The Bands of Mourning

  “But…”

  “I got a good look at several of them,” Wax said, “and hopefully so did you. We’ll give descriptions, chase them down, set a trap on our terms. Besides, if they leave now, there might be time to help a few of your friends in there.”

  The guard nodded weakly. “Couldn’t stop them. They threw bottles through the windows.… And then the doors ripped off. Steel doors, Pushed into the room, twisted off their hinges like they were paper…”

  Wax felt a chill. So the bandits had Metalborn too. Wax peeked around the wall back toward the courier car, and found the door he’d closed open again. A thin man stood on the platform, wearing a long coat and supporting himself on a cane. He gestured, speaking urgently and motioning for another bandit to lumber toward Wax’s car—a hulking brute who had to be almost seven feet tall.

  Wonderful. “Get in here,” Wax said to the guard, pulling open the luggage compartment in the room’s floor. “Keep your head down.”

  The guard crawled into the compartment, which was cramped and shallow, but large enough for a person, even with a few pieces of luggage in it. Wax pulled out both Sterrions, crouching in the doorway of the private room. The train continued to rock, going around a bend. The thing hadn’t stopped. Did the engineer not know about the attack, or was he hoping to get to the next town?

  Rusts, the courier car changed all of Wax’s assessments. Maybe this wasn’t about him. But why not simply stop the train and raid it in the wilderness? Too many questions, and no time to answer them. He had a bandit to kill. He’d have to jump out and surprise the brute, bring him down quick. If he was the Metalborn, surprise would be—

  Something bounced down the hallway and came to a rest on the floor beside Wax, just outside the doorway in which he crouched. A small metal cube. He jumped back, fearing an explosive, but nothing happened. What had that been?

  And then he realized with a deep, bone-chilling horror that he was no longer burning metal. There was nothing inside of him to burn.

  His steel reserves had—somehow—vanished.

  * * *

  Marasi fired three shots with the rifle, driving the bandits in the next car back under cover. Impressive, she thought, absently handing the weapon to Steris for reloading. She’d always used a target rifle before. You took one shot at a time with those, cocking between, but Waxillium’s rifle had a wheel full of cartridges that turned on its own, like a revolver.

  Steris handed back the gun, and Marasi took aim again, waiting for any bandit bits to peek out. She hid just inside the door to the servants’ compartment, and the bandits hadn’t made any serious attempts at advancing on her position.

  Someone said something beside her. Marasi glanced into the room, where Drewton was speaking. Marasi pulled out one of her wax earplugs.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Are those earplugs?” the valet asked.

  “What do they look like?” she said, then sighted down the rifle and fired a shot.

  Drewton shoved his hands over his ears. Indeed, in the small chamber, the shot was loud enough that she was annoyed he’d made her remove her earplug.

  “You carry them with you?” Drewton asked.

  “Steris does.” Apparently. Marasi had been a little surprised when Steris had pulled out a pair for herself, then—an unconcerned look on her face—handed a pair to Marasi.

  “So you expected this to happen?”

  “More or less,” Marasi said, watching for movement from the bandits.

  He seemed aghast. “This sort of thing happens often?”

  “Would you say it happens often, Steris?” Marasi asked.

  “Hmm?” Steris said, removing an earplug. “What was that?”

  Marasi fired a shot, then looked up. Think I winged that one. “The valet wants to know if this sort of thing happens often to us.”

  “You more than me,” Steris said conversationally. “But when Lord Waxillium is around, things do tend to pop up.”

  “Things?” Drewton said. “Pop up? This is a rusting train robbery!”

  Steris regarded the valet with a cool expression. “Didn’t you inquire about your prospective master before entering Lord Waxillium’s employ?”

  “Well, I mean, I knew he had an interest in the constabulary. Like some lords have an interest in the symphony, or in civic matters. It seemed odd, but not ungentlemanly. I mean, it’s not as if he was involved in the theater.”

  They’ve gone quiet over there, Marasi thought, nervously tapping one finger against the rifle barrel. Were they going to try to cross over onto the top of her car again? One of the holes in the ceiling still dripped blood from the previous attempt.

