The Final Empire m-1

by Brandon Sanderson

  The archers fired.

  Kelsier grabbed the bars, flaring both steel and iron, Pushing against one tip of each bar and Pulling against the opposite tip. The bars lurched in the air, immediately beginning to spin like furious, lunatic windmills. Most of the flying arrows were sprayed to the side by the spinning rods of iron.

  The bars clanged to the ground amid the scattered, discarded arrows. The archers stood, stupefied, as Kelsier jumped to the side again, then Pulled lightly on the bars, flipping them up into the air in front of him. He Pushed, sending the bars crashing toward the archers. He turned away as men screamed and died, his eyes seeking his true foe.

  Where is that creature hiding?

  He looked into a scene of chaos. Men fought, ran, fled, and died – each one bearing a prophetic atium-shadow to Kelsier’s eyes. In this case, however, the shadows effectively doubled the number of people moving on the battlefield, and only served to increase the sense of confusion.

  More and more soldiers were arriving. Many of Ham’s men were down, most of the rest were retreating – fortunately, they could simply discard their armor and blend into the skaa crowds. Kelsier was more worried about that last prisoner cart – the one with Renoux and Spook in it. The trajectory at which Ham’s group had entered the battle had required them to move up the line of carts, back to front. Trying to get to Renoux first would have required passing by the five other carts, leaving their people still trapped.

  Ham obviously didn’t intend to leave until Spook and Renoux were free. And, where Ham fought, the rebel soldiers held. There was a reason Pewterarms were also called Thugs: there was no subtlety to their fighting, no clever Iron-pulls or Steelpushes. Ham simply attacked with raw strength and speed, throwing enemy soldiers out of his way, laying waste to their ranks, leading his squad of fifty men toward the final prison cart. As they reached it, Ham stepped back to fight off a group of enemy soldiers as one of his men broke the cart’s lock.

  Kelsier smiled with pride, eyes still searching for the Inquisitor. His men were few, but the enemy soldiers seemed visibly unsettled by the skaa rebels’ determination. Kelsier’s men fought with passion – despite their other, numerous hindrances, they still had this one advantage.

  This is what happens when you finally convince them to fight. This is what hides within them all. It’s just so hard to release…

  Renoux exited the cart, then stepped to the side, watching as his servants rushed free from their cage. Suddenly, a well-dressed figure burst from the melee, grabbing Renoux by the front of his suit.

  “Where’s Valette?” Elend Venture demanded, his desperate voice carrying to Kelsier’s tin-enhanced ears. “Which cage was she in?”

  Kid, you’re really starting to annoy me, Kelsier thought, Pushing himself a path through the soldiers as he ran toward the cart.

  The Inquisitor appeared, leaping out from behind a pile of soldiers. It landed on top of the cage, shaking the entire structure, an obsidian axe grasped in each clawlike hand. The creature met Kelsier’s eyes and smiled, then dropped from the top of the cage and buried an axe in Renoux’s back.

  The kandra jerked, eyes opening wide. The Inquisitor turned toward Elend next. Kelsier wasn’t certain if the creature recognized the boy. Perhaps the Inquisitor thought Elend to be a member of Renoux’s family. Perhaps it didn’t care.

  Kelsier paused for just a moment.

  The Inquisitor raised his axe to strike.

  She loves him.

  Kelsier flared steel within, stoking it, raging it until his chest burned like the Ashmounts themselves. He blasted against the soldiers behind him – throwing dozens of them backward – and streaked toward the Inquisitor. He crashed into the creature as it began to swing.

  The discarded axe clicked against the stones a few feet away. Kelsier gripped the Inquisitor by its neck as the two hit the ground; then he began to squeeze with pewter-enhanced muscles. The Inquisitor reached up, grabbing Kelsier’s hands, desperately trying to force them apart.

  Marsh was right, Kelsier thought through the chaos. It fears for its life. It can be killed.

  The Inquisitor gasped raggedly, the metal spikeheads protruding from its eyes just inches from Kelsier’s face. To his side Kelsier saw Elend Venture stumble back.

  “The girl is fine!” Kelsier said through gritted teeth. “She wasn’t on the Renoux barges. Go!”

  Elend paused uncertainly; then one of his bodyguards finally appeared. The boy let himself get dragged away.

