They were everywhere, up on the balconies overlooking the layered streets. Up on the wooden beams. As children as they tucked beneath the wraps of long curtains by the store fronts. As beggars. As soldiers (obviously). They were everywhere, watching and glaring, and I was the stupid mercenary who had allowed a village to burn. I walked through the streets, the knives above my shoulder and my own blades around my waist. Wearing no armor, wearing my simple cotton drabs and a few boots. The scent of shit high in the air as I stepped through alleyways where hunched men leaned over sewage drains and pissed into the grates. A slow moving sewage followed, trash and leaves and awful scented liquids picked up from the plaza. The man turned to me, one eye higher than the other. He shut his trousers and I walked through, an alley shrinking to my shoulder length.

I stopped. Two men following me, stopping too and pretending to be idling beggars.

I turned and ran into the building, unknown to what it was. What turned out to be a brothel. I crashed through the front, running up the steps. A man with a long cigarillo screamed at me, the women yelped and the men inside turned with lewd smiles that turned to horrified glares. I ran up. Past slots in the walls, separated by paper-thin dividers. I stopped at the end of the hell, looking down at a bed with one woman sprawled on her front and the other behind her. He poured a bottle of wine down her back and held it there, staring at me. Both screamed.

“Sorry.” I said. I pushed them to the side and kicked through one of the dividers, a breeze opened up and to me. A glimmer of light to the outside world. The incensed air flooded out, a fume of pink and purple that came out to the sky. I ripped the divider now. I went through and jumped from the window, onto the tiles of roof tops. A roof slanted to the side, I leaned and held my balanced and ran down the roof until I came to the edge. I could hear them behind me, the ruffling people. Looked back down at the edge, I watched over the floor. There was a level below me, more ceilings and a railway and balcony. There, on the balcony - at the very edge. I saw the guard. A man with a long scope looking mad at the expanse before him. I jumped down and landed on his body. His head struck the floor and he groaned. I punched him straight in the throat and he coughed. He struggled, trying to roll and sprawl. I dug my arm underneath his neck and got the other wrapped tight around him. I choked him, pushing my head against him until he gasped for breath.

“It’d really be a shame if you weren’t my target.” I said.

He went limp and I dropped him. I looked him over, going through his black garbs, his cape and underneath his waist band. The emblem of Xanthus. Bingo.

I looked inside (for I was on the balcony of a house, of course), a man in a tub stared at me. The copper bucket steaming with hot soapy water. He went over to the lip and reached for his blade by the side. I put my foot on the handle and put my knife onto his neck.

“Bad time for a bath, huh.”

He looked up. Smiling, toothless at the front.

I punched him so hard his head bounced off the metal. I dragged his body out and laid both on top of each other, both of them naked by now. It was quick assembly, putting on the black garb and matching everything together. It wasn’t like I was wearing much before, anyway.

So I stepped out the front, down the stairs. I ran out to the streets where the people were walking in their haste. There, two guards accosted me. Both breathing hard.

“Where’d he go?” One asked. Others looked at us, people with their belongings in jars on top of their heads or by their sides in baskets.

I pointed out to one direction.

“The alley over there.” I said.

All three of us ran. They made it deep into the alley, past peasants begging for coins. One so lost and in a hurry that he scrambled a top a poor man’s begging plate.

I struck one in the back of the head. He tumbled, head falling flat on the floor. I stomped on his head and he was out.

The other turned.

“What are you-” His eyes opened wide, he went for his knife.

I jumped and dug my knee into his face. He looked up, staring with a brutalized face. His nose bleeding, his eyes in that flurry watching dots. I’d been there before.

“You people.” I leaned over. “Really fucking annoy me, know that?”

He went to sleep and now I was free, free to walk.

It had to be that way, after all, I couldn’t give them a clue of where I was going. It was at the edge of town, to that fringe where the lost are left forgotten. That no-man’s land of beggars and whores and orphanages. It there, where I’d left those two children, that I’d return to. At the edge of town near the small guards tower. I kept low, jumping roof top to roof top, every now and then pretending with my scope. The archers bought it. The guards didn’t question it. And it took a while, but I had made it to St. Plutus’ orphanage, that’s what it was called at the front. The little holy star etched upon a wooden slab, drifting in the wind. I walked in through an unlocked front and leaned to the side, a woman went down the main hall with a basket of clothes. I looked over until she passed and breathed heavy when she was gone.

A child stared at me from the front, I was in his room.

“Don’t say anything.” I said.

He nodded up and down. Easier than the guards at least.

I walked through the back door, towards stairs, up and up, peeking through closed doors and stopped at the one. The one with the two poor ones, Venryr’s prey. I breathed heavy. Someone was coming up the corner and I rushed in immediately. There they were, the two. Both laying in bed, one playing with some colored blocks and the other staring straight at me. I put my finger against my mouth (realizing then that I wore the mask). Both didn’t scream. They didn’t even looked shocked. They stared with an empty expression at me. I put a chair against the door handle and walked towards the children.

“Remember me?” I asked. “Shit. ‘Course you don’t…”

I closed the windows, and put the covers on and took off my mask.

“How about now?” I took off my mask. Both looked at me, simple and stupid, blinking twice eerily slow.

“Come on…Come on…” I breathed heavy and sat down on a chair. Behind me, through those thin walls, someone was passing by and I followed the noise. She stopped at the front of the door. I held my breath. Then she walked away.

“Fuck, I need one of you to be awake. Ya know?” I said. “I just need you to help me, kids. Help the guy who saved you, could you do me that?”

I leaned down on one knee.

“Do you know of anyone important that was connected to Venryr? Any other…friends? I know it’s a hard memory.” I felt a pang in my chest. “It’s hard to think about and it’s outrageous, what I’m asking. But if either of you - just a name, you know? Someone important? Another merchant perhaps? A butler? I need any connection to Venryr. I need to know who he was selling to, and what’s become of his business. It’s important.”

They stared blinking. I lowered my head and gripped my mask tight.

“Fuck. Shit.” I said. “Life is terrible, ain’t it? Shit always comes around, whether you want it to or not. Things just manage to always…always get worse.”

I went to the window and opened it. Someone was coming behind to the door, there was a turn and a scrape of the chair against the floor. The brass knob rattled. Knocking, heavy, desperate almost.

One leg against the window sill, my mask on. I looked for a spot to jump to. The wind awful and hot.

“Lucius.” Someone said.

I turned around. The boy was staring, chapped lips, broken in all manners though seeming healthy. His mouth closed and his eyes were dead.

“Lucius?” I asked.

“Rivers. Boat. Lucius.” He said, one eye twitching.

“Thanks kid.” I said.

And I jumped.