An iron bar hit the Inquisitor in the face.
The creature stumbled, blood marring the tattoos on the side of its face. A steel helmet struck it in the side, tossing it backward.
Kelsier began to shoot pieces of metal quickly, feeling his rage and anger mount. “Were you the one who killed Marsh?” he yelled, not bothering to listen for an answer. “Were you there when I was condemned, years ago?”
The Inquisitor raised a warding hand, Pushing away the next swarm of metals. It limped backward, putting its back against the overturned wooden cart.
Kelsier heard the creature growl, and a sudden Push of strength washed through the crowd, toppling soldiers, causing Kelsier’s metal weapons to shoot away.
Kelsier let them go. He dashed forward, rushing the disoriented Inquisitor, scooping up a loose cobblestone.
The creature turned toward him, and Kelsier yelled, swinging the cobblestone, his strength fueled almost more by rage than by pewter.
He hit the Inquisitor square in the eyes. The creature’s head snapped back, smacking against the bottom of the overturned cart. Kelsier struck again, yelling, repeatedly smashing his cobblestone into the creature’s face.
The Inquisitor howled in pain, reaching clawlike hands for Kelsier, moving as if to jump forward. Then it suddenly jerked to a stop, its head stuck against the cart’s wood. The spike tips that jutted from the back of its skull had been pounded into the wood by Kelsier’s attack.
Kelsier smiled as the creature screamed in rage, struggling to pull its head free from the wood. Kelsier turned to the side, seeking an item he had seen on the ground a few moments before. He kicked over a corpse, snatching the obsidian axe off the ground, its rough-chipped blade glittering in the red sunlight.
“I’m glad you talked me into this,” he said quietly. Then he swung with a two-handed blow, slamming the axehead through the Inquisitor’s neck and into the wood behind.
The Inquisitor’s body slumped to the cobblestones. The head remained where it was, staring out with its eerie, tattooed, unnatural gaze—pinned to the wood by its own spikes.
Kelsier turned to face the crowd, suddenly feeling incredibly wearied. His body ached from dozens of bruises and cuts, and he didn’t even know when his cloak had ripped free. He faced the soldiers defiantly, however, his scarred arms plainly visible.
“The Survivor of Hathsin!” one whispered.
“He killed an Inquisitor….” said another.
And then the chanting began. The skaa in the surrounding streets began to scream his name. The soldiers looked around, realizing with horror that they were surrounded. The peasants began to press in, and Kelsier could feel their anger and hope.
Maybe this doesn’t have to go the way I assumed, Kelsier thought triumphantly. Maybe I don’t have—
Then it hit. Like a cloud moving before the sun, like a sudden storm on a quiet night, like a pair of fingers snuffing a candle. An oppressive hand stifled the budding skaa emotions. The people cringed, and their cries died out. The fire Kelsier had built within them was too new.
So close. . he thought.
Up ahead, a single, black carriage crested the hill and began to move down from the fountain square.
The Lord Ruler had arrived.
Vin nearly lost her grip as the wave of depression hit her. She flared her copper, but—as always—she could still slightly feel the Lord Ruler’s oppressive hand.
“Lord Ruler!” Dockson said, though Vin couldn’t tell if it was a curse or an observation. Skaa that had been packed in to view the fight somehow managed to make room for the dark carriage. It rolled down a corridor of people toward the corpse-littered square.
Soldiers pulled back, and Kelsier stepped away from the fallen cart, moving out to face the oncoming carriage.
“What is he doing?” Vin asked, turning toward Dockson, who had propped himself up on a small outcropping. “Why doesn’t he run? This is no Inquisitor—this isn’t something to fight!”
“This is it, Vin,” Dockson said, awed. “This is what he’s been waiting for. A chance to face the Lord Ruler—a chance to prove those legends of his.”
Vin turned back toward the square. The carriage rolled to a stop.
“But. .” she said quietly. “The Eleventh Metal. Did he bring it?”
“He must have.”
Kelsier always said that the Lord Ruler was his task, Vin thought. He let the rest of us work on the nobility, the Garrison, and the Ministry. But this…Kelsier always planned to do this himself.
The Lord Ruler stepped from his carriage, and Vin leaned forward, burning tin. He looked like. .
A man.
He was dressed in a black and white uniform somewhat like a nobleman’s suit, but far more exaggerated. The coat reached all the way to his feet, and trailed behind him as he walked. His vest wasn’t colored, but a pure black, though it was accented with brilliant white markings. As Vin had heard, his fingers glittered with rings, the symbol of his power.
I’m so much stronger than you, the rings proclaimed, that it doesn’t matter if I wear metal.
Handsome, with jet black hair and pale skin, the Lord Ruler was tall, thin, and confident. And he was young— younger than Vin would have expected, even younger than Kelsier. He strode across the square, avoiding corpses, his soldiers pulling back and forcing the skaa away.
Suddenly, a small group of figures burst through the line of soldiers. They wore the mismatched armor of rebels, and the man leading them looked just a bit familiar. He was one of Ham’s Thugs.
“For my wife!” the Thug said, holding up a spear and charging.
“For Lord Kelsier!” yelled the other four.
Oh no… Vin thought.
The Lord Ruler, however, ignored the men. The lead rebel bellowed in defiance, then rammed his spear through the Lord Ruler’s chest.
The Lord Ruler just continued to walk, passing the soldier, spear sticking all the way through his body.