“As of this morning it is. Government officers can wear it. That way, they stand out, and people in need can find them. Or, at least, that’s the official explanation.”
Spook frowned. However, something else caught his attention.
She was there.
It was natural, of course—she accompanied her brother wherever he went. He was particularly worried for her safety, and seldom let her out of his sight. She wore the same look as always, eyes sorrowful within a frame of auburn hair.
“Sad group today,” Durn said, and at first Spook thought he was referring to Beldre. However, Durn was nodding toward the group of prisoners. They looked just like the rest of the people in the city—gray clothing, ash-stained faces, subservient postures. The Citizen, however, stepped forward to explain the differences.
“One of the first proclamations this government made,” he announced, “was one of solidarity. We are a skaa people. The ‘noblemen’ chosen by the Lord Ruler oppressed us for ten centuries. Urteau, we decided, would become a place of freedom. A place like the Survivor himself prophesied would come.”
“You’ve got the count?” Durn whispered to Spook.
Spook nodded. “Ten,” he said, counting the prisoners. “The ones we expected. You’re not earning your coin, Durn.”
“Watch.”
“These,” the Citizen said, bald scalp shining in the red sunlight as he pointed at the prisoners. “These didn’t heed our warning. They knew, as all of you know, that any nobleman who stayed in this city would forfeit his life! This is our will—all of our will.
“But, like all of their kind, these were too arrogant to listen. They tried to hide. But, they think themselves above us. They always will. That exposes them.”
He paused, then spoke again. “And that is why we do what we must.”
He waved his soldiers forward. They shoved the prisoners up the steps. Spook could smell the oil on the air as the soldiers opened the house’s doors and pushed the people in. Then, the soldiers barred the door from the outside and took up a perimeter. Each soldier lit a torch and threw it on the building. It didn’t take superhuman senses to feel the heat that soon blazed to life, and the crowd shied back—revolted and frightened, but fascinated.
The windows had been boarded shut. Spook could see fingers trying to pry the wood free, could hear people screaming. He could hear them thumping against the locked door, trying to break their way out, crying in terror.
He longed to do something. Yet, even with tin, he couldn’t fight an entire squad of soldiers on his own. Elend and Vin had sent him to gather information, not play their hand. Still, he cringed, calling himself a coward as he turned away from the burning building.
“This should not be,” Spook whispered harshly.
“They were noblemen,” Durn said.
“No they weren’t! Their parents might have been, but these were skaa. Normal people, Durn.”
“They have noble blood.”
“So do we all, if you look back far enough,” Spook said.
Durn shook his head. “This is the way it has to be. This is the Survivor—”
“Do not speak his name in association with this barbarity,” Spook hissed.
Durn was quiet for a moment, the only sounds that of the flames and those dying inside them. Finally, he spoke. “I know it’s hard to see, and perhaps the Citizen is too eager. But . . . I heard him speak once. The Survivor. This is the sort of thing he taught. Death to the noblemen; rule by the skaa. If you’d heard him, you’d understand. Sometimes, you have to destroy something in order to build something better.”
Spook closed his eyes. Heat from the fire seemed to be searing his skin. He had heard Kelsier speak to crowds of skaa. And, Kelsier had said the things that Durn now referred to. Then, the Survivor had been a voice of hope, of spirit. His same words repeated now, however, became words of hatred and destruction. Spook felt sick.
“Again, Durn,” he said, looking up, feeling particularly harsh, “I don’t pay you to spout Citizen propaganda at me. Tell me why I’m here, or you’ll get no further coin from me.”
The large beggar turned, meeting Spook’s eyes behind the cloth. “Count the skulls,” he said quietly. With that, Durn took his hand off Spook’s shoulder and retreated into the crowd.
Spook didn’t follow. The scents of smoke and burning flesh were growing too powerful for him. He turned, pushing his way through the crowd, seeking fresh air. He stumbled up against a building, breathing deeply, feeling the rough grain of its wood press against his side. It seemed to him that the falling flakes of ash were a part of the pyre behind, bits of death cast upon the wind.