  Can’t believe I just saved a nobleman, Kelsier thought, struggling to choke the Inquisitor. You’d better appreciate this, girl.

  Slowly, with straining muscles, the Inquisitor forced Kelsier’s hands apart. The creature began to smile again.

  They’re so strong!

  The Inquisitor pushed Kelsier back, then Pulled against a soldier, yanking itself in a skidding motion across the cobblestones. The Inquisitor hit a corpse and flipped backward, up to its feet. Its neck was red from Kelsier’s grip, bits of flesh torn by his fingernails, but it smiled still.

  Kelsier Pushed against a soldier, flipping himself up as well. To his side, he saw Renoux leaning against the cart. Kelsier caught the kandra’s eyes and nodded slightly.

  Renoux dropped to the ground with a sigh, axe in his back.

  “Kelsier!” Ham yelled over the crowd.

  “Go!” Kelsier told him. “Renoux is dead.”

  Ham glanced at Renoux’s body, then nodded. He turned to his men, calling orders.

  “Survivor,” a rasping voice said.

  Kelsier spun. The Inquisitor strode forward, stepping with pewter’s lithe power, surrounded by a haze of atium-shadows.

  “Survivor of Hathsin,” it said. “You promised me a fight. Must I kill more skaa?”

  Kelsier flared his metals. “I never said we were done.” Then, he smiled. He was worried, he was pained, but he was also exhilarated. All of his life, there had been a piece of him that had wished to stand and fight.

  He’d always wanted to see if he could take an Inquisitor.

  Vin stood, trying desperately to see over the crowd.

  “What?” Dockson asked.

  “I thought I saw Elend!”

  “Here? That sounds a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?”

  Vin flushed. Probably. “Regardless, I’m going to try and get a better view.” She grabbed the side of the alleyway.

  “Be careful,” Dox said. “If that Inquisitor sees you…”

  Vin nodded, scrambling up the bricks. Once she got high enough, she scanned the intersection for familiar figures. Dockson was right: Elend was nowhere to be seen. One of the carts – the one off of which the Inquisitor had ripped the cage – lay on its side. Horses stomped about, hedged in by the fighting and the skaa crowds.

  “What do you see?” Dox called up.

  “Renoux is down!” Vin said, squinting and burning tin. “Looks like an axe in his back.”

  “That may or may not be fatal for him,” Dockson said cryptically. “I don’t know a lot about kandra.”

  Kandra?

  “What about the prisoners?” Dox called.

  “They’re all free,” Vin said. “The cages are empty. Dox, there are a lot of skaa out there!” It looked like the entire population from the fountain square had crowded down to the small intersection. The area was in a small depression, and Vin could see thousands of skaa packing the streets sloping upward in all directions.

  “Ham’s free!” Vin said. “I don’t see him – alive or dead – anywhere! Spook’s gone too.”

  “And Kell?” Dockson asked urgently.

  Vin paused. “He’s still fighting the Inquisitor.”

  Kelsier flared his pewter, punching the Inquisitor, careful to avoid the flat disks of metal sticking out the front of its eyes. The creature stumbled, and Kelsier buried his fist in its stomach. The Inquisitor growled and slapped Kelsier across the face, throwing him down with one blow.

  Kelsier shook his head. What does
it take to kill this thing? he thought, Pushing himself up to his feet, backing away.

  The Inquisitor strode forward. Some of the soldiers were trying to search the crowd for Ham and his men, but many just stood still. A fight between two powerful Allomancers was something whispered about, but never seen. Soldier and peasant stood dumbfounded, watching the battle with awe.

  He’s stronger than I am, Kelsier acknowledged, watching the Inquisitor warily. But strength isn’t everything.

  Kelsier reached out, grabbing smaller metal sources and Pulling them away from their owners – metal caps, fine steel swords, coin pouches, daggers. He threw them at the Inquisitor – carefully manipulating Steelpushes and Ironpulls – and kept his atium burning so that each item he controlled would have a fanning multitude of atium-images in the Inquisitor’s eyes.

