“And what would I use them for? I wouldn’t trust men this filthy near food, and we have parshmen to do most other work.”
“If Your Ladyship is not pleased, I could approach other highprinces….”
“No,” she said, smacking the slave she’d been regarding as he shied away from her. “One and a quarter. They can help cut timber for us in the northern forests….” She trailed off as she noticed Kaladin. “Here now. This is far better stock than the others.”
“I thought that you might like this one,” Tvlakv said, stepping up to her. “He is quite—”
She raised the rod and silenced Tvlakv. She had a small sore on one lip. Some ground cussweed root could help with that.
“Remove your top, slave,” she commanded.
Kaladin stared her right in her blue eyes and felt an almost irresistible urge to spit at her. No. No, he couldn’t afford that. Not when there was a chance. He pulled his arms out of the sacklike clothing, letting it fall to his waist, exposing his chest.
Despite eight months as a slave, he was far better muscled than the others. “A large number of scars for one so young,” the noblewoman said thoughtfully. “You are a military man?”
“Yes.” His windspren zipped up to the woman, inspecting her face.
“Mercenary?”
“Amaram’s army,” Kaladin said. “A citizen, second nahn.”
“Once a citizen,” Tvlakv put in quickly. “He was—”
She silenced Tvlakv again with her rod, glaring at him. Then she used the rod to push aside Kaladin’s hair and inspect his forehead.
“Shash glyph,” she said, clicking her tongue. Several of the soldiers nearby stepped closer, hands on their swords. “Where I come from, slaves who deserve these are simply executed.”
“They are fortunate,” Kaladin said.
“And how did you end up here?”
“I killed someone,” Kaladin said, preparing his lies carefully. Please, he thought to the Heralds. Please. It had been a long time since he had prayed for anything.
The woman raised an eyebrow.
“I’m a murderer, Brightness,” Kaladin said. “Got drunk, made some mistakes. But I can use a spear as well as any man. Put me in your brightlord’s army. Let me fight again.” It was a strange lie to make, but the woman would never let Kaladin fight if she thought he was a deserter. In this case, better to be known as an accidental murderer.
Please… he thought. To be a soldier again. It seemed, in one moment, the most glorious thing he could ever have wanted. How much better it would be to die on the battlefield than waste away emptying chamber pots.
To the side, Tvlakv stepped up beside the lighteyed woman. He glanced at Kaladin, then sighed. “He’s a deserter, Brightness. Don’t listen to him.”
No! Kaladin felt a blazing burst of anger consume his hope. He raised hands toward Tvlakv. He’d strangle the rat, and—
Something cracked him across the back. He grunted, stumbling and falling to one knee. The noblewoman stepped back, raising her safehand to her breast in alarm. One of the army soldiers grabbed Kaladin and towed him back to his feet.
“Well,” she finally said. “That is unfortunate.”
“I can fight,” Kaladin growled against the pain. “Give me a spear. Let me—”
She raised her rod, cutting him off.
“Brightness,” Tvlakv said, not meeting Kaladin’s eyes. “I would not trust him with a weapon. It is true that he is a murderer, but he is also known to disobey and lead rebellions against his masters. I couldn’t sell him to you as a bonded soldier. My conscience, it would not allow it.” He hesitated. “The men in his wagon, he might have corrupted them all with talk of escape. My honor demands that I tell you this.”
Kaladin gritted his teeth. He was tempted to try to take down the soldier behind him, grab that spear and spend his last moments ramming it through Tvlakv’s portly gut. Why? What did it matter to Tvlakv how Kaladin was treated by this army?
I should never have ripped up the map, Kaladin though. Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness. One of his father’s sayings.
The woman nodded, moving on. “Show me which ones,” she said. “I’ll still take them, because of your honesty. We need some new bridgemen.”
Tvlakv nodded eagerly. Before moving on, he paused and leaned in to Kaladin. “I cannot trust that you will behave. The people in this army, they will blame a merchant for not revealing all he knew. I…am sorry.” With that, the merchant scuttled away.
Kaladin growled in the back of his throat, and then pulled himself free of the soldiers, but remained in line. So be it. Cutting down trees, building bridges, fighting in the army. None of it mattered. He would just keep living. They’d taken his freedom, his family, his friends, and—most dear of all—his dreams. They could do nothing more to him.
After her inspection, the noblewoman took a writing board from her assistant and made a few quick notations on its paper. Tvlakv gave her a ledger detailing how much each slave had paid down on their slave debt. Kaladin caught a glimpse; it said that not a single one of the men had paid anything. Perhaps Tvlakv lied about the figures. Not unlikely.
Kaladin would probably just let all of his wages go to his debt this time. Let them squirm as they saw him actually call their bluff. What would they do if he got close to earning out his debt? He’d probably never find out—depending on what these bridgemen earned, it could take anything from ten to fifty years to get there.
