“TenSoon of the Third Generation!” KanPaar said, standing up straight, crystalline True Body sparkling as he pointed. “You have been sentenced to the ritual imprisonment of ChanGaar! You will be beaten to the point of fracture, then bricked into a pit, with only one hole for your daily slop. You will remain there for ten generations! Only after that will you be executed by starvation! Know that your greatest sin was that of rebellion. If you had not strayed from the advice and wisdom of this council, you would never have thought it right to break the First Contract. Because of you, the Trust has been endangered, as has every kandra of every generation!”
KanPaar let the pronouncement ring in the chamber. TenSoon sat quietly on his haunches. KanPaar had obviously expected some kind of response from him, but TenSoon gave none. Finally, KanPaar gestured to the guards beside TenSoon, who hefted their fearsome hammers.
“You know, KanPaar,” TenSoon said, “I learned a few important things while wearing these bones a year ago.”
KanPaar gestured again. The guards raised their weapons.
“It’s something I had never paused to consider,” TenSoon said. “Humans, if you think about it, just aren’t built for speed. Dogs, however, are.”
The hammers fell.
TenSoon leaped forward.
The powerful dog’s haunches launched him into motion. TenSoon was a member of the Third Generation. Nobody had been eating and emulating bodies as long as he had, and he knew how to pack muscles into a body. In addition, he had spent a year wearing the bones of a wolfhound, being forced to try to keep up with his Mistborn master. He had undergone what had effectively been a year of training by one of the most talented Allomancers the world had ever known.
On top of that, a body mass that had translated from a scrawny human made quite a substantial wolfhound. This, combined with his skill in crafting bodies, meant that when TenSoon jumped, he jumped. His guards cried out in shock as TenSoon sprang away, his leap taking him at least ten feet across the room. He hit the ground running, but didn’t head for the door. They’d be expecting that.
Instead he sprang directly toward KanPaar. The foremost of Seconds cried out, throwing up ineffectual hands as a hundred pounds of wolfhound crashed into him, throwing him to the stone floor. TenSoon heard sharp cracks as KanPaar’s delicate bones shattered, and KanPaar screamed in a very un-kandra-like way.
That seems appropriate, TenSoon thought, shoving his way through the ranks of the Seconds, shattering bones. Honestly, what kind of vain fool wears a True Body made of crystal?
Many of the kandra didn’t know how to react. Others—especially the younger ones—had spent a lot of time around humans on Contracts, and they were more accustomed to chaos. These scattered, leaving their elder companions sitting on the benches in shock. TenSoon darted between bodies, heading toward the doors. The guards beside the podium—the ones who would have shattered his bones—rushed to KanPaar’s side, their filial sense of duty overriding their desire to prevent his escape. Besides, they must have seen the crowd clogging the doorway, and assumed that TenSoon would be slowed.
As soon as he reached the crowd, TenSoon jumped again. Vin had required him to be able to leap incredible heights, and he’d practiced with many different muscle structures. This jump wouldn’t have impressed Vin—TenSoon no longer had the Blessing of Potency he’d stolen from OreSeur—but it was more than enough to let him clear the watching kandra. Some cried out, and he landed in a pocket of open space, then leaped again toward the open cavern beyond.
“No!” he heard echoing from the Trustwarren. “Go after him!”
TenSoon took off in a loping dash down one of the corridors. He ran quickly—far more quickly than anything bipedal could have managed. With his canine body, he hoped he’d be able to outrun even kandra bearing the Blessing of Potency.
Farewell, my home, TenSoon thought, leaving the main cavern behind. And farewell to what little honor I had left.
PART THREE
THE BROKEN SKIES
Feruchemy, it should be noted, is the power of balance. Of the three powers, only it was known to men before the conflict between Preservation and Ruin came to a head. In Feruchemy, power is stored up, then later drawn upon. There is no loss of energy—just a changing of the time and rate of its use.
34
MARSH STRODE INTO THE SMALL town. Workers atop the makeshift gate—which looked flimsy enough that a determined knock would send it toppling—froze in place. Ash sweepers noticed him pass with shock, then horror. It was odd, how they watched, too terrified to flee. Or, at least, too terrified to be the first one to flee.
Marsh ignored them. The earth trembled beneath him in a beautiful song—quakes were common, here, in the shadow of Mount Tyrian. It was the ashmount closest to Luthadel. Marsh walked through Elend Venture’s own territory. But, of course, the emperor had abandoned it. That seemed an invitation to Marsh, and to the one who controlled him. They were really the same. Marsh smiled as he walked.
A small piece of him was still free. He let it sleep, however. Ruin needed to think he had given up. That was the point. And so, Marsh held back only a tiny bit, and he did not fight. He let the ashen sky become a thing of bespeckled beauty, and treated the death of the world as a blessed event.
Biding his time. Waiting.
The village was an inspiring sight. The people were starving here, even though they were within the Central Dominance: Elend Venture’s “protected” area. They had the wonderful, haunted expressions of those who were close to giving up hope. The streets were barely maintained, the homes—which had once been the dwellings of noblemen, but were now filled with hungry skaa—covered in ash, their gardens stripped and their structures cannibalized to feed fires during the winter.
The gorgeous sight made Marsh smile with satisfaction. Behind him, people finally started to move, fleeing, doors slamming. There were probably some six or seven thousand people living in the town. They were not Marsh’s concern. Not at the moment.
He was interested only in a single, specific building. It looked little different from the others, a mansion in a fine row. The town had once been a stopping place for travelers, and had grown to be a favored place for nobility to construct second homes. A few noble families had lived here permanently, overseeing the many skaa who had worked the plantations and fields on the plains outside.
The building Marsh chose was slightly better maintained than those around it. The garden was, of course, more weeds than cultivation, and the outer mansion walls hadn’t seen a good scrubbing in years. However, fewer sections of it looked to have been broken apart for firewood, and a guard actually stood watch at the front gate.
Marsh killed him with one of the razor-sharp metal triangles that had once been used in the Lord Ruler’s ceremonies. Marsh Pushed it through the guard’s chest even as the man opened his mouth in challenge. The air was oddly still and quiet as the guard’s voice cut off, and he toppled to the side in the road. The skaa who watched from nearby homes knew better than to react, and didn’t stir.
Marsh hummed to himself as he strolled up the front walk to the mansion, startling a small flock of ravens who had come to roost. Once this path would have been a calming stroll through gardens, the way marked by flagstones. Now it was simply a hike through a weed-filled field. The man who owned the place obviously couldn’t afford more than the lone gate guard, and nobody raised an alarm at Marsh’s approach. He was actually able to walk right up to the front doors. Smiling to himself, he knocked.