The Hero of Ages m-3

by Brandon Sanderson

  The deaths began as soon as the mists appeared. Though the mists left most of the people alone, they chose some at random, causing them to begin shaking. These fell to the ground, having a seizure, while their friends and family watched in shock and horror.

  Horror was still Vin's reaction. That, and frustration. Kelsier had promised her that the mists were an ally-that they would protect her and give her power. She'd believed that to be true until the mists started to feel alien to her, hiding shadowed ghosts and murderous intent.

  "I hate you," she whispered as the mists continued their grisly work. It was like watching a beloved old relative pick strangers out of a crowd and, one at a time, slit their throats. And there was nothing at all she could do. Elend's scholars had tried everything-hoods to keep the mists from being breathed in, waiting to go outside until the mists had already established themselves, rushing people inside the moment they started shaking. Animals were immune for some reason, but every human was potentially susceptible. If one went outside in the mists, one risked death, and nothing could prevent it.

  It was over soon. The mists gave the fits to fewer than one in six, and only a small fraction of those died. Plus, one only needed to risk these new mists once-one gamble, and then you were immune. Most who fell sick would recover. That was no comfort to the families of those who died.

  She sat on her stump, staring out into the mists, which were still lit by the setting sun. Ironically, it was more difficult for her to see than it would have been if it were dark. She couldn't burn much tin, lest the sunlight blind her-but without it, she couldn't pierce the mists.

  The result was a scene that reminded her why she had once feared the mists. Her visibility reduced to barely ten feet, she could see little more than shadows. Amorphous figures ran this way and that, calling out. Silhouettes knelt or stood terrified. Sound was a traitorous thing, echoing against unseen objects, cries coming from phantom sources.

  Vin sat among them, ash raining around her like burnt tears, and bowed her head.

  "Lord Fatren!" Elend's voice called, causing Vin to look up. Once, his voice hadn't carried nearly as much authority. That seemed like so long ago. He appeared from the mists, dressed in his second white uniform-the one that was still clean-his face hardened against the mortalities. She could feel his Allomantic touch on those around him as he approached-his Soothing would make the people's pain less acute, but he didn't Push as hard as he could have. She knew from talking to him that he didn't feel it was right to remove all of a person's grief at the death of one they loved.

  "My lord!" she heard Fatren say, and saw him approaching. "This is a disaster!"

  "It looks far worse than it is, Lord Fatren," Elend said. "As I explained, most of those who have fallen will recover."

  Fatren stopped beside Vin's stump. Then, he turned and stared into the mists, listening to the weeping and the pain of his people. "I can't believe we did this. I can't. . I can't believe you talked me into making them stand in the mists."

  "Your people needed to be inoculated, Fatren," Elend said.

  It was true. They didn't have tents for all of the townsfolk, and that left only two options. Leave them behind in their dying village, or force them north-make them go out in the mists, and see who died. It was terrible, and it was brutal, but it would have happened eventually. Still, even though she knew the logic of what they had done, Vin felt terrible for being part of it.

  "What kind of monsters are we?" Fatren asked in a hushed tone.

  "The kind we have to be," Elend said. "Go make a count. Find out how many are dead. Calm the living and promise them that no further harm will come from the mists."

  "Yes, my lord," Fatren said, moving away.

  Vin watched him go. "We murdered them, Elend," she whispered. "We told them it would be all right. We forced them to leave their village and come out here, to die."

  "It will be all right," Elend said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Better than a slow death in that village."

  "We could have given them a choice."

  Elend shook his head. "There was no choice. Within a few months, their city will be covered in mists permanently. They would have had to stay inside their homes and starve, or go out into the mists. Better that we take them to the Central Dominance, where there is still enough mistless daylight to grow crops."

  "The truth doesn't make it any easier."

  Elend stood in the mists, ash falling around him. "No," he said. "It doesn't. I'll go gather the koloss so they can bury the dead."

  "And the wounded?" Those the mists attacked, but didn't kill, would be sick and cramped for several days, perhaps longer. If the usual percentages held, then nearly a thousand of the villagers would fall into that category.

