade off the table and examined it thoughtfully. This weapon made him powerful, but it also made him a target. It was cursed, Kaladin thought; all such weapons must be cursed. A spear would never betray its master like this.

"I must leave," he said suddenly. "I was given two choices earlier today. Stay with the army or travel to the Shattered Plains. I insisted on the former, but the latter is no less believable—more even. Everyone knows there is more glory there than here." Glory didn't matter, only survival and victory. "They will not leave the safety of their fortress until they believe I have quit the field, so that is what we will make them believe. I am going to the Shattered Plains."

The scraping of chairs signaled the end of the meeting, and a coterie of servants entered the room. They began taking away the dishes, books, and loose papers left out as the officers rose. Kaladin snatched his scribbled notes off the table. They were only the names of a few lighteyes, but he didn't want them falling into anyone else's hands. The gray-haired servant whisked away his dishes, eyeing his full glass of Reshi blue enviously.

The ardent appeared at his side, a self-satisfied look on her face. "I should've taken that merchant's apprenticeship like my mother wanted," she said, "because I can barter with the best of them."

"I heard," Kaladin said under his breath. "Did the Highprince seem pleased?"

"Hardly. That deal will only last you a few months at most. But I did convince him of the wisdom of your advice."

"Why did you decide to help me?" Kaladin couldn't figure this woman out—was she loyal to Sadeas or not?

"Because there was wisdom in your advice," she said. "Don't think I'll give up my Devotary for your sake."

"I wouldn't expect you to." Kaladin hefted his Shardblade and began maneuvering around the crowded room. He passed into the servants corridor to avoid the throng by the main entrance. "By the way, now that you are my Ardent, I ought to know your name. What should I call you?"

"Rtama, if you wish," she said, following close behind. "'Your Holiness' would work as well, Brightlord."

"I'd give you any title you want if you'd forget mine," Kaladin said as he ducked under a low threshold. "I'm no Brightlord, just a soldier." He looked back to see her reaction. She wore an affable smile, half way between sly and sweet.

"Unfortunately, it'd be highly impious of me to forgo your honors in order to attain honors for myself."

Kaladin shook his head. Impious, he thought. Lighteyes really did think highly of themselves. They were the 'Chosen of Almighty' according to the Ardentia. Perhaps that was why things had gone more easily in the meeting than he had expected. They really thought he had been chosen, or at least they were waiting to see his eyes change.

"Do you really believe—" Kaladin began but was cut off by the din of falling dishes.

Ahead were the kitchens, and from them a girl screamed at the top of her lungs.

Forgetting the conversation, Kaladin rushed ahead and muscled his way through the door. Inside, an older serving man lay sprawled across the kitchen floor in a heap of smashed glass and ceramic, a puddle of blue liquid soaking into his tunic. A scullery maid knelt nearby, reaching her hand out to the man. His body seized violently, and she withdrew in shock.

"Don't touch him!" Kaladin shouted as he kneeled down. He buried the shardblade into the earthen floor and touched the man's neck carefully. "He's alive, but his pulse is—" his heart beat faster than Kaladin could count. Unconscious, he took rapid, shallow breaths.

"Brightlord! Help him, please!" the maid cried.

"It might be apoplexy," he said, years of training rushing through his head. "He needs Saleksbark extract. You!" He pointed to a servant crowding the door with Rtama. "Get the surgeon; he should still be in the stormshelter."

The servant rushed away, and Kaladin turned back to the dying man as he began seizing again. He held the man's neck steady so his head wouldn't slam on the floor as his limbs and back flexed. For the first time, Kaladin recognized the man—it was the servant who had taken his dishes away. Kaladin could smell it—that deceptively sweet odor he hadn't trusted, the wine he hadn't drunk.

As the seizure abated, he lifted the man into a crouched position and violently shoved two fingers down the man's throat. He vomited into his lap. It wasn't much, but Kaladin could see the tinge of blue. A small crowd of onlookers covered their noses and averted their eyes as Kaladin shoved his fingers back down his throat. More vomit. Kaladin laid the servant down on his side in case there was any more that might come up.

"What are you doing?" Rtama said, kneeling at his side.

"Girl!" Kaladin shouted, ignoring her. "This kitchen has charcoal for the stove?" She nodded through tears. "Get me a handful with a mortar and pestle. Then fetch me a mug of water."

The maid did as she was told, running about the kitchen quickly. She returned with the mortar, pestle, and pure black charcoal, and another servant brought the water. "Take his pulse and watch his breathing. Tell me if either falter," Kaladin ordered Rtama. Still shocked, she obeyed, and Kaladin went to work.

It was the simplest cure for poisoning, and it only took a spoonful. Kaladin crushed the charcoal into a fine powder and dumped it into the glass of water. He couldn't give it to the man unless he awoke, but he was glad to have it on hand. The servant's breathing calmed, save for a few sporadic coughs, and his body relaxed.

Turning his attention to the mess of sick and wine all over the man, Kaladin began to cut off his clothes with a knife. He was careful not to touch anything remotely blue. He called for a blanket to cover the man and a sack to dispose of the soiled clothes.

Ven appeared in the doorway, his weary expression replaced with alertness. "What happened? A fall?" he wondered aloud.

Kaladin rose. "Sudden fainting and seizure with a loss of breath and rapid heart rate," he said, watching the surgeon carefully. "What do you suppose caused it?"

Ven went to his knees and took the man's pulse, felt his breath, then rose again. "Apoplexy... but with seizure... Is he epileptic?" The maid shook her head dejectedly, her eyes focused on the undrunk charcoal mixture. Ven followed her gaze, then looked to Kaladin in sudden recognition. "You suspect that?"

"Would it surprise you? It was my wine." With a gasp, Rtama realized what was going on, looking up at Kaladin in shock. He silenced her with an upheld hand. "Is there any other possibility?"

Ven frowned down upon the man. "No. That is the most likely explanation."

Kaladin turned towards him conspiratorially. "What kind do you think?" he muttered. "Blackbane?"

"Scionsmate," Ven said with a grimace. "Blackbane causes paralysis, not seizures."

Neither of them dared say the word—poison—but it was on both of their tongues. Rtama followed the conversation, but Kaladin doubted anyone else could hear them. A pair of chefs were clearing out the kitchen of onlookers, and the maid still wept quietly. Evidently she was close to this serving man—a daughter perhaps. Suddenly her eyes widened, and she leaned towards the man. "Brightlord, he is waking up!"

The man hacked and coughed as Kaladin helped him sit. The man tried to thank him, but Kaladin pressed the cup of sooty water to his lips and made him drink. "What was that?" he asked between coughs.

"Something for your stomach," Kaladin said. "Lay down."

"It wasn't my stomach. I couldn't breathe..." Stretcher bearers arrived, and Kaladin helped lift the servant up.

"Tell Azael to brew him a pot of Saleksbark tea," Ven said, "and watch him carefully." The maid followed a step behind the stretcher as it departed, confusion and relief on her face.

Kaladin cleaned himself off with a dishrag and basin of water meant for the now shattered dishware. Rtama stood by his side. For the first time, she looked as serious as an ardent ought to be. As the room cleared, Ven remained seemingly lost in thought. Kaladin retrieved his shardblade buried in the ground by the surgeon's feet. Ven stepped back awkwardly but didn't leave.

"Brightlord... I want you to know... I-I would never—" he began, but Kaladin cut him off.

"I don't suspect you, Ven." Of course, it had to be one of the officers, and they wouldn't have trusted a darkeyes with the plot. "How do you know it was Scionsmate?"

"Scionsmate is meant to replicate a natural death for an older man," Ven said. "It's used most often to... accelerate one's inheritance. When attacking a weak constitution, Scionsmate will stop a heart dead. Against a hale one, well, it is as you saw."

"They didn't need me dead, only incapacitated. Long enough to take the blade." Kaladin scoffed, angry at himself as much as his would-be assassin. The poison could've easily been in the food rather than the wine. "They moved quickly and silently. I wasn't meant to be at the meeting and not one of us left that room all morning."

"You believe it to be someone at the war council?" Rtama asked.

"How could it be anyone else?"

"These servants don't belong to anyone in the army," Rtama insisted. "They are the citylords, appropriated while the army is nearby."

"Evidently the servant didn't know what he was doing," Kaladin said, kneeling to retrieve the bronze goblet he'd been served with, "or else he wouldn't have drank my wine himself."

"Did the wine belong to the citylord or someone in the army?" Ven asked.

Rtama took the goblet and examined it on all sides. "The wine would've come from the army's supply train," she answered distractedly. "Brightlord Amaram was not above requisitioning supplies, but he made it army policy never to accept a drink freely offered by an enemy lighteyes. I always thought he was paranoid."

"His paranoia didn't save anyone today," Kaladin said. "Mine did. I wouldn't let myself get drunk sitting in this whitespines den."

"Supposing you're right," Ven said with evident discomfort, "what are you going to do?"

Kaladin gripped his shardblade tightly. A dark thought occurred to him, but he dismissed it. Violence wouldn't end the threats against him, nor would a public accusation. He had suspects, but no proof. "Nothing, for now," he said. "I'm leaving anyway." Rtama turned toward him in surprise but said nothing. "They only have a few days to finish me off. For now, ignorance is the best disguise."

Ven considered for a moment. "Then I will ascribe the symptoms to apoplexy of the chest. Scionsmate is meant to mimic such a condition, and the man is old enough for it to be believed."

"I'd appreciate it," Kaladin said, "but why help me?"

"Men of our profession must work together." A sad smile appeared briefly on his face. "There are so many who kill and so few who heal. Who did you study under?"

Kaladin hesitated. "I never got to study formally; I apprenticed some time before joining the army." He was ashamed to conceal himself, but outside of his squad few men knew anything about his family, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"You learned well; you should've applied to my—ah, but then you would not be a Shardbearer." Ven shook his head as if he still couldn't believe it. Kaladin remembered that expression back from when he had first bribed Ven for the attention of his stretcher bearers. He took every bribe almost as an annoyance, the last only two days ago. Perhaps he was trying to make up for that now. Or perhaps he was just polishing his spheres like the Stormwarden.

Kaladin stopped Ven just as he turned towards the door. "I could use a pair of eyes in camp once I leave. Do you have access to a spanreed and a trustworthy scribe?"

"I-I uh..." Ven faltered, slowly realizing what was being asked. "Yes, my wife has a reed connected to a hub in Tashikk."

Kaladin looked to Rtama. "I have one connected there as well," she said without needing to be asked.

"Then I will rely on you, Ven." Kaladin patted him on the shoulder with a forced friendliness.

The gesture snapped Ven out of a daze. "M-may the winds treat you well on your travels, Brightlord." The surgeon bowed as he left, closing the door on Kaladin and Rtama, alone together for the first time.

