Mistborn #03 The Hero of Ages

sight of his white-clothed form immediately brought Vin a sense of relief.
    She landed beside him. "Elend, were you attacked?"
    He glanced at her. "What? Me? No, I'm fine."
    Then the Allomancer wasn't sent to distract me from an attack on Elend, she thought, frowning. It had seemed so obvious. It—
    Elend pulled her aside, looking worried. " I'm fine, Vin, but there's something else—something's happened."
    "What?" Vin asked.
    Elend shook his head. "I think this all was just a distraction—the entire attack on the camp."
    "But, if they weren't after you," Vin said, "and they weren't after our supplies, then what was there to distract us from?"
    Elend met her eyes. "The koloss."
    "How did we miss this ?" Vin asked, sounding frustrated.
    Elend stood with a troop of soldiers on a plateau, waiting as Vin and Ham inspected the burned siege equipment. Down below, he could see Fadrex City, and his own army camped outside it. The mists had retreated a short time ago. It was disturbing that from this distance he couldn't even make out the canal—the falling ash had darkened its waters and covered the landscape to the point that everything just looked black.
    At the base of the plateau's cliffs lay the remnants of their koloss army. Twenty thousand had become ten thousand in a few brief moments as a well-laid trap had rained down destruction on the beasts while Elend's troops were distracted. The daymists had kept his men from seeing what was going on until it was too late. Elend himself had felt the deaths, but had misinterpreted them as koloss sensing the battle.
    "Caves in the back of those cliffs," Ham said, poking at a bit of charred wood. "Yomen probably had the trebuchets stored in the caves in anticipation of our arrival, though I'd guess they were originally being built for an assault on Luthadel. Either way, this plateau was a perfect staging area for a barrage. I'd say Yomen set them up here intending to attack our army, but when we camped the koloss just beneath the plateau . . ."
    Elend could still hear the screams in his head—the koloss, full of bloodlust and frothing to fight, yet unable to attack their enemies, which were high atop the plateau. The falling rocks had done a lot of damage. And then the creatures had slipped away from him. Their frustration had been too powerful, and for a time, he hadn't been able to keep them from turning on each other. Most of the deaths had come as the koloss attacked each other. Roughly one of every two had died as they had paired off and killed each other.
    I lost control of them, he thought. It had only been for a short while, and it had only happened because they hadn't been able to get at their enemies. However, it set a dangerous precedent.
    Vin, frustrated, kicked a large chunk of burned wood, sending it tumbling down the side of the plateau.
    "This was a very well-planned attack, El," Ham said, speaking in a soft voice. "Yomen must have seen us sending out extra patrols in the mornings, and correctly guessed that we were expecting an attack during those hours. So, he gave us one—then hit us where we should have been the strongest."
    "It cost him a lot, though," Elend said. "He had to burn his own siege equipment to keep it away from us, and he has to have lost hundreds of soldiers—plus their mounts—in the attack on our camp."
    "True," Ham said. "But would you trade a couple dozen siege weapons and five hundred men for ten thousand koloss? Plus, Yomen has to be worried about keeping that cavalry mobile—the Survivor only knows where he got enough grain to feed those horses as long as he did. Better for him to strike now and lose them in battle than to have them starve."
    Elend nodded slowly. This makes things more difficult. With ten thousand fewer koloss . . . Suddenly, the forces were much more evenly matched. Elend could maintain his siege, but storming the city would be far more risky.
    He sighed. "We shouldn't have left the koloss so far outside of the main camp. We'll have to move them in."
    Ham didn't seem to like that.
    "They're not dangerous," Elend said. "Vin and I can control them." Mostly.
    Ham shrugged. He moved back through the smoking wreckage, preparing to send messengers. Elend walked forward, approaching Vin, who stood at the very edge of the cliff. Being up so high still made him a bit uncomfortable. Yet, she barely even noticed the sheer drop in front of her.
    "I should have been able to help you regain control of them," she said