Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [804]
“They are dead,” Human said, as if that were enough of an explanation.
To the side, a large group of koloss stood up, commanded by Elend’s silent orders. They separated themselves from the main camp, trudging out into the ash. A moment later, they began to look around, no longer moving as one.
Vin reacted quickly. She turned off her metals, burned duralumin, then flared zinc in a massive Pull, Rioting the koloss emotions. As expected, they snapped under her control, just as Human was.
Controlling this many was more difficult, but still well within her abilities. Vin ordered them to be calm, and to not kill, then let them return to the camp. From now on, they would remain in the back of her mind, no longer requiring Allomancy to manipulate. They were easy to ignore unless their passions grew strong.
Human watched them. “We are . . . fewer,” he finally said.
Vin started. “Yes,” she said. “You can tell that?”
“I . . .” Human trailed off, beady little eyes watching his camp. “We fought. We died. We need more. We have too many swords.” He pointed in the distance, to a large pile of metal. Wedge-shaped koloss swords that no longer had owners.
You can control a koloss population through the swords, Elend had once told her. They fight to get bigger swords as they grow. Extra swords go to the younger, smaller koloss.
But nobody knows where those come from.
“You need koloss to use those swords, Human,” Vin said.
Human nodded.
“Well,” she said. “You’ll need to have more children, then.”
“Children?”
“More,” Vin said. “More koloss.”
“You need to give us more,” Human said, looking at her.
“Me?”
“You fought,” he said, pointing at her shirt. There was blood there, not her own.
“Yes, I did,” Vin said.
“Give us more.”
“I don’t understand,” Vin said. “Please, just show me.”
“I can’t,” Human said, shaking his head as he spoke in his slow tone. “It’s not right.”
“Wait,” Vin said. “Not right?” It was the first real statement of values she’d gotten from a koloss.
Human looked at her, and she could see consternation on his face. So, Vin gave him an Allomantic nudge. She didn’t know exactly what to ask him to do, and that made her control of him weaker. Yet, she Pushed him to do as he was thinking, trusting—for some reason—that his mind was fighting with his instincts.
He screamed.
Vin backed away, shocked, but Human didn’t attack her. He ran into the koloss camp, a massive blue monster on two legs, kicking up ash. Others backed away from him—not out of fear, for they wore their characteristic impassive faces. They simply appeared to have enough sense to stay out of the way of an enraged koloss of Human’s size.
Vin followed carefully as Human approached one of the dead bodies of a koloss who still wore his skin. Human didn’t rip the skin off, however, but flung the corpse over his shoulder and took off running toward Elend’s camp.
Uh, oh, Vin thought, dropping a coin and taking to the air. She bounded after Human, careful not to outpace him. She considered ordering him back, but did not. He was acting unusually, true, but that was a good thing. Koloss generally didn’t do anything unusual. They were predictable to a fault.
She landed at the camp’s guard post and waved the soldiers back. Human continued on, barreling into the camp, startling soldiers. Vin stayed with him, keeping the soldiers away.
Human paused in the middle of camp, a bit of his passion wearing off. Vin nudged him again. After looking about, Human took off toward the broken section of camp, where Yomen’s soldiers had attacked.
Vin followed, growing more and more curious. Human hadn’t taken out his sword. Indeed, he didn’t seem angry at all, just . . . intense. He arrived at a section where tents had fallen and men had died. The battle was still only a few hours old, and soldiers moved about, cleaning up. Triage tents had been set up just beside the battlefield. Human headed for those.
Vin rushed ahead, cutting him off just as he reached the tent with the wounded. “Human,” she said warily. “What are you doing?”
He ignored her, slamming