Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [918]
I did it. I drew upon the mists again. But why now? Why, after all the trying, did it happen now?
There was no time to consider it at the moment—not with the koloss attacking. She turned to the baffled Yomen. “Continue to retreat into the city!” she said. “I’m going out to help.”
Elend fought desperately, cutting down koloss after koloss. It was difficult, dangerous work, even for him. These koloss couldn’t be controlled—no matter how he Pushed or Pulled on their emotions, he couldn’t bring even one of them under his power.
That only left fighting. And, his men weren’t prepared for battle—he’d forced them to abandon camp too quickly.
A koloss swung, its sword whooshing dangerously close to Elend’s head. He cursed, dropping a coin and Pushing himself backward through the air, over his fighting men and back into camp. They’d managed to retreat back to the positioning of their original fortification, which meant that they had a small hill for defense and didn’t have to fight in ash. A group of his Coinshots—he only had ten—stood firing wave after wave of coins into the main bulk of the koloss, and archers threw similar volleys. The main line of soldiers was supported by Lurchers from behind, who would Pull on koloss weapons and throw them off balance, giving the regular men extra openings. Thugs ran around the perimeter in groups of two or three, shoring up weak spots and acting as reserves.
Even with all of that, they were in serious trouble. Elend’s army couldn’t stand against so many koloss any more easily than Fadrex could have. Elend landed in the middle of the half-disassembled camp, breathing heavily, covered in koloss blood. Men yelled as they fought a short distance away, holding the camp perimeter with the help of Elend’s Allomancers. The bulk of the koloss army was still bunched around the northern section of camp, but Elend couldn’t pull his men back any farther toward Fadrex without exposing them to Yomen’s archers.
Elend tried to catch his breath as a servant rushed up with a cup of water for him. Cett sat a short distance away, directing the battle tactics. Elend tossed aside the empty cup and moved over to the general, who sat at a small table. It held a map of the area, but hadn’t been marked on. The koloss were so close, the battle happening just yards away, that it wasn’t really necessary to keep an abstract battle map.
“Never did like having those things in the army,” Cett said as he downed a cup of water himself. A servant moved over, leading a surgeon, who pulled out a bandage to begin working on Elend’s arm—which, up until that moment, he hadn’t noticed was bleeding.
“Well,” Cett noted, “at least we’ll die in battle, rather than of starvation!”
Elend snorted, picking up his sword again. The sky was nearly dark. They didn’t have much time before—
A figure landed on the table in front of Cett. “Elend!” Vin said. “Retreat to the city. Yomen will let you in.”
Elend started. “Vin!” Then, he smiled. “What took you so long?”
“I got delayed by an Inquisitor and a dark god,” she said. “Now, hustle. I’ll go see if I can distract some of those koloss.”
Inquisitors had little chance of resisting Ruin. They had more spikes than any of his other Hemalurgic creations, and that put them completely under his domination.
Yes, it would have taken a man of supreme will to resist Ruin even slightly while bearing the spikes of an Inquisitor.
66
SAZED TRIED NOT TO THINK about how dark the ash was in the sky, or how terrible the land looked.
I’ve been such a fool, he thought, riding in the saddle. Of all the times that the world needed something to believe in, this is it. And I wasn’t there to give it to them.
He hurt from so much riding, yet he clung to the saddle, still somewhat amazed at the creature who ran beneath him. When Sazed had first decided to go with TenSoon south, he had despaired at making the trip. Ash fell like the snows of a blizzard, and it had piled terribly high in most places. Sazed had known travel would be difficult, and he’d feared slowing