23: MANY USES

Chapter 23 (titled "Many Uses") follows a POV shift, focusing on bridgeman leader-in-training who orchestrates the covert gathering and processing of knobweed reeds to create an antiseptic for his injured crew. While collecting stones as cover, he works with Rock and others to extract knobweed milk that can treat infection. Later that night at the chasm, he shares stories with Rock and learns of the cook's past—and glimpses his own darkest secret about the man he killed.

During the day, the Bridge Four crew is assigned stone-gathering duty, a task unpopular with the men but crucial to obtaining knobweed reeds needed for an antiseptic to treat the infected wounds of crew members like the dying youth, who watches helplessly as his superiors in the warcamp ignore the bridge crews' plight. With assistance from Rock, who inexplicably can perceive the sprite creature who appears to be a semi-sentient being, and the reluctant older soldier, the reeds are collected and hidden beneath a wagon. That night, under the moon, the three men reconvene at the wagonyard, retrieve the bundles, and process the knobweed at the chasm ledge. During this work, the spriteling learns that the Bridge Four leader's father had taught him that the reeds contain a milky liquid that prevents infection caused by rotspren. Rock shares his past: he was cook for a northern nuatoma—equivalent to a lighteyed high noble—whose master traveled to the lowlands intending to slay a enemy elite warrior and claim his magical weapons as tradition permitted. After losing the duel to the highprince's servant, Rock and his master's retinue became the property of the warcamp. In humiliation, Rock had poisoned the highprince's food with chull dung before being relegated to the bridge crews. Finally pressed for his own story, the bridge leader reluctantly reveals that he killed a man and was enslaved for turning down a superior's gift, a revelation that visibly shakes his companions and marks a turning point in their camaraderie.