Mistborn The Well of Ascension, Book Two

Chapter 1 The army crept like a dark stain across the horizon. King Elend Venture stood motionless upon the Luthadel city wall, looking out at the enemy troops. Around him, ash fell from the sky in fat, lazy flakes. It wasn't the burnt white ash that one saw in dead coals; this was a deeper, harsher black ash. The Ashmounts had been particularly active lately. Elend felt the ash dust his face and clothing, but he ignored it. In the distance, the bloody red sun was close to setting. It backlit the army that had come to take Elend's kingdom from him. "How many?" Elend asked quietly. "Fifty thousand, we think," Ham said, leaning against the parapet, beefy arms folded on the stone. Like everything in the city, the wall had been stained black by countless years of ashfalls. "Fifty thousand soldiers . . ." Elend said, trailing off. Despite heavy recruitment, Elend barely had twenty thousand men under his commandand they were peasants with less than a year of training. Maintaining even that small number was straining his resources. If they'd been able to find the Lord Ruler's atium, perhaps things would be different. As it was, Elend's rule was in serious danger of economic disaster. "What do you think?" Elend asked. "I don't know, El," Ham said quietly. "Kelsier was always the one with the vision." "But you helped him plan," Elend said. "You and the others, you were his crew. You were the ones who came up with a strategy for overthrowing the empire, then made it happen." Ham fell silent, and Elend felt as if he knew what the man was thinking. Kelsier was central to it all. He was the one who organized, the one who took all of the wild brainstorming and turned it into a viable operation. He was the leader. The genius. And he'd died a year before, on the very same day that the peopleas part of his secret planhad risen up in fury to overthrow their god emperor. Elend had taken the throne in the ensuing chaos. Now it was looking more and more like he would lose everything that Kelsier and his crew had worked so hard to accomplish. Lose it to a tyrant who might be even worse than the Lord Ruler. A petty, devious bully in "noble" form. The man who had marched his army on Luthadel. Elend's own father, Straff Venture. "Any chance you can . . . talk him out of attacking?" Ham asked. "Maybe," Elend said hesitantly. "Assuming the Assembly doesn't just surrender the city." "They close?" "I don't know, honestly. I worry that they are. That army has frightened them, Ham." And with good reason, he thought. "Anyway, I have a proposal for the meeting in two days. I'll try to talk them out of doing anything rash. Dockson got back today, right?" Ham nodded. "Just before the army's advance." "I think we should call a meeting of the crew," Elend said. "See if we can come up with a way out of this." "We'll still be pretty shorthanded," Ham said, rubbing his chin. "Spook isn't supposedSanderson, Brandon is the author of 'Mistborn The Well of Ascension, Book Two', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765356130 and ISBN 0765356139.