Fall Asleep While Learning About Kaladin

In this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, fall asleep while learning about a character from the Stormlight Archive named Kaladin. He's a primary character in an epic fantasy novel by the author Brandon Sanderson. Perhaps the weird names in the reading will be enough to put you out tonight. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome back,

Or welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster.

Today's episode is about a character named Kaladin from the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson.

Kaladin,

Nicknamed Kal,

Renowned as Kaladin Stormblest,

Is a windrunner of the Night's Radiant from Alethkar.

Despite being trained as a surgeon from an early age by his father,

His chosen profession is that of a soldier.

He is famed as the captain of High Prince Dalinar Kolin's personal guard,

A unit known as Bridge Four,

Commander of the Bridgemen Battalion,

And High Marshal of the Order of Windrunners.

Kaladin has known adversity and loss throughout his life.

He has suffered repeated oppression and betrayal by the light-eyed nobility,

Including being driven from his home by the city lord of his hometown as a teenager and being sold into slavery by the commander of his army.

Kaladin has also been unable to save numerous patients,

Comrades,

Subordinates,

And even his brother Tien from death.

Despite these challenges,

Or perhaps because of them,

Kaladin is driven to protect others.

Utilizing his skills as a surgeon,

He attempts to save as many lives as possible.

As a soldier,

He rescued thousands of soldiers during the Battle of the Tower,

Liberated a thousand bridgemen,

And defended Dalinar Kolin and King Alethkar Kolin from numerous assassins.

He is bonded with the honor spren Silphrena,

More commonly known as Sil.

This bond allows him to discover his powers as a Surgebinder and destiny as a member of the Knights Radiant,

An order which has been defunct ever since the Days of Recreance.

Kaladin,

Along with Dalinar Kolin,

Renarn Kolin,

And Shalan Davar,

Is one of the new founding members of the Knights Radiant in centuries.

Their public revelation during the Battle of Narok serves as the catalyst for the re-founding of the Knights Radiant.

After the re-founding of the Knights Radiant,

Kaladin helped the expansion of the Knights Radiant by taking on Bridge Four as squires,

With most of them eventually becoming knights themselves.

Kaladin is a very tall man,

Even tall by Alethi standards,

Standing approximately 6'4'' in Rosharan feet,

Nearly 7 Cosmere standard feet.

He is leanly muscular and has multiple scars on his body.

He has tan skin and shoulder-length wavy black hair,

Typical of an Alethi.

He was born with dark brown eyes,

Though after swearing the Third Ideal of the Windrunners,

His eyes turn a pale glowing blue whenever he summons Sil as a Shardblade,

And for a few hours after he dismisses her.

Like most Rosharans,

Kaladin's eyes have an epicanthic fold.

His face is square and firm with strong lines and a proud chin.

He prefers to be clean-shaven,

But during his time as a slave,

He grows a long scraggly beard.

He is branded on his forehead with a sass-non-glyph pair,

Indicating his slavery,

And a shash-glyph meaning dangerous.

These brands disappeared after Kaladin swore the Fourth Ideal.

Kaladin is a natural leader who inspires belief and confidence in his men.

His squad members in Amram's army call him Lucky,

And believe that being in his squad grants him supernatural protection.

Kaladin also transformed Bridge Four from a dejected and despondent group with the worst reputation into a highly motivated and effective fighting force.

Elinar Kolin remarks that his men are remarkably loyal and think very highly of him.

Ever since childhood,

Kaladin has had a strong,

Protective instinct,

Which only grows once he begins discovering and swearing the Immortal Words.

He uses his medical skills to save people,

First as an apprentice surgeon and later as a battlefield medic.

As a youth,

He joins the army so he can look after his younger brother Tion.

As a squad leader in Amram's army,

He recruits the youngest members with the least training to his squad so that he can train and protect them.

As captain of Dalinar's personal guard,

He protects Dalinar and the king from assassins on multiple occasions.

Kaladin draws a black and white distinction between light eyes and dark eyes,

Harboring a deep resentment and distrust for virtually all light eyes,

Fueled by the betrayals of people like Roshan,

Amram,

And Kateratam.

Ironically,

Kaladin himself is noted to have many light-eyed qualities.

