“If we wanted to defeat the Garrison,” Breeze continued, “we’d need our own force of at least its same size. We’d probably want one much larger, since our men will be newly trained. We might be able to raise Yeden an army—we might even be able to get him one large enough to hold the city for a while. But, getting him one large enough to take on the Garrison inside its fortifications? We might as well give up now, if that’s our plan.”
The group fell silent. Vin squirmed in her chair, looking over each man in turn. Breeze’s words had a profound effect. Ham opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, sitting back to reconsider.
“All right,” Kelsier finally said. “We’ll get back to the Garrison in a moment. Let’s look at our own army. How can we raise one of substantial size and hide it from the Lord Ruler?”
“Again, that will be difficult,” Breeze said. “There is a very good reason why the Lord Ruler feels safe in the Central Dominance. There are constant patrols on the roadways and canals, and you can hardly spend a day traveling without running into a village or plantation. This isn’t the sort of place where you can raise an army without attracting notice.”
“The rebellion has those caves up to the north,” Dockson said. “We might be able to hide some men there.”
Yeden paled. “You know about the Arguois caverns?”
Kelsier rolled his eyes. “Even the Lord Ruler knows about them, Yeden. The rebels there just aren’t dangerous enough to bother him yet.”
“How many people do you have, Yeden?” Ham asked. “In Luthadel and around it, caves included? What do we have to start with?”
Yeden shrugged. “Maybe three hundred—including women and children.”
“And how many do you think those caves could hide?” Ham asked.
Yeden shrugged again.
“The caves could support a larger group, for certain,” Kelsier said. “Perhaps ten thousand. I’ve been there—the rebellion has been hiding people in them for years, and the Lord Ruler has never bothered to destroy them.”
“I can imagine why,” Ham said. “Cave fighting is nasty business, especially for the aggressor. The Lord Ruler likes to keep defeats to a minimum—he’s nothing if not vain. Anyway, ten thousand. That’s a decent number. It could hold the palace with ease—might even be able to hold the city, if it had the walls.”
Dockson turned to Yeden. “When you asked for an army, what size were you thinking?”
“Ten thousand sounds like a good number, I suppose,” Yeden said. “Actually . . . it’s a bit larger than I was thinking.”
Breeze tipped his cup slightly, swirling the wine. “I hate to sound contrary again—that’s usually Hammond’s job—but I do have to return to our earlier problem. Ten thousand men. That won’t even frighten the Garrison. We’re talking about twenty thousand well-armed, well-trained troops.”
“He has a point, Kell,” Dockson said. He had found a small book somewhere, and had begun taking notes on the meeting.
Kelsier frowned.
Ham nodded. “Any way you look at it, Kell, that Garrison is going to be a tough stone to break. Perhaps we should just focus on the nobility. Maybe we can cause enough chaos that even the Garrison won’t be able to suppress it.”
Kelsier shook his head. “Doubtful. The Garrison’s primary duty is to maintain order in the city. If we can’t deal with those troops, we’ll never pull this off.” He paused, then eyed Vin. “What do you think, Vin? Any suggestions?”
She froze. Camon had never asked her opinion. What did Kelsier want from her? She pulled back into her chair slightly as she realized that the other members of the crew had turned, looking at her.
“I . . .” Vin said slowly.
“Oh, don’t intimidate the poor thing, Kelsier,” Breeze said with a wave of his hand.
Vin nodded, but Kelsier didn’t turn away from her. “No, really. Tell me what you’re thinking, Vin. You’ve got a much larger enemy threatening you. What do you do?”
“Well,” she said slowly. “You don’t fight him, that’s for certain. Even if you won somehow, you’d be so hurt and broken that you couldn’t fight off anyone else.”
“Makes sense,” Dockson said. “But we might not have a choice. We have to get rid of that army somehow.”
“And if it just left the city?” she asked. “That would work too? If I had to deal with someone big, I’d try and distract him first, get him to leave me alone.”
Ham chuckled. “Good luck getting the Garrison to leave Luthadel. The Lord Ruler sends squads out on patrol sometimes, but the only time I know of the entire Garrison leaving was when that skaa rebellion broke out down in Courteline a half century ago.”
Dockson shook his head. “Vin’s idea is too good to dismiss that easily, I think. Really, we can’t fight the Garrison—at least, not while they’re entrenched. So, we need to get them to leave the city somehow.”
“Yes,” Breeze said, “but it would take a particular crisis to require involving the Garrison. If the problem weren’t threatening enough, the Lord Ruler wouldn’t send the entire Garrison. If it were too dangerous, he’d hunker down and send for his koloss.”
“A rebellion in one of the nearby cities?” Ham suggested.
“That leaves us with the same problem as before,” Kelsier said, shaking his head. “If we can’t get the skaa here to rebel, we’ll never get ones outside the city to do so.”
“What about a feint of some sort, then?” Ham asked. “We’re assuming that we’ll be able to raise a sizable group of soldiers. If they pretend to attack someplace nearby, perhaps the Lord Ruler would send the Garrison out to help.”
“I doubt he’d send them away to protect another city,” Breeze said. “Not if it left him exposed in Luthadel.”
The group fell silent, thinking again. Vin glanced around, then found Kelsier’s eyes on her.
“What?” he asked.
She squirmed a bit, glancing down. “How far away are the Pits of Hathsin?” she finally asked.
The crew paused.
Finally, Breeze laughed. “Oh, now that’s devious. The nobility don’t know that the Pits produce atium, so the Lord Ruler couldn’t make much of a fuss—not without revealing that there’s something very special about those Pits. That means no koloss.”
“They wouldn’t arrive in time anyway,” Ham said. “The Pits are only a couple of days away. If they were threatened, the Lord Ruler would have to respond quickly. The Garrison would be the only force in striking distance.”
Kelsier smiled, eyes alight. “And it wouldn’t take much of an army to threaten the Pits, either. A thousand men could do it. We send them to attack, then when the Garrison leaves, we march our second, larger force in and seize Luthadel itself. By the time the Garrison realized that they’d been duped, they wouldn’t be able to get back in time to stop us from taking the city walls.”
“Could we keep them, though?” Yeden asked apprehensively.