Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [121]
The solemn group started to move, but Kelsier didn’t need to state the obvious. He and Ham wouldn’t be able to get close to Kredik Shaw without running afoul of guard patrols. Even if Vin was hiding in the city somewhere, the Inquisitors would probably find her first. They would have—
Kelsier froze, his sudden jerk causing the others to pause. He’d heard something.
Hurried footsteps sounded as Lestibournes rushed down the stairs and into the room, his lanky form wet with rain. “Someone’s coming! Out the night with the calling!”
“Vin?” Ham asked hopefully.
Lestibournes shook his head. “Big man. Robe.”
This is it, then. I’ve brought death to the crew—I’ve led the Inquisitors right to them.
Ham stood, picking up a wooden stave. Dockson pulled out a pair of daggers, and Clubs’s six apprentices moved to the back of the room, eyes wide with fright.
Kelsier flared his metals.
The back door to the kitchen slammed open. A tall, dark form in wet robes stood in the rain. And he carried a cloth-wrapped figure in his arms.
“Sazed!” Kelsier said.
“She is badly wounded,” Sazed said, stepping quickly into the room, his fine robes streaming with rainwater. “Master Hammond, I require some pewter. Her supply is exhausted, I think.”
Ham rushed forward as Sazed set Vin on the kitchen table. Her skin was clammy and pale, her thin frame soaked and wet.
She’s so small, Kelsier thought. Barely more than a child. How could I have thought to take her with me?
She bore a massive, bloody wound in her side. Sazed set something aside—a large book he’d been carrying in his arms beneath Vin—and accepted a vial from Hammond, then bent down and poured the liquid down the unconscious girl’s throat. The room fell silent, the sound of pounding rain coming through the still open door.
Vin’s face flushed slightly with color, and her breathing seemed to steady. To Kelsier’s Allomantic bronze senses, she began to pulse softly with a rhythm not unlike a second heartbeat.
“Ah, good,” Sazed said, undoing Vin’s makeshift bandage. “I feared that her body was too unfamiliar with Allomancy to burn metals unconsciously. There is hope for her, I think. Master Cladent, I shall require a pot of boiled water, some bandages, and the medical bag from my rooms. Quickly, now!”
Clubs nodded, waving for his apprentices to do as instructed. Kelsier cringed as he watched Sazed’s work. The wound was bad—worse than any he himself had survived. The cut went deeply into her gut; it was the type of wound that killed slowly, but consistently.
Vin, however, was no ordinary person—pewter would keep an Allomancer alive long after their body should have given out. In addition, Sazed was no ordinary healer. Religious rites were not the only things that Keepers stored in their uncanny memories; their metalminds contained vast wealths of information on culture, philosophy, and science.
Clubs ushered his apprentices from the room as the surgery began. The procedure took an alarming amount of time, Ham applying pressure to the wound as Sazed slowly stitched Vin’s insides back together. Finally, Sazed closed the outer wound and applied a clean bandage, then asked Ham to carefully carry the girl up to her bed.
Kelsier stood, watching Ham carry Vin’s weak, limp form out of the kitchen. Then, he turned to Sazed questioningly. Dockson sat in the corner, the only other one still in the room.
Sazed shook his head gravely. “I do not know, Master Kelsier. She could survive. We will need to keep her supplied with pewter—it will help her body make new blood. Even still, I have seen many strong men die from wounds smaller than this one.”
Kelsier nodded.
“I arrived too late, I think,” Sazed said. “When I found her gone from Renoux’s mansion, I came to Luthadel as quickly as I could. I used up an entire metalmind to make the trip with haste. I was still too late….”
“No, my friend,” Kelsier said. “You’ve done well this night.