Strike!

No one ever said life as a gang member would be easy, and that was fine with Garm. If he had wanted an easy, painless life, he would have killed himself a long time ago. No, he had joined because he needed money. He supposed that was why most people joined.

It was on one of the few days that Garm had nothing to do that he spotted a familiar face on the other side of the road after a carriage rumbled by. It was none other than the curious newcomer to town whom Garm had told his story.

Seeing him brought back memories of what Garm had said to him, about the gods and those who would dare to steal their power for themselves. Since then, more arquebuses had been spotted. Tales of them didn’t shake Garm as much as they had back before he had learned the truth, but it was hard to entirely ignore the feelings that arose.

He spotted Garm as well and crossed the road to greet him.

“It’s been a while,” Garm said, a little more eagerly than he felt. It was strange. He had been waiting for his next day off with anticipation, but now that it had arrived, he had done nothing but laze around until the point that he thought it would drive him crazy.

“Indeed it has.”

It occurred to Garm in that moment that he had never learned the fellow’s name. He chuckled when Garm said as much.

“My apologies. I can get a bit carried away sometimes. You can call me Harper.”

“I’d never have pegged you as a guy with any musical talent. No offense.”

Harper chuckled again. “None taken. I don’t by the way. I’ve never touched a harp or any instrument for that matter in my entire life. But we can’t control the names our parents give us can we?”

Garm couldn’t remember his parents. He wasn’t even sure if they had been the ones to give him his name, but if it wasn’t from his parents, then who could have given it to him? All he knew was it was what everyone called him as far back as he could remember

“I don’t suppose we can,” Garm said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t invent new names for ourselves though.”

“You’re right at that, but if it’s all the same, I’d like to keep mine out of respect although now that you bring it up, Garm’s a pretty unusual name as well. Ever thought about changing it?”

It was strange now that Garm thought about it. He had never stopped to consider how a stranger might regard his name. Now that the question was posed to him, he had never once considered changing it either. “Even if I wanted to, it’d just confuse everyone, and it’d be a pain to deal with it.”

They started walking down the road. Garm couldn’t say if they were going anywhere in particular. “I don’t mean to change the subject,” Harper said, “but I’ve been hearing a lot of stuff like the †˜Sabers are finished,’ or †˜the Sabers have been dealt a crippling blow.’ I don’t have the best memory, but I recall you promising me another story were that the case.”

Oh yes, the Sabers, the gang that had challenged and then been beaten by the Hounds who Garm belonged to.

“Huh. You’re right. To tell the truth, I don’t have anything to share that would compare to what I told you last time. My life’s not very interesting.”

“Now you’re just being modest!”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew half of it.”

“Fine. Why don’t you tell me more about that lady friend of yours then? Tara?”

That got a good laugh out of Garm. “I’d call her anything but a lady.”

“Sounds like there’s a history between you two.”

“Hardly.”

“So how about it then? Unless you’ve got a problem with it, that is.”

As a matter of fact, Garm didn’t enjoy gossiping about friends, but after she refused to help him carry Viktor’s drunken ass that one night, he figured she had one coming to her.

Walking side by side, Garm launched into his story, oblivious to the figure that shadowed them. “She joined the Hounds a few years ago, around the same time that I did as a matter of fact. As you can imagine, it’s not common to find women in our line of work, so the cards were stacked against her so to speak, but she sure showed everyone.”

. . .

It was difficult to feel safe in the †˜safehouse’ Tara, Viktor, and several others Hounds occupied at the moment. Even though it was situated deep in a rundown neighborhood that knew how to keep to its own business and far away from the neatest guard patrol, it was missing a roof, and one of the walls was all but a crumbling mess. The Hounds had recently received a shipment of a new kind of weapon. Tara and the others were there making sure everything was in order.

A week had passed since one embarrassing incident in particular that had transpired outside a local tavern. An assailant, who’s agenda and master still remained unknown, had failed to kill his mark, Xander, a member of the Hounds, the same gang that Garm and Tara belonged to. In fact, failure may have been too light a word to use, for Xander walked away from the encounter virtually unscathed. That didn’t stop his pride form getting wounded however.

Tara had heard no end of it since the attack. She may have been the one to save him, but she made one crucial mistake.

It didn’t help that Viktor had been humming since Tara arrived.

Not helping, she thought. “Why are you so chipper?”

