Well of Ascension

by Brandon Sanderson

  The fighting continued outside. It was going on an awful long time. Shouldn't those soldiers be dead?

  "Breeze?"

  He couldn't move to see who it was. Sounds like Ham. That's funny. He should be dead, too.

  "Lord Ruler!" Ham said, coming into Breeze's view. He wore a bloodied sling on one arm. He fell urgently to Breeze's side. "Breeze, can you hear me?"

  "We saw him duck in here, my lord," another voice said.

  A soldier? "Took shelter from the fight. We could feel him Soothing us, though. Kept us fighting, even when we should have given up. After Lord Cladent died ..." I'm a coward.

  Another figure appeared. Sazed, lookin. perhaps the koloss will be distracted enough to let us slip out of the city."

  Distracted? Breeze mumbled. Distracted by the killing of other people, you mean. Well, it is somewhat comforting to know that we 're all cowards. Now, if I could just lie here for a little longer, I might be able to fall asleep...

  And forget all of this.

  Alendi will need guides through the Terris Mountains. I have charged Rashek with making certain that he and his trusted friends are chosen as those guides.

  54

  VIN'S STAFF BROKE AS SHE slammed it across a koloss face.

  Not again, she thought with frustration, spinning and ramming the broken shard into another creature's chest. She turned and came face-to-face with one of the big ones, a good five feet taller than she.

  It thrust its sword toward her. Vin jumped, and the sword collided with broken cobblestones beneath her. She shot upward, not needing any coins to carry herself up to eye level with the creature's twisted face.

  They always looked surprised. Even after watching her fight dozens of their companions, they seemed shocked to see her dodge their blows. Their minds seemed to equate size with power; a larger koloss always beat a smaller one. A five-foot-tall human should have been ho problem for a monster this big.

  Vin fTared pewter as she smashed her fist into the beast's head. The skull cracked beneath her knuckles, and the beast fell backward as she dropped back to the ground. Yet, as always, there was another to take its place.

  She was getting tired. No, she'd started the battle tired. She'd pewter-dragged, then used a convoluted personal spikeway to carry herself across an entire dominance. She was exhausted. Only the pewter in her last metal vial was keeping her upright.

  I should have asked Sazed for one of his empty pewter-minds! she thought. Feruchemical and Allomantic metals were the same. She could have burned that-though it would probably have been a bracer or a bracelet. To large to swallow.

  She ducked to the side as another koloss attacked. Coins didn't stop these things, and they all weighed too much for her to Push them away without an anchor. Besides, her steel and iron reserves were extremely low.

  She killed koloss after koloss, buying time for Sazed and thegood. It wasn't just because she killed monsters.

  It was because she understood her purpose. And she agreed with it. She could fight, could kill, if it meant defending those who could not defend themselves. Kelsier might have been able to kill for shock or retribution, but that wasn't good enough for Vin.

  And she would never let it be again.

  That determination fueled her attacks against the koloss. She used a stolen sword to cut off the legs of one. then threw the weapon at another, Pushing on it to people to get a good head start. Something was different this time-different from when she'd killed at Cett's palace. She felt impale the koloss in the chest. Then she Pulled on the sword of a fallen soldier, yanking it into her hand. She ducked backward, but nearly stumbled as she stepped on another body.

  So tired, she thought.

  There were dozens-perhaps even hundreds-of corpses in the courtyard. In fact, a pile was forming beneath her. She climbed it, retreating slightly as the creatures surrounded her again. They crawled over the corpses of their fallen brethren, rage frothing in their blood-drop eyes. Human soldiers would have given up, going to seek easier fights. The koloss, however, seemed to multiply as she fought them, others hearing the sounds of battle and coming to join in.

  She swiped, pewter aiding her strength as she cut off an arm from one koloss, then a leg from another, before finally going for the head of a third. She ducked and dodged, jumping, staying out of their reach, killing as many as she could.

  But as desperate as her determination-as strong as her newfound resolve to defend-she knew that she couldn't keep fighting, not like this. She was only one person. She couldn't save Luthadel, not alone.

  "'Lord Penrod!" Sazed yelled, standing at the gates to Keep Hasting. "You must listen to me."

  There was no response. The soldiers at the top of the short keep wall were quiet, though Sazed could sense their discomfort. They didn't like ignoring him. In the distance, the battle still raged. Koloss screamed in the night. Soon they would find their way to Sazed and Ham's growing band of several thousand, who now huddled quietly outside Keep Hasting's gate.

  A haggard messenger approached Sazed. He was the same one that Dockson had been sending to Steel Gate. He'd lost his horse somewhere, and they'd found him with a group of refugees in the Square of the Survivor.

  "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," lie 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 Ins 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, Jheir 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 pusere screaming. She could hear them-had heard them before. Elqnd's city ... Elend's people ... dying. Her friends were out there somewhere. Friends that Kelsier had trusted her to protect.