Many characters remark that Kaladin has the bearing of a light-eyes,

Meaning a leader or noble,

Since the term light-eyes encompasses these qualities in the Alethi language.

And others have noted that Kaladin sounds like a light-eyed name rather than a dark-eyed name.

Further,

When Kaladin comes into his true power as a night radiant,

He becomes light-eyed.

Kaladin despises these qualities in himself because they make him more similar to light-eyes.

During his recent struggles,

Kaladin shows hostility and resentment,

Although at times his wit,

Sarcasm,

And intelligence show through.

He appears to have got his sense of humor from his mother and is constantly questioning the world around him.

He dislikes beards,

Finds the way that they itch at the corner of his mouth to be annoying.

Due to this,

He tries to shave his own whenever he can.

He finds the Voren insistence on gender norms to be ridiculous and doesn't expect anyone to live up to them,

Questioning why people mock others,

Like Renaren,

For not being the traditional masculine ideal.

However,

He does seem to still believe in them and the dichotomy they enforce on how one's role in society,

He simply doesn't enforce them himself.

Kaladin has the ability to manipulate the surges of adhesion and gravitation through his nail bond with the honor spren Silphrena.

By breathing in stormlight,

He gains superhuman strength,

Speed,

Agility,

Durability,

Stamina,

And healing.

While his honor spren is present with him,

His movements are enhanced by her,

Which Kaladin describes as being a This gives Kaladin a superior natural fighting talent,

Although it does not replace skill by itself.

Kaladin often refers to his powers as the three lashings.

The full lashing is sticking objects together with adhesion.

It is the first of the three lashings Kaladin mastered,

As it is the easiest to perform.

He can use this lashing as a shield to protect himself from as it is the easiest to perform.

He can use this lashing to bond rocks to a sheer chasm wall and create a ladder,

And similarly to use brushes as portable handholds for climbing.

He also uses the full lashing to disarm his opponents by yanking their weapons with his own and neutralize them by bonding them to surfaces while sparring.

Full lashings cannot affect a radiant skin,

But they can affect hair and clothing.

Basic lashings involve manipulating gravitation to make an object or person fall in a different direction.

After his encounter with the assassin in Wyde,

Kaladin manages to duplicate the ability to perform basic lashings.

He has since learned how to perform multiple lashings on a single object,

As well as partial lashings.

He is able to fly by lashing himself into the air,

And has gotten quite good at instinctively dismissing and renewing lashings in different directions to achieve complex maneuvers such as looping and banking.

He can also use this ability to transport people over long distances by lashing both themselves and himself multiple times in a direction.

He typically does this while over the high storm so as to avoid running out of light.

The reverse lashing is the most intense centered lashing of the three,

And as such is generally more difficult to use.

It involves infusing an object and commanding it to attract a specific other object.

Kaladin unconsciously performs this lashing during the bridge runs for the entirety of his time as a bridgeman,

Infusing the bridge he carries to attract the Porschendi arrows being shot at him while approaching the target plateaus.

Later at the battle of the tower,

He infuses the shield he is carrying to draw an entire volley of arrows shot at bridge 4.

In addition to the lashings,

Kaladin is able to use his surges to create a pocket of calm within a high storm.

This manifests as a barrier of windspren.

As a knight radiant who has access to two surges,

He also has a resonance.

Windrunners such as Kaladin have an increased number of squires,

More than any other order.

The squires are also more powerful than those of the other orders.

After Kaladin swears the third ideal of the windrunners,

Sylphrena gains the ability to become a shardblade.

Kaladin can summon her in the form of any weapon he chooses,

As well as a shield and transform it from one to another almost instantaneously.

His preferred weapon for fighting is a spear,

But he usually summons Syl in her default blade shape when showing her off.

Later,

The fourth ideal allows him to additionally summon windspren and manifest them in the physical realm as shardplate.

His plate glows blue at the seams and is emblazoned with a glyph of bridge 4 on the chest.

The spren that can create it are always present nearby,

Though not always manifest.

This allows Kaladin to summit it at a moment's notice.

He can also send it out to manifest on other people and protect them this way.