"Leaving..." Rtama muttered. "Leaving! Just as I negotiated for you to stay, you decide to leave?!"

Kaladin grinned. "That is the plan. I am to gather my battalion and march with haste. When can we depart?"

The Ardent groaned. "There's a highstorm due tomorrow night."

"Then the day after tomorrow we'll be gone."

Rtama threw up her hands. "Gone where?!"

"Did you not hear? We're heading to the Shattered Plains."

Chapter Text

A cloud of dust rose over the camp, hardened crem pulverized by falling picks and kicked up by a thousand shuffling feet. A stiff breeze blew it into town opposite the direction of the storm. Windspren played in the eddying flow of air around Kaladin's legs as he marched toward camp.

"It's not a problem that we're leaving; it's just—" Rtama shouted, struggling to keep up with Kaladin's longer stride. "It's just not what we talked about."

"Plans change. Your mistress and the war council made their decision." The strategy they had devised depended upon the control of information. Enemy spies lurked about camp and in town. Rtama had already declared herself to be one of them. Though she seemed loyal enough, she didn't need to know the whole truth just now. "One battle lost. Don't worry about it."

"Less than two hours ago, the Highprince and—pht-pht." She spit out some sand which had blown into her mouth. "I thought we had come to an agreement."

"Are you surprised that a great lighteyes would break his word?" Kaladin chuckled. "You'd know better than me, but I assumed they all did that."

The source of the clouds of dust appeared ahead—pits and trenches cut straight into the earth. The sounds of picks and hammers echoed across the plain. Men slick with sweat hauled cremstone blocks onto sleds. Others dragged the sleds towards a growing pile in the distance. Restees and Melys had set the darkeyes to building stormbreaks, massive structures sturdy enough to shield men from the brunt of the storm. Open to the sky, they were hardly better than sleeping in a hole cut in the ground, except you wouldn't drown in your sleep.

Kaladin would not miss this part of being a soldier. Cutting, dragging, and piling up stone just for the privilege of soaking to the bone all night. Much as he hated to admit it, the daily drudgery of soldiering nearly broke him when he first enlisted. Other boys in Hearthstone grew up with the daily routine of farmwork, preparing them for a life of intense labor. As a surgeon's apprentice, Kaladin had been pampered by comparison. Once he joined the army, he work twice as hard as anyone else just to build up the strength and endurance required to be a soldier. He wondered how he would have ever caught up if he were exempted from hard labor like the lighteyed soldiers.

Darkeyed men looked up from their labors and stared enviously as the shardblade cut effortlessly into the earth that their picks only chipped at. Kaladin felt their eyes but pressed forward towards his own squad's tent. While all the others in this section of camp were empty and in various states of disassembly, Kaladin's squad stood idly around, some on guard, but most talking animatedly.

Toorim noticed him first and rushed over. "Sir!" he shouted, "Is it true what those lighteyes have been saying? You're forming your own Honor Guard?"

Yeshal spread that rumor quickly, just as he had promised. "Yes, I've been promoted to Battalionlord, and I have free pick of any soldier in camp."

The squad crowded around Kaladin and Rtama, bombarding him with a thousand questions, only one of which really mattered. "What are we going to do now?" asked Acis breathlessly.

"After tomorrow night's storm, we're leaving camp with everything we need for a long journey. We'll be many weeks on the road." The men fell quiet, thinking of what that could mean. "I need your help in organizing the battalion by that time."

"Us?" wondered Coreb. "Sir, you're the one that's gonna be lighteyes. I—I'm just a—"

"You're a Squadleader now. Navar too. And I want you to pick four Sergeants each." Kaladin didn't have time to baby his men; the next two days were a critical period. "I'll need you all to go out recruiting later. Eighty reliable spearmen, men you trust. Or at least men you don't distrust. And not all from our battalion." Coreb nodded. Navar glanced at Rtama, then away. He didn't trust ardents, Kaladin remembered with a frown. "This is Brightness Rtama of the Devotary of Sincerity. She is the scribe Sadeas has given me to assist in running the battalion and maintaining the Shardplate."

"Where is the plate?" she interjected. "I should begin repairing it immediately." She stood as tall as she could in this circle of men. Rtama put on the airs of a lighteyed lady, filled her voice with all the authority due to an ardent, but the look on her face betrayed nerves. Luckily for her, the men were too busy sharing glances with each other to notice.

"The plate can wait," Kaladin said. "What we need now is to secure supplies and get organized. Navar, Coreb, pick your sergeants and divide the rest of the men between you. Stay alert until I return." Both men saluted, and the squad turned back to the tent. Kaladin marched on with Rtama following at a trot.

"Eighty men?" she wondered aloud. "Plus your twenty, and only two squadleaders..."

"In my battalion, squads are fifty men, sub-squads are ten. Companies are two hundred and fifty, and platoons..." Kaladin trailed off. "Platoons don't exist."

"What? So for every two hundred and fifty soldiers there is only one officer in command?!" She sounded scandalized.

"One lighteyed officer," Kaladin said flatly. "Squadleaders will serve in the place of captainlords in darkeyed units. My men don't need a lighteyes to hold their hand on the battlefield." And Kaladin couldn't think of any lighteyes he'd entrust with the command. Yeshal obeyed him well enough, but how would he treat darkeyes beneath him?

Rtama remained silent for a long time before speaking again. "I didn't expect you to be so prejudiced, now that you're one of us."

"Prejudiced," Kaladin scoffed. "Common sense. Some lighteyes in this army has already tried to poison me today, and he won't be the last. Every lighteyes I invite into my battalion is another potential assassin or spy."

"Are darkeyes incapable of deceit now?"

"They just don't get as much practice."

Kaladin found Yeshal conferring with a group of lighteyed men outside the warcenter. He dismissed them as Kaladin approached and offered a shallow bow. "I'm glad to see you in one piece," he said, half joking. "I've never been able to stand up to Restees before, let alone Melys. Did everything go as you intended?"

"More or less," Kaladin murmured, keeping an eye out for eavesdroppers. "How many men do you have under your command now?"

"Twenty-one, including the walking wounded. Why?"

"I want you to fill out your platoon. Young men of the eighth dahn that you trust. If you need more lieutenants, promote from within." Many lighteyed officers were accompanied by their wives or daughters, but Kaladin wanted as few spanreads in his battalion as possible. "By the way, you're a Companylord now. It's up to you to choose your replacement."

His face stuck halfway between joy and bewilderment. "Yes, sir," he stuttered out eventually. "It's an honor, sir."

"Be honored later; we have too much to do right now," Kaladin said. "There was an attempt on my life at the council—poison, but it missed—who among the lighteyed officers would you suspect of this?"

Yeshal's bewilderment only grew worse. "Anyone close to you, I guess. One who might lay claim to the shards in the confusion."

"Why not just knife me in the back and be done with it?"

"That would invite an inquiry for murder," Rtama interjected, annoyed. "Lighteyes can't just go around blatantly killing each other."

"Poison followed by theft isn't blatant?"

Yeshal shrugged. "It's more common than you'd think. If you died naturally without an heir or were incapacitated while bonding the blade, anyone would be entitled to seize your shards. Even if it was later determined to be a poisoning, unless guilt was proven beyond all doubt, the new owner of the blade and plate would probably not be punished. Of course, the only possible punishment for a shardbearer is death."

That gave Kaladin pause. "Is that really true?" he asked, looking between Rtama and Yeshal. They exchanged a bemused expression and nodded.

"You can't exactly imprison a shardbearer," Yeshal explained. "I suppose a Highprince could revoke a Shardbearer's property, but that would just alienate him. Unlike most lighteyes, a Shardbearer carries nine-tenths of his wealth on his back—or wherever shardblades go when they're dismissed. They can swear themselves to a new Highprince whenever they want and suffer little actual loss of station or income. Therefore, the only way to realistically punish them for a crime is to kill them outright."

So that's how it was. Kaladin finally understood how the battalionlords must see him. Basically immune from the justice system, he could cause all kinds of havoc for the army. Maybe he should.

"Change of plans, Yeshal," Kaladin said. "I want you and your men to spread the word: Any man who wants to join my honor guard should assemble here at nightfall, darkeyed or light, officer or enlisted. I won't promise them a position or rank, but no one will be considered unless they present themselves."

Yeshal nodded in the affirmative. Kaladin dismissed him and took off again at a brisk walk, Rtama trailing behind. "Another change of plans?" she huffed.

"Expect many more."

"And where are we going now?"

"We're going to rob the army."

The supply depot lay near the warcenter among the circled wagon trains. Four wagons pushed up against one another formed the paymaster's office, one of which was reinforced with a steel cage. Kaladin ducked into the office with his blade held delicately before him. Though he intended to pilfer the place, he didn't want to slice through a doorway or floorboard without cause. In spite of his careful manner, the clerk at the front desk squeaked like a kicked axehound as he entered. It seemed she had been doodling on a spare bit of paper when he had walked in.

"B-Brightlord Stormblessed! W-What are you—I mean—what is it I can do for you?"

"I had hoped you could help me with some math I can't quite figure," Kaladin said, carefully laying the shardblade flat across his shoulder. "For a battalion of four hundred darkeyed soldiers and one hundred lighteyed soldiers, including officers, how much are they paid each month?"

The frazzled clerk began calculating the figures as Kaladin pushed past her. Rtama followed after him wearing an unpleasant expression. The door to the fortified wagon seemed to have originally been constructed out of ordinary lumber, but a soulcaster had transformed about half the planks into steel. Kaladin looked to

"Is this where gems for soulcasters are kept?" Kaladin asked, gesturing to the barred and reinforced door.

"Yes," Rtama replied, "but they are rationed out; you need to officially requisition them."

"This thing seems pretty official to me," Kaladin said with a look back at the shardblade.

Rtama seemed to force her voice to be calm, but a bubbling pool of angerspren at her feet betrayed her true emotions.

"You possess an ancient and holy artifact of incalculable value. An artifact that makes you dangerous and important." She waved her soulcaster in his face. "So do I. That doesn't give either of us permission to act like one of the ten fools. It costs you nothing to do this properly."

Kaladin could never keep the ten fools straight in his head, but he was pretty sure none of them ever robbed an army's payroll at shard-point.

"It would cost me time and patience, which I don't have to spare," he said with a hard look. Rtama met his eyes, undaunted. Kaladin was about to continue when he noticed the clerk waiting, the spare piece of paper clutched in her hands.

"Brightlord, I have the number," she said meekly.

Kaladin nodded. "Go ahead."

