Teft

Teft is a bridgeman in Bridge Four. He was one of the first people to help Kaladin, and the first of the bridgemen to view Shallan as a possible threat as an assassin, indicating he is attentive and intelligent.
==Appearance==
He is a grizzled older man with drooping cheeks, brown eyes, and close-cropped white-salted hair. He has a neatly trimmed, short, grey beard. He does not have a slave mark.
==Personality==
Teft was a gruff man. He was considered grouchy by others but he simply states he just "has a low threshold for stupidity". Due to his painful past, he was a private man who respected the privacy of others, as is evidenced when he does not want to talk about his past or know the pasts of others (i.e., not pushing Kaladin to explain more about his past).
Teft had a fondness for using the Horneater (i.e., Unkalaki) people in his curses (e.g., "Smells worse than a Horneater's boots ... " or " ... darker than a Horneater's stomach our situation is ... "). He also constantly used Kalak (Kelek) as a curse.
In acknowledging that he is old, but not necessarily wise as a result, Teft states that it proves he has experience in staying alive.
==Characteristics==
According to Kaladin, Teft likes to exaggerate.
Teft is addicted to firemoss.* As such, he loathes himself, feels that he is broken, and he makes himself sick.
He is now bonded with an honorspren called Phendorana.**
==Beliefs==
To Teft, having money is dangerous.
==History==
When he was young, he and his parents were part of a secret sect that awaited the return of the Knights Radiant, called the Envisagers. However, the sect used extreme methods to try to force Surgebinding to reawaken.
Disturbed and worried, he went to the authority hoping to stop these methods. However, everyone apart from him was executed. He'd turned his family in as heretics, even though they'd been right all along.
He believes that there might yet be others but does not know how to contact them. He told Kaladin that he left when he was just a youth.
Sometime later he married, but his wife had died.
He joined the army sometime in the past, rising to sergeant. Later, he became a bridgeman, during which time he committed a crime for which he was punished by being sent to Bridge Four.
He'd gone to the moss at the urgings of other men in his squad in Sadeas's army.
==Bridge Four==
===The Way of Kings===
Teft is the first to recognize that Kaladin has special abilities linked with Stormlight that allows him to heal quickly, but he keeps this quiet. Teft discovered that Kaladin could use Stormlight when he placed three diamond spheres in Kaladin's hand while he was recovering from injuries sustained while being strung up in a highstorm.  Kaladin was healed slightly and the spheres became dun.
===Words of Radiance===
Teft trains some of the men in the other bridge crews, but acknowledges that they have a long way to go. He realizes that something more is needed; some way to inspire them.
===Oathbringer===
*The first month in Dalinar's employ, Teft had been able to resist his addiction for the most part. But he had money again, after so long as a bridgeman.
Still, he'd functioned, only mossing an evening here, an evening there. But he'd needed the moss to deal with the monsters of darkness in the tower at Urithiru, including one that had looked just like himself.
**When his honorspren reminds him that he'd spoken oaths, Teft thinks that these were foolish, stupid oaths, spoken when he'd hoped that being Radiant would remove his cravings for firemoss.
Teft remembers long ago that the firemoss had done more to him - he remembers euphoria, nights spent in a dizzy, wonderful daze, where everything around him seemed to make sense. These days, he needs the moss to feel normal.
It isn't euphoria he craves anymore; it's the mere capacity to keep on going. The moss washes away his burdens.
When Rock asks the bridgemen who came to him stating that they no longer felt they fit in with Bridge Four, Teft responds to them all that it's a miracle he's not burning moss every moment of the day, having to deal with their lot.
He was hauled before Aladar's magistrates for public intoxication on firemoss. Aladar had quietly requested Navani's seal to free him.
===Rhythm of War===
After being wakened by Lift from the coma initiated during the singers/Fused invasion, he was later killed by Vyre.
(To be continued.)
==Knights Radiant==
As a squire to a Windrunner,* Teft must also speak the Immortal Words of the Knights Radiant, which are a set of rules by which Radiants live. The First Ideal, identical for all orders of Radiants, is used as their motto. Each of the Radiant orders then had an additional number of Ideals that were unique to each Order. For the Squires, these Ideals are as follows:
The First Ideal - Known as the Ideal of Radiance.
The Third Ideal - Also known as an Ideal of Protection.
==Relationships==
*Kaladin - Teft was one of the first to help Kaladin and recognized early on that he had the ability to absorb Stormlight.
*Rlain - When Teft notices him, Teft's smile is genuine. They are friends.
*Rock - (To be continued.)
*Sigzil - (To be continued.)
==Notes==
Teft's death was an issue for the Pursuer.
==Q&A with Brandon==
Q. Was Teft's death part of your plan from the book's inception or series's inception, or did you decide his fate while writing Rhythm of War?
A. Teft's fate was decided pretty early on, but these sorts of things I do leave wiggle room on. When you read Teft's first appearance - it's in Mythwalker, my ninth book that never got finished - his appearance in that book was built around this kind of character arc that eventually happened. This was baked into the original idea for Stormlight once I brought over Bridge Four and once I stuck Teft in Bridge Four, from Mythwalker. But I do remain pretty flexible on these things. That is one that turned out working really well, and happening the way I'd intended for it to happen from the beginning.YouTube Livestream 32, 6/3/21
==References==
Category:Alethkar (people)
Category:Bridgemen
Category:Military (people)
Category:King's Guard
Category:Squires
Category:Surgebinders
Category:Windrunner