“But, what if the Assembly gives the city to Straff? If our men join with him and attack Cett?”
“That’s the gamble he took,” Elend said. Cett never intended to be able to walk away from the confrontation here in Luthadel. He intends to take the city or be destroyed.
He is waiting, hoping Straff will attack, worrying that we’ll just give into him. But neither can happen as long as Straff is afraid of Vin. A three-way standoff. With the koloss as a fourth element that nobody can predict.
Someone needed to do something to tip the scales. “Demoux,” Elend said. “Are you ready to take over here?”
Captain Demoux looked over, nodding.
Elend turned to Ham. “I have a question for you, Ham.”
Ham raised an eyebrow.
“How insane are you feeling at the moment?
Elend led his horse out of the tunnel into the scraggly landscape outside of Luthadel. He turned, craning to look up at the wall. Hopefully, the soldiers there had gotten his message, and wouldn’t mistake him for a spy or a scout of one of the enemy armies. He’d rather not end up in Tindwyl’s histories as the ex-king who’d died by an arrow from one of his own men.
Ham led a small, grizzled woman from the tunnel. As Elend had guessed, Ham had easily found a suitable passwall to get them out of the city.
“Well, there you go,” said the elderly woman, resting on her cane.
“Thank you, good woman,” Elend said. “You have served your dominance well this day.”
The woman snorted, raising an eyebrow—though, from what Elend could tell, she was quite nearly blind. Elend smiled, pulling out a pouch and handing it to her. She reached into it with gnarled, but surprisingly dexterous, fingers and counted out the contents. “Three extra?”
“To pay you to leave a scout here,” Elend said. “To watch for our return.”
“Return?” the woman asked. “You aren’t running?”
“No,” Elend said. “I just have some business with one of the armies.”
The woman raised the eyebrow again. “Well, none of Granny’s business,” she muttered, turning back down the hole with a tapping cane. “For three clips, I can find a grandson to sit out here for a few hours. Lord Ruler knows, I have enough of them.”
Ham watched her go, a spark of fondness in his eyes.
“How long have you known about this place?” Elend asked, watching as a couple of burly men pulled closed the hidden section of stone. Half burrowed, half cut from the wall’s stones themselves, the tunnel was a remarkable feat. Even after hearing about the existence of such things from Felt earlier, it was still a shock to travel through one hidden not a few minutes’ ride from Keep Venture itself.
Ham turned back to him as the false wall snapped shut. “Oh, I’ve known of this for years and years,” he said. “Granny Hilde used to give me sweets when I was a kid. Of course, that was really just a cheap way of getting some quiet—yet well-targeted—publicity for her passwall. When I was grown, I used to use this to sneak Mardra and the kids in and out of the city when they came to visit.”
“Wait,” Elend said. “You grew up in Luthadel?”
“Of course.”
“On the streets, like Vin?”
Ham shook his head. “Not really like Vin,” he said in a subdued voice, scanning the wall. “I don’t really think anyone grew up like Vin. I had skaa parents—my grandfather was the nobleman. I was involved with the underground, but I had my parents for a good portion of my childhood. Besides, I was a boy—and a large one.” He turned toward Elend. “I suspect that makes a big difference.”
Elend nodded.
“You’re not going to shut this place down, are you?” Ham asked.
Elend turned with shock. “Why would I?”
Ham shrugged. “It doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of honest enterprise that you would approve of. There are probably people fleeing from the city nightly through this hole. Granny Hilde is known to take coin and not ask questions—even if she does grumble at you a bit.”
Ham did have a point. Probably why he didn’t tell me about the place until I specifically asked. His friends walked a fine line, close to their old ties with the underground, yet working hard to build up the government they’d sacrificed so much to create.
“I’m not king,” Elend said, leading his horse away from the city. “What Granny Hilde does isn’t any of my business.”
Ham moved up beside him, looking relieved. Elend could see that relief dissipate, however, as the reality of what they were doing settled in. “I don’t like this, El.”
They stopped walking as Elend mounted. “Neither do I.”
Ham took a deep breath, then nodded.
My old nobleman friends would have tried to talk me out of this, Elend thought with amusement. Why did I surround myself with people who had been loyal to the Survivor? They expect their leaders to take irrational risks.
“I’ll go with you,” Ham said.
“No,” Elend said. “It won’t make a difference. Stay here, wait to see if I get back. If I don’t, tell Vin what happened.”
“Sure, I’ll tell her,” Ham said wryly. “Then I’ll proceed to remove her daggers from my chest. Just make sure you come back, all right?”
Elend nodded, barely paying attention. His eyes were focused on the army in the distance. An army without tents, carriages, food carts, or servants. An army who had eaten the foliage to the ground in a wide swath around them. Koloss.
Sweat made the reins slick in Elend’s hands. This was different from before, when he’d gone into Straff’s army and Cett’s keep. This time he was alone. Vin couldn’t get him out if things went bad; she was still recovering from her wounds, and nobody knew what Elend was doing but Ham.
What do I owe the people of this city? Elend thought. They rejected me. Why do I still insist on trying to protect them?
“I recognize that look, El,” Ham said. “Let’s go back.”
Elend closed his eyes, letting out a quiet sigh. Then he snapped his eyes open and kicked his horse into a gallop.
It had been years since he’d seen koloss, and that experience had come only at his father’s insistence. Straff hadn’t trusted the creatures, and had never liked having garrisons of them in the Northern Dominance, one just a few days’ march from his home city of Urteau. Those koloss had been a reminder, a warning, from the Lord Ruler.
Elend rode his horse hard, as if using its momentum to bolster his own will. Aside from one brief visit to the Urteau koloss garrison, everything he knew of the creatures came from books—but Tindwyl’s instruction had weakened his once absolute, and slightly naive, trust in his learning.
It will have to be enough, Elend thought as he approached the camp. He gritted his teeth, slowing his animal as he approached a wandering squad of Koloss.
It was as he remembered. One large creature—its skin revoltingly split and cracked by stretch marks—led a few medium-sized beasts, whose bleeding rips were only beginning to appear at the corners of their mouths and the edges of their eyes. A smattering of smaller creatures—their baggy skin loose and sagging beneath their eyes and arms—accompanied their betters.