“Lord Terrisman,” the messenger said quietly. “I … just got back from the command post. Keep Venture has fallen. …”
“Lord Dockson?”
The man shook his head. “We found a few wounded scribes hiding outside the keep. They saw him die. The koloss are still in the building, breaking windows, rooting about….”
Sazed turned back, looking over the city. So much smoke billowed in the sky that it seemed the mists had come already. He’d begun filling his scent tinmind to keep the stench away.
The battle for the city might be over, but now the true tragedy would begin. The koloss in the city had finished killing soldiers. Now they would slaughter the people. There were hundreds of thousands of them, and Sazed knew the creatures would gleefully extend the devastation. No looting. Not when there was killing to be done.
More screams sounded in the night. They’d lost. Failed. And now, the city would truly fall.
The mists can’t be far away, he thought, trying to give himself some hope. Perhaps that will give us some cover.
Still, one image stood out to him. Clubs, dead in the snow. The wooden disk Sazed had given him earlier that same day tied to a loop around his neck.
It hadn’t helped.
Sazed turned back to Keep Hasting. “Lord Penrod,” he said loudly. “We are going to try and slip out of the city. I would welcome your troops and your leadership. If you stay here, the koloss will attack this keep and kill you.”
Silence.
Sazed turned, sighing as Ham—arm still in a sling—joined him. “We have to go, Saze,” Ham said quietly.
“You’re bloody, Terrisman.”
Sazed turned. Ferson Penrod stood on the top of his wall, looking down. He still looked immaculate in his nobleman’s suit. He even wore a hat against the snow and ash. Sazed looked down at himself. He still wore only his loincloth. He hadn’t had time to worry about clothing, particularly with his brassmind to keep him warm.
“I’ve never seen a Terrisman fight,” Penrod said.
“It is not a common occurrence, my lord,” Sazed replied.
Penrod looked up, staring out over the city. “It’s falling, Terrisman.”
“That is why we must go, my lord,” Sazed said.
Penrod shook his head. He still wore Elend’s thin crown. “This is my city, Terrisman. I will not abandon it.”
“A noble gesture, my lord,” Sazed said. “But these with me are your people. Will you abandon them in their flight northward?”
Penrod paused. Then he just shook his head again. “There will be no flight northward, Terrisman. Keep Hasting is among the tallest structures in the city—from it, we can see what the koloss are doing. They will not let you escape.”
“They may turn to pillaging,” Sazed said. “Perhaps we can get by them and escape.”
“No,” Penrod said, his voice echoing hauntingly across the snowy streets. “My Tineye claims the creatures have already attacked the people you sent to escape through the northern gate. Now the koloss have turned this way. They’re coming for us.”
As cries began to echo through the distant streets, coming closer, Sazed knew that Penrod’s words must be true. “Open your gates, Penrod!” Sazed yelled. “Let the refugees in!” Save their lives for a few more pitiful moments.
“There is no room,” Penrod said. “And there is no time. We are doomed.”
“You must let us in!” Sazed screamed.
“It is odd,” Penrod said, voice growing softer. “By taking this throne from the Venture boy, I saved his life—and I ended my own. I could not save the city, Terrisman. My only consolation is that I doubt Elend could have done so either.”
He turned to go, walking down somewhere beyond the wall.
“Penrod!” Sazed yelled.
He did not reappear. The sun was setting, the mists were appearing, and the koloss were coming.
Vin cut down another koloss, then jumped back, Pushing herself off of a fallen sword. She shot away from the pack, breathing heavily, bleeding from a couple of minor cuts. Her arm was growing numb; one of the creatures had punched her there. She could kill—kill better than anyone she knew. However, she couldn’t fight forever.
She landed on a rooftop, then stumbled, falling to kneel in a pile of snow. The koloss called and howled behind her, and she knew they would come, chasing her, hounding her. She’d killed hundreds of them, but what was a few hundred when compared with an army of over twenty thousand?
What did you expect? she thought to herself. Why keep fighting once you knew Sazed was free? Did you think to stop them all? Kill every koloss in the army?
Once, she’d stopped Kelsier from rushing an army by himself. He had been a great man, but still just one person. He couldn’t have stopped an entire army—no more than she could.
I have to find the Well, she thought with determination, burning bronze, the thumpings—which she’d been ignoring during the battle—becoming loud to her ears.
And yet, that left her with the same problem as before. She knew it was in the city now; she could feel the thumpings all around her. Yet, they were so powerful, so omnipresent, that she couldn’t sense a direction from them.
Besides, what proof did she have that finding the Well would even help? If Sazed had lied about the location—had gone so far as to draw up a fake map—then what else had he lied about? The power might stop the mists, but what good would that do for Luthadel, burning and dying?
She knelt in frustration, pounding the top of the roof with her fists. She had proven too weak. What good was it to return—what good was it to decide to protect—if she couldn’t do anything to help?
She knelt for a few moments, breathing in gasps. Finally, she forced herself to her feet and jumped into the air, throwing down a coin. Her metals were nearly gone. She barely had enough steel to carry her through a few jumps. She ended up slowing near Kredik Shaw, the Hill of a Thousand Spires. She caught one of the spikes at the top of the palace, spinning in the night, looking out over the darkening city.
It was burning.
Kredik Shaw itself was silent, quiet, left alone by looters of both races. Yet, all around her, Vin saw light in the darkness. The mists glowed with a haunting light.
It’s like … like that day two years ago, she thought. The night of the skaa rebellion. Except, on that day, the firelight had come from the torches of the rebels as they marched on the palace. This night, a revolution of a different type was occurring. She could hear it. She had her tin burning, and she forced herself to flare it, opening her ears. She heard the screams. The death. The koloss hadn’t finished their killing work by destroying the army. Not by far.
They had only just begun.
The koloss are killing them all, she thought, shivering as the fires burned before her. Elend’s people, the ones he left behind because of me. They’re dying.
I am his knife. Their knife. Kelsier trusted me with them. I should be able to do something. …
She dropped toward the ground, skidding off an angled rooftop, landing in the palace courtyard. Mists gathered around her. The air was thick. And not just with ash and snow; she could smell death in its breezes, hear screams in its whispers.
Her pewter ran out.
She slumped to the ground, a wave of exhaustion hitting her so hard that everything else seemed inconsequential. She suddenly knew she shouldn’t have relied on the pewter so much. Shouldn’t have pushed herself so hard. But, it had seemed like the only way.