The Well of Ascension

49

“YOU ARE A FOOL, ELEND Venture,” Tindwyl snapped, arms folded, eyes wide with displeasure.

Elend pulled a strap tight on his saddle. Part of the wardrobe Tindwyl had made for him included a black and silver riding uniform, and he wore this now, fingers snug within the leather gloves, and a dark cloak to keep off the ash.

“Are you listening to me?” Tindwyl demanded. “You can’t leave. Not now! Not when your people are in such danger!”

“I’ll protect them in another way,” he said, checking on the packhorses.

They were in the keep’s covered way, used for arrivals and departures. Vin sat on her own horse, enveloped almost completely in her cloak, hands holding her reins tensely. She had very little experience riding, but Elend refused to let her run. Pewter or no pewter, the wounds from her fight at the Assembly still hadn’t healed completely, not to mention the damage she’d taken the night before.

“Another way?” Tindwyl asked. “You should be with them. You’re their king!”

“No, I’m not,” Elend snapped, turning toward the Terriswoman. “They rejected me, Tindwyl. Now I have to worry about more important events on a larger stage. They wanted a traditional king? Well, let them have my father. When I return from Terris, perhaps they will have realized what they lost.”

Tindwyl shook her head and stepped forward, speaking in a quiet voice. “Terris, Elend? You go north. For her. You know why she wants to go there, don’t you?”

He paused.

“Ah, so you do know,” Tindwyl said. “What do you think of it, Elend? Don’t tell me you believe these delusions. She thinks she’s the Hero of Ages. She supposes that she’ll find something in the mountains up there – some power, or perhaps some revelation, that will transform her into a divinity.”

Elend glanced at Vin. She looked down at the ground, hood down, still sitting quietly on her horse.

“She’s trying to follow her master, Elend,” Tindwyl whispered. “The Survivor became a god to these people, so she thinks she has to do the same.”

Elend turned to Tindwyl. “If that is what she truly believes, then I support her.”

“You support her madness?” Tindwyl demanded.

“Do not speak of my wife in that manner,” Elend said, his commanding tone causing Tindwyl to flinch. He swung up into his saddle. “I trust her, Tindwyl. Part of trust is belief.”

Tindwyl snorted. “You can’t possibly believe that she is some prophesied messiah, Elend. I know you – you’re a scholar. You may have professed allegiance to the Church of the Survivor, but you don’t believe in the supernatural any more than I do.”

“I believe,” he said firmly, “that Vin is my wife, and that I love her. Anything important to her is important to me – and anything she believes has at least that much weight of truth to me. We are going north. We will return once we’ve released the power there.”

“Fine,” Tindwyl said. “Then you will be remembered as a coward who abandoned his people.”

“Leave us!” Elend ordered, raising his finger and pointing toward the keep.

Tindwyl spun, stalking toward the doorway. As she passed it, she pointed at the supply table, where she had previously placed a book-sized package, wrapped in brown paper, tied with a thick string. “Sazed wishes you to deliver this to the Keeper Synod. You’ll find them in the city of Tathingdwen. Enjoy your exile, Elend Venture.” Then, she left.

Elend sighed, moving his horse over beside Vin’s.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“For what?”

“For what you said.”

“I meant it, Vin,” Elend said, reaching over to lay a hand on her shoulder.

“Tindwyl might be right, you know,” she said. “Despite what Sazed said, I could be mad. Do you remember when I told you that I’d seen a spirit in the mists?”

Elend nodded slowly.

“Well, I’ve seen it again,” Vin said. “It’s like a ghost, formed from the patterns in mist. I see it all the time, watching me, following me. And I hear those rhythms in my head – majestic, powerful thumpings, like Allomantic pulses. Only, I don’t need bronze anymore to hear them.”

Elend squeezed her shoulder. “I believe you, Vin.”

She looked up, reserved. “Do you, Elend? Do you really?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I’m trying very hard to. Either way, I think going north is the right thing to do.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s enough, I think.”

He smiled, turning back to the doorway. “Where is Spook?”

Vin shrugged beneath her cloak. “I assume Tindwyl won’t be coming with us, then.”

“Probably not,” Elend said, smiling.

“How will we find our way to Terris?”

“It won’t be hard,” Elend said. “We’ll just follow the imperial canal to Tathingdwen.” He paused, thinking of the map Sazed had given them. It led straight into the Terris Mountains. They’d have to get supplies in Tathingdwen, and the snows would be high, but… well, that was a problem for another time.

Vin smiled, and Elend walked over to pick up the package Tindwyl had left. It appeared to be a book of some sort. A few moments later, Spook arrived. He wore his soldier’s uniform, and had saddlebags slung over his shoulder. He nodded to Elend, handed Vin a large bag, then moved to his own horse.

He looks nervous, Elend thought as the boy slung his bags over his horse. “What’s in the bag?” he asked, turning to Vin.

“Pewter dust,” she said. “I think we might need it.”

“Are we ready?” Spook asked, looking over at them.

Elend glanced at Vin, who nodded. “I guess we–”

“Not quite yet,” a new voice said. “I’m not ready at all.”

Elend turned as Allrianne swept into the passage. She wore a rich brown and red riding skirt, and had her hair tied up beneath a scarf. Where’d she get that outfit? Elend wondered. Two servants followed her, bearing bundles.

Allrianne paused, tapping her lip with a thoughtful expression. “I think I’m going to need a packhorse.”

“What are you doing?” Vin demanded.

“Going with you,” Allrianne said. “Breezy says I have to leave the city. He’s a very silly man, sometimes, but he can be quite stubborn. He spent the entire conversation Soothing me – as if I couldn’t recognize his touch by now!”

Allrianne waved to one of the servants, who ran to get a stablehand.

“We’re going to be riding very hard,” Elend said. “I’m not sure if you’ll be able to keep up.”

Allrianne rolled her eyes. “I rode all the way out here from the Western Dominance! I think I can manage. Besides, Vin is hurt, so you probably won’t be going that fast.”

“We don’t want you along,” Vin said. “We don’t trust you – and we don’t like you.”

Elend closed his eyes. Dear, blunt Vin.

Allrianne just twittered a laugh as the servant returned with two horses, then began to load one. “Silly Vin,” she said. “How can you say that after all we’ve shared?”

“Shared?” Vin asked. “Allrianne, we went shopping together one time.”

“And I felt we bonded quite well,” Allrianne said. “Why, we’re practically sisters!”

Vin gave the girl a flat stare.

“Yes,” Allrianne said, “and you’re definitely the older, boring sister.” She smiled sweetly, then swung easily up into her saddle, suggesting considerable horsemanship. One of the servants led her packhorse over, then tied the reins into place behind Allrianne’s saddle.

“All right, Elend dear,” she said. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Elend glanced at Vin, who shook her head with a dark look.

“You can leave me behind if you wish,” Allrianne said, “but I’ll just follow and get into trouble, and then you’ll have to come save me. And don’t even try and pretend that you wouldn’t!”

Elend sighed. “Very well,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They made their way slowly through the city, Elend and Vin at the lead, Spook bringing their packhorses, Allrianne riding to the side. Elend kept his head up, but that only let him see the faces that poked out of windows and doorways as he passed. Soon, a small crowd was trailing them – and while he couldn’t hear their whispers, he could imagine what they were saying.

The king. The king is abandoning us…

He knew that many of them still couldn’t understand that Lord Penrod held the throne. Elend glanced away from an alleyway, where he saw many eyes watching him. There was a haunted fear in those eyes. He had expected to see accusations, but somehow their despondent acceptance was even more disheartening. They expected him to flee. They expected to be abandoned. He was one of the few rich enough, and powerful enough, to get away. Of course he’d run.

He squeezed his own eyes shut, trying to force down his guilt. He wished that they could have left at night, sneaking out the passwall as Ham’s family had. However, it was important that Straff saw Elend and Vin leaving, so that he understood he could take the city without attacking.

I’ll be back, Elend promised the people. I’ll save you. For now, it’s better if I leave.

The broad doors of Tin Gate appeared ahead of them. Elend kicked his horse forward, speeding ahead of his silent wave of followers. The guards at the gate already had their orders. Elend gave them a nod, reining in his horse, and the men swung the doors open. Vin and the others joined him before the opening portal.

“Lady Heir,” one of the guards asked quietly. “Are you leaving, too?”

Vin looked to the side. “Peace,” she said. “We’re not abandoning you. We’re going for help.”

The soldier smiled.

How can he trust her so easily? Elend thought. Or, is hope all he has left?

Vin turned her horse around, facing the crowd of people, and she lowered her hood. “We will return,” she promised. She didn’t seem as nervous as she had before when dealing with people who revered her.

Ever since last night, something has changed in her, Elend thought.

As a group, the soldiers saluted them. Elend saluted back; then he nodded to Vin. He led the way as they galloped out the gates, angling toward the northern highway – a path that would allow them to skirt just west of Straff’s army.

They hadn’t gone far before a group of horsemen moved to intercept them. Elend rode low on his horse, sparing a glance for Spook and the packhorses. What caught Elend’s attention, however, was Allrianne: she rode with amazing proficiency, a look of determination on her face. She didn’t seem the least bit nervous.

To the side, Vin whipped her cloak back, bringing out a handful of coins. She flung them into the air, and they shot forward with a speed Elend had never seen, even from other Allomancers. Lord Ruler! he thought with shock as the coins zipped away, disappearing faster than he could track.

Soldiers fell, and Elend barely heard the plinging of metal against metal over the sound of wind and hoofbeats. He rode directly through the center of the chaotic group of men, many of them down and dying.

Arrows began to fall, but Vin scattered these without even waving a hand. She had opened the bag of pewter, he noticed, and was releasing the dust in a shower behind her as she rode, Pushing some of it to the sides.

The next arrows won’t have metal heads, Elend thought nervously. Soldiers were forming up behind, shouting.

“I’ll catch up,” Vin said, then jumped off her horse.

“Vin!” Elend yelled, turning his beast. Allrianne and Spook shot past him, riding hard. Vin landed and, amazingly, didn’t even stumble as she began to run. She downed a vial of metal, then looked toward the archers.

Arrows flew. Elend cursed, but kicked his horse into motion. There was little he could do now. He rode low, galloping as the arrows fell around him. One passed within inches of his head, falling to stick into the road.

And then they stopped falling. He glanced backward, teeth gritted. Vin stood before a rising cloud of dust. The pewter dust, he thought. She’s Pushing on it – Pushing the flakes along the ground, stirring up the dust and ash.

A massive wave of dust, metal, and ash slammed into the archers, washing over them. It blew around the soldiers, making them curse and shield their eyes, and some fell to the ground, holding their faces.

Vin swung back onto her horse, then galloped away from the billowing mass of wind-borne particles. Elend slowed his horse, letting her catch up. The army was in chaos behind them, men giving orders, people scattering.

“Speed up!” Vin said as she approached. “We’re almost out of bowshot!”

Soon they joined Allrianne and Spook. We aren’t out of danger – my father could still decide to send pursuit.

But, the soldiers couldn’t have mistaken Vin. If Elend’s instincts were right, Straff would let them run. His prime target was Luthadel. He could go after Elend later; for now, he would simply be happy to see Vin leaving.

“Thank you kindly for the help getting out,” Allrianne suddenly said, watching the army. “I’ll be going now.”

With that, she veered her two horses away, angling toward a group of low hills to the west.

“What?” Elend asked with surprise, pulling up next to Spook.

“Leave her,” Vin said. “We don’t have time.”

Well, that solves one problem, Elend thought, turning his horse to the northern highway. Farewell, Luthadel. I’ll be back for you later.

“Well, that solves one problem,” Breeze noted, standing atop the city wall and watching Elend’s group disappear around a hillside. To the east, a large – and still unexplained – pillar of smoke rose from the koloss camp. To the west, Straff’s army was buzzing about, stirred by the escape.

At first, Breeze had worried about Allrianne’s safety – but then he’d realized that, enemy army notwithstanding, there was no safer place for her than beside Vin. As long as Allrianne didn’t get too far away from the others, she would be safe.

It was a quiet group that stood atop the wall with him, and for once, Breeze barely touched their emotions. Their solemnity seemed appropriate. The young Captain Demoux stood beside the aging Clubs, and the peaceful Sazed stood with Ham the warrior. Together, they watched the seed of hope they’d cast to the winds.

“Wait,” Breeze said, frowning as he noticed something. “Wasn’t Tindwyl supposed to be with them?”

Sazed shook his head. “She decided to stay.”

“Why would she do that?” Breeze asked. “Didn’t I hear her babbling something about not interfering in local disputes?”

Sazed shook his head. “I do not know, Lord Breeze. She is a difficult woman to read.”

“They all are,” Clubs muttered.

Sazed smiled. “Either way, it appears our friends have escaped.”

“May the Survivor protect them,” Demoux said quietly.

“Yes,” Sazed said. “May he indeed.”

Clubs snorted. Resting one arm on the battlements, he turned to eye Sazed with a gnarled face. “Don’t encourage him.”

Demoux flushed, then turned and walked away.

“What was that about?” Breeze asked curiously.

“The boy has been preaching to my soldiers,” Clubs said. “Told him I didn’t want his nonsense cluttering their minds.”

“It is not nonsense, Lord Cladent,” Sazed said, “it’s faith.”

“Do you honestly think,” Clubs said, “that Kelsier is going to protect these people?”

Sazed wavered. “They believe it, and that is–”

“No,” Clubs interrupted, scowling. “That isn’t enough, Terrisman. These people fool themselves by believing in the Survivor.”

“You believed in him,” Sazed said. Breeze was tempted to Soothe him, make the argument less tense, but Sazed already seemed completely calm. “You followed him. You believed in the Survivor enough to overthrow the Final Empire.”

Clubs scowled. “I don’t like your ethics, Terrisman – I never have. Our crew – Kelsier’s crew – fought to free this people because it was right.”

“Because you believed it to be right,” Sazed said.

“And what do you believe to be right, Terrisman?”

“That depends,” Sazed said. “There are many different systems with many different worthy values.”

Clubs nodded, then turned, as if the argument were over.

“Wait, Clubs,” Ham said. “Aren’t you going to respond to that?”

“He said enough,” Clubs said. “His belief is situational. To him, even the Lord Ruler was a deity because people worshipped him – or were forced to worship him. Aren’t I right, Terrisman?”

“In a way, Lord Cladent,” Sazed said. “Though, the Lord Ruler might have been something of an exception.”

“But you still keep records and memories of the Steel Ministry’s practices, don’t you?” Ham asked.

“Yes,” Sazed admitted.

“Situational,” Clubs spat. “At least that fool Demoux had the sense to choose one thing to believe in.”

“Do not deride someone’s faith simply because you do not share it, Lord Cladent,” Sazed said quietly.

Clubs snorted again. “It’s all very easy for you, isn’t it?” he asked. “Believing everything, never having to choose?”

“I would say,” Sazed replied, “that it is more difficult to believe as I do, for one must learn to be inclusionary and accepting.”

Clubs waved a dismissive hand, turning to hobble toward the stairs. “Suit yourself. I have to go prepare my boys to die.”

Sazed watched him go, frowning. Breeze gave him a Soothing – taking away his self-consciousness – for good measure.

“Don’t mind him, Saze,” Ham said. “We’re all a little on edge, lately.”

Sazed nodded. “Still, he makes good points – ones I have never before had to face. Until this year, my duty was to collect, study, and remember. It is still very hard for me to consider setting one belief beneath another, even if that belief is based on a man that I know to have been quite mortal.”

Ham shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe Kell is out there somewhere, watching over us.”

No, Breeze thought. If he were, we wouldn’t have ended up here – waiting to die, locked in a city we were supposed to save.

“Anyway,” Ham said, “I still want to know where that smoke is coming from.”

Breeze glanced at the koloss camp. The dark pillar was too centralized to be coming from cooking fires. “The tents?”

Ham shook his head. “El said there were only a couple of tents – far too few to make that much smoke. That fire has been burning for some time.”

Breeze shook his head. Doesn’t really matter now, I guess.

Straff Venture coughed again, curling over in his chair. His arms were slick with sweat, his hands trembling.

He wasn’t getting better.

At first, he’d assumed that the chills were a side effect of his nervousness. He’d had a hard evening, sending assassins after Zane, then somehow escaping death at the insane Mistborn’s hands. Yet, during the night, Straff’s shakes hadn’t gotten better. They’d grown worse. They weren’t just from nervousness; he must have a disease of some sort.

“Your Majesty!” a voice called from outside.

Straff straightened himself, trying to look as presentable as possible. Even so, the messenger paused as he entered the tent, apparently noting Straff’s wan skin and tired eyes.

“My… lord,” the messenger said.

“Speak, man,” Straff said curtly, trying to project a regality he didn’t feel. “Out with it.”

“Riders, my lord,” the man said. “They left the city!”

“What!” Straff said, throwing off his blanket and standing. He managed to stand upright despite a bout of dizziness. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

“They passed quickly, my lord,” the messenger said. “We barely had time to send the interception crew.”

“You caught them, I assume,” Straff said, steadying himself on his chair.

“Actually, they escaped, my lord,” the messenger said slowly.

“What?” Straff said, spinning in rage. The motion was too much. The dizziness returned, blackness creeping across his field of vision. He stumbled, catching himself on the chair, managing to collapse into it rather than onto the floor.

“Send for the healer!” he heard the messenger shout. “The king is sick!”

No, Straff thought groggily. No, this came too quickly. It can’t be a disease.

Zane’s last words. What had they been? A man shouldn’t kill his father…

Liar.

“Amaranta,” Straff croaked.

“My lord?” a voice asked. Good. Someone was with him.

“Amaranta,” he said again. “Send for her.”

“Your mistress, my lord?”

Straff forced himself to remain conscious. As he sat, his vision and balance returned somewhat. One of his door guards was at his side. What was the man’s name? Grent.

“Grent,” Straff said, trying to sound commanding. “You must bring Amaranta to me. Now!”

The soldier hesitated, then rushed from the room. Straff focused on his breathing. In and out. In and out. Zane was a snake. In and out. In and out. Zane hadn’t wanted to use the knife – no, that was expected. In and out. But when had the poison come? Straff had been feeling ill the entire day before.

“My lord?”

Amaranta stood at the doorway. She had been beautiful once, before age had gotten to her – as it got to all of them. Childbirth destroyed a woman. So succulent she had been, with her firm breasts and smooth, unblemished skin…

Your mind is wandering, Straff told himself. Focus.

“I need… antidote,” Straff forced out, focusing on the Amaranta of the now: the woman in her late twenties, the old – yet still useful – thing that kept him alive in the face of Zane’s poisons.

“Of course, my lord,” Amaranta said, walking over to his poison cabinet, getting out the necessary ingredients.

Straff settled back, focusing on his breathing. Amaranta must have sensed his urgency, for she hadn’t even tried to get him to bed her. He watched her work, getting out her burner and ingredients. He needed… to find… Zane…

She wasn’t doing it the right way.

Straff burned tin. The sudden flash of sensitivity nearly blinded him, even in the shade of his tent, and his aches and shivers became sharp and excruciating. But his mind cleared, as if he’d suddenly bathed in frigid water.

Amaranta was preparing the wrong ingredients. Straff didn’t know a great deal about the making of antidotes. He’d been forced to delegate this duty, instead focusing his efforts on learning to recognize the details – the scents, the tastes, the discolorations – of poisons. Yet, he had watched Amaranta prepare her catch-all antidote on numerous occasions. And she was doing it differently this time.

He forced himself out of his chair, keeping tin flared, though it caused his eyes to water. “What are you doing?” he said, walking on unsteady feet toward her.

Amaranta looked up, shocked. The guilt that flashed in her eyes was enough confirmation.

“What are you doing!” Straff bellowed, fear giving him strength as he grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. He was weakened, but he was still much stronger than she.

The woman looked down. “Your antidote, my lord…”

“You’re making it the wrong way!” Straff said.

“I thought, you looked fatigued, so I might add something to help you stay awake.”

Straff paused. The words seemed logical, though he was having trouble thinking. Then, looking down at the chagrined woman, he noticed something. His eyes enhanced beyond natural detail, he caught a slight glimpse of a bit of uncovered flesh beneath her bodice.

He reached down and ripped off the side of her dress, exposing her skin. Her left breast – disgusting to him, for it sagged a slight bit – was scarred and cut, as if by a knife. None of the scars were fresh, but even in his addled state, Straff recognized Zane’s handiwork.

