Steelheart

by Brandon Sanderson

  Cody eyed it, rubbing his chin. He knew what I meant. We’d only need a secondary person to blow the explosives if Abraham fell. I didn’t like thinking about it, but after Megan … Well, we all seemed a whole lot more frail to me now than we once had.

  “You know,” Cody said, taking the blasting cap from me, “where I’d really like to have a backup is on the explosives under the field there. Those are the most important ones to detonate; they’re going to cover our escape.”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “Do you mind if I take this and stick it down there before I weld it closed?” Cody asked.

  “No, assuming Prof agrees.”

  “He likes redundancy,” Cody said, slipping the blasting cap into his pocket. “Just keep that pen-dealy of yours handy. And don’t push it by accident.”

  He sauntered back toward the tunnel under the field, and I took the ladder into the restroom to get to work.

  I punched my fist out into open air, then ducked as the steel dust fell around me. So that’s how he did it, I thought, flexing my fingers. I hadn’t figured out the sword trick, but I was getting good at punching and vaporizing things in front of my fist. It had to do with crafting the tensor’s sound waves so that they followed my hand in motion, creating kind of an … envelope around it.

  Done right, the wave would course along with my fist. Kind of like smoke might follow your hand if you punch through it. I smiled, shaking my hand. I’d finally figured it out. Good thing too. My knuckles were feeling pretty sore.

  I finished off the hole with a more mundane tensor blast, reaching up from the top of my ladder to sculpt the hole. Through it I could see a pure black sky. Someday I’d like to see the sun again, I thought. The only thing up there was blackness. Blackness and Calamity, burning in the distance directly above, like a terrible red eye.

  I climbed up off the ladder and out into the upper third deck. I had a sudden, surreal flash of memory. This was near where I’d sat the one time I’d come to this stadium. My father had scrimped and saved to buy us the tickets. I couldn’t remember which team we’d played, but I could remember the taste of the hot dog my father bought. And his cheering, his excitement.

  I crouched down among the seats, keeping low just in case. Steelheart’s spy drones were probably out of commission now that the city was without power, but he might have people scouting the city and looking for Limelight. It would be wise to remain out of sight as much as possible.

  Fishing a rope out of my pack, I tied it around the leg of one of the steel seats, then sneaked back to the hole and down the ladder, returning to the bathroom below the second deck. Leaving the rope hanging for a quicker escape than the ladder would allow, I stowed the ladder and my empty pack in one of the stalls and walked out toward the seats.

  Abraham was waiting there for me, leaning against the entryway to the lower seating with his muscled arms crossed, his expression thoughtful.

  “So, I take it the UV lights are hooked up?” I asked.

  Abraham nodded. “It would have been beautiful to use the stadium’s own floodlights.”

  I laughed. “I’d have liked to see that, making a bunch of lights work that had their bulbs turned to steel and fused to their sockets.”

  The two of us stood there for a time, looking out at our battlefield. I checked my mobile. It was early morning; we planned to summon Steelheart at 5:00 a.m. Hopefully his soldiers would be exhausted from preventing lootings all night without any vehicles or power armor. The Reckoners usually worked on a night schedule anyway.

  “Fifteen minutes until projected go time,” I noted. “Did Cody finish the welding? Prof and Tia back yet?”

  “Cody completed the weld and is moving to his position,” Abraham said. “Prof will arrive momentarily. They were able to procure a copter, and Edmund has gifted Tia the ability to power it. She flew it outside of town to park it, so as to not give away our location.”

  If things went sour, she’d time her flight back in so that she could sweep down and pick us up as the explosives went off. We’d also blast a smokescreen from the stands to cover our escape.

  I agreed with Prof, though. You couldn’t outfly or outgun Steelheart in a copter. This was the showdown. We defeated him here or we died.

  My mobile flashed, and a voice spoke into my ear. “I’m back,” Prof said. “Tia’s set too.” He hesitated a moment. “Let’s do this.”

