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Authors: Brandon Sanderson

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Epic

The Bands of Mourning (34 page)

BOOK: The Bands of Mourning
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The guards didn’t hear. They stepped up to where he’d fallen—no tomato splat of blood this time, fortunately—and looked around. One nudged the stone accidentally, and it fell off the peak where Wayne had placed it, rolling down the side of the small pile and clattering against the other rocks. The men looked at it, then nodded, doing a quick sweep but heading back to their post and returning the light to its scan of the nearby area. The noise they’d heard had merely been some rocks shifting. Nothing significant.

Wayne stood up straight in the darkness and stopped tapping the bracelet metalmind. He felt good. Renewed, like he always did after a big healing. Felt like he could do something impossible, run up a mountain, or eat the entire boar and chips plate at Findley’s all on his own.

He crept off through the shadows, about important business. Fortunately, he found his hat almost immediately, near another rock pile. That done, he moved on to less important matters, like making an opportunity to help the others sneak in.

Wax had said north side.
Let’s see.…
He kept close to the building, and even resisted the urge to go sneaking in on his own to find out what in Ruin’s name was in there.

Time to think like a guard. It was hard, as he didn’t have a guard’s hat. He settled into the shadows and listened as a pair of them passed on patrol, digesting their accents like a nice snack of pretzel sticks with mustard.

After about fifteen minutes of watching, he picked out a likely candidate and kept pace as the man did his rounds, though Wayne stayed in the shadow. The lanky fellow had a face like a rabbit, but was tall enough he could probably have picked all the walnuts he wanted without needing a stepladder.

Here I am,
Wayne thought,
in the middle of nowhere! Guarding a big old barn. This isn’t what I signed up for. I haven’t seen my daughter in eight months. Eight months! She’s probably talking by now. Rusts. This life.

The man turned to go back the other way on his rounds, and someone barked out at him from one of the stations with the floodlights, saying something Wayne couldn’t hear. The tone was unmistakable.

And my superiors,
Wayne thought, turning and slinking along in the shadows, still keeping pace with the man.
Oh, how they lean on me! Every little thing gets me a talking-to. Shouting. That’s all this life is. Being yelled at day in and day out.

Wayne smiled, then scuttled ahead of the man, looking for something he’d stepped over earlier. A set of black cords, each as thick as his finger, plugged into a big box near the building. As the guard came strolling past, not paying much attention, Wayne carefully lifted the cords.

The guard’s foot caught on them. In that moment, Wayne yanked them from the hub.

The floodlights nearest to him went out.

Men immediately started shouting. The guard panicked in the darkness. “I’m sorry!” he shouted. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t watching my feet!”

Wayne slipped away and found a nice quiet nook between two stacks of sandbags as the guards shouted and argued, and the poor man was chewed out. Some people came in to fix the cords, though Wayne had tossed them to the side, so it took some time searching in the dark to find the ends and get them connected.

The lights came back on. Wayne was taking a long swig from his leather canteen as Wax, Marasi, and MeLaan joined him in the shadows. “Nice,” Wax whispered.

“It wasn’t, actually,” Wayne whispered. “It was pretty mean. That poor guard ain’t done nothin’ wrong, and everybody keeps yellin’ at him.”

Wax took the lead at that point, prowling along the side of the big barnlike building. The roof wasn’t the only thing still unfinished—the entrances were open, not fitted with proper doors. They stopped beside one and Wayne pointed, whispering to Wax where his shotgun was.

Wax fetched it, then snuck through the doorway. They followed, Wayne last of all. The cavernous interior was lit by a few electric lanterns here and there, and they passed a long light lattice that was obviously going to be installed in the ceiling, once the roof was done. It was brighter than outside in here, but not by much, and there were stacks of boxes and supplies arranged in rows, which let them sneak through and stay hidden. Once they got to the front of the rows of boxes, Wax hesitated, and the two women peered around him. Nobody gave Wayne a good view, which was how it always went. First he got yelled at on the job, then this.

He wiggled between them, getting a good elbow into Marasi’s midriff—which earned him a glare, as if she didn’t know that proper crowd-wiggling protocol involved getting friendly with one another’s extremities. He managed to peek between Wax and MeLaan, finally getting a glimpse at what had stopped them.

It was a boat.

Of course, the common word “boat” didn’t do the thing justice. Wayne stared at the massive construction, searching for a better description. One that would capture the majesty, the incredible scale, of the thing he was seeing.

“That’s a
damn big boat,
” he finally whispered.

Much better.

Why would they be building a ship here, miles and miles from the ocean? The thing couldn’t be easy to move. It filled almost the entire building, with a curved bottom and a prow—unfinished on one side—that was easily three stories high. The thing had two long, armlike extensions at the sides. Pontoons? They were big, and one wasn’t finished yet, ending in a jagged line of construction.

Jagged? Wayne frowned. That didn’t look like the way you built something. In fact, now that he studied it, that prow looked more
crumpled
than
unfinished
.

“Someone broke it,” Wayne said, pointing. “They were trying to move it, and cracked off one pontoon.”

“It has to be a warship,” Marasi said. “They
are
preparing for a war.”

“I think Wayne is right,” Wax said. “Look at the gouges in the dirt, the damage to the hull. They were transporting this thing through here, and it rolled free and cracked. So the Set constructed this building to cut it off from the view of anyone outside while they repair it.”

“Engineers,” Wayne said, pointing at some people who were
obviously
smart types, walking along the outside of the ship and pointing, carrying clipboards and wearing dark brown suits and skirts. The type teachers at schools would wear, thinking they were the height of fashion.

“It’s not like any ship I’ve seen,” Marasi said, shouldering her purse and clutching her rifle.

“You brought your purse,” Wayne said, “on a darin’ infiltration?”

