The Well of Ascension

"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!"