“Because,” Viktor said, “Xander is pissed off and for once, his wrath isn’t directed at me!” He must have noticed the glare she directed at him, for he wiped the smile off his face and coughed into his hand. “I mean, it’s a strange experience. Usually, you and Garm do no wrong by him.”

Alyse cracked the first crate open and whistled at the cache inside. Tara walked over and got a look herself. The sight that greeted her was an impressive one. The crate was filled with arquebuses.

Alyse picked one up and hefted it in her hands. She aimed it at Viktor and squeezed the trigger. “Bang!”

Tara smiled, though Viktor didn’t look so amused.

“I had my doubts on what all the fuss is about,” Alyse said, “but seeing one up close . . . now I’m not so sure.”

The arquebus had caused quite the stir during the war against the Sabers. Tara offered her hand and took it from her. She recalled the way she had seen a Saber use it and put it to her cheek as she took aim. The smell of fresh, oiled wood wafted up her nostrils.

“It’s having the opposite effect on me,” she said. “It feels a little too unwieldly for my tastes. Besides, I’ve seen a few in action. They can cause a lot of damage, but they take so long to reload.”

“Come on, Tara,” Alyse said. “You can’t tell me you’ve never dreamed of making a guy blow up before.”

There was in fact one man she wanted to see blown to bits. Then again, such a death would be too kind for him. “I suppose so. But what’s it matter? A blade to the throat gets the job done too, and dead is dead.” She handed the arquebus to Raven who stood nearby, but he waved her off.

“It’s as you say,” he said. “Dead is dead. Keeping that in mind, I prefer to use my hands. If you'll excuse me, I have somewhere else to be.”

Tara shrugged and handed the arquebus back to Alyse who placed it back in the crate.

. . .

Garm and Harper had stopped at a bench in one of the nicer sections of the city. Garm had his pipe planted between his lips, letting smoke trail out, undisturbed by even the slightest of breezes.

“Say, why do you want to know more about her, anyway?” Garm asked.

“She sounds like an interesting character is all,” Harper said.

“Oh? Is that really it? You sure you don’t want me to try to set you up with her? She’s available last I checked.”

Harper held his hands up in defense. “Not if any of the stuff you said is true!”

“Relax. I was just pulling your leg. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the war with those pesky Sabers. She was the one who grabbed their leader, you know.”

It was the unofficial policy of the Hounds to keep their comings and goings on the down low, but the war between the Hounds and the Sabers was so well-known at this point, he didn’t see the harm in putting one more story out in a sea of hundreds of them.

Harper was older than Garm if he was any judge, but there was a gleam in his eyes that would have been more comfortable in a child’s.

. . .

One week ago when that assailant struck, Tara chased him away. So what was the mistake she made?

She let him die.

Xander had wanted the would-be assassin captured and interrogated, but before Tara could get to him, someone else did. That someone left quite the mess behind. Needless to say, there was no questioning him after that.

The problem now was two-fold. First, who sent the assassin? And second, who was it that was running around on Hounds territory and interfering with their operations?

In addition to Tara’s usual tasks, Xander had her running ragged, looking for any lead they could get their hands on for either issue. Tara couldn’t blame him. After all, she had screwed up. That didn’t mean she had to like the situation though.

It was well after midday when Tara found herself in the house of someone who claimed to know something. He didn’t offer her a seat. Instead, he stared at her after she walked through the door, eyes flicking back and forth.

“There’s a reward for this right?”

“If the information is good,” Tara said, a little harsher than she had intended. She had been at it since she left the arquebus shipment under Viktor’s care that morning. She had been on her feet since then.

“I heard about what happened. A friend of my cousin’s who said he saw the body of the guy who died told me about it. He said it didn’t even look human anymore.”

Tara had seen the body for herself and knew he was exaggerating. It didn’t annoy her to hear a tale embellished after several tellings, as was the widely accepted practice. The waste of time did grate on her nerves something terrible however. “And?”

“Hearing my cousin’s friend describe it reminded me almost instantly of a dead man I saw myself a couple years ago. A perfect match as a matter of fact.”

Tara took back any ill thoughts she had against the guy. This was the first promising piece of information she had heard since, well, the assailant was killed. “What else can you tell me about him?”

“He was no one special. Just a fellow you’d see around every now and then. The kind you’d say hi to, and he’d say hi back. Ex-except he ain’t saying hi anymore.” He laughed at his own joke.