  "When we leave tomorrow, we'll have the koloss carry them. If we can get to the canal, then we can probably fit most of them on the barges."

  Vin didn't like feeling exposed. She'd spent her childhood hiding in corners, her adolescence playing the silent nighttime assassin. So it was incredibly difficult not to feel exposed while traveling with five thousand tired villagers along one of the Southern Dominance's most obvious routes.

  She walked a short distance away from the townspeople-she never rode-and tried to find something to distract herself from thinking about the deaths the evening before. Unfortunately, Elend was riding with Fatren and the other town leaders, busy trying to smooth relations. That left her alone.

  Except for her single koloss.

  The massive beast lumbered beside her. She kept it close partially out of convenience; she knew it would make the villagers keep their distance from her. As willing as she was to be distracted, she didn't want to deal with those betrayed, frightened eyes. Not right now.

  Nobody understood the koloss, least of all Vin. She'd discovered how to control them, using the hidden Allomantic trigger. Yet, during the thousand years of the Lord Ruler's reign, he had kept the koloss separated from mankind, letting very little be known about them beyond their brutal prowess in battle and their simple bestial nature.

  Even now, Vin could feel her koloss tugging at her, trying to break free. It didn't like being controlled-it wanted to attack her. It could not, fortunately; she controlled it, and would continue to do so whether awake or asleep, burning metals or not, unless someone stole the beast from her.

  Even linked as they were, there was so much Vin didn't understand about the creatures. She looked up, and found the koloss staring at her with its bloodred eyes. Its skin was stretched tight across its face, the nose pulled completely flat. The skin was torn near the right eye, and a jagged rip ran down to the corner of its mouth, letting a flap of blue skin hang free, exposing the red muscles and bloodied teeth below.

  "Don't look at me," the creature said, speaking in a sluggish voice. Its words were slurred, partially from the way its lips were pulled.

  "What?" Vin asked.

  "You don't think I'm human," the koloss said, speaking slowly, deliberately-like the others she had heard. It was like they had to think hard between each word.

  "You aren't human," Vin said. "You're something else."

  "I will be human," the koloss said. "We will kill you. Take your cities. Then we will be human."

  Vin shivered. It was a common theme among koloss. She'd heard others make similar remarks. There was something very chilling about the flat, emotionless way the koloss spoke of slaughtering people.

  They were created by the Lord Ruler, she thought. Of course they're twisted. As twisted as he was.

  "What is your name?" she asked the koloss.

  It continued to lumber beside her. Finally, it looked at her. "Human."

  "I know you want to be human," Vin said. "What is your name?"

  "That is my name. Human. You call me Human."

  Vin frowned as they walked. That almost seemed. . clever. She'd never taken the opportunity to talk to koloss before. She'd always assumed that they were of a homogeneous mentality-just the same stupid beast re
peated over and over.

  "All right, Human," she said, curious. "How long have you been alive?"

  He walked for a moment, so long that Vin thought he had forgotten the question. Finally, however, he spoke. "Don't you see my bigness?"

  "Your bigness? Your size?"

  Human just kept walking.

  "So you all grow at the same rate?"

  He didn't answer. Vin shook her head, suspecting that the question was too abstract for the beast.

  "I'm bigger than some," Human said. "Smaller than some-but not very many. That means I'm old."

  Another sign of intelligence, she thought, raising an eyebrow. From what Vin had seen of other koloss, Human's logic was impressive.

  "I hate you," Human said after a short time spent walking. "I want to kill you. But I can't kill you."

  "No," Vin said. "I won't let you."

  "You're big inside. Very big."

  "Yes," Vin said. "Human, where are the girl koloss?"

  The creature walked several moments. "Girl?"

  "Like me," Vin said.

  "We're not like you," he said. "We're big on the outside only."

  "No," Vin said. "Not my size. My. ." How did one describe gender? Short of stripping, she couldn't think of any methods. So, she decided to try a different tactic. "Are there baby koloss?"