During his time in Amram's army,

Kaladin's natural talent blossoms him into a master at spearfighting.

He is the quickest learner among the members of his cohort.

His effortless ability surprises his drill sergeant,

Tux.

Kaladin spends the year after his brother's death driving himself to exhaustion each day at the practice yard.

He eventually grows to be known as the best spearman in Amram's army.

He is able to take down six spearmen by himself in seconds,

Even before he discovers his abilities as a sergebinder.

Combined with Stormlight,

He holds off dozens of Barshendi almost single-handedly.

While the spear is his preferred weapon,

Kaladin has training with other weapons as well.

He often carries throwing knives as a secondary weapon and is able to use them with considerable accuracy.

He has at various times wielded a quarterstaff,

A hammer,

And a halberd.

After becoming the Kolin bodyguard,

He starts training with the swordmaster Zael,

Though he is by no means an expert with the sword yet.

Zael has also confirmed that Kaladin's preternatural skill with weapons,

Evident since the first time he picked up a quarterstaff as a boy,

Comes from their bond.

Kaladin also possesses a capable mind as a military commander.

He becomes the youngest squad leader in Amram's army when he is 18 years old.

He manages to reduce the casualty rate of his squad to the lowest in the entire army.

He is able to train bridge 4 with barely any resources.

He is able to quickly analyze a battlefield and assess the tactical situation.

Kaladin starts training in medicine with his father and assisting him in surgery when he is 8 years old.

His training is mostly concentrated in but not limited to surgery.

After joining the army,

He gains considerable practice as a field medic,

Attending to his fellow soldiers injured in combat.

He has some level of understanding of pharmacology,

As he is able to harvest and extract his own antiseptic from knobweed sap.

He also has a basic grasp of neurological disorders like epilepsy.

Kaladin has had a varied social standing throughout his life.

His barista Liren,

A dark-eyed surgeon of the Second Nan,

Sets him at Second Nan originally.

When he is branded a slave by Amram,

His rank changes to Tenth Nan,

Like all slaves.

When Dalinar rescues him and makes him captain of the Kolingard,

His Nan is uncertain,

Since captain is a rank usually given only to lower-dawn light-eyes.

During this time,

He is treated as an oddity outside of the normal case system by many.

Once Kaladin begins summoning Syl as a Shardblade,

His eyes temporarily change to blue,

Making him a light-eyes before fading back to brown,

Making him dark-eyed again.

Dalinar decides that his status as a Shardbearer makes him a light-eyes of the Fourth Dawn,

Regardless of his current eye color.

Since Fourth Dawn is a landed title,

Alucard gives Kaladin a small piece of the Eastern Crownlands to rule over.

This technically makes Kaladin a landed lord,

Despite him not actually having any control over his territory,

As it is taken over by Voidbringers shortly before he obtains it.

As Bridge Four grows into the refounded Order of Windrunners,

Kaladin is promoted from captain to High Marshal.

Shortly before the fused occupation of Urethiru,

Kaladin steps down at Dalinar's request and becomes a Surgeon.

His notoriety as Storm-Blessed and the high social status of Radiance makes his effective status remain high,

Even if he is technically just a Surgeon.

He is reinstated briefly as High Marshal during the occupation,

Although he renounces command again upon retaking of the Tower.

Kaladin was born in late 1153 to Liren and Hacina,

A family of Second Dawn in the town of Hearthstone in Toril Satius' princedom in northwestern Alathgar.

His younger brother Tien was born two years later.

Growing up,

Kaladin preferred the shorter name Kal to his full name,

Which he felt sounded like a light-eyes name.

At the age of eight,

Kal began training with his father in surgery,

Though he dreamed of becoming a soldier.

At first,

He became sick of the sight of wounds and injuries.

Over the next couple of years,

He grew used to the sight and assisted his father during surgeries,

Which he figured would come in handy on the battlefield.

However,

The amount of time Liren spent with books and sick people,

Coupled with their class disparity,

Made people uncomfortable to be around Liren and Kal by association.

As a result of his isolated upbringing,

Kal became very close with his brother and at the encouragement of his parents,

Laurel Wistiao,

The daughter of the City Lord.

In 1164,

Kal assisted his father in amputating one of the fingers of a fifteen-year-old girl named Sani.

