Stormfather, Gaz thought, I hate myself for being a part of this. But he'd hated himself for a long time now. It wasn't anything new to him. "I'll do something," he promised Lamaril. "A knife in the night. Poison in the food." That twisted his insides. The boy's bribes were small, but they were all that let him keep ahead of his payments to Lamaril.

"No!" Lamaril hissed. "You want it seen that he was really a threat? The real soldiers are already talking about him." Lamaril grimaced. "The last thing we need is a martyr inspiring rebellion among the bridgemen. I don't want any hint of it; nothing our highprince's enemies could take advantage of." Lamaril glanced at Kaladin, jogging past again with his men. "That one has to fall on the field, as he deserves. Make certain it happens. And get me the rest of the money you owe, or you'll soon find yourself carrying one of those bridges yourself."

He swept away, forest-green cloak fluttering. In his time as a soldier, Gaz had learned to fear the minor lighteyes the most. They were galled by their closeness in rank to the darkeyes, yet those darkeyes were the only ones they had any authority over. That made them dangerous. Being around a man like Lamaril was like handling a hot coal with bare fingers. There was no way to avoid burning yourself. You just hoped to be quick enough to keep the burns to a minimum.

Bridge Four ran by. A month ago, Gaz wouldn't have believed this possible. A group of bridgemen, practicing? And all it seemed to have cost Kaladin was a few bribes of food and some empty promises that he would protect them.

That shouldn't have been enough. Life as a bridgeman was hopeless. Gaz couldn't join them. He just couldn't. Kaladin the lordling had to fall. But if Kaladin's spheres vanished, Gaz could just as easily end up as a bridgeman for failing to pay Lamaril. Storming Damnation! he thought. It was like trying to choose which claw of the chasmfiend would crush you.

Gaz continued to watch Kaladin's crew. And still that darkness waited for him. Like an itch that couldn't be scratched. Like a scream that couldn't be silenced. A tingling numbness that he could never be rid of.

It would probably follow him even into death. "Bridge up!" Kaladin bellowed, running with Bridge Four. They raised the bridge over their heads while still moving. It was harder to run this way, holding the bridge up, rather than resting it on the shoulders. He felt its enormous weight on his arms.

"Down!" he ordered.

Those at the front let go of the bridge and ran out to the sides. The others lowered the bridge in a quick motion. It hit the ground awkwardly, scraping the stone. They got into position, pretending to move it across a chasm. Kaladin helped at the side.

We'll need to practice on a real chasm, he thought as the men finished. I wonder what kind of bribe it would take for Gaz to let me do that.

The bridgemen, finished with their mock bridge run, looked toward Kaladin, exhausted but excited. He smiled at them. As a squadleader those months in Amaram's army, he'd learned that praise should be honest, but it should never be withheld.

"We need to work on that set-down," Kaladin said. "But overall, I'm impressed. Two weeks and you're already working together as well as some teams I trained for months. I'm pleased. And proud. Go get something to drink and take a break. We'll do one or two more runs before work detail."

It was stone-gathering duty again, but that was nothing to complain about. He'd convinced the men that lifting the stones would improve their strength, and had enlisted the few he trusted the most to help gather the knobweed, the means by which he continued to-just barely-keep the men supplied with extra food and build his stock of medical supplies.

Two weeks. An easy two weeks, as the lives of bridgemen went. Only two bridge runs, and on one they'd gotten to the plateau too late. The Parshendi had escaped with the gemheart before they'd even arrived. That was good for bridgemen.

The other assault hadn't been too bad, by bridgeman numbers. Two more dead: Amark and Koolf. Two more wounded: Narm and Peet. A fraction of what the other crews had lost, but still too many. Kaladin tried to keep his expression optimistic as he walked to the water barrel and took a ladle from one of the men, drinking it down.

Bridge Four would drown in its own wounded. They were only thirty strong, with five wounded who drew no pay and had to be fed out of the knobweed income. Counting those who'd died, they'd taken nearly thirty percent casualties in the weeks he'd begun trying to protect them. In Amaram's army, that rate of casualties would have been catastrophic.

Back then, Kaladin's life had been one of training and marching, punctuated by occasional frenzied bursts of battle. Here, the fighting was relentless. Every few days. That kind of thing could-would-wear an army down.

There has to be a better way, Kaladin thought, swishing the lukewarm water in his mouth, then pouring another ladle on his head. He couldn't continue to lose two men a week to death and wounds. But how could they survive when their own officers didn't care if they lived or died?

He barely kept himself from throwing the ladle into the barrel in frustration. Instead, he handed it to Skar and gave him an encouraging smile. A lie. But an important one.

Gaz watched from the shadow of one of the other bridgeman barracks. Syl's translucent figure-shaped now like floating knobweed fluff-flitted around the bridge sergeant. Eventually, she made her way over to Kaladin, landing on his shoulder, taking her female form.

"He's planning something," she said.

"He hasn't interfered," Kaladin said. "He hasn't even tried to stop us from having the nightly stew."

"He was talking to that lighteyes."

"Lamaril?"

She nodded.

"Lamaril's his superior," Kaladin said as he walked into the shade of Bridge Four's barrack. He leaned against the wall, looking over at his men by the water barrel. They talked to one another now. Joked. Laughed. They went out drinking together in the evenings. Stormfather, but he never thought he'd be glad that the men under his command went drinking.

"I didn't like their expressions," Syl said, sitting down on Kaladin's shoulder. "Dark. Like thunderclouds. I didn't hear what they were saying. I noticed them too late. But I don't like it, particularly that Lamaril."

Kaladin nodded slowly.

"You don't trust him either?" Syl asked.

"He's a lighteyes." That was enough.

"So we-"

"So we do nothing," Kaladin said. "I can't respond unless they try something. And if I spend all of my energy worrying about what they might do, I won't be able to solve the problems we're facing right now."

What he didn't add was his real worry. If Gaz or Lamaril decided to have Kaladin killed, there was little he could to do to stop them. True, bridgemen were rarely executed for anything other than failing to run their bridge. But even in an "honest" force like Amaram's, there had been rumors of trumped-up charges and fake evidence. In Sadeas's undisciplined, barely regulated camp, nobody would blink if Kaladin-a shash-branded slave-were strung up on some nebulous charge. They could leave him for the highstorm, washing their hands of his death, claiming that the Stormfather had chosen his fate.

Kaladin stood up straight and walked toward the carpentry section of the lumberyard. The craftsmen and their apprentices were hard at work cutting lengths of wood for spear hafts, bridges, posts, or furniture.

The craftsmen nodded to Kaladin as he passed. They were familiar with him now, used to his odd requests, like pieces of lumber long enough for four men to hold and run with to practice keeping cadence with one another. He found a half-finished bridge. It had eventually grown out of that one plank that Kaladin had used.