  To the side, Steris clicked her tongue disapprovingly at Drewton’s words. He hadn’t done his homework, which was a dreadful sin in Steris’s eyes. Little could be worse than entering a situation without being thorough.

  “Is … is he going to come back?” Drewton asked.

  “Once he’s finished,” Steris said.

  “Finished with what?”

  “Killing the rest of them, hopefully,” she said.

  Marasi found herself surprised at Steris’s bloodthirst. Of course, the woman hadn’t been quite the same since her kidnapping eighteen months back. It wasn’t that Steris acted traumatized—but she’d changed.

  “They aren’t trying to get to us anymore,” Drewton said. “Did they retreat?”

  “Maybe,” Marasi said. Probably not.

  “Should we go look?” Drewton asked.

  “We?”

  “Well, you.” He tugged at his collar. “Gunfights. I had not actually expected gunfights. Aren’t the servants usually left out of such extravagances?”

  “Most of the time,” Marasi said.

  “Except when the house blew up,” Steris added.

  “Except then.”

  “And … you know,” Steris said.

  “Best not to mention it.”

  “Mention what?” Drewton asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Marasi said, glaring at Steris. Honestly. If the man couldn’t do a little research before taking a job—

  “Wait,” Drewton said, frowning. “What exactly happened to Lord Ladrian’s previous valet?”

  Motion in the hallway again. Marasi snapped her rifle up, ready to fire. However, the person who moved out into the hallway wasn’t one of the bandits, but an older woman in a fine traveling dress. A bandit walked behind her, gun to her head.

  Marasi shot him right in the forehead.

  She gaped, shocked at herself, and almost dropped the gun. Fortunately the remaining bandit—seeing that the ploy hadn’t worked—ran out of the car, fleeing toward the front of the train.

  Rusts! Marasi felt sweat trickle down her temple. She’d fired so quickly, without even thinking. The poor hostage stood there, blood from the dead man all over her. Marasi knew what that felt like. Yes, she did.

  Beside her, Drewton let out a few oaths that would have made Harmony blush. “What were you thinking?” he demanded of her. “You could have hit the woman.”

  “Statistics … Statistics say…” Marasi took a deep breath. “Shut up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Shut up.” She stood, holding the gun in nervous hands, and made her way into the next car.

  The woman had found her husband—alive, fortunately—and was crying in his arms. Marasi stood over the bandit corpse, then looked back out at the roof of her car, where another one lay. She hated this part. A year and a half working with Waxillium hadn’t made killing any easier. It was unnerving, and it was such a waste! If you had to shoot a man, society had already failed.

  Marasi steeled herself and did a quick check of the rooms of the first-class car, determining that the bandits had well and truly retreated. One of the first-class passengers claimed to have experience with a gun, and she handed him the rifle and set him watching to be certain no bandits returned.

  From there she went to the dining car, checking on the
passengers, calming them. Gunshots came from farther up the train. Waxillium was doing his job. His effective, brutal job. The next car up—fourth from the end—was a second-class car, with packed rooms. She checked on the people here too.

  Between the two cars, she found four people who had been shot. One was dead, another seriously wounded, so Marasi went to see if Steris had, by chance, brought any bandages or medical equipment. The chances were slim, but this was Steris. Who knew what she had planned for?

  Marasi passed Drewton, who sat morosely on a seat in one of the first-class cabins, obviously wondering how an expert cravat-tier had ended up in the middle of a virtual war zone. Steris, however, wasn’t in the servants’ compartment. Nor was she in the one she had been sharing with Waxillium.

  Increasingly frantic, Marasi searched through the first-class rooms. No Steris. Finally, she thought to ask the man she’d posted on guard.

  “Her?” he said. “Yes, miss. She went by here a few minutes ago, moving up the train. Should I have stopped her? She seemed very determined about something.”

  Marasi groaned. Steris must have slipped past while she was checking in the rooms of the second-class car. Frustrated, she took her rifle back and chased after her sister.

  * * *

  Wax’s metal reserves were gone.