Once finished,

Liren asked Kal why he was late.

Kal admitted it was because he went with Tien to see what Jam,

A boy two years older,

Had learned from his quarterstaff training.

Kal was excited because Jam's father was a soldier in Bright Lord Amram's army.

Liren replied that he knew Jam's father,

Having operated on his leg three times,

A gift from his time as a soldier.

Kal argued they needed soldiers,

But Liren claimed they needed surgeons more.

Liren doubted that his son could actually hurt someone,

As he cried nearly every time someone was brought to them.

Kal promised he would get stronger,

Causing Liren to ask who put these ideas in his head.

Kal countered that it was about honor and that no one told stories about surgeons.

Liren told him there were two kinds of people in the world,

Those who save lives and those who take lives,

That one couldn't protect by killing.

Liren then informed Kal that once he turned sixteen,

He wanted to send Kaladin to train with real surgeons in Karbranth.

Liren told Kal he had a gift from the heralds,

And he didn't need to waste it on the small dreams of other men.

Two years later,

Kal and Laurel were talking somewhere east of Hearthstone,

While Tien gathered rocks nearby.

Kal told her of his father's plans to send him to Karbranth to train to become a surgeon.

Laurel asked why he hadn't told her.

He lied,

Saying he didn't think his father was serious.

Laurel wondered about his previous plans to be a soldier.

His expression became gloomy as he was conflicted on which path to choose,

Surgeon or soldier.

Sensing his distress,

Tien ran up to Kal with a rock that he found,

Giving it to Kal to make him feel better.

Kal did feel better and went with Tien to find a lurg.

Laurel rejoined them,

Commenting that Tien changed Kal for the better.

Laurel continued to encourage Kal to become a soldier and that he shouldn't let his father force him to do something he didn't want to.

She even implied he could marry her if he won a Shardblade.

Kal replied he still had time to decide as they wouldn't take him until he was sixteen.

Later,

They encountered a group of older boys,

One of whom made the claim his father won a Shardblade.

At Laurel's prompting,

Kal contradicted him,

Which led to the boy,

Jost,

Challenging Kal to a quarterstaff fight.

Although it was his first Although it was his first time holding a weapon,

His natural talent for combat manifested.

However,

Seeing that he hurt Jost,

He stopped himself from fighting anymore.

Jost,

Having no similar inhibition,

Beat Kal to the ground.

Kal then asked Jost to teach him,

But the older boy declined,

Telling Kal to go be what you are.

Joined by Tien,

Kal made his way home,

Where Liren informed Kal that City Lord Wistio had died and bequeathed a goblet full of spheres to Kal so he could study in Karbronth.

Two months later,

Thirteen-year-old Kal attempted to treat a five-year-old girl named Myasal on his own.

Kal started treating her,

But it was too late as Myasal died from blood loss due to multiple severe wounds.

An hour later,

His father found Kal in front of the surgery room crying to himself.

Liren told him that he was proud of Kal's work and there was nothing he could have done to stop Myasal's death.

Kal confessed to Liren that he doesn't want to be a surgeon,

But Liren just answered that he would have to learn when to care.

Near the end of 1166,

Kal was walking through the city of Hearthstone when he overheard two women claiming that his father stole the spheres from City Lord Wistio upon his death.

Gritting his teeth and knowing that it was his father,

Kal stepped out of the alleyway and gave one of the women a sharp look,

Causing both to flee inside the bakery.

His satisfaction was short-lived as he didn't understand why people said such things about his father.

He was still stewing when he turned a few corners,

Walking to where his mother stood on a stepladder.

When Hacena asked about his lessons,

He blurted out that everyone hated his father and that they believed he stole the spheres from Wistio.

He also lamented that he didn't have friends and asked what would happen if he wanted to become something other than a surgeon.

Hacena reminded him that he had Tien and that he shouldn't be so quick to discard his studies because he wanted to be like the others.

She also told him not to hate the townspeople as they were just repeating what they heard.

Seeing her glance to the City Lord's manor,

Kal debated whether or not he should try to see Laurel again.

Each time he had tried,

He'd been turned away by her nurse.

