Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [888]
Pewter isn’t spectacular enough, Spook thought. The people won’t know how to tell if a man is swinging too quickly or enduring too much. I have to make Quellion shoot coins.
The Thug backed away, obviously noting Spook’s own increased speed. He kept his weapon raised warily, but did not attack. He just had to stall, letting his companion pull Quellion away. The Thug would be no easy fight—he would be more skilled than Spook, and even stronger.
“Your family is free,” Spook lied quietly. “We saved them earlier. Help us capture Quellion—he no longer has a hold on you.”
The Thug paused, lowering his weapon.
“Kill him!” Kelsier snapped.
That hadn’t been Spook’s plan, but he responded to the prompting. He dodged inside the Thug’s reach. The man turned in shock, and as he did, Spook delivered a backhanded blow to the skull. Spook’s dueling cane shattered. The Thug stumbled to the ground, and Spook snatched up the man’s fallen weapon, the obsidian-lined cudgel.
Quellion was at the edge of the stage. Spook jumped, sailing across the wooden platform. It was all right for him to use Allomancy; he hadn’t preached against it. Only Quellion the hypocrite needed to fear using his powers.
Spook cut down the remaining guard as he landed—the jagged shards of obsidian ripping through flesh. The soldier fell, and Quellion spun.
“I don’t fear you!” Quellion said, voice shaking. “I’m protected!”
“Kill him,” Kelsier ordered, appearing visibly on the stage a short distance away. Usually, the Survivor only spoke in his mind; he hadn’t actually appeared since that day in the burning building. It meant important things were happening.
Spook grabbed the Citizen by the front of his shirt, yanking him forward. Spook raised the length of wood, blood dripping from the obsidian shards onto the side of his hand.
“No!”
Spook froze at that voice, then glanced to the side. She was there, shoving her way through the crowd, approaching the open space before the stage.
“Beldre?” Spook asked. “How did you get out of the cavern?”
But, of course, she couldn’t hear him. Only Spook’s supernatural hearing had allowed him to pick her voice out of the sounds of fear and battle. He met her eyes across the distance, and saw her whispered words more than he heard them.
Please. You promised.
“Kill him!”
Quellion chose that moment to try and pull away. Spook turned, yanking back again—harder this time, nearly ripping Quellion’s shirt free as he threw the man down to the wooden platform. Quellion cried out in pain, and Spook raised his brutal weapon with both hands.
Something sparked in the firelight. Spook barely felt the impact, though it shook him. He stumbled, looking down, seeing blood on his side. Something had pierced the flesh of his left arm and shoulder. Not an arrow, though it had moved like one. His arm drooped, and though he couldn’t feel the pain, it seemed that his muscles weren’t working properly.
Something hit me. A . . . coin.
He turned. Beldre stood at the front of the crowd, crying, her hand raised toward him.
She was there that day I was captured, Spook thought numbly, at her brother’s side. He always keeps her near. To protect her, we thought.
Or the other way around?
Spook stood up straighter, Quellion whimpering in front of him. Spook’s arm dripped a trail of blood from where Beldre’s coin had hit, but he ignored it, staring at her.
“You were always the Allomancer,” he whispered. “Not your brother.”
And then, the crowd began to scream—likely prompted by Breeze. “The Citizen’s sister is an Allomancer!”
“Hypocrite!”
“Liar!”
“He killed my uncle, yet left his own sister alive!”
Beldre cried out as the people, carefully prepared and planted, saw the proof that Spook had promised them. It didn’t have the target he had intended, but the machine he had set in motion could not be halted now. The people gathered around Beldre, yelling in anger, shoving her among themselves.
Spook stepped toward her, raising his wounded arm. Then a shadow fell on him.
“She was always planning to betray