He heard voices. Spook turned, noting that the Citizen and his guards had moved away from the fire. Quellion was addressing the crowd, encouraging them to be vigilant. Spook watched for a time, and finally the crowd began to leave, trailing the Citizen as he moved back toward the market pit.
He’s punished them, now he needs to bless them. Often, especially after executions, the Citizen visited the people personally, moving between stalls in the market, shaking hands and giving encouragement.
Spook took off down a side street. He soon passed out of the wealthier section of town, arriving at a place where the street fell away before him. He chose a place where the retaining wall had collapsed, forming a slope down into the dry canal, then hopped down, skidding his way to the bottom. He pulled up the hood of his cloak, obscuring his covered eyes, and made his way through the busy street with the dexterity of one who had grown up a street urchin.
Even taking a more roundabout route, he arrived at Marketpit before the Citizen and his retinue. Spook watched through the raining ash as the man moved down a broad ramp of earth, trailed by a following that numbered in the hundreds.
You want to be him, Spook thought, crouching beside a merchant’s stall. Kelsier died to bring this people hope, and now you think to steal his legacy.
This man was no Kelsier. This man wasn’t even worthy to utter the Survivor’s name.
The Citizen moved about, maintaining a paternal air, speaking to the people of the market. He touched them on the shoulders, shook hands, and smiled benevolently. “The Survivor would be proud of you.” Spook could hear his voice even over the noise of the crowd. “The ash that falls is a sign from him—it represents the fall of the empire, the ashes of tyranny. From those ashes we will make a new nation! One ruled by skaa.”
Spook edged forward, putting down the top of his hood and feeling before himself with his hands, as if he were blind. He carried his dueling cane across his back, in a strap obscured by the folds of his baggy gray shirt. He was more than capable when it came to moving through crowds. While Vin had always worked hard to remain obscure and unseen, Spook had managed to achieve both things without ever trying. In fact, he’d often tried the opposite. He’d dreamed of being a man like Kelsier—for even before he’d met the Survivor, Spook had heard stories of the man. The greatest skaa thief of their time—a man bold enough to try to rob the Lord Ruler himself.
And yet, try as he might, Spook had never been able to distinguish himself. It was just too easy to ignore yet another ash-faced boy, especially if you couldn’t understand his thick Eastern slang. It had taken actually meeting Kelsier—seeing how he could move people by talking—to finally convince Spook to abandon his dialect. That was when Spook had begun to understand that there was a power in words.
Spook subtly moved his way toward the front of the crowd watching the Citizen. He got jostled and shoved, but nobody cried out against him. A blind man who had gotten caught up in the press of people was easy to ignore—and what was ignored could get where it wasn’t supposed to. With some careful positioning, Spook soon placed himself at the front of the group, barely an arm’s length from the Citizen.
The man smelled of smoke.
“I understand, good woman,” the Citizen was saying as he held an elderly woman’s hands. “But your grandson is needed where he is, working the
fields. Without him and his kind, we would not be able to eat! A nation ruled by skaa also has to be one worked by skaa.”
“But . . . can’t he come back, even for a bit?” the woman asked.
“In time, good woman,” the Citizen said. “In time.” His crimson uniform made him the only splash of color on the street, and Spook found himself staring. He tore his eyes away and continued to maneuver, for the Citizen was not his goal.
Beldre stood to the side, as usual. Always watching, but never interacting. The Citizen was so dynamic that his sister was easily forgotten. Spook understood that feeling quite well. He let a soldier jostle him, pushing him out of the Citizen’s way. That jostle placed Spook right next to Beldre. She smelt just faintly of perfume.
I thought that was supposed to be forbidden.
What would Kelsier have done? He’d have attacked, perhaps, killing the Citizen. Or, he’d have moved against the man in another way. Kelsier wouldn’t have let such terrible things happen—he’d have acted.