“You’re his lover?” Straff said.

“It’s your fault,” Amaranta hissed. “You abandoned me, once I aged and bore you a few children. Everyone told me you would, but yet, I hoped…”

Straff felt himself growing weak. Dizzy, he rested a hand on the wooden poisons cabinet.

“Yet,” Amaranta said, tears on her cheeks. “Why did you have to take Zane from me, too? What did you do, to draw him off? To make him stop coming to me?”

“You let him poison me,” Straff said, falling to one knee.

“Fool,” Amaranta spat. “He never poisoned you – not a single time. Though, at my request, he often made you think that he had. And then, each time, you ran to me. You suspected everything Zane did – and yet, you never once paused to think what was in the ‘antidote’ I gave you.”

“It made me better,” Straff mumbled.

“That’s what happens when you’re addicted to a drug, Straff,” Amaranta whispered. “When you get it, you feel better. When you don’t get it… you die.”

Straff closed his eyes.

“You’re mine now, Straff,” she said. “I can make you–”

Straff bellowed, gathering what strength he had and throwing himself at the woman. She cried in surprise as he tackled her, pushing her to the ground.

Then she said nothing, for Straff’s hands choked her windpipe. She struggled for a bit, but Straff weighed far more than she did. He’d intended to demand the antidote, to force her to save him, but he wasn’t thinking clearly. His vision began to fuzz, his mind dim.

By the time he regained his wits, Amaranta was blue and dead on the ground before him. He wasn’t certain how long he’d been strangling her corpse. He rolled off her, toward the open cabinet. On his knees, he reached up for the burner, but his shaking hands toppled it to the side, spilling hot liquid across the floor.

Cursing to himself, he grabbed a flagon of unheated water and began to throw handfuls of herbs into it. He stayed away from the drawers that held the poisons, sticking to those that held antidotes. Yet, there were many crossovers. Some things were poisonous in large doses, but could cure in smaller amounts. Most were addictive. He didn’t have time to worry about that; he could feel the weakness in his limbs, and he could barely grab the handfuls of herbs. Bits of brown and red shook from his fingers as he dumped handful after handful into the mixture.

One of these was the herb that she’d gotten him addicted to. Any one of the others might kill him. He wasn’t even sure what the odds were.

He drank the concoction anyway, gulping it down between choking gasps for air, then let himself slip into unconsciousness.

50

“ARE THOSE THE FELLOWS YOU want, Lady Cett?”

Allrianne scanned the valley – and the army it contained – then looked down at the bandit, Hobart. He smiled eagerly – or, well, he kind of smiled. Hobart had fewer teeth than he had fingers, and he was missing a couple of those.

Allrianne smiled back from atop her horse. She sat sidesaddle, reins held lightly in her fingers. “Yes, I do believe that it is, Master Hobart.”

Hobart looked back at his band of thugs, grinning. Allrianne Rioted them all a bit, reminding them how much they wanted her promised reward. Her father’s army spread out before them in the distance. She had wandered for an entire day, traveling west, looking for it. But, she’d been heading in the wrong direction. If she hadn’t run afoul of Hobart’s helpful little gang, she would have been forced to sleep outside.

And that would have been rather unpleasant.

“Come, Master Hobart,” she said, moving her horse forward. “Let’s go and meet with my father.”

The group followed happily, one of them leading her packhorse. There was a certain charm to simple men, like Hobart’s crew. They really only wanted three things: money, food, and sex. And they could usually use the first to get the other two. When she’d first run across this group, she’d blessed her fortune – despite the fact that they had been running down a hillside in ambush, intent on robbing and raping her. Another charm about men like these was that they were rather inexperienced with Allomancy.

She kept a firm hold on their emotions as they rode down toward the camp. She didn’t want them reaching any disappointing conclusions – such as “Ransoms are usually bigger than rewards.” She couldn’t control them completely, of course – she could only influence them. However, with men so base, it was fairly easy to read what was going on in their heads. It was amusing how quickly a little promise of wealth could turn brutes into near gentlemen.

Of course, there wasn’t much of a challenge in dealing with men like Hobart, either. No… no challenge, as there had been with Breezy. Now, that had been fun. And rewarding, too. She doubted she’d ever find a man as aware of his emotions, and as aware of the emotions of others, as Breezy. Getting a man like him – a man so expert in Allomancy, so determined that his age made him inappropriate for her – to love her… well, that had been a true accomplishment.

Ah, Breezy, she thought as they passed out of the forest and onto the hillside before the army. Do any of your friends even understand what a noble man you are?

They really didn’t treat him well enough. Of course, that was to be expected. That was what Breezy wanted. People who underestimated you were easier to manipulate. Yes, Allrianne understood this concept quite well – for there were few things more quickly dismissed than a young, silly girl.

“Halt!” a soldier said, riding up with an honor guard. They had swords drawn. “Step away from her, you!”

Oh, honestly, Allrianne thought, rolling her eyes. She Rioted the group of soldiers, enhancing their sense of calmness. She didn’t want any accidents.

“Please, Captain,” she said as Hobart and his crew drew weapons, huddling around her uncertainly. “These men have rescued me from the savage wilderness and brought me safely home, at much personal cost and danger.”

Hobart nodded firmly, an action undermined just a bit as he wiped his nose on his sleeve. The soldier captain looked over the ash-stained, motley-clothed group of bandits, then frowned.

“See that these men have a good meal, Captain,” she said airily, kicking her horse forward. “And give them space for the night. Hobart, I’ll send your reward once I meet with my father.”

Bandits and soldiers moved in behind her, and Allrianne made sure to Riot them both, enhancing their senses of trust. It was a tough sell for the soldiers, especially as the wind shifted, blowing the full stench of the bandit crew across them. Still, they all reached the camp without incident.

The groups parted, Allrianne giving her horses to an aide and calling for a page to warn her father that she’d returned. She dusted off her riding dress, then strode through camp, smiling pleasantly and looking forward to a bath and the other comforts – such as they were – that the army could provide. However, first there were things she needed to attend to.

Her father liked to spend evenings in his open-sided planning pavilion, and he sat there now, arguing with a messenger. He looked over as Allrianne swished into the pavilion, smiling sweetly at Lords Galivan and Detor, her father’s generals.

Cett sat on a high-legged chair so he could get a good view of his table and its maps. “Well, damn it,” he said. “You are back.”

Allrianne smiled, wandering around his planning table, looking at the map. It detailed the supply lines back to the Western Dominance. What she saw was not good.

“Rebellions back home, Father?” she asked.

“And ruffians attacking my supply carts,” Cett said. “That boy Venture bribed them, I’m sure of it.”

“Yes, he did,” Allrianne said. “But, that’s all pointless now. Did you miss me?” She made sure to Tug strongly on his sense of devotion.

Cett snorted, pulling at his beard. “Fool of a girl,” he said. “I should have left you home.”

“So I could have fallen to your enemies when they raised a rebellion?” she asked. “We both know that Lord Yomen was going to move the moment you pulled your armies out of the dominance.”

“And I should have let that damn obligator have you!”

Allrianne gasped. “Father! Yomen would have held me for ransom. You know how terribly I wilt when I’m locked up.”

Cett glanced at her, and then – apparently despite himself – he started to chuckle. “You’d’ve had him feeding you gourmet foods before the day was through. Maybe I should have left you behind. Then, at least, I’d have known where you were – rather than worrying where you’d run off to next. You didn’t bring that idiot Breeze back with you, did you?”

“Father!” Allrianne said. “Breezy is a good man.”

“Good men die quickly in this world, Allrianne,” Cett said. “I know – I’ve killed enough of them.”

“Oh, yes,” Allrianne said, “you’re very wise. And taking an aggressive stance against Luthadel had such a positive outcome, didn’t it? Chased away with your tail between your legs? You’d be dead now, if dear Vin had as little conscience as you.”

“That ‘conscience’ didn’t stop her from killing some three hundred of my men,” Cett said.

“She’s a very confused young lady,” Allrianne said. “Either way, I do feel obliged to remind you that I was right. You should have made an alliance with the Venture boy, instead of threatening him. That means you owe me five new dresses!”

Cett rubbed his forehead. “This isn’t a damn game, girl.”

“Fashion, Father, is no game,” Allrianne said firmly. “I can’t very well enchant bandit troops into leading me safely home if I look like a street rat, how can I?”

“More bandits, Allrianne?” Cett asked with a sigh. “You know how long it took us to get rid of the last group?”

“Hobart’s a wonderful man,” Allrianne said testily. “Not to mention well-connected with the local thieving community. Give him some gold and some prostitutes, and you might just be able to talk him into helping you with those brigands that are attacking your supply lines.”

Cett paused, glancing at the map. Then he began to pull at his beard thoughtfully. “Well, you’re back,” he finally said. “Guess we’ll have to take care of you. I suppose you want someone to carry a litter for you as we head home…”

“Actually,” Allrianne said, “we’re not going back to the dominance. We’re returning to Luthadel.”

Cett didn’t immediately dismiss the comment; he could usually tell when she was being serious. Instead, he simply shook his head. “Luthadel holds nothing for us, Allrianne.”

“We can’t go back to the dominance, either,” Allrianne said. “Our enemies are too strong, and some of them have Allomancers. That’s why we had to come here in the first place. We can’t leave the area until we have either money or allies.”

“There’s no money in Luthadel,” Cett said. “I believe Venture when he says the atium isn’t there.”

“I agree,” Allrianne said. “I searched that palace well, never found a bit of the stuff. That means we need to leave here with friends, instead of money. Go back, wait for a battle to start, then help whichever side looks like it’s going to win. They’ll feel indebted to us – they might even decide to let us live.”

Cett stood quietly for a moment. “That’s not going to help save your friend Breeze, Allrianne. His faction is by far the weakest – even teaming with the Venture boy, I doubt we could beat Straff or those koloss. Not without access to the city walls and plenty of time to prepare. If we go back, it will be to help your Breeze’s enemies.”

Allrianne shrugged. You can’t help him if you’re not there, Father, she thought. They’re going to lose anyway – if you are in the area, then there’s a chance you’ll end up helping Luthadel.

A very small chance, Breeze. That’s the best I can give you. I’m sorry.

Elend Venture awoke on their third day out of Luthadel, surprised at how rested he could feel after a night spent in a tent out in the wilderness. Of course, part of that might have been the company.

Vin lay curled up beside him in their bedroll, her head resting against his chest. He would have expected her to be a light sleeper, considering how jumpy she was, but she seemed to feel comfortable sleeping beside him. She even seemed to become just a little less anxious when he put his arms around her.

He looked down at her fondly, admiring the form of her face, the slight curl of her black hair. The cut on her cheek was almost invisible now, and she’d already pulled out the stitches. A constant, low burn of pewter gave the body remarkable strength for recovery. She didn’t even favor her right arm anymore – despite the cut shoulder – and her weakness from the fight seemed completely gone.

She still hadn’t given him much of an explanation regarding that night. She had fought Zane – who had apparently been Elend’s half brother – and TenSoon the kandra had left. Yet, neither of those things seemed like they could have caused the distress in her he’d sensed when she’d come to him in his rooms.

He didn’t know if he’d ever get the answers he wanted. Yet, he was coming to realize that he could love her even if he didn’t completely understand her. He bent down and kissed the top of her head.

She immediately tensed, eyes opening. She sat up, exposing a bare torso, then glanced around their small tent. It was dimly lit with the light of dawn. Finally, she shook her head, looking over at him. “You’re a bad influence on me.”

“Oh?” he asked, smiling as he rested on one arm.

Vin nodded, running a hand through her hair. “You’re making me get used to sleeping at night,” she said. “Plus, I don’t sleep in my clothing anymore.”

“If you did, it would make things a little awkward.”

“Yes,” she said, “but what if we get attacked during the night? I’d have to fight them naked.”

“I wouldn’t mind watching that.”

She gave him a flat stare, then reached for a shirt.

“You’re having a bad influence on me, too, you know,” he said as he watched her dress.

She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re making me relax,” he said. “And letting me stop worrying. I’ve been so tied up with things in the city lately that I’d forgotten what it was like to be an impolite recluse. Unfortunately, during our trip, I’ve had time to read not only one, but all three volumes of Troubeld’s Arts of Scholarship.”

Vin snorted, kneeling in the low tent as she pulled her belt tight; then she crawled over to him. “I don’t know how you read while riding,” she said.

“Oh, it’s quite easy – if you aren’t afraid of horses.”

“I’m not afraid of them,” Vin said. “They just don’t like me. They know I can outrun them, and that makes them surly.”

“Oh, is that it?” Elend asked, smiling, pulling her over to straddle him.

She nodded, then leaned down to kiss him. She ended it after a moment, however, moving to stand. She swatted his hand away as he tried to pull her back down.

“After all the trouble I took to get dressed?” she asked. “Besides. I’m hungry.”

He sighed, reclining back as she scampered out of the tent, into the red morning sunlight. He lay for a moment, quietly remarking to himself on his fortune. He still wasn’t sure how their relationship had worked out, or even why it made him so happy, but he was more than willing to enjoy the experience.

Eventually, he looked over at his clothing. He had brought only one of his nice uniforms – along with the riding uniform – and he didn’t want to wear either too often. He didn’t have servants anymore to wash the ash out of his clothing; in fact, despite the tent’s double flap, some ash had managed to work its way inside during the night. Now that they were out of the city, there were no workers to sweep the ash away, and it was getting everywhere.

So, he dressed in an outfit far more simple: a pair of riding trousers, not unlike the pants that Vin often wore, with a buttoning gray shirt and a dark jacket. He’d never been forced to ride long distances before – carriages were generally preferred – but Vin and he were taking the trip relatively slowly. They had no real urgency. Straff’s scouts hadn’t followed them for long, and nobody was expecting them at their destination. They had time to ride leisurely, taking breaks, occasionally walking so that they wouldn’t get too sore from riding.

Outside, he found Vin stirring up the morning fire and Spook caring for the horses. The young man had done some extensive traveling, and he knew how to tend horses – something that Elend was embarrassed to have never learned.

Elend joined Vin at the firepit. They sat for a few moments, Vin poking at the coals. She looked pensive.

“What?” Elend asked.

She glanced southward. “I…” Then she shook her head. “It’s nothing. We’re going to need more wood.” She glanced to the side, toward where their axe lay beside the tent. The weapon flipped up into the air, shooting toward her blade-first. She stepped to the side, snatching the handle as it passed between her and Elend. Then she stalked over to a fallen tree. She took two swings at it, then easily kicked it down and broke it in two.

“She has a way of making the rest of us feel a little redundant, doesn’t she?” Spook asked, stepping up beside Elend.

“At times,” Elend said with a smile.

Spook shook his head. “Whatever I see or hear, she can sense better – and she can fight whatever it is that she finds. Every time I come back to Luthadel, I just feel… useless.”

“Imagine being a regular person,” Elend said. “At least you’re an Allomancer.”

“Maybe,” Spook said, the sound of Vin chopping coming from the side. “But people respect you, El. They just dismiss me.”

“I don’t dismiss you, Spook.”

“Oh?” the young man asked. “When’s the last time I did anything important for the crew?”

“Three days ago,” Elend said. “When you agreed to come with Vin and me. You’re not just here to tend horses, Spook – you’re here because of your skills as a scout and a Tineye. Do you still think we’re being followed?”

Spook paused, then shrugged. “I can’t be sure. I think Straff’s scouts turned back, but I keep catching sight of someone back there. I never get a good glimpse of them, though.”

“It’s the mist spirit,” Vin said, walking by and dumping an armload of wood beside the firepit. “It’s chasing us.”

Spook and Elend shared a look. Then Elend nodded, refusing to act on Spook’s uncomfortable stare. “Well, as long as it stays out of our way, it’s not a problem, right?”

Vin shrugged. “I hope not. If you see it, though, call for me. The records say it can be dangerous.”

“All right,” Elend said. “We’ll do that. Now, let’s decide what to have for breakfast.”

Straff woke up. That was his first surprise.

He lay in bed, inside his tent, feeling like someone had picked him up and slammed him against the wall a few times. He groaned, sitting up. His body was free from bruises, but he ached, and his head was pounding. One of the army healers, a young man with a full beard and bulging eyes, sat beside his bed. The man studied Straff for a moment.

“You, my lord, should be dead,” the young man said.

“I’m not,” Straff said, sitting up. “Give me some tin.”

A soldier approached with a metal vial. Straff downed it, then scowled at how dry and sore his throat was. He burned the tin only lightly; it made his wounds feel worse, but he had come to depend on the slight edge the enhanced senses gave him.

“How long?” he asked.

“Better part of three days, my lord,” the healer said. “We… weren’t sure what you’d eaten, or why. We thought about trying to get you to vomit, but it appeared that you’d taken the draught of your own choice, so…”

“You did well,” Straff said, holding his arm up in front of him. It still shook a bit, and he couldn’t make it stop. “Who is in charge of the army?”

“General Janarle,” the healer said.

Straff nodded. “Why hasn’t he had me killed?”

The healer blinked in surprise, glancing at the soldiers.

“My lord,” said Grent the soldier, “who would dare betray you? Any man who tried would end up dead in his tent. General Janarle was most worried about your safety.”

Of course, Straff realized with shock. They don’t know that Zane is gone. Why… if I did die, then everyone assumes that Zane would either take control himself, or get revenge on those he thought responsible. Straff laughed out loud, shocking those watching over him. Zane had tried to kill him, but had accidentally saved his life by sheer force of reputation.

I beat you, Straff realized. You’re gone, and I’m alive. That didn’t, of course, mean that Zane wouldn’t return – but, then again, he might not. Perhaps… just maybe… Straff was rid of him forever.

“Elend’s Mistborn,” Straff said suddenly.

“We followed her for a while, my lord,” Grent said. “But, they got too far from the army, and Lord Janarle ordered the scouts back. It appears she’s making for Terris.”

He frowned. “Who else was with her?”

“We think your son Elend escaped as well,” the soldier said. “But it could have been a decoy.”

Zane did it, Straff thought with shock. He actually got rid of her.

Unless it’s a trick of some sort. But, then…

“The koloss army?” Straff asked.

“There’s been a lot of fighting in its ranks lately, sir,” Grent said. “The beasts seem more restless.”

“Order our army to break camp,” Straff said. “Immediately. We’re retreating back toward the Northern Dominance.”

“My lord?” Grent said with shock. “I think Lord Janarle is planning an assault, waiting only for your word. The city is weak, and their Mistborn is gone.”

“We’re pulling back,” Straff said, smiling. “For a while, at least.” Let’s see if this plan of yours works, Zane.

Sazed sat in a small kitchen alcove, hands on the table before him, a metallic ring glittering on each finger. They were small, for metalminds, but storing up Feruchemical attributes took time. It would take weeks to fill even a ring’s worth of metal – and he barely had days. In fact, Sazed was surprised the koloss had waited so long.

Three days. Not much time at all, but he suspected he would need every available edge in the approaching conflict. So far he’d been able to store up a small amount of each attribute. Enough for a boost in an emergency, once his other metalminds ran out.

Clubs hobbled into the kitchen. He seemed a blur to Sazed. Even wearing his spectacles – to help compensate for the vision he was storing in a tinmind – it was difficult for him to see.

“That’s it,” Clubs said, his voice muffled – another tinmind was taking Sazed’s hearing. “They’re finally gone.”

Sazed paused for a moment, trying to decipher the comment. His thoughts moved as if through a thick, turgid soup, and it took him a moment to understand what Clubs had said.

They’re gone. Straff’s troops. They’ve withdrawn. He coughed quietly before replying. “Did he ever respond to any of Lord Penrod’s messages?”

“No,” Clubs said. “But he did execute the last messenger.”

Well, that isn’t a very good sign, Sazed thought slowly. Of course, there hadn’t been very many good signs over the last few days. The city was on the edge of starvation, and their brief respite of warmth was over. It would snow this evening, if Sazed guessed right. That made him feel even more guilty to be sitting in the kitchen nook, beside a warm hearth, sipping broth as his metalminds sapped his strength, health, senses, and power of thought. He had rarely tried to fill so many at once.

“You don’t look so good,” Clubs noted, sitting.

Sazed blinked, thinking through the comment. “My… goldmind,” he said slowly. “It draws my health, storing it up.” He glanced at his bowl of broth. “I must eat to maintain my strength,” he said, mentally preparing himself to take a sip.