“So he wasn’t involved in anything?”

“What, like you guys?”

Tara nodded.

“If he was, I never knew.”

Tara thanked him and tossed him a couple of coins out of her own purse. At that moment, she wasn’t sure what implications the man’s story had, but it was progress. She headed straight for Xander, but her information was less than well received when she told it.

Xander’s frown hadn’t moved at all. “As of now, the hunt’s off.”

Tara looked at him in disbelief. “But why?” she blurted.

“I wish I knew, but this comes straight from the top. I don’t know what games our boss is playing at, but his message explicitly said that no more steps were to be taken on this matter.”

Message, Tara thought. Then that means . . . “When did he arrive?”

“Tara,” Xander warned.

“Tell me now!”

“Gods, he just left not that long ago. But don’t you dare—”

Tara ran out the door before he could even finish his sentence. She had no idea which direction he was headed, but from what little she knew, the leader of the Hounds operated out of a distillery in the Rothwick District, so she took a gamble and went that way.

She spotted him minutes later, a lone figure walking down the road. “Isiah Maxwell!”

He stopped and turned. Her hackles rose at the sight of his face. He grinned. “Hey there, Tara. Long time, no see.”

Isiah’s position within the Hounds was murky. Officially, he served as the leader’s personal messenger, but how much influence he had on the leader’s decisions was an unquantifiable factor.

But Tara didn’t care about any of that right now. All she wanted to do was kill, consequences be damned. She doubted she had ever hated someone half as much as she hated him. If she had to describe Isiah, it’d be obnoxiousness manifested into human form.

“What are you playing at?” she demanded.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I’m doing is carrying out my job.”

“Then tell me, what reason could the boss possibly have for stopping us from searching for someone stepping over our turf?”

“As if I know what he’s thinking.”

Tara slid her hand close to her dagger.

“Now Tara, you know I don’t like confrontations. Wouldn’t it be so much better if we could get along?”

A dagger of his own appeared in his hand. It flew from his sleeve, attached to a chain. Tara deflected it, but a second one shot out from his other arm. It wrapped around hers, the blade of the dagger biting into flesh. She gasped as he yanked her forward. She stumbled past him but before she could fall, he wrapped his arm around her. His face was inches from hers.

“Much better, don’t you agree?”

Tara’s arm throbbed with pain, but she ground her teeth and ignored it. She gripped the chain and used her weight to pull Isiah down with her. The chain slackened, and she lashed out with her leg as he rolled away. Dagger in hand, she bounded after him.

The first of Isiah’s blades flew by, nicking her cheek as it did so. She blocked the second and bent backwards just in time to watch the first fly back over her face. The chain slid up his sleeve until the dagger rested in the palm of his hand. Tara held her dagger before her, ready to swat off his next strike.

“You’ve gotten better,” Isiah said.

“Shut up.”

They circled each other until Isiah’s back was to the open road. “I hate to say it, but I’m running late.”

He turned tail and took off so fast; it took a second for Tara to register what had happened. “Are you kidding me!?” She followed after him. An image of Isiah’s corpse turning up torn to pieces entered her mind, but it did little to ease her anger.

. . .

Garm shifted his position to ease the pain eating into his backside from sitting down for so long. He had used up the last of his opium. “That’s about all I know when it comes to Tara.”

“Hmm.” Harper had his hand to his chin in thought. “That wasn’t quite what I was expecting.”

“And what was that?”

“Well, something with a little more . . . pizzazz.”

“Pizzazz? I just told you about how we took down a rival gang. How often does that happen?”

“I’m not trying to demean your achievement or anything. It’s just that you hear one story about gangsters killing other gangsters, you’ve heard †˜em all. You know what I mean?”

Someone screamed around the corner, but Garm ignored it. “Truth be told, it does get stale after a while. I’ll admit I was nervous when I first joined the Hounds, but now? Running into you is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened in a—”

Someone who looked vaguely familiar had climbed to the roof of the building directly in front of Garm and Harper. He turned to meet someone else whom Garm recognized immediately only to take a kick square in the chest that knocked him off the roof. He landed in front of the bench they sat on with a grunt and looked up at them. The spectacle had drawn the attention of everyone nearby.

“Maxwell,” Garm said. “Is that you?”