  The Inquisitor cursed quietly as it deflected the swarming bits of metal. Kelsier, however, just used the Inquisitor’s own Pushes against it, Pulling each item back, whipping them around at the creature. The Inquisitor blasted outward, Pushing against all the items at once, and Kelsier let them go. As soon as the Inquisitor stopped Pushing, however, Kelsier Pulled his weapons back.

  The imperial soldiers formed a ring, watching warily. Kelsier used them, Pushing against breastplates, lurching himself back and forth in the air. The quick changes in position let him move constantly, disorienting the Inquisitor, allowing him to Push his different flying pieces of metal where he wanted them.

  “Keep an eye on my belt buckle,” Dockson asked, wobbling slightly as he clung to the bricks beside Vin. “If I fall off, give me a Pull to slow the fall, eh?”

  Vin nodded, but she wasn’t paying much attention to Dox. She was watching Kelsier. “He’s incredible!”

  Kelsier lurched back and forth in the air, his feet never touching the ground. Bits of metal buzzed around him, responding to his Pushes and Pulls. He controlled them with such skill, one would have thought they were living things. The Inquisitor slapped them away with a fury, but was obviously having trouble keeping track of them all.

  I underestimated Kelsier, Vin thought. I assumed that he was less skilled than the Mistings because he’d spread himself too thin. But that wasn’t it at all. This. This is his specialty – Pushing and Pulling with expert control.

  And iron and steel are the metals he personally trained me in. Maybe he understood all along.

  Kelsier spun and flew amid a maelstrom of metal. Every time something hit the ground, he flicked it back up. The items always flew in straight lines, but he kept moving, Pushing himself around, keeping them in the air, periodically shooting them at the Inquisitor.

  The creature spun, confused. It tried to Push itself upward, but Kelsier shot several larger pieces of metal over the creature’s head, and it had to Push against them, throwing off its jump.

  An iron bar hit the Inquisitor in the face.

  The creature stumbled, blood marring the tattoos on the side of its face. A steel helmet struck it in the side, tossing it backward.

  Kelsier began to shoot pieces of metal quickly, feeling his rage and anger mount. “Were you the one who killed Marsh?” he yelled, not bothering to listen for an answer. “Were you there when I was condemned, years ago?”

  The Inquisitor raised a warding hand, Pushing away the next swarm of metals. It limped backward, putting its back against the overturned wooden cart.

  Kelsier heard the creature growl, and a sudden Push of strength washed through the crowd, toppling soldiers, causing Kelsier’s metal weapons to shoot away.

  Kelsier let them go. He dashed forward, rushing the disoriented Inquisitor, scooping up a loose cobblestone.

  The creature turned toward him, and Kelsier yelled, swinging the cobblestone, his strength fueled almost more by rage than by pewter.

  He hit the Inquisitor square in the eyes. The creature’s head snapped back, smacking against the bottom of the overturned cart. Kelsier struck again, yelling, repeatedly smashing his cobblestone into the creature’s face.

  The Inquisitor howled in pain, reaching clawlike hands for Kelsier, moving as if to jump forward. Then it suddenly jerked to a stop, its head stuck against the cart’s wood. The spike tips that jutted from the back of its skull had been pounded into the wood by Kelsier’s attack.

  Kelsier smiled as the creature screamed in rage, struggling to pull its head free from the wood. Kelsier turned to the side, seeking an item he had seen on the ground a few moments before. He kicked over a corpse, snatching the obsidian axe off the ground, its rough-chipped blade glittering in the red sunlight.

  “I’m glad you talked me into this,” he said quietly. Then he swung with a two-handed blow, slamming the axehead through the Inquisitor’s neck and into the wood behind.

  The Inquisitor’s body slumped to the cobblestones. The head remained where it was, staring out with its eerie, tattooed, unnatural gaze – pinned to the wood by its own spikes.

  Kelsier turned to face the crowd, suddenly feeling incredibly wearied. His body ached from dozens of bruises and cuts, and he didn’t even know when his cloak had ripped free. He faced the soldiers defiantly, however, his scarred arms plainly visible.

  “The Survivor of Hathsin!” one whispered.

  “He killed an Inquisitor…” said another.

  And then the chanting began. The skaa in the surrounding streets began to scream his name. The soldiers looked around, realizing with horror that they were surrounded. The peasants began to press in, and Kelsier could feel their anger and hope.