"The base rate of pay for four hundred darkeyed spearmen with a mark of veterancy amounts to two hundred and fifty clearmarks a month each, one hundred thousand clearmarks total, plus an extra fifty clearmarks per month for each sergeant, one hundred for each squadleader."

"The base rate of pay for one hundred lighteyed soldiers is ten thousand skychips a month total, plus an emerald broam for each Lieutenant, two for each Captainlord, four for each Companylord, and... sixteen emerald broams for yourself. The total to be paid out is one hundred and four thousand clearmarks, ten thousand skychips, and sixty emerald broams." She finished cheerily, clearly proud of her quick sums.

Kaladin's head swirled with spheres. "Why are lighteyes paid with different gems?" he wondered aloud, before the obvious answer occurred to him. Two skychips a day wasn't really that much money, only twice the value of a darkeye's five clearmarks a day, but the higher denomination made it feel more significant. And officers would, of course, demand to be paid in emerald broams, the highest denomination of spheres. "Forget it. How much do you have on hand right now?"

"Oh plenty, Brightlord," the clerk said with a laugh, "thousands of broams. You and your men will be paid on time; no need to worry."

"No, I mean how much can you part with right this instant? I'm taking a contingent of soldiers to the Shattered Plains on the Highprince's wishes and need at least a month's wages for the trip."

"This instant?" the clerk repeated. She looked between Kaladin and Rtama, suddenly nervous.

"Yes. And I need to replace the gems in the shardplate I won. Two are shattered, and I'll need some more in case others do as well. They are all smokestones if that matters." Rtama huffed loudly. "Oh, and throw in some gems for the Brightlady's soulcaster too. What are those, amethysts?"

The clerk looked embarrassed. "Well, you see, I can only make disbursements when the paymaster receives an official..." She trailed off as Kaladin rested the shardblade against the hinges of the wagon door.

"Requisition form?" Kaladin finished for her. "We could wait for Brightness Rtama to fill one out, run it over the unconscious General Seti, miraculously revive him, and get his approval, but I don't think this door will survive that long. So why don't you start counting out spheres, and we can pretend that all of that is already happening and we're just getting a head start."

The clerk froze for three solid seconds before she grabbed her keys out from under her desk and rushed to the door. Kaladin made way for her with a friendly wave, and Rtama stepped aside as well. As the scribe unlocked the door, a flood of stormlight spilled out. The light threw shadows across the room and made Kaladin squint.

He remembered the pile of spheres his men had poured out into the shardplate the previous night, the bowl of spheres his father had hoarded for his education, and the robbers at the door banished by the light. For an instant, Kaladin felt a pang of shame at what he was doing. Only a few minutes ago he had realized the normal rules didn't apply to him, and in that instant he had decided to abuse his status.

Then, as his eyes adjusted to the light, he felt a burning anger rise within him. The bubbling pool under Rtama's feet migrated over to Kaladin, basking in his heat. Inside the fortified wagon were shelves, crates, and jars filled with countless glowing spheres and massive gems unlike any Kaladin had ever seen. This obscene display dwarfed the little hoard his father and Roshone had feuded over all those years. Kaladin's father had risked his life, put his family through damnation, and lost both of his sons for one ten-thousandth of this wealth, and yet it just sat there, fodder for a meaningless war. A war Kaladin had agreed to keep fighting.

The clerk opened a chest and began plucking out emerald broams five at a time and depositing them in a thick leather pouch. It swelled quickly, and soon she set it aside and began filling another. Each, she said, would have one hundred emerald broams, and he would need to visit the money changer if he wanted clearmarks or skychips. Every month, lesser denominations had to be ordered from a mint in Mourn's Vault by the wagonload to pay all the soldiers in the army.

Kaladin counted in his head: he made thirty-five clearmarks a week as a squadleader. If he had saved ten a week every week for the next twenty years, for the length of an entire career in the army, he would have enough savings to fill up one bag. What would he have done with it? Idle and angry fantasies played out in his head as the clerk counted out the spheres.

"What could you possibly be mad about?" Rtama wondered aloud, staring at the spren around his ankles. "You are getting exactly what you want."

Kaladin had no real answer for her. Of course, an army paid out thousands of broams each month; it had thousands of men in it. He wasn't angry that the army cost this much, but that there was a man with this much to spend. Highprince Sadeas did not need to own the Michim Flats. The land probably wasn't worth the spheres he had already spent trying to acquire it. But he spent them anyway.

"Why did you tell the Captainlord about what happened, but not your men?"

Kaladin looked at Rtama, uncertain what she meant for a moment, but then realized—the poison."I... I didn't want to worry them. They have a job to do. If something did happen... well, it'd be safer if they weren't too close. They might do something stupid trying to protect me."

"They're that loyal, huh?" Rtama asked, a shaved eyebrow raised.

"Yes, they are." Kaladin had no doubt that every man in that squad would die to protect the others, including himself. "I can't say the same for every darkeyed soldier, but my men are different. In battle, we don't fight for honor, glory, or personal gain. We fight for the man beside us. That is how I trained them."

Rtama still wore a dubious expression. "Loyalty is a matter of circumstances," she said dismissively. "In battle a man may either hold firm or break and run. That's a choice between two types of danger. But what if it were a choice between danger and reward? Your men may have faced death in battle, but have they ever been forced to turn down a bribe? You don't actually know what their loyalty is worth yet."

That... was true. Kaladin winced at Rtama's logic, but he couldn't deny it. He had built his squad around mutual protection on the battlefield, where they all shared the same danger. The threat plaguing him now was not the same; allying with Kaladin put them in danger, and betraying him could earn them a new life. That same dilemma would apply to everyone close to him.

The clerk piled up eight pouches into an unused strongbox, then counted out some more spheres into an ordinary cloth pouch and handed it directly to Kaladin. As she turned to collect the larger gems, Kaladin opened up the cloth pouch and counted. Thirty emerald broams, more money than he had ever held at once, glowed bright as Nomon in the bottom of the pouch. Something about them made Kaladin sad.

The afternoon sun baked what was left of the camp as they passed the warcenter. Almost all of the tents had been taken down, and all darkeyed soldiers were busy cutting, carrying, or laying stone on the plain. The lighteyed soldiers still wandering about, some still celebrating the victory the previous day, others quietly gossiping. Kaladin didn't need to overhear them to know what they were gossiping about.

Under one arm, Kaladin carried the strongbox, and over his shoulder he carried the shardblade. His shardblade, he reminded himself. Kaladin had trouble reconciling who he was now with who he had been the previous morning. He had been a spearman, hadn't he? He was meant to carry a spear, but that wasn't an option anymore. Lighteyes didn't use spears, shardbearers least of all. He didn't know if his eyes had turned yet; he was too afraid to ask.

"How long do I have to carry this thing around before it... y'know." Kaladin didn't know much about Shardblades, but he knew it took ten heartbeats to summon them, which meant they had to... dis-summon somehow?

"It takes five days to bond a blade," Rtama said. "Then you will be able to dismiss it at will."

"How does that work?"

Rtama glanced over at him. She had been quiet since they left the paymaster's office. He wouldn't blame her for still being angry, but the spren had seemingly abandoned them both.

"I... don't know how it works really. Shardblades are not very well understood. They are ancient fabrials unlike anything we have today. The bond has many effects; apparently you're supposed to be able to hear your heart beating."

Kaladin could feel the bond in the back of his head like an itch on the inside of his skull but couldn't hear anything. "I need training," he said under his breath.

Rtama glanced over again. "I think the best you can do is practice. There are only a handful of men who've been trained with plate and blade, and almost all of them are on the Shattered Plains."

"How long will it take to fix the plate?"

"A few hours with the Almighty's aid. And yours, you'll need to sit for the regrowing process."

"Sit?" Kaladin said.

"If you want the plate to match your height and build, you'll need to put on the chestplate and other parts. The missing sections will regrow to fit your dimensions. By the way, what color do you want it to be?"

"Color?" The armor was gold, same as the shardblade. Kaladin figured they were a... matching set? "I didn't know they could change color."

"They don't change," Rtama laughed. "You paint them! With your house colors, which I suppose you have to decide on at some point."

The amount that Kaladin didn't know was astounding, but he couldn't afford to be embarrassed. No question he asked would be stupid if it saved him in the future. "Is there a bond with the plate like the blade?"

"No, well... The plate does mold to the body, even when it's not been regrown."

"That's incredible," Kaladin said. "Can the blade change shape?"

"A little, I think. I know there's something they put on it to make it dull for sparring."

"What?!" Kaladin couldn't believe it. He'd been cutting holes in the floor everywhere he walked for nothing. Even now, holding the blade in his shoulder, he was afraid of slipping and accidentally cutting his head off. "Do you have one? How are they made? Why don't they make shields out of it?"

"No." Rtama recoiled from his sudden interest. "I don't know how to make one. And I don't think that's how they work."

"Damnation, that's inconvenient."

Rtama chuckled at that, shaking her head. "Brightlord, you are somehow both more clever and more foolish than I suspected when we first met."

"Why? Because I ask questions?"

"Perhaps." Rtama said under her breath. Kaladin waited for her, but she didn't elaborate. She just walked in the same practiced, elegant gait as ever, not even looking towards him.

"You are more principled than I first suspected," Kaladin said, putting an impertinent bite into his voice.

"Oh? In what way?"

"When I met you yesterday, the first thing you did was almost incite a duel between Gylan and myself. Then you looted the Veden's corpse and returned here to do the same to the Highmarshal. But today you took offense at my accelerated requisitioning techniques."

"I also took offense at your plans for the battalion. What does that tell you?"

"That you respect the letter of the law but will push the boundaries to do your job. You should understand that I am similar, only I don't really know the letter of the law. It was never taught to me. So I just do what I think is right and deal with the consequences later. When I was a squadleader, my superior's battle plan was only a suggestion. If I thought an attack was necessary, I made it, if I thought it was suicidal, I didn't. I was the worst kind of subordinate an officer could ask for, and I was the best. That is how I won my shards. You should tell Highprince Sadeas that. It will make our relationship run more smoothly in the long run."

"No," Rtama said after a lengthy silence. "I won't report that to the Highprince. Autobiographical information like that is rarely reliable. I only report what I see with my own eyes. All I saw today was a man cut through five feet of red tape with a six-foot sword."

Fair enough, Kaladin thought. In this new position, he would have to prove himself all over again.

Back at the tent, Kaladin's squad seemed to be in high spirits. Several crates had been stacked nearby, apparently containing rations. The men were eating lavis bread smeared with some kind of jelly and talking with some others as well. Kavel was there, looming over the rest, and so was Sergeant Haber, his blade dead arm now in a sling.

"Stormblessed!" Kavel said, running up to greet him. "I'm sorry I wasn't there this morning to... uh—" He looked back at the squad, almost embarrassed. "I meant to accompany you, but you had already left."