It was an odd process. His thoughts moved so slowly that it took him a moment to decide to eat. Then his body reacted slowly, the arm taking a few seconds to move. Even then, the muscles quivered, their strength sapped away and stored in his pewtermind. Finally, he was able to get a spoonful to his lips and take a quiet sip. It tasted bland; he was filling scent as well, and without it, his sense of taste was severely hampered.

He should probably be lying down – but if he did that, he was liable to sleep. And, while sleeping, he couldn’t fill metalminds – or, at least, he could fill only one. A bronzemind, the metal that stored wakefulness, would force him to sleep longer in exchange for letting him go longer without sleep on another occasion.

Sazed sighed, carefully setting down his spoon, then coughing. He’d done his best to help avert the conflict. His best plan had been to send a letter to Lord Penrod, urging him to inform Straff Venture that Vin was gone from the city. He had hoped that Straff would then be willing to make a deal. Apparently, that tactic had been unsuccessful. Nobody had heard from Straff in days.

Their doom approached like the inevitable sunrise. Penrod had allowed three separate groups of townspeople – one of them composed of nobility – to try to flee Luthadel. Straff’s soldiers, more wary after Elend’s escape, had caught and slaughtered each group. Penrod had even sent a messenger to Lord Jastes Lekal, hoping to strike some deal with the Southern leader, but the messenger had not returned from the koloss camp.

“Well,” Clubs said, “at least we kept them off for a few days.”

Sazed thought for a moment. “It was simply a delay of the inevitable, I fear.”

“Of course it was,” Clubs said. “But it was an important delay. Elend and Vin will be almost four days away by now. If the fighting had started too soon, you can bet that little Miss Mistborn would have come back and gotten herself killed trying to save us.”

“Ah,” Sazed said slowly, forcing himself to reach for another spoonful of broth. The spoon was a dull weight in his numb fingers; his sense of touch, of course, was being siphoned into a tinmind. “How are the city defenses coming?” he asked as he struggled with the spoon.

“Terribly,” Clubs said. “Twenty thousand troops may sound like a lot – but try stringing them out through a city this big.”

“But the koloss won’t have any siege equipment,” Sazed said, focused on his spoon. “Or archers.”

“Yes,” Clubs said. “But we have eight city gates to protect – and any of five are within quick reach of the koloss. None of those gates was built to withstand an attack. And, as it stands, I can barely post a couple thousand guards at each gate, since I really don’t know which way the koloss will come first.”

“Oh,” Sazed said quietly.

“What did you expect, Terrisman?” Clubs asked. “Good news? The koloss are bigger, stronger, and far crazier than we are. And they have an advantage in numbers.”

Sazed closed his eyes, quivering spoon held halfway to his lips. He suddenly felt a weakness unrelated to his metalminds. Why didn’t she go with them? Why didn’t she escape?

As Sazed opened his eyes, he saw Clubs waving for a servant to bring him something to eat. The young girl returned with a bowl of soup. Clubs eyed it with dissatisfaction for a moment, but then lifted a knotted hand and began to slurp. He shot a glance at Sazed. “You expecting an apology out of me, Terrisman?” he asked between spoonfuls.

Sazed sat shocked for a moment. “Not at all, Lord Cladent,” he finally said.

“Good,” Clubs said. “You’re a decent enough person. You’re just confused.”

Sazed sipped his soup, smiling. “That is comforting to hear. I think.” He thought for a moment. “Lord Cladent. I have a religion for you.”

Clubs frowned. “You don’t give up, do you?”

Sazed looked down. It took him a moment to gather together what he’d been thinking about before. “What you said earlier, Lord Cladent. About situational morality. It made me think of a faith, known as Dadradah. Its practitioners spanned many countries and peoples; they believed that there was only one God, and that there was only one right way to worship.”

Clubs snorted. “I’m really not interested in one of your dead religions, Terrisman. I think that–”

“They were artists,” Sazed said quietly.

Clubs hesitated.

“They thought art drew one closer to God,” Sazed said. “They were most interested in color and hue, and they were fond of writing poetry describing the colors they saw in the world around them.”

Clubs was silent. “Why preach this religion to me?” he demanded. “Why not pick one that is blunt, like I am? Or one that worshipped warfare and soldiers?”

“Because, Lord Cladent,” Sazed said. He blinked, recalling memories with effort through his muddled mind. “That is not you. It is what you must do, but it is not you. The others forget, I think, that you were a woodworker. An artist. When we lived in your shop, I often saw you, putting the finishing touches on pieces your apprentices had carved. I saw the care you used. That shop was no simple front for you. You miss it, I know.”

Clubs didn’t respond.

“You must live as a soldier,” Sazed said, pulling something from his sash with a weak hand. “But you can still dream like an artist. Here. I had this made for you. It is a symbol of the Dadradah faith. To its people, being an artist was a higher calling, even, than being a priest.”

He set the wooden disk on the table. Then, with effort, he smiled at Clubs. It had been a long time since he had preached a religion, and he wasn’t certain what had made him decide to offer this one to Clubs. Perhaps it was to prove to himself that there was value in them. Perhaps it was stubbornness, reacting against the things Clubs had said earlier. Either way, he found satisfaction in the way that Clubs stared at the simple wooden disk with the carved picture of a brush on it.

The last time I preached a religion, he thought, I was in that village to the south, the one where Marsh found me.

Whatever happened to him, anyway? Why didn’t he return to the city?

“Your woman has been looking for you,” Clubs finally said, looking up, leaving the disk on the table.

“My woman?” Sazed said. “Why, we are not…” He trailed off as Clubs eyed him. The surly general was quite proficient at meaningful looks.

“Very well,” Sazed said, sighing. He glanced down at his fingers and the ten glittering rings they bore. Four were tin: sight, hearing, scent, and touch. He continued to fill these; they wouldn’t handicap him much. He released his pewtermind, however, as well as his steelmind and his zincmind.

Immediately, strength refilled his body. His muscles stopped sagging, reverting from emaciated to healthy. The fuzz lifted from his mind, allowing him to think clearly, and the thick, swollen slowness evaporated. He stood, invigorated.

“That’s fascinating,” Clubs mumbled.

Sazed looked down.

“I could see the change,” Clubs said. “Your body grew stronger, and your eyes focused. Your arms stopped shaking. I guess you don’t want to face that woman without all of your faculties, eh? I don’t blame you.” Clubs grunted to himself, then continued to eat.

Sazed bid farewell to the man, then strode out of the kitchen. His feet and hands still seemed like nearly unfeeling lumps. Yet, he felt an energy. There was nothing like simple contrast to awaken a man’s sense of indomitability.

And there was nothing that could sap that sensation more quickly than the prospect of meeting with the woman he loved. Why had Tindwyl stayed? And, if she was determined not to go back to Terris, why had she avoided him these last few days? Was she mad that he had sent Elend away? Was she disappointed that he insisted on staying to help?

He found her inside Keep Venture’s grand ballroom. He paused for a moment, impressed – as always – by the room’s unquestionable majesty. He released his sight tinmind for just a moment, removing his spectacles as he looked around the awesome space.

Enormous, rectangular stained-glass windows reached to the ceiling along both walls of the huge room. Standing at the side, Sazed was dwarfed by massive pillars that supported a small gallery that ran beneath the windows on either side of the chamber. Every bit of stone in the room seemed carved – every tile a part of one mosaic or another, every bit of glass colored to sparkle in the early-evening sunlight.

It’s been so long… he thought. The first time he’d seen this chamber, he had been escorting Vin to her first ball. It was then, while playing the part of Valette Renoux, she had met Elend. Sazed had chastised her for carelessly attracting the attention of so powerful a man.

And now he himself had performed their marriage. He smiled, replacing his spectacles and filling his eyesight tinmind again. May the Forgotten Gods watch over you, children. Make something of our sacrifice, if you can.

Tindwyl stood speaking with Dockson and a small group of functionaries at the center of the room. They were crowded around a large table, and as Sazed approached, he could see what was spread atop it.

Marsh’s map, he thought. It was an extensive and detailed representation of Luthadel, complete with notations about Ministry activity. Sazed had a visual image of the map, as well as a detailed description of it, in one of his copperminds – and he had sent a physical copy to the Synod.

Tindwyl and the others had covered the large map with their own notations. Sazed approached slowly, and as soon as Tindwyl saw him, she waved for him to approach.

“Ah, Sazed,” Dockson said in a businesslike tone, voice muddled to Sazed’s weak ears. “Good. Please, come here.”

Sazed stepped up onto the low dance floor, joining them at the table. “Troop placements?” he asked.

“Penrod has taken command of our armies,” Dockson said. “And he’s put noblemen in charge of all twenty battalions. We’re not certain we like that situation.”

Sazed looked over the men at the table. They were a group of scribes that Dockson himself had trained – all skaa. Gods! Sazed thought. He can’t be planning a rebellion now of all times, can he?

“Don’t look so frightened, Sazed,” Dockson said. “We’re not going to do anything too drastic – Penrod is still letting Clubs organize the city defenses, and he seems to be taking advice from his military commanders. Besides, it’s far too late to try something too ambitious.”

Dockson almost seemed disappointed.

“However,” Dockson said, pointing at the map, “I don’t trust these commanders he’s put in charge. They don’t know anything about warfare – or even about survival. They’ve spent their lives ordering drinks and throwing parties.”

Why do you hate them so? Sazed thought. Ironically, Dockson was the one in the crew who looked most like a nobleman. He was more natural in a suit than Breeze, more articulate than Clubs or Spook. Only his insistence on wearing a very unaristocratic half beard made him stand out.

“The nobility may not know warfare,” Sazed said, “but they are experienced with command, I think.”

“True,” Dockson said. “But so are we. That’s why I want one of our people near each gate, just in case things go poorly and someone really competent needs to take command.”

Dockson pointed at the table, toward one of the gates – Steel Gate. It bore a notation of a thousand men in a defensive formation. “This is your battalion, Sazed. Steel Gate is the farthest the koloss are likely to reach, and so you might not even see any fighting. However, when the battle begins, I want you there with a group of messengers to bring word back to Keep Venture in case your gate gets attacked. We’ll set up a command post here in the main ballroom – it’s easily accessible with those broad doors, and can accommodate a lot of motion.”

And it was a not-so-subtle smack in the face of Elend Venture, and nobility in general, to use such a beautiful chamber as a setting from which to run a war. No wonder he supported me in sending Elend and Vin away. With them gone, he’s gained undisputed control of Kelsier’s crew.

It wasn’t a bad thing. Dockson was an organizational genius and a master of quick planning. He did have certain prejudices, however.

“I know you don’t like to fight, Saze,” Dockson said, leaning down on the table with both hands. “But we need you.”

“I think he is preparing for battle, Lord Dockson,” Tindwyl said, eyeing Sazed. “Those rings on his fingers give good indication of his intentions.”

Sazed glanced across the table at her. “And what is your place in this, Tindwyl?”

“Lord Dockson came to me for advice,” Tindwyl said. “He has little experience with warfare himself, and wished to know the things I have studied about the generals of the past.”

“Ah,” Sazed said. He turned to Dockson, frowning in thought. Eventually, he nodded. “Very well. I will take part in your project – but, I must warn you against divisiveness. Please, tell your men not to break the chain of command unless they absolutely must.”

Dockson nodded.

“Now, Lady Tindwyl,” Sazed said. “Might we speak for a moment in private?”

She nodded, and they excused themselves, walking under the nearest overhanging gallery. In the shadows, behind one of the pillars, Sazed turned toward Tindwyl. She looked so pristine – so poised, so calm – despite the dire situation. How did she do that?

“You’re storing quite a large number of attributes, Sazed,” Tindwyl noted, glancing at his fingers again. “Surely you have other metalminds prepared from before?”

“I used all of my wakefulness and speed making my way to Luthadel,” Sazed said. “And I have no health stored at all – I used up the last of it overcoming a sickness when I was teaching in the South. I always intended to fill another one, but we’ve been too busy. I do have some large amount of strength and weight stored, as well as a good selection of tinminds. Still, one can never be too well prepared, I think.”

“Perhaps,” Tindwyl said. She glanced back at the group around the table. “If it gives us something to do other than think about the inevitable, then preparation has not been wasted, I think.”

Sazed felt a chill. “Tindwyl,” he said quietly. “Why did you stay? There is no place for you here.”

“There is no place for you either, Sazed.”

“These are my friends,” he said. “I will not leave them.”

“Then why did you convince their leaders to leave?”

“To flee and live,” Sazed said.

“Survival is not a luxury often afforded to leaders,” Tindwyl said. “When they accept the devotion of others, they must accept the responsibility that comes with it. This people will die – but they need not die feeling betrayed.”

“They were not–”

“They expect to be saved, Sazed,” Tindwyl hissed quietly. “Even those men over there – even Dockson, the most practical one in this bunch – think that they’ll survive. And do you know why? Because, deep down, they believe that something will save them. Something that saved them before, the only piece of the Survivor they have left. She represents hope to them now. And you sent her away.”

“To live, Tindwyl,” Sazed repeated. “It would have been a waste to lose Vin and Elend here.”

“Hope is never wasted,” Tindwyl said, eyes flashing. “I thought you of all people would understand that. You think it was stubbornness that kept me alive all those years in the hands of the Breeders?”

“And is it stubbornness or hope that kept you here, in the city?” he asked.

She looked up at him. “Neither.”

Sazed looked at her for a long moment in the shadowed alcove. Planners talked in the ballroom, their voices echoing. Shards of light from the windows reflected off the marble floors, throwing slivers of illumination across the walls. Slowly, awkwardly, Sazed put his arms around Tindwyl. She sighed, letting him hold her.

He released his tinminds and let his senses return in a flood.

Softness from her skin and warmth from her body washed across him as she moved farther into the embrace, resting her head against his chest. The scent of her hair – unperfumed, but clean and crisp – filled his nose, the first thing he’d smelled in three days. With a clumsy hand, Sazed pulled free his spectacles so he could see her clearly. As sounds returned fully to his ears, he could hear Tindwyl breathing beside him.

“Do you know why I love you, Sazed?” she asked quietly.

“I cannot fathom,” he answered honestly.

“Because you never give in,” she said. “Other men are strong like bricks – firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You… you’re strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm. I don’t think any of your friends understand what a power they had in you.”

Had, he thought. She already thinks of all this in the past tense. And… it feels right for her to do so. “I fear that whatever I have won’t be enough to save them,” Sazed whispered.

“It was enough to save three of them, though,” Tindwyl said. “You were wrong to send them away… but maybe you were right, too.”

Sazed just closed his eyes and held her, cursing her for staying, yet loving her for it all the same.

At that moment, the wall-top warning drums began to beat.

51

THE MISTY RED LIGHT OF morning was a thing that should not have existed. Mist died before daylight. Heat made it evaporate; even locking it inside of a closed room made it condense and disappear. It shouldn’t have been able to withstand the light of the rising sun.

Yet it did. The farther they’d gotten from Luthadel, the longer the mists lingered in the mornings. The change was slight – they were still only a few days’ ride from Luthadel – but Vin knew. She saw the difference. This morning, the mists seemed even stronger than she’d anticipated – they didn’t even weaken as the sun came up. They obscured its light.

Mist, she thought. Deepness. She was increasingly sure that she was right about it, though she couldn’t know for certain. Still, it felt right to her for some reason. The Deepness hadn’t been some monster or tyrant, but a force more natural – and therefore more frightening. A creature could be killed. The mists… they were far more daunting. The Deepness wouldn’t oppress with priests, but use the people’s own superstitious terror. It wouldn’t slaughter with armies, but with starvation.

How did one fight something larger than a continent? A thing that couldn’t feel anger, pain, hope, or mercy?

Yet, it was Vin’s task to do just that. She sat quietly on a large boulder beside the night’s firepit, her legs up, knees to her chest. Elend still slept; Spook was out scouting.

She didn’t question her place any longer. She was either mad or she was the Hero of Ages. It was her task to defeat the mists. Yet… she thought, frowning. Shouldn’t the thumpings be getting louder, not softer? The longer they traveled, the weaker the thumpings seemed. Was she too late? Was something happening at the Well to dampen its power? Had someone else already taken it?

We have to keep moving.

Another person in her place might have asked why he had been chosen. Vin had known several men – both in Camon’s crew and in Elend’s government – who would complain every time they were given an assignment. “Why me?” they would ask. The insecure ones didn’t think they were up to the task. The lazy ones wanted out of the work.

Vin didn’t consider herself to be either self-assured or self-motivated. Still, she saw no point in asking why. Life had taught her that sometimes things simply happened. Often, there hadn’t been any specific reason for Reen to beat her. And, reasons were weak comforts, anyway. The reasons that Kelsier had needed to die were clear to her, but that didn’t make her miss him any less.

She had a job to do. The fact that she didn’t understand it didn’t stop her from acknowledging that she had to try to accomplish it. She simply hoped that she’d know what to do when the time came. Though the thumpings were weaker, they were still there. They drew her forward. To the Well of Ascension.

Behind her, she could feel the lesser vibration of the mist spirit. It never disappeared until the mists themselves did. It had been there all morning, standing just behind her.

“Do you know the secret to this all?” she asked quietly, turning toward the spirit in the reddish mists. “Do you have–”

The Allomantic pulse of the mist spirit was coming from directly inside the tent she shared with Elend.

Vin jumped off the rock, landing on the frosted ground and scrambling to the tent. She threw open the flaps. Elend slept inside, head just barely visible as it poked out of the blankets. Mist filled the small tent, swirling, twisting – and that was odd enough. Mist didn’t usually enter tents.

And there, in the middle of the mists, was the spirit. Standing directly above Elend.

It wasn’t even really there. It was just an outline in the mists, a repeating pattern caused by chaotic movements. And yet it was real. She could feel it, and she could see it – see it as it looked up, meeting her gaze with invisible eyes.

Hateful eyes.

It raised an insubstantial arm, and Vin saw something flash. She reacted immediately, whipping out a dagger, bursting into the tent and swinging. Her blow met something tangible in the mist spirit’s hand. A metallic sound rang in the calm air, and Vin felt a powerful, numbing chill in her arm. The hairs across her entire body prickled.

And then it disappeared. Fading away, like the ringing of its somehow substantial blade. Vin blinked, then turned to look through the blowing tent flap. The mists outside were gone; day had finally won.

It didn’t seem to have many victories remaining.

“Vin?” Elend asked, yawning and stirring.

Vin calmed her breathing. The spirit had gone. The daylight meant safety, for now. Once, it was the nights that I found safe, she thought. Kelsier gave them to me.

“What’s wrong?” Elend asked. How could someone, even a nobleman, be so slow to rise, so unconcerned about the vulnerability he displayed while sleeping?

She sheathed her dagger. What can I tell him? How can I protect him from something I can barely see? She needed to think. “It was nothing,” she said quietly. “Just me… being jumpy again.”

Elend rolled over, sighing contentedly. “Is Spook doing his morning scout?”

“Yes.”

“Wake me when he gets back.”

Vin nodded, but he probably couldn’t see her. She knelt, looking at him as the sun rose behind her. She’d given herself to him – not just her body, and not just her heart. She’d abandoned her rationalizations, given away her reservations, all for him. She could no longer afford to think that she wasn’t worthy of him, no longer give herself the false comfort of believing they couldn’t ever be together.

She’d never trusted anyone this much. Not Kelsier, not Sazed, not Reen. Elend had everything. That knowledge made her tremble inside. If she lost him, she would lose herself.

I mustn’t think about that! she told herself, rising. She left the tent, quietly closing the flaps behind her. In the distance, shadows moved. Spook appeared a moment later.

“Someone’s definitely back there,” he said quietly. “Not spirits, Vin. Five men, with a camp.”

Vin frowned. “Following us?”

“They must be.”

Straff’s scouts, she thought. “We’ll let Elend decide what to do about them.”

Spook shrugged, walking over to sit on her rock. “You going to wake him?”

Vin turned back. “Let him sleep a little longer.”

Spook shrugged again. He watched as she walked over to the firepit and unwrapped the wood they’d covered the night before, then began to build a fire.

“You’ve changed, Vin,” Spook said.

She continued to work. “Everyone changes,” she said. “I’m not a thief anymore, and I have friends to support me.”

“I don’t mean that,” Spook said. “I mean recently. This last week. You’re different than you were.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. You don’t seem as frightened all the time.”

