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Kaladin wakes on the rock floor of the barrack with the same wretched dread he carried as a slave in Tvlakv's wagon — heavier now, because there are men around him whose lives he has begun to be responsible for. He has counted the math in his head one too many times. He cannot drill Bridge Four up to the standard of the cleverest soldiers in Alethkar and still ride out the slow attrition of bridge runs one assault at a time. There is not enough of Stormlight or knobweed or luck in the world for it. The numbers will catch them.

Outside in the lull after the morning riddens, with the lumberyard half-flooded, Kaladin kicks a fallen spear toward Moash in the mud and tells the men what he has decided. He will train them, from today, in the use of the spear. They will attack a guard post at night a week from now and break out of the camp. Sadeas will hunt them; the highstorms will hunt them; they will probably never get clear of the Plains. He would rather die fighting in the cold open than rot in Gaz's ledger one assault at a time. They will be killed, he tells them honestly, if they try. They will be killed if they don't.

Teft is the first man to straighten and say, simply, that he is in. Moash is eager — almost grinning under the slave brand, the angriest of them and now the readiest. Sigzil says he would rather die on an Alethi blade than spend another week as anyone's slave. Rock declares with great dignity that the cooking for killers is beneath the honor of an Unkalaki but that he will feed them so well they will fight like kings. Dunny calls Kaladin *Captain* for the first time, and grins, and signs on. Others chime in one by one — frightened, but willing — and several pull spears out of the wet mud as they speak. Kaladin steps to the front of the group and begins to outline a plan.