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After so many hours breathing in the stuffy confines beneath the bridge, running in the front was almost relaxing. Why had they given such a wonderful position to a newcomer?
“Talenelat’Elin, bearer of all agonies,” said the man to his right, voice horrified. “It’s going to be a bad one. They’re already lined up! It’s going to be a bad one!”
Kaladin blinked, focusing on the approaching chasm. On the other side of the rift stood a rank of men with marbled crimson and black skin. They were wearing a strange rusty orange armor that covered their forearms, chests, heads, and legs. It took his numbed mind a moment to understand.
The Parshendi.
They weren’t like common parshman workers. They were far more muscular, far more solid. They had the bulky build of soldiers, and each one carried a weapon strapped to his back. Some wore dark red and black beards tied with bits of rock, while others were clean-shaven.
As Kaladin watched, the front row of Parshendi knelt down. They held shortbows, arrows nocked. Not longbows intended to launch arrows high and far. Short, recurve bows to fire straight and quick and strong. An excellent bow to use for killing a group of bridgemen before they could lay their bridge.
Arriving is the worst part….
Now, finally, the real nightmare began.
Gaz hung back, bellowing at the bridge crews to keep going. Kaladin’s instincts screamed at him to get out of the line of fire, but the momentum of the bridge forced him forward. Forced him down the throat of the beast itself, its teeth poised to snap closed.
Kaladin’s exhaustion and pain fled. He was shocked alert. The bridges charged forward, the men beneath them screaming as they ran. Ran toward death.
The archers released.
The first wave killed Kaladin’s leathery-faced friend, dropping him with three separate arrows. The man to Kaladin’s left fell as well—Kaladin hadn’t even seen his face. That man cried out as he dropped, not dead immediately, but the bridge crew trampled him. The bridge got noticeably heavier as men died.
The Parshendi calmly drew a second volley and launched. To the side, Kaladin barely noticed another of the bridge crews floundering. The Parshendi seemed to focus their fire on certain crews. That one got a full wave of arrows from dozens of archers, and the first three rows of bridgemen dropped and tripped those behind them. Their bridge lurched, skidding on the ground and making a sickening crunch as the mass of bodies fell over one another.
Arrows zipped past Kaladin, killing the other two men in the front line with him. Several other arrows smacked into the wood around him, one slicing open the skin of his cheek.
He screamed. In horror, in shock, in pain, in sheer bewilderment. Never before had he felt so powerless in a battle. He’d charged enemy fortifications, he’d run beneath waves of arrows, but he’d always felt a measure of control. He’d had his spear, he’d had his shield, he could fight back.
Not this time. The bridge crews were like hogs running to the slaughter.
A third volley flew, and another of the twenty bridge crews fell. Waves of arrows came from the Alethi side as well, falling and striking the Parshendi. Kaladin’s bridge was almost to the chasm. He could see the black eyes of the Parshendi on the other side, could make out the features of their lean marbled faces. All around him, bridgemen were screaming in pain, arrows cutting them out from underneath their bridges. There was a crashing sound as another bridge dropped, its bridgemen slaughtered.
Behind, Gaz called out. “Lift and down, you fools!”
The bridge crew lurched to a stop as the Parshendi launched another volley. Men behind Kaladin screamed. The Parshendi firing was interrupted by a return volley from the Alethi army. Though he was shocked senseless, Kaladin’s reflexes knew what do to. Drop the bridge, get into position to push.
This exposed the bridgemen who had been safe in the back ranks. The Parshendi archers obviously knew this was coming; they prepared and launched one final volley. Arrows struck the bridge in a wave, dropping a half-dozen men, spraying blood across the dark wood. Fearspren—wiggling and violet—sprang up through the wood and wriggled in the air. The bridge lurched, growing much harder to push as they suddenly lost those men.
Kaladin stumbled, hands slipping. He fell to his knees and pitched out, leaning over the chasm. He barely managed to catch himself.
He teetered, one hand dangling above the void, the other gripping the edge. His overextended mind wavered with vertigo as he stared down that sheer cliff, down into darkness. The height was beautiful; he’d always loved climbing high rock formations with Tien.
By reflex, he shoved himself back onto the plateau, scrambling backward. A group of foot soldiers, protected by shields, had taken up positions pushing the bridge. The army’s archers exchanged arrows with the Parshendi as the soldiers pushed the bridge into place and heavy cavalry thundered across, smashing into the Parshendi. Four bridges had fallen, but sixteen had been placed in a row, allowing for an effective charge.
Kaladin tried to move, tried to crawl away from the bridge. But he just collapsed where he was, his body refusing to obey. He couldn’t even roll over onto his stomach.
I should go… he thought in exhaustion. See if that leathery-faced man is still alive…. Bind his wounds…. Save….
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. To his shame, he just let himself close his eyes and gave himself over to unconsciousness.
“Kaladin.”
He didn’t want to open his eyes. To wake meant returning to that awful world of pain. A world where defenseless, exhausted men were made to charge lines of archers.
That world was the nightmare.
“Kaladin!” The feminine voice was soft, like a whisper, yet still urgent. “They’re going to leave you. Get up! You’ll die!”
I can’t…I can’t go back….
Let me go.
Something snapped against his face, a slight slap of energy with a sting to it. He cringed. It was nothing compared with his other pains, but somehow it was far more demanding. He raised a hand, swatting. The motion was enough to drive away the last vestiges of stupor.
He tried to open his eyes. One refused, blood from a cut on his cheek having run down and crusted around the eyelid. The sun had moved. Hours had passed. He groaned—sitting up, rubbing the dried blood from his eye. The ground near him was littered with bodies. The air smelled of blood and worse.
A pair of sorry bridgemen were shaking each man in turn, checking for life, then pulling the vests and sandals off their bodies, shooing away the cremlings feeding on the bodies. The men would never have checked on Kaladin. He didn’t have anything for them to take. They’d have left him with the corpses, stranded on the plateau.
Kaladin’s windspren flitted through the air above him, moving anxiously. He rubbed his jaw where she’d struck him. Large spren like her could move small objects and give little pinches of energy. That made them all the more annoying.
This time, it had probably saved Kaladin’s life. He groaned at all the places where he hurt. “Do you have a name, spirit?” he asked, forcing himself to his battered feet.
On the plateau the army had crossed to, soldiers were picking through the corpses of the dead Parshendi, looking for something. Harvesting equipment, maybe? It appeared that Sadeas’s force had won. At least, there didn’t seem to be any Parshendi still alive. They’d either been killed or had fled.