Vin paused. “I’ve made some decisions. About who I am, and who I will be. About what I want.”

She worked quietly for a moment, and finally got a spark to catch. “I’m tired of putting up with foolishness,” she finally said. “Other people’s foolishness, and my own. I’ve decided to act, rather than second-guess. Perhaps it’s a more immature way of looking at things. But it feels right, for now.”

“It’s not immature,” Spook said.

Vin smiled, looking up at him. Sixteen and hardly grown into his body, he was the same age that she’d been when Kelsier had recruited her. He was squinting against the light, even though the sun was low.

“Lower your tin,” Vin said. “No need to keep it on so strong.”

Spook shrugged. She could see the uncertainty in him. He wanted so badly to be useful. She knew that feeling.

“What about you, Spook?” she said, turning to gather the breakfast supplies. Broth and mealcakes again. “How have you been lately?”

He shrugged yet again.

I’d almost forgotten what it was like to try and have a conversation with a teenage boy, she thought, smiling.

“Spook…” she said, just testing out the name. “What do you think of that nickname, anyway? I remember when everyone called you by your real name.” Lestibournes – Vin had tried to spell it once. She’d gotten about five letters in.

“Kelsier gave me my name,” Spook said, as if that were reason enough to keep it. And perhaps it was. Vin saw the look in Spook’s eyes when he mentioned Kelsier; Clubs might be Spook’s uncle, but Kelsier had been the one he looked up to.

Of course, they all had looked up to Kelsier.

“I wish I were powerful, Vin,” Spook said quietly, arms folded on his knees as he sat on the rock. “Like you.”

“You have your own skills.”

“Tin?” Spook asked. “Almost worthless. If I were Mistborn, I could do great things. Be someone important.”

“Being important isn’t all that wonderful, Spook,” Vin said, listening to the thumpings in her head. “Most of the time, it’s just annoying.”

Spook shook his head. “If I were Mistborn, I could save people – help people, who need it. I could stop people from dying. But… I’m just Spook. Weak. A coward.”

Vin looked at him, frowning, but his head was bowed, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

What was that about? she wondered.

Sazed used a bit of strength to help him take the steps three at a time. He burst out of the stairwell just behind Tindwyl, the two of them joining the remaining members of the crew on the wall top. The drums still sounded; each had a different rhythm as it sounded over the city. The mixing beats echoed chaotically from buildings and alleyways.

The northern horizon seemed bare without Straff’s army. If only that same emptiness had extended to the northeast, where the koloss camp seemed in turmoil.

“Can anyone make out what’s going on?” Breeze asked.

Ham shook his head. “Too far.”

“One of my scouts is a Tineye,” Clubs said, hobbling over. “He raised the alarm. Said the koloss were fighting.”

“My good man,” Breeze said, “aren’t the foul creatures always fighting?”

“More than usual,” Clubs said. “Massive brawl.”

Sazed felt a swift glimmer of hope. “They’re fighting?” he said. “Perhaps they will kill each other!”

Clubs eyed him with one of those looks. “Read one of your books, Terrisman. What do they say about koloss emotions?”

“They only have two,” Sazed said. “Boredom and rage. But–”

“This is how they always begin a battle,” Tindwyl said quietly. “They start to fight among themselves, enraging more and more of their members, and then…”

She trailed off, and Sazed saw it. The dark smudge to the east growing lighter. Dispersing. Resolving into individual members.

Charging the city.

“Bloody hell,” Clubs swore, then quickly began to hobble down the steps. “Messengers away!” he bellowed. “Archers to the wall! Secure the river grates! Battalions, form positions! Get ready to fight! Do you want those things breaking in here and getting at your children!”

Chaos followed. Men began to dash in all directions. Soldiers scrambled up the stairwells, clogging the way down, keeping the crew from moving.

It’s happening, Sazed thought numbly.

“Once the stairwells are open,” Dockson said quietly, “I want each of you to go to your battalion. Tindwyl, you have Tin Gate, in the north by Keep Venture. I might need your advice, but for now, stay with those boys. They’ll listen to you – they respect Terrismen. Breeze, you have one of your Soothers in each of battalions four through twelve?”

Breeze nodded. “They aren’t much, though…”

“Just have them keep those boys fighting!” Dockson said. “Don’t let our men break!”

“A thousand men are far too many for one Soother to handle, my friend,” Breeze said.

“Have them do the best they can,” Dockson said. “You and Ham take Pewter Gate and Zinc Gate – looks like the koloss are going to hit here first. Clubs should bring in reinforcements.”

The two men nodded; then Dockson looked at Sazed. “You know where to go?”

“Yes… yes, I think so,” Sazed said, gripping the wall. In the air, flakes of ash began to fall from the sky.

“Go, then!” Dockson said as one final squad of archers made its way out of the stairwell.

“My lord Venture!”

Straff turned. With some stimulants, he was able to remain strong enough to stay atop his saddle – though he wouldn’t have dared to fight. Of course, he wouldn’t have fought anyway. That wasn’t his way. One brought armies to do such things.

He turned his animal as the messenger approached. The man puffed, putting hands on knees as he stopped beside Straff’s mount, bits of ash swirling on the ground at his feet.

“My lord,” the man said. “The koloss army has attacked Luthadel!”

Just as you said, Zane, Straff thought in wonder.

“The koloss, attacking?” Lord Janarle asked, moving his horse up beside Straff’s. The handsome lord frowned, then eyed Straff. “You expected this, my lord?”

“Of course,” Straff said, smiling.

Janarle looked impressed.

“Pass an order to the men, Janarle,” Straff said. “I want this column turned back toward Luthadel.”

“We can be there in an hour, my lord!” Janarle said.

“No,” Straff said. “Let’s take our time. We wouldn’t want to overwork our troops, would we?”

Janarle smiled. “Of course not, my lord.”

Arrows seemed to have little effect on the koloss.

Sazed stood, transfixed and appalled, atop his gate’s watchtower. He wasn’t officially in charge of the men, so he didn’t have any orders to give. He simply stood with the scouts and messengers, waiting to see if he was needed or not.

That left him plenty of time to watch the horror unfolding. The koloss weren’t charging his section of the wall yet, thankfully, and his men stood watching tensely as the creatures barreled toward Tin Gate and Pewter Gate in the distance.

Even far away – the tower letting him see over a section of the city to where Tin Gate lay – Sazed could see the koloss running straight through hailstorms of arrows. Some of the smaller ones appeared to fall dead or wounded, but most just continued to charge. Men murmured on the tower near him.

We aren’t ready for this, Sazed thought. Even with months to plan and anticipate, we aren’t ready.

This is what we get, being ruled over by a god for a thousand years. A thousand years of peace – tyrannical peace, but peace nonetheless. We don’t have generals, we have men who know how to order a bath drawn. We don’t have tacticians, we have bureaucrats. We don’t have warriors, we have boys with sticks.

Even as he watched the oncoming doom, his scholar’s mind was analytical. Tapping sight, he could see that many of the distant creatures – especially the larger ones – carried small uprooted trees. They were ready, in their own way, to break into the city. The trees wouldn’t be as effective as real battering rams – but then, the city gates weren’t built to withstand a real battering in the first place.

Those koloss are smarter than we give them credit for, he thought. They can recognize the abstract value of coins, even if they don’t have an economy. They can see that they’ll need tools to break down our doors, even if they don’t know how to make those tools.

The first koloss wave reached the wall. Men began to toss down rocks and other items. Sazed’s own section had similar piles, one just next to the gate arch, beside which he stood. But arrows had almost no effect; what good would a few rocks do? Koloss clumped around the base of the wall, like the water of a dammed-up river. Distant thumps sounded as the creatures began to beat against the gates.

“Battalion sixteen!” a messenger called from below, riding up to Sazed’s gate. “Lord Culee!”

“Here!” a man called from the wall top beside Sazed’s tower.

“Pewter Gate needs reinforcements immediately! Lord Penrod commands you to bring six companies and follow me!”

Lord Culee began to give the orders. Six companies… Sazed thought. Six hundred of our thousand. Clubs’s words from earlier returned to him: Twenty thousand men might seem like a lot, until one saw how thinly they had to be stretched.

The six companies marched away, leaving the courtyard before Sazed’s gate disturbingly empty. The four hundred remaining men – three hundred in the courtyard, one hundred on the wall – shuffled quietly.

Sazed closed his eyes and tapped his hearing tinmind. He could hear… wood beating on wood. Screams. Human screams. He released the tinmind quickly, then tapped eyesight again, leaning out and looking toward the section of the wall where the battle was being fought. The koloss were throwing back the fallen rocks – and they were far more accurate than the defenders. Sazed jumped as he saw a young soldier’s face crushed, his body thrown back off the wall top by the rock’s force. Sazed released his tinmind, breathing quickly.

“Be firm, men!” called one of the soldiers on the wall. He was barely a youth – a nobleman, but he couldn’t be more than sixteen. Of course, a lot of the men in the army were that age.

“Stand firm…” the young commander repeated. His voice sounded uncertain, and it trailed off as he noticed something in the distance. Sazed turned, following the man’s gaze.

The koloss had gotten tired of standing around, piling up at a single gate. They were moving to surround the city, large groups of them breaking up, fording the River Channerel toward other gates.

Gates like Sazed’s.

Vin landed directly in the middle of the camp. She tossed a handful of pewter dust into the firepit, then Pushed, blowing coals, soot, and smoke across a pair of surprised guards, who had been fixing breakfast. She reached out and Pulled out the stakes of the three small tents.

All three collapsed. One was unoccupied, but cries came from the other two. The canvas outlined struggling, confused figures – one inside the larger tent, two inside the smaller one.

The guards scrambled back, raising their arms to protect their eyes from the soot and sparks, their hands reaching for swords. Vin raised a fist toward them – and, as they blinked their eyes clear, she let a single coin drop to the ground.

The guards froze, then took their hands off their swords. Vin eyed the tents. The person in charge would be inside the larger one – and he was the man she would need to deal with. Probably one of Straff’s captains, though the guards didn’t wear Venture heraldry. Perhaps–

Jastes Lekal poked his head out of his tent, cursing as he extricated himself from the canvas. He’d changed much in the two years since Vin had last seen him. However, there had been hints of what the man would become. His thin figure had become spindly; his balding head had fulfilled its promise. Yet, how had his face come to look so haggard… so old? He was Elend’s age.

“Jastes,” Elend said, stepping out of his hiding place in the forest. He walked into the clearing, Spook at his side. “Why are you here?”

Jastes managed to stand as his other two soldiers cut their way out of their tent. He waved them down. “El,” he said. “I… didn’t know where else to go. My scouts said that you were fleeing, and it seemed like a good idea. Wherever you’re going, I want to go with you. We can hide there, maybe. We can–”

“Jastes!” Elend snapped, striding forward to stand beside Vin. “Where are your koloss? Did you send them away?”

“I tried,” Jastes said, looking down. “They wouldn’t go – not once they’d seen Luthadel. And then…”

“What?” Elend demanded.

“A fire,” Jastes said. “In our… supply carts.”

Vin frowned.

“Your supply carts?” Elend said. “The carts where you carried your wooden coins?”

“Yes.”

“Lord Ruler, man!” Elend said stepping forward. “And you just left them there, without leadership, outside our home?”

“They would have killed me, El!” Jastes said. “They were beginning to fight so much, to demand more coins, to demand we attack the city. If I’d stayed, they’d have slaughtered me! They’re beasts – beasts that only barely have the shape of man.”

“And you left,” Elend said. “You abandoned Luthadel to them.”

“You abandoned it, too,” Jastes said. He walked forward, hands pleading as he approached Elend. “Look, El. I know I was wrong. I thought I could control them. I didn’t mean for this to happen!”

Elend fell silent, and Vin could see a hardness growing in his eyes. Not a dangerous hardness, like Kelsier. More of a… regal bearing. The sense that he was more than he wanted to be. He stood straight, looking down at the man pleading before him.

“You raised an army of violent monsters and led them in a tyrannical assault, Jastes,” Elend said. “You caused the slaughter of innocent villages. Then, you abandoned that army without leadership or control outside the most populated city in the whole of the Final Empire.”

“Forgive me,” Jastes said.

Elend looked the man in the eyes. “I forgive you,” he said quietly. Then, in one fluid stroke, he drew his sword and sheared Jastes’s head from his shoulders. “But my kingdom cannot.”

Vin stared, dumbfounded, as the corpse fell to the ground. Jastes’s soldiers cried out, drawing their weapons. Elend turned, his face solemn, and raised the point of his bloodied sword toward them. “You think this execution was performed in error?”

The guards paused. “No, my lord,” one of them finally said, looking down.

Elend knelt and cleaned his sword on Jastes’s cloak. “Considering what he did, this was a better death than he deserved.” Elend snapped his sword back into its sheath. “But he was my friend. Bury him. Once you are through, you are welcome to travel with me to Terris, or you may go back to your homes. Choose as you wish.” With that, he walked back into the woods.

Vin paused, watching the guards. Solemnly, they moved forward to collect the body. She nodded to Spook, then dashed out into the forest after Elend. She didn’t have to go far. She found him sitting on a rock a short distance away, staring at the ground. An ashfall had begun, but most of the flakes got caught in the trees, coating their leaves like black moss.

“Elend?” she asked.

He looked out, staring into the forest. “I’m not sure why I did it, Vin,” he said quietly. “Why should I be the one to bring justice? I’m not even king. And yet, it had to be done. I felt it. I feel it still.”

She laid a hand on his shoulder.

“He’s the first man I’ve ever killed,” Elend said. “He and I had such dreams, once: We’d ally two of the most powerful imperial houses, uniting Luthadel as never before. Ours wasn’t to have been a treaty of greed, but a true political alliance intended to help make the city a better place.”

He looked up at her. “I think I understand now, Vin, what it is like for you. In a way, we’re both knives – both tools. Not for each other, but for this kingdom. This people.”

She wrapped her arms around him, holding him, pulling his head to her chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It had to be done,” he said. “The saddest part is, he’s right. I abandoned them, too. I should take my own life with this sword.”

“You left for a good reason, Elend,” Vin said. “You left to protect Luthadel, to make it so Straff wouldn’t attack.”

“And if the koloss attack before Straff can?”

“Maybe they won’t,” Vin said. “They don’t have a leader – maybe they’ll attack Straff’s army instead.”

“No,” Spook’s voice said. Vin turned, seeing him approach through the forest, eyes squinting against the light.

That boy burns way too much tin, she thought.

“What do you mean?” Elend asked, turning.

Spook looked down. “They won’t attack Straff’s army, El. It won’t be there anymore.”

“What?” Vin asked.

“I…” Spook looked away, shame showing in his face.

I’m a coward. His words from earlier returned to her. “You knew,” Vin said. “You knew the koloss were going to attack!”

Spook nodded.

“That’s ridiculous,” Elend said. “You couldn’t have known that Jastes would follow us.”

“I didn’t,” Spook said, a lump of ash falling from a tree behind him, bursting before the wind, and fluttering in a hundred different flakes to the ground. “But my uncle figured that Straff would withdraw his army and let the koloss attack the city. That’s why Sazed decided to send us away.”

Vin felt a sudden chill.

I’ve found the location of the Well of Ascension, Sazed had said. To the north. In the Terris Mountains…

“Clubs told you this?” Elend was saying.

Spook nodded.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Elend demanded, standing.

Oh, no…

Spook paused, then shook his head. “You would have wanted to go back! I didn’t want to die, El! I’m sorry. I’m a coward.” He cringed, glancing at Elend’s sword, shying away.

Elend paused, as if realizing he’d been stepping toward the boy. “I’m not going to hurt you, Spook,” he said. “I’m just ashamed of you.” Spook lowered his eyes, then sank down to the ground, sitting with his back to an aspen.

The thumpings, getting softer…

“Elend,” Vin whispered.

He turned.

“Sazed lied. The Well isn’t to the north.”

“What?”

“It’s at Luthadel.”

“Vin, that’s ridiculous. We’d have found it.”

“We didn’t,” she said firmly, standing, looking south. Focusing, she could feel the thumpings, washing across her. Pulling her.

South.

“The Well can’t be to the south,” Elend said. “The legends all place it north, in the Terris Mountains.”

Vin shook her head, confused. “It’s there,” she said. “I know it is. I don’t know how, but it is there.”

Elend looked at her, then nodded, trusting her instincts.

Oh, Sazed, she thought. You probably had good intentions, but you may have doomed us all. If the city fell to the koloss…

“How fast can we get back?” Elend asked.

“That depends,” she said.

“Go back?” Spook asked, looking up. “El, they’re all dead. They told me to tell you the truth once you got to Tathingdwen, so you wouldn’t kill yourselves climbing the mountains in the winter for nothing. But, when Clubs talked to me, it was also to say goodbye. I could see it in his eyes. He knew he’d never see me again.”

Elend paused, and Vin could see a moment of uncertainty in his eyes. A flash of pain, of terror. She knew those emotions, because they hit her at the same time.

Sazed, Breeze, Ham…

Elend grabbed her arm. “You have to go, Vin,” he said. “There might be survivors… refugees. They’ll need your help.”

She nodded, the firmness of his grip – the determination in his voice – giving her strength.

“Spook and I will follow,” he said. “It should only take us a couple of days’ hard riding. But an Allomancer with pewter can go faster than any horse over long distances.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered.

“I know.”

It was still hard. How could she run off and leave him, when she’d only just rediscovered him? Yet, she could feel the Well of Ascension even more urgently now that she was sure of its location. And if some of her friends did survive the attack…

Vin gritted her teeth, then opened up her pouch and pulled out the last of her pewter dust. She drank it down with a mouthful of water from her flask. It scratched her throat going down. It’s not much, she thought. It won’t let me pewter-drag for long.

“They’re all dead…” Spook mumbled again.

Vin turned. The pulses thumped demandingly. From the south.

I’m coming.

“Elend,” she said. “Please do something for me. Don’t sleep during the night, when the mists are out. Travel during the night, if you can, and keep your wits about you. Watch for the mist spirit – I think it may mean you harm.”

He frowned, but nodded.

Vin flared pewter, then took off at a run toward the highway.

52

BREEZE DID HIS BEST TO pretend he was not in the middle of a war. It didn’t work very well.

He sat on his horse at the edge of Zinc Gate’s courtyard. Soldiers shuffled and clanked, standing in ranks before the gates, waiting and watching their companions atop the wall.

The gates thumped. Breeze cringed, but continued his Soothing. “Be strong,” he whispered. “Fear, uncertainty – I take these away. Death may come through those doors, but you can fight it. You can win. Be strong…”

Brass flared like a bonfire within his stomach. He had long since used up his vials, and had taken to choking down handfuls of brass dust and mouthfuls of water, which he had in a steady supply thanks to Dockson’s mounted messengers.

How long can this possibly last? he thought, wiping his brow, continuing to Soothe. Allomancy was, fortunately, very easy on the body; Allomantic power came from within the metals themselves, not from the one who burned them. Yet, Soothing was much more complex than other Allomantic skills, and it demanded constant attention.

“Fear, terror, anxiety…” he whispered. “The desire to run or give up. I take these from you…” The speaking wasn’t necessary, of course, but it had always been his way – it helped keep him focused.

After a few more minutes of Soothing, he checked his pocket watch, then turned his horse and trotted over to the other side of the courtyard. The gates continued to boom, and Breeze wiped his brow again. He noted, with dissatisfaction, that his handkerchief was nearly too damp to do him any good. It was also beginning to snow. The wetness would make the ash stick to his clothing, and his suit would be absolutely ruined.

The suit will be ruined by your blood, Breeze, he told himself. The time for silliness is over. This is serious. Far too serious. How did you even end up here?

He redoubled his efforts, Soothing a new group of soldiers. He was one of the most powerful Allomancers in the Final Empire – especially when it came to emotional Allomancy. He could Soothe hundreds of men at once, assuming they were packed close enough together, and assuming that he was focusing on simple emotions. Even Kelsier hadn’t been able to manage those numbers.

Yet, the entire crowd of soldiers was beyond even his ability, and he had to do them in sections. As he began work on the new group, he saw the ones he had left begin to wilt, their anxiety taking over.

When those doors burst, these men are going to scatter.

The gates boomed. Men clustered on the walls, throwing down rocks, shooting arrows, fighting with a frantic lack of discipline. Occasionally, an officer would push his way past them, yelling orders, trying to coordinate their efforts, but Breeze was too far away to tell what they were saying. He could just see the chaos of men moving, screaming, and shooting.