  "Baby?"

  "Small ones," Vin said.

  The koloss pointed toward the marching koloss army. "Small ones," he said, referring to some of the five-foot-tall koloss.

  "Smaller," Vin said.

  "None smaller."

  Koloss reproduction was a mystery that, to her knowledge, nobody had ever cracked. Even after a year spent fighting with the beasts, she'd never found out where new ones came from. Whenever Elend's koloss armies grew too small, she and he stole new ones from the Inquisitors.

  Yet, it was ridiculous to assume that the koloss didn't reproduce. She'd seen koloss camps that weren't controlled by an Allomancer, and the creatures killed each other with fearful regularity. At that rate, they would have killed themselves off after a few years. Yet, they had lasted for ten centuries.

  That implied a very quick rise from child to adult, or so Sazed and Elend seemed to think. They hadn't been able to confirm their theories, and she knew their ignorance frustrated Elend greatly-especially since his duties as emperor left him little time for the studies he'd once enjoyed so much.

  "If there are none smaller," Vin asked, "then where do new koloss come from?"

  "New koloss come from us," Human finally said.

  "From you?" Vin asked, frowning as she walked. "That doesn't tell me much."

  Human didn't say anything further. His talkative mood had apparently passed.

  From us, Vin thought. They bud off of each other, perhaps? She'd heard of some creatures that, if you cut them the right way, each half would grow into a new animal. But, that couldn't be the case with koloss-she'd seen battlefields filled with their dead, and no pieces rose to form new koloss. But she'd also never seen a female koloss. Though most of the beasts wore crude loincloths, they were-as far as she knew-all male.

  Further speculation was cut off as she noticed the line ahead bunching up; the crowd was slowing. Curious, she dropped a coin and left Human behind, shooting herself over the people. The mists had retreated hours ago, and though night was again approaching, for the moment it was both light and mistless.

  Therefore, as she shot through the falling ash, she easily picked out the canal up ahead. It cut unnaturally through the ground, far straighter than any river. Elend speculated that the constant ashfall would soon put an end to most of the canal systems. Without skaa laborers to dredge them on a regular basis, they would fill up with ashen sediment, eventually clogging to uselessness.

  Vin soared through the air, completing her arc, heading toward a large mass of tents stationed beside the canal. Thousands of fires spit smoke into the afternoon air, and men milled about, training, working, or preparing. Nearly fifty thousand soldiers bivouacked here, using the canal route as a supply line back to Luthadel.

  Vin dropped another coin, bounding through the air again. She quickly caught up to the small group of horses that had broken off from Elend's line of tired, marching skaa. She landed-dropping a coin and Pushing against it slightly to slow her descent, throwing up a spray of ash as she hit.

  Elend reined in his horse, smiling as he surveyed the camp. The expression was rare enough on his lips these days that Vin found herself smiling as well. Ahead, a group of men waited for them-their scouts would have long since noticed the townspeople's approach.

  "Lord Elend!" said a man sitting at the head of the army contingent. "You're ahead of schedule!"

  "I assume you're ready anyway, General," Elend said, dismounting.

  "Well, you know me," Demoux said, smiling as he approached. The general wore well-used armor of leather and steel, his face bearing a scar on one cheek, the left side of his scalp missing a large patch of hair where a koloss blade had nearly taken his head. Ever formal, the grizzled man bowed to Elend, who just slapped him on the shoulder affectionately.

  Vin's smile lingered. I remember when that man was little more than a fresh recruit standing frightened in a tunnel. Demoux wasn't actually that much older than she was, even though his tanned face and callused hands gave that impression.

  "We've held position, my lord," Demoux said as Fatren and his brother dismounted and joined the group. "Not that there was much to hold it against. Still, it was good for my men to practice fortifying a camp."

  Indeed, the army's camp beside the canal was surrounded by heaped earth and spikes-a considerable feat, considering the army's size.

  "You did well, Demoux," Elend said, turning back to look over the townspeople. "Our mission was a success."