Perhaps he would have tried to make an ally out of someone trusted by the Citizen?
Spook felt his heart—always so much louder to him now—beat faster. The crowd began to move again, and he let himself get shoved up against Beldre. The guards weren’t watching—they were focused on the Citizen, keeping him safe with so many random elements around.
“Your brother,” Spook whispered in her ear, “you approve of his murders?”
She spun, and he noticed for the first time that her eyes were green. He stood in the crowd, letting it shove him away as she searched, trying to figure out who had spoken. The crowd, following her brother, carried her from Spook.
Spook waited, being jostled in the sea of elbows, for a short time. Then he began to maneuver again, pushing through the people with subtle care until he was again beside Beldre.
“You think this is any different from what the Lord Ruler did?” he whispered. “I once saw him gather up random people and execute them in the Luthadel city square.”
She spun again, finally identifying Spook among the moving crowd. He stood still, meeting her eyes despite the blindfold. People moved between them, and she was carried away.
Her mouth moved. Only someone with the enhanced senses of tin could have seen with enough detail to make out the words on her lips.
“Who are you?”
He pushed his way through the crowd one more time. The Citizen was apparently planning to make a big speech up ahead, capitalizing on the increasingly large crowd. People were bunching up around the podium that lay in the middle of the market; it was getting more difficult to move through them.
Spook reached her, but felt the crowd pulling him away again. So, he reached between a pair of bodies and grabbed her hand, pulling her wrist as he moved with the surgings of the crowd’s motion. She spun, of course, but she didn’t cry out. The crowd moved around them, and she turned to meet his blindfolded eyes through the throng.
“Who are you?” Beldre asked again. Though he was close enough to have heard her had she spoken, no sound escaped her lips. She just mouthed the words. Behind her, on the podium, her brother began to preach.
“I’m the man who will kill your brother,” Spook said softly.
Again, he had expected a reaction from her—a scream, perhaps. An accusation. His actions here had been impulsive, born from his frustration at not being able to help the people who were executed. If she did scream, he realized, it could bring his death.
Yet she remained silent, flakes of ash falling between them.
“Others have said that same thing,” she mouthed.
“Others were not me.”
“And who are you?” she asked a third time.
“The companion of a god. A man who can see whispers and feel screams.”
“A man who thinks he knows better for this people than their own chosen ruler?” she mouthed. “There will always be dissenters who balk at what must be done.”
He still had her hand. He gripped it tightly, pulling her close. The crowd thronged the podium, leaving her and Spook at their rear, like shells left on a beach by the retreating waves.
“I knew the Survivor, Beldre,” he whispered harshly. “He named me, called me friend. What you’ve done in this city would horrify him—and I’m not going to let your brother continue to pervert Kelsier’s legacy. Bring him warning, if you must. Tell Quellion that I’m coming for him.”
The Citizen had stopped speaking. Spook glanced up, looking toward the lectern. Quellion stood upon it, looking out over his crowd of followers. Looking at Spook and Beldre, standing together at the back of the crowd. Spook hadn’t realized how exposed they had become.
“You there!” the Citizen cried. “What are you doing with my sister!”
Damn! Spook thought, releasing the girl and dashing away. However, one major inconvenience of the streetslots was their high, steep walls. There were very few ways to get out of the market, and those were all being watched by members of Quellion’s security forces. At the Citizen’s shouted command, soldiers began to dash forward from their posts, wearing leather and carrying steel.
Fine, Spook thought, charging the nearest group of soldiers. If he could get through them, he could reach a ramp up, perhaps disappear into the alleys between buildings above.
Swords scraped from scabbards. Behind Spook, people cried out in shock. He reached into the ragged tears of his cloak and whipped forth his dueling cane.
And then, he was among them.
Spook wasn’t a warrior, not really. He’d trained with Ham, of course—Clubs had insisted that his nephew know how to defend himself. However, the crew’s true warriors had always been their Mistborn, Vin and Kelsier, with Ham—as a Pewterarm—providing brute force, if necessary.
