Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [416]
“What do you think?” she asked quietly, watching the figure approach. He carried no torch, and he seemed very comfortable in the mists.
“Allomancer?” OreSeur asked, crouching beside her.
Vin shook her head. “There’s no Allomantic pulse.”
“So if he is one, he’s Mistborn,” OreSeur said. He still didn’t know she could pierce copperclouds. “He’s too tall to be your friend Zane. Be careful, Mistress.”
Vin nodded, dropped a coin, then threw herself into the mists. Behind her, OreSeur jumped down from the guardhouse, then leapt off the wall and dropped some twenty feet to the ground.
He certainly does like to push the limits of those bones, she thought. Of course, if a fall couldn’t kill him, then she could perhaps understand his courage.
She guided herself by Pulling on the nails in a wooden roof, landing just a short distance from the dark figure. She pulled out her knives and prepared her metals, making certain she had duralumin. Then she moved quietly across the street.
Surprise, she thought. Ham’s suggestion still left her nervous. She couldn’t always depend on surprise. She followed the man, studying him. He was tall—very tall. And in robes. In fact, those robes…
Vin stopped short. “Sazed?” she asked with shock.
The Terrisman turned, face now visible to her tin-enhanced eyes. He smiled. “Ah, Lady Vin,” he said with his familiar, wise voice. “I was beginning to wonder how long it would take you to find me. You are—”
He was cut off as Vin grabbed him in an excited embrace. “I didn’t think you were going to come back so soon!”
“I was not planning to return, Lady Vin,” Sazed said. “But events are such that I could not avoid this place, I think. Come, we must speak with His Majesty. I have news of a rather disconcerting nature.”
Vin let go, looking up at his kindly face, noting the tiredness in his eyes. Exhaustion. His robes were dirty and smelled of ash and sweat. Sazed was usually very meticulous, even when he traveled. “What is it?” she asked.
“Problems, Lady Vin,” he said quietly. “Problems and troubles.”
23
The Terris rejected him, but he came to lead them.
“King Lekal claimed that he had twenty thousand of the creatures in his army,” Sazed said quietly.
Twenty thousand! Elend thought in shock. That was easily as dangerous as Straff’s fifty thousand men. Probably more so.
The table fell silent, and Elend glanced at the others. They sat in the palace kitchen, where a couple of cooks hurriedly prepared a late-night dinner for Sazed. The white room had an alcove at the side with a modest table for servant meals. Not surprisingly, Elend had never dined in the room, but Sazed had insisted that they not wake the servants it would require to prepare the main dining hall, though he apparently hadn’t eaten all day.
So, they sat on the low wooden benches, waiting while the cooks worked—far enough away that they couldn’t hear the hushed conversation in the alcove. Vin sat beside Elend, arm around his waist, her wolfhound kandra on the floor beside her. Breeze sat on the other side of him, looking disheveled; he’d been rather annoyed when they’d woken him. Ham had already been up, as had Elend himself. Another proposal had needed work—a letter he would send to the Assembly explaining that he was meeting with Straff informally, rather than in official parlay.
Dockson pulled over a stool, choosing a place away from Elend, as usual. Clubs sat slumped on his side of the bench, though Elend couldn’t tell if the posture was from weariness or from general Clubs grumpiness. That left only Spook, who sat on one of the serving tables a distance away, legs swinging over the side as he occasionally pilfered a tidbit of food from the annoyed cooks. He was, Elend noticed with amusement, flirting quite unsuccessfully with a drowsy kitchen girl.
And then there was Sazed. The Terrisman sat directly across from Elend with the calm sense of collectedness that only Sazed could manage. His robes were dusty, and he looked odd without his earrings—removed to not tempt thieves, Elend would guess—but his face and hands