  Maybe this doesn’t have to go the way I assumed, Kelsier thought triumphantly. Maybe I don’t have–

  Then it hit. Like a cloud moving before the sun, like a sudden storm on a quiet night, like a pair of fingers snuffing a candle. An oppressive hand stifled the budding skaa emotions. The people cringed, and their cries died out. The fire Kelsier had built within them was too new.

  So close… he thought.

  Up ahead, a single, black carriage crested the hill and began to move down from the fountain square.

  The Lord Ruler had arrived.

  Vin nearly lost her grip as the wave of depression hit her. She flared her copper, but – as always – she could still slightly feel the Lord Ruler’s oppressive hand.

  “Lord Ruler!” Dockson said, though Vin couldn’t tell if it was a curse or an observation. Skaa that had been packed in to view the fight somehow managed to make room for the dark carriage. It rolled down a corridor of people toward the corpse-littered square.

  Soldiers pulled back, and Kelsier stepped away from the fallen cart, moving out to face the oncoming carriage.

  “What is he doing?” Vin asked, turning toward Dockson, who had propped himself up on a small outcropping. “Why doesn’t he run? This is no Inquisitor – this isn’t something to fight!”

  “This is it, Vin,” Dockson said, awed. “This is what he’s been waiting for. A chance to face the Lord Ruler – a chance to prove those legends of his.”

  Vin turned back toward the square. The carriage rolled to a stop.

  “But…” she said quietly. “The Eleventh Metal. Did he bring it?”

  “He must have.”

  Kelsier always said that the Lord Ruler was his task, Vin thought. He let the rest of us work on the nobility, the Garrison, and the Ministry. But this… Kelsier always planned to do this himself.

  The Lord Ruler stepped from his carriage, and Vin leaned forward, burning tin. He looked like…

  A man.

  He was dressed in a black and white uniform somewhat like a nobleman’s suit, but far more exaggerated. The coat reached all the way to his feet, and trailed behind him as he walked. His vest wasn’t colored, but a pure black, though it was accented with brilliant white markings. As Vin had heard, his fingers glittered with rings, the symbol of his power.

  I’m so much stronger than you, the rings proclaimed, that it doesn’t matter if I wear metal.

  Handsome, with jet black hair and pale skin, the Lord Rule
r was tall, thin, and confident. And he was young – younger than Vin would have expected, even younger than Kelsier. He strode across the square, avoiding corpses, his soldiers pulling back and forcing the skaa away.

  Suddenly, a small group of figures burst through the line of soldiers. They wore the mismatched armor of rebels, and the man leading them looked just a bit familiar. He was one of Ham’s Thugs.

  “For my wife!” the Thug said, holding up a spear and charging.

  “For Lord Kelsier!” yelled the other four.

  Oh no… Vin thought.

  The Lord Ruler, however, ignored the men. The lead rebel bellowed in defiance, then rammed his spear through the Lord Ruler’s chest.

  The Lord Ruler just continued to walk, passing the soldier, spear sticking all the way through his body.

  The rebel paused, then grabbed a spear from one of his friends and drove this one through the Lord Ruler’s back. Again, the Lord Ruler ignored the men – as if they, and their weapons, were completely beneath his contempt.

  The lead rebel stumbled back, then spun as his friends began to scream under an Inquisitor’s axe. He joined them shortly, and the Inquisitor stood above the corpses for a moment, hacking gleefully.

  The Lord Ruler continued forward, two spears sticking – as if unnoticed – from his body. Kelsier stood waiting. He looked ragged in his ripped skaa clothing. Yet, he was proud. He didn’t bend or bow beneath the weight of the Lord Ruler’s Soothing.

  The Lord Ruler stopped a few feet away, one of the spears nearly touching Kelsier’s chest. Black ash fell lightly around the two men, bits of it curling and blowing in the faint wind. The square fell horribly silent – even the Inquisitor stopped his gruesome work. Vin leaned forward, clinging precariously to the rough brickwork.

  Do something, Kelsier! Use the metal!

  The Lord Ruler glanced at the Inquisitor that Kelsier had killed. “Those are very hard to replace.” His accented voice carried easily to Vin’s tin-enhanced ears.

  Even from a distance, she could see Kelsier smile.