"I don't think a bodyguard is quite necessary," Kaladin said, continuing towards the rest of his squad, "but I do need squadleaders."

"That's why I brought Haber, sir," Kavel said, gesturing to the crippled sergeant. Kaladin tried to look the older man in the eye, but he had a far-off expression. He winced as Kavel clapped him on the back. "Haber is a legend among Amaram's Guard, and he knows you, knows what you can do."

'What I can do?' Kaladin thought. He wondered whether Kavel was referring to his fight with the Shardbearer or his rescuing of the army afterwards. He owed both victories to the men around him. Haber, Kavel, and all the others had shown incredible bravery and skill in those fights. If Kaladin was being honest, any of them had as good a claim on the shards as he did.

"I told the man I wouldn't be much use to you, sir, but... if you have a place for my men..." Haber trailed off, his eyes downcast.

"Tell me, Sergeant, how long have you been in the army?" Kaladin asked.

"Nineteen years, sir, and I've not regretted it once. But I'm no use now. The men are trained up good, though, sir, brave and strong. They'll serve you well."

Nineteen storming years, Kaladin thought. The man had been at war as long as Kaladin had been alive. "Can I ask you a sensitive question, Haber?" Kaladin said, conscious of the older man's recently frayed psyche. "Why are you a Sergeant and not a Squadleader?"

Haber barked a laugh, then winced, his cracked ribs punishing him. "I earned my knots the same as you," he said after catching his breath. "Twelve years as a spearman in the light infantry. But after the Highmarshal received his posting, he put out the call for the best infantry, lighteyed or dark, for his Honorguard. Only problem was, no squadleaders in the rank structure. Cost of having a mixed unit. I took the hit to the rank for the sake of fighting with the best left in the Princedom. Most of my old squad got sent to the Shattered Plains, but I felt like my place was here. It's all over now, I suppose. I just wished I coulda made it an even twenty years."

The Sergeant got a far-off look in his eyes then, his weather-beaten face covered in creases and scars. The years had not been kind to this man, or rather the army hadn't been kind. Kaladin felt in that moment he was looking at a version of himself, the person he might have become in a decade or two, worn out, tired, and crippled, facing a grim and uncertain retirement from the only profession he'd ever really known.

"I need your help, Sergeant," Kaladin said. "Would you do one more year with me? As a Squadleader?"

"Storm off," Haber scoffed and looked away. You don't need a one-armed spearman. I didn't come here for your pity; I came to thank you..."

"Save it," Kaladin interrupted. "We wouldn't have defeated the shardbearer if you and your men hadn't joined. You paid the price, and I got the reward. I owe you more than my thanks, but this offer isn't part of that. I need a man who can lead a shield wall, who can keep the men in order when I'm not there. And I need people I can trust with my life, as many as I can get."

They shared an intense silence for several seconds. Haber looked at his feet but nodded. Kaladin thought he might be crying and patted him on the shoulder. Then he looked towards the rest of the men assembled. "At dusk, I'll be making an announcement to the whole camp, so I want to let you know first. After tomorrow night's Highstorm, we are leaving the army on the Highprince's order. Me and five hundred men. It'll be a long journey, and at the end you won't find riches, just more danger. I won't hold it against any of you if you choose to go home, and I will buy out anyone's enlistment contract if they want to leave the army. But if you want to... follow me on this path, come forward now."

The whole squad looked on him reverently, listening to his words but hearing what they wanted to hear. When he finished, whispers of the Shattered Plain erupted. He wouldn't lie to his men, not directly, but he knew they would jump to this conclusion. It was the dream he had filled them all with for months, the reason he pushed them to be proactive in battle, hunting for glory on the off chance of being sent to a real war, where all Alethi stood as one against a common enemy. Kaladin wasn't sure he wanted that anymore.

To his disappointment, but not surprise, none of his men chose to leave the army. One by one they each approached him and gave their oath in their own way: Navar, seriously; Raksha, sarcastically; Acis with an enthusiasm reserved only for the young and ignorant. Toorim shook Kaladin's hand with a bizarre, far-off expression.

Kaladin took out the half-filled bag of spheres the scribe had given him, and into each of his soldiers hands, he placed a full emerald broam. Rtama nodded her approval, but Kaladin felt unclean, as if he had polluted something pure with money. Something deep inside Kaladin told him that loyalty bought was worth less than loyalty given freely, but this was a precaution he had to take. None of his soldiers should ever feel pressured by poverty to compromise themselves.

Kavel approached last, grasping Kaladin's hand firmly and looking him eye to eye. The others knew Kaladin from before, Kaladin the spearman and Squadleader, but Kavel only knew Kaladin the Hero, Kaladin the Shardbearer. The intensity of his devotion made Kaladin nervous; it was like the bond of the blade, itching in the back of his head. This man's loyalty was like a weapon, sharp and dangerous, not to be wielded lightly.

With that finished, Kaladin dismissed his men, sending them out into the camp to start recruiting. He and Rtama entered the tent and began to repair the Shardplate.

The following note was originally published with this chapter on FF.net and it's too long to fit in the AO3 endnotes, but I would also like to thank those of you on AO3 reading and commenting along as I reupload the story here. I love to hear your feedback and predictions!

Author's Note

I want to say thank you to the reviewers for your kind words, I'm sorry for being slow in uploading, the holidays distracted me. I have never published any writing before, but I'm enjoying the process so far. Hope to have another chapter finished by the end of next week. My aim is to take the story all the way through the battle of Narak before the next stormlight book gets released. This first part of the story is really important to establish this AU version of Kaladin: who is he without the loss of his men, Amaram's betrayal, and months of slavery? who is he if his most remote childhood dream became a reality? I look forward to exploring this less traumatized, more bold version of the character, along with the original characters I've populated the army with. I'd love to hear which of these are your favorite and what you think is going on with them.

I have done a lot of worldbuilding on Amaram's army, which I figured I might as well share:

Before the battle, the army was composed of about 6,000 men in 10 battalions of varying size. There were ~4000 darkeyed soldiers and ~2000 lighteyed soldiers. The army is divided in three sections lead by generals, the left wing, right wing, and reserves, each of which have two smaller Light Infantry Battalions, with lighteyed archers and darkeyed spearmen, and one larger Line Infantry Battalion, with lighteyed heavy infantry and darkeyed pikemen. The tenth battalion was Amaram's honor guard, which had two heavy infantry companies and two cavalry squadrons.

The way battles are described in Kaladin's flashbacks are incredibly chaotic and, from his perspective, make little sense, but I think I have rationalized a strategy that makes the chaos more understandable. The way it works in my version is that Amaram typically deploys the left and right apart from one another enticing the enemy to meet them. Skirmishing ensues, and then the main battlelines meet. The light infantry's job would be to flank around and harass the enemy while the pikes clash in a more stationary struggle. As the battle ensues, Amaram would commit his reserve battalions one at a time to reinforce the lines, and when he sees an opening he would rush in with his honor guard. Considering most soldiers on either side of the battle are conscripts, concentrating your veterans into a single unit maximizes their impact on the battlefield.

After the battle, there were about ~1000 dead, ~1000 badly wounded, ~1000 lightly wounded, and 3000 in good condition on Amaram's side. The reserves took the worst casualties, and their soldiers are mostly being shifted into the other two wings. As for Hallaw's forces, they came to the battle with only 5000 men, but suffered about the same number of casualties, however many of their wounded ended up being captured. Their army composition involves about 1000 cavalry, which they prefer as they can skirmish and harass better than light infantry while also being more effective in a charge. These cavalry also escaped mostly unscathed.

As for the sphere calculation, I made my best guess on how normal soldiers would get paid, depending on rank and status. Basically the base rate of pay for a darkeyes is 20 clearmarks a week. Once you've seen battle you get a mark of veterancy, which boosts it up to 25 clearmarks a week. Sergeants get another 5 mark raise, and Squadleaders get 5 more than a sergeant. Being in an elite unit might also earn you a bonus. This seems fair, however lighteyed soldiers by default get paid double a darkeyes wage, meaning the lowest ranked archer was better paid than any spearman. Nominally their positions are more "skilled" but really it's just a class distinction. Additionally, they get paid in sky chips instead of clearmarks. Each lighteyed officer's rank bonus is double that of the previous rank because each comes with a change in Dahn, one Emerald Broam for 7th dahn, two for 6th, four for 5th, eight for 4th (and eight more emerald broams for Kal because ha is a Shardbearer, who is expected to hire a whole crew to maintain his plate at some point).

The assumed rank structure of Kaladins Battalion is that he will have three companies, one for lighteyes with about ~100 men in it and two for darkeyes with about ~200 men. Each company would have two platoons, each with about five squads. The average darkeyed squad has 20 men, including the squadleader and two sergeants, while lighteyed squads typically have ~10 men including the lieutenant. Additionally each officer has a lieutenant as his personal aide (though there is no precedent for this in the books, I just think it makes sense).

In total there should be one battalionlord, three companylords, six captains, twenty lieutenants, twenty squadleaders, and forty sergeants total

Kaladin's actual plan is to have only two companylords, two captainlords, fifteen lieutenants, eight squadleaders, and thirty two sergeants, so he's going to save a lot on officers salaries, which is how he is able to bribe his men with a full broam apiece.

Chapter Text

Kaladin felt as if he had been wrapped in clay. The Shardplate fit around him tightly, but not so tightly that he couldn't move or breathe. The joints were surprisingly loose; even the gauntlets, which he thought would be clumsy, turned out to fit like a glove. Somehow the plate transmitted the sense of touch through the metal to his own hand. And the power. The power of the plate was incredible. Though the armor weighed hundreds of pounds, it felt light as he stood for the first time. Better than that, it was almost as if the armor lifted him.

"Whoa!" he yelled stupidly as he took his first steps. He expected the plate to be lumbering and slow; instead, it propelled him forward with excessive force.

"Careful, Brightlord!" Rtama cried, dodging out of the way of his waving arms. "The plate may feel light, but it still weighs hundreds of pounds. If you fall on your head without the helmet on, it could be squashed."

Kaladin took the helmet from Rtama's hands and gently affixed it to the plate. Miraculously, the metal inside the helmet turned translucent before his eyes. It wasn't perfect. The plate only produced a blurry image, like looking through a scuffed sphere, but it was better than total blindness.

"Your Holiness, this is definitely not just a fabrial," Kaladin said as he turned back towards the Ardent. "I promise, spanreads are nothing compared to this."

"I am well aware," Rtama said with a sardonic smile. "Soulcasters are also not the same thing as modern fabrials. But, fundamentally, they are the same type of object, just a far more advanced form of the technology."

