21: WHY MEN LIE

After the intense bridge battle, a battered and determined young bridgeman named begins recovering and enlists the support of a few trusted men to save three wounded bridgemen from starvation by organizing a secret stone-gathering detail outside the warcamp. Meanwhile, he grapples with deeper questions about trust, truth, and human nature with a mysterious windspren who follows him.

The chapter opens with a weary and injured young bridgeman forcing himself from his bunk to check on three wounded men he saved during a recent battle. He finds that two of them—a grateful man named Rock and a battle-shocked bridgeman named—survive despite dire conditions, while the third lies on the verge of death from infection and lack of care. Rather than resign himself to inevitable loss, the bridgeman begins practicing with a plank in the yard, a visible act of defiance and commitment to recovery that unnerves the other bridgemen. A mysterious windspren named appears to him, and they engage in a philosophical discussion about lying and trust. The bridgeman reveals deep cynicism about lighteyes and authority, born from past betrayals. Word reaches him through the bridge sergeant that the highprince has forbidden the wounded men food or pay while they recover—a deliberate cruelty intended to demonstrate why the wounded are left behind on future marches. The men of the barracks refuse to help when the young man appeals for pooled resources to buy medicine and food. But a large, gentle foreigner named Rock volunteers to share his own meager meals with the man with the arrow wound. In a desperate move, the bridgeman manipulates the bridge sergeant into assigning Bridge Four to the undesirable stone-gathering detail outside the warcamp, secretly planning to harvest medicinal plants. He recruits Rock and an older bridgeman named to help, convincing them to join him in his seemingly suicidal mission to save men the army has already written off as dead.