The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,126
Wax lowered his gun. “No,” he said. “Your testimony in court will do more against the Set than killing a man for no reason other than vengeance. And I’d rather have him to interrogate anyway.” He holstered the gun.
Wayne nodded. Reliable chap, that Wax. Steady. The same on a good day and a bad. Wayne moved to retreat into the ship’s interior, but as he scrambled over the seats, he somehow got tangled a little with Telsin and, in the process, kicked one of the packs out the opening.
Wayne stared down, aghast, as it fell and actually hit one of the men on the head.
“What did you do?” Telsin demanded.
Wayne winced.
“What did Wayne do now?” Marasi asked, a sense of resignation in her voice.
“He kicked that pack out right on top of them,” Telsin said.
“’S not my fault,” he said. “Wax woke me up too soon. Put me off balance.” He looked back at the ship’s other occupants. Wax sighed, moving up beside the pilot. Steris and MeLaan sat on the back bench, out of the way—MeLaan lounging in a rather attractive way, Steris bent over a large notebook. Taking notes? What was wrong with that woman?
Down below, the men in the snow held their lanterns high and scanned the sky, seeming confused.
“Move us away,” Wax said to the masked pilot, pointing. “Go the direction they’re hiking.”
“Yes, Decisive One,” the pilot fellow said, and the fans at the sides of the thing grew louder. “Hold on, everyone.”
The ship shifted. Not quickly, but it did start moving again. Neat trick that had been, staying in place while flying. Birds couldn’t do that, just Coinshots. Wayne moved forward, sidling past Marasi to get a good look out the front of the ship.
“Wind is picking up,” the pilot mentioned. “Might be a storm, as if things weren’t cold enough already.”
“There,” Wax said, pointing. “What was that?”
“I’ll bring us around,” the pilot fellow said, swinging the ship, which rocked precariously. Another gust of wind brought flakes of snow in through the openings in the ship’s walls.
“That’s it,” Wax said, peering through the curtain of snow. “Harmony’s Rings … it’s really here.”
“I don’t see anything,” Wayne said, squinting.
“Hold on to something,” the pilot fellow said. “Or make sure you’re strapped in. I’m going to land.”
So Wayne grabbed the man’s arm.
“Something else.”
Wayne grabbed the chair’s back, and good thing he did, since the ship pitched to the side as it came down. The landing wasn’t too bad, assuming you liked getting shaken about and then having your face smacked into the wall.
Wayne blinked, finding himself in blackness. A moment later MeLaan managed to relight her lantern and hold it up, showing that the ship had settled halfway on its side, one of the fan wings—which could fold up so the thing could fit in the larger ship—having bent up on its hinges, with a big heap of snow pushed in through the hole in the ship’s side.
“Is that how it usually goes?” Wax asked, standing up shakily on the sloping floor.
“Landing is difficult,” the pilot fellow admitted.
“Technically,” Marasi said from the back, “it’s not. It’s probably the easiest thing to do with a flying ship, assuming you’re not picky.”
Wayne snorted, climbing across the ship to the side that was pointed upward, and hopped out. The snow crunched when he dropped into it. He hadn’t expected that—the only snow he’d seen had been the occasional flurry up in the Roughs, and it never got anywhere near this deep. Why would it crunch? The stuff was made of water, not cereal flakes.
He stumbled out of the high pile of snow onto a windswept rocky portion of ground. Snow pelted him like grains of sand, but it didn’t seem to be coming from the sky, just getting blown in from the side. He shivered and tapped more warmth. The clouds happened to roll out of the way, releasing starlight like a bouncer stepping back and letting folks into the night’s most exclusive club.
That light cascaded down, white and calm, upon a rusting castle in the middle of the mountains. A bleak stone fortress, cut of the same stone as the field. It looked to be only one story, hunkered down against the wind, but it glowed in the starlight like the spirit of some ancient building from anteverdant days.
Wayne breathed out slowly, his breath making white mist before him. “Nice,” he said, nodding. “Nice.” The folks that built this, they had style.