If Wax’s memory was right, the man would need to drink a new vial each time he used the power. Wax made his way to another rooftop, where he’dstowed his pack before joining the fight. Here he grabbed an extra pouch of aluminum bullets and dropped the Steel Survivor, as it was loaded with conventional rounds. He raised Vindication, fully aluminum herself, and loaded with aluminum cartridges. The only other metals he had on him were the vials Harmony had sent, inside his belt sheath, which was also lined with aluminum.
He’ll try to take me from above,Wax thought, scanning the sky. Sure enough, gunfire came from up there. The enemy had an aluminum weapon too, but Wax was able to leap over the side of the building to dodge. As he fell, he Pushed in through an upper window, landing in an apartment.
The room was empty. So if Wax could slide over to a window in another room, he could maybe trap the enemy by—
The entire apartment wall caved in, torn to pieces by the metal girders beneath the stonework. A wave of debris crashed into Wax and pushed him back against the far wall. He groaned, rubble tumbling around him, and caught sight of motion through the newly ripped-open wall.
The Coinshot bounded up, holding an aluminum flask for restoring metals, gun in his other hand. He’dcaused a similar amount of destruction in the building across the street, which he’dused as an anchor for his terrible Push. A flask was clever; assuming he had it well saturated with his metals, he could take a swig each time he used duralumin.
Wax ducked behind some rubble as the man fired, the stone popping with sprays of white dust as bullets hit. Debris crunched underfoot and streamed off Wax’s body as he took a few unaimed shots to drive the enemy away. It worked, butRuin.
Wax shoved through the debris on shaky feet, stepping out into the hallway of the apartment building. He hid here for a moment, lightly burning steel to reveal sources of metal around him so he could judge thesize of the rooms in the surrounding apartments. He quietly reloaded—and slipped a metal vial from his belt to quickly restore his reserves.
As aluminum had dropped in price—from extravagant to merely expensive—people had started to use it more and more. Like the sheath on Wax’s belt. But that flask his enemy held, that was better. Wax’s vials would be briefly vulnerable as he pulled them out to drink, whereas—
A bullet drilled through the wood of the wall and nearly hit Wax in the head. He dropped down, cursing, and waved away the confused bystanders who had begun peeking out of their apartments. Another bullet followed, again nearly hitting him. The Coinshot was firing them from outside, and Pushing them through the wood. But how was he seeing Wax? He should be invisible in here…
Idiot,Wax thought, extinguishing his steel. The enemy must have a spike that let him use bronze to sense when someone was using Allomancy nearby. Wax ducked a little farther along the hallway, and no more bullets came in through the wall. Perhaps the Coinshot would think him dead?
Assuming he’s a natural Coinshot—which might be the case, given his skill—he’s got one spike for bronze and one for duralumin.At least. A human body could hold up to three spikes without exposing it to Harmony’s influence and direct control. But Marasi claimed the enemy had found a way to bypass that limit somehow. Perhaps it was Harmony’s blindness.
People continued filling the hallway behind, despite Wax’s urgings. Many gathered around the broken apartment, gawking. Too many civilians. Wax couldn’t stay here. He reached the end of the hallway, opened the window with a solid kick, slipped out, and dropped—using his Feruchemy to decrease his weight so he wouldn’t hit too hard.
Immediately, the enemy Coinshot appeared on a nearby roof and began shooting.
Wax scrambled around a corner and stopped filling his metalmind—which these days he wore embedded deep in his skin. A change he’dmade, with the help of surgeons, after the events surrounding the Bands of Mourning. A person’s body acted like aluminum, protecting things like metalminds from interference.
Then again, the stories said that with enough power, an Allomancer could ignore that. The Ascendant Warrior had done it. Rusts. At any rate, the man had appeared soon after Wax tapped a metalmind. He’dseen Wax’sFeruchemywith his bronze, something only the very rarest of practitioners could do. How skilled was this man?
If he’s watching for me to activate my abilities,Wax thought,let’s use that.