  35

  SINCE my post was right up against the front of the third deck, if I’d been standing I could have looked down over the edge toward the lowest level of seats. Huddled in my improvised hole, however, I couldn’t see those—though I had a good view of the field.

  This put me high enough to watch what was going on around the stadium, but I also had a route to ground if I needed to try firing my father’s gun at Steelheart. The tunnel and rope farther up the deck would get me there quickly.

  I’d drop down, then try to sneak up on him, if it came to that. It would be like trying to sneak up on a lion while armed only with a squirt gun.

  I huddled in my spot, waiting. I wore my tensor on my left hand, my right hand holding the grip of the pistol. Cody had given me a replacement rifle, but for now it lay beside me.

  Overhead, fireworks flared in the air. Four posts around the top of the stadium released enormous jets of sparks. I don’t know where Abraham had found fireworks that were pure green, but the signal would undoubtedly be seen and recognized.

  This was the moment. Would he really come?

  The fireworks began to die down. “I’ve got something,” Abraham said in our ears, his light French accent subtly emphasizing the wrong syllables. He had the high-point sniping position and Cody had the low-point sniping position. Cody was the better shot, but Abraham needed to be farther away, where he could be outside the fight. His job was to remotely turn on the floodlights or blow strategic explosives. “Yes, they’re coming indeed. A convoy of Enforcement trucks. No sign of Steelheart yet.”

  I holstered my father’s gun, then reached to the side to pick up the rifle. It felt too new to me. A rifle should be a well-used, well-loved thing. Familiar. Only then can you know that it’s trustworthy. You know how it shoots, when it might jam, how accurate the sights are. Guns, like shoes, are worst when they’re brand-new.

  Still, I couldn’t rely on the pistol. I had trouble hitting anything smaller than a freight train with one of those. I’d need to get close to Steelheart if I wanted to try it. It had been decided that we’d let Abraham and Cody test out the other theories first before risking sending me in close.

  “They’re pulling up to the stadium,” Abraham said in my ear.

  “I’ve lost them.”

  “I can see them, Abraham,” Tia said. “Camera six.” Though she was outside of the city in the copter, with Edmund’s gifted abilities to power it, she was monitoring a rig of cameras we’d set up for spying and for recording the battle.

  “Got it,” Abraham said. “Yes, they’re fanning out. I thought they’d come straight in, but they’re not.”

  “Good,” Cody said. “That’ll make it easier to get a crossfire going.”

  If Steelheart even comes, I thought. That was both my fear and my hope. If he didn’t come, it would mean he didn’t believe that Limelight was a threat—which would make it far easier for the Reckoners to escape the city. The operation would be a bust, but not for any lack of trying. I almost wanted that to be the case.

  If Steelheart came and killed us all, the Reckoners’ blood would be on my hands for leading them on this path. Once that wouldn’t have bothered me, but now it itched at my insides. I peered toward the football field but couldn’t see anything. I glanced back behind me, toward the upper stands.

  I caught a hint of motion in the darkness—what looked like a flash of gold.

  “Guys,” I whispered. “I think I just saw someone up here.”

  “Impossible,” Tia said. “I’ve been watching all the entrances.”

  �
��I’m telling you, I saw something.”

  “Camera fourteen … fifteen … David, there’s nobody up there.”

  “Stay calm, son,” Prof said. He was hiding in the tunnel we’d made beneath the field, and would come out only when Steelheart appeared. It had been decided that we wouldn’t try blowing the explosives down there until after we’d tried all the other ways to kill Steelheart.

  Prof wore the tensors. I could tell he hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.

  We waited. Tia and Abraham gave a quiet running explanation of Enforcement’s movements. The ground troops surrounded the stadium, secured all the exits they knew about, then slowly started to infiltrate. They set up gunnery positions at several points in the stands, but they didn’t find any of us. The stadium was too large, and we were hidden too well. You could build a lot of interesting hiding places when you could tunnel through what everyone else assumed was un-tunnel-through-able.

  “Tap me into the speakers,” Prof said softly.