And, of course, he could see the return fire. Rocks zipped into the air from below, some cracking against the ramparts. Breeze tried not to think about what was on the other side of the wall, the thousands of enraged koloss beasts. Occasionally, a soldier would drop. Blood dripped down into the courtyard from several sections of the ramparts.

“Fear, anxiety, terror…” Breeze whispered.

Allrianne had escaped. Vin, Elend, and Spook were safe. He had to keep focusing on those successes. Thank you, Sazed, for making us send them away, he thought.

Hoofbeats clopped behind him. Breeze continued his Soothing, but turned to see Clubs riding up. The general rode his horse with a hunched-over slouch, eyeing the soldiers with one eye open, the other perpetually squeezed closed in a squint. “They’re doing well,” he said.

“My dear man,” Breeze said. “They’re terrified. Even the ones beneath my Soothing watch those gates like they were some terrible void waiting to suck them in.”

Clubs eyed Breeze. “Feeling poetic today, are we?”

“Impending doom has that effect on me,” Breeze said as the gates shook. “Either way, I doubt the men are doing ‘well.’ ”

Clubs grunted. “Men are always nervous before a fight. But, these are good lads. They’ll hold.”

The gates shook and quivered, splinters appearing at the edges. Those hinges are straining… Breeze thought.

“Don’t suppose you can Soothe those koloss?” Clubs asked. “Make them less ferocious?”

Breeze shook his head. “Soothing those beasts has no effect. I’ve tried it.”

They fell silent again, listening to the booming gates. Eventually, Breeze glanced over at Clubs, who sat, unperturbed, on his horse. “You’ve been in combat before,” Breeze said. “How often?”

“Off and on for the better part of twenty years, when I was younger,” Clubs said. “Fighting rebellions in the distant dominances, warring against the nomads out in the barrens. The Lord Ruler was pretty good about keeping those conflicts quiet.”

“And… how did you do?” Breeze asked. “Were you often victorious?”

“Always,” Clubs said.

Breeze smiled slightly.

“Of course,” Clubs said, glancing at Breeze, “we were the ones with koloss on our side. Damn hard to kill, those beasts.”

Great, Breeze thought.

Vin ran.

She’d only been on one “pewter drag” before – with Kelsier, two years ago. While burning pewter at a steady flare, one could run with incredible speed – like a sprinter in their quickest dash – without ever growing tired.

Yet, the process did something to a body. Pewter kept her moving, but it also bottled up her natural fatigue. The juxtaposition made her mind fuzz, bringing on a trancelike state of exhausted energy. Her soul wanted so badly to rest, yet her body just kept running, and running, and running, following the canal towpath toward the south. Toward Luthadel.

Vin was prepared for the effects of pewter dragging this time, and so she handled them far better. She fought off the trance, keeping her mind focused on her goal, not the repetitive motions of her body. However, that focus led her to discomforting thoughts.

Why am I doing this? she wondered. Why push myself so hard? Spook said it – Luthadel has to have already fallen. There is no need for urgency.

And yet, she ran.

She saw images of death in her mind. Ham, Breeze, Dockson, Clubs, and dear, dear Sazed. The first real friends she had ever known. She loved Elend, and part of her blessed the others for sending him away from danger. However, the other piece of her was furious at them for sending her away. That fury guided her.

They let me abandon them. They forced me to abandon them!

Kelsier had spent months teaching her how to trust. His last words to her in life had been ones of accusation, and they were words she had never been able to escape. You still have a lot to learn about friendship, Vin.

He had gone on to risk his life to get Spook and OreSeur out of danger, fighting off – and eventually killing – a Steel Inquisitor. He had done this despite Vin’s protests that the risk was pointless.

She had been wrong.

How dare they! she thought, feeling the tears on her cheeks as she dashed down the canal’s highwaylike towpath. Pewter gave her inhuman balance, and the speed – which would have been perilous for anyone else – felt natural to her. She didn’t trip, she didn’t stumble, but an outside observer would think her pace reckless.

Trees whipped by. She leapt washouts and dips in the land. She ran as she had done only once before, and pushed herself even harder than she had on that day. Before, she had been running simply to keep up with Kelsier. Now she ran for those she loved.

How dare they! she thought again. How dare they not give me the same chance that Kelsier had! How dare they refuse my protection, refuse to let me help them!

How dare they die…

Her pewter was running low, and she was only a few hours into her run. True, she had probably covered an entire day’s worth of walking in those few hours. Yet, somehow, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. They were already dead. She was going to be too late, just as when she’d run years before. Too late to save their army. Too late to save her friends.

Vin continued to run. And she continued to cry.

“How did we get here, Clubs?” Breeze asked quietly, still on the floor of the courtyard, before the booming gate. He sat on his horse, amid a muddy mixture of falling snow and ash. The simple, quiet flutterings of white and black seemed to belie the screaming men, the breaking gate, and the falling rocks.

Clubs looked over at him, frowning. Breeze continued stare up at the ash and snow. Black and white. Lazy.

“We aren’t men of principle,” Breeze said quietly. “We’re thieves. Cynics. You, a man tired of doing the Lord Ruler’s bidding, a man determined to see himself get ahead for once. Me, a man of wavering morals who loves to toy with others, to make their emotions my game. How did we end up here? Standing at the head of an army, fighting an idealist’s cause? Men like us shouldn’t be leaders.”

Clubs watched the men in the courtyard. “Guess we’re just idiots,” he finally said.

Breeze paused, then noticed that glimmer in Clubs’s eyes. That spark of humor, the spark that was hard to recognize unless one knew Clubs very well. It was that spark that told the truth – that showed Clubs to be a man of rare understanding.

Breeze smiled. “I guess we are. Like we said before. It’s Kelsier’s fault. He turned us into idiots who would stand at the front of a doomed army.”

“That bastard,” Clubs said.

“Indeed,” Breeze said.

Ash and snow continued to fall. Men yelled in alarm.

And the gates burst open.

“The eastern gate has been breached, Master Terrisman!” Dockson’s messenger said, puffing slightly as he crouched beside Sazed. They both sat beneath the wall-top battlements, listening to the koloss pound on their own gate. The one that had fallen would be Zinc Gate, the one on the easternmost side of Luthadel.

“Zinc Gate is the most well defended,” Sazed said quietly. “They will be able to hold it, I think.”

The messenger nodded. Ash blew along the wall top, piling in the cracks and alcoves in the stone, the black flakes adulterated by the occasional bit of bone-white snow.

“Is there anything you wish me to report to Lord Dockson?” the messenger asked.

Sazed paused, glancing along his wall’s defenses. He’d climbed down from the watchtower, joining the regular ranks of men. The soldiers had run out of stones, though the archers were still working. He peeked over the side of the wall and saw the koloss corpses piling up. However, he also saw the splintered front of the gate. It’s amazing they can maintain such rage for so long, he thought, ducking back. The creatures continued to howl and scream, like feral dogs.

He sat back against the wet stone, shivering in the chill wind, his toes growing numb. He tapped his brassmind, drawing out the heat he’d stored therein, and his body suddenly flooded with a pleasant sensation of warmth.

“Tell Lord Dockson that I fear for this gate’s defenses,” Sazed said quietly. “The best men were stolen away to help with the eastern gates, and I have little confidence in our leader. If Lord Dockson could send someone else to be in charge, that would be for the best, I think.”

The messenger paused.

“What?” Sazed asked.

“Isn’t that why he sent you, Master Terrisman?”

Sazed frowned. “Please tell him I have even less confidence in my own ability to lead… or to fight… than I do in that of our commander.”

The messenger nodded and took off, scrambling down the steps toward his horse. Sazed cringed as a rock hit the wall just above him. Chips flipped over the merlon, scattering to the battlement in front of him. By the Forgotten Gods… Sazed thought, wringing his hands. What am I doing here?

He saw motion on the wall beside him, and turned as the youthful soldier captain – Captain Bedes – moved up to him, careful to keep his head down. Tall, with thick hair that grew down around his eyes, he was spindly even beneath his armor. The young man looked like he should have been dancing at balls, not leading soldiers in battle.

“What did the messenger say?” Bedes asked nervously.

“Zinc Gate has fallen, my lord,” Sazed replied.

The young captain paled. “What… what should we do?”

“Why ask me, my lord?” Sazed asked. “You are in command.”

“Please,” the man said, grabbing Sazed’s arm. “I don’t… I…”

“My lord,” Sazed said sternly, forcing down his own nervousness. “You are a nobleman, are you not?”

“Yes…”

“Then you are accustomed to giving orders,” Sazed said. “Give them now.”

“Which orders?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sazed said. “Let the men see that you are in charge.”

The young man wavered, then yelped and ducked as a rock took one of the nearby archers in the shoulder, throwing him back into the courtyard. The men below scrambled out of the way of the corpse, and Sazed noticed something odd. A group of people had gathered at the back of the courtyard. Civilians – skaa – in ash-stained clothing.

“What are they doing here?” Sazed asked. “They should be hiding, not standing here to tempt the koloss once the creatures break through!”

“Once they break through?” Captain Bedes asked.

Sazed ignored the man. Civilians he could deal with. He was accustomed to being in charge of a nobleman’s servants.

“I will go speak to them,” Sazed said.

“Yes…” Bedes said. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Sazed made his way down the steps, which were growing slick and wet with ashen slush, then approached the group of people. There were even more of them than he had assumed; they extended back into the street a short distance. The hundred or so people stood huddled together, watching the gates through the falling snow, looking cold, and Sazed felt a little guilty for his brassmind’s warmth.

Several of the people bowed their heads as Sazed approached.

“Why are you here?” Sazed asked. “Please, you must seek shelter. If your homes are near the courtyard, then go hide near the middle of the city. The koloss are likely to begin pillaging as soon as they finish with the army, so the edges of the city are more dangerous.”

None of the people moved.

“Please!” Sazed said. “You must go. If you stay, you will die!”

“We are not here to die, Holy First Witness,” said an elderly man at the front. “We are here to watch the koloss fall.”

“Fall?” Sazed asked.

“The Lady Heir will protect us,” said another woman.

“The Lady Heir has left the city!” Sazed said.

“Then we will watch you, Holy First Witness,” the man said, leaning with one hand on a young boy’s shoulder.

“Holy First Witness?” Sazed said. “Why call me this name?”

“You are the one who brought news of the Lord Ruler’s death,” the man said. “You gave the Lady Heir the spear she used to slay our lord. You were the witness to her actions.”

Sazed shook his head. “That may be true, but I am not worthy of reverence. I’m not a holy man, I’m just a…”

“A witness,” the old man said. “If the Heir is to join this fight, she will appear near you.”

“I… am sorry…” Sazed said, flushing. I sent her away. I sent your god to safety.

The people watched him, their eyes reverent. It was wrong; they should not worship him. He was simply an observer.

Except, he wasn’t. He had made himself part of this all. It was as Tindwyl had indirectly warned him. Now that Sazed had participated in events, he had become an object of worship himself.

“You should not look at me like that,” Sazed said.

“The Lady Heir says the same thing,” the old man said, smiling, breath puffing in the cold air.

“That is different,” Sazed said. “She is…” He cut off, turning as he heard cries from behind. The archers on the wall were waving in alarm, and young Captain Bedes was rushing over to them. What is–

A bestial blue creature suddenly pulled itself up onto the wall, its skin streaked and dripping with scarlet blood. It shoved aside a surprised archer, then grabbed Captain Bedes by the neck and tossed him backward. The boy disappeared, falling to the koloss below. Sazed heard the screams even from a distance. A second koloss pulled itself up onto the wall, then a third. Archers stumbled away in shock, dropping their weapons, some shoving others off the ramparts in their haste.

The koloss are jumping up, Sazed realized. Enough corpses must have piled below. And yet, to jump so high…

More and more creatures were pulling themselves onto the top of the wall. They were the largest of the monsters, the ones over ten feet in height, but that only made it easier for them to sweep the archers out of their way. Men fell to the courtyard, and the pounding on the gates redoubled.

“Go!” Sazed said, waving at the people behind him. Some of them backed away. Many stood firm.

Sazed turned desperately back toward the gates. The wooden structures began to crack, splinters spraying through the snowy, ash-laden air. The soldiers backed away, postures frightened. Finally, with a snap, the bar broke and the right gate burst open. A howling, bleeding, wild mass of koloss began to scramble across the wet stones.

Soldiers dropped their weapons and fled. Others remained, frozen with terror. Sazed stood at their back, between the horrified soldiers and the mass of skaa.

I am not a warrior, he thought, hands shaking as he stared at the monsters. It had been difficult enough to stay calm inside their camp. Watching them scream – their massive swords out, their skin ripped and bloodied as they fell upon the human soldiers – Sazed felt his courage begin to fail.

But if I don’t do something, nobody will.

He tapped pewter.

His muscles grew. He drew deeply upon his steelmind as he dashed forward, taking more strength than he ever had before. He had spent years storing up strength, rarely finding occasion to use it, and now he tapped that reserve.

His body changed, weak scholar’s arms transforming into massive, bulky limbs. His chest widened, bulging, and his muscles grew taut with power. Days spent fragile and frail focused on this single moment. He shoved his way through the ranks of soldiers, pulling his robe over his head as it grew too restrictive, leaving himself wearing only a vestigial loincloth.

The lead koloss turned to find himself facing a creature nearly his own size. Despite its rage, despite its inhumanness, the beast froze, surprise showing in its beady red eyes.

Sazed punched the monster. He hadn’t practiced for war, and knew next to nothing about combat. Yet, at that moment, his lack of skill didn’t matter. The creature’s face folded around his fist, its skull cracking.

Sazed turned on thick legs, looking back at the startled soldiers. Say something brave! he told himself.

“Fight!” Sazed bellowed, surprised at the sudden deepness and strength of his voice.

And, startlingly, they did.

Vin fell to her knees, exhausted on the muddy, ash-soaked highway. Her fingers and knees hit the slushy cold, but she didn’t care. She simply knelt, wheezing. She couldn’t run any farther. Her pewter was gone. Her lungs burned and her legs ached. She wanted to collapse and curl up, coughing.

It’s just the pewter drag, she thought forcibly. She’d pushed her body hard, but hadn’t had to pay for it until now.

She coughed a moment longer, groaning, then reached a dripping hand into her pocket and pulled out her last two vials. They had a mixture of all eight base metals, plus duralumin. Their pewter would keep her going for a little bit longer…

But not long enough. She was still hours away from Luthadel. Even with pewter, she wouldn’t arrive until long after dark. She sighed, replacing her vials, forcing herself to her feet.

What would I do if I arrived? Vin thought. Why work so hard? Am I that eager to fight again? To slaughter?

She knew that she wouldn’t arrive in time for the battle. In fact, the koloss had probably attacked days ago. Still, this worried her. Her attack on Cett’s keep still flashed horrific images in her head. Things she had done. Death she had caused.

And yet, something felt different to her now. She had accepted her place as a knife. But what was a knife, but another tool? It could be used for evil or for good; it could kill, or it could protect.

That point was moot, considering how weak she felt. It was hard to keep her legs from trembling as she flared tin, clearing her head. She stood on the imperial highway, a sodden, pockmarked roadway that looked – in the softly falling snow – to twist onward for eternity. It ran directly beside the imperial canal, which was a snakelike cut in the land, wide but empty, extending beside the highway.

Before, with Elend, this road had seemed bright and new. Now it looked dark and depressing. The Well thumped, its pulsings growing more powerful with each step she took back toward Luthadel. Yet, it wasn’t happening fast enough. Not fast enough for her to stop the koloss from taking the city.

Not fast enough for her friends.

I’m sorry… she thought, teeth chattering as she pulled her cloak tight, pewter no longer aiding her against the cold. I’m so sorry that I failed you.

She saw a line of smoke in the distance. She looked east, then west, but didn’t see much. The flat landscape was clouded in ashen snows.

A village, thought her still-numb mind. One of many in the area. Luthadel was by far the dominant city of the small dominance, but there were others. Elend hadn’t been able to keep the others completely free of banditry, but they had fared far better than towns in other areas of the Final Empire.

Vin stumbled forward, pressing on through the slushy black puddles toward the village. After about fifteen minutes of walking, she turned off the main highway and made her way up a side road to the village. It was small, even by skaa standards. Just a few hovels, along with a couple of nicer structures.

Not a plantation, Vin thought. This was once a way village – a place for traveling noblemen to stop for the evening. The small manor – which would have once been run by a minor noble landlord – was dark. Two of the skaa hovels, however, had light shining through the cracks. The gloomy weather must have convinced the people to retire from their labors early.

Vin shivered, walking up to one of the buildings, her tin-enhanced ears picking out sounds of talking inside. She paused, listening. Children laughed, and men spoke with gusto. She smelled what must have been the beginnings of the evening meal – a simple vegetable stew.

Skaa… laughing, she thought. A hovel like this one would have been a place of fear and gloom during the days of the Lord Ruler. Happy skaa had been considered underworked skaa.

We’ve meant something. It’s all meant something.

But was it worth the deaths of her friends? The fall of Luthadel? Without Elend’s protection, even this little village would soon be taken by one tyrant or another.

She drank in the sounds of laughter. Kelsier hadn’t given up. He had faced the Lord Ruler himself, and his last words had been defiant. Even when his plans had seemed hopeless, his own corpse lying in the street, he had secretly been victorious.

I refuse to give up, she thought, straightening. I refuse to accept their deaths until I hold their corpses in my arms.

She raised a hand and pounded on the door. Immediately, the sounds inside stopped. Vin extinguished her tin as the door creaked open. Skaa, especially country skaa, were skittish things. She’d probably have to–

“Oh, you poor thing!” the woman exclaimed, pulling the door open the rest of the way. “Come in out of that snow. What are you doing out there!”

Vin hesitated. The woman was dressed simply, but the clothing was well made to stave off the winter. The firepit in the center of the room glowed with a welcome warmth.

“Child?” the woman asked. Behind, a stocky, bearded man rose to place a hand on the woman’s shoulder and study Vin.

“Pewter,” Vin said quietly. “I need pewter.”

The couple looked at each other, frowning. They probably thought her mind addled. After all, how must she look, hair drenched by the snow, clothing wet and stuck with ash? She only wore simple riding clothing – trousers and a nondescript cloak.

“Why don’t you come inside, child?” the man suggested. “Have something to eat. Then we can talk about where you came from. Where are your parents?”

Lord Ruler! Vin thought with annoyance. I don’t look that young, do I?

She threw a Soothing on the couple, suppressing their concern and suspicion. Then, she Rioted their willingness to help. She wasn’t as good as Breeze, but she wasn’t unpracticed, either. The couple immediately relaxed.

“I don’t have much time,” Vin said. “Pewter.”

“The lord had some fine diningware in his home,” the man said slowly. “But we traded most of that for clothing and farming equipment. I think there are a couple of goblets left. Master Cled – our elder – has them in the other hovel…”

“That might work,” Vin said. Though the metal probably won’t be mixed with Allomantic percentages in mind. It would probably have too much silver or not enough tin, making the pewter work more weakly than it would otherwise.

The couple frowned, then looked at the others in the hovel.

Vin felt despair crawl back into her chest. What was she thinking? Even if the pewter were of the right alloy, it would take time to shave it and produce enough for her to use in running. Pewter burned relatively quickly. She’d need a lot of it. Preparing it could take almost as much time as simply walking to Luthadel.

She turned, looking south, through the dark, snowy sky. Even with pewter, it would take hours more running. What she really needed was a spikeway – a path marked by spikes driven in the ground that an Allomancer could push against, throwing themselves through the air again and again. On such an organized pathway, she’d once traveled from Luthadel to Fellise – an hour’s carriage ride – in under ten minutes.

But there was no spikeway from this village to Luthadel; there weren’t even ones along the main canal routes. They were too hard to set up, too specific in their usefulness, to be worth the bother of running them long distances…

Vin turned, causing the skaa couple to jump. Perhaps they’d noticed the daggers in her belt, or perhaps it was the look in her eyes, but they no longer looked quite as friendly as they had before.

“Is that a stable?” Vin said, nodding toward one of the dark buildings.

“Yes,” the man said hesitantly. “But we have no horses. Only a couple of goats and cows. Surely you don’t want to–”

“Horseshoes,” Vin said.

The man frowned.

“I need horseshoes,” Vin said. “A lot of them.”