"I thought the official line was that the shards were made by the Almighty to help humans fight the Voidbringers?" Kaladin said.

Rtama rolled her eyes. "Did I say otherwise, Brightlord?"

"Well, you called these things ancient advanced technology. Doesn't that mean you think they were made by human hands?"

"Perhaps they were," she responded, unbothered. "Vorin doctrine also states that the Heralds gave ancient humans the gifts of agriculture, metalworking, medicine, and all the other arts and sciences of civilization. Do you suppose they planted every field, forged every sword, and dressed every wound?"

Kaladin hadn't thought of it that way. "So you think that the Almighty taught people to make these... ancient fabrials? And we just forgot how?"

"Perhaps we lost this knowledge with the fall of the ancient radiants," she mused, "or perhaps the Almighty made all the shards himself, but without changing the fundamental laws of the universe to do so. Either way, they are a divine example of what is possible through fabrial technology and thus have sparked the imagination of scholars for generations."

"Scholars, huh?" Kaladin mused, stooping to retrieve his shardblade stabbed up to the hilt in cremstone. "Back in my village, the only people whose imaginations were filled with shards were little boys playing with sticks."

As he finished his sentence, he pulled the blade free from the earth with too much force, accidentally slicing through one of the tentpoles. The canvas collapsed over his helmet, blinding him instantly as he fell to the ground.

"Brightlord!" Rtama yelped again, and he heard her collapsing behind him. Thankfully he had the presence of mind to bury the shardblade back in the ground to keep it from cutting anything else. Unfortunately, he also stabbed it through several layers of canvas, pinning the fabric in place. He tried with his shard-enhanced arms to untangle himself, but it did not result in any success.

"Kaladin!" Coreb shouted. "Almighty's ass. Stop moving, Kal." Finally, the tent fabric was pulled away, revealing Coreb and Reesh standing above him.

Coreb was holding himself together, but Reesh was doubled over laughing. "Nalan's nuts, sir, you alrigh'?"

"He better not be," Rtama groaned, pulling herself to her feet. "I told you to be careful."

Kaladin stood, holding the half-collapsed tent above his head. "Well, at least we know how to defeat the next shardbearer we come across."

"I doubt 'tarp on head' is gonna be an effective strategy in a serious fight," Coreb quipped. "But I'll consider it if you ever see fit to assign me latrine duty." They all laughed, though Kaladin swatted away a solitary shamespren.

It turned out wearing plate was a little more involved than he previously believed. As they re-pitched the tent with a new pole, Kaladin took a few careful steps in his plate, attempting to familiarize himself with the immense power it could generate. He recalled the Veden shardbearer launching his dead horse ten feet with a single kick and quickly realized that wasn't even the limit of the plate's power. He picked up a discarded chunk of stone cut from the ground where the plate had been buried. It crumbled in his hand with only slight effort. He realized with the benefit of hindsight that he probably shouldn't have won the fight with the Veden. No one should be able to defeat a man in plate.

"Brightlord, the sun is setting," Kavel said, poking his head into the tent. Kaladin nodded, suddenly nervous. He wasn't normally anxious in front of crowds, but... well, he hadn't actually been in front of many crowds. Speaking before his men didn't count; they were too close, too familiar. He might be speaking to hundreds tonight.

Almost all of Restees' former battalion had relocated their camp within the temporary stormbreak and now the squad's tent stood alone, its long shadow stretching east. Kaladin marched towards the warcenter, sure to take every step carefully. It wouldn't do to slip in front of all his prospective recruits.

Kaladin's squad fell in, a step behind him. They had been out recruiting and spreading the word, but it seems they wanted to show a united front at the assembly. Rtama lagged behind, and when Kaladin looked back for her, she waved him forward but didn't rush to his side.

As he neared the warcenter, Kaladin realized his estimation was off. Easily two thousand soldiers crowded the wagons, darkeyed and light. On the top step leading to the warcenter's door, the Stormwarden Thybon was arguing with Yeshal, probably about Kaladin's choice of venue. Near them, the first few ranks of soldiers leaned in, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation, and the ranks behind them gossiped loudly. The soldiers in the very back stood on their tiptoes, not realizing the main attraction was standing right behind them.

Kaladin stabbed his shardblade into the stone, making a little less noise than he would've hoped. Slowly those in the back noticed him, and with a radiating murmur, the crowd parted for Kaladin and his men. Kaladin continued forward, using the blade as a walking stick, though in the plate he hardly needed one. The men on either side of him looked in awe. Some recoiled from him, perhaps those who had fled the shardbearer the previous day. Others looked at him with a flicker of envy.

Yeshal met Kaladin as he exited the crowd and saluted. "Brightlord, the volunteers are gathered as ordered. What is the procedure we're using to select candidates?"

"At the end of the day tomorrow, I'm going to let you, Coreb, Navar, Kavel, and Haber fill out your units with candidates you each deem worthy. That'll get us halfway at least..."

Thybon scurried up behind Yeshal and offered a bow. "Brightlord Stormblessed, I'm so glad to see your shardplate is in working order now," he said, his eyes flicking to the crowd. "Your companylord here just informed me of your purpose; I thought I had persuaded you that—"

"I'm sorry, Thybon, duty calls me away from this camp, and I will be taking a contingent of soldiers as well." Kaladin pushed past the Stormwarden, his men following after. Thybon, evidently dismayed, trailed behind.

The murmurs of the crowd rose as Kaladin took center stage, his squad flanking him to either side. He raised his armored hand, and their hush returned. Awkwardly he fiddled with his helmet before removing it. The brisk night air filled his nostrils, and finally he got a clear look at the crowd. Almost half were lighteyed, which surprised Kaladin, as he expected that he would be favored more by the darkeyes. They all looked at him expectantly, as if they had been waiting all day to hear from him.

"My name is Kaladin," he began. "Yesterday, I was a spearman and Squadleader in Second Battalion, under Brightlords Restees and Norby. With my squad and many others who you may have already met, I defeated the Shardbearer that killed Brightlord Amaram, and today I wield and wear his Shards. So... now I need an Honor Guard."

Kaladin paused for effect, but there wasn't one. Thousands of eyes watched him, mostly silent except for the occasional sniff or mumble. In the back, a pair of darkeyed soldiers snickered at something, and a dark-skinned man in ardent's robes frowned at them.

"I have promised positions to those who fought with me against the enemy Shardbearer, for they have already proven their quality as soldiers. The rest of you will have to prove yourselves tomorrow." That inspired some reaction. Murmurs erupted immediately, but Kaladin pushed through. "Tomorrow, all those who wish to join my Honor Guard will present themselves for inspection, and together we will be constructing our own stormbreak. And every man who thinks himself worthy, darkeyed or lighteyed, officer or enlisted, will help build it."

This inspired outright groans in the crowd. "This is an indignity!" cried out one lighteyed soldier, and his friends shouted out similar objections.

"We just worked all day building the other stormbreaks!" growled a darkeyed soldier near the front of the crowd. "And only a day after the battle! What do you think we are, chulls?"

Kaladin couldn't let himself budge on this point. "Soldiers who can't follow orders are no better than untrained chulls," Kaladin said, recognizing his hypocrisy but pressing on anyway. "If I could teach a chull to stack stone or chase down the enemy, then I'd fill my battalion with the beasts. You lot are all I've got. So if you do your best chull impression tomorrow, I'll take you as you are."

That inspired a scattering of laughter. The heckler folded his arms, not pleased by not leaving either. A younger man beside him shouted out instead. "Where are you taking us?"

"Highprince Sadeas has empowered me to select the finest troops in the army and lead them south towards Kholinar under glyphs of safe passage, and from there on to the Shattered Plains." The crowd roared back to life at this declaration. It wasn't quite a lie; they would be traveling under glyphs of safe passage for a few weeks at least. Kaladin didn't like to deceive his men, but it was a necessary step in deceiving the enemy.

"I need about four hundred more enlisted men to fill my battalion, so those of you who aren't afraid of an honest day's work have a decent chance at making it. Meet me here at the crack of dawn with your weapons, armor, kit, bedroll, and other belongings laid out before you. I trust each of you to consider this decision carefully. Once we are on our way, there will be no question of turning back or changing your mind. With all that being said, I only need two more officers, a Companylord and a Captainlord, and four more Squadleaders. Those of you seeking these positions, come forward. The rest of you are dismissed."

Coreb turned to Kaladin as the crowd began to disperse for good. "You stumbled at the beginning, but I think you pulled them around in the end, sir."

"Maybe," Kaladin said under his breath. Truthfully, he wanted to weed out the lazy and overproud, but he hadn't thought about what the army had gone through in the past few days. There would be many decent soldiers too wounded or exhausted to present themselves tomorrow, but he couldn't favor the weak as he had as a squadleader. This force would be headed on the most dangerous mission the army had ever undertaken, and many may not survive.

"Sir, do you mean for us to be lugging rock out there too?" asked Hamel.

"Everyone," Kaladin said. "Even me. Even Haber and his men. If I'm going to make the lighteyes sweat, I can't spare any of us."

Slowly the higher-ranking men filtered through the dispersing crowd, about ten lighteyes and twice as many darkeyes. Kaladin recognized a few: the companylord with the injured arm from the previous day nodded, a single shamespren fluttered around his head; the lieutenant from Amaram's honor guard with the bandaged throat was there as well. In fact, most of the lighteyes seemed to be from Amaram's honor guard, judging by glyphs on their uniforms. Of course they would think themselves entitled to the position.

Kaladin vaguely recognized some of the squadleaders from his time in the army but did not look carefully among the twenty or so who congregated. Something about this smaller gathering put Kaladin at ease; he hadn't realized it at the time, but he had been carrying a great deal of tension throughout his speech.

"Thank you for meeting me," Kaladin said. "I understand my methods are not... normal. But my needs are not normal either. My battalion will be at the heart of every battle, at the front of every charge. I need the best, and for that reason, I will not lower my standards on account of rank, ancestry, or reputation." Some of the group nodded; others listened blank-faced.

Kaladin explained his plans for the battalion's organization and got some scoffs from the lighteyes, but the squadleaders looked to one another in excitement. "You will be permitted to choose your own lieutenants and sergeants from among the men who pass tomorrow's trials."

"And you're really serious about all that hauling crem business?" one of the lighteyes asked.

"I am," Kaladin said, his armored hand tightening around the shardblade's pommel. "I won't have any of my men following lighteyes they can't respect. That means getting your hands dirty."

"And there are no promises," the lighteyes continued. "Ten of us competing for two positions. Suppose we all work the whole day, staining our uniforms, smashing our fingers, what then?"

