Elend burned steel, then threw a handful of coins into the air in front of him. He Pushed on the coins, throwing his weight against them, spraying them at the koloss. The beasts were too tough to fall to simple coins with any reliability, but the bits of metal would injure and weaken them.
As the coins flew, Elend charged the large koloss. The beast pulled a huge sword off its back, and it seemed elated at the prospect of a fight.
The koloss swung first, and it had an awesome reach. Elend had to jump backward-pewter making him more nimble. Koloss swords were massive, brutish things, so blunt they were almost clubs. The force of the blow shook the air; Elend wouldn't have had a chance to turn the blade aside, even with pewter helping him. In addition, the sword-or, more accurately, the koloss holding it-weighed so much that Elend wouldn't be able to use Allomancy to Push it out of the creature's hands. Pushing with steel was all about weight and force. If Elend Pushed on something heavier than himself, he'd be thrown backward.
So, Elend had to rely on the extra speed and dexterity of pewter. He threw himself out of his dodge, dashing to the side, watching for a backhand. The creature turned, silent, eyeing Elend, but didn't strike. It hadn't quite frenzied yet.
Elend stared down his oversized enemy.
The other half the time, he figured that he thought too much. He ducked forward, striking. The koloss anticipated the move, and tried to bring its weapon down on Elend's head. Elend, however, reached out and Pulled on the sword of another koloss-throwing that creature off balance and allowing two of Elend's men to slay it, and also Pulling Elend himself to the side. He just barely evaded his opponent's weapon. Then, as he spun in the air, he flared pewter and struck from the side.
He sheared completely through the beast's leg at the knee, toppling it to the ground. Vin always said that Elend's Allomantic power was unusually strong. Elend wasn't certain about that-he didn't have much experience with Allomancy-but the force of his own swing did send him stumbling. He managed to regain his footing, however, and then took off the creature's head.
Several of the soldiers were staring at him. His white uniform was now sprayed with bright red koloss blood. It wasn't the first time. Elend took a deep breath as he heard inhuman screams sounding through the camp. The frenzy was beginning.
'Form up!' Elend shouted. 'Make lines, stay together, prepare for the assault!'
The soldiers responded slowly. They were far less disciplined than the troops Elend was accustomed to, but they did an admirable job of bunching up at his command. Elend glanced across the ground before them. They'd managed to take down several hundred koloss-an amazing feat.
The easy part, however, was over.
'Stay firm!' Elend yelled, running down in front of the soldier line. 'But keep fighting! We need to kill as many of them as quickly as possible!
He burned brass and Pushed on their emotions, Soothing away their fear. An Allomancer couldn't control minds-not human minds, at least-but he
Under the influence of the Soothing, his soldiers stood up straight. Again, Elend felt a healthy respect for these simple skaa. He was giving them bravery and taking away some of their fear, but the determination was their own. These were good people.
With luck, he'd be able to save some of them.
The koloss attacked. As he'd hoped, a large group of the creatures broke away from the main camp and charged toward the village. Some of the soldiers cried out, but they were too busy defending themselves to follow. Elend threw himself into the fray whenever the line wobbled, shoring up the weak point. As he did so, he burned brass and tried to Push on the emotions of a nearby koloss.
Nothing happened. The creatures were resistant to emotional Allomancy, particularly when they were already being manipulated by someone else. However, when he
And so, he did. He fought alongside the men, watching them die, killing koloss as his line bent at the edges, forming a half circle to keep his troops from being surrounded. Even so, the fighting was grim. As more and more koloss frenzied and charged, the odds quickly turned against Elend's group. Still, the koloss resisted his emotional manipulation. But they were getting closer. .
'We're doomed!' Fatren screamed.
Elend turned, a bit surprised to see the beefy lord beside him and still alive. The men continued to fight. Only about fifteen minutes had passed since the start of the frenzy, but the line was already beginning to buckle.
A speck appeared in the sky.
'You've led us to die!' Fatren yelled. He was covered in koloss blood, though a patch on his shoulder looked to be his own. 'Why?' Fatren demanded.
Elend simply pointed as the speck grew larger.
'What is it?' Fatren asked over the chaos of battle.
Elend smiled. 'The first of those armies I promised you.'
Vin fell from the sky in a tempest of horseshoes, landing directly at the center of the koloss army.
Without hesitating, she used Allomancy to Push a pair of horseshoes toward a turning koloss. One took the creature in the forehead, throwing it backward, and the other shot over its head, hitting another koloss. Vin spun, flipping out another shoe, shooting it past a particularly large beast and taking down a smaller koloss behind him.
She flared iron, Pulling that horseshoe back, catching it around the larger koloss's wrist. Immediately, her Pull yanked her toward the beast-but it also threw the creature off balance. Its massive iron sword dropped to the ground as Vin hit the creature in the chest. Then, she Pushed off the fallen sword, throwing herself upward in a backward flip as another koloss swung at her.
She shot some fifteen feet into the air. The sword missed, cutting off the head of the koloss beneath her. The koloss who had swung didn't seem to mind that it had killed a comrade; it just looked up at her, bloodred eyes hateful.
Vin Pulled on the fallen sword. It lurched up at her, but also pulled her down with its weight. She caught it as she fell-the sword was nearly as tall as she was, but flared pewter let her handle it with ease-and she sheared free the attacking koloss's arm as she landed.
She took its legs off at the knees, then left it to die as she spun toward other opponents. As always, the koloss seemed fascinated-in an enraged, baffled way-with Vin. They associated large size with danger and had difficulty understanding how a small woman like Vin-twenty years old, barely over five feet in height and slight as a willow-could pose a threat. Yet, they saw her kill, and this drew them to her.
Vin was just fine with that.
She screamed as she attacked, if only to add some sound to the too-silent battlefield. Koloss tended to stop yelling as they entered their frenzy, growing focused only on killing. She threw out a handful of coins, Pushing them toward the group behind her, then jumped forward, Pulling on a sword.
A koloss in front of her stumbled. She landed on its back, attacking a creature beside it. This one fell, and Vin rammed her sword down into the back of the one below her. She Pushed herself to the side, Pulling on the sword of the dying koloss. She caught this weapon, cut down a third beast, then threw the sword, Pushing it like a giant arrow into the chest of a fourth monster. That same Push threw her backward out of the way of an attack. She grabbed the sword from the back of the one she'd stabbed before, ripping the weapon free even as the creature died. And, in one fluid stroke, she slammed it down through the collarbone and chest of a fifth beast.
She landed. Koloss fell dead around her.
Vin was not fury. She was not terror. She had grown beyond those things. She had seen Elend die-had held him in her arms as he did-and had known that she had let it happen. Intentionally.
And yet, he still lived. Every breath was unexpected, perhaps undeserved. Once, she'd been terrified that she