“Follow me,” the man said, responding to her Soothing. He led her out into the cold afternoon. Others followed behind them, and Vin noticed a couple of men casually carrying cudgels. Perhaps it wasn’t just Elend’s protection that had allowed these people to remain unmolested.

The stocky man threw his weight against the stable door, pushing it to the side. He pointed to a barrel inside. “They were getting rusty anyway,” he said.

Vin walked up to the barrel and took out a horseshoe, testing its weight. Then she tossed it up in front of her and Pushed it with a solid flare of steel. It shot away, arcing far through the air until it splashed into a pool some hundred paces away.

Perfect, she thought.

The skaa men were staring. Vin reached into her pocket and pulled out one of her metal vials, downing its contents and restoring her pewter. She didn’t have much of it left by pewter-dragging standards, but she had plenty of steel and iron. Both burned slowly. She could Push and Pull on metals for hours yet.

“Prepare your village,” she said, burning pewter, then counting out ten horseshoes. “Luthadel is besieged – it might have fallen already. If you get word that it has, I suggest you take your people and move to Terris. Follow the imperial canal directly to the north.”

“Who are you?” the man asked.

“Nobody of consequence.”

He paused. “You’re her, aren’t you?”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. She simply dropped a horseshoe to the ground behind her.

“Yes,” she said quietly, then Pushed off of the shoe.

Immediately, she shot into the air at an angle. As she began to fall, she dropped another horseshoe. However, she waited until she was near the ground to Push against this one; she needed to keep herself going more forward than up.

She’d done all this before. It wasn’t that different from using coins to jump around. The trick was going to be to keep herself moving. As she Pushed against the second horseshoe – propelling herself into the snowy air again – she reached behind herself and Pulled hard on the first horseshoe.

The horseshoe wasn’t connected to anything, so it leaped into the air after her, crossing the distance through the sky as Vin dropped a third shoe to the ground. She let go of the first shoe, its momentum carrying it through the air above her head. It fell to the ground as she Pushed against the third shoe and Pulled on the second one, now far behind her.

This is going to be tough, Vin thought, frowning with concentration as she passed over the first shoe and Pushed on it. However, she didn’t get the angle right, and she fell too far before Pushing. The horseshoe shot out behind her, and didn’t give her enough upward momentum to keep her in the air. She hit the ground hard, but immediately Pulled the shoe to herself and tried again.

The first few tries were slow. The biggest problem was getting the angle down. She had to hit the shoe just right, giving it enough downward force to keep it in place on the ground, but enough forward motion to keep her moving in the right direction. She had to land often that first hour, going back to fetch horseshoes. However, she didn’t have time for much experimentation, and her determination insisted that she get the process right.

Eventually, she had three shoes working pretty well; it helped that the ground was wet, and that her weight pressed the horseshoes down in the mud, giving her a stronger anchor to use when Pushing herself forward. Soon she was able to add a fourth shoe. The more frequently she Pushed – the more horseshoes she had to Push against – the faster she would go.

By the time she was an hour out of the village, she added a fifth shoe. The result was a continuous flow of flipping metal chunks. Vin Pulled, then Pushed, then Pulled, then Pushed, moving with continual single-mindedness, juggling herself through the air.

The ground raced beneath her and horseshoes shot through the air above her. The wind became a roar as she Pushed herself faster and faster, steering her pathway to the south. She was a flurry of metal and motion – as Kelsier had been, near the end, when he had killed the Inquisitor.

Except, her metal wasn’t meant to kill, but save. I might not arrive in time, she thought, air rushing around her. But I’m not going to give up halfway.

53

STRAFF WAS ACTUALLY STARTING TO feel quite well as his army crested the last hill to overlook Luthadel. He’d discreetly tried a few drugs from his cabinet, and he was pretty certain he knew which one Amaranta had given him: Black Frayn. A nasty drug indeed. He’d have to wean himself from it slowly – but, for now, a few swallowed leaves made him stronger and more alert than he’d ever been before. In fact, he felt wonderful.

He was sure the same couldn’t be said for those in Luthadel. The koloss pooled around the outer wall, still beating on several of the gates on the north and east sides. Smoke rose from inside the city.

“Our scouts say the creatures have broken through four of the city gates, my lord,” said Lord Janarle. “They breached the eastern gate first, and there met with heavy resistance. The northeastern gate fell next, then the northwestern gate, but the troops at both are holding as well. The main breach happened in the north. The koloss are apparently ravaging from that direction, burning and looting.”

Straff nodded. The northern gate, he thought. The one closest to Keep Venture.

“Do we attack, my lord?” Janarle asked.

“How long ago did the northern gate fall?”

“Perhaps an hour ago, my lord.”

Straff shook his head leisurely. “Then, let us wait. The creatures worked quite hard to break into the city – we should at least let them have a little fun before we slaughter them.”

“Are you sure, my lord?”

Straff smiled. “Once they lose their bloodlust in a few hours, they’ll be tired from all the fighting and calm down. That will be the best time to strike. They’ll be dispersed through the city and weakened from the resistance. We can take them easily, that way.”

Sazed gripped his koloss opponent by the throat, forcing back its snarling, distorted face. The beast’s skin was stretched so tightly that it had split down the center of the face, revealing bloody muscles above the teeth, around the nose holes. It breathed with husky rage, spraying droplets of spittle and blood across Sazed with each exhalation.

Strength! Sazed thought, tapping his pewtermind for more power. His body became so massive that he feared splitting his own skin. Fortunately, his metalminds had been built to expand, braces and rings that didn’t connect on one side so that they could bend. Still, his bulk was daunting. He probably wouldn’t have been able to walk or maneuver with such size – but it didn’t matter, for the koloss had already knocked him to the ground. All he needed was some extra power in his grip. The creature clawed him in the arm with one hand, reaching behind with the other, grasping its sword…

Sazed’s fingers finally crushed the beast’s thick neck. The creature tried to snarl, but no breath came, and it instead thrashed about in frustration. Sazed forced himself to his feet, then hurled the creature toward its companions. With such unnatural strength, even a body eleven feet tall felt light in his fingers. It smashed into a pile of attacking koloss, forcing them backward.

Sazed stood, gasping. I’m using my strength up so quickly, he thought, releasing his pewtermind, his body deflating like a wineskin. He couldn’t continue tapping his reserves so much. He’d already used up a good half of his strength – strength that had taken decades to store. He still hadn’t used his rings, but he had only a few minutes of each attribute in those. They would wait for an emergency.

And that might be what I’m facing now, he thought with dread. They still held Steel Gate Square. Though koloss had broken through the gate, only a few could pass through at once – and only the most massive seemed able to jump up to the wall.

Sazed’s little troop of soldiers was sorely pressed, however. Bodies lay scattered in the courtyard. The skaa faithful at the back had begun pulling the wounded to safety. Sazed could hear them groaning behind him.

Koloss corpses littered the square as well, and despite the carnage, Sazed couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at how much it was costing the creatures to force their way inside this portal. Luthadel was not falling easily. Not at all.

The koloss seemed rebuffed for the moment, and though several skirmishes still continued in the courtyard, a new group of monsters was gathering outside the gate.

Outside the gate, Sazed thought, glancing to the side. The creatures had cared to break open only one of the massive door gates, the right one. There were corpses in the square – dozens, perhaps hundreds – but the koloss themselves had cleared many out of the way of the gate itself so that they could get into the courtyard.

Perhaps…

Sazed didn’t have time to think. He dashed forward, tapping his pewtermind again, giving himself the strength of five men. He picked up the body of a smaller koloss and threw it out the gate. The creatures outside snarled, scattering. There were still hundreds waiting for the chance to get in, but they tripped over the dead in their haste to get out of the way of his projectile.

Sazed slipped on blood as he grabbed a second body, throwing it to the side. “To me!” he screamed, hoping that there were men who could hear, and who could respond.

The koloss realized what he was doing too late. He kicked another body out of the way, then slammed his body against the open door and tapped his ironmind, drawing forth the weight he had stored within it. Immediately, he became far heavier, and that weight crashed against the gate, slamming it closed.

Koloss rushed at the doorway from the other side. Sazed scrambled up against the gate, pushing corpses out of the way, forcing the massive portal closed all the way. He tapped his ironmind further, draining its precious reserve at an alarming rate. He became so heavy he felt his own weight crushing him to the ground, and only his increased strength managed to keep him on his feet. Frustrated koloss pounded on the gate, but he held. Held them back, hands and chest pressed against the rough wood, toes wedged back against uneven cobbles. With his brassmind, he didn’t even feel the cold, though ash, snow, and blood mixed at his feet.

Men cried out. Some died. Others slammed their own weight against the gate, and Sazed spared a glance behind. The rest of his soldiers set up a perimeter, protecting the gate from the koloss inside the city. The men fought bravely, backs to the gate, only Sazed’s power keeping the portal from flying open.

And yet, they fought. Sazed cried out in defiance, feet slipping, holding the gate as his soldiers killed the remaining koloss in the courtyard. Then, a group of them rushed in from the side, bearing with them a large length of wood. Sazed didn’t know where they’d gotten it, nor did he care, as they slid it into place where the gate bar had been.

His weight ran out, the ironmind empty. I should have stored more of that, over the years, he thought with a sigh of exhaustion, sinking down before the closed gate. It had seemed like a lot, until he’d been forced to use it so often, using it to shove away koloss or the like.

I usually just stored up weight as a side effect of making myself lighter. That always seemed the more useful way to use iron.

He released pewter, and felt his body deflating. Fortunately, stretching his body in such a manner didn’t leave his skin loose. He went back to his usual self, only bearing a dreadful sense of exhaustion and a faint soreness. The koloss continued to beat on the gate. Sazed opened tired eyes, lying bare-chested in the falling snow and ash. His soldiers stood solemnly before him.

So few, he thought. Barely fifty remained of his original four hundred. The square itself was red – as if painted – with bright koloss blood, and it mixed with the darker human kind. Sickly blue lumps of bodies lay alone or in heaps, interspersed with the twisted and torn pieces that were often all that remained of human bodies once they were hit by the brutal koloss swords.

The thumping continued, like low drums, on the other side of the gate. The beating picked up to a frenzied pace, the gate shaking, as the koloss grew more frustrated. They could probably smell the blood, feel the flesh that had so nearly been theirs.

“That board won’t hold for long,” one of the soldiers said quietly, a bit of ash floating down in front of his face. “And the hinges are splintering. They’re going to get through again.”

Sazed stumbled to his feet. “And we will fight again.”

“My lord!” a voice said. Sazed turned to see one of Dockson’s messengers ride around a pile of corpses. “Lord Dockson says that…” He trailed off, noticing for the first time that Sazed’s gate was closed. “How…” the man began.

“Deliver your message, young man,” Sazed said tiredly.

“Lord Dockson says you won’t get any reinforcements,” the man said, reining in his horse. “Tin Gate has fallen, and–”

“Tin Gate?” Sazed asked. Tindwyl! “When?”

“Over an hour ago, my lord.”

An hour? he thought with shock. How long have we been fighting?

“You have to hold here, my lord!” the young man said, turning and galloping back the way he had come.

Sazed took a step to the east. Tindwyl…

The thumping on his gate grew louder, and the board began to crack. The men ran for something else to use to secure the gate, but Sazed could see that the mountings that kept the board in place were beginning to pull apart. Once they went, there would be no way to hold the gate closed.

Sazed closed his eyes, feeling the weight of fatigue, reaching into his pewtermind. It was nearly drained. After it was gone, he’d only have the tiny bit of strength in one of the rings.

Yet, what else could he do?

He heard the board snap, and men yelled.

“Back!” Clubs yelled. “Fall into the city!”

The remnants of their army broke apart, pulling back from Zinc Gate. Breeze watched with horror as more and more koloss spilled into the square, overrunning the few men too weak or too wounded to retreat. The creatures swept forward like a great blue tide, a tide with swords of steel and eyes of red.

In the sky, the sun – only faintly visible behind storm clouds – was a bleeding scar that crept toward the horizon.

“Breeze,” Clubs snapped, pulling him back. “Time to go.”

Their horses had long since bolted. Breeze stumbled after the general, trying not to listen to the snarling from behind.

“Fall back to the harrying positions!” Clubs called to those men who could hear him. “First squad, shore up inside Keep Lekal! Lord Hammond should be there by now, preparing the defenses! Squad two, with me to Keep Hasting!”

Breeze continued on, his mind as numb as his feet. He’d been virtually useless in the battle. He’d tried to take away the men’s fear, but his efforts had seemed so inadequate. Like… holding a piece of paper up to the sun to make shade.

Clubs held up a hand, and the squad of two hundred men stopped. Breeze looked around. The street was quiet in the falling ash and snow. Everything seemed… dull. The sky was dim, the city’s features softened by the blanket of black-speckled snow. It seemed so strange to have fled the horrific scene of scarlet and blue to find the city looking so lazy.

“Damn!” Clubs snapped, pushing Breeze out of the way as a raging group of koloss burst from a side street. Clubs’s soldiers fell into a line, but another group of koloss – the creatures that had just burst through the gate – came up behind them.

Breeze stumbled, falling in the snow. That other group… it came from the north! The creatures have infiltrated the city this far already?

“Clubs!” Breeze said, turning. “We–”

Breeze looked just in time to see a massive koloss sword sheer through Clubs’s upraised arm, then continue on to hit the general in the ribs. Clubs grunted, thrown to the side, his sword arm – weapon and all – flying free. He stumbled on his bad leg, and the koloss brought his sword down in a two-handed blow.

The dirty snow finally got some color. A splash of red.

Breeze stared, dumbfounded, at the remains of his friend’s corpse. Then the koloss turned toward Breeze, snarling.

The likelihood of his own impending death hit, stirring him as even the cold snow couldn’t. Breeze scrambled back, sliding in the snow, instinctively reaching out to try and Soothe the creature. Of course, nothing happened. Breeze tried to get to his feet, and the koloss – along with several others – began to bear down on him. At that moment, however, another troop of soldiers fleeing the gate appeared from a cross street, distracting the koloss.

Breeze did the only thing that seemed natural. He crawled inside a building and hid.

“This is all Kelsier’s fault,” Dockson muttered, making another notation on his map. According to messengers, Ham had reached Keep Lekal. It wouldn’t last long.

The Venture grand hall was a flurry of motion and chaos as panicked scribes ran this way and that, finally realizing that koloss didn’t care if a man were skaa, scholar, nobleman, or merchant. The creatures just liked to kill.

“He should have seen this coming,” Dockson continued. “He left us with this mess, and then he just assumed that we’d find a way to fix it. Well, I can’t hide a city from its enemies – not like I hid a crew. Just because we were excellent thieves doesn’t mean we’d be any good at running a kingdom!”

Nobody was listening to him. His messengers had all fled, and his guards fought at the keep gates. Each of the keeps had its own defenses, but Clubs – rightly – had decided to use them only as a fallback option. They weren’t designed to repel a large-scale attack, and they were too secluded from each other. Retreating to them only fractured and isolated the human army.

“Our real problem is follow-through,” Dockson said, making a final notation at Tin Gate, explaining what had happened there. He looked over the map. He’d never expected Sazed’s gate to be the last one to hold.

“Follow-through,” he continued. “We assumed we could do a better job than the noblemen, but once we had the power, we put them back in charge. If we’d killed the whole lot, perhaps then we could have started fresh. Of course, that would have meant invading the other dominances – which would have meant sending Vin to take care of the most important, most problematic, noblemen. There would have been a slaughter like the Final Empire had never seen. And, if we’d done that…”

He trailed off, looking up as one of the massive, majestic stained-glass windows shattered. The others began to explode as well, broken by thrown rocks. A few large koloss jumped through the holes, landing on the shard-strewn marble floor. Even broken, the windows were beautiful, the spiked glass edges twinkling in the evening light. Through one of them, Dockson could see that the storm was breaking, letting sunlight through.

“If we’d done that,” Dockson said quietly, “we’d have been no better than beasts.”

Scribes screamed, trying to flee as the koloss began the slaughter. Dockson stood quietly, hearing noise behind – grunts, harsh breathing – as koloss approached through the back hallways. He reached for the sword on his table as men began to die.

He closed his eyes. You know, Kell, he thought. I almost started to believe that they were right, that you were watching over us. That you were some sort of god.

He opened his eyes and turned, pulling the sword from its sheath. Then he froze, staring at the massive beast approaching from behind. So big!

Dockson gritted his teeth, sending a final curse Kelsier’s way, then charged, swinging.

The creature caught his weapon in an indifferent hand, ignoring the cut it caused. Then, it brought its own weapon down, and blackness followed.

“My lord,” Janarle said. “The city has fallen. Look, you can see it burning. The koloss have penetrated all but one of the four gates under attack, and they run wild in the city. They aren’t stopping to pillage – they’re just killing. Slaughtering. There aren’t many soldiers left to oppose them.”

Straff sat quietly, watching Luthadel burn. It seemed… a symbol to him. A symbol of justice. He’d fled this city once, leaving it to the skaa vermin inside, and when he’d come back to demand it be returned to him, the people had resisted.

They had been defiant. They had earned this.

“My lord,” Janarle said. “The koloss army is weakened enough already. Their numbers are hard to count, but the corpses they left behind indicate that as much as a third of their force has fallen. We can take them!”

“No,” Straff said, shaking his head. “Not yet.”

“My lord?” Janarle said.

“Let the koloss have the damn city,” Straff said quietly. “Let them clear it out and burn the whole thing to the ground. Fires can’t hurt our atium – in fact, they’ll probably make the metal easier to find.”

“I…” Janarle seemed shocked. He didn’t object further, but his eyes were rebellious.

I’ll have to take care of him later, Straff thought. He’ll rise against me if he finds that Zane is gone.

That didn’t matter at the moment. The city had rejected him, and so it would die. He’d build a better one in its place.

One dedicated to Straff, not the Lord Ruler.

“Father!” Allrianne said urgently.

Cett shook his head. He sat on his horse, beside his daughter’s horse, on a hill to the west of Luthadel. He could see Straff’s army, gathered to the north, watching – as he watched – the death throes of a doomed city.

“We have to help!” Allrianne insisted.

“No,” Cett said quietly, shrugging off the effects of her Raging his emotions. He’d grown used to her manipulations long ago. “Our help wouldn’t matter now.”

“We have to do something!” Allrianne said, pulling his arm.

“No,” Cett said more forcefully.

“But you came back!” she said. “Why did we return, if not to help?”

“We will help,” Cett said quietly. “We’ll help Straff take the city when he wishes, then we’ll submit to him and hope he doesn’t kill us.”

Allrianne paled. “That’s it?” she hissed. “That’s why we returned, so that you can give our kingdom to that monster?”

“What else did you expect?” Cett demanded. “You know me, Allrianne. You know that this is the choice I have to make.”

“I thought I knew you,” she snapped. “I thought you were a good man, down deep.”

Cett shook his head. “The good men are all dead, Allrianne. They died inside that city.”

Sazed fought on. He was no warrior; he didn’t have honed instincts or training. He calculated that he should have died hours before. And yet, somehow, he managed to stay alive.

Perhaps it was because the koloss didn’t fight with skill, either. They were blunt – like their giant, wedgelike swords – and they simply threw themselves at their opponents with little thought of tactics.

That should have been enough. Yet, Sazed held – and where he held, his few men held with him. The koloss had rage on their side, but Sazed’s men could see the weak and elderly standing, waiting, just at the edge of the square. The soldiers knew why they fought. This reminder seemed enough to keep them going, even when they began to be surrounded, the koloss working their way into the edges of the square.

Sazed knew, by now, that no relief was going to come. He’d hoped, perhaps, that Straff would decide to take the city, as Clubs had suggested. But it was too late for that; night was approaching, the sun inching toward the horizon.

The end is finally here, Sazed thought as the man next to him was struck down. Sazed slipped on blood, and the move saved him as the koloss swung over his head.

Perhaps Tindwyl had found a way to safety. Hopefully, Elend would deliver the things he and she had studied. They were important, Sazed thought, even if he didn’t know why.

Sazed attacked, swinging the sword he’d taken from a koloss. He enhanced his muscles in a final burst as he swung, giving them strength right as the sword met koloss flesh.

He hit. The resistance, the wet sound of impact, the shock up his arm – these were familiar to him now. Bright koloss blood sprayed across him, and another of the monsters fell.

And Sazed’s strength was gone.

