Kaladin

Kaladin is the central figure of The Way of Kings. A darkeyed young man from the small farming town of Hearthstone in Alethkar, he trains in medicine under his father, the town surgeon, before taking up the spear in the army of a local brightlord. He has fallen as far as an Alethi can fall: branded on the forehead with the shash glyph, meaning dangerous, he is a slave who has survived repeated failed escapes and is sold to the bridge crews of Highprince Sadeas's warcamp on the Shattered Plains. There he is assigned to Bridge Four, the crew with the worst survival record in the camp, whose men carry assault bridges across the chasms under Parshendi arrows. Weighed down by past failures, he must decide whether the men around him are worth one more attempt to protect.