He groaned in pain. How? How had they…?

He shook his head, then heaved against the wall, using his breakaway buckles to rip free of his gunbelts. He dropped to the floor, leaving his guns and the metal vial stuck to the wall as the brute loped toward him.

Wax dodged under the man’s first swing and delivered a punch right into the man’s side. It felt like punching a steel wall. He danced backward, but rusts, it had been years since he’d gotten into a real fistfight—and he was slower than he’d once been. The giant’s next right hook caught him as he tried to jab for the face.

His vision flashed, and his cheek erupted in pain. The blow shoved him into the side wall. Rusts! Where was Wayne? The brute came in again, and Wax dodged to the side, barely, and managed to connect with the man’s face. Once, twice, three quick jabs.

The brute smiled. Doors still rattled around him—he was a Coinshot, obviously, Pushing out with a bubble like the one Wax used. It even pressed a little on the metalminds Wax wore on his upper arms, which were resistant to Allomancy.

This man could have ended the fight at any moment by grabbing a bit of metal and shooting it. He preferred the hand-to-hand fight. Indeed, the man raised his fists and nodded to Wax, still grinning, inviting him to come in for another round.

To hell with that.

Wax turned and slammed his shoulder against a door into an empty second-class compartment and made for the window.

“Hey!” the man said behind him. “Hey!”

Wax leaped at the window and increased his weight. He hit the window shoulder-first, arms covering his face, and smashed through—then barely managed to catch the bottom window frame as he fell outside.

Fingers dripping blood from the broken glass, he pulled himself up, stood on the windowsill, and scaled the outside of the train, finally heaving himself onto the roof. Wind rushed around him, and he was shocked to see that he wasn’t alone up here. Ahead about four cars, a group of armed men pressed toward the front of the train, bearing something large and seemingly heavy. What in the name of the lost metal was that?

“Hey!” the large bandit said again as he climbed the side of the car.

Wax sighed, then kicked the man in the face as he tried to pull himself onto the top. The man growled. Wax kicked him again, then stomped on one of his hands. The man glared at Wax, then dropped back down to the window and climbed inside.

You can beat anybody, Wayne always said, so long as you don’t let them fight back properly.

Wax moved to the center of the train car. He felt he should be chasing down those men up ahead. But he was unarmed now, and the Coinshot below was bound to pester him.

You have what you wanted, he thought at the robbers. Why are you still fighting?