“As I live and breathe,” Isiah managed. He glanced at Harper. “Sorry for the disturbance, sir.”

For a moment, it looked as though Harper didn’t know whether to help him up or leave and forget what had happened. He settled for a compromise and nodded. “Don’t worry about it.”

Tara jumped off the roof and landed in a crouch. She ignored a passerby who tried to ask her what was going on. “Hey Garm,” she said before putting her dagger to Isiah’s throat.

Garm couldn’t help but notice the scratch on her face and the blood staining her shirt. “You’re not actually gonna kill him, right?”

She pressed the blade hard enough for the edge to draw blood. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because there’s a watchman behind you.”

She seemed to notice the armored figure for the first time.

“I don’t know what’s going on here and frankly, I don’t care,” the watchman said, “but if you spill his blood on my watch, you’ll get the noose. Do I make myself clear?”

Tara sheathed her dagger. “Yes, sir.”

The watchman stood by as Isiah got up and brushed dirt and dead grass from his clothes. “A thousand thank-you’s, sir,” he said to the watchman, then to Tara, “See you around.” He tried to give her a hug, but he backed off when she went for her dagger.

When it was clear the fight was broken up, the watchman left.

Harper watched Tara, dumbfounded. “Um . . . who are you?”

Garm shook his head. “Harper, Tara. Tara, Harper.”

“Oh, what a coincidence! We were just talk—oof!” Garm had jabbed him in the chest with his elbow

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on besides the usual?” Garm asked.

“Yes.” Tara walked away without saying another word.

Garm could fill in some of the blanks. This wasn’t the first time she and Isiah had gotten into a fight. It had been like that ever since they broke up. To this day, Tara refused to elaborate on what had ended their relationship.

Garm stretched. “I think it’s time I take my leave. It was nice talking to you again. See you around.”

Harper nodded. “Right back at you. See ya.”

Garm walked away, thinking back on his time spent with Harper today. It was always refreshing to see a new face in town who wasn’t trying to kill him. Although . . .

Maybe it was the way he insisted on Garm telling him stories while revealing next to nothing about himself, but he struck Garm as the kind of guy who was hiding something, not that there was anything wrong with that in and of itself. Garm had a few subjects he liked to stay away from himself. But . . .

Garm froze. What was it that Harper had said?

“Garm’s a pretty unusual name as well. Ever thought about changing it?”

He had thought nothing of it at the time, but the way Harper had worded it meant that he had assumed his parents were the ones who gave Garm his name. It was a simple assumption to make, but was that all it was, or did he know more than he was letting on?

His stomach rumbled.

“Nah. I’m probably overthinking it.”

. . .

A smile came to Harper’s face as he watched Garm walk away. It had been an eventful day, more so than Harper had hoped for.

He felt a presence behind him and craned his neck to find none other than Raven on the other side of the bench with his back to him.

“How long were you following us?” Harper asked.

“Pretty much since you two first met up,” Raven said. “I must admit. When Garm mentioned he had made a new acquaintance, I was surprised to learn it was you.”

“I finally managed to surprise you after all these years, did I?”

A soft chuckle escaped from Raven. “Indeed you have. Why not just come out and reveal yourself to him? Why go through the trouble of putting on this charade?”

“Because the person I once was is long dead. To come back after all these years would cause nothing but pain. So if you’ll forgive me the eccentricity of wanting to check up on him . . .”

“You’ll do as you please no matter what I say, as you always have. Just be careful if this is the way you want it to be. I thought Isiah would give you away for sure. Why you keep such a volatile man around is beyond me.”

He had a point. Though Isiah’s unexpected arrival had turned out to be nothing more than a pleasant diversion, it was quite the shock at first to see his own messenger fall from a roof.

“Has it ever occurred to you that despite Isiah’s sometimes borderline suicidal tendencies, he has continued to survive in this city? That alone is reason enough to keep him around.”

Raven sighed. “If you say so.”

“By the way, keep it on the down low next time. I bailed you out this time around, but it’s going to be a while before things die down, especially with the mess the Sabers created.”

Harper knew that when Raven had taken it upon himself to kill the assassin sent after Xander, he had done so to protect Harper’s interests, but regardless of intent, his pale friend had caused yet another headache.

“I apologize for that mess,” Raven said. “It won’t happen again.” With that, he departed, leaving Harper alone once more.