Kaladin hadn't thought of it from that perspective. "I will have to choose the best candidate. The rest will be free to join the unit as lieutenants, if you are chosen as such, or as an enlisted—"

The lighteyes scoffed. "You expect us to risk both our reputation and our rank? Do you think your Honor Guard is so august that one knot is worth more than two or three? Do you even know what it means for a man of the fifth or sixth Dahn to risk falling to the seventh or eighth?"

Kaladin had no response. Honestly, he didn't know what it meant, and he didn't really care. "The terms of service under me are set," he said coldly.

The man turned towards the others, putting his back to Kaladin. "You all can waste your time with this jumped-up dunnard, but I've heard enough. No man worthy of his blood would subject himself to this."

As the man began to walk away, Albet raised the butt of his spear as if to strike, but Navar held him back. Half the lighteyes departed as well, leaving only four lieutenants and the companylord with the broken arm.

"I suppose you are my man," Kaladin said with a forced grin.

The injured man returned a thin smile, which more closely resembled a grimace. "Call me Ishamar," he said in a strained voice. "You are a hard-driving man, Stormblessed. I'd admire you for it if it weren't about to cause me a great deal of pain."

"I would rather inflict a bit of suffering now to save us all later," Kaladin said. "My father used to say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

The companylord shrugged his shoulders and immediately winced at the pain. "I'd take two pounds of cure, but the surgeon says that will kill me."

Kaladin nodded in sympathy. "Do you think you will be alright for tomorrow?"

"We'll see," he grumbled. "By the way, thank you for yesterday. I mean... before. I wasn't in quite my right mind at that moment. You kept me pointed in the right direction."

Ishamar turned and departed, and the lieutenants followed after him.

Kaladin scanned the remaining crowd. Most were darkeyed now. Rtama had disappeared somewhere, and the dark-skinned ardent seemed to have disappeared as well. Kaladin made eye contact with Yeshal and subtly nodded for him to leave. His men followed him back to their tents. That left only Kaladin's men, Haber and his men, the prospective squadleaders, and... Thybon. He was watching Kaladin from the top step of the warcenter's entrance.

"Stormwarden," Kaladin said abruptly, "what time tomorrow is the storm expected to arrive?"

"Uh, just before nightfall, Brightlord," Thybon answered.

"Did you do those calculations yourself?"

"Well, I consulted with colleagues across the east of Roshar, and the consensus is—"

"I would like you to recheck those calculations," Kaladin interrupted. "And consult your fellow stormwardens to confirm. I want to lay out the timetable to the hour."

Thybon stood there dumbly for a moment before nodding his head. "Yes, Brightlord, I—I'll get to that right away."

With the last lighteyes banished from their presence, Kaladin turned back to the Squadleaders. They had begun to mingle with his own men and talk casually. He found this environment to be even more comfortable. Darkeyes speaking with darkeyes. He knew he wasn't one of them anymore. Soon his eyes would fully change, and even his own men would treat him differently, but for now he would enjoy this closeness as much as he could.

Kaladin clapped two gauntleted hands together, drawing the group's attention back to himself, and began explaining his plans for the next few days. It felt no different than strategizing with his squad before a battle.

"I can trust you all with this, can't I?" Kaladin asked with a grin. The men laughed. At first many had looked on him as a larger-than-life figure, but slowly they began to see him as one of them again. That was what he needed. A core of leaders, loyal but not to excess. He needed men who could question things and think for themselves.

Night had fully fallen now, and only the light of Nomon illuminated their gathering. Thankfully, the sky was clear and the air still. "Before we break for the night, are there any questions you need answered before tomorrow?

A shorter, dark-skinned man raised his hand, and Kaladin invited him to speak. "Is that fidgety guy going to be coming with us to the Shattered Plains?"

"Thybon?" Kaladin laughed. "Storms, no. My scribe can get us a storm calendar that does nine tenths of his job anyways."

"It's just that I've heard some pretty dark—"

"What about the moppy-looking one with the busted arm?" interrupted someone in the back of the group. "Are we really supposed to follow that guy? I heard he fled the battle yesterday." The speaker was a tall, broad chested man with a well kept beard. The man looked familiar at first, but Kaladin couldn't put a name to his face.

"Yes," Kaladin said reluctantly. "Unless he refuses the position or someone more qualified presents themselves, Ishamar will probably be your Companylord. However, I don't believe he's a coward. The whole army fled the Shardbearer yesterday. Not just him."

"Could be worse, Mesh," another voice in the back said. "You remember Sheler? I'd take depressed over drunk any day." Kaladin recognized that voice but couldn't place it at first.

"Depressed and drunk aren't mutually incompatible," Mesh responded. The men laughed at that. Kaladin wanted to defend his future companylord, but honestly knew nothing about him. And these two men... Kaladin did know them somehow. Their laughter bothered him. Kaladin edged around the group to get a better look.

"Eh, it's the luck of the draw with officers," the second voice said. "Drunk, crippled, or chull-brained: You make do with what you have." Finally Kaladin placed the voice. A chill ran down his spine.

His name was Varth. He was leanly built with sharp, penetrating eyes. He had a smooth voice and calm demeanor, but when he noticed the look on Kaladin's face, he started back.

"You!" Kaladin growled, marching forward through the group of squadleaders, each step in plate landing like a hammer's blow. The men moved out of his way, all save for Varth, who seemed rooted to the spot in fear. Kaladin grabbed him by the shirt, his shard enhanced grip closing like a vice.

Kaladin's squad formed behind him, suddenly alert. "What's going on, Kal?" Navar said, but Kaladin didn't respond.

Varth was a few years older than Kaladin, but thinner and shorter. With the power of the shardplate, it took almost no effort to lift him off the ground. He squirmed and screamed. "Stormblessed, what is this? What did I say?!"

"Do you not remember me?" Kaladin growled. "Because I remember you and those words." Kaladin was there again, in the hollow with his brother growing cold in his arms. It had been this man's fault. It was his strategy that sacrificed Tien for the sake of his squad. It'd been almost three years since then. Kaladin had seen Varth around camp but never spoken to him. There was nothing to say. The camp was filled with corrupt, incompetent, and coldhearted leaders.

This battalion will be different, Kaladin thought to himself. It had to be.

The other squadleader, Mesh, tried to pull his friend free from Kaladin's grip. He stuck a short knife between the fingers of his gauntlets and wrenched at them to no avail. "What's the matter with you?" he shouted. "I thought you would be different from the lighteyes!"

That stung. Kaladin threw Varth to the ground in a heap. Mesh went to his side immediately, looking up at Kaladin in shock. Kaladin's squad was at his side now, bristling with spears, but Kaladin waved them off. This was his problem, not theirs.

"My Honor Guard has no use for this man," Kaladin declared. "Men without honor cannot be allowed to lead."

Mesh shook his head in confusion. "Brightlord, I don't know what happened between you two, but—"

"Yes, you do," Kaladin said, finally recognizing the man. "You were there too." He hadn't been involved in the decision, but he was defending the same hill as Varth against Hallaw's assault.

Mesh showed no signs of recognition but stood up for his friend nonetheless. "Varth is a good leader. He's smart; he does his duty. We came up together in the same squad. Whatever he did, you shouldn't treat him like this. He's always wanted to go to the Shattered Plains and fight a real war against a real enemy!"

Kaladin didn't dignify Mesh with a response. He was watching Varth. There was recognition in his eyes now. He sat silently, covered in cremdust. The other squadleaders stood in a semicircle around them, shock and anxiety plain on their faces. A shamespren fluttered between Kaladin and Varth like a banner in the wind.

"I remember," Varth said finally. He met Kaladin's eyes, and they were both pulled back to the same battle three years ago. Kaladin saw the squad of spearmen pulling back, the enemy charging in, Tien's blood pooling under him. What did Varth see? The terror in his men's faces, placed in the most dangerous part of the line, given only the dregs of the army to defend it. It didn't matter. He had betrayed the messenger boys to buy his men mere seconds. Kaladin remembered what he had said afterwards, 'Turn a liability into an advantage whenever you can.'

Slowly, Varth got to his knees and bowed to the ground. "I remember you, sir. You were looking for the messenger boys," he said into the dust. "They came to me untrained and unarmored, and I thought of them as already dead. I let them... I thought... but I was wrong. I knew I was wrong. I never forgot, Stormblessed. I'm sorry."

Kaladin let the apology hang in the air. Could he accept that? Dark and worrying thoughts played in his head for the second time today. The scene was starkly lit in Nomon's pale blue light, except for Kaladin himself. His plate glowed faintly where one piece met another. All the men looked like soulcast statues, stiff and lifeless, their eyes on Kaladin. Finally, he came to a decision.

Kaladin turned, pushed through his men, and retrieved his shardblade from where he had left it stabbed in the stone. As he pulled it free, the sword resonated in a pure tone like a ringing bell. When he turned back towards Varth, Mesh was standing in front of him, arms spread. Kaladin loomed before him in his plate, and the blade still sung.

"I won't let you, Brightlord," Mesh mumbled. "I won't let you." His voice was harsh and wavering. There was fear in everyone's eyes, Kaladin realized. Even his own men looked on in concern. That shamed him.

"You seem like a good friend," Kaladin said quietly. "A good friend and a decent soldier. Step aside. I will not punish your loyalty." With one gauntleted hand, Kaldin pushed Mesh to the side. He retreated hesitantly but willingly, feeling the strength of the shardplate and hearing the gentleness in Kaladin's voice.

The shardblade felt light as a twig where once it was unwieldy. Varth stood up as it drew near to him but did not step back even as Kaladin rested the flat of the blade on his shoulder, the dull spine pressing against his neck. For the first time, Kaladin felt what it was to be a shardbearer, to hold life and death in his hands.

A swipe of the blade swiftly severed the knots from Varth's shoulder. Gasps gave way to sighs of relief. A demotion was all the cremling would suffer. For now. 'Turn a liability into an advantage.' Varth bowed again and stumbled away, pale and weak-kneed. The other men barely grasped the conflict between the two of them, but they understood Varth's submission and Kaladin's mercy. They patted the spared man on the back and nodded to their Battlionlord. Advantage, Kaladin thought again. Tien's life was worth more than advantage. For the first time, Kaladin felt what it was to be a lighteyes, a real lighteyes.

He never had to deliver justice before, nor had he ever granted his pardon. He didn't enjoy either, but the bond in the back of his head pulsed in satisfaction.

Chapter Text

Kaladin trailed behind his squad as they all marched back to their tent in silence. He carried his helmet under one arm and his blade on the opposite shoulder. Rapid footsteps approached him from behind, but he didn't turn to acknowledge them.

"So how did the assembly go?" Rtama asked, out of breath. She was carrying a heavy satchel on her back and a wooden case in her hands. Evidently she had been packing her belongings for their departure.

