familiar—but broken—mask appeared there.
Impossible. Was the chillfever striking her too?
The man raised his mask and displayed a bearded, youthful face. “I am sorry to have come in unannounced,” Allik said. “But I bear gifts, as is traditional for visiting someone’s house unannounced, yes?”
He held up a gloved fist, which clutched a bundle of medallions by their cords.
Jordis looked from the medallions to young Allik, then back. For once she didn’t even care about how free he was with raising his mask. She stumbled to him, seizing one of them, unable to believe.
The wonderful warmth ran through her, like a sunrise within. She sighed in relief, her mind clearing. It was him. “How?” she whispered.
“I,” Allik proclaimed, “have made friends with some of the devils.” He gestured to the side and a female maskless one almost toppled in, wearing one of the long dresses that were popular here, carrying an armful of rifles.
She said something in her language, dropping the guns to the floor of the tent and dusting off her hands.
“I think she wants us to start shooting the other ones,” Allik said as Jordis quickly grabbed the other medallions and began distributing them to the most severely afflicted of her people. “I, for one, am more than happy to oblige.”
Petrine continued the distribution as Jordis armed herself with one of the guns. Though the warmth was wonderful, she still felt weak, and she didn’t want to look in her boots to see if her toes had frostbite. “I don’t know that we will put up much of a fight.”
“Better than no fight at all, yes, Captain?” Allik asked.
“This is true,” Jordis admitted, and made a sign of respect, touching her right shoulder with her left hand, then lowering her hand to touch her wrist. “You did well. Almost I forgive you for your terrible dancing.” She turned to Petrine. “Arm the men and women with these weapons. Let’s kill as many of the devils as we can.”
* * *
Wax ripped from the temple in a burst of might and Allomancy. He spun above the building, rocks flung by his explosive exit tumbling in the air around him, trailing mist. Below, a storm of gunfire broke out on the previously quiet mountainside, though they weren’t firing at him.
Above it, an airship lumbered through the sky, fans whirring powerfully on its two pontoons. It was awesome to behold, but the ship was obviously not spry. It moved with the ponderous motions of something very large, and very heavy—even with the weight reduction granted by the medallions.
Wax was tempted to crush the ship. Push the nails from their mountings, rip the thing apart in a storm of destruction, dumping Suit and his traitorous sister to the frozen ground below. He almost did it. But … rusts. He wasn’t an executioner. He was a lawman. He’d rather die than betray that.
Well, die again.
He dropped, then used the trace metals in the stonework of the temple as an anchor to send himself soaring across the ground in a swoop. A few of the soldiers below took halfhearted shots at him, but most seemed engrossed in a gunfight with a group of people in masks who had taken up a position behind a rocky shelf.
Steris, Allik, Wax thought, identifying them. Good.
He landed among the soldiers and flung them aside. He grabbed an aluminum pistol from one of their racks, loaded it, then waved to the masked people before hurling himself into the sky after the airship.
He was strong. Incredibly strong. The Bands, still clutched in his left hand, somehow gave him not just Allomancy, but ancient Allomancy. The potency of those who had lived long ago, during the time of the Lord Ruler. Perhaps even more. Was that possible?
What did you create? he wondered. And how long will it last?
His resources were diminishing. Not merely the metals inside of him, but the reserves stored inside the Bands. Stores that changed his level of Investiture.
He should have held back, he knew—reserved it for study, or for use in a future emergency—but rusts it was intoxicating. He reached the airship easily, despite only having a few shell casings to Push upon below. He soared up and landed on the ship’s nose, then smashed his hand through one of the windows to the bridge, any cuts healing immediately.
Inside, Suit sat alone. There was no sign of pilots, technicians, or servants. Just a wide, half-oval deck, not even carpeted, and Suit in a chair.
Wax climbed in and raised the