Kelsier pointed at the board, moving his finger between the line that said Chaos and the line that said Great Houses.
“If we can turn the houses inside Luthadel against each other, we can bring down the city. Mistborn will start assassinating house leaders. Fortunes will collapse. It won’t take long before there is open warfare in the streets. Part of our contract with Yeden states that we’ll give him an opening to seize the city for himself. Can you think of a better one than that?”
Breeze nodded with a smile. “It has flair—and I do like the idea of having the noblemen kill each other.”
“You always like it better when someone else does the work, Breeze,” Ham noted.
“My dear friend,” Breeze replied, “the entire point of life is to find ways to get others to do your work for you. Don’t you know anything about basic economics?”
Ham raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I—”
“It was a rhetorical question, Ham,” Breeze interrupted, rolling his eyes.
“Those are the best kind!” Ham replied.
“Philosophy later, Ham,” Kelsier said. “Stay on task. What do you think of my suggestion?”
“It could work,” Ham said, settling back. “But I can’t see the Lord Ruler letting things go that far.”
“It’s our job to see that he doesn’t have a choice,” Kelsier said. “He’s known to let his nobility squabble, probably to keep them off-balance. We fan those tensions, then we somehow force the Garrison to pull out. When the houses start fighting in earnest, the Lord Ruler won’t be able to do anything to stop them—except, perhaps, send his palace guard into the streets, which is exactly what we want him to do.”
“He could also send for a koloss army,” Ham noted.
“True,” Kelsier said. “But they’re stationed a moderate distance away. That’s a flaw we need to exploit. Koloss troops make wonderful grunts, but they have to be kept away from civilized cities. The very center of the Final Empire is exposed, yet the Lord Ruler is confident in his strength—and why shouldn’t he be? He hasn’t faced a serious threat in centuries. Most cities only need small policing forces.”
“Twenty thousand men is hardly a ‘small’ number,” Breeze said.
“It is on a national scale,” Kelsier said, holding up a finger. “The Lord Ruler keeps most of his troops on the edges of his empire, where the threat of rebellion is strongest. That’s why we’re going to strike him here, in Luthadel itself—and that’s why we’re going to succeed.”
“Assuming we can deal with that Garrison,” Dockson noted.
Kelsier nodded, turning to write House War underneath Great Houses and Chaos. “All right, then. Let’s talk about the Garrison. What are we going to do about it?”
“Well,” Ham said speculatively, “historically, the best way to deal with a large force of soldiers is to have your own large force of soldiers. We’re going to raise Yeden an army—why not let them attack the Garrison? Isn’t that kind of the point of raising the army in the first place?”
“That won’t work, Hammond,” Breeze said. He regarded his empty cup of wine, then held it up toward the boy sitting beside Clubs, who immediately scurried over to refill it.
“If we wanted to defeat the Garrison,” Breeze continued, “we’d need our own force of at least its same size. We’d probably want one much larger, since our men will be newly trained. We might be able to raise Yeden an army—we might even be able to get him one large enough to hold the city for a while. But, getting him one large enough to take on the Garrison inside its fortifications? We might as well give up now, if that’s our plan.”
The group fell silent. Vin squirmed in her chair, looking over each man in turn. Breeze’s words had a profound effect. Ham opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, sitting back to reconsider.
“All right,” Kelsier finally said. “We’ll get back to the Garrison in a moment. Let’s look at our own army. How can we raise one of substantial size and hide it from the Lord Ruler?”
“Again, that will be difficult,” Breeze said. “There is a very good reason why the Lord Ruler feels safe in the Central Dominance. There are constant patrols on the roadways and canals, and you can hardly spend a day traveling without running into a village or plantation. This isn’t the sort of place where you can raise an army without attracting notice.”
“The rebellion has those caves up to the north,” Dockson said. “We might be able to hide some men there.”
Yeden paled. “You know about the Arguois caverns?”
Kelsier rolled his eyes. “Even the Lord Ruler knows about them, Yeden. The rebels there just aren’t dangerous enough to bother him yet.”
“How many people do you have, Yeden?” Ham asked. “In Luthadel and around it, caves included? What do we have to start with?”
Yeden shrugged. “Maybe three hundred—including women and children.”
“And how many do you think those caves could hide?” Ham asked.
Yeden shrugged again.
“The caves could support a larger group, for certain,” Kelsier said. “Perhaps ten thousand. I’ve been there—the rebellion has been hiding people in them for years, and the Lord Ruler has never bothered to destroy them.”
“I can imagine why,” Ham said. “Cave fighting is nasty business, especially for the aggressor. The Lord Ruler likes to keep defeats to a minimum—he’s nothing if not vain. Anyway, ten thousand. That’s a decent number. It could hold the palace with ease—might even be able to hold the city, if it had the walls.”
Dockson turned to Yeden. “When you asked for an army, what size were you thinking?”
“Ten thousand sounds like a good number, I suppose,” Yeden said. “Actually … it’s a bit larger than I was thinking.”
Breeze tipped his cup slightly, swirling the wine. “I hate to sound contrary again—that’s usually Hammond’s job—but I do have to return to our earlier problem. Ten thousand men. That won’t even frighten the Garrison. We’re talking about twenty thousand well-armed, well-trained troops.”
“He has a point, Kell,” Dockson said. He had found a small book somewhere, and had begun taking notes on the meeting.
Kelsier frowned.
Ham nodded. “Any way you look at it, Kell, that Garrison is going to be a tough stone to break. Perhaps we should just focus on the nobility. Maybe we can cause enough chaos that even the Garrison won’t be able to suppress it.”
Kelsier shook his head. “Doubtful. The Garrison’s primary duty is to maintain order in the city. If we can’t deal with those troops, we’ll never pull this off.” He paused, then eyed Vin. “What do you think, Vin? Any suggestions?”
She froze. Camon had never asked her opinion. What did Kelsier want from her? She pulled back into her chair slightly as she realized that the other members of the crew had turned, looking at her.
“I …” Vin said slowly.
“Oh, don’t intimidate the poor thing, Kelsier,” Breeze said with a wave of his hand.