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"Guess what I found," Marsh growled, stepping up, Pushing against Elend's sword The weapon was ripped fro it, looking to sell it Foolish creature"

Elend cursed, ducking out of the way of a koloss swing, pulling his obsidian dagger fro

Marsh stalked forward Men screa--as their atiu overrun The screa this entrance died He doubted the others would lastkoloss, letting hie--barely--but he couldn't kill theer And, as the koloss took his attention, Marsh struck with an obsidian axe The blade fell, and Elend leaped away, but the dodge left him off balance

Elend tried to recover, but hislow--not just his atium, but his basichting for so long now If Marsh had atium, then they were equal--and without basic metals, Elend would die

An attack froet away He cut down three koloss with ease, his atiu hie The Inquisitor crawled over the fallen bodies of koloss, scra the too-bright light of the sun overhead

Elend's pewter ran out

"You cannot beat ravel "We've killed your wife I will kill you"

Vin Elend didn't believe it Vin will coht She'll save us

Faith It was a strange thing to feel at that

Pewter and iron suddenly flared to life within Elend He didn't have ti on his sword, which lay stuck into the ground a distance away It flipped through the air and he caught it, swinging with a too-quickMarsh's axe Elend's body seemed to pulse, powerful and vast He struck forward instinctively, forcing Marsh backward across the ashen field Koloss backed away for the htened Or awed

Marsh raised a hand to Push on Elend's sword, but nothing happened It wasas if so back Marsh with the strikes of his silvery weapon The Inquisitor looked shocked as it blocked with the obsidian axe, its motions too quick for even Allomancy to explain Yet Elend still forced hi beneath a red sky

A powerful peace swelled in Elend His Alloh he knew the metals inside of hie power did not--could not--give him the other metals But it didn't reater He looked up, toward the sun

And he saw--just briefly--an enor, brilliant personage of pure white Her hands held to his shoulders with her head thrown back, white hair streas that stretched across the sky

Vin, he thought with a smile

Elend looked back down as Marsh screa with his axe in one hand, see vast and black like a cloak behind him Marsh raised his other hand across his face, as if to shield his dead eyes froe in the air above Elend

Elend burned the last of his atiu it to life in his stomach He raised his sword in two hands and waited for Marsh to draw close The Inquisitor was stronger and was a better warrior Marsh had the powers of both Allo him another Lord Ruler This was not a battle Elend could win Not with a sword

Marsh arrived, and Elend thought he understood what it had been like for Kelsier to face the Lord Ruler on that square in Luthadel, all those years ago Marsh struck with his axe; Elend raised his sword in return and prepared to strike

Then, Elend burned duraluth, Power, Glory, Speed!

Blue lines sprayed froht But those were all overshadowed by one thing Atiue, Elend felt awealth of infore saturated his mind

"I see now," he whispered as the vision faded, and along with it his re metals The battlefield returned He stood upon it, his sword piercing Marsh's neck It had gotten caught on the spikehead jutting out of Marsh's back, between the shoulder blades

Marsh's axe was buried in Elend's chest

The phantoain They took the pain away However, there was only so h it was flared Marsh ripped his axe free, and Elend stuo of his sword Marsh pulled the blade free from his neck, and the wound vanished, healed by the powers of Feruche into a pile of koloss bodies He would have been dead already, save for the pewter Marsh stepped up to hi His empty eye socket reathed in tattoos, the mark that Marsh had taken upon himself The price he had paid to overthrow the Final E him back up "Your soldiers are dead, Elend Venture," the creature whispered "Our koloss raone You have lost"

Elend felt his life dripping away, the last trickle frolass He'd been here before, back in the cavern at the Well of Ascension He should have died then and he'd been terrified This tiret Just satisfaction

Elend looked up at the Inquisitor Vin, like a glowing phantom, still hovered above them both "Lost?" Elend whispered "We've won, Marsh"

"Oh, and how is that?" Marsh asked, dismissive

Human stood at the side of the pit in the center of the cavern room The pit where Ruin's body had been The place of victory

Hu up to hi equally confused