  “Done,” Abraham replied.

  “I am not here to fight worms!” Prof bellowed, his voice echoing through the stadium, blasted from speakers we’d set up. “This is the bravery of the mighty Steelheart? To send little men with popguns to annoy me? Where are you, Emperor of Newcago? Do you fear me so?”

  The stadium fell silent.

  “You see that pattern the soldiers set up in the stands?” Abraham asked over our line. “They’re being very deliberate. It’s intended to ensure they don’t hit one another with friendly fire. We’re going to have trouble catching Steelheart in a crossfire.”

  I kept glancing over my shoulder. I saw no other movement in the seats behind me.

  “Ah,” Abraham said softly. “It worked. He’s coming. I can see him in the sky.”

  Tia whistled softly. “This is it, kids. Time for the real party.”

  I waited, raising my rifle and using the scope to scan the sky. I eventually spotted a point of light in the darkness, getting closer. Gradually it resolved into three figures flying down toward the center of the stadium. Nightwielder floated amorphously. Firefight landed beside him, a burning humanoid form that was so bright he left afterimages in my eyes.

  Steelheart landed between them. My breath caught in my throat, and I fell utterly still.

  He’d changed little in the decade since he destroyed the bank. He had that same arrogant expression, that same perfectly styled hair. That inhumanly toned and muscled body, shrouded in a black and silver cape. His fists glowed a soft yellow, wisps of smoke rising from them, and there was a hint of silver in his hair. Epics aged far more slowly than regular people, but they did age.

  Wind swirled about Steelheart, blowing up dust that had collected on the silvery ground. I found I couldn’t look away. My father’s murderer. He was here, finally. He didn’t seem to notice the junk from the bank vault. We’d strewn it around the center of the field and mixed it with garbage we’d brought in to mask what we’d done.

  The items were easily as close to him now as they had been when he’d been in the bank. My finger twitched on the trigger of my rifle—I hadn’t even realized it had moved to the trigger. I carefully removed it. I would see Steelheart dead, but it didn’t have to be by my hand. I needed to remain hidden; my duty was to hit him with the pistol, and he was too far away for that at the moment. If I shot now, and the shot failed, I’d be revealing myself.

  “Guess I get to start this party,” Cody said softly. He was going to fire first to test the theory about the vault contents, as his position was the easiest to retreat from.

  “Affirmative,” Prof said. “Take the shot, Cody.”

  “All right, you slontze,” Cody said softly to Steelheart. “Let’s see if that junk was worth the trouble of hauling up here.…”

  A shot rang in the air.

  36

  I was zoomed in on Steelheart’s face in the rifle scope. I could swear that I saw, quite distinctly, the bullet hit the side of his head, disturbing his hair. Cody was right on target, but the bullet didn’t even break the skin.

  Steelheart didn’t flinch.

  Enforcement reacted immediately, men shouting, trying to determine the source of the shot. I ignored them, staying focused on Steelheart. He was all that mattered.

  More shots fired; Cody was making certain he had hit his mark. “Sparks!” Cody said. “I didn’t catch sight of any of the shots. One of those has to have landed, though.”

  “Can anyone confirm?” Prof asked urgently.

  “Hit confirmed,” I said, eye still to my scope. “It didn’t work.”

  I heard muttered cursing from Tia.

  “Cody, move,” Abraham said. “They’ve caught your location.”

  “Phase two,” Prof said, voice firm—anxious, but in control.

  Steelheart turned about with a leisurely air—hands glowing—and regarded the stadium. He was a king inspecting his domain. Phase two was for Abraham to blow some distractions and try to get a crossfire going. My role was to sneak forward with the pistol and get in position. We wanted to keep Abraham’s position secret as long as possible, so he could use explosions to try to move the Enforcement officers around.

  “Abraham,” Prof said. “Get those—”

  “Nightwielder’s moving!” Tia interrupted. “Firefight too!”

  I forced myself to pull back from my scope. Firefight had become a streak of burning light heading toward one of the entrances to the concourse beneath the stands. Nightwielder was moving up into the air.