Pewter tapped clean, the koloss sword was now heavy in his hands. He tried to swing it at the next koloss in line, but the weapon slipped from his weak, numb, tired fingers.

This koloss was a big one. Nearing twelve feet tall, it was the largest of the monsters Sazed had seen. Sazed tried to step away, but he stumbled over the body of a recently killed soldier. As he fell, his men finally broke, the last dozen scattering. They’d held well. Too well. Perhaps if he’d let them retreat…

No, Sazed thought, looking up at his death. I did well, I think. Better than any mere scholar should have been able to.

He thought about the rings on his fingers. They could, perhaps, give him a little bit of an edge, let him run. Flee. Yet, he couldn’t summon the motivation. Why resist? Why had he resisted in the first place? He’d known that they were doomed.

You’re wrong about me, Tindwyl, he thought. I do give up, sometimes. I gave up on this city long ago.

The koloss loomed over Sazed, who still lay half sprawled in the bloody slush, and raised its sword. Over the creature’s shoulder, Sazed could see the red sun hanging just above the top of the wall. He focused on that, rather than on the falling sword. He could see rays of sunlight, like… shards of glass in the sky.

The sunlight seemed to sparkle, twinkling, coming for him. As if the sun itself were welcoming him. Reaching down to accept his spirit.

And so, I die…

A twinkling droplet of light sparkled in the beam of sunlight, then hit the koloss directly in the back of the skull. The creature grunted, stiffening, dropping its sword. It collapsed to the side, and Sazed lay, stupefied, on the ground for a moment. Then he looked up at the top of the wall.

A small figure stood silhouetted by the sun. Black before the red light, a cloak flapped gently on her back. Sazed blinked. The bit of sparkling light he’d seen… it had been a coin. The koloss before him was dead.

Vin had returned.

She jumped, leaping as only an Allomancer could, to soar in a graceful arc above the square. She landed directly in the midst of the koloss and spun. Coins shot out like angry insects, cutting through blue flesh. The creatures didn’t drop as easily as humans would have, but the attack got their attention. The koloss turned away from the fleeing soldiers and defenseless townspeople.

The skaa at the back of the square began to chant. It was a bizarre sound to hear in the middle of a battle. Sazed sat up, ignoring his pains and exhaustion as Vin jumped. The city gate suddenly lurched, its hinges twisting. The koloss had already beaten on it so hard…

The massive wooden portal burst free from the wall, Pulled by Vin. Such power, Sazed thought numbly. She must be Pulling on something behind herself – but, that would mean that poor Vin is being yanked between two weights as heavy as that gate.

And yet, she did it, lifting the gate door with a heave, Pulling it toward herself. The huge hardwood gate crashed through the koloss ranks, scattering bodies. Vin twisted expertly in the air, Pulling herself to the side, swinging the gate to the side as if it were tethered to her by a chain.

Koloss flew in the air, bones cracking, sprayed like splinters before the enormous weapon. In a single sweep, Vin cleared the entire courtyard.

The gate dropped. Vin landed amid a group of crushed bodies, silently kicking a soldier’s war staff up into her hands. The remaining koloss outside the gate paused only briefly, then charged. Vin began to attack swiftly, but precisely. Skulls cracked, koloss falling dead in the slush as they tried to pass her. She spun, sweeping a few of them to the ground, spraying ashen red slush across those running up behind.

I… I have to do something, Sazed thought, shaking off his stupefaction. He was still bare-chested, the cold ignored because of his brassmind – which was nearly empty. Vin continued to fight, felling koloss after koloss. Even her strength won’t last forever. She can’t save the city.

Sazed forced himself to his feet, then moved toward the back of the square. He grabbed the old man at the front of the crowd of skaa, shaking the man out of his chanting. “You were right,” Sazed said. “She returned.”

“Yes, Holy First Witness.”

“She will be able to give us some time, I think,” Sazed said. “The koloss have broken into the city. We need to gather what people we can and escape.”

The old man paused, and for a moment Sazed thought he would object – that he would claim Vin would protect them, would defeat the entire army. Then, thankfully, he nodded.

“We’ll run out the northern gate,” Sazed said urgently. “That is where the koloss first entered the city, and so it is likely that they have moved on from that area.”

I hope, Sazed thought, rushing off to raise the warning. The fallback defensive positions were supposed to be the high noble keeps. Perhaps they would find survivors there.

So, Breeze thought, it turns out that I’m a coward.

It was not a surprising revelation. He had always said that it was important for a man to understand himself, and he had always been aware of his selfishness. So, he was not at all shocked to find himself huddling against the flaking bricks of an old skaa home, shutting his ears to the screams just outside.

Where was the proud man now? The careful diplomat, the Soother with his immaculate suits? He was gone, leaving behind this quivering, useless mass. He tried several times to burn brass, to Soothe the men fighting outside. However, he couldn’t accomplish this most simple of actions. He couldn’t even move.

Unless one counted trembling as movement.

Fascinating, Breeze thought, as if looking at himself from the outside, seeing the pitiful creature in the ripped, bloodied suit. So this is what happens to me, when the stress gets too strong? It’s ironic, in a way. I’ve spent a lifetime controlling the emotions of others. Now I’m so afraid, I can’t even function.

The fighting continued outside. It was going on an awful long time. Shouldn’t those soldiers be dead?

“Breeze?”

He couldn’t move to see who it was. Sounds like Ham. That’s funny. He should be dead, too.

“Lord Ruler!” Ham said, coming into Breeze’s view. He wore a bloodied sling on one arm. He fell urgently to Breeze’s side. “Breeze, can you hear me?”

“We saw him duck in here, my lord,” another voice said. A soldier? “Took shelter from the fight. We could feel him Soothing us, though. Kept us fighting, even when we should have given up. After Lord Cladent died…”

I’m a coward.

Another figure appeared. Sazed, looking concerned. “Breeze,” Ham said, kneeling. “My keep fell, and Sazed’s gate is down. We haven’t heard anything from Dockson in over an hour, and we found Clubs’s body. Please. The koloss are destroying the city. We need to know what to do.”

Well, don’t ask me, Breeze said – or tried to say. He thought it came out as a mumble.

“I can’t carry you, Breeze,” Ham said. “My arm is nearly useless.”

Well, that’s all right, Breeze mumbled. You see, my dear man, I don’t think I’m of much use anymore. You should move on. It’s quite all right if you just leave me here.

Ham looked up at Sazed, helpless.

“Hurry, Lord Hammond,” Sazed said. “We can have the soldiers carry the wounded. We will make our way to Keep Hasting. Perhaps we can find sanctuary there. Or… perhaps the koloss will be distracted enough to let us slip out of the city.”

Distracted? Breeze mumbled. Distracted by the killing of other people, you mean. Well, it is somewhat comforting to know that we’re all cowards. Now, if I could just lie here for a little longer, I might be able to fall asleep…

And forget all of this.

54

VIN’S STAFF BROKE AS SHE slammed it across a koloss face.

Not again, she thought with frustration, spinning and ramming the broken shard into another creature’s chest. She turned and came face-to-face with one of the big ones, a good five feet taller than she.

It thrust its sword toward her. Vin jumped, and the sword collided with broken cobblestones beneath her. She shot upward, not needing any coins to carry herself up to eye level with the creature’s twisted face.

They always looked surprised. Even after watching her fight dozens of their companions, they seemed shocked to see her dodge their blows. Their minds seemed to equate size with power; a larger koloss always beat a smaller one. A five-foot-tall human should have been no problem for a monster this big.

Vin flared pewter as she smashed her fist into the beast’s head. The skull cracked beneath her knuckles, and the beast fell backward as she dropped back to the ground. Yet, as always, there was another to take its place.

She was getting tired. No, she’d started the battle tired. She’d pewter-dragged, then used a convoluted personal spikeway to carry herself across an entire dominance. She was exhausted. Only the pewter in her last metal vial was keeping her upright.

I should have asked Sazed for one of his empty pewterminds! she thought. Feruchemical and Allomantic metals were the same. She could have burned that – though it would probably have been a bracer or a bracelet. To large to swallow.

She ducked to the side as another koloss attacked. Coins didn’t stop these things, and they all weighed too much for her to Push them away without an anchor. Besides, her steel and iron reserves were extremely low.

She killed koloss after koloss, buying time for Sazed and the people to get a good head start. Something was different this time – different from when she’d killed at Cett’s palace. She felt good. It wasn’t just because she killed monsters.

It was because she understood her purpose. And she agreed with it. She could fight, could kill, if it meant defending those who could not defend themselves. Kelsier might have been able to kill for shock or retribution, but that wasn’t good enough for Vin.

And she would never let it be again.

That determination fueled her attacks against the koloss. She used a stolen sword to cut off the legs of one, then threw the weapon at another, Pushing on it to impale the koloss in the chest. Then she Pulled on the sword of a fallen soldier, yanking it into her hand. She ducked backward, but nearly stumbled as she stepped on another body.

So tired, she thought.

There were dozens – perhaps even hundreds – of corpses in the courtyard. In fact, a pile was forming beneath her. She climbed it, retreating slightly as the creatures surrounded her again. They crawled over the corpses of their fallen brethren, rage frothing in their blood-drop eyes. Human soldiers would have given up, going to seek easier fights. The koloss, however, seemed to multiply as she fought them, others hearing the sounds of battle and coming to join in.

She swiped, pewter aiding her strength as she cut off an arm from one koloss, then a leg from another, before finally going for the head of a third. She ducked and dodged, jumping, staying out of their reach, killing as many as she could.

But as desperate as her determination – as strong as her newfound resolve to defend – she knew that she couldn’t keep fighting, not like this. She was only one person. She couldn’t save Luthadel, not alone.

“Lord Penrod!” Sazed yelled, standing at the gates to Keep Hasting. “You must listen to me.”

There was no response. The soldiers at the top of the short keep wall were quiet, though Sazed could sense their discomfort. They didn’t like ignoring him. In the distance, the battle still raged. Koloss screamed in the night. Soon they would find their way to Sazed and Ham’s growing band of several thousand, who now huddled quietly outside Keep Hasting’s gate.

A haggard messenger approached Sazed. He was the same one that Dockson had been sending to Steel Gate. He’d lost his horse somewhere, and they’d found him with a group of refugees in the Square of the Survivor.

“Lord Terrisman,” the messenger said quietly. “I… just got back from the command post. Keep Venture has fallen…”

“Lord Dockson?”

The man shook his head. “We found a few wounded scribes hiding outside the keep. They saw him die. The koloss are still in the building, breaking windows, rooting about…”

Sazed turned back, looking over the city. So much smoke billowed in the sky that it seemed the mists had come already. He’d begun filling his scent tinmind to keep the stench away.

The battle for the city might be over, but now the true tragedy would begin. The koloss in the city had finished killing soldiers. Now they would slaughter the people. There were hundreds of thousands of them, and Sazed knew the creatures would gleefully extend the devastation. No looting. Not when there was killing to be done.

More screams sounded in the night. They’d lost. Failed. And now, the city would truly fall.

The mists can’t be far away, he thought, trying to give himself some hope. Perhaps that will give us some cover.

Still, one image stood out to him. Clubs, dead in the snow. The wooden disk Sazed had given him earlier that same day tied to a loop around his neck.

It hadn’t helped.

Sazed turned back to Keep Hasting. “Lord Penrod,” he said loudly. “We are going to try and slip out of the city. I would welcome your troops and your leadership. If you stay here, the koloss will attack this keep and kill you.”

Silence.

Sazed turned, sighing as Ham – arm still in a sling – joined him. “We have to go, Saze,” Ham said quietly.

“You’re bloody, Terrisman.”

Sazed turned. Ferson Penrod stood on the top of his wall, looking down. He still looked immaculate in his nobleman’s suit. He even wore a hat against the snow and ash. Sazed looked down at himself. He still wore only his loincloth. He hadn’t had time to worry about clothing, particularly with his brassmind to keep him warm.

“I’ve never seen a Terrisman fight,” Penrod said.

“It is not a common occurrence, my lord,” Sazed replied.

Penrod looked up, staring out over the city. “It’s falling, Terrisman.”

“That is why we must go, my lord,” Sazed said.

Penrod shook his head. He still wore Elend’s thin crown. “This is my city, Terrisman. I will not abandon it.”

“A noble gesture, my lord,” Sazed said. “But these with me are your people. Will you abandon them in their flight northward?”

Penrod paused. Then he just shook his head again. “There will be no flight northward, Terrisman. Keep Hasting is among the tallest structures in the city – from it, we can see what the koloss are doing. They will not let you escape.”

“They may turn to pillaging,” Sazed said. “Perhaps we can get by them and escape.”

“No,” Penrod said, his voice echoing hauntingly across the snowy streets. “My Tineye claims the creatures have already attacked the people you sent to escape through the northern gate. Now the koloss have turned this way. They’re coming for us.”

As cries began to echo through the distant streets, coming closer, Sazed knew that Penrod’s words must be true. “Open your gates, Penrod!” Sazed yelled. “Let the refugees in!” Save their lives for a few more pitiful moments.

“There is no room,” Penrod said. “And there is no time. We are doomed.”

“You must let us in!” Sazed screamed.

“It is odd,” Penrod said, voice growing softer. “By taking this throne from the Venture boy, I saved his life – and I ended my own. I could not save the city, Terrisman. My only consolation is that I doubt Elend could have done so either.”

He turned to go, walking down somewhere beyond the wall.

“Penrod!” Sazed yelled.

He did not reappear. The sun was setting, the mists were appearing, and the koloss were coming.

Vin cut down another koloss, then jumped back, Pushing herself off of a fallen sword. She shot away from the pack, breathing heavily, bleeding from a couple of minor cuts. Her arm was growing numb; one of the creatures had punched her there. She could kill – kill better than anyone she knew. However, she couldn’t fight forever.

She landed on a rooftop, then stumbled, falling to kneel in a pile of snow. The koloss called and howled behind her, and she knew they would come, chasing her, hounding her. She’d killed hundreds of them, but what was a few hundred when compared with an army of over twenty thousand?

What did you expect? she thought to herself. Why keep fighting once you knew Sazed was free? Did you think to stop them all? Kill every koloss in the army?

Once, she’d stopped Kelsier from rushing an army by himself. He had been a great man, but still just one person. He couldn’t have stopped an entire army – no more than she could.

I have to find the Well, she thought with determination, burning bronze, the thumpings – which she’d been ignoring during the battle – becoming loud to her ears.

And yet, that left her with the same problem as before. She knew it was in the city now; she could feel the thumpings all around her. Yet, they were so powerful, so omnipresent, that she couldn’t sense a direction from them.

Besides, what proof did she have that finding the Well would even help? If Sazed had lied about the location – had gone so far as to draw up a fake map – then what else had he lied about? The power might stop the mists, but what good would that do for Luthadel, burning and dying?

She knelt in frustration, pounding the top of the roof with her fists. She had proven too weak. What good was it to return – what good was it to decide to protect – if she couldn’t do anything to help?

She knelt for a few moments, breathing in gasps. Finally, she forced herself to her feet and jumped into the air, throwing down a coin. Her metals were nearly gone. She barely had enough steel to carry her through a few jumps. She ended up slowing near Kredik Shaw, the Hill of a Thousand Spires. She caught one of the spikes at the top of the palace, spinning in the night, looking out over the darkening city.

It was burning.

Kredik Shaw itself was silent, quiet, left alone by looters of both races. Yet, all around her, Vin saw light in the darkness. The mists glowed with a haunting light.

It’s like… like that day two years ago, she thought. The night of the skaa rebellion. Except, on that day, the firelight had come from the torches of the rebels as they marched on the palace. This night, a revolution of a different type was occurring. She could hear it. She had her tin burning, and she forced herself to flare it, opening her ears. She heard the screams. The death. The koloss hadn’t finished their killing work by destroying the army. Not by far.

They had only just begun.

The koloss are killing them all, she thought, shivering as the fires burned before her. Elend’s people, the ones he left behind because of me. They’re dying.

I am his knife. Their knife. Kelsier trusted me with them. I should be able to do something…

She dropped toward the ground, skidding off an angled rooftop, landing in the palace courtyard. Mists gathered around her. The air was thick. And not just with ash and snow; she could smell death in its breezes, hear screams in its whispers.

Her pewter ran out.

She slumped to the ground, a wave of exhaustion hitting her so hard that everything else seemed inconsequential. She suddenly knew she shouldn’t have relied on the pewter so much. Shouldn’t have pushed herself so hard. But, it had seemed like the only way.

She felt herself begin to slip into unconsciousness.

But people were screaming. She could hear them – had heard them before. Elend’s city… Elend’s people… dying. Her friends were out there somewhere. Friends that Kelsier had trusted her to protect.

She gritted her teeth, shoving aside the exhaustion for a moment longer, struggling up to her feet. She looked through the mists, toward the phantom sounds of terrified people. She began to dash toward them.

She couldn’t jump; she was out of steel. She couldn’t even run very fast, but as she forced her body to move, it responded better and better, fighting off the dull numbness that she’d earned from relying on pewter so long.

She burst out of an alleyway, skidding in the snow, and found a small group of people running before a koloss raiding party. There were six of the beasts, small ones, but still dangerous. Even as Vin watched, one of the creatures cut down an elderly man, slicing him nearly in two. Another picked up a small girl, slamming her against the side of a building.

Vin dashed forward, past the fleeing skaa, whipping out her daggers. She still felt exhausted, but adrenaline helped her somewhat. She had to keep moving. Keep going. To stop was to die.

Several of the beasts turned toward her, eager to fight. One swung for her, and Vin let herself slide in the slush – slipping closer to him – before cutting the back of his leg. He howled in pain as her knife got caught in his baggy skin. She managed to yank it free as a second creature swung.

I feel so slow! she thought with frustration, barely sliding to her feet before backing away from the creature’s reach. His sword sprayed chill water across her, and she jumped forward, planting a dagger in the creature’s eye.

Suddenly thankful for the times Ham had made her practice without Allomancy, she caught the side of a building to steady herself in the slush. Then she threw herself forward, shouldering the koloss with the wounded eye – he was clawing at the dagger and yelling – into his companions. The koloss with the young girl turned, shocked, as Vin rammed her other dagger into his back. He didn’t drop, but he did let go of the child.

Lord Ruler, these things are tough! she thought, cloak whipping as she grabbed the child and dashed away. Especially when you’re not tough yourself. I need some more metals.

The girl in Vin’s arms cringed as a koloss howl sounded, and Vin spun, flaring her tin to keep herself from falling unconscious from her fatigue. The creatures weren’t following, however – they were arguing over a bit of clothing the dead man had been wearing. The howl sounded again, and this time, Vin realized, it had come from another direction.

People began to scream again. Vin looked up, only to find those she’d just rescued facing down an even larger group of koloss.

“No!” Vin said, raising a hand. But, they’d run far while she’d been fighting. She wouldn’t even have been able to see them, save for her tin. As it was, she was able to see painfully well as the creatures began to lay into the small group with their thick-bladed swords.

“No!” Vin screamed again, the deaths startling her, shocking her, standing as a reminder of all the deaths she’d been unable to prevent.

“No. No! No!”

Pewter, gone. Steel, gone. Iron, gone. She had nothing.

Or… she had one thing. Not even pausing to think on what prompted her to use it, she threw a duralumin-enhanced Soothing at the beasts.

It was as if her mind slammed into Something. And then, that Something shattered. Vin skidded to a halt, shocked, child still in her arms as the koloss stopped, frozen in their horrific act of slaughter.

What did I just do? she thought, tracing through her muddled mind, trying to connect why she had reacted as she had. Was it because she had been frustrated?

No. She knew that the Lord Ruler had built the Inquisitors with a weakness: Remove a particular spike from their back, and they’d die. He had also built the kandra with a weakness. The koloss had to have a weakness, too.

TenSoon called the koloss… his cousins, she thought.

She stood upright, the dark street suddenly quiet save for the whimpering skaa. The koloss waited, and she could feel herself in their minds. As if they were an extension of her own body, the same thing she had felt when she’d taken control of TenSoon’s body.

Cousins indeed. The Lord Ruler had built the koloss with a weakness – the same weakness as the kandra. He had given himself a way to keep them in check.

And suddenly she understood how he’d controlled them all those long years.

Sazed stood at the head of his large band of refugees, snow and ash – the two now indistinguishable in the misty darkness – falling around him. Ham sat to one side, looking drowsy. He’d lost too much blood; a man without pewter would have died by now. Someone had given Sazed a cloak, but he had used it to wrap the comatose Breeze. Even though be barely tapped his brassmind for warmth, Sazed himself wasn’t cold.

