The Bands of Mourning Read Online Free PDF Page A

that man again? He counted his crew.
    Nine?
    The lad next to Migs smiled, tipped his hat, then decked him in the face.
    It was over blurringly quick. The fellow in the coachman’s cap laid out Slink and Guillian in an eyeblink. Then suddenly he was closer to the two on the far side, slapping them down with a pair of dueling canes. As Migs turned—fumbling for the gun he’d dropped—the lawman leaped over the barricade with tassels flying and kicked Drawers in the chin. The lawman spun, leveling his shotgun at the men on the other side.
    They dropped their guns. Migs knelt, sweating, beside an overturned table. He waited for the gunshots.
    They didn’t come.
    “Ready for you, Captain!” the lawman shouted. A pile of constables rushed through the doorway, disturbing the mists. Outside, morning light was starting to dispel those anyway. Rusts. Had they really holed up in here all night?
    The lawman swung his gun down toward Migs. “You might want to drop that gun, friend,” he said in a conversational tone.
    Migs hesitated. “Just shoot me, lawman. I’m in too deep.”
    “You shot two constables,” the man said, finger on the trigger. “But they’ll live, son. You won’t hang, if I have my way. Drop the gun.”
    They’d called those same words before, from outside. This time, Migs found himself believing them. “Why?” he asked. “You coulda killed us all without breaking a sweat. Why? ”
    “Because,” the lawman said, “frankly, you’re not worth killing.” He smiled in a friendly-type way. “I’ve got enough on my conscience already. Drop the gun. We’ll get this sorted out.”
    Migs dropped the gun and stood, then waved down Drawers, who was climbing up with his gun in hand. The man reluctantly dropped his weapon too.
    The lawman turned, cresting the barricade with an Allomantic leap, and slammed his shortened shotgun into a holster on his leg. The younger man in the coachman’s hat joined him, whistling softly. He appeared to have swiped Guillian’s favorite knife; the ivory hilt was sticking out of his pocket.
    “They’re yours, Captain,” the lawman said.
    “Not staying for the booking, Wax?” the constable captain asked, turning.
    “Unfortunately, no,” the lawman said. “I have to get to a wedding.”
    “Whose?”
    “Mine, I’m afraid.”
    “You came on a raid the morning of your wedding ?” the captain asked.
    The lawman, Waxillium Ladrian, stopped in the doorway. “In my defense, it wasn’t my idea.” He nodded one more time to the assembled constables and gang members, then strode out into the mists.

 
    1

    Waxillium Ladrian hurried down the steps outside the bar-turned-hideout, passing constables in brown who bustled this way and that. The mists were already evaporating, dawn heralding the end of their vigil. He checked his arm, where a bullet had ripped a sizable hole through the cuff of his shirt and out the side of his jacket. He’d felt that one pass.
    “Oi,” Wayne said, hustling up beside him. “A good plan that one was, eh?”
    “It was the same plan you always have,” Wax said. “The one where I get to be the decoy.”
    “Ain’t my fault people like to shoot at you, mate,” Wayne said as they reached the coach. “You should be happy; you’re usin’ your talents, like me granners always said a man should do.”
    “I’d rather not have ‘shootability’ be my talent.”
    “Well, you gotta use what you have,” Wayne said, leaning against the side of the carriage as Cob the coachman opened the door for Wax. “Same reason I always have bits of rat in my stew.”
    Wax looked into the carriage, with its fine cushions and rich upholstery, but didn’t climb in.
    “You gonna be all right?” Wayne asked.
    “Of course I am,” Wax said. “This is my second marriage. I’m an old hand at the practice by now.”
    Wayne grinned. “Oh, is that how it works? ’Cuz in my experience, marryin’ is the one thing people seem to get worse at the more they do