He wondered what it would be like marrying Laurel,

And if he did,

Would he always feel inferior to her?

He was still considering this fact and debating whether or not to be a surgeon or a soldier when Liren ran in declaring the new City Lord had arrived.

Kal went with his parents to the town square to await the arrival of City Lord Wishon.

Tien was already there,

Having already picked out a spot.

As Tien ran by,

Some older boys made an unintelligible remark about him,

Which made Kal furious,

Wanting to confront them,

But knowing it wasn't a good time.

Kal joined Tien to view the procession of a dozen wagons in a carriage.

The carriage stopped,

And a middle-aged man stepped out.

The light-eyed man scanned the crowd with a distasteful look on his face before turning to climb back into his carriage without addressing the crowd.

Before he could,

Liren called out,

Trying to welcome him to Hearthstone,

Introducing himself as the town surgeon.

Wishon responded by blaming Liren as the reason he ended up in this pitiful,

Miserable quarter of the kingdom.

City Lord Wishon's arrival brought great misfortune to Kal's family.

Believing that Liren had stolen the spheres from Wistio,

He coerced the townspeople to stop making donations for Liren's work,

Which was the primary source of the family's income.

While the townsfolk acquiesced,

They still secretly provided provisions to Liren and Hacina.

One night while drunk,

Liren told his son not to make the same mistakes he did and get sucked back into his tiny,

Foolish town.

Kal argued that Liren had always told him to come back,

But Liren admitted he'd been an idiot when he said that,

Adding that the townspeople didn't want him there.

Kal asked him why they couldn't just spend the spheres,

But his father said the spheres were for his education.

Besides,

If they did spend them,

They would be doing exactly what Wishon wanted them to.

Instead,

They did the best with what they had with Kal continuing his studies,

Hacina taking on random jobs,

And Tian apprenticing with Ral,

A carpenter in town.

At the same time,

Kal was secretly still trying to decide what path he would take in the next several months,

That of a surgeon or of a spearman.

A series of thumps interrupted Kal's thoughts,

Sending him scrambling out of his chair.

His father pulled open the door,

Revealing not a monster,

But three masked men demanding the spheres.

However,

They weren't the highwaymen as Kaladin initially thought,

But rather Ludin,

Orl,

And Balsas,

Normal townsmen presumably hired by Wishon.

Ashamed and caught off guard,

The men left without taking anything.

Half a year later,

Wishon invited Liren to the mansion for dinner.

Although Liren and Hacina tried to hide the meeting from him,

Kal found out and attended,

Wanting to support his father if he confronted the city lord.

As they rode through the city,

Kal asked his father why they tried to hide the meeting.

Liren admitted that he wasn't sure if he even wanted to attend as a part of him just wanted to take the family and flee to Karbranth,

Or another Alathi town.

Liren confessed that he had tried to leave once,

But there was a tie between a man's heart and his home,

And he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Having cared for the townspeople for so long,

He couldn't leave them in the hands of Rishon.

Once they arrived,

The pair were led to a dining room where Rishon was already eating.

A servant gestured to a side table set up in a room off the main dining hall,

But Liren sat down at Rishon's table,

Insisting that he was of second non,

And surely he could have a place at his table.

Not wasting any time,

Rishon discussed their present situation and asked them to return the spheres,

Ending their defiance.

When Kal responded with an outburst,

Liren sent him away to the kitchens.

There,

Rishon's son,

Riller,

Walked in with Laurel,

And,

Confusing Kaladin for a servant,

Ordered him to fetch their supper.

Kal,

Protesting that he wasn't a servant,

Lost an argument over his calling with Riller,

Leaving him humiliated.

As Liren and Kal left the mansion,

The latter admitted to his father that he had been considering joining the army.

However,

He had resolved to becoming a surgeon so that he would have the education to stand up to the Light Eyes.

During their conversation,

Kal saw something unfamiliar in his father's eyes,

Guilt.

He then realized that Liren had indeed stolen the spheres from Wistio,

Changing everything,

But also changing nothing.

He resolved to use the spheres for his training,

But would eventually pay them back to Laurel.

While on a hunting trip,

Rishon and Riller were seriously injured by a white spine and brought to Liren's surgery room.

