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“Sure they are,” Dunny said. “You can see it in bright sunlight. They’re just really dark.”
“Ha!” Rock said. “If you are from Vedenar, we are cousins! The Peaks are near Vedenar. Sometimes the people there have good red hair, like us!”
“Be glad that someone didn’t mistake your eyes for red, Dunny,” Kaladin said. “Moash, Rock, go gather your subsquads and pass the word to Teft and Skar. I want the men oiling their vests and sandals against the humidity.”
The men sighed, but did as ordered. The army provided the oil. While the bridgemen were expendable, good hogshide and metal for buckles were not cheap.
As the men gathered to work, the sun broke through the clouds. The warmth of the light felt good on Kaladin’s rain-wet skin. There was something refreshing about the chill of a highstorm followed by the sun. Tiny rockbud polyps on the side of the building opened, drinking in the wet air. Those would have to be scraped free. Rockbuds would eat away the stone of the walls, creating pockmarks and cracks.
The buds were a deep crimson. It was Chachel, third day of the week. The slave markets would show new wares. That would mean new bridgemen. Kaladin’s crew was in serious danger. Yake had caught an arrow in the arm during their last run, and Delp had caught one in the neck. There’d been nothing Kaladin could do for him, and with Yake wounded, Kaladin’s team was down to twenty-eight bridge-capable members.
Sure enough, about an hour into their morning activities—caring for equipment, oiling the bridge, Lopen and Dabbid running to fetch their morning gruel pot and bring it back to the lumberyard—Kaladin caught sight of soldiers leading a line of dirty, shuffling men toward the lumberyard. Kaladin gestured to Teft, and the two of them marched up to meet Gaz.
“Afore you yell at me,” Gaz said as Kaladin arrived, “understand that I can’t change anything here.” The slaves were bunched up, watched over by a pair of soldiers in wrinkled green coats.
“You’re bridge sergeant,” Kaladin said. Teft stepped up beside him. He hadn’t gotten a shave, though he’d begun keeping his short, grey beard neatly trimmed.
“Yeah,” Gaz said, “but I don’t make assignments any more. Brightness Hashal wants to do it herself. In the name of her husband, of course.”
Kaladin gritted his teeth. She’d starve Bridge Four of members. “So we get nothing.”
“I didn’t say that,” Gaz said, then spat black spittle to the side. “She gave you one.”
That’s something, at least, Kaladin thought. There were a good hundred men in the new group. “Which one? He’d better be tall enough to carry a bridge.”
“Oh, he’s tall enough,” Gaz said, gesturing a few slaves out of the way. “Good worker too.” The men shuffled aside, revealing one man standing at the back. He was a little shorter than average, but he was still tall enough to carry a bridge.
But he had black and red marbled skin.
“A parshman?” Kaladin asked. To his side, Teft cursed under his breath.
“Why not?” Gaz said. “They’re perfect slaves. Never talk back.”
“But we’re at war with them!” Teft said.
“We’re at war with a tribe of oddities,” Gaz said. “Those out on the Shattered Plains are right different from the fellows who work for us.”
That much, at least, was true. There were a lot of parshmen in the warcamp, and—despite their skin markings—there was little similarity between them and the Parshendi warriors. None had the strange growths of armorlike carapace on their skin, for instance. Kaladin eyed the sturdy, bald man. The parshman stared at the ground; he wore only a loincloth, and he had a thickness about him. His fingers were thicker than those of human men, his arms stouter, his thighs wider.
“He’s domesticated,” Gaz said. “You don’t need to worry.”
“I thought parshmen were too valuable to use in bridge runs,” Kaladin said.
“This is just an experiment,” Gaz said. “Brightness Hashal wants to know her options. Finding enough bridgemen has been difficult lately, and parshmen could help fill in holes.”
“This is foolishness, Gaz,” Teft said. “I don’t care if he’s ‘domesticated’ or not. Asking him to carry a bridge against others of his kind is pure idiocy. What if he betrays us?”
Gaz shrugged. “We’ll see if that happens.”
“But—”
“Leave it, Teft,” Kaladin said. “You, parshman, come with me.” He turned to walk back down the hill. The parshman dutifully followed. Teft cursed and did so as well.
“What trick are they trying on us, do you think?” Teft asked.
“I suspect it’s just what he said. A test to see if a parshman can be trusted to run bridges. Perhaps he’ll do as he’s told. Or perhaps he’ll refuse to run, or will try to kill us. She wins regardless.”
“Kelek’s breath,” Teft cursed. “Darker than a Horneater’s stomach, our situation is. She’ll see us dead, Kaladin.”
“I know.” He glanced over his shoulder at the parshman. He was a little taller than most, his face a little wider, but they all looked about the same to Kaladin.
The other members of Bridge Four had lined up by the time Kaladin returned. They watched the approaching parshman with surprise and disbelief. Kaladin stopped before them, Teft at his side, the parshman behind. It made him itch, to have one of them behind him. He casually stepped to the side. The parshman just stood there, eyes downward, shoulders slumped.
Kaladin glanced at the others. They had guessed, and they were growing hostile.
Stormfather, Kaladin thought. There is something lower in this world than a bridgeman. A parshman bridgeman. Parshmen might cost more than most slaves, but so did a chull. In fact, the comparison was a good one, because parshmen were worked like animals.
Seeing the reaction of the others made Kaladin pity the creature. And that made him mad at himself. Did he always have to react this way? This parshman was dangerous, a distraction for the other men, a factor they couldn’t depend on.
A liability.
Turn a liability into an advantage whenever you can.. Those words had been spoken by a man who cared only for his own skin.
Storm it, Kaladin thought. I’m a fool. A downright, sodden idiot. This isn’t the same. Not at all. “Parshman,” he asked. “Do you have a name?”
The man shook his head. Parshmen rarely spoke. They could, but you had to prod them into it.
“Well, we’ll have to call you something,” Kaladin said. “How about Shen?”
The man shrugged.
“All right then,” Kaladin said to the others. “This is Shen. He’s one of us now.”
“A parshman?” Lopen asked, lounging beside the barrack. “I don’t like him, gancho. Look how he stares at me.”
“He’ll kill us while we sleep,” Moash added.
“No, this is good,” Skar said. “We can just have him run at the front. He’ll take an arrow for one of us.”
Syl alighted on Kaladin’s shoulder, looking down at the parshman. Her eyes were sorrowful.
If you were to overthrow the lighteyes and place yourselves in power, abuses would still happen. They’d just happen to other people.
