The Hero of Ages

make the villagers keep their distance from her. As willing as she was to be distracted, she didn't want to deal with those betrayed, frightened eyes. Not right now.

Nobody understood the koloss, least of all Vin. She'd discovered how to control them, using the hidden Allomantic trigger. Yet, during the thousand years of the Lord Ruler's reign, he had kept the koloss separated from mankind, letting very little be known about them beyond their brutal prowess in battle and their simple bestial nature.

Even now, Vin could feel her koloss tugging at her, trying to break free. It didn't like being controlled-it wanted to attack her. It could not, fortunately; she controlled it, and would continue to do so whether awake or asleep, burning metals or not, unless someone stole the beast from her.

Even linked as they were, there was so much Vin didn't understand about the creatures. She looked up, and found the koloss staring at her with its bloodred eyes. Its skin was stretched tight across its face, the nose pulled completely flat. The skin was torn near the right eye, and a jagged rip ran down to the corner of its mouth, letting a flap of blue skin hang free, exposing the red muscles and bloodied teeth below.

'Don't look at me,' the creature said, speaking in a sluggish voice. Its words were slurred, partially from the way its lips were pulled.

'What?' Vin asked.

'You don't think I'm human,' the koloss said, speaking slowly, deliberately-like the others she had heard. It was like they had to think hard between each word.

'You aren't human,' Vin said. 'You're something else.'

'I will be human,' the koloss said. 'We will kill you. Take your cities. Then we will be human.'

Vin shivered. It was a common theme among koloss. She'd heard others make similar remarks. There was something very chilling about the flat, emotionless way the koloss spoke of slaughtering people.

They were created by the Lord Ruler, she thought. Of course they're twisted. As twisted as he was.

'What is your name?' she asked the koloss.

It continued to lumber beside her. Finally, it looked at her. 'Human.'

'I know you want to be human,' Vin said. 'What is your name?'

'That is my name. Human. You call me Human.'

Vin frowned as they walked. That almost seemed. . clever. She'd never taken the opportunity to talk to koloss before. She'd always assumed that they were of a homogeneous mentality-just the same stupid beast repeated over and over.

'All right, Human,' she said, curious. 'How long have you been alive?'

He walked for a moment, so long that Vin thought he had forgotten the question. Finally, however, he spoke. 'Don't you see my bigness?'

'Your bigness? Your size?'

Human just kept walking.

'So you all grow at the same rate?'

He didn't answer. Vin shook her head, suspecting that the question was too abstract for the beast.

'I'm bigger than some,' Human said. 'Smaller than some-but not very many. That means I'm old.'

Another sign of intelligence, she thought, raising an eyebrow. From what Vin had seen of other koloss, Human's logic was impressive.

'I hate you,' Human said after a short time spent walking. 'I want to kill you. But I can't kill you.'

'No,' Vin said. 'I won't let you.'

'You're big inside. Very big.'

'Yes,' Vin said. 'Human, where are the girl koloss?'

The creature walked several moments. 'Girl?'

'Like me,' Vin said.

'We're not like you,' he said. 'We're big on the outside only.'

'No,' Vin said. 'Not my size. My. .' How did one describe gender? Short of stripping, she couldn't think of any methods. So, she decided to try a different tactic. 'Are there baby koloss?'

'Baby?'

'Small ones,' Vin said.

The koloss pointed toward the marching koloss army. 'Small ones,' he said, referring to some of the five- foot-tall koloss.

'Smaller,' Vin said.

'None smaller.'

Koloss reproduction was a mystery that, to her knowledge, nobody had ever cracked. Even after a year spent fighting with the beasts, she'd never found out where new ones came from. Whenever Elend's koloss armies grew too small, she and he stole new ones from the Inquisitors.

Yet, it was ridiculous to assume that the koloss didn't reproduce. She'd seen koloss camps that weren't controlled by an Allomancer, and the creatures killed each other with fearful regularity. At that rate, they would have killed themselves off after a few years. Yet, they had lasted for ten centuries.

That implied a very quick rise from child to adult, or so Sazed and Elend seemed to think. They hadn't been able to confirm their theories, and she knew their ignorance frustrated Elend greatly-especially since his duties as emperor left him little time for the studies he'd once enjoyed so much.

'If there are none smaller,' Vin asked, 'then where do new koloss come from?'

'New koloss come from us,' Human finally said.

'From you?' Vin asked, frowning as she walked. 'That doesn't tell me much.'

Human didn't say anything further. His talkative mood had apparently passed.

From us, Vin thought. They bud off of each other, perhaps? She'd heard of some creatures that, if you cut them the right way, each half would grow into a new animal. But, that couldn't be the case with koloss-she'd seen battlefields filled with their dead, and no pieces rose to form new koloss. But she'd also never seen a female koloss. Though most of the beasts wore crude loincloths, they were-as far as she knew-all male.

Further speculation was cut off as she noticed the line ahead bunching up; the crowd was slowing. Curious, she dropped a coin and left Human behind, shooting herself over the people. The mists had retreated hours ago, and though night was again approaching, for the moment it was both light and mistless.

Therefore, as she shot through the falling ash, she easily picked out the canal up ahead. It cut unnaturally through the ground, far straighter than any river. Elend speculated that the constant ashfall would soon put an end to most of the canal systems. Without skaa laborers to dredge them on a regular basis, they would fill up with ashen sediment, eventually clogging to uselessness.

Vin soared through the air, completing her arc, heading toward a large mass of tents stationed beside the canal. Thousands of fires spit smoke into the afternoon air, and men milled about, training, working, or preparing. Nearly fifty thousand soldiers bivouacked here, using the canal route as a supply line back to Luthadel.

Vin dropped another coin, bounding through the air again. She quickly caught up to the small group of horses that had broken off from Elend's line of tired, marching skaa. She landed-dropping a coin and Pushing against it slightly to slow her descent, throwing up a spray of ash as she hit.

Elend reined in his horse, smiling as he surveyed the camp. The expression was rare enough on his lips these days that Vin found herself smiling as well. Ahead, a group of men waited for them-their scouts would have long since noticed the townspeople's approach.

'Lord Elend!' said a man sitting at the head of the army contingent. 'You're ahead of schedule!'

'I assume you're ready anyway, General,' Elend said, dismounting.

'Well, you know me,' Demoux said, smiling as he approached. The general wore well-used armor of leather and steel, his face bearing a scar on one cheek, the left side of his scalp missing a large patch of hair where a koloss blade had nearly taken his head. Ever formal, the grizzled man bowed to Elend, who just slapped him on the shoulder affectionately.

Vin's smile lingered. I remember when that man was little more than a fresh recruit standing frightened in a tunnel. Demoux wasn't actually that much older than she was, even though his tanned face and callused hands gave that impression.