Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [335]
With pewter, however, Vin could run for hours at breakneck speeds. It gave her strength, lent her an unreal sense of balance, as she shot down the dark, mist-ruled street, a flurry of cloak tassels and bare feet.
OreSeur kept pace. He loped beside her in the night, breathing heavily, focused on his running.
Impressive, Vin thought, then turned down an alleyway. She easily jumped the six-foot-tall fence at the back, passing into the garden of some lesser nobleman’s mansion. She spun, skidding on the wet grass, and watched.
OreSeur crested the top of the wooden fence, his dark, canine form dropping through the mists to land in the loam before Vin. He came to a stop, resting on his haunches, waiting quietly, panting. There was a look of defiance in his eyes.
All right, Vin thought, pulling out a handful of coins. Follow this.
She dropped a coin and threw herself backward up into the air. She spun in the mists, twisting, then Pushed herself sideways off a well spigot. She landed on a rooftop and jumped off, using another coin to Push herself over the street below.
She kept going, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, using coins when necessary. She occasionally shot a glance behind, and saw a dark form struggling to keep up. He’d rarely followed her as a human; usually, she had checked in with him at specific points. Moving out in the night, jumping through the mists…this was the true domain of the Mistborn. Did Elend understand what he asked when he told her to bring OreSeur with her? If she stayed down on the streets, she’d expose herself.
She landed on a rooftop, jarring to a sudden halt as she grabbed hold of the building’s stone lip, leaning out over a street three stories below. She maintained her balance, mist swirling below her. All was silent.
Well, that didn’t take long, she thought. I’ll just have to explain to Elend that—
OreSeur’s canine form thumped to the rooftop a short distance away. He padded over to her, then sat down on his haunches, waiting expectantly.
Vin frowned. She’d traveled for a good ten minutes, running over rooftops with the speed of a Mistborn. “How…how did you get up here?” she demanded.
“I jumped atop a shorter building, then used it to reach these tenements, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “Then I followed you along the rooftops. They are placed so closely together that it was not difficult to jump from one to another.”
Vin’s confusion must have shown, for OreSeur continued. “I may have been…hasty in my judgment of these bones, Mistress. They certainly do have an impressive sense of smell—in fact, all of their senses are quite keen. It was surprisingly easy to track you, even in the darkness.”
“I…see,” Vin said. “Well, that’s good.”
“Might I ask, Mistress, the purpose of that chase?”
Vin shrugged. “I do this sort of thing every night.”
“It seemed like you were particularly intent on losing me. It will be very difficult to protect you if you don’t let me stay near you.”
“Protect me?” Vin asked. “You can’t even fight.”
“The Contract forbids me from killing a human,” OreSeur said. “I could, however, go for help should you need it.”
Or throw me a bit of atium in a moment of danger, Vin admitted. He’s right—he could be useful. Why am I so determined to leave him behind?
She glanced over at OreSeur, who sat patiently, his chest puffing from exertion. She hadn’t realized that kandra even needed to breathe.
He ate Kelsier.
“Come on,” Vin said. She jumped from the building, Pushing herself off a coin. She didn’t pause to see if OreSeur followed.
As she fell, she reached for another coin, but decided not to use it. She Pushed against a passing window bracket instead. Like most Mistborn, she often used clips—the smallest denomination of coin—to jump. It was very convenient that the economy supplied a prepackaged bit of metal of an ideal size and weight for jumping and shooting. To most Mistborn,