  Wax knelt, completely stunned. This was impossible. How in Harmony’s name?

  He twisted, discovering that the enormous bandit had stepped into this car. Doors rattled around the man, shaking as if someone were trying violently to get out. Wax ducked into the hallway and lifted his gun, but it was flipped from his fingers by a Push. Immediately after, Wax himself was shoved backward by his gunbelts. He slammed into the opposite wall of the car, right next to the closed door leading toward the back of the train.

  He groaned in pain. How? How had they…?

  He shook his head, then heaved against the wall, using his breakaway buckles to rip free of his gunbelts. He dropped to the floor, leaving his guns and the metal vial stuck to the wall as the brute loped toward him.

  Wax dodged under the man’s first swing and delivered a punch right into the man’s side. It felt like punching a steel wall. He danced backward, but rusts, it had been years since he’d gotten into a real fistfight—and he was slower than he’d once been. The giant’s next right hook caught him as he tried to jab for the face.

  His vision flashed, and his cheek erupted in pain. The blow shoved him into the side wall. Rusts! Where was Wayne? The brute came in again, and Wax dodged to the side, barely, and managed to connect with the man’s face. Once, twice, three quick jabs.

  The brute smiled. Doors still rattled around him—he was a Coinshot, obviously, Pushing out with a bubble like the one Wax used. It even pressed a little on the metalminds Wax wore on his upper arms, which were resistant to Allomancy.

  This man could have ended the fight at any moment by grabbing a bit of metal and shooting it. He preferred the hand-to-hand fight. Indeed, the man raised his fists and nodded to Wax, still grinning, inviting him to come in for another round.

  To hell with that.

  Wax turned and slammed his shoulder against a door into an empty second-class compartment and made for the window.

  “Hey!” the man said behind him. “Hey!”

  Wax leaped at the window and increased his weight. He hit the window shoulder-first, arms covering his face, and smashed through—then barely managed to catch the bottom window frame as he fell outside.

  Fingers dripping blood from the broken glass, he pulled himself up, stood on the windowsill, and scaled the outside of the train, finally heaving himself onto the roof. Wind rushed around him, and he was shocked to see that he wasn’t alone up here. Ahead about four cars, a group of armed men pressed toward the front of the train, bearing something large and seemingly heavy. What in the name of the lost metal was that?

  “Hey!” the large bandit said again as he climbed the side of the car.

  Wax sighed, then kicked the man in the face as he tried to pull himself onto the top. The man growled. Wax kicked him again, then stomped on one of his hands. The man glared at Wax, then dropped back down to the window and climbed inside.

  You can beat anybody, Wayne always said, so long as you don’t let them fight back properly.

  Wax moved to the center of the train car. He felt he should be chasing down those men up ahead. But he was unarmed now, and the Coinshot below was bound to pester him.

  You have what you wanted, he thought at the robbers. Why are you still fighting?

  The brute’s head appeared a moment later, peeking over the lip of the car’s roof, near the rear platform, which had a ladder. Wax rushed him, preparing to kick again, but the brute climbed up too quickly. He was holding something.

  One of Wax’s gunbelts. Damn.

  The man grinned, stepping onto the rooftop, pulling Ranette’s enormous shotgun out and dropping the gunbelt. Beneath them, the train shot out of the forest and rolled toward an open bridge rising hundreds of feet above the river below.

  The brute raised the shotgun as if to fire from the hip.

  Excellent.

  Wax dove for the rooftop as the brute pulled the trigger, and the massive kick Ranette had built into the gun took him entirely by surprise. The weapon ripped out of his fingers, jerking backward and falling down between the cars. The man howled, cradling his hand.

  Wax tackled him in the chest. The man grunted, stumbling backward, but caught himself before he toppled off the train. Wax didn’t care.

  He was after the gunbelt, which had fallen at the man’s feet. He snatched it with fingers still wet with blood. It held Ranette’s two cord devices, along with a single, glorious metal vial.

  Wax yanked it out, tucking the gunbelt into his waistband. However, the vial lurched in his fingers. He snatched it, holding on tightly, but the brute’s Push sent him backward across the train’s roof in a skid. He slipped and fell to his knees, catching the side of the train.