Kaladin didn't respond.

"That bad? Well, I'm sure you'll get plenty of recruits anyway. Not like there's a shortage of soldiers on the Shattered Plains, if that really is where we're going."

Kaladin didn't react to her probing but looked over at her leather satchel. "Do you intend to sleep in our tent tonight?"

"If we're going to be on the road for the next few months, I thought I ought to start getting familiar," she said matter-of-factly. "Is there something indecorous about that?"

No, there wasn't, Kaladin admitted to himself. She was an ardent, not a woman, though he had never heard of an ardent sleeping in the same tent as a bunch of darkeyed spearmen.

"I just thought that if these are your most trusted men, I ought to get to know them better. And they ought to know me if I'm going to be your scribe."

"Sure," Kaladin sighed. He was too tired to deal with her scheming. Not physically tired, actually he felt a manic urge to run, fight, exhaust himself. No, he felt mentally drained, like he used to feel after a long day studying his father's manuals.

"You didn't slip and fall in your armor again, did you?" she asked with a grin. "Or maybe you learned why Shardbearers usually visit the latrine before donning their plate."

"I realized tonight that I've spent four years in the army, and I still don't know the first thing about being an officer," Kaladin interrupted. He'd learned to be a spearman, and a storming good one, and he'd taught others as well. His authority as a leader came solely from his competence in battle. That wouldn't be enough. He wasn't a spearman anymore; he was a shardbearer, a lighteyes. "If I'm going to hold these shards, I need to catch up on my education. Can you help me with that, Rtama?"

"Of course!" she said. "It is my highest duty to help you pursue your Calling. I think Ichi has a few books I might borrow: The Ars Millitaris, The Campaigns of Sedees the Sunmaker; perhaps I ought to pick up a towers set as well."

"What about the Alethi Codes of War?"

"The Codes?" Rtama said incredulously. "Well... the Codes aren't all in one book. They are a tradition passed down from the age of the Silver Kingdoms—from old Alethela. They aren't really part of an ordinary martial curriculum."

"They are part of Vorin doctrine, aren't they?"

Rtama shrugged. "Various codes are recorded in various holy texts, yes, but they are of more interest to... philosophers and historians. They speak to an ideal of conduct for a different time, not a realistic standard for today."

"I've had enough of realism," Kaladin muttered. "Are you familiar with them or not?"

She almost looked offended at the question. "Of course I'm familiar."

"What do they say should be done if an officer used his subordinates as bait for the enemy, sacrificing them for an advantage in battle?"

The ardent thought for a moment before responding. "Well, it's certainly against the first principle of honor," she said. "And it's also against the codes of leadership. 'An officer should never ask his men to do what he would not do himself.'"

"Yes," Kaladin said with a bit too much force. "And what do the Codes say should be done to one who does betray his men?"

"Nothing," Rtama said. "Or—well—that's not what the Codes are about, Brightlord. They are more personal; men are supposed to hold themselves to the codes, not be held by them. They are not intended to be read as laws."

"What do they say about an officer who knows their subordinate has done wrong, what then?"

Rtama slowed her walking pace. She looked at Kaladin with mounting concern. "Brightlord, what happened at the assembly?"

"Answer the question," Kaladin said quietly.

"Did you kill someone at the assembly?" she asked in an urgent whisper.

Kaladin halted and looked her in the eyes. They were filled with suspense and apprehension. She really didn't know him well at all. "No, I didn't," he said calmly. "Please answer the question, Rtama."

With a sigh, she nodded, and they both started walking again. "The Codes call for unnecessary squabbles to be avoided, such that those needed for command aren't injured. As for justice... I remember they say to err on the side of mercy. A soldier should not be whipped to the point of serious injury or worked to the point of total exhaustion. Readiness. The Codes are all about readiness and discipline. I think if they had something specific to say about the situation you mentioned... Well, I think they would ask if the unit is stronger with the soldier in question or if his conduct weakens it. And if it's the latter, then it is better to teach him a better way than to dispose of him."

Advantage again. Kaladin digested that for a moment. It upheld what he had done, but it didn't make him feel much better about it. And he thought Rtama might be massaging the Codes to keep him from doing something rash. "What do the actual laws of war say I should do about that situation?" Kaladin asked.

Rtama stiffened but didn't hesitate to answer. "In cases of gross negligence, it is up to the Battalionlord to judge his subordinates' guilt or innocence at a martial inquest," she said. "Officers of the sixth dahn or above may appeal their case to a higher authority, but the lower dahns and all darkeyes must accept punishment as it is given, up to and including summary execution."

That did not make Kaladin feel better either. The law allowed him to do almost anything he wanted.

That kind of power was terrifying.

Kaladin and Rtama walked silently for a while. The pair had fallen behind the rest of the squad. They were a few hundred feet ahead, filing into the tent. The silhouette of Kavel waved his farewell and departed. Kaladin waved back, surprised that the pikeman wasn't interested in playing bodyguard anymore.

"I hope I haven't lost them already," Kaladin muttered to himself.

Rtama's ears perked up. "So something did happen! What is it? Storms, I knew I shouldn't have left."

"Nothing happened," Kaladin sighed, "or... not much anyway. The others can fill you in. I'm sure Reesh could perform a very theatrical rendition of the night's events."

"If it's not much, why can't I just hear it from you? Brightlord? Stormblessed?"

Kaladin had strayed from the path leading back to the tent. He was tired of talking. Tired of explaining himself. He felt that if he had to explain all that had happened between him and Varth, he might just cry.

"Where are you going?" Rtama asked, her voice filled with concern again.

"Just... on a walk," Kaladin sighed. "I need to get used to this armor. Go and meet with the men. I'll be back soon."

Before she could respond, Kaladain marched off away from camp, away from the town, back onto the plain where the battle had been fought.

As Nomon neared the horizon, Mishim rose, bright as an emerald broam. They cast opposing shadows across the plain, green to the east, blue to the west, so that no place was truly dark, only shaded in differing hues. A gentle breeze sapped the air of the day's heat but gave no signs of the storm to come.

Kaladin stood in the shadow of a pile of corpses, ripe and rotting. The wind carried their stench away from camp, but this close it was unmistakable. Kaladin couldn't tell which side this pile belonged to. Their armor, weapons, and identifying marks had been removed. Millions of rotspren, nearly invisible, danced among the carnage.

Kaladin sealed the helmet back on his plate to hold out the stench and marched away. He was near where Hallaw's army had first begun to retreat before the shardbearer arrived. He could read the course of battle by the stains on the rock. Ahead there was more slaughter, the place the Shardbearer had struck the army from behind. Beyond that, the place where his squad had been.

He found the place they died. Arcing slashes in the stone showed where the shardbearer swept his blade. Dark spots of blood showed where the massive horse had trampled men to death. Kaladin half-heartedly searched through a nearby corpse pile to no avail. What would he do if he found them? He had watched Cenn die, his chest caved in, and Dallet's eyes burning out. Cyn, Lyndel, Larn, and Corater had all been swept away before Kaladin could react. They fell and burned and bled before his eyes again and again.

Kaladin was almost sick at the memory. He stumbled away, leaning on the blade as his knees wobbled under him. He walked aimlessly for a time, his eyes downcast, the blade stabbing forward and dragging behind. The plate kept him moving even as he felt the energy of his limbs wavering.

He no longer felt awkward in the armor. Indeed, the close embrace of the supernatural metal comforted him. The helmet blurred his peripheral vision, quieting his nerves. The blade, light as air in his shard-enhanced grip, slowly pulsed in the back of his head. Did that mean something? The bond was unlike anything Kaladin had ever experienced before. Like a flamespren had taken up residence inside his skull.

Suddenly Kaladin found himself at the lip of the gully. Subconsciously, he must have retraced his steps from the previous day. A small pile of corpses lay near the center of the gully, but one still lay where it had fallen. The Shardbearer had not been touched.

Kaladin jumped from the lip of the gully to the bottom in one bound, landing with an earth-shaking thud. The armor absorbed the damage easily, just as Rtama had told him it would. It seemed the sabatons and greaves were designed specifically to absorb such impacts even more so than weapon attacks.

Kaladin approached the corpse and knelt at its side. The smashed face looked up at him, almost unrecognizable as human, but the body was otherwise whole. The right forearm showed a dark bruise where Kaladin had broken it with a rock. The moment replayed in his head. He shattered the vambrace with one rock and the arm with another. It should never have happened. The shardbearer had thought himself completely invincible up to that moment, and a single mistake left him crippled.

Kaladin didn't know what he'd come here for, but perhaps this was it. A reality check. However powerful or secure he felt, something as lowly as a rock could undo it all. Spill all his clever plans out on the rocks. Chance was a fickle ally, destiny even more so. Maybe I ought to start praying, Kaladin thought with a silent chuckle. His mother used to burn glyphs for some of the patients they had back in Hearthstone. She used to make Kaladin burn them as well. This Heralds forsaken army burned away whatever piety Hesina had once taught him.

Kaladin began carving into the rock with his shardblade. It was just two glyphs: Kalak Oroho, eternal peace. He took care with the blade but didn't add any superfluous flourishes to the glyphs. His mother had once said that the beauty of a prayer is in its intention, not its calligraphy. He knelt down again to clear away the bits of rock left in his carving, then stood to admire his handiwork. It wasn't a proper prayer—it couldn't be burned—but it was a fitting tribute to the man's last wishes.

A deep, monotone voice spoke out of the dark. "His name was Helaran," it said.

Kaladin whirled around, shardblade held out before him. A tall man stood, shaded in blue, a crescent-shaped scar standing out from his dark face. How had he gotten so close without making a sound?

"Who goes there? What are you doing here?" Kaladin said, his voice shaking more than he liked. He hoped his helmet muffled it.

The stranger did not smile, frown, or show any fear. "I came to recover the boy's body and—if the law allows—the shards."

"The boy? Him?" Kaladin pointed at the Shardbearer's corpse. "His shards are mine now; that's what the law says. Who the hell are you to claim them?"

"I am the one who granted him the plate and blade," the Stranger said in a deep monotone. He took a few steps forward, and Kaladin turned the blade back towards him. He raised his arms in mock surrender. Kaladin recognized the man. He was the ardent who watched the first part of his speech at the assembly. He still wore the robes of an ardent, and his head was shaved.

"You couldn't have given him the shards," Kaladin said in disbelief. "Ardents can't own shards; they can't own anything! And who would just give away shards?"

The Stranger lowered his arms and placed them behind his back. He approached slowly, his eyes on the corpse. Kaladin kept the shardblade raised but made no aggressive movement. The man passed within inches of its point and only reacted with a glance of disapproval as he knelt at the dead shardbearer's side. He brushed his fingers against the glyphs Kaladin had cut into the stone.