  He was flying right toward where I was hiding.

  Impossible, I thought. He can’t—

  Enforcement started firing from the positions they had set up, but they weren’t shooting toward Cody. They were shooting toward other areas in the stands. I was confused for a moment until the first hidden UV floodlight exploded.

  “They’re on to us,” I cried, pulling back. “They’re shooting out the floodlights!”

  “Sparks!” Tia said as each of the other floodlights exploded in a row, shot out by various members of Enforcement. “There’s no way they spotted all of those!”

  “Something’s wrong here,” Abraham said. “I’m blowing the first distraction.” The stadium shook as I slung my rifle over my shoulder and climbed out of my hole. I raced up a flight of steps in the stands.

  The gunfire below sounded soft compared to what I’d experienced a few days ago in the corridors.

  “Nightwielder is on to you, David!” Tia said. “He knew where you were hiding. They must have been watching this place.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Prof said. “They’d have stopped us earlier, wouldn’t they?”

  “What’s Steelheart doing?” Cody asked, breathing hard as he ran.

  I was barely listening. I dashed for the escape hole in the ground up ahead, not looking over my shoulder. The shadows from the seats around me began to lengthen. Tendrils grew like elongating fingers. In the middle of that, something splashed sparks along the steps in front of me.

  “Enforcement sharpshooter!” Tia said. “Targeting you, David.”

  “Got him,” Abraham said. I couldn’t pick Abraham’s sniper shot out of the gunfire, but no further shots came after me. Abraham might have just revealed himself, though.

  Sparks! I thought. This was all going to Calamity really quickly. I hit the rope and fumbled with my flashlight. Those shadows were alive, and they were getting close. I got the flashlight on, shining it to destroy the shadows around the hole, then grabbed the rope with one hand and slid down. Fortunately the UV light affected Nightwielder’s shadows as well as it did him personally.

  “He’s still after you,” Tia said. “He …”

  “What?” I asked urgently, holding the rope with the tensor glove, feet wrapped around it to slow my fall. I passed through open air beneath the third deck of seats, above the second deck. My hand grew hot with the friction, but Prof claimed the tensor could handle that without ripping.

  I dropped through
the hole in the second deck and through the ceiling of the restroom, emerging into the complete darkness of the concourse. This was where things like the concession stands were. At one time the outside of the place had all been glass—but that was now steel, of course, and so the stadium felt enclosed. Like a warehouse.

  I could still hear gunshots, faint, echoing slightly in the hollow confines of the stadium. My flashlight shone mostly UV light through its filter, but it did glow a faint, quiet blue.

  “Nightwielder sank into the stands,” Tia whispered to me. “I lost track of him. I think he did it to hide from cameras.”

  So we’re not the only ones with that trick, I thought, heart thumping in my chest. He’d come for me. He had a vendetta—he knew I’d been the one to figure out his weakness.

  I shined the flashlight about anxiously. Nightwielder would be on me in a second, but he would know that I was armed with UV light. Hopefully that would keep him wary. I unholstered my father’s pistol, wielding the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other, my new rifle slung over my shoulder.

  I have to keep moving, I thought. If I can stay ahead of him, I can lose him. We had tunnels in and out of places like the restrooms, the offices, the locker rooms, and the concession stands.

  The UV flashlight gave off very little visible illumination, but I was an understreeter. It was enough. It did have the odd effect of making things that were white glow with a phantom light, and I worried that would give me away. Should I turn off the flashlight and go by touch?

  No. It was also my only weapon against Nightwielder. I wasn’t about to go around blind when facing an Epic who could strangle me with shadows. I crept down the tomblike hallway. I needed to—

  I froze. What had that been in the shadows ahead? I turned my flashlight back toward it. The light shone across discarded bits of trash that had fused to the ground in the Great Transfersion, some formerly retractable stanchions for line control, a few posters frozen on the wall. Some more recent trash, glowing white and ghostly.