The Hero of Ages

ritual flaying that was the koloss form of burial. Several koloss still worked, moving between bodies, ripping off the skin.

'We take care of them,' Human said.

'Yes,' Vin said. 'You pull their skin off. Why do you do that, anyway?'

'They are dead,' Human said, as if that were enough of an explanation.

To the side, a large group of koloss stood up, commanded by Elend's silent orders. They separated themselves from the main camp, trudging out into the ash. A moment later, they began to look around, no longer moving as one.

Vin reacted quickly. She turned off her metals, burned duralumin, then flared zinc in a massive Pull, Rioting the koloss emotions. As expected, they snapped under her control, just as Human was.

Controlling this many was more difficult, but still well within her abilities. Vin ordered them to be calm, and to not kill, then let them return to the camp. From now on, they would remain in the back of her mind, no longer requiring Allomancy to manipulate. They were easy to ignore unless their passions grew strong.

Human watched them. 'We are. . fewer,' he finally said.

Vin started. 'Yes,' she said. 'You can tell that?'

'I. .' Human trailed off, beady little eyes watching his camp. 'We fought. We died. We need more. We have too many swords.' He pointed in the distance, to a large pile of metal. Wedge-shaped koloss swords that no longer had owners.

You can control a koloss population through the swords, Elend had once told her. They fight to get bigger swords as they grow. Extra swords go to the younger, smaller koloss.

But nobody knows where those come from.

'You need koloss to use those swords, Human,' Vin said.

Human nodded.

'Well,' she said. 'You'll need to have more children, then.'

'Children?'

'More,' Vin said. 'More koloss.'

'You need to give us more,' Human said, looking at her.

'Me?'

'You fought,' he said, pointing at her shirt. There was blood there, not her own.

'Yes, I did,' Vin said.

'Give us more.'

'I don't understand,' Vin said. 'Please, just show me.'

'I can't,' Human said, shaking his head as he spoke in his slow tone. 'It's not right.'

'Wait,' Vin said. 'Not right?' It was the first real statement of values she'd gotten from a koloss.

Human looked at her, and she could see consternation on his face. So, Vin gave him an Allomantic nudge. She didn't know exactly what to ask him to do, and that made her control of him weaker. Yet, she Pushed him to do as he was thinking, trusting-for some reason-that his mind was fighting with his instincts.

He screamed.

Vin backed away, shocked, but Human didn't attack her. He ran into the koloss camp, a massive blue monster on two legs, kicking up ash. Others backed away from him-not out of fear, for they wore their characteristic impassive faces. They simply appeared to have enough sense to stay out of the way of an enraged koloss of Human's size.

Vin followed carefully as Human approached one of the dead bodies of a koloss who still wore his skin. Human didn't rip the skin off, however, but flung the corpse over his shoulder and took off running toward Elend's camp.

Uh, oh, Vin thought, dropping a coin and taking to the air. She bounded after Human, careful not to outpace him. She considered ordering him back, but did not. He was acting unusually, true, but that was a good thing. Koloss generally didn't do anything unusual. They were predictable to a fault.

She landed at the camp's guard post and waved the soldiers back. Human continued on, barreling into the camp, startling soldiers. Vin stayed with him, keeping the soldiers away.

Human paused in the middle of camp, a bit of his passion wearing off. Vin nudged him again. After looking about, Human took off toward the broken section of camp, where Yomen's soldiers had attacked.

Vin followed, growing more and more curious. Human hadn't taken out his sword. Indeed, he didn't seem angry at all, just. . intense. He arrived at a section where tents had fallen and men had died. The battle was still only a few hours old, and soldiers moved about, cleaning up. Triage tents had been set up just beside the battlefield. Human headed for those.

Vin rushed ahead, cutting him off just as he reached the tent with the wounded. 'Human,' she said warily. 'What are you doing?'

He ignored her, slamming the dead koloss down on the ground. Now, finally, Human ripped the skin off the corpse. It came off easily-this was one of the smaller koloss, whose skin hung in folds, far too large for its body.

Human pulled the skin free, causing several of the watching guards to groan in disgust. Vin watched closely despite the stomach-wrenching sight. She felt like she was on the verge of understanding something very important.

Human reached down, and pulled something out of the koloss corpse.

'Wait,' Vin said, stepping forward. 'What was that?'

Human ignored her. He pulled out something else, and this time Vin caught a flash of bloodied metal. She followed his fingers as he moved, and this time saw the item before he pulled it free and hid it in his palm.

A spike. A small metal spike driven into the side of the dead koloss. There was a rip of blue skin beside the spikehead, as if. .

As if the spikes were holding the skin in place, Vin thought. Like nails holding cloth to a wall.

Spikes. Spikes like. .

Human retrieved a fourth spike, then stepped forward into the tent. Surgeons and soldiers moved back in fear, crying out for Vin to do something as Human approached the bed of a wounded soldier. Human looked from one unconscious man to another, then reached for one of them.

Stop! Vin commanded in her mind.

Human froze in place. Only then did the complete horror of what was happening occur to her. 'Lord Ruler,' she whispered. 'You were going to turn them into koloss, weren't you? That's where you come from. That's why there are no koloss children.'

'I am human,' the large beast said quietly.

Hemalurgy can be used to steal Allomantic or Feruchemical powers and give them to another person. However, a Hemalurgic spike can also be created by killing a normal person, one who is neither an Allomancer nor a Feruchemist. In that case, the spike instead steals the very power of Preservation existing within the soul of the people. (The power that, in fact, gives all people sentience.)

A Hemalurgic spike can extract this power, then transfer it to another, granting them residual abilities similar to those of Allomancy. After all, Preservation's body-a tiny trace of which is carried by every human being-is the very same essence that fuels Allomancy.

And so, a kandra granted the Blessing of Potency is actually acquiring a bit of innate strength similar to that of burning pewter. The Blessing of Presence grants mental capacity in a similar way, while the Blessing of Awareness is the ability to sense with greater acuity and the rarely used Blessing of Stability grants emotional fortitude.

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