Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [970]
“Where is she, Master Terrisman?” Garv asked.
“She’ll come,” Sazed promised, hand resting on the rock wall. The men fell quiet. Soldiers—those without the blessing of atium—waited nervously with them, knowing they were next in line, should Elend’s assault fail.
She has to come, Sazed thought. Everything points toward her arrival.
“The Hero will come,” he repeated.
Elend sheared through two heads at once, dropping the koloss. He spun his blade, taking off an arm, then stabbed another koloss through the neck. He hadn’t seen that one approaching, but his mind had seen and interpreted the atium shadow before the real attack came.
Already he stood atop of carpet of blue corpses. He did not stumble. With atium, his every step was exact, his blade guided, his mind crisp. He took down a particularly large koloss, then stepped back, pausing briefly.
The sun crested the horizon in the east. It started to grow hotter.
They had been fighting for hours, yet the army of koloss still seemed endless. Elend slew another koloss, but his motions were beginning to feel sluggish. Atium enhanced the mind, but it did not boost the body, and he’d started to rely on his pewter to keep him going. Who would have known that one could get tired—exhausted, even—while burning atium? Nobody had ever used as much of the metal as Elend had.
But he had to keep going. His atium was running low. He turned back toward the mouth of the cavern, just in time to see one of his atium soldiers go down in a spray of blood.
Elend cursed, spinning as an atium shadow passed through him. He ducked the swing that followed, then took off the creature’s arm. He beheaded the one that followed, then cut another’s legs out from beneath it. For most of the battle, he hadn’t used fancy Allomantic jumps or attacks, just straightforward swordplay. His arms were growing tired, however, and he was forced to begin Pushing koloss away from him to manage the battlefield. The reserve of atium—of life—within him was dwindling. Atium burned so quickly.
Another man screamed. Another soldier dead.
Elend began to back toward the cavern. There were just so many koloss. His band of two hundred and eighty had slain thousands, yet the koloss didn’t care. They kept attacking, a brutal wave of endless determination, resisted only by the pockets of atium Mistings protecting each of the entrances to the Homeland.
Another man died. They were running out of atium.
Elend screamed, swinging his sword about him, taking down three koloss in a maneuver that never should have worked. He flared steel and Pushed the rest away from him.
The body of a god, burning within me, he thought. He gritted his teeth, attacking as more of his men fell. He scrambled up a pile of koloss, slicing off arms, legs, heads. Stabbing chests, necks, guts. He fought on, alone, his clothing long since stained from white to red.
Something moved behind him, and he spun, raising his blade, letting the atium lead him. Yet, he froze, uncertain. The creature behind him was no koloss. It stood in a black robe, one eye socket empty and bleeding, the other bearing a spike that had been crushed back into its skull. Elend could see straight into the empty eye socket, through the creature’s head, and out the back.
Marsh. He had a cloud of atium shadows around him—he was burning the metal too, and would be immune to Elend’s own atium.
Human led his koloss soldiers through the tunnels. They killed any person in their path.
Some had stood at the entrance. They had fought long. They had been strong. They were dead now.
Something drove Human on. Something stronger than anything that had controlled him before. Stronger than the little woman with the black hair, though she had been very strong. This thing was stronger.