Yet, Spook had spent a lot of time training, lately, and while doing so he had discovered something interesting. He had something that Vin and Kelsier could never have had: a blurring array of sensory knowledge that his body could instinctively use. He could feel disturbances in the air, sense tremors in the floor, and could know where people were simply by how close their heartbeats sounded.
He was no Mistborn, but he was still very dangerous. He felt a soft wind, and knew a sword was swinging for him. He ducked. He felt a footstep on the ground, and knew someone was attacking from the side. He stepped away. It was almost like having atium.
Sweat flew from his brow as he spun, and he cracked his dueling cane into the back of one soldier’s head. The man fell—Spook’s weapon was crafted of the finest hardwood. But, just to be certain, he brought the butt of the weapon down on the fallen man’s temple, knocking him out of the battle for good.
He heard someone grunt beside him—soft, yet telling. Spook whipped his weapon to the side and smacked it against the attacking soldier’s forearm. The bones broke, and the soldier cried out, dropping his weapon. Spook rapped him on the head. Then, Spook spun, lifting his cane to block the third soldier’s strike.
Steel met wood, and the steel won, Spook’s weapon breaking. However, it stopped the sword strike long enough for Spook to duck away and grab a fallen warrior’s sword. It was different from the swords he’d practiced with—the men of Urteau preferred long, thin blades. Still, Spook only had one soldier left—if he could cut the man down, he’d be free.
Spook’s opponent seemed to realize that he had the advantage. If Spook ran, it would expose his back to attack. However, if Spook stayed, he’d soon be overwhelmed. The soldier circled warily, trying to stall for time.
So, Spook attacked. He raised his blade, trusting in his enhanced senses to compensate for the difference in training. The soldier raised his weapon to parry as Spook swung.
Spook’s sword froze in the air.
Spook stumbled, trying to force the weapon forward, but it was strangely held in place—as if he were trying to push it through something solid, rather than air. It was as if . . .
Someone was Pushing against it. Allomancy. Spook glanced desperately
around him, and immediately found the source of the power. The person Pushing had to be directly opposite Spook, for Allomancers could only Push away from themselves.
Quellion, the Citizen, had joined his sister. The Citizen met Spook’s gaze, and Spook could see effort in the man’s eyes as he clutched his sister, using her weight for support as he Pushed against Spook’s sword, interfering in the battle as Kelsier himself once had, long ago when visiting the caverns where his army trained.
Spook dropped the weapon, letting it fly backward out of his hands, then threw himself to the ground. He felt the draft of an enemy sword swinging overhead, narrowly missing him. His own weapon clanged to the ground a short distance from him, its ringing loud in his ears.
He didn’t have time to gather his breath; he could only push himself up to dodge the soldier’s follow-up blow. Fortunately, Spook wasn’t wearing any metal that Quellion could Push against to influence the fight any further. That was a habit that Spook was glad he’d never lost.
The only choice was to run. He couldn’t fight, not with an Allomancer interfering. He turned while the soldier prepared another swing. Then, Spook threw himself forward, getting inside the soldier’s guard. He ducked under the man’s arm and dashed to the side, hoping to run past and leave the soldier confused.
Something caught his foot.
Spook spun. At first, he assumed that Quellion was Pulling on him somehow. Then, he saw that the soldier on the ground—the first one he’d dropped—had grabbed his foot.
I hit that man in the head twice! Spook thought with frustration. There’s no way he’s still conscious!
The hand squeezed his foot, yanking Spook backward with an inhuman strength. With strength like that, the man had to be a Thug—a pewter burner, like Ham.
Spook was in serious trouble.
Spook kicked, managing to break free, then stumbled to his feet. But a Thug would have the power of pewter—he’d be able to run faster, and farther, than Spook.
Two Allomancers, counting the Citizen himself, Spook thought. Somebody isn’t as disdainful of noble blood as he claims!
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