The fighting, however, did not stop.
“Stop this!” Demoux yelled again, moving into the conflict. A few of the brawlers listened to him, pulling back. The rest, however, just continued to fight. Demoux pushed himself into the melee, reaching to pull apart two of the combatants.
And one of them punched him. Square in the face, throwing Demoux to the ground.
Elend cursed, dropping a coin and Pushing himself forward. He fell directly into the middle of the firelight, Pushing out with a Soothing to dampen the emotions of those fighting.
“Stop!” he bellowed.
They did, freezing, one of the soldiers standing over the fallen General Demoux.
“What is going on here?” Elend demanded, furious. The soldiers looked down. “Well?” Elend said, turning toward the man who had punched Demoux.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” the man grumbled. “We just…”
“Speak, soldier,” Elend said, pointing, Soothing the man’s emotions, leaving him compliant and docile.
“Well, my lord,” the man said. “They’re cursed, you know. They’re the reason Lady Vin got taken. They were speaking of the Survivor and his blessings, and that just smacked me as hypocrisy, you know? Then, of course their leader would show, demanding that we stop. I just… well, I’m tired of listening to them, is all.”
Elend frowned in anger. As he did so, a group of the army’s Mistings—Ham at their head—shoved through the crowd. Ham met Elend’s eyes, and Elend nodded toward the men who had been fighting. Ham made quick work of them, gathering them up for reprimand. Elend walked over, pulling Demoux to his feet. The grizzled general looked more shocked than anything.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Demoux said quietly. “I should have seen that coming… I should have been ready for it.”
Elend just shook his head. The two of them watched quietly until Ham joined them, his police pushing the troublemakers away. The rest of the crowd dispersed, returning to their duties. The solitary bonfire burned alone in the night, as if shunned as a new symbol of bad luck.
“I recognized a number of those men,” Ham said, joining Elend and Demoux as the troublemakers were led away. “Mistfallen.”
Mistfallen. The men who, like Demoux, had lain sick from the mists for weeks, instead of a single day. “This is ridiculous,” Elend said. “So they remained sick awhile longer. That doesn’t make them cursed!”
“You don’t understand superstition, my lord,” Demoux said, shaking his head and rubbing his chin. “The men look for someone to blame for their ill luck. And… well, it’s easy to see why they’d be feeling their luck was bad lately. They’ve been hard on anyone who was sickened by the mists; they’re just most hard on we who were out the longest.”
“I refuse to accept such idiocy in my army,” Elend said. “Ham, did you see one of those men strike Demoux?”
“They hit him?” Ham asked with surprise. “Their general?”
Elend nodded. “The big man I was talking to. Brill is his name, I think. You know what will have to be done.”
Ham cursed, looking away.
Demoux looked uncomfortable. “Maybe we could just… throw him in solitary or something.”
“No,” Elend said through his teeth. “No, we hold to the law. If he’d struck his captain, maybe we could let him off. But deliberately striking one of my generals? The man will have to be executed. Discipline is falling apart as it is.”
Ham wouldn’t look at him. “The other fight I had to break up was also between a group of regular soldiers and a group of mistfallen.”
Elend ground his teeth in frustration. Demoux, however, met his eyes. You know what needs to be done, he seemed to say.
Being a king isn’t always about doing what you want, Tindwyl had often said. It’s about doing what needs to be done.
“Demoux,” Elend said. “I think the problems in Luthadel are even more serious than our difficulties with discipline. Penrod looked toward us for support. I want you to gather a group of men and take them back along the canal with the messenger, Conrad. Lend aid to Penrod and bring the city back under control.”
“Yes, my lord,” Demoux said. “How many soldiers should I take?”
Elend met his eyes. “About three hundred should suffice.” It was the number who were mistfallen. Demoux nodded, then withdrew into the night.
“It’s the right thing to do, El,” Ham said softly.
“No, it’s not,” Elend said. “Just like it’s not right to have to execute a soldier because of a single lapse in judgment. But, we need to keep this army together.”
“I guess,” Ham said.
Elend turned, glancing up through the mists. Toward Fadrex City. “Cett’s right,” he finally said. “We can’t just continue to sit out here, not while the world is dying.”
“So, what do we do about it?” Ham asked.
Elend wavered. What to do about it indeed? Retreat and leave Vin—and probably the entire empire—to its doom? Attack, causing the deaths of thousands, becoming the conqueror he feared? Was there no other way to take the city?
Elend turned and struck out into the night. He found his way to Noorden’s tent, Ham following curiously. The former obligator was awake, of course. Noorden kept odd hours. He stood hurriedly as Elend entered his tent, bowing in respect.
There, on the table, Elend found what he wanted. The thing he had ordered Noorden to work on. Maps. Troop movements.
The locations of koloss bands.
Yomen refuses to be intimidated by my forces, Elend thought. Well, let’s see if I can turn the odds back against him.
48
Once “freed,” Ruin was able to affect the world more directly. The most obvious way he did this was by making the ashmounts emit more ash and the earth begin to break apart. As a matter of fact, I believe that much of Ruin’s energy during those last days was dedicated to these tasks.
He was also able to affect and control far more people than before. Where he had once influenced only a few select individuals, he could now direct entire koloss armies.
AS DAYS PASSED IN THE CAVERN, Vin regretted knocking over the lantern. She tried to salvage it, searching with blind fingers. However, the oil had spilled. She was locked in darkness.
With a thing that wanted to destroy the world.
Sometimes she could sense it, pulsing near her, watching silently—like some fascinated patron at a carnival show. Other times, it vanished. Obviously, walls meant nothing to it. The first time it disappeared, she felt a sense of relief. However, just moments after it vanished, she heard Reen’s voice in her mind. I haven’t left you, it said. I’m always here.
The words chilled her, and she thought—just briefly—that it had read her mind. However, she decided that her thoughts would have been easy to guess. Looking back through her life, she realized that Ruin couldn’t have spoken each and every time she heard Reen’s voice in her head. A lot of the time she heard Reen, it was in response to things she’d been thinking, rather than things she’d been doing. Since Ruin couldn’t read minds, those comments couldn’t have come from it.
Ruin had been speaking to her for so long, it was difficult to separate her own memories from its influence. Yet, she had to trust in the Lord Ruler’s promise that Ruin couldn’t read her mind. The alternative was to abandon hope. And she wouldn’t do that. Each time Ruin spoke to her, it gave her clues about its nature. Those clues might give her the means to defeat it.
Defeat it? Vin thought, leaning back against a rough stone wall of the cavern. It’s a force of nature, not a man. How could I even think to defeat something like that?