His thoughts drifted back to the brother he had left behind to fend for himself. When Harper had learned of a new recruit named Garm, his first thought was that they couldn’t be one in the same, but it turned out the gods had a plan if one were inclined to think of it in that light. “Until next time, brother.”

Did you know that the majority of what a person says is conveyed through body language? For example, a thug may say he’s going to leave you alone, but you can tell in the way his body tenses up that he’s actually going to attack. The movement of his hands could further elaborate on what kind of weapon he’ll use and where he’ll pull it from. A sideways glance might indicate he has a buddy waiting in the shadows.

So while he may verbally say with a smile, “I don’t want any trouble, pal,” what he’s actually saying is, “I’m going to stab you in the back the second you turn around, steal your money, and my friend is crouching behind those barrels just in case I mess up somehow.”

When you look at it that way, he’s one cocky bastard! I mean, he’s practically daring you to stop both him, his friend, and walk away with their money instead of the other way around.

But you already knew all that, and you’re just humoring me, aren’t you?

. . .

The leader of the Hounds criminal gang, a man known only as Harper, walked down rows of casks containing whiskey left to age in the damp cold of the cellar. He wasn’t there for the booze. He headed straight for a room tucked away in the back. As he got closer, he could hear the grunts and curses from the other side.

Upon opening the door, he was greeted with the sight of a man hanging from the ceiling by chains. Red drool dripped from this mouth. Holland Decker stepped back from his handy work and wiped the blood off his hands on the apron he wore.

“Harper!” Lexine hopped off a table that had been set off to the side and greeted him with a fierce hug. He patted her head.

“Easy there.”

“You get me anything?”

I knew I was forgetting something. He showed her his empty hands. “Not yet. I will, but only if you stay good. Sound like a deal?”

“You bet!”

Lexine went back to her customary spot on the table. Dressed in an apron as well, there was no mistaking she was both Holland’s daughter and his apprentice.

“You spoil her too much,” Holland said.

“But only because she deserves it,” Harper said.

Lexine’s smile widened at that. The effect was only slightly spoiled by the blood splattered on her face.

Harper turned his attention back to their guest, Anselm Strange. Once upon a time, he was the leader of a gang called the Sabers. He was small time until he started taking shots at Hounds territory. But that was a hundred years ago. Or nearly two weeks, which was practically the same thing in Harper’s book.

To make a long story short, after Anselm had had his fun, Harper organized the deaths of most of his top lieutenants, and then captured Anselm himself. The man had lost everything. Keeping that in mind, it begged the question. Why did he still look Harper in the eye with defiance whenever he paid a visit? Harper had seen many a defeated man, and Anselm did not look like one.

“Did you get anything new outta him?” Harper asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

Holland shook his head. “He’s the most stubborn guy I’ve ever met.”

Harper walked up to Anselm and held his head up by his hair. His lip was split, one eye was black, the other missing (not Holland’s work), and his face was bruised all over. “Thirteen days! Thirteen! What is it that’s so important to you that it’s worth thirteen days of fun with Holland?”

“Sir? He’s passed out again.”

“That question was rhetorical. Start with his fingernails when he wakes up again.”

“We ran out of those, boss.”

“Then start with toenails.”

“Ran out of those too,” Lexine chimed in. An assortment of stained and rusted tools bounced to the rhythm of her swinging her legs back and forth.

“Damn. What he’s got left then?”

“He still has his teeth,” Holland said. “But honestly, if he’s held out this long, I don’t know how effective it’ll be.”

“Keep at it until you have no more pieces to pull and no parts to sever. And when you’re done, hang his corpse up somewhere nice and public so everyone sees what happens when they screw with us.”

“You got it, boss.”

Harper turned to leave.

“Bye, Harper! Don’t forget my present, al—” Lexine’s singsong voice was cut off by the door.

If someone were to ask Harper if he regretted taking over the Hounds, he’d tell him or her to their face the truth. No. That didn’t mean there were parts about his jobs, certain roles he had to fill that he didn’t dislike though, like this nasty business with Anselm, but then that was the way of the world. The strong survived, and the weak?

An image of Anselm’s battered head flashed through his mind.

They probably aren’t even worth thinking about.

. . .

When the optometrist quoted the price of a pair of spectacles, Garm couldn’t help but stare. He realized his mouth had slid open a fraction and closed it.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Garm said.