Kaladin and Liren determined that Riller's injuries were already fatal and tended to Rishon despite his protests.

They anesthetized both patients,

Rishon for surgery and Riller for mercy.

During the procedure,

Liren hesitated when he discovered a piece of the white spine's tusk near Rishon's femoral artery.

Kaladin considered how easy it would be to fake an accident,

But they continued on to save Rishon's life as Riller died.

When Kaladin asked his father why he did not let Rishon die,

Liren answered that they have to be better men than the Light Eyes.

In the weeping of 1168,

Kaladin found himself increasingly hoping for the sun and the wind again,

The weather making it difficult for him to get things done.

One day,

When Kaladin was lying on the roof during the rain after repairing a leak,

Tien called up to him wanting to join him.

While Kaladin didn't think anyone else could cheer him up,

He knew Tien could because somehow he just always knew the right thing to do.

At first,

It was just the two of them sitting in silence.

Then,

Tien presented Kaladin with a gift,

An intricately carved horse that he made at Ral's shop.

Kaladin asked if he showed the beautiful horse to Ral,

But Tien confessed that it got him into trouble because it wasn't useful.

Not a bit discouraged,

Tien said he would make him proud tomorrow by finishing a chair.

Kaladin found himself amazed at his brother's ability to smile,

Even in the darkest of times,

Swearing things grew brighter around them in that moment.

However,

It was short-lived,

As Kaladin admitted his concerns about their father having to spend the spheres to not only Tien,

But also his mother.

Hacena promised him that there would be enough spheres for him to go to Karbrons in two months.

Kaladin suggested that perhaps the entire family should come with him,

Not wanting to leave them behind,

Especially with Roshan strangling them.

Hacena informed Kaladin that they only spent the spheres to make Roshan think he was winning,

Not because they needed to.

Once Kaladin left,

The spheres would be safe in the hands of the Ardyns while he studied to become a surgeon.

However,

Hacena reminded him that his life was his own and that he didn't have to become a surgeon to make them proud.

They sat for a while.

Kaladin considered her words and what Tien could possibly like about the reign.

When Lirin came with news that there was a gathering in the square,

Roshan assembled the townsfolk as Meredes Amram,

A general for High Prince Sadeas,

Had arrived in Hearthstone to recruit soldiers for the army.

There,

Kaladin and his family were shocked to learn that Laurel was now engaged to Roshan himself after R'hllor's death.

Meanwhile,

Since only six men had volunteered,

Amram asked Roshan to announce the list of conscripts.

As city lord,

Roshan was barred from placing Lirin or Kaladin on the conscription list because they served a vital function to the town.

However,

Roshan placed Tien's name on the list instead.

When Kaladin tried to take his brother's place,

He was denied because the law gave the choice to Roshan alone.

Left with no other option,

Kaladin enlisted in the army in order to protect Tien and promise his devastated parents that he would bring Tien back safely in four years.

Amram also promised Lirin that he would make Tien a messenger boy for a while.

Kaladin received his initial training under Tux,

Who taught him the importance of controlled passion,

To be passionate and to care without losing control of his emotions,

A lesson that he did not initially understand.

During his training,

Kaladin demonstrated a natural aptitude for being a soldier,

Learning the spear faster than anyone else in his cohort,

Barely even needing instruction,

Much to Tux's surprise.

After freezing on the battlefield the first time,

Kaladin was assigned cleaning duty by Tux,

Not to punish him,

But to help him fit in more.

Tux explained about how many soldiers struggle with the need to hurt the enemy.

However,

Kaladin didn't believe he froze because he was afraid to hurt someone,

But because he realized he could kill if needed.

Despite Amram's promise to Lirin,

The older messenger boys,

Including Tien,

Were soon organized into several squads to reserve units to make up for a shortfall in recruitment.

Dalar assured Kaladin that these squads would not see combat unless the army was in serious danger.

Less than four months after his enlistment,

Kaladin took part in his third real battle.

Amram's army was attempting to hold a hilltop,

But as the battle deteriorated,

Messenger boys were assigned to Sheller's company.

Hearing that the messenger squad was sent to the front,

Kaladin ran recklessly through the battlefield in an attempt to reach his brother.

