Brandon SANDERSON - The Alloy of Law

It overwhelmed him, and he groaned, slumping down, struggling to merely remain conscious. Miles pulled him up again, and Wax managed to get in one thrashing swing that connected. And did nothing. It was very, very difficult to brawl with a man who didn’t flinch when you hit him.

Another punch sent Wax to the ground again, head ringing, eyes seeing stars and flashes of light.

Miles leaned down, speaking in his ear. “Thing is, Waxillium, I know you feel it too. A part of you knows that you’re being used, that nobody cares about the downtrodden. You’re just a puppet. People are murdered every day this city. At least one a day. Did you know that?”

“I…” Keep him talking. He rolled onto his back, aching, meeting Miles’s eyes.

“People murdered every day,” Miles repeated, “and what was it that brought you out of your ‘retirement’? When I shot an old, would-be aristocratic wolfhound in the head. Did you ever stop to think of all the other people being killed in the streets? The beggars, the whores, the orphans? Dead because of lack of food, or because they were in the wrong place, or because they tried something stupid.”

“You’re trying to invoke the Survivor’s mandate,” Wax whispered. “But it won’t work, Miles. This isn’t the Final Empire of legend. A rich man can’t kill a poor one just because he feels like it. We’ve gotten better than that.”

“Bah!” Miles said. “They pretend and lie to make a good show.”

“No,” Waxillium said. “They have good intentions, and make laws that prevent the worst of it – but those laws still fall short. It’s not the same thing.”

Miles kicked him in the side to keep him down. “I don’t care about the Survivor’s mandate. I’ve found something better. That doesn’t matter to you. You’re just a sword, a tool that goes where it’s pointed. It rips you apart that you can’t stop the things that you know you should. Doesn’t it?”

They met eyes. And, shockingly – despite the agony – Waxillium found himself nodding. Truthfully nodding. He did feel it. That was why what had happened to Miles terrified him.

“Well, someone has to do something about it,” Miles said.

Harmony, Waxillium thought. If Miles had been born back then, in the days before, he’d have been a hero. “I’ll start helping them, Miles,” Waxillium said. “I promise it to you.”

Miles shook his head. “You won’t live that long, Wax. Sorry.” He kicked again. And again. And again.

Waxillium curled around himself, hands over his face. He couldn’t fight. He just had to last. But the pain was mounting. It was terrible.

“Stop it!” Marasi’s voice. “Stop it, you monster!”

The kicks stopped falling. Waxillium felt her beside him, kneeling, hand on his shoulder.

Fool woman. Stay back. Unnoticed. That was the plan.

Miles cracked his knuckles audibly. “I suppose I should deliver you to Suit, girl. You’re on his list, and you can replace the one Waxillium set free. I’ll probably have to track her down.”

“Why is it,” Marasi said angrily, “that small-minded men must destroy that which they know is better, and greater, than they?”

“Better than me?” Miles said. “This? He isn’t great, child.”

“The greatest of men can be taken down by the simplest of things. A lowly bullet can end the life of the most powerful, most capable, most secure of men.”

“Not me,” Miles said. “Bullets are nothing to me.”

“No,” she replied. “You’ll be brought down by something even more lowly.”

“Which is?” he asked, amused, voice growing closer.

“Me,” Marasi replied.

Miles laughed. “I’d like to see…” He trailed off.

Waxillium cracked his eyes, looking down the length of the tunnel toward the broken ceiling where the building had stood. Light flooded that pit from above, growing brighter at a remarkable rate.

“Who have you brought?” Miles asked, sounding unimpressed. “They won’t arrive quickly enough.” He paused. Waxillium rolled his head to the side and saw the sudden horror in Miles’s face. He had seen it, finally: a shimmering border nearby, a slight difference in the air. Like the distortion caused by heat rising from a hot street.

A speed bubble.

Miles spun on Marasi. Then he ran for the bubble’s border, away from the light. Trying to escape.

The light at the other end of the tunnel became bright, and a group of blurs moved down it, so quickly it was impossible to distinguish what was causing them.

Marasi dropped her bubble. The sunlight of full day streamed in from the distant pit, and filling the tunnel – right outside where the bubble had been – was a force of over a hundred constables in uniform. Wayne stood at their head, grinning, wearing a constable’s uniform and hat, a false mustache on his face.

“Get ’im, boys!” he said, pointing.

They moved in with clubs, not bothering with guns. Miles screamed in denial, trying to dodge past the first few, then punching at the group that laid hands on him. He wasn’t fast enough, and there were far too many of them. In minutes, they had him held down against the ground and were wrapping ropes around his arms.

Waxillium sat up with care, one eye swelling closed, lip bleeding, side aching. Marasi knelt beside him, anxious.

“You shouldn’t have confronted him,” Waxillium said, tasting blood. “If he’d knocked you out, that would have been the end of it.”

“Oh, hush,” she said. “You aren’t the only one who can take risks.”

The backup plan had been straightforward, if difficult. It had begun with eliminating all of Miles’s lackeys. Even one of them, left alive, could have noticed what the speed bubble meant and shot Waxillium and Marasi from the outside. There wouldn’t have been anything they could have done to prevent it.

But if the lackeys were gone, and if Miles could be distracted long enough while the bubble was up, Wayne could go to gather a large force to surround Miles while he was helpless. He’d never have let it happen if he’d suspected. But within the speed bubble…

“No!” Miles screamed. “Unhand me. I defy your oppression!”

“You are a fool,” Waxillium said to him, then spat blood to the side. “You let yourself get isolated and distracted, Miles. You forgot the first rule of the Roughs.”

Miles screamed, one of the constables pulling a gag over his mouth as he was tied tightly.

“The more alone you are,” Waxillium said softly, “the more important it is to have someone you can rely upon.”

“The constable-general has decided not to charge your associate for impersonating an officer of the law,” Reddi said.

Waxillium dabbed at his lip with the handkerchief. He sat in the precinct office nearest the Vanisher lair. He felt like slag, with broken ribs and half his body wrapped in bandages. He’d have scars from this.

“The constable-general,” Marasi said, voice hard, “should be glad for Lord Waxillium’s aid – in fact, he should have begged for Lord Waxillium’s help all along.” She sat beside him on the bench, hovering protectively.

“He actually does seem glad,” Reddi said. Now that Waxillium paid closer attention, he noticed how the constable kept glancing through the precinct room toward Brettin, the constable-general. Reddi’s eyes narrowed slightly, lips turning down. He was baffled by his superior’s calm reaction to events.

Waxillium was too exhausted at the moment to bother with the anomaly. In fact, it was nice to hear of something happening in his favor.

Reddi was called over by one of the other constables, and he left. Marasi laid a hand on Waxillium’s good arm. He could practically feel her concern for him physically in the way she hesitated, the way her brow wrinkled.