The Alloy of Law

Miles reached for it. Wax casually lowered his gun and shot the other weapon, knocking it backward and off the shaking top of the train.



“Dammit!” Miles swore. “Do you know how much those things are worth?”



Still on one knee, Wax raised his gun beside his head, the wind of the train’s motion blowing the smoke away from the barrel.



Miles rose to his feet again. “You know, Wax,” he yelled over the wind, “I used to wonder if I’d have to face you. A part of me always thought your softness would cause it—I thought you’d let someone go that you shouldn’t have. I wondered if I’d have a chance to hunt you down for it.”



Waxillium didn’t respond. He maintained a level gaze, face impassive. On the inside, he was smarting, trying to catch his breath from the beating he’d taken. He raised his hand to his side, pressing it against the wound. Blessedly, it wasn’t too bad, but it still wet his fingers with blood. The train swayed, and he quickly lowered his hand to the rooftop again.



“What was it that broke you, Miles?” Waxillium called. “The lure of wealth?”



“You know very well this isn’t about money.”



“You need gold,” Waxillium yelled. “Don’t deny it. You’ve always needed it, for your constant Compounding.”



Miles didn’t reply.



“What happened?” Waxillium yelled. “You were a lawkeeper, Miles. A damn good one.”



“I was a dog, Wax. A hound, kept in line with false promises and stern orders.” Miles backed up a few paces, then ran forward, leaping over the gap between them.



Waxillium stood warily and backed up.



“Don’t tell me you never felt it,” Miles yelled, snarling. “You worked every day to fix the world, Wax. You tried to end the pain, the violence, the robberies. It never worked. The more men you put down, the more troubles arose.”



“It’s the life of a lawkeeper,” Waxillium said. “If you gave up, fine. But you didn’t have to join the other side.”



“I was already on the other side,” Miles said. “Where do the criminals come from? Was it the shopkeeper next door who started rampaging and murdering? Was it the boys who grew up near town, working their father’s dry farm?



“No. It was the mine workers, shipped out from the City to dig into the depths and exploit the latest rich find—then be abandoned once it was exhausted. It was the fortune hunters. It was the rich fools from the City who wanted adventure.”



“I don’t care who it was,” Waxillium said, still backing up. He was on the next-to-last car. He was running out of space to retreat. “I served the law.”



“I served it too,” Miles called. “But now I serve something better. The essence of the law, but mixed with real justice. An alloy, Wax. The best parts of both made into one. I do something better than chase the filth sent to me from the city.



“You can’t tell me you never noticed it. What of Pars the Deadman, your ‘great catch’ of the last five years? I remember you hunting him, I remember your nights without sleep, your anxiety. The blood on the dirt in the center of Weathering when he left old Burlow’s daughter dead for you to find. Where did he come from?”



Waxillium didn’t reply. Pars had been a murderer from the City, a butcher who had been caught killing beggars. He’d fled out into the Roughs, and there he had again worked to sate his grisly obsession.



“They didn’t stop him,” Miles spat, stepping forward. “They didn’t send you help. They didn’t care about the Roughs. Nobody cares about the Roughs—they barely seem to notice us save as a place to deposit their trash.”



“So you rob them,” Wax called. “Kidnap their daughters, murder any who stand in your way?”



Miles took another step forward. “I do what needs to be done, Wax. Isn’t that the code of the lawkeeper? I haven’t stopped being one; you never stop being a lawkeeper. It gets in you. You do what nobody else will. You stand up for the downtrodden, make things better, stop the criminals. Well, I’ve just decided to set my sights on a more powerful brand of criminal.”



Waxillium shook his head. “You’ve let yourself become a monster, Miles.”



“You say that,” Miles said, wind whipping at his short hair, “but your eyes, Wax … they show the truth. I can see it. You do get what I’m saying. You’ve felt it too. You know that I’m right.”



“I’m not going to join you.”



“I’m not asking you to,” Miles said, voice growing softer. “You’ve always been the good hound, Wax. If your master beats you, you just whimper and wonder how to better serve. I don’t think we’d work well together. Not in this.”



Miles lunged forward.



Waxillium dumped all of his weight into his metalmind and hopped backward, letting the wind grab and drag him a good twenty feet away. He increased his weight and landed on the last railcar. They were approaching the suburbs; the flora of the Outer Estates dwindled.



“Go ahead and run!” Miles called. “I’ll just wander back and take little Lady Harms the bastard! And Wayne. I’ve long been wanting an excuse to put a bullet in that man’s head.” He turned and began to stroll in the other direction.



Waxillium cursed, dashing forward. Miles turned, his lips spreading in a cold smile. He reached down, pulling a long-bladed knife out of the back of his boot. It was aluminum; he didn’t have a single Allomantically reactive piece of metal on his body that Waxillium could see.



I need to throw him off the train, Wax thought. He couldn’t beat Miles here, not for good. He needed a more controlled environment. And he needed time to plan.