The lighteyed woman assigned most of the slaves to forest duty. A half-dozen of the more spindly ones were sent to work the mess halls, despite what she’d said before. “Those ten,” the noblewoman said, raising her rod to point at Kaladin and the others from his wagon. “Take them to the bridge crews. Tell Lamaril and Gaz that the tall one is to be given special treatment.”
The soldiers laughed, and one began shoving Kaladin’s group along the pathway. Kaladin endured it; these men had no reason to be gentle, and he wouldn’t give them a reason to be rougher. If there was a group citizen soldiers hated more than mercenaries, it was deserters.
As he walked, he couldn’t help noticing the banner flying above the camp. It bore the same symbol emblazoned on the soldiers’ uniform coats: a yellow glyphpair in the shape of a tower and a hammer on a field of deep green. That was the banner of Highprince Sadeas, ultimate ruler of Kaladin’s own home district. Was it irony or fate that had landed Kaladin here?
Soldiers lounged idly, even those who appeared to be on duty, and the camp streets were littered with refuse. Camp followers were plentiful: whores, worker women, coopers, chandlers, and wranglers. There were even children running through the streets of what was half city, half warcamp.
There were also parshmen. Carrying water, working on trenches, lifting sacks. That surprised him. Weren’t they fighting parshmen? Weren’t they worried that these would rise up? Apparently not. The parshmen here worked with the same docility as the ones back in Hearthstone. Perhaps it made sense. Alethi had fought against Alethi back in his armies at home, so why shouldn’t there be parshmen on both sides of this conflict?
The soldiers took Kaladin all the way around to the northeastern quarter of the camp, a hike that took some time. Though the Soulcast stone barracks each looked exactly the same, the rim of the camp was broken distinctively, like ragged mountains. Old habits made him memorize the route. Here, the towering circular wall had been worn away by countless highstorms, giving a clear view eastward. That open patch of ground would make a good staging area for an army to gather on before marching down the incline to the Shattered Plains themselves.
The northern edge of the field contained a subcamp filled with several dozen barracks, and at their center a lumberyard filled with carpenters. They were breaking down some of the stout trees Kaladin had seen on the plains outside: stripping off their stringy bark, sawing them into planks. Another group of carpenters assembled the planks into large contraptions.
“We’re to be woodworkers?” Kaladin asked.
One of the soldiers laughed roughly. “You’re joining the bridge crews.” He pointed to where a group of sorry-looking men sat on the stones in the shade of a barrack, scooping food out of wooden bowls with their fingers. It looked depressingly similar to the slop that Tvlakv had fed them.
One of the soldiers shoved Kaladin forward again, and he stumbled down the shallow incline and crossed the grounds. The other nine slaves followed, herded by the soldiers. None of the men sitting around the barracks so much as glanced at them. They wore leather vests and simple trousers, some with dirty laced shirts, others bare-chested. The grim, sorry lot weren’t much better than the slaves, though they did look to be in slightly better physical condition.
“New recruits, Gaz,” one of the soldiers called.
A man lounged in the shade a distance from the eating men. He turned, revealing a face that was so scarred his beard grew in patches. He was missing one eye—the other was brown—and didn’t bother with an eye patch. White knots at his shoulders marked him as a sergeant, and he had the lean toughness Kaladin had learned to associate with someone who knew his way around a battlefield.
“These spindly things?” Gaz said, chewing on something as he walked over. “They’ll barely stop an arrow.”
The soldier beside Kaladin shrugged, shoving him forward once more for good measure. “Brightness Hashal said to do something special with this one. The rest are up to you.” The soldier nodded to his companions, and they began to trot away.
Gaz looked the slaves over. He focused on Kaladin last.
“I have military training,” Kaladin said. “In the army of Highlord Amaram.”
“I don’t really care,” Gaz cut in, spitting something dark to the side.
Kaladin hesitated. “When Amaram—”
“You keep mentioning that name,” Gaz snapped. “Served under some unimportant landlord, did you? Expect me to be impressed?”
Kaladin sighed. He’d met this kind of man before, a lesser sergeant with no hope of advancement. His only pleasure in life came from his authority over those even sorrier than himself. Well, so be it.
“You have a slave’s mark,” Gaz said, snorting. “I doubt you ever held a spear. Either way, you’ll have to condescend to join us now, Lordship.”
Kaladin’s windspren flitted down and inspected Gaz, then closed one of her eyes, imitating him. For some reason, seeing her made Kaladin smile. Gaz misinterpreted the smile. The man scowled and stepped forward, pointing.
At that moment, a loud chorus of horns echoed through the camp. Carpenters glanced up, and the soldiers who had guided Kaladin dashed back toward the center of camp. The slaves behind Kaladin looked around anxiously.
“Stormfather!” Gaz cursed. “Bridgemen! Up, up, you louts!” He began kicking at some of the men who were eating. They scattered their bowls, scrambling to their feet. They wore simple sandals instead of proper boots.
“You, Lordship,” Gaz said, pointing at Kaladin.