“Why not?” she said. “Purses are handy. Anyway, if the Set has technology like that speaking telegraph, what will they put on a ship like this? And why did they build it away from the sea in the first place?”

“Suit will have answers,” Wax said, eyes narrowing. “Marasi, I assume you’re still after the spike?”

“Yes,” she said, determined.

“I’m going to find my uncle. Who do you want? Wayne or MeLaan?”

“MeLaan this time,” Marasi said.

Wax nodded. “Stay hidden, but if Wayne and I get spotted, try to help. We’ll do the same for you. If you find that spike, return to this point and lie low. If all goes well, we’ll slip back out together.”

“And if all doesn’t go well?”

“Which it won’t,” Wayne added.

“Meet back where we left Steris and the horses,” Wax said, sliding a gun from the holster at his side. MeLaan did the same, only her holster was her
leg
. Like, the skin split and she reached in through a slit in her trousers and slipped the gun out—a sleek, long-barreled thing.

Wayne whistled softly. She grinned, then gave him a kiss. “Try not to get shot too many times.”

“You neither,” he said.

They split up.

 

18

Marasi snuck through the warehouse, her rifle’s strap an uncomfortable weight on her shoulder. She was glad for the trousers—they were quieter than rustling skirts—but she kept worrying that the scientists and workers in the room would notice the sound of her boots on the packed earth.

Probably not. The warehouse was hardly silent. Though it was night, and activity was muted, some people were still working. Along one side of the room, a few carpenters sawed lengths of wood, each stroke echoing back from the walls. The group of engineers made exclamations as they discussed aspects of the large vessel.

They seem surprised by it,
Marasi thought.
As if they’re not the ones who built it in the first place.
Were they new to the project, then?

Guards dotted the warehouse, but there weren’t nearly as many as outside. She and MeLaan kept to the shadowed edge of the chamber, near the piles of boxes and supplies, but still had to pass uncomfortably close to a group of soldiers sitting at a small table playing cards.

The soldiers didn’t notice them. Eventually, MeLaan and Marasi managed to reach the south wall, which was one of the long sides of the rectangular building. Here, rooms had been built into the structure, and they were more finished than the rest, complete with doors and the occasional window.

“Living quarters?” Marasi whispered, pointing.

“Maybe,” MeLaan replied, crouching beside her. “So how are we going to find the spike?”

“I’d assume it’s inside a safe of some sort.”

“Maybe,” MeLaan said. “Or it could be in a desk drawer in one of those rooms, or packed away in a box … or hell, they may have just thrown it away. Suit only seemed to want it because he required proof that poor ReLuur had been dealt with.”

Marasi took a deep breath. “If that’s the case, we’ll have to interrogate Suit once Waxillium finds him. But I don’t think they threw it away. We know the Set is researching ways to make Allomancers, and we know they’re interested in Hemalurgy. They’d study the spike instead of tossing it.”

MeLaan nodded thoughtfully. “But it could still be practically anywhere.”

Not far away, the scientists—led by a man with a limp—walked up a plank ramp, peering into the open side of the boat.
It’s him,
Marasi thought. The same one from the train robbery. He was showing the newcomers around the project.

They stepped inside.

“I’ve got an idea,” Marasi said.

“How crazy is it?”

“Less crazy than tossing Wayne off a cliff.”

“Not a high bar, but all right. How do we start?”

Marasi pointed at the hole in the hull that the scientists had entered through. “We get in there.”

*   *   *

Wax moved along behind the supply pallets in the direction opposite Marasi’s, feeling as if he were stepping through the shadow of progress. He’d pondered the transformations that Elendel had undergone during his absence: motorcars and electric lights, skyscrapers and concrete roads. It was like he’d left one world and come back to another.

That seemed only the beginning. Enormous warships. Technology that enhanced Allomancy. Bracers that one Feruchemist could fill, and another could use. He couldn’t help but feel intimidated, as if this behemoth ship were a soldier from another time, come to stamp out all the dusty old relics like Wax.

He pulled up beside the last stack of planks in the line, Wayne joining him. The man yanked out his canteen, which was of sturdy, stiff leather, worked to the shape of a small bottle. He took a swig and offered it to Wax, who accepted it and downed a drink.

He coughed softly. “Apple juice?”

“Good for the body,” Wayne said, tucking the canteen away.

“I was not expecting that.”

“Gotta keep the stomach guessin’, mate,” Wayne said. “Or it’ll grow complacent and all. How’re we gonna find your uncle?”

“Perspective?” Wax asked, nodding toward the middle reaches of the warehouse, where a complex network of temporary construction catwalks ringed the inside of the building. They were unpopulated in the night. “We’d have a view of the entire area, but wouldn’t be too noticeable from below.”

“Sounds good,” Wayne said. “You up for it, though? You’re gonna have to climb up like a regular person. No Steelpushes.”

He didn’t have any metal inside of him—too easy to use reflexively. His vials sat unused on his belt.

“I’ll be fine,” Wax said dryly. He waited until nearby guards and workers had passed, then led the way in a low run along the shadows of the building. The lights were aimed on the ship, away from the walls. He had to hope that the few workers walking about weren’t focused on the dark reaches of the large chamber.

Two full-sized catwalks ran the length of the wall up high, and leading toward them were a series of ladders and shorter catwalks as landings, to hold supplies. He grabbed the bottom ladder and climbed up one level, then another. By the third one, his arms were aching. He made himself lighter, which helped, but he still had to stop and catch his breath on the fifth tier. Just as making his body heavier granted him the strength to move his oversized muscles, getting lighter always seemed to cost him some of his strength.

“Gettin’ old,” Wayne said with a grin, passing him and starting up the next ladder.

BOOK: The Bands of Mourning
2.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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