Maybe he was just getting too numb to care.

He held two hands up before him, forming fists, ten rings sparkling against the light of the group’s single lantern. Koloss approached from the dark alleyways, their forms huddled shadows in the night.

Sazed’s soldiers backed away. There was little hope left in them. Sazed alone stood in the quiet snow, a spindly, bald scholar, nearly naked. He, the one who preached the end. He, who should have had the most faith of all.

Ten rings. A few minutes of power. A few minutes of life.

He waited as the koloss gathered. The beasts grew strangely silent in the night. They stopped approaching. They stood still, a line of dark, moundlike silhouettes in the night.

Why don’t they attack! Sazed thought, frustrated.

A child whimpered. Then, the koloss began to move again. Sazed tensed, but the creatures didn’t walk forward. They split, and a quiet figure walked through the center of them.

“Lady Vin?” Sazed asked. He still hadn’t had a chance to speak with her since she’d saved him at the gate. She looked exhausted.

“Sazed,” she said tiredly. “You lied to me about the Well of Ascension.”

“Yes, Lady Vin,” he said.

“That isn’t important now,” she said. “Why are you standing naked outside of the keep’s walls?”

“I…” He looked up at the koloss. “Lady Vin, I–”

“Penrod!” Vin shouted suddenly. “Is that you up there?”

The king appeared. He looked as confused as Sazed felt.

“Open your gates!” Vin yelled.

“Are you mad?” Penrod yelled back.

“I’m not sure,” Vin said. She turned, and a group of koloss moved forward, walking quietly as if commanded. The largest one picked Vin up, holding her up high, until she was nearly level with the top of the keep’s low wall. Several guards atop the wall shied away from her.

“I’m tired, Penrod,” Vin said. Sazed had to tap his hearing tinmind to listen in on her words.

“We’re all tired, child,” Penrod said.

“I’m particularly tired,” Vin said. “I’m tired of the games. I’m tired of people dying because of arguments between their leaders. I’m tired of good men being taken advantage of.”

Penrod nodded quietly.

“I want you to gather our remaining soldiers,” Vin said, turning to look over the city. “How many do you have in there?”

“About two hundred,” he said.

Vin nodded. “The city is not lost – the koloss have fought against the soldiers, but haven’t had much time to turn on the population yet. I want you to send out your soldiers to find any groups of koloss that are pillaging or killing. Protect the people, but don’t attack the koloss if you can help it. Send a messenger for me instead.”

Remembering Penrod’s bullheadedness earlier, Sazed thought the man might object. He didn’t. He just nodded.

“What do we do then?” Penrod asked.

“I’ll take care of the koloss,” Vin said. “We’ll go reclaim Keep Venture first – I’m going to need more metals, and there are plenty stored there. Once the city is secure, I want you and your soldiers to put out those fires. It shouldn’t be too hard; there aren’t a lot of buildings left that can burn.”

“Very well,” Penrod said, turning to call out his orders.

Sazed watched in silence as the massive koloss lowered Vin to the ground. It stood quietly, as if it were a monster hewn of stone, and not a breathing, bleeding, living creature.

“Sazed,” Vin said softly. He could sense the fatigue in her voice.

“Lady Vin,” Sazed said. To the side, Ham finally shook himself out of his stupor, looking up in shock as he noticed Vin and the koloss.

Vin continued to look at Sazed, studying him. Sazed had trouble meeting her eyes. But, she was right. They could talk about his betrayal later. There were other, more important tasks that had to be accomplished. “I realize you probably have work for me to do,” Sazed said, breaking the silence. “But, might I instead be excused? There is… a task I wish to perform.”

“Of course, Sazed,” Vin said. “But first, tell me. Do you know if any of the others survived?”

“Clubs and Dockson are dead, my lady,” Sazed said. “I have not seen their bodies, but the reports were from reliable sources. You can see that Lord Hammond is here, with us, though he has suffered a very bad wound.”

“Breeze?” she asked.

Sazed nodded to the lump that lay huddled beside the wall. “He lives, thankfully. His mind, however, appears to be reacting poorly to the horrors he saw. It could simply be a form of shock. Or… it could be something more lasting.”

Vin nodded, turning to Ham. “Ham. I need pewter.”

He nodded dully, pulling out a vial with his good hand. He tossed it to her. Vin downed it, and immediately her fatigue seemed to lessen. She stood up straighter, her eyes becoming more alert.

That can’t be healthy, Sazed thought with worry. How much of that has she been burning?

Step more energetic, she turned to walk toward her koloss.

“Lady Vin?” Sazed asked, causing her to turn around. “There is still an army out there.”

“Oh, I know,” Vin said, turning to take one of the large, wedge like koloss swords from its owner. It was actually a few inches taller than she was.

“I am well aware of Straff’s intentions,” she said, hefting the sword up onto her shoulder. Then she turned in to the snow and mist, walking toward Keep Venture, her strange koloss guards tromping after her.

It took Sazed well into the night to complete his self-appointed task. He found corpse after corpse in the frigid night, many of them iced over. The snow had stopped falling, and the wind had picked up, hardening the slush to slick ice. He had to break some of the corpses free to turn them over and inspect their faces.

Without his brassmind to provide heat, he could never have performed his grisly job. Even so, he had found himself some warmer clothing – a simple brown robe and a set of boots. He continued working through the night, the wind swirling flakes of snow and ice around him. He started at the gate, of course. That was where the most corpses were. However, he eventually had to move into alleyways and thoroughfares.

He found her body sometime near morning.

The city had stopped burning. The only light he had was his lantern, but it was enough to reveal the strip of fluttering cloth in a snowbank. At first, Sazed thought it was just another bloodied bandage that had failed in its purpose. Then he saw a glimmer of orange and yellow, and he moved over – he no longer had the strength to rush – and reached into the snow.

Tindwyl’s body cracked slightly as he rolled it out. The blood on her side was frozen, of course, and her eyes were iced open. Judging from the direction of her flight, she had been leading her soldiers to Keep Venture.

Oh, Tindwyl, he thought, reaching down to touch her face. It was still soft, but dreadfully cold. After years of being abused by the Breeders, after surviving so much, she had found this. Death in a city where she hadn’t belonged, with a man – no, a half man – who did not deserve her.

He released his brassmind, and let the night’s cold wash over him. He didn’t want to feel warm at the moment. His lantern flickered uncertainly, illuminating the street, shadowing the icy corpse. There, in that frozen alley of Luthadel, looking down at the corpse of the woman he loved, Sazed realized something.

He didn’t know what to do.

He tried to think of something proper to say – something proper to think – but suddenly, all of his religious knowledge seemed hollow. What was the use in giving her a burial? What was the value in speaking the prayers of a long-dead god? What good was he? The religion of Dadradah hadn’t helped Clubs; the Survivor hadn’t come to rescue the thousands of soldiers who had died. What was the point?

None of Sazed’s knowledge gave him comfort. He accepted the religions he knew – believed in their value – but that didn’t give him what he needed. They didn’t assure him that Tindwyl’s spirit still lived. Instead, they made him question. If so many people believed so many different things, how could any one of them – or, even, anything at all – actually be true?

The skaa called Sazed holy, but at that moment he realized that he was the most profane of men. He was a creature who knew three hundred religions, yet had faith in none of them.

So, when his tears fell – and nearly began to freeze to his face – they gave him as little comfort as his religions. He moaned, leaning over the frozen corpse.

My life, he thought, has been a sham.

55

STRAFF WOKE IN THE COLD morning and immediately reached for a leaf of Black Frayn. He was beginning to see the benefits of his addiction. It woke him quickly and easily, making his body feel warm despite the early hour. When he might have once taken an hour to get ready, he was up in minutes, dressed, prepared for the day.

And glorious that day would be.

Janarle met him outside his tent, and the two walked through the bustling camp. Straff’s boots cracked on half ice, half snow as he made his way to his horse.

“The fires are out, my lord,” Janarle explained. “Probably due to the snows. The koloss probably finished their rampaging and took shelter from the cold. Our scouts are afraid to get too close, but they say the city is like a graveyard. Quiet and empty, save for the bodies.”

“Maybe they actually killed each other off,” Straff said cheerfully, climbing into his saddle, breath puffing in the crisp morning air. Around him, the army was forming up. Fifty thousand soldiers, eager at the prospect of taking the city. Not only was there plundering to be done, but moving into Luthadel would mean roofs and walls for all of them.

“Perhaps,” Janarle said, mounting.

Wouldn’t that be convenient, Straff thought with a smile. All of my enemies dead, the city and its riches mine, and no skaa to worry about.

“My lord!” someone cried.

Straff looked up. The field between his camp and Luthadel was colored gray and white, the snow stained by ash. And gathering on the other side of that field were koloss.

“Looks like they are alive after all, my lord,” Janarle said.

“Indeed,” Straff said, frowning. There were still a lot of the creatures. They piled out of the western gate, not attacking immediately, instead gathering in a large body.

“Scout counts say there are fewer of them than there were,” Janarle said after a short time. “Perhaps two-thirds their original number, maybe a bit fewer. But, they are koloss…”

“But they’re abandoning their fortifications,” Straff said, smiling, Black Frayn warming his blood, making him feel like he was burning metals. “And they’re coming to us. Let them charge. This should be over quickly.”

“Yes, my lord,” Janarle said, sounding a little less certain. He frowned, then, pointing toward the southern section of the city. “My… lord?”

“What now?”

“Soldiers, my lord,” Janarle said. “Human ones. Looks to be several thousand of them.”

Straff frowned. “They should all be dead!”

The koloss charged. Straff’s horse shuffled slightly as the blue monsters ran across the gray field, the human troops falling into more organized ranks behind.

“Archers!” Janarle shouted. “Prepare first volley!”

Perhaps I shouldn’t be at the front, Straff thought suddenly. He turned his horse, then noticed something. An arrow suddenly shot from the midst of the charging koloss.

But, koloss didn’t use bows. Besides, the monsters were still far away, and that object was far too big to be an arrow anyway. A rock, perhaps? It seemed larger than…

It began to fall down toward Straff’s army. Straff stared into the sky, riveted by the strange object. It grew more distinct as it fell. It wasn’t an arrow, nor was it a rock.

It was a person – a person with a flapping mistcloak.

“No!” Straff yelled. She’s supposed to be gone!

Vin screamed down from her duralumin-fueled Steeljump, massive koloss sword light in her hands. She hit Straff directly in the head with the sword, then continued on downward, slamming into the ground, throwing up snow and frozen dirt with the power of her impact.

The horse fell into two pieces, front and back. What remained of the former king slid to the ground with the equine corpse. She looked at the remnants, smiled grimly, and bid Straff farewell.

Elend had, after all, warned him what would happen if he attacked the city.

Straff’s generals and attendants stood around her in a stunned circle. Behind her, the koloss army barreled forward, confusion in Straff’s ranks making the archer volleys ragged and less effective.

Vin kept a tight hold on her sword, then Pushed outward with a duralumin-enhanced Steelpush. Riders were thrown, their beasts tripped by their shoes, and soldiers sprayed backward from her in a circle of several dozen yards. Men screamed.

She downed another vial, restoring both steel and pewter. Then she jumped up, seeking out generals and other officers to attack. As she moved, her koloss troops hit the front ranks of Straff’s army, and the real carnage began.

“What are they doing?” Cett asked, hurriedly throwing on his cloak as he was placed and tied into his saddle.

“Attacking, apparently,” said Bahmen, one of his aides. “Look! They’re working with the koloss.”

Cett frowned, doing up his cloak clasp. “A treaty?”

“With koloss?” Bahmen asked.

Cett shrugged. “Who’s going to win?”

“No way to tell, my lord,” the man said. “Koloss are–”

“What is this!” Allrianne demanded, riding up the snowy incline, accompanied by a couple of abashed guards. Cett had, of course, ordered them to keep her in the camp – but he had also, of course, expected that she’d get past them eventually.

At least I can count on her to be slowed down by getting ready in the morning, he thought with amusement. She wore one of her dresses, immaculately arranged, her hair done. If a building were burning down, Allrianne would still pause to do her makeup before escaping.

“Looks like the battle has begun,” Cett said, nodding toward the fighting.

“Outside the city?” Allrianne asked, riding up next to him. Then she brightened. “They’re attacking Straff’s position!”

“Yes,” Cett said. “And that leaves the city–”

“We have to help them, Father!”

Cett rolled his eyes. “You know we’re going to do nothing of the sort. We’ll see who wins. If they’re weak enough – which I hope they will be – we’ll attack them. I didn’t bring all of my forces back with me, but maybe…”

He trailed off as he noticed the look in Allrianne’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could do so, she kicked her horse into motion.

Her guards cursed, dashing forward – too late – to try and grab her reins. Cett sat, stunned. This was a little insane, even for her. She wouldn’t dare…

She galloped down the hill toward the battle. Then she paused, as he had expected. She turned, looking back at him.

“If you want to protect me, Father,” she yelled, “you’d better charge!”

With that, she turned and started galloping again, her horse throwing up puffs of snow.

Cett didn’t move.

“My lord,” Bahmen said. “Those forces look almost evenly matched. Fifty thousand men against a force of some twelve thousand koloss and about five thousand men. If we were to add our strength to either side…”

Damn fool girl! he thought, watching Allrianne gallop away.

“My lord?” Bahmen asked.

Why did I come to Luthadel in the first place? Was it because I really thought I could take the city? Without Allomancers, with my homeland in revolt? Or, was it because I was looking for something? A confirmation of the stories. A power like I saw on that night, when the Heir almost killed me.

How exactly did they get the koloss to fight with them, anyway?

“Gather our forces!” Cett commanded. “We’re marching to the defense of Luthadel. And somebody send riders after that fool daughter of mine!”

Sazed rode quietly, his horse moving slowly in the snow. Ahead of him, the battle raged, but he was far enough behind it to be out of danger. He’d left the city behind, where Luthadel’s surviving women and elderly watched from the walls. Vin had saved them from the koloss. The real miracle would be to see if she could save them from the other two armies.

Sazed didn’t ride into the fight. His metalminds were mostly empty, and his body was nearly as tired as his mind. He simply brought his horse to a halt, its breath puffing in the cold as he sat alone on the snowy plain.

He didn’t know how to deal with Tindwyl’s death. He felt… hollow. He wished that he could just stop feeling. He wished that he could go back and defend her gate, instead of his own. Why hadn’t he gone in search of her when he’d heard of the northern gate’s fall? She’d still been alive then. He might have been able to protect her…

Why did he even care anymore? Why bother?

But, the ones who had faith were right, he thought. Vin came back to defend the city. I lost hope, but they never did.

He started his horse forward again. The sounds of battle came in the distance. He tried to focus on anything but Tindwyl, but his thoughts kept returning to things he had studied with her. The facts and stories became more precious, for they were a link to her. A painful link, but one he couldn’t bear to discard.

The Hero of Ages was not simply to be a warrior, he thought, still riding slowly toward the battlefield. He was a person who united others, who brought them together. A leader.

He knew that Vin thought she was the Hero. But Tindwyl was right: it was too much of a coincidence. And, he wasn’t even certain what he believed anymore. If anything.

The Hero of Ages was removed from the Terris people, he thought, watching the koloss attack. He was not royalty himself, but came to it eventually.

Sazed pulled his horse up, pausing in the center of the open, empty field. Arrows stuck from the snow around him, and the ground was thoroughly trampled. In the distance, he heard a drum. He turned, watching as an army of men marched over a rise to the west. They flew Cett’s banner.

He commanded the forces of the world. Kings rode to his aid.

Cett’s forces joined the battle against Straff. There was a crash of metal against metal, bodies grunting, as a new front came under attack. Sazed sat on the field between the city and the armies. Vin’s forces were still outnumbered, but as Sazed watched, Straff’s army began to pull back. It broke into pieces, its members fighting without direction. Their movements bespoke terror.

She’s killing their generals, he thought.

Cett was a clever man. He himself rode to battle, but he stayed near the back of his ranks – his infirmities requiring him to remain tied into his saddle and making it difficult for him to fight. Still, by joining the battle, he ensured that Vin would not turn her koloss on him.

For there was really no doubt in Sazed’s mind who would win this conflict. Indeed, before even an hour had passed, Straff’s troops began to surrender in large groups. The sounds of battle died down, and Sazed kicked his horse forward.

Holy First Witness, he thought. I don’t know that I believe that. But, either way, I should be there for what happens next.

The koloss stopped fighting, standing silently. They parted for Sazed as he rode up through their ranks. Eventually, he found Vin standing, bloodied, her massive koloss sword held on one shoulder. Some koloss pulled a man forward – a lord in rich clothing and a silvery breastplate. They dropped him before Vin.

From behind, Penrod approached with an honor guard, led by a koloss. Nobody spoke. Eventually, the koloss parted again, and this time a suspicious Cett rode forward, surrounded by a large group of soldiers and led by a single koloss.

Cett eyed Vin, then scratched his chin. “Not much of a battle,” he said.

“Straff’s soldiers were afraid,” Vin said. “They’re cold, and they have no desire to fight koloss.”

“And their leaders?” Cett asked.

“I killed them,” Vin said. “Except this one. Your name?”

“Lord Janarle,” said Straff’s man. His leg appeared broken, and koloss held him by either arm, supporting him.

“Straff is dead,” Vin said. “You control this army now.”

The nobleman bowed his head. “No, I don’t. You do.”

Vin nodded. “On your knees,” she said.

The koloss dropped Janarle. He grunted in pain, but then bowed forward. “I swear my army to you,” he whispered.

“No,” Vin said sharply. “Not to me – to the rightful heir of House Venture. He is your lord now.”

Janarle paused. “Very well,” he said. “Whatever you wish. I swear loyalty to Straff’s son, Elend Venture.”

The separate groups stood in the cold. Sazed turned as Vin did, looking at Penrod. Vin pointed at the ground. Penrod quietly dismounted, then bowed himself to the ground.

“I swear as well,” he said. “I give my loyalty to Elend Venture.”

Vin turned to Lord Cett.

“You expect this of me?” the bearded man said, amused.

“Yes,” Vin said quietly.

“And if I refuse?” Cett asked.

“Then I’ll kill you,” Vin said quietly. “You brought armies to attack my city. You threatened my people. I won’t slaughter your soldiers, make them pay for what you did, but I will kill you, Cett.”

Silence. Sazed turned, looking back at the lines of immobile koloss, standing in the bloodied snow.

“That is a threat, you know,” Cett said. “Your own Elend would never stand for such a thing.”

“He’s not here,” Vin said.

“And what do you think he’d say?” Cett asked. “He’d tell me not to give in to such a demand – the honorable Elend Venture would never give in simply because someone threatened his life.”

“You’re not the man that Elend is,” Vin said. “And you know it.”

Cett paused, then smiled. “No. No, I’m not.” He turned to his aides. “Help me down.”

Vin watched quietly as the guards undid Cett’s legs, then lifted him down to the snowy ground. He bowed. “Very well, then. I swear myself to Elend Venture. He’s welcome to my kingdom… assuming he can take it back from that damn obligator who now controls it.”

Vin nodded, turning to Sazed. “I need your help, Sazed.”

“Whatever you command, Mistress,” Sazed said quietly.

Vin paused. “Please don’t call me that.”

“As you wish,” Sazed said.

“You’re the only one here I trust, Sazed,” Vin said, ignoring the three kneeling men. “With Ham wounded and Breeze…”

“I will do my best,” Sazed said, bowing his head. “What is it you want me to do?”

“Secure Luthadel,” Vin said. “Make certain the people are sheltered, and send for supplies from Straff’s storehouses. Get these armies so that they won’t kill each other, the send a squad to fetch Elend. He’ll be coming south on the canal highway.”

Sazed nodded, and Vin turned to the three kneeling kings. “Sazed is my second. You will obey him as you would Elend or myself.”

They each nodded in turn.

“But, where will you be?” Penrod asked, looking up.

Vin sighed, suddenly looking terribly weak. “Sleeping,” she said, and dropped her sword. Then she Pushed against it, shooting backward into the sky, toward Luthadel.

He left ruin in his wake, but it was forgotten, Sazed thought, turning to watch her fly. He created kingdoms, and then destroyed them as he made the world anew.

We had the wrong gender all along.