“I kid you not,” the optometrist said. “Two silvers and not a single copper bit less. Don’t give me that look. I’m not the one who read too many books by candlelight. I suggest you avoid that from now on if you don’t wish for your eyesight to deteriorate further.”

“Tell me again. Why do I have to pay in advance? How do I know you won’t skip town?”

“My reputation as a professional. You don’t strike me as a dullard, Mr. Garm. Surely you know who I am, or you wouldn’t have wasted your time coming to me in the first place.”

Garm had to admit. The guy was sharp, but Garm didn’t carry that kind of coin around with him. Hell, the price would take a sizeable chunk out of his savings. “I’ll have to take a rain check on that offer.”

“Very well, then. If you’ll excuse me, I have orders to fill.”

Garm nodded and left the eye doctor’s flat. Never in a million years did he picture himself buying spectacles. Of course, he never thought he’d take to reading either, but after he joined the Hounds and made enough money to buy himself a modest house, he found he had coin and nothing to spend it on, another situation he would have thought impossible years before.

Garm felt more than heard the approach of someone behind him. He turned to find Bryce, a Hounds enforcer who worked in another district. Bryce had stopped dead, his hand extended before him.

“Bloody hell, mate” Bryce said. “Can’t get anything past you, can I?”

Garm accepted his hand warmly and shrugged. “It’s not like I do it on purpose. What brings you to this side of the city?”

“I got a call from the top. Must have impressed someone. Well, that or I pissed †˜em off. Hope it’s the former for the sake of my arse, but I guess I don’t have much control over it, eh?”

“Don’t let me make you late.”

“Right. If you don’t hear from me, you know which one it was.”

As Garm watched Bryce continue onward, it occurred to him there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d never see him again. He was only mildly surprised the thought provoked little within him.

. . .

The sight that greeted Anselm Strange when he regained consciousness was that of the torturer’s daughter perched on a stool set before him. She watched him as she always did when the torturer got to work—with the beginnings of a smile on her face.

Anselm’s heartbeat quickened. He glanced this way and that, chains rattling, but the torturer was absent. Slowly, he relaxed, as much as was possible for a man in his position at any rate. His every waking moment was consumed by pain. He had long since given up on trying to stifle it. He shifted his weight to get some circulation back into his wrists.

He returned the girl’s stare.

“You’re a pretty tough guy, mister,” she said after a while.

“I don’t feel tough,” Anselm admitted.

“Daddy makes most prisoners crack after the first hour. There are a few that manage to last a day, but thirteen? You’re really something else!”

“Um, thanks?”

She scooted the stool forward and settled back into a crouch. “So what’s your secret?”

“I don’t . . .” Anselm coughed. “What do you mean?”

“How are you able to last this long? I’m gonna take over for Daddy some day and when that happens, I need to be prepared for more people like you.”

Anselm didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t very well say he held out because someone told him he wasn’t going to die a captive, could he? It sounded crazy even in his head.

He had faith that she hadn’t lied to him, but it was always difficult to shake the other possibility off. Despite Anselm’s determination, there was a niggling voice in the back of his mind asking, “What if she betrayed you?”

“Well?” The girl leaned forward, eyes brimming with expectations.

“Wouldn’t be a secret if I went around telling everyone now, would it?”

. . .

There was another part of leading the Hounds that annoyed Harper to no end, which could be summed up in one word. Bribery.

Harper and Garm’s parents had both been killed in the riots that ensued after the old emperor was assassinated. It didn’t take long for it to become apparent that Harper didn’t stand a chance being homeless and looking out for his younger brother, so he took the only option left to him. He ditched Garm, fully expecting to never see him again. After that, he followed the river to Rezengard by the sea where he picked up most of the skills he would later employ to take over the Hounds upon his return to Baradium.

Harper had come so far in the twenty years since those riots, and yet here he found himself paying bribe money to the commander of the city watch. It just goes to show you that no matter how high one rises, there’s always someone higher on the food chain.

Harper watched the day’s traffic from the window of his office situated on the second floor of the distillery that served as the Hounds’ base of operations. There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Harper said.

He was joined by Isiah Maxwell. The messenger took an empty chair and sat, legs crossed. He had just returned from delivering the week’s payment. “The commander wasn’t terribly amused,” Isiah said.

