Mistborn: The Hero of Ages Read Free Page B

is impressive, Lord Fatren, but ultimately useless. You don't have the numbers to defend the entire perimeter, and the koloss are generally taller and more stable than men. They'll just take the bulwark from you, then hold the high ground as they push down into the city."
    "But "
    Venture looked at him. His eyes were calm, but his gaze was firm and expectant. The message was simple. I am in charge now . There would be no more arguing. "Yes, my lord," Fatren said, calling over messengers to pass the orders.
    Venture stood watching as the messenger boys dashed off. There seemed to be some conf usion among the men they weren't expecting to attack. More and more eyes turned toward Venture, standing tall atop the bulwark.
    He reall y does look like an emperor , Fatren thought despite himself.
    The orders moved down the line. Time passed. Finally, the entire army was watching. Venture pulled out his sword and held it high in the ash-scattered sky. Then, he took off down the bulwark in an inhumanly quick dash, charging toward the koloss camp.
    For a moment, he ran alone. Then, surprising himself, Fatren gritted his teeth against shaking nerves and followed.
    The bulwark exploded with motion, the soldiers charging with a collective yell, running toward death with their weapons held high.
    . 13 201

    Holding the power did strange things to m y mind. In just a f ew moments, I became f amiliar with the power itsel f, with its histor y, and with the ways it might be used . Yet, this knowledge was di f ferent from ex perience, or even ability to use that power. For instance, I knew how to move a planet in the sk y. Yet, I didn 't know where to place it so that it wouldn't be too close, or too far, f rom the sun . 2
    AS ALWAYS, TENSOON' S DAY began in darkness. Part of that was due, of course, to the fact that he didn't have any eyes. He could have created a set he was of the Third Generation, which was old, even for a kandra. He had digested enough corpses that he had learned how to create sensory organs intuitively without a model to copy.
    Unfortunately, eyes would have done him little good. He didn't have a skull, and he had found that most organs didn't function well without a full body and skeleton to support them. His own mass would crush eyes if he moved the wrong way, and it would be very difficult to turn them about to see . Not that there would be anything to look at. TenSoon moved his bulk slightly, shifting inside his prison chamber. His body was little more than a grouping of translucent muscles like a mass of large snails or slugs, all connected, somewhat more malleable than the body of a mollusk. With concentration, he could dissolve one of the muscles and either meld it with another one, or make something new. Yet, without a skeleton to use, he was all but impotent.
    He shifted in his cell again. His very skin had a sense of its own a kind of taste. Right now, it tasted the stench of his own excrement on the sides of the chamber, but he didn't dare turn off this sense. It was one of his only connections to the world around him.
    The " cell " was actually nothing more than a grate-covered stone pit. It was barely large enough to hold his mass. His captors dumped food in from the top, then periodically poured water in to hydrate him and wash his excrement out through a small drainage hole at the bottom. Both this hole and those in the locked grate above were too small for him to slide through a kandra's body was supple, but even a pile of muscles could be squeezed only so small .
    Most people would have gone mad from the stress of being so confined for . . . he didn't even know how long it had been. Months? But TenSoon had the Blessing of Presence. His mind would not give in easily.
    Sometimes he cursed the Blessing for keeping him from the blissful relief of madness. Focus , he told himself. He had no brain, not as humans did, but he was able to think. He didn't understand this. He wasn't certain if any kandra did. Perhaps