Kaladin trudged along. It felt wrong to be on patrol without a spear, and he instinctively sought out Syl, who rode the winds above. He’d been given a side sword to carry at his right, a truncheon to carry at his left, and a small round shield. The first thing the Wall Guard had taught him was how to draw the sword by reaching down with his right hand—not lowering his shield—and pulling it free of the sheath.
They wouldn’t use sword or truncheon when the Voidbringers finally assaulted; there were proper pikes up above for that. Down here was a different matter. The large road—it rounded the city alongside the wall—was clear and clean, maintained by the Guard. But most of the streets that branched off it were crowded with people. Nobody but the poorest and most wretched wanted to be this close to the walls.
“How is it,” Ved said, “those refugees can’t get it through their heads that we’re the only thing separating them from the army outside?”
Indeed, many of those they passed on side streets watched the patrol with outright hostility. At least nobody had thrown anything at them today.
“They see that we’re fed,” Noro replied. “They smell food from our barracks. They’re not thinking with their heads, but with their stomachs.”
“Half of those belong to the cult anyway,” Beard noted. “One of these days, I’ll have to infiltrate that. Might have to marry their high priestess, but let me tell you, I’m terrible in a harem. Last time, the other men grew jealous of me taking all the priestess’s attention.”
“She laughed so hard at your offering she got distracted, eh?” Ved asked.
“Actually, there’s a story about—”
“Calm it, Beard,” the lieutenant said. “Let’s get ready for the delivery.” He shifted his shield to his other hand, then took out his truncheon. “Get intimidating, everybody. Truncheons only.”
The group pulled out their wooden cudgels. It felt wrong to have to defend themselves from their own people—brought back memories of being in Amaram’s army, bivouacking near towns. Everyone had always talked about the glories of the army and the fight on the Shattered Plains. And yet, once towns got done gawking, they transitioned to hostility with remarkable speed. An army was the sort of thing everyone wanted to have, so long as it was off doing important things elsewhere.
Noro’s squad met up with another from their platoon—with two squads on the wall for duty, two squads off, and two down here patrolling, they were around forty strong. Together, the twelve men formed up to guard a slow, chull-pulled wagon that left one of their larger barrack warehouses. It carried a mound of closed sacks.
Refugees crowded around, and Kaladin brandished his truncheon. He had to use his shield to shove a man who got too close. Fortunately, this caused others to back away, instead of rushing the wagon.
They rolled inward only one street before stopping at a city square. Syl flitted down and rested on his shoulder. “They … they look like they hate you.”
“Not me,” Kaladin whispered. “The uniform.”
“What … what will you do if they actually attack?”
He didn’t know. He hadn’t come to this city to fight the populace, but if he refused to defend the squad …
“Storming Velalant is late,” Ved grumbled.
“A little more time,” Noro said. “We’ll be fine. The good people know this food goes to them eventually.”
Yes, after they wait hours in line at Velalant’s distribution stations.
Farther into the city—obscured by the gathering crowds—a group of people approached in stark violet, with masks obscuring their faces. Kaladin watched uncomfortably as they started whipping their own forearms. Drawing painspren, which climbed from the ground around them, like hands missing the skin. Except these were too large, and the wrong color, and … and didn’t seem human.
“I prayed to the spren of the night and they came to me!” a man at their forefront shouted, raising hands high. “They rid me of my pain!”
“Oh no…” Syl whispered.
“Embrace them! The spren of changes! The spren of a new storm, a new land. A new people!”
Kaladin took Noro by the arm. “Sir, we need to retreat. Get this grain back to the warehouse.”
“We have orders to…” Noro trailed off as he glanced at the increasingly hostile crowd.
Fortunately, a group of some fifty men in blue and red rounded a corner and began shoving aside refugees with rough hands and barked shouts. Noro’s sigh was almost comically loud. The angry crowd broke away as Velalant’s troops surrounded the grain shipment.
“Why do we do this in the daytime?” Kaladin asked one of their officers. “And why don’t you simply come to our warehouse and escort it from there? Why the display?”
A soldier moved him—politely, but firmly—back from the wagon. The troops surrounded it and marched it away, the crowd flowing after them.
When they got back to the wall, Kaladin felt like a man seeing land after swimming all the way to Thaylenah. He pressed his palm against the stone, feeling its cool, rough grain. Drawing a sense of safety from it, much as he would draw out Stormlight. It would have been easy to fight that crowd—they were basically unarmed. But while training prepared you for the mechanics of the fight, the emotions were another thing entirely. Syl huddled on his shoulder, staring back along the street.
“This is all the queen’s fault,” Beard muttered softly. “If she hadn’t killed that ardent…”
“Stop with that,” Noro said sharply. He took a deep breath. “My squad, we’re on the wall next. You have half an hour to grab a drink or a nap, then assemble at our station above.”
“And storms be praised for that!” Beard said, heading straight for the stairwell, obviously planning to get to the station above, then relax. “I’ll happily take some time staring down an enemy army, thank you very much.”
Kaladin joined Beard in climbing. He still didn’t know where the man had gotten his nickname. Noro was the only one in the squad who wore a beard, though his wasn’t exactly inspiring. Rock would have laughed it to shame and euthanized it with a razor and some soap.
“Why do we pay off the highlords, Beard?” Kaladin asked as they climbed. “Velalant and his type are pretty useless, from what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah. We lost the real highlords in the riots or to the palace. But the highmarshal knows what to do. I suspect that if we didn’t share with people like Velalant, we’d have to fight them off from seizing the grain. At least this way, people are eventually getting fed, and we can watch the wall.”
They talked like that a lot. Holding the city wall was their job, and if they looked too far afield—tried too hard to police the city or bring down the cult—they’d lose their focus. The city had to stand. Even if it burned inside, it had to stand. To an extent, Kaladin agreed. The army couldn’t do everything.
It still hurt.
“When are you going to tell me how we make all that food?” Kaladin whispered.
“I…” Beard looked around in the stairwell. He leaned in. “I don’t know, Kal. But first thing that Azure did when he took command? Had us attack the low monastery, by the eastern gates, away from the palace. I know men from other companies who were on that assault. The place had been overrun by rioters.”
“They had a Soulcaster, didn’t they?”
Beard nodded. “Only one in the city that wasn’t at the palace when it … you know.”