Page 214 of The Well of Ascension

Zane turned toward Cett, who sat expectant. The boy was at his side, trying to pull his father away.

Zane looked back at her, head cocked.

“Please,” Vin repeated.

Zane frowned. “He still controls you, then,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I thought, maybe, if you could fight and see just how powerful you were, you’d shake yourself free of Elend’s grip. I guess I was wrong.”

Then he turned his back on Cett and walked out through the hole he had made. Vin followed quietly, feet crunching splinters of wood as she slowly withdrew, leaving a broken keep, shattered army, and humiliated lord behind.

44

But must not even a madman rely on his own mind, his own experience, rather than that of others?

In the cold calm of morning, Breeze watched a very disheartening sight: Cett’s army withdrawing.

Breeze shivered, breath puffing as he turned toward Clubs. Most people wouldn’t have been able to read beyond the sneer on the squat general’s face. But Breeze saw more: he saw the tension in the taut skin around Clubs’s eyes, he noticed the way that Clubs tapped his finger against the frosty stone wall. Clubs was not a nervous man. The motions meant something.

“This is it, then?” Breeze asked quietly.

Clubs nodded.

Breeze couldn’t see it. There were still two armies out there; it was still a standoff. Yet, he trusted Clubs’s assessment. Or, rather, he trusted his own knowledge of people enough to trust his assessment of Clubs.

The general knew something he didn’t.

“Kindly explain,” Breeze said.

“This’ll end when Straff figures it out,” Clubs said.

“Figures what out?”

“That those koloss will do his job for him, if he lets them.”

Breeze paused.Straff doesn’t really care about the people in the city—he just wants to take it for the atium. And for the symbolic victory.

“If Straff pulls back…” Breeze said.

“Those koloss will attack,” Clubs said with a nod. “They’ll slaughter everyone they find and generally make rubble out of the city. Then Straff can come back and find his atium once the koloss are done.”

“Assuming they leave, my dear man.”

Clubs shrugged. “Either way, he’s better off. Straff will face one weakened enemy instead of two strong ones.”

Breeze felt a chill, and pulled his cloak closer. “You say that all so…straightforwardly.”

“We were dead the moment that first army got here, Breeze,” Clubs said. “We’re just good at stalling.”

Why in the name of the Lord Ruler do I spend my time with this man?Breeze thought.He’s nothing more than a pessimistic doomsayer.And yet, Breeze knew people. This time, Clubs wasn’t exaggerating.

“Bloody hell,” Breeze muttered.

Clubs just nodded, leaning against the wall and looking out at the disappearing army.

“Three hundred men,” Ham said, standing in Elend’s study. “Or, at least, that’s what our scouts say.”

“That’s not as bad as I’d feared,” Elend said. They stood in Elend’s study, the only other occupant being Spook, who sat lounging beside the table.

“El,” Ham said, “Cett only had a thousand men with him here in Luthadel. That means that during Vin’s attack, Cett took thirty percent casualties inless than ten minutes. Even on a battlefield, most armies will break if they take thirty or forty percent casualties in the course of anentire day’sfighting.”

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