On the southeast side of the hill,

Squad leader Varus placed Tien and two other boys in the front lines,

Successfully using them as bait.

Kaladin,

Killing a man for the first time during his run,

Reached Tien only after he had been killed.

Weeping and bleeding from wounds taken during his run,

He hugged Tien's dead body until long past the end of the battle.

Kaladin sent a letter to his parents,

Informing them of Tien's death and his decision not to return to Hearthstone.

He spent the next year driving himself to exhaustion every day on the practice yard,

Vowing vengeance and never letting another person die because of his lack of skill.

He became the best spearman in his company and was rumored to be the best in the entire army.

He eventually met Tara,

The daughter of an assistant quartermaster,

Who coaxed Kaladin out of his single-mindedness,

Claiming it would burn him out.

The two became romantically involved,

But they separated soon after she was transferred to a scribe's job in Mourn's Vault.

Kaladin blamed himself for their failed relationship,

Knowing that he'd been stupid not to send responses to her letters.

He later joined the Takers under Turk's leadership.

There,

Kaladin met Durg,

Who became a mentor to him.

Turk was impressed with Kaladin's abilities,

Considering him a natural-born soldier,

An artist with a spear.

Unfortunately,

Every member of the Takers was eventually killed with Kaladin being the lone survivor.

At the age of 18,

Kaladin was promoted to squad leader,

Making him the youngest one in the army and became known as Kaladin Stormblast.

One year after becoming a squad leader,

In Issue 1172,

Kaladin fought his final battle in Amram's army.

Prior to the battle,

Kaladin met with the squad leader Ger and two of his sergeants.

Kaladin bribed Ger to transfer Sen,

A young and inexperienced soldier,

To Kaladin's own squad,

Whom he entrusted to his sergeant Dalet.

He also bribed the surgeons to give priority to his men.

While bribing the surgeons,

The money pouch stuck to his hand by what Kaladin assumed to be a windspren,

Although it was actually his first meeting with Silfrenna.

After consulting with Dalet,

Kaladin went to the front lines to prepare for battle.

Once the signal to march was given,

Kaladin's well-disciplined squad used non-standard tactics to avoid taking any casualties.

However,

The larger battle didn't go nearly as well.

When the larger body of Amram's forces broke,

Kaladin's squad was left in the middle of the enemy.

During the chaos,

Kaladin single-handedly defeated six men to save Sen,

Who had been stranded alone without the rest of the squad.

After treating Sen,

Kaladin saw an enemy battalion lord and decided to kill him,

Hoping such a feat would get him transferred to the Shattered Plains,

Where Kaladin believed the real fight and honorable men can be found.

Kaladin and two of his sub-squads executed their plan flawlessly,

With Kaladin himself landing the killing blow on the enemy battalion lord.

Immediately after,

An unknown enemy,

A full Shardbearer,

Later revealed to be Helleran Davar,

Appeared and cut through Amram's army,

Killing Sen,

Dalet,

And two more of Kaladin's men.

Helleran continued on to attack Amram,

Whose honor guard had abandoned him.

Enraged,

Kaladin and his twenty remaining men chased after Helleran.

Helleran killed sixteen of Kaladin's men before Kaladin finally managed to kill him,

Saving Amram's life.

Amram and Korob,

One of Kaladin's men,

Urged Kaladin to claim Helleran's shards,

As it was his right to do so by ancient tradition.

However,

Kaladin was disgusted by the thought of wielding the same blade that claimed the lives of so many of his friends.

Instead,

Kaladin gave the shards to Korob and walked away.

A few hours later,

Kaladin was called to Amram's war center,

Where he met Amram and a group of his men along with the four surviving members of his squad.

After a short conversation,

Amram and his men ambushed Kaladin,

Killing the surviving members of Kaladin's squad while Kaladin himself was restrained.

Amram apologized,

But said this was the only way to ensure secrecy.

He informed Kaladin that he had thought it over for hours before finally being convinced by Rastaris that the best interests of Alethkar would be served if he wielded the shards himself.

As an act of mercy and gratitude,

Amram spared Kaladin's life and branded him with the Sas-Nan glyph pair to mark him as a slave to be sold.