“No, I don’t,” Elend said.
“She’s not invincible,” Cett said. “She’s a damn good Allomancer, true. But, take her metals away …”
She’ll surprise you, Cett.
“You don’t even look worried,” Cett said.
“Of course I’m worried,” Elend said, growing more certain. “I just … well, I trust her. If anyone can get out, Vin will.”
“You’re in denial,” Cett said.
“Perhaps,” Elend admitted.
“Are we going to attack?” Cett asked. “Try and get her back?”
“This is a siege, Cett,” Elend said. “The point is to not attack.”
“And our supplies?” Cett asked. “Demoux had to put the soldiers on half rations today. We’ll be lucky not to starve ourselves before we can get Yomen to surrender.”
“We have time yet,” Elend said.
“Not much. Not with Luthadel in revolt.” Cett was silent for a moment, then continued. “Another of my raiding parties returned today. They had the same things to report.”
The same news as all the others. Elend had authorized Cett to send soldiers into nearby villages, to scare the people, perhaps pillage some supplies. Yet, each of the raiding groups had come back empty-handed, bearing the same story.
The people in Yomen’s kingdom were starving. Villages barely survived. The soldiers hadn’t the heart to hurt them any further, and there wasn’t anything to take, anyway.
Elend turned toward Cett. “You think me a bad leader, don’t you?”
Cett looked up, then scratched at his beard. “Yes,” he admitted. “But, well … Elend, you’ve got one thing going for you as a king that I never did.”
“And that is?”
Cett shrugged. “The people like you. Your soldiers trust you, and they know you have too good a heart for your own good. You have a strange effect on them. Lads like those, they should have been eager to rob villages, even poor ones. Especially considering how on-edge our men are and how many fights there have been in camp. And yet, they didn’t. Hell, one of the groups felt so sorry for the villagers that they stayed for a few days and helped water the fields and do repairs to some of the homes!”
Cett sighed, shaking his head. “A few years ago, I would have laughed at anyone who chose loyalty as a basis for rule. But, well … with the world falling apart as it is, I think even I would rather have someone to trust, as opposed to someone to fear. I guess that’s why the soldiers act as they do.”
Elend nodded.
“I thought a siege was a good idea,” Cett said. “But, I don’t think it will work anymore, son. The ash is falling too hard now, and we don’t have supplies. This whole thing is becoming a damn mess. We need to strike and take what we can from Fadrex, then retreat to Luthadel and try to hold it through the summer while our people grow crops.”
Elend fell silent, then turned, looking to the side as he heard something else in the mists. Shouting and cursing. It was faint—Cett probably couldn’t hear it. Elend left, hurrying toward the sound, leaving Cett behind.
Another fight, Elend realized as he approached one of the cooking fires. He heard yells, blustering, and the sounds of men brawling. Cett’s right. Goodhearted or not, our men are getting too restless. I need—
“Stop this immediately!” a new voice called. Just ahead, through the dark mists, Elend could see figures moving about the firelight. He recognized the voice; General Demoux had arrived on the scene.
Elend slowed. Better to let the general deal with the disturbance. There was a big difference between being disciplined by one’s military commander and one’s emperor. The men would be better off if Demoux were the one to punish them.
The fighting, however, did not stop.
“Stop this!” Demoux yelled again, moving into the conflict. A few of the brawlers listened to him, pulling back. The rest, however, just continued to fight. Demoux pushed himself into the melee, reaching to pull apart two of the combatants.
And one of them punched him. Square in the face, throwing Demoux to the ground.
Elend cursed, dropping a coin and Pushing himself forward. He fell directly into the middle of the firelight, Pushing out with a Soothing to dampen the emotions of those fighting.
“Stop!” he bellowed.
They did, freezing, one of the soldiers standing over the fallen General Demoux.
“What is going on here?” Elend demanded, furious. The soldiers looked down. “Well?” Elend said, turning toward the man who had punched Demoux.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” the man grumbled. “We just …”
“Speak, soldier,” Elend said, pointing, Soothing the man’s emotions, leaving him compliant and docile.
“Well, my lord,” the man said. “They’re cursed, you know. They’re the reason Lady Vin got taken. They were speaking of the Survivor and his blessings, and that just smacked me as hypocrisy, you know? Then, of course their leader would show, demanding that we stop. I just … well, I’m tired of listening to them, is all.”
Elend frowned in anger. As he did so, a group of the army’s Mistings—Ham at their head—shoved through the crowd. Ham met Elend’s eyes, and Elend nodded toward the men who had been fighting. Ham made quick work of them, gathering them up for reprimand. Elend walked over, pulling Demoux to his feet. The grizzled general looked more shocked than anything.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Demoux said quietly. “I should have seen that coming … I should have been ready for it.”
Elend just shook his head. The two of them watched quietly until Ham joined them, his police pushing the troublemakers away. The rest of the crowd dispersed, returning to their duties. The solitary bonfire burned alone in the night, as if shunned as a new symbol of bad luck.
“I recognized a number of those men,” Ham said, joining Elend and Demoux as the troublemakers were led away. “Mistfallen.”
Mistfallen. The men who, like Demoux, had lain sick from the mists for weeks, instead of a single day. “This is ridiculous,” Elend said. “So they remained sick awhile longer. That doesn’t make them cursed!”
“You don’t understand superstition, my lord,” Demoux said, shaking his head and rubbing his chin. “The men look for someone to blame for their ill luck. And … well, it’s easy to see why they’d be feeling their luck was bad lately. They’ve been hard on anyone who was sickened by the mists; they’re just most hard on we who were out the longest.”
“I refuse to accept such idiocy in my army,” Elend said. “Ham, did you see one of those men strike Demoux?”
“They hit him?” Ham asked with surprise. “Their general?”
Elend nodded. “The big man I was talking to. Brill is his name, I think. You know what will have to be done.”
Ham cursed, looking away.
Demoux looked uncomfortable. “Maybe we could just … throw him in solitary or something.”
“No,” Elend said through his teeth. “No, we hold to the law. If he’d struck his captain, maybe we could let him off. But deliberately striking one of my generals? The man will have to be executed. Discipline is falling apart as it is.”