Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension

After a quick exchange, they both backed away, circling warily.
    "My money's on the girl."
    Elend turned as he noticed a form limping down the hallway toward him. Clubs stepped up beside Elend, setting a ten-boxing coin down on the railing with a snap. Elend smiled to the general, and Clubs scowled back—which was generally accepted as Clubs's version of a smile. Dockson excluded, Elend had taken quickly to the other members of Vin's crew. Clubs, however, had taken a little getting used to. The stocky man had a face like a gnarled toadstool, and he always seemed to be squinting in displeasure—an expression usually matched by his tone of voice.
    However, he was a gifted craftsman, not to mention an Allomancer—a Smoker, actually, though he didn't get to use his power much anymore. For the better part of a year, Clubs had acted as general of Elend's military forces. Elend didn't know where Clubs had learned to lead soldiers, but the man had a remarkable knack for it. He'd probably gotten the skill in the same place that he'd acquired the scar on his leg—a scar that produced the hobble from which Clubs drew his nickname.
    "They're just sparring, Clubs," Elend said. "There won't be a 'winner.'"
    "They'll end with a serious exchange," Clubs said. "They always do."
    Elend paused. "You're asking me to bet against Vin, you know," he noted. "That could be unhealthy."
    "So?"
    Elend smiled, pulling out a coin. Clubs still kind of intimidated him, and he didn't want to risk offending the man.
    "Where's that worthless nephew of mine?" Clubs asked as he watched the sparring.
    "Spook?" Elend asked. "He's back? How'd he get into the city?"
    Clubs shrugged. "He left something on my doorstep this morning."
    "A gift?"
    Clubs snorted. "It was a woodcarving from a master carpenter up in Yelva City. The note said, 'I just wanted to show you what real carpenters are up to, old man.'"
    Elend chuckled, but trailed off as Clubs eyed him with a discomforting stare. "Whelp was never this insolent before," Clubs muttered. "I swear, you lot have corrupted the lad."
    Clubs almost seemed to be smiling. Or, was he serious? Elend couldn't ever decide if the man was as crusty as he seemed, or if Elend was the butt of some elaborate joke.
    "How is the army doing?" Elend finally asked.
    "Terribly," Clubs said. "You want an army? Give me more than one year to train it. Right now, I'd barely trust those boys against a mob of old women with sticks."
    Great , Elend thought.
    "Can't do much right now, though," Clubs grumbled. "Straff is digging in some cursory fortifications, but mostly he's just resting his men. The attack will come by the end of the week."
    In the courtyard, Vin and Ham continued to fight. It was slow, for the moment, Ham taking time to pause and explain principles or stances. Elend and Clubs watched for a short time as the sparring gradually became more intense, the rounds taking longer, the two participants beginning to sweat as their feet kicked up puffs of ash in the packed, sooty earth.
    Vin gave Ham a good contest despite the ridiculous differences in strength, reach, and training, and Elend found himself smiling slightly despite himself. She was something special—Elend had realized that when he'd first seen her in the Venture ballroom, nearly two years before. He was only now coming to realize how much of an understatement "special" was.
    A coin snapped against the wooden railing. "My money's on Vin, too."
    Elend turned with surprise. The man who had spoken was a soldier who had been standing with the others watching behind. Elend frowned. "Who—"
    Then, Elend cut himself off. The beard was wrong, the posture too straight, but the man standing behind him was familiar. "Spook?" Elend asked incredulously.
    The teenage boy smiled behind an apparently fake beard. "Wasing the where of calling out."
    Elend's head immediately began to hurt. "Lord Ruler, don't tell me you've gone back to the dialect?"
    "Oh, just for the occasional nostalgic quip," Spook said with a laugh. His words bore traces of his Easterner accent; during the first few months Elend had known the boy, Spook had been utterly unintelligible. Fortunately, the boy had grown out of using his street cant, just as he'd managed to grow out of most of his clothing. Well over six feet tall, the sixteen-year-old young man hardly resembled the gangly boy Elend had met a year before.
    Spook leaned against the railing beside Elend, adopting a teenage boy's lounging posture and