POV: wax
Summary
The blast Wax detonates inside the foundry hall kills four Vanishers outright, knocks out most of the room's electric lamps, and starts the survivors swinging. Wax vaults over the welded cargo box with Vindication in hand, Pushes off a scrap of metal to drive himself into the air, and drops three more men in clean shots. A ragged figure rises against the wall and Wax fires before recognising Miles — the round goes home and the flesh under the shredded shirt has already grown back. Wax drops behind the train car under crossfire from four or five different directions.
He breaks west toward a stack of crates, throwing weighted kerchiefs Pushed in front of him to draw fire, and lands behind cover — only to come face-to-face with Tarson flanking him with Wayne's lucky hat on his head. The koloss-blooded Pewterarm swings the revolver still in his fist as a fist, smashes a crate next to Wax's head, and slaps Vindication out of his hand before Wax can lock the chamber and fire the Pewterarm round.
The roof above the boxes explodes inward. Wayne drops through in a borrowed duster (he had to think to find a way of beating up the guard without ruining the coat), lands hard, throws up a speed bubble around them, and points casually upward at the Coinshot frozen mid-fall above with a bullet drifting slowly toward Wax's head. Marasi is on the rim of the opening shooting aluminum rifle rounds for cover. They split: Wayne for the Pewterarm, Wax for the Coinshot above. The Coinshot Pushes Vindication (made of ordinary steel — Ranette is not rich) toward Wax's head; Wax Pushes it the other way, up and out through the hole, and follows it on a Push of a dropped round, snatching the revolver out of the mist over the Ironspine's rooftop.
Push follows him in long Coinshot leaps. A second Set minder, the Lurcher Pull, hauls himself up the side of the building from beam to beam in inverse rappelling Pulls. Wax climbs ledge by ledge until the unfinished top forces him out into open air again. He locks the chamber, fires the Coinshot hazekiller round at Push in mid-air — and by sheer chance the Coinshot Pushes himself sideways just enough that the round streaks past into the mist. Wax exchanges Pushes with Push on an ordinary round and the contest hurls Push out into the sky over Elendel. Wax then empties an ordinary revolver across Pull's armoured chest plate without luck and drops past him into the fall, slowing himself with a shot into the pavement. Marasi rises out of the shrubs and takes Pull in mid-fall with an aluminum rifle round; Pull hits the ground face-first and stops moving. She is sorry for screaming, she explains — targets do not scream.
Wax grabs Marasi and carries her back through the mist down into the hall. Wayne is in the middle of the floor running circles around the western Vanishers in successive bubbles, burning through bendalloy at a wasteful rate, drawing fire and dodging through it; he and Tarson have fought to a standstill. Wax takes the last stick of dynamite from Marasi, pitches it out of a bubble in a high arc, and shoots it open with Vindication mid-flight; the blast scatters the western group. Wayne dashes back through fresh bubbles and meets him by the broken vault car to plan for Miles.
Plan one: Miles is hiding to the side of the train car, working an angle. Wax ducks into the wrecked Breaknaught for cover and reloads as a figure darkens the doorway. *Hello, Wax.* *Hello, Miles.* Wax Pushes the metal hooks he had earlier taped to the ceiling: the Marasi-fishing nets fall around Miles, and a follow-up Push on the clasps at the bottom of the net yanks them tight, dropping Miles flat with the gun knocked out of his hand. The trick was never to kill him, only to bind him. Wax stands, bleeding, breath ragged. Miles looks up at him, calm, reaches into his pocket, takes out the cigar case, and pulls out a slender stick of dynamite. Wax has a heartbeat to realise what is happening and throw himself through the doorway.
The blast hurls Wax across the room and shreds his side. Plan one fails. He loses a few moments. Miles steps from the wreckage of the car bare-chested, trousers in rags, whole. He preaches at the dazed body on the floor: people like them, given gifts like theirs, ought to be doing real work for real people instead of chasing petty criminals for whichever lords happen to be in office. *Is there any doubt that I have been chosen for something great?* He admits he keeps the dynamite in the cigar case because the criminals who tried tying him up out in the Roughs never had the chance to compare notes — he killed them all. He hauls Wax up by the shoulder, punches him in the gut, drops him, and wanders off across the room to fetch a gun.
Pinned in the dark behind some scattered crates, bleeding badly, unarmed save for an ankle two-shooter the blast has broken, Wax aims a prayer through the Pathian earring at Harmony. *I thought I asked for a little help.* A voice answers in his mind. *And a little is what you received, I think.* They talk. Are Allomancers divine, as Miles claims? *If I were, I doubt I'd be in this much pain.* How can Harmony see what the Vanishers have done and not help? *I have done something to help. I sent you.* The mists draw aside around him.
In front of him is his own travel trunk, the one Tillaume had been ordered to put away that first night and which the gang had since looted out of the mansion. A tassel from a mistcoat hangs out of the lid. Across the room Miles has found Marasi in her hiding spot and is making her scream for Wax as bait — she cannot, she only stares at the gun. The shadows in the corner shift. Wax stands up in the mistcoat with a shotgun on each shoulder and a revolver at each hip, the mist drawing back around him, smiling. Without a word, he lowers the shotguns and blows Miles off his feet.
References
Relations (1)
- Waxillium LadrianrelatedHarmony — First direct contact — Harmony answers Wax's prayer aloud in the mists of the Ironspine foundry hall, telling him that the help he was sent is himself.