As he got close, Wax raised his gun and tried to blast the knife out of Miles’s hand—but the other man spun the knife and rammed it through his own left forearm, jamming it right down through the flesh so it stuck out the bottom. He didn’t even flinch. Stories told all around the Roughs claimed that after suffering hundreds of wounds that should have killed him, Miles had grown completely oblivious to pain.



Miles held his hands out, ready to grab Waxillium—but he’d also be able to whip out that knife in a flash. Waxillium got out his own knife and held it in his left hand. The two circled for a moment, Wax’s increased weight helping to steady him atop the thumping train car. It still wasn’t terribly sure footing, and sweat trickled down his brow, blown sideways by the wind.



A few fools poked their heads up between distant cars, trying to watch the action. Unfortunately, none of those fools was Wayne. Wax feinted forward with a quick step, but Miles didn’t take the bait. Wax was only a fair knife fighter, and Miles was known as one of the best. But if Wax could roll them both off the train …



At this speed, it will end me, but not him, he thought. Unless I can get a Push underneath me. Rusts. This is going to be hard.



He had only one chance, and that was to end the fight quickly.



Miles came in to seize him. Wax took a breath and stepped into it, which Miles seemed to find surprising, though he still managed to grab Wax’s arm. With his other hand, Miles pulled the knife free from his own arm, preparing to thrust it toward Wax. In desperation, Wax increased his weight and threw his shoulder into Miles’s chest.



Unfortunately, Miles anticipated that move. He dropped to the roof, rolling, and kicked Wax in the legs.



In the blink of an eye, Wax was tumbling through the air toward the gravel and rock beside the railway tracks. Some primal part of him knew what to do. He Pushed on the knife in his hand, ripping it free and plunging it into the earth directly below him. That bounced him into the air as he simultaneously shed his weight. The wind caught him. He was spinning, and he lost all sense of direction.



He hit and rolled into a heap, slamming against something hard. He stopped moving, but his vision continued to lurch. The sky spun.



All grew still. His vision slowly returned to normal. He was alone in the middle of a weedy field. The train was puffing away down the tracks.



He groaned and rolled over. A man my age shouldn’t be doing this kind of thing, he thought, stumbling to his feet. He hadn’t started feeling his age until the last few years, but he was over forty now. That was ancient by Roughs standards.



He stared after the escaping railway train, shoulder aching. The thing was, Miles had said one thing that was right.



You never stopped being a lawkeeper.



Wax gritted his teeth and dashed forward. He scooped up the gun he’d dropped when falling—it was easy to find with his Allomancy—then jumped without breaking stride and landed atop the tracks.



He Pushed, throwing himself into the air. He reached a good height, then Shoved on the rails behind him, shooting forward. A careful Push below, a continuous Push behind. The wind roared around him, his clothing a noisy flurry, blood seeping from the wound at his side.



There was a thrill to this, the flight of a Coinshot. It was a freedom no other Allomancer could know. When the air became his, he felt the same exhilaration he had years ago, when he’d first sought his fortune in the Roughs. He wished that he were wearing his mistcoat and that the mists were around him. Everything always seemed to work better in the mists. They were said to protect the just.



He caught up to the train in moments, then threw himself in a powerful arc over it. A small figure was walking along the tops of the railcars, making his way toward Wayne and Marasi.



Wax Pushed downward to keep himself from hitting too hard, but increased his weight at the same time, slamming into the train’s roof and denting it into a crater around him. He stood up straight, then flipped his revolver open, as if to reload. The casings and unspent rounds flipped up into the air and he caught one.



Miles spun. Wax tossed the cartridge at him.



Looking startled, Miles snatched it out of the air.



“Goodbye,” Wax said, then slammed as powerful a Push as he could into that cartridge.



Miles’s eyes opened wide. His hand jerked backward into his chest, and then he was flung free of the train, the Push on the cartridge effectively transferred to him. The train rounded a bend as Miles soared through the air and crashed into the rocky ground beyond.



Wax sat down, then lay back, eyes toward the sky. He breathed in deeply, aching, and pressed his hand to the wound at his side. He rode all the way to the next stop before climbing down.



* * *



“We had orders, m’lord,” the railway engineer said. “Even when I heard there was gunfire back in the passenger cars. We ain’t to stop for anything. The Vanishers get you when you stop.”



“It is just as well,” Waxillium said, gladly taking a cup of water from a young man in an apprentice engineer’s vest. “If you had stopped, it likely would have meant my death.”



He sat in a small room at the station, which—by tradition—was owned and operated by a minor member of the house that owned the land nearby. The lord himself was out, but the steward had immediately sent for the local surgeon.



Waxillium had his coat, vest, and shirt off, and was holding a bandage to his side. He wasn’t certain he had time to wait for that surgeon. It would take Miles about an hour of running to reach this station. Fortunately, he wasn’t a steel Feruchemist, capable of increasing his speed.