“Hang on to me,” he said, pulling Telsin to his side. He took one step out of the room, fired into the ground, and sent them on a Push up into the air. Soldiers pointed, leveling guns, but in a moment he was on the top of the large ship. As he’d seen earlier, it was wide and flat up here, though the planks were smoother than the deck of any ship he’d seen, and the gunwales were like the crenellated tops of a fort or old tower.

He dropped Telsin. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised, leaping over the side of the ship. The man who had shot at him earlier wasn’t giving up, and fired more rounds. Splinters popped off the sides of the ship as Wax fired Vindication and dropped the man. Wax landed, bounced off a stray nail, then skidded to a stop beside a stack of boxes where Wayne was hiding.

“What?” Wayne asked. “Get impatient?”

“My sister shot one of them.”

“Nice.”

Wax shook his head. Soldiers had started to pour into both ends of the large structure. “Not nice. There will be kill squads mixed among those soldiers, Wayne. Aluminum bullets. We need to get Marasi and MeLaan and go. Fast.”

Wayne nodded. Wax took another draught of steel flakes, in case he lost his gunbelt, then nodded. “Speed us to the other side.”

Wayne ran out, and Wax followed. Gunfire sounded, but Wayne popped up a speed bubble. It only covered about ten feet, but that was plenty to throw off aim. Wayne let Wax pass him, then they charged through the edge, side by side. The bubble collapsed, and bullets zipped through the air back where they’d been.

They ran on, but about the time the soldiers got another bead on them, Wayne created another bubble. This lurched them forward again, and shortly they were able to dive behind the broken section of the ship’s pontoon and take cover. Soldiers cried out, confused by the Allomancy—but if there were kill squads among them, trained hazekiller hit men, they wouldn’t be so easily fooled.

Wax led the way, darting along the front of the ship, in its shadow. As soon as someone started firing, Wayne tossed up another bubble, and the two of them repositioned. Wayne made to run out, but Wax stopped him, arm on shoulder.

“Wait.”

Safely inside this speed bubble, Wax looked back across the cavernous hall. They were close to the eastern side, and soldiers in slow motion set up a perimeter, clogging the doorway and kneeling in ranks. Captains at the rear yelled, pointing, and bullets flew toward the last spot where Wayne and Wax had been seen.

Uncomfortably, more shots streaked through the air where—if they’d been following their previous pattern—they would have exited the speed bubble.

“Damn,” Wayne said, eyeing the bullets. He tossed over his canteen. Wax took a drink, judging distances and feeling the surreal sensation of standing calmly in a maelstrom of gunfire, sipping apple juice.