"You came here to honor your fallen enemy," he observed aloud.

"No," Kaladin said. "I came out here to think. But when I saw him... he had a glyphward sewn into his doublet. I don't know if it ever got burnt. I thought I would leave part of it here with him."

The Stranger nodded. It wasn't a proper method of prayer, but he seemed far from a proper holy man. "He wished to prove himself to me. I gave him the shards and taught him to use them. I taught him when to use them as well."

The Stranger flashed Kaladin a piercing glare, and Kaladin tensed. He knew that with the plate and blade there was no way this unarmed man could pose any threat at all, but that was not how it felt. The Stranger carried himself as if he had the upper hand.

"You left off the majority of his prayer," he said, rising to his feet. "Is justice not a worthy thing to pray for?"

"Would it be just or honorable for me to wish death upon my General?" Kaladin responded. "I do not know of any crime Amaram committed, let alone one that justifies a targeted assassination."

"You didn't know him very well then," the Stranger said. "Rest assured, his death was just. Meridas was about to make himself a great nuisance to the world. What his master ever saw in him, I don't know." He looked back towards the dead shardbearer. "Helaran ably carried out his task. Had he lived, I would've rewarded him."

"That bastard killed six of my men," Kaladin growled. "Were their deaths just?"

"They died as soldiers in the course of war," the stranger responded nonchalantly. "As did Helaran. When a man takes up arms on the battlefield, his death cannot be called a murder or an execution. He kills and is killed because it is his duty. Whether more good men than bad survive the ordeal is mostly up to chance."

"You mean it's up to the will of the Almighty?" Kaladin said with a bite in his voice.

"No," the Stranger said, looking sad for the first time. "The Almighty is not watching us anymore. Humankind must make justice for itself."

"Who in Damnation are you?" Kaladin asked incredulously. What kind of holy man didn't believe in the Almighty? Whoever he was, this man could not be a real ardent.

A shardblade appeared out of mist in the Stranger's hand. Kaladin stumbled back in shock. No, this man wasn't an ardent, but a shardbearer, as he had claimed. The blade was straight and unornamented. Dew clung to its edge. If it weren't six feet long, it could pass for an ordinary longsword. The false ardent wielded it like a stylus, carving in the remainder of the prayer into the rock. Kaladin backed away, his own sword still held at arm's length as the Stranger finished his carving with a violent flourish.

"This can't be real," Kaladin muttered under his breath. "Two Shardbearers in two days?"

"How does that blade feel in your hands?" the new Shardbearer said. "Does it cry out for justice?" His stony expression took on a morbid quality as Nomon set behind him. Now his dark face was only illuminated in shimmering green, the crescent scar especially bright. "Answer me, Stormblessed. How do your newfound shards feel?"

Kaladin repressed his leg's urge to shake. "The sword felt heavy in battle yesterday, but with the plate, it's light as air," he said with as much confidence as he could find. "I killed the last Shardbearer I faced with nothing but a couple of rocks. Don't give me a reason to kill another."

The Shardbearer's mouth twitched at that, as if he were suppressing a grin. He dismissed his blade and spread his arms, opening himself up to attack. "What more reason can I give?" he said. "I was the one who set Helaran on his mission. I even told him to join Hallaw's army to make the killing legal. I put him on the path to kill your men—to kill countless soldiers—all for the sake of killing one man, who you respected. You know the truth now, Stormblessed; the true killer is here. Why not strike me down now and avenge Amaram for good?"

Kaladin retreated as the unarmed man approached, his arms still wide, his expression tight. "You're storming crazy," Kaladin shouted. "What in Damnation is this?!"

"Strike me, Stormblessed! I know you want to kill me. Just do it!" the Shardbearer jeered. Any sign of rationality or self-preservation slipped away as he continued his monologue. "You took revenge on the boy, didn't you? You laid the ambush and struck right here. You sacrificed good men to do it. Come on, Stormblessed, I know a killer when I see one. You slaughtered the enemy yesterday like so many cremlings; surely I deserve no better than them? Why won't you kill me?!"

Kaladin stumbled as he reached the edge of the basin. He couldn't climb out without turning his back to the lunatic walking him down, so he stood his ground. The Shardbearer walked within inches of Kaladin's blade, his eyes wild and frenzied. Kaladin met those eyes through the thin slit of his visor. Despite the taunting, Kaladin felt no desire to kill this man; he just wanted answers.

Kaladin did not strike but instead brought the blade back in his right hand as if to attack while he reached out with his left. He closed his gauntlet around the Shardbearer's right forearm with a vice-like grip. "On the authority of Highmarshal Seti, I am placing you under arrest," Kaladin said in his most official tone.

Kaladin swept the shardbearer's feet out from under him and pinned him against the ground with the full weight and strength of the shardplate. Shock, pain, and anger traded places on the Shardbearer's face only to be replaced by uproarious laughter. "What are the charges then? Tell me my sins!"

"Murder, conspiracy, espionage," Kaladin said, "impersonation of an ardent, and... uh... resisting arrest!"

"I misjudged you, Stormblessed. It seems you are a litigious man after all!"

"Be quiet," Kaladin grumbled, his fear abating as he gained control of the situation. "You've already given enough evidence against yourself tonight. If it's justice you seek, you can meet it in the morning."

"Unfortunately for you, I am justice," the Shardbearer said dramatically. Kaladin rolled his eyes as he pulled the man to his feet, but as soon as he was upright, the Shardbearer strained against Kaladin's grip. Suddenly, the gauntlet gave way. The Shardbearer ripped free with titanic strength, leapt into the air, and kicked off Kaladin's chestplate. Kaladin was thrown backwards, stunned at what he'd just witnessed. The Shardbearer wasn't just strong; his arms should've snapped with the force they exerted.

Kaladin lumbered back to his feet, using his shardblade for balance. The Shardbearer reached out his hand, and his blade materialized instantly. That should be impossible, Kaladin thought; this should all be impossible.

"I've changed my mind, Stormblessed," the Shardbearer said, his voice wavering, then returning to a deep monotone. "I think those shards will do you well. But I also can't allow you to arrest me, though I respect your reasons for wanting to."

"Well, so long as you respect me," Kaladin said as he raised his blade again. The Shardbearer raised his as well but made no aggressive moves.

"I could exonerate myself from the charges you lay against me, but I see no reason to expose myself in a trial. We can settle this matter ourselves, here and now."

"How do you propose to do that?" Kaladin said tensely.

"A judicial duel, a duel of honor. Blade and plate against blade alone. If you disarm me or land any non-fatal blow, I will submit myself to whatever punishment you desire. If I disarm you or break any piece of your armor, then you shall pardon me, and that will be the end of the matter."

"You're insane; what if I kill you?"

"You can try if you like," the Shardbearer said nonplussed. "I said that I will accept whatever punishment you desire."

Kaladin shook his head. "Fine," he sighed, readying himself for the fight. The shardbearer nodded and mirrored his posture.

Even with that inexplicable burst of strength, Kaladin doubted this man could stand against plate and blade together. What he feared more than losing was accidentally killing the man before he could get answers. Why was Amaram targeted? Where did all these shards come from? Were there more threats on the way?

The duel began with a sudden flurry of violence, and all these questions slipped away.

As quickly as it began, the duel ended. Kaladin lay on his back with stormlight pouring off of him. Almost every piece of shardplate was cracked, but none had been broken. The Shardbearer had played with him, showed him how little he really knew, and finally disarmed him in a decisive final blow. Thirty feet away, the curved golden shardblade lay beside its former owner. The Shardbearer dismissed his own blade and stooped to pick up Kaladin's.

"You fought better than I expected," the Shardbearer said. "Despite lacking any formal training, you have a natural talent for combat."

Kaladin didn't respond but turned on his side and unsealed his helmet. Cool, fetid air stung his sweat-drenched face. He got his first good look at the Shardbearer, unobstructed by the helmet. He seemed to be a Makabaki man, bald, and not quite middle-aged. The crescent scar underlined his high cheekbones. The Shardbearer walked back over to Kaladin and offered a hand to him. Kaladin accepted it without thinking. In his plate, Kaladin weighed hundreds of pounds, yet this man pulled him to his feet with one arm.

"You're not a normal human being," Kaladin said, not making it a question. "Are you some kind of spren?"

The Shardbearer's eyes met Kaladin's for a moment, then flicked down. "This blade was once called Eclipse," he said, handing it back to Kaladin. "Don't let it leave your side."

Kaladin looked at the blade. Perhaps that was what the glyph nearest the hilt meant; he'd thought it was an archaic form of 'moon'. "I want to know your name, not the sword's."

"That was not part of the agreement," the Shardbearer said. "You owe me a pardon."

"Pardon? You could've killed me at any time; why do you even need a pardon?"

"Killing you wouldn't have been just," the Shardbearer said matter-of-factly. "Whatever you might've become, you will no longer be. Those shards ensure it. And I need the pardon to be free of your charge. Killing you to avoid the charge would've been murder."

Kaladin shook his head. This man had some obsession with justice and the letter of the law, but he had claimed to be a murderer earlier. "You wanted me to attack you in anger," Kaladin said as the thought came to him. "That way you could kill me in self-defense. Was this... some kind of test?"

"You promised to grant me your pardon," the Shardbearer said with a meaningful glare. "May I have it?"

With a sigh, Kaladin relented. "I... pardon you." It was the second guilty man he had let walk away unpunished that night. "In the name of Highprince Sadeas, you are free to go."

"Thank you," the Shardbearer said, turning to leave. "It was not a test, but you did prove yourself to me, Stormblessed. Perhaps our paths will cross again someday."

I storming hope not, Kaladin thought, turning away. He might train with the blade for twenty years and never even approach this man's skill. "You really aren't going to tell me your name, huh?"

Kaladin's question was met with silence. He looked back to find the basin empty save for the small pile of corpses near the edge. The Shardbearer had left as silently as he had arrived, and he had taken the corpse of his compatriot as well. The prayer etched in stone remained, as did the stain of blood. Otherwise, the two mysterious shardbearers seemed to have blown away like dust in the wind.

Kaladin shook his head, unsure what to think. He turned back towards camp and began hiking, careful not to put too much stress on the damaged sections of plate. He didn't want to end up hauling the armor piece by piece back to the tent again.

As he crawled up the side of the gully, he realized how much he wanted to sleep and how little sleep he was likely to get. Perhaps, he thought wistfully, all of this was a dream and he was sleeping peacefully in his tent, plate and blade safely stowed away. There was no Makabaki Shardbearer, and he hadn't lost a humiliating duel. Cresting the lip of the gully, Kaladin let that thought carry him forward even as his body begged him to lie down and sleep.