He moved around the back of the building and found a drainage grate beside the street. Wax gave it a single flared Push, popping him up in the air, but immediately cut off to soar upward by momentum. As most Coinshots would sustain long Pushes as they flew, this single short one might make it appear that Wax was still on the ground.
The Push threw Wax up a good twenty feet, where he grabbed the side of the building just below the roof and clung to a stonework formation. He hung there, still hoping to take his opponent alive.
Feet scraped the rooftop above, and a shadow shifted. With a deep breath, Wax Pushed himself upward so he sprang up right in front of his enemy. A quick Push behind sent Wax slamming into the man, bringing them both down in a heap on the rooftop.
Using the element of surprise, Wax—kneeling on top of his enemy—punched the man’s wrist to make him drop his pistol. Then he grabbed the fellow by the vest and raised his fist. By sticking close, he wouldn’t have to worry about potential speed bubbles—and Wax had no Pushable metal on his person. It was possible the fellow had pewter for strength. A few punches across the face should be enough to determine that.
Wax pulled his enemy up and began laying into him. And damn, maybe he was excited to be fighting again, but the blows didn’t seem to hurt Wax’s knuckles as much as they once had.
The enemy scrambled for his gun in a panic, but Wax kept punching. There was a certain disorientation that struck the first time a fellow got punched, particularly in the head. It was a kind of disbelief, a stunned irreconcilability. Wax remembered his first time—the way his mind couldn’t bridge its past experiences with its new painful, fist-to-face existence. The man’s panic rose, and Wax realized his miscalculation a second later—as the enemy unleashed an explosive Steelpush downward, against the nails and iron rods in the rooftop.
Wax and the Coinshot were flung upward in a roar of wind and a sudden burst of g-forces. Wax managed to hang on to the Coinshot for the first part of the ride. But before they reached the peak of their ascent, the man put his hand to Wax’s face, and Wax felt a sudden coldness.
His metal reserve vanished.
The Coinshot had another power. He was a Leecher, with the ability to drain other people’s Allomancy. He smiled, meeting Wax’s eyes—and Wax scrambled to grab a vial from the pouch on his metals belt. The Coinshot then grabbed Wax’s metals belt in one hand andkickedthe two of them apart. The belt, made to break away if someone Pushed on the metals inside, ripped free, and since Wax had his hand in it, the open latch meant the vials were flung out into the air.
But Wax had managed to grab one vial. His steel gone, a hundred feet in the air, he raised the vial to his lips—but only got the briefest taste of the liquid inside before the vial exploded. A shot from the enemy toward Wax’s face barely missed—but hit the vial, shattering it.
Wax immediately increased his weight, and the strange way that affected his momentum meant his upward speed slowed to a crawl. The next shot passed through the air right over his head. A second after he crested his rise and started falling, he switched to filling his metalmind to instantly boost his downward speed—but made sure not to get so light that wind resistance would counteract that. More shots passed over his head as the Coinshot had trouble predicting his motion. Wax fell in a tumble, and despite the mayhem—despite the way his guts were in a knot and his mind dizzy from the sudden ejection—he realized one thing.
Without metals, he was dead. If he couldn’t change his trajectory, the next bullets would strike him as the Coinshot adjusted his aim. Falling slowly wasn’t enough. He reached for metals inside of him, and managed to find the faintest bit of steel from the sip. He used it to shove himself in the air, Pushing on the spire of a building, dodging the next shots from above.
Then it was gone. Nothing but rushing wind. Then he looked up and saw one of his vials tumbling downward, and he momentarily increased his weight once again to slow his fall and draw even with the vial. He stretched out his arm, reaching for it, but it was inches away, just beyond his fingertips…
Snap.The vial fell into his palm. Wax spun in the air, downing half the vial. Like a burst of light, his steelsight returned. He passed between buildings as he fell and Pushed himself, haphazardly, to the side. Bullets from above ripped through the air around him a moment later—the ground approaching at a frightening pace. At the last moment Wax threw the half-full vial beneath him andPushed.