“We have to help!” Allrianne insisted.
“No,” Cett said quietly, shrugging off the effects of her Raging his emotions. He’d grown used to her manipulations long ago. “Our help wouldn’t matter now.”
“We have to do something!” Allrianne said, pulling his arm.
“No,” Cett said more forcefully.
“But you came back!” she said. “Why did we return, if not to help?”
“We will help,” Cett said quietly. “We’ll help Straff take the city when he wishes, then we’ll submit to him and hope he doesn’t kill us.”
Allrianne paled. “That’s it?” she hissed. “That’s why we returned, so that you can give our kingdom to that monster?”
“What else did you expect?” Cett demanded. “You know me, Allrianne. You know that this is the choice I have to make.”
“I thought I knew you,” she snapped. “I thought you were a good man, down deep.”
Cett shook his head. “The good men are all dead, Allrianne. They died inside that city.”
Sazed fought on. He was no warrior; he didn’t have honed instincts or training. He calculated that he should have died hours before. And yet, somehow, he managed to stay alive.
Perhaps it was because the koloss didn’t fight with skill, either. They were blunt—like their giant, wedgelike swords—and they simply threw themselves at their opponents with little thought of tactics.
That should have been enough. Yet, Sazed held—and where he held, his few men held with him. The koloss had rage on their side, but Sazed’s men could see the weak and elderly standing, waiting, just at the edge of the square. The soldiers knew why they fought. This reminder seemed enough to keep them going, even when they began to be surrounded, the koloss working their way into the edges of the square.
Sazed knew, by now, that no relief was going to come. He’d hoped, perhaps, that Straff would decide to take the city, as Clubs had suggested. But it was too late for that; night was approaching, the sun inching toward the horizon.
The end is finally here, Sazed thought as the man next to him was struck down. Sazed slipped on blood, and the move saved him as the koloss swung over his head.
Perhaps Tindwyl had found a way to safety. Hopefully, Elend would deliver the things he and she had studied. They were important, Sazed thought, even if he didn’t know why.
Sazed attacked, swinging the sword he’d taken from a koloss. He enhanced his muscles in a final burst as he swung, giving them strength right as the sword met koloss flesh.
He hit. The resistance, the wet sound of impact, the shock up his arm—these were familiar to him now. Bright koloss blood sprayed across him, and another of the monsters fell.
And Sazed’s strength was gone.
Pewter tapped clean, the koloss sword was now heavy in his hands. He tried to swing it at the next koloss in line, but the weapon slipped from his weak, numb, tired fingers.
This koloss was a big one. Nearing twelve feet tall, it was the largest of the monsters Sazed had seen. Sazed tried to step away, but he stumbled over the body of a recently killed soldier. As he fell, his men finally broke, the last dozen scattering. They’d held well. Too well. Perhaps if he’d let them retreat …
No, Sazed thought, looking up at his death. I did well, I think. Better than any mere scholar should have been able to.
He thought about the rings on his fingers. They could, perhaps, give him a little bit of an edge, let him run. Flee. Yet, he couldn’t summon the motivation. Why resist? Why had he resisted in the first place? He’d known that they were doomed.
You’re wrong about me, Tindwyl, he thought. I do give up, sometimes. I gave up on this city long ago.
The koloss loomed over Sazed, who still lay half sprawled in the bloody slush, and raised its sword. Over the creature’s shoulder, Sazed could see the red sun hanging just above the top of the wall. He focused on that, rather than on the falling sword. He could see rays of sunlight, like … shards of glass in the sky.
The sunlight seemed to sparkle, twinkling, coming for him. As if the sun itself were welcoming him. Reaching down to accept his spirit.
And so, I die. …
A twinkling droplet of light sparkled in the beam of sunlight, then hit the koloss directly in the back of the skull. The creature grunted, stiffening, dropping its sword. It collapsed to the side, and Sazed lay, stupefied, on the ground for a moment. Then he looked up at the top of the wall.
A small figure stood silhouetted by the sun. Black before the red light, a cloak flapped gently on her back. Sazed blinked. The bit of sparkling light he’d seen … it had been a coin. The koloss before him was dead.
Vin had returned.
She jumped, leaping as only an Allomancer could, to soar in a graceful arc above the square. She landed directly in the midst of the koloss and spun. Coins shot out like angry insects, cutting through blue flesh. The creatures didn’t drop as easily as humans would have, but the attack got their attention. The koloss turned away from the fleeing soldiers and defenseless townspeople.
The skaa at the back of the square began to chant. It was a bizarre sound to hear in the middle of a battle. Sazed sat up, ignoring his pains and exhaustion as Vin jumped. The city gate suddenly lurched, its hinges twisting. The koloss had already beaten on it so hard. …
The massive wooden portal burst free from the wall, Pulled by Vin. Such power, Sazed thought numbly. She must be Pulling on something behind herself—but, that would mean that poor Vin is being yanked between two weights as heavy as that gate.
And yet, she did it, lifting the gate door with a heave, Pulling it toward herself. The huge hardwood gate crashed through the koloss ranks, scattering bodies. Vin twisted expertly in the air, Pulling herself to the side, swinging the gate to the side as if it were tethered to her by a chain.
Koloss flew in the air, bones cracking, sprayed like splinters before the enormous weapon. In a single sweep, Vin cleared the entire courtyard.
The gate dropped. Vin landed amid a group of crushed bodies, silently kicking a soldier’s war staff up into her hands. The remaining koloss outside the gate paused only briefly, then charged. Vin began to attack swiftly, but precisely. Skulls cracked, koloss falling dead in the slush as they tried to pass her. She spun, sweeping a few of them to the ground, spraying ashen red slush across those running up behind.
I … I have to do something, Sazed thought, shaking off his stupefaction. He was still bare-chested, the cold ignored because of his brassmind—which was nearly empty. Vin continued to fight, felling koloss after koloss. Even her strength won’t last forever. She can’t save the city.
Sazed forced himself to his feet, then moved toward the back of the square. He grabbed the old man at the front of the crowd of skaa, shaking the man out of his chanting. “You were right,” Sazed said. “She returned.”
“Yes, Holy First Witness.”
“She will be able to give us some time, I think,” Sazed said. “The koloss have broken into the city. We need to gather what people we can and escape.”
The old man paused, and for a moment Sazed thought he would object—that he would claim Vin would protect them, would defeat the entire army. Then, thankfully, he nodded.
“We’ll run out the northern gate,” Sazed said urgently. “That is where the koloss first entered the city, and so it is likely that they have moved on from that area.”