Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5)(107)

“Yeah,” Wax said, scrambling over some rubble. Pieces of the kandra Homeland had obviously suffered from being shoved about in the earth during the Catacendre. Walls had collapsed, then had lain here, broken, for hundreds of years. “But she’s not really trying to kill God. She just wants to free people from Him, in her twisted way.”

“Free them?” TenSoon said. He was silent for a time. “Emotion. That’s it, isn’t it? Vin liberated koloss by making them feel powerful emotions. It gave an opening into their souls, let her break through another’s control and seize the creatures.”

“That’s what the old stories say,” Wax replied. “Good to have confirmation.”

“Humans aren’t Hemalurgic creations like koloss. Powerful emotion won’t ‘free’ them from Harmony.”

“Sure it will,” Wax said. “At least in Bleeder’s eyes. If you’re in a rage, you’re not following Harmony’s careful plans. You’re out of control. She’s going to drive this city to madness in an insane attempt to liberate it.”

“Ruin!” TenSoon growled. “I may have to leave you behind, lawman. I must reach my people quickly and speak with them about what is happening.”

“Fine,” Wax said. “But I might keep up better than you assume, so long as I—”

A shrill howl echoed through the corridor, so chilling that Wax pulled to a stop. He drew Vindication, lantern held high in his off hand. The howl was joined by others, a terrible cacophony, each sound jarring against the others.

TenSoon leaned low, growling as the howls faded.

“What the hell was that?” Wax said.

“I have never heard its like before, human.”

“Aren’t you over a thousand years old?”

“Something like that,” TenSoon said.

“Holy hell,” Wax repeated. “Another way out?”

The kandra took off, leading him back the way they had come. The howls started up again, louder. The tight tunnels and uneven stones suddenly seemed far more confining.

Wax ran and, despite his earlier bravado, found he had real trouble keeping up with TenSoon. The stone around them didn’t contain any metals, at least not in a pure enough form for him to Push on. Besides, the tunnels twisted and turned too much for long Pushes.

So he ran, holding on to his lantern with sweating fingers, listening as the things behind seemed to grow more excited. Distracted as he was, he almost crashed into TenSoon when he caught up to him standing still in the tunnel.

“What?” Wax asked, panting from his run.

“It smells wrong ahead,” TenSoon said. “They’re waiting for us.”

“Great,” Wax said. “What are they?”

“They smell like men,” TenSoon said.

More howls came from behind.

“Those,” Wax said, “are men?”

“Come,” TenSoon said, turning and scrambling away, his claws scratching on stone.

Wax followed. “Another way out?” he asked again.

TenSoon didn’t answer, instead leading them in a sprint through small caverns, around corners, through tunnels. They stopped at an intersection, TenSoon considering their options while Wax fingered his gun nervously. He swore he could see something moving down the tunnel they’d left behind, the one where TenSoon claimed to have spotted an ambush.

“TenSoon…” he said, nervous.

“This way,” the kandra said, dashing off.

Wax followed, entering a longer tunnel. Perfect. He let himself lag behind, holding up the lantern, trying to get a glimpse of whatever was following.

His light reflected from eyes in the shadows. Figures that were bent low, scrambling on all fours, moving in a distinctly inhuman way. Sweating, Wax dropped a shell casing and shoved it with his foot into a cleft in the rock. He Pushed, throwing himself down the corridor to catch up with TenSoon, landing just before they took a corner at speed.

“They’re not human,” Wax said. “Not completely.”

“Hemalurgy,” TenSoon said. “This is terrible. Paalm … She has gone further than I had assumed. She doesn’t just kill. She Ruins.”

“They’re almost upon us,” Wax said, clutching gun and lantern. “How do we get out?”

“We don’t,” TenSoon said, ducking to the side and into a small chamber. “We fight.”

Wax followed, but stopped in the doorway, gun at the ready. They’d passed this room before, or one like it. It was filled with small baskets—glancing at them now, he could see they were full of bones.

The things chasing them had started yipping, but he could hear them scrambling on the stone—could hear them breathing in excited gasps—as they drew close.

Inside the room, TenSoon transformed.

It happened in a burst, the kandra’s skin sloughing off his canine bones and splashing to the ground like a bucket of slop tossed out the back of a kitchen. The muscles and melting skin slapped against one of the baskets, tipping it, dumping bones.

MeLaan had said he was fast, but that word didn’t begin to describe the sudden motion as TenSoon absorbed the bones. Arms sprouted from the side of his mass, then lifted it into the air even as legs formed beneath, thick like those of a wrestler. A skull emerged like a bubble rising through molasses, filling in with muscles stretched against bone, a jaw shifting into place.