Chapter 37

Vin awakens to an assault on Elend’s northern camp. She launches into the mist, finds mounted raiders aiming for the supply barges, and tears through them with inventive Allomancy—weaponizing tents and stakes to scatter the cavalry. Sensing a watching Allomancer, Vin chases a short Mistborn through Fadrex but loses him when he drops his metals, realizing her coppercloud-piercing secret may be known.

Fearing the chase was a feint against Elend, Vin races back. Elend reveals the true target: the koloss. From a plateau, they survey burned siege gear and the aftermath—hidden trebuchets had bombarded the koloss penned below, and frustration drove the beasts to slaughter each other. Ten thousand koloss lie dead, and Elend briefly lost control, exposing a dangerous vulnerability.

Accepting the setback, Elend resolves to move the koloss closer to camp and splits command, assigning Vin a thousand to reduce risk. Vin descends and seizes control of a separated group, adding them to her mental bond alongside Human. She questions Human about koloss losses and origins, noting excess swords and the absence of koloss children.

Prodded by Vin’s emotional Allomancy, Human grabs a freshly dead koloss, hauls it into Elend’s camp, and—before shocked soldiers—flays it and extracts small metal spikes hidden beneath the skin. He moves toward wounded human soldiers to continue the process, revealing intent. Vin halts him with a mental command and recognizes the horrific truth: koloss are created by driving Hemalurgic spikes taken from koloss into humans, not born as a race.

Shaken, Vin confronts the implication as Human quietly insists, “I am human,” crystallizing the moral cost of their koloss army and the reach of Hemalurgy within their world.