  She gritted her teeth, shoving aside the exhaustion for a moment longer, struggling up to her feel. She looked through the mists, toward the phantom sounds of terrified people. She began to dash toward them.

  She couldn't jump; she was out of steel. She couldn't even run very fast, but as she forced her body to move, it responded better and better, fighting off the dull numbness that she'd earned from relying on pewter so long.

  She burst out of an alleyway, skidding in the snow, and found a small group of people running before a koloss raiding party. There were six of the beasts, small ones, but still dangerous. Even as Vin watched, one of the creatures cut down an elderly man, slicing him nearly in two. Another picked up a small girl, slamming her against the side of a building.

  Vin dashed forward, past the fleeing skaa. whipping out her daggers. She still felt exhausted, but adrenaline helped her somewhat. She had to keep moving. Keep going. To stop was to die.

  Several of the beasts turned toward her, eager to fight. One swung for her, and Vin let herself slide in the slush-slipping closer to him-before cutting the back of his leg. He howled in pain as her knife got caught in his baggy skin. She managed to yank it free as a second creature swung.

  I feel so slow! she thought with frustration, barely sliding to her feet before backing away from the creature's reach. His sword sprayed chill water across her, and she jumped forward, planting a dagger in the creature's eye.

  Suddenly thankful for the times Ham had made her practice without Allomancy, she caught the side of a building to steady herself in the slush. Then she threw herself forward, shouldering the koloss with the woundhed herself so hard. But, it had seemed like the only way.

  She felt herself begin to slip into unconsciousness.

  But people wed eye-he was clawing at the dagger and yelling-into his companions. The koloss with the young girl turned, shocked, as Vin rammed her other dagger into his back. He didn't drop, but he did let go of the child.

  Lord Ruler, these things are tough! she thought, cloak whipping as she grabbed the child and dashed away. Especially when you're not tough yourself. I need some more metals.

  The girl in Vin's arms cringed as a koloss howl sounded, and Vin spun, flaring her tin to keep herself from falling unconscious from her fatigue. The creatures weren't following, however-they were arguing over a bit of clothing the dead man had been wearing. The howl sounded again, and this time, Vin realized, it had come from another direction.

  People began to scream again. Vin looked up, only to find those she'd just rescued facing down an even larger group of koloss.

  "No!" Vin said, raising a hand. But. they'd run far while she'd been fighting. She wouldn't even have been able to see them, save for her tin. As it was, she was able to see painfully well as the creatures began to lay into the small group with their thick-bladed swords.

  "No!" Vin screamed again, the deaths startling her, shocking her, standing as a reminder of all the deaths she'd been unable to prevent.

  "No. No! Nor

  Pewter, gone. Steel, gone. Iron, gone. She had nothing.

  Or... she had one thing. Not even pausing to think on what prompted her to use it, she threw a duralumin-enhanced Soothing at the beasts.

  It was as if her .mind slammed into Something. And then, that Something shattered. Vin skidded to a halt, shocked, child still in her arms as the kolo
ss stopped, frozen in their horrific act of slaughter.

  What did I just do? she thought, tracing through her muddled mind, trying to connect why she had reacted as she had. Was it because she had been frustrated?

  No. She knew that the Lord Ruler had built the Inquisitors with a weakness: Remove a particular spike from their back, and they'd die. He had also built the kandra with a weakness. The koloss had to have a weakness, too.

  TenSoon called the koloss... his cousins, she thought.

  She stood upright, the dark street suddenly quiet save for the whimpering skaa. The koloss waited, and she could feel herself in their minds. As if they were an extension of her own body, the same thing she had felt when she'd taken control of TenSoon's body.

  Cousins indeed. The Lord Ruler had built the koloss with a weakness-the same weakness as the kandra. He had given himself a way to keep them in check.

  And suddenly she understood how he'd controlled them all those long years.

  Sazed stood at the head of his large band of refugees, snow and ash-the two now indistinguishable in the misty darkness-falling around him. Ham sat to one side, looking drowsy. He'd lost too much blood; a man without pewter would have died by now. Someone had given Sazed a cloak, but he had used it to wrap the comatose Breeze. Even though be barely tapped his brassmind for warmth. Sazed himself wasn't cold.

  Maybe he was just getting too numb to care.

  He held two hands up before him, forming fists, ten rings sparkling against the light of the group's single lantern. Koloss approached from the dark alleyways, their forms huddled shadows in the night.

  Sazed's soldiers backed away. There was little hope left in them. Sazed alone stood in the quiet snow, a spindly, bald scholar, nearly naked. He, the one who preached the religions of the falIernHe, who had given up hope at the end. He, who should have had the most faith of all.

  Ten rings. A few minutes of power. A few minutes of life.