“What if we grew plants that need very little light?” Ham asked. As always, he wore simple trousers and a vest. He was a Thug, and could burn pewter—which made him resistant to heat and cold. He’d cheerfully walk around sleeveless on a day that would send most men running for shelter.
Well, maybe not cheerfully. Ham hadn’t changed overnight, as Sazed had. Ham, however, had lost some of his joviality. He tended to sit around a lot, looks of consternation on his face, as if he were considering things very, very carefully—and not much liking the answers he came up with.
“There are plants that don’t need light?” Allrianne asked, cocking her head.
“Mushrooms and the like,” Ham said.
“I doubt we could feed an entire empire on mushrooms,” Elend said. “Though it’s a good thought.”
“There have to be other plants, too,” Ham said. “Even if the mists come all day, there will be some light that gets through. Some plants have to be able to live on that.”
“Plants we can’t eat, my dear man,” Breeze pointed out.
“Yes, but maybe animals can,” Ham said.
Elend nodded thoughtfully.
“Blasted little time left for horticulture,” Cett noted. “We should have been working on this sort of thing years ago.”
“We didn’t know most of this until a few months ago,” Ham said.
“True,” Elend said. “But the Lord Ruler had a thousand years to prepare. That’s why he made the storage caverns—and we still don’t know what the last one contains.”
“I don’t like relying on the Lord Ruler, Elend,” Breeze said with a shake of his head. “He must have prepared those caches knowing that he’d be dead if anyone ever had to use them.”
Cett nodded. “The idiot Soother has a point. If I were the Lord Ruler, I’d have stuffed those caches with poisoned food and pissed-in water. If I were dead, then everyone else ought to be as well.”
“Fortunately, Cett,” Elend said with a raised eyebrow, “the Lord Ruler has proven more altruistic than we might have expected.”
“Not something I ever thought I’d hear,” Ham noted.
“He was emperor,” Elend said. “We may not have liked his rule, but I can understand him somewhat. He wasn’t spiteful—he wasn’t even evil, exactly. He just … got carried away. Besides, he resisted this thing that we’re fighting.”
“This thing?” Cett asked. “The mists?”
“No,” Elend said. “The thing that was trapped in the Well of Ascension.”
It is called Ruin, Vin thought suddenly. It will destroy everything.
“This is why I’ve decided we need to secure that last cache,” Elend said. “The Lord Ruler lived through this once—he knew how to prepare. Perhaps we’ll find plants that can grow without sunlight. Each of the caches so far has had repeats—food stores, water—but each one has held something new as well. In Vetitan, we found large stores of the first eight Allomantic metals. The thing in that last cache might be just what we need in order to survive.”
“That’s it, then!” Cett said, smiling broadly through his beard. “We are marching on Fadrex, aren’t we?”
Elend nodded curtly. “Yes. The main force of the army will march for the Western Dominance once we break camp here.”
“Ha!” Cett said. “Penrod and Janarle can suck on that for a few days.”
Vin smiled faintly. Penrod and Janarle were the two other most important kings under Elend’s imperial rule. Penrod governed Luthadel, which was why he wasn’t with them currently, and Janarle ruled the Northern Dominance—the kingdom that included House Venture’s hereditary lands.
The largest city in the north, however, had been seized in a revolt while Janarle—with Elend’s father, Straff Venture—had been away laying siege to Luthadel. So far, Elend hadn’t been able to spare the troops necessary to take Urteau back from its dissidents, so Janarle ruled in exile, his smaller force of troops used to maintain order in the cities he did control.
Both Janarle and Penrod had made a point of finding reasons to keep the main army from marching on Cett’s homeland.
“Those bastards won’t be at all happy when they hear about this,” Cett said.
Elend shook his head. “Does everything you say have to contain one vulgarity or another?”
Cett shrugged. “What’s the point of speaking if you can’t say something interesting?”
“Swearing isn’t interesting,” Elend said.
“That’s your own damned opinion,” Cett said, smiling. “And, you really shouldn’t be complaining, Emperor. If you think the things I say are vulgar, you’ve been living in Luthadel far too long. Where I come from, people are embarrassed to use pretty words like ‘damn.’”
Elend sighed. “Anyway, I—”
He was cut off as the ground began to shake. Vin was on her feet in seconds, looking for danger as the others cursed and reached for stability. She threw back the tent flap, peering through the mists. Yet, the shaking subsided quickly, and it caused very little chaos in the camp, all things considered. Patrols moved about, checking for problems—officers and Allomancers under Elend’s command. Most of the soldiers, however, just remained in their tents.
Vin turned back toward the tent’s room. A few of the chairs had fallen over, travel furniture disturbed by the earthquake. The others slowly returned to their seats. “Sure have been a lot of those lately,” Ham said. Vin met Elend’s eyes, and could see concern in them.
We can fight armies, we can capture cities, but what of ash, mists, and earthquakes? What about the world falling apart around us?
“Anyway,” Elend said, voice firm despite the concerns Vin knew he must feel, “Fadrex has to be our next goal. We can’t risk missing the cache, and the things it might contain.”
Like the atium, Reen whispered in Vin’s head as she sat back down. “Atium,” she said out loud.
Cett perked up. “You think it’ll be there?”
“There are theories,” Elend said, eyeing Vin. “But we have no proof.”
“It will be there,” she said. It has to be. I don’t know why, but we have to have it.
“I hope it isn’t,” Cett said. “I marched halfway across the blasted empire to try and steal that atium—if it turns out I left it beneath my own city …”
“I think we’re missing something important, El,” Ham said. “Are you talking about conquering Fadrex City?”
The room fell still. Up until this point, Elend’s armies had been used defensively, attacking koloss garrisons or the camps of small warlords and bandits. They had bullied a few cities into joining with him, but they had never actually assaulted a city and taken it by force.
Elend turned, looking back toward the map. Even from the side, Vin could see his eyes—the eyes of a man hardened by two years of near-perpetual war.
“Our primary goal will be to take the city by diplomacy,” Elend said.
“Diplomacy?” Cett said. “Fadrex is mine. That damn obligator stole it from me! There’s no need to worry your conscience about attacking him, Elend.”