  "I can see that, my lord," Demoux said, smiling. "That's a fair pack of koloss you picked up. I hope the Inquisitor leading them wasn't too sad to see them go."

  "Couldn't have bothered him too much," Elend said. "Since he was dead at the time. We found the storage cavern as well."

  "Praise the Survivor!" Demoux said.

  Vin frowned. At his neck, hanging outside his clothing, Demoux wore a necklace that bore a small silver spear: the increasingly popular symbol of the Church of the Survivor. It seemed odd to her that the weapon that had killed Kelsier would become the symbol of his followers.

  Of course, she didn't like to think about the other possibility-that the spear might not represent the one that had killed Kelsier. It might very well represent the one that she herself had used to kill the Lord Ruler. She'd never asked Demoux which it was. Despite three years of growing Church power, Vin had never become comfortable with her own part in its doctrine.

  "Praise the Survivor indeed," Elend said, looking over the army's supply barges. "How did your project go?"

  "Dredging the southern bend?" Demoux asked. "It went well-there was blessed little else to do while we waited. You should be able to get barges through there now."

  "Good," Elend said. "Form two task forces of five hundred men. Send one with barges back to Vetitan for the supplies we had to leave down in that cavern. They will transfer the supplies to the barges and send them up to Luthadel."

  "Yes, my lord," Demoux said.

  "Send the second group of soldiers north to Luthadel with these refugees," Elend said, nodding to Fatren. "This is Lord Fatren. He's in command of the townspeople. Have your men respect his wishes, as long as they are reasonable, and introduce him to Lord Penrod."

  Once-not long ago-Fatren would probably have complained about being handed off. However, his time with Elend had transformed him surprisingly quickly. The dirty leader nodded gratefully at the escort. "You. . aren't coming with us then, my lord?"

  Elend shook his head. "I have other work to do, and your people need to get to Luthadel, where they can begin farming. Though, if any of your men wish to join my army, they are welcome. I'm always in need of good troops, and against the od
ds, you succeeded in training a useful force."

  "My lord. . why not just compel them? Pardon me, but that's what you've done so far."

  "I compelled your people to safety, Fatren," Elend said. "Sometimes even a drowning man will fight the one who tries to save him and must be compelled. My army is a different matter. Men who don't want to fight are men you can't depend on in battle, and I won't have any of those in my army. You yourself need to go to Luthadel-your people need you-but please let your soldiers know that I will gladly welcome any of them into our ranks."

  Fatren nodded. "All right. And. . thank you, my lord."

  "You are welcome. Now, General Demoux, are Sazed and Breeze back yet?"

  "They should arrive sometime this evening, my lord," Demoux said. "One of their men rode ahead to let us know."

  "Good," Elend said. "I assume my tent is ready?"

  "Yes, my lord," Demoux said.

  Elend nodded, suddenly looking very tired to Vin.

  "My lord?" Demoux asked eagerly. "Did you find the. . other item? The location of the final cache?"

  Elend nodded. "It's in Fadrex."

  "Cett's city?" Demoux asked, laughing. "Well, he'll be happy to hear that. He's been complaining for over a year that we haven't ever gotten around to conquering it back for him."

  Elend smiled wanly. "I've been half convinced that if we did, Cett would decide that he-and his soldiers-didn't need us anymore."

  "He'll stay, my lord," Demoux said. "After the scare Lady Vin gave him last year. ."

  Demoux glanced at Vin, trying to smile, but she saw it in his eyes. Respect, far too much of it. He didn't joke with her the way he did with Elend. She still couldn't believe that Elend had joined that silly religion of theirs. Elend's intentions had been political-by joining the skaa faith, Elend had forged a link between himself and the common people. Even so, the move made her uncomfortable.

  A year of marriage had taught her, however, that there were some things one just had to ignore. She could love Elend for his desire to do the right thing, even when she thought he'd done the opposite.

  "Call a meeting this evening, Demoux," Elend said. "We have much to discuss-and let me know when Sazed arrives."