  The Coinshot kept Pushing. Wax clung to the rooftop with his left hand, but his right arm—which held the metal vial—strained in its socket. The brute smiled and started walking forward. Each step closer let him Push harder.

  Wax gritted his teeth. The cuts on his fingers were superficial, though they stung like hell and the blood made his grip slippery. He struggled, trying to pull the vial toward his mouth, but failed.

  Ranette’s sphere devices. They hung from the gunbelt tucked into his waist. Could he use those? How? Beneath him, the train started across the bridge.

  The thug advanced on Wax, rolling his shoulder and trying to make a fist despite his broken thumb. Behind the man something moved on the ladder. A head coming up? Wayne!

  No. He saw the tip of a gun wave as the person climbed. Wayne wouldn’t have a gun. Marasi?

  Steris appeared at the lip of the roof, wind blowing her hair wildly. She looked from the huge robber to Wax, then seemed to gasp—though the wind was too loud for Wax to hear it. She scrambled up and set herself, crouching on one knee, holding Ranette’s shotgun.

  Oh no.

  “Steris!” he shouted.

  The brute spun, noticing her as she set the gun at her shoulder, wide-eyed, dress rippling against her body in the wind.

  She pulled the trigger. Unsurprisingly, the shot went wild, but it did manage to clip the brute in the arm, spraying blood. The man grunted, releasing his Push on Wax.

  Unfortunately, the enormous kick of that gun—intended to be used to fight Allomancers—hurled Steris backward.

  And right off the side of the train.

  8

  Wax leaped off the side of the train and raised the vial to his mouth.

  Steris toppled below, falling toward the river. He ripped the cork free with his teeth and turned over in the air, sucking down the contents of the vial. Cod-liver oil and metal flakes washed into his mouth. Swallowing took a precious moment.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothin
g.

  Power.

  Wax shouted, flaring steel and Pushing on the tracks up above. He shot downward in a blur, slamming into Steris, grabbed her, and Pushed on the shotgun that toppled beneath her.

  It hit the water.

  They slowed immediately. Water viscosity being what it was, you could Push off something sinking. A second later, the shotgun hit the bottom of the churning river, and that left the two of them hanging about two feet above the water’s surface. A faint, solitary blue line led from Wax to the shotgun.

  Steris breathed in short, frantic gasps. She clung to him, blinked, then looked down at the river.

  “What is wrong with that gun!” she said.

  “It’s meant for me to shoot,” Wax said, “when my weight is increased to counteract the kick.” He looked up toward the disappearing train. It had crossed the river, but now would have to slow and chug its way down some switchbacks on a hill on the other side, coming out of the highlands to head on toward New Seran.

  “Hold this,” he told Steris, handing her his gunbelt and removing the two spheres. “What were you thinking? I told you to stay back in the other car.”

  “As a point of fact,” she said, “you did not. You told me to stay safe.”

  “So?”

  “So, it has been my experience that the safest place in a gunfight is near you, Lord Waxillium.”

  He grunted. “Hold your breath.”

  “What? Why should I—”

  She yelped as he Pushed on the steel bridge supports nearby, plunging them down into the river. Ice-cold water surrounded them as Wax kept Pushing, plunging downward until he reached his gun—easily located by its blue line—settled into the muck on the bottom. Ears throbbing from the pressure, he snatched the gun, replacing it with one of Ranette’s sphere devices, then Pushed.

  They popped back out of the river, trailing water, and Wax Pushed them as high as his anchor would allow and handed Steris the shotgun to hold. From there, he Pushed off one of the support beams below—launching them upward and to the side. A Push on one from the other direction sent them bounding upward the other way, and he was able to work them toward the top of the bridge.

  The angle of these Pushes had sent them out away from the tracks, unfortunately. When they soared up past the bridge, he needed to sling Ranette’s other sphere device out—getting it into a small gap between bridge struts. He engaged the hooks, so that the Push from below, combined with the taut cord in his hand, swung him and Steris in an arc.