Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

Allomancy so obviously in the daylight, and before so many people.
    There’s no help for it, he thought. This visit is the last chance the men will have to see me for months. I need to make an impression, give them something they can hold on to, if this is all going to work. . . .
    “Shall we go see if the group from the caves has arrived to meet us?” Kelsier asked, turning back to Yeden.
    “Of course,” Yeden said, waving for a servant to pull his narrowboat up to the side of the canal and throw out the plank. Yeden looked excited; he really was an earnest man, and that much Kelsier could respect, even if he was a bit lacking in presence.
    Most of my life, I’ve had the opposite problem, Kelsier thought with amusement, walking with Yeden off of the boat.
    Too much presence, not enough earnestness.
    The two of them walked up the line of canal workers. Near the front of the men, one of Ham’s Thugs—playing the part of Kelsier’s guard captain—saluted. “We’ve reached the crossroads, Lord Kelsier.”
    “I can see that,” Kelsier repeated. A dense stand of birch trees grew ahead, running up a slope into the hills. The canals ran away from the woods—there were better sources of wood in other parts of the Final Empire. The forest stood alone and ignored by most.
    Kelsier burned tin, wincing slightly at the suddenly blinding sunlight. His eyes adjusted, however, and he was able to pick out detail—and a slight bit of motion—in the forest.
    “There,” he said, flipping a coin into the air, then Pushing it. The coin zipped forward and thocked against a tree. The prearranged sign given, a small group of camouflaged men left the tree line, crossing the ash-stained earth toward the canal.
    “Lord Kelsier,” the foremost man said, saluting. “My name is Captain Demoux. Please, gather the recruits and come with me—General Hammond is eager to meet with you.”

    “Captain” Demoux was a young man to be so disciplined. Barely into his twenties, he led his small squad of men with a level of solemnity that might have seemed self-important had he been any less competent.
    Younger men than he have led soldiers into battle, Kelsier thought. Just because I was a fop when I was that age doesn’t mean that everyone is. Look at poor Vin—only sixteen, already a match for Marsh in seriousness.
    They took a roundabout passage through the forest—by Ham’s order, each troop took a different path to avoid wearing a trail. Kelsier glanced back at the two hundred or so men behind, frowning slightly. Their trail would probably still be visible, but there was little he could do about that—the movements of so many men would be nearly impossible to mask.
    Demoux slowed, waving, and several members of his squad scrambled forward; they didn’t have half their leader’s sense of military decorum. Still, Kelsier was impressed. The last time he’d visited, the men had been typically ragtag and uncoordinated, like most skaa outcasts. Ham and his officers had done their work well.
    The soldiers pulled away some false underbrush, revealing a crack in the ground. It was dark within, the sides jutting with crystalline granite. It wasn’t a regular hillside cavern, but instead a simple rend in the ground leading directly down.
    Kelsier stood quietly, looking down at the black, stone-laced rift. He shivered slightly.
    “Kelsier?” Yeden asked, frowning. “What is it?”
    “It reminds me of the Pits. They looked like this—cracks in the ground.”
    Yeden paled slightly. “Oh. I, uh . . .”
    Kelsier waved dismissively. “I knew this was coming. I climbed down inside those caves every day for a year, and I always came back out. I beat them. They have no power over me.”
    To prove his words, he stepped forward and climbed down into the thin crack. It was just wide enough for a large man to slip through. As Kelsier descended, he saw the soldiers—both Demoux’s squad and the new recruits—watching quietly. He had intentionally spoken loud enough for them to hear.
    Let them see my weakness, and let them see me overcome it.
    They were brave thoughts. However, once he passed beneath the surface, it was as if he were back again. Smashed between two walls of stone, questing downward with shaking fingers. Cold, damp, dark. Slaves had to be the ones who recovered the atium. Allomancers might have been more effective, but using Allomancy near atium crystals shattered them. So, the Lord Ruler used condemned men. Forcing