Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [686]
“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