Harper smirked. “I figured as much.” Given the recent trouble with the Sabers, he had seized on the opportunity to use it as an excuse to offer a lower-than-usual amount for the bribe.

“Is there something on your mind, sir?”

“Anselm’s still giving Holland a hard time.”

“Why not just kill him and have done with it?”

“If only it were that simple.”

Isiah hopped to his feet and joined Harper at the window. “The supposed spy?”

Harper gave the barest of nods. The kind of stunts Anselm pulled shouldn’t have been possible. His men struck couriers whose routes should have been unknown. He raided safehouses that should have been secure. No matter how one looked at it, the only possibility was a traitor. The question was, who?

“You could always start over fresh with a clean slate,” Isiah said.

“You mean kill everyone.”

“You’re the one who said it.”

Harper had considered it himself already. Even if Holland managed to pry a name from Anselm, there was no guarantee it’d be accurate. The safest course of action would be to dispose of anyone who could possibly be the spy. That meant everyone close to Harper. The district bosses, Holland, even . . . no, especially someone who handed off messages personally from Harper himself.

“You do realize you’d be the first one to die in that case,” Harper said.

“Huh. What a coincidence.”

“In any case, it’d be a lot of work rebuilding from the ground up. We’ll wait it out for now.”

“And in the mean time, your enemies will continue to gather behind your back.” Isiah spun on his heels and was halfway across the room before Harper turned. “But it’s now my life on the line. After all, I’m only the messenger!”

Isiah took his leave.

Harper sighed. “†˜In war, there are no innocents.’”

The quote had confounded him as a boy. As of late however, he found he understood its meaning all too well.

. . .

For once, Raven was nowhere to be found at the Fourteen Hearths. His usual spot was vacant, as was the common room at large. Garm took an empty seat at the bar and ordered an ale.

“How’s your day been, Garm?” the bartender asked.

“I’ve had better,” Garm said. He tried to read the labels of bottles on display, but the letters blurred together.

Minutes later, the calm of the tavern was interrupted by Viktor barging in. “There you are!”

“Vik.”

“I’ve been looking all over for you! You see, I kind of owe some guys some money, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem, but someone hit my place up. The bastards didn’t leave a single coin behind!”

“And this is my problem how?”

“Valenus’s breath! Is this how you treat a comrade in need?”

“No, just you.”

“Garm. This is the chance of a life time. Just think on it for one second. I’ll owe you big time if you pull through for me on this.”

Garm cursed. “How much do you owe?” He took a swig of ale.

“Not much, only six silvers.”

And spit it out. Garm didn’t have that kind of money to throw around. Even if he did, it wouldn’t leave him with enough to pay for the spectacles. “I thought you were a noble only pretending to be a thug. You sure you don’t have a mountain of gold secreted away somewhere?”

“Garm!”

“You are without a doubt the biggest pain in the ass this side of the empire. You know that?”

. . .

Anselm could still hardly believe the turn of events that had transpired over the past hour.

“I’d tell you if you let me loose,” he’d jested after the girl continued to pester him. She left, and he’d assumed that was the end of it. He hadn’t expected her to return with the key to the chains that held him in place. When he was free of them, he rubbed his chaffed wrists.

She watched him, waiting.

“Some things are easier to explain when they are shown rather than told,” Anselm said.

“Alrighty then!”

She then proceeded to drag him through the Hounds’ base. Now mere feet from freedom, Anselm hung back in the shadows while the girl eased one of the back exits open and poked her head outside. She motioned him forward.

Anselm breathed fresh air for the first time in nearly two weeks. He was so used to the dim conditions of his confinement, the sunlight burned his eyes.

The girl stood by. Anselm realized she was waiting for him to give instructions. He grinned. All he had to do was dispose of her, and he was home free! He lunged, intending to wrap his hands around her neck and wring the life out of her.

And ended up with a face full of dirt.

She had dodged him with a high jump and landed on his back. He grunted as pain lanced through his body.

“That’s not very nice,” she admonished. “You tell me where to go, and I’ll lead the way!”

To be honest, Anselm wasn’t surprised that he had been defeated so easily by a little girl. After all, he had just spent almost two weeks being tortured. His mind raced. So what if he was completely incapable of defending himself? He could still work with this.

“We’ll need money,” Anselm managed.

“I know someone we could borrow some from. Then what?”

Anselm smiled. Yes, he could work with this.