The shouting that woke Dagger at first seemed some vestige of a dream, and she sat up in bed groggily rubbing her eyes as the sound worked its way through the fog of last night's drink. She still wasn't quite sure what she was hearing when her bedroom door slammed open and Powder entered.

"Better get up, captain. We're mildly fucked."

"Is there coffee?"

"Downstairs."

"That's something then."

Dagger dressed and put on her leathers. She picked up her hammer. Right about then the dream faded completely and she realized what she was hearing outside.

A mob.

In the common room of the inn the rest of the Armory stood tensely armed and peeking through the windows at the crowd gathered outside. Dagger chanced a quick look through a window and saw an assembly of both city guards and workers.

"Mercenaries!" A captain of the guard shouted through a speaking horn borrowed from one of the strike leaders, "you've brought chaos and destruction! Come out quietly to face arrest. You have my word you'll receive a fair trial."

"Roth," Dagger muttered.

"I guess that rat fuck sold us out," Powder said as she loaded her guns between sips of hot coffee.

"I want you all to leave," the innkeeper said, his voice quivering even as he served coffee and laid out a tray with a few slices of bread and cheese for breakfast.

"Is there a back door?" Dagger asked him.

"That's covered too," Saber said.

"There's your answer," she told the inkeeper as Saber handed her a cup of coffee.

"Mercenaries!" The shrill voice came out from outside.

"A couple of these idiots actually have pitchforks," Pitch said from the window.

"Pretty standard mob fare, Pitch," Saber said, with a theatrical leer at the service girl as he bit into a piece of bread. She skittered away.

"Saber, this is a factory town. They're not farmers," Pitch said, "Why would they even have pitchforks?"

"There is a stable."

"Oh."

"Aren't you the smart one?" Saber grinned.

"Some problems are beneath me."

"It's okay, Pitch. I won't tell everybody."

"Powder," Dagger called. "I'm going out to talk to the mayor."

"I'm on it, captain," Powder said and picked up a long rifle. She dashed up the stairs to the roof.

"Sure that's a good idea, Dagger?" Saber asked.

"Where's Vice?" Dagger asked instead.

"Upstairs," Pitch said. "Praying."

"Tell him to find out how many we need for an exit. And that we're coming in hot," Dagger said, swung her hammer up over her shoulder and walked out of the front door of the inn to face the mob.

"Fuck," Saber muttered and went upstairs. He found Vice on his knees, shirtless except for his scars.

"Vice?" Saber asked. "Don't suppose you can hear me in there?"

"Don't be an idiot, Saber."

"You might want to get ready. It's about to get hairy."

"To what end should I be ready? I scorn the physical. It is transient."

Saber rolled his eyes.

"Temporary," Vice said.

"I know what transient means, Vice. It's about to get temporary-er."

"That is not a word."

"Dagger says to find out how many."

"Is it certain, then?"

"How long were you up here with your head in the clouds?"

"My faith is..."

"Your faith can't be louder than half the town and all the guards screaming for our fucking heads, Vice. Get your shit together."

"I will ask," Vice said.

Dagger walked out into the square, the far side and most of the alleys blocked with the screaming faces of a mob riding the rush of righteousness and numbers.

"Roth!" she called and stopped in the center of the street. She rested her hammer head down between her boots and folded her arms. The mayor stepped out from between the ranks of his guards, gesturing that a few should follow him. The five men approached.

"What is this, Roth?" Dagger asked, with a nod to the mob surrounding them. "You hired us for this job."

"You went too far, mercenary."

"You can call me Dagger."

The mayor, and the guards, looked at the hammer between her feet.

"It's ironic," Dagger said.

"You don't seem afraid," the mayor said. "At a wave of my hand these people will tear you apart."

"Pay us and we'll leave."

"Pay you? For bombing buildings, murdering innocent community leaders and shooting my guards."

"We didn't bomb anything. Your workers stole gunpowder from your factories and stored them like idiots. Take that up with them."

"You were hired to put down the strike."

Dagger looked around at the crowd. "I'd say we did. Looks like you've got unity now."

Roth smiled smugly. "When I explained the consultants I hired had created this issue, the union leaders expressed a willingness to bargain."

"Then our job's done. Pay us and we'll leave."

"Look around you. I could let you walk free and that would be payment enough."

"The Armory always gets paid, Roth. Gold or soul."

"Throw down your weapons, come out of the inn and I'll have my men escort you to the city gates."

"Roth, we were working in the shadows. You don't want us working in the daylight. You can't afford it."

"I could see to giving you a quarter of what you were promised."

Dagger sighed and pretended to think it over. "Your terms are acceptable."

"Very wise. I am glad we could come to an agreement."

Dagger smiled thinly and leaned over in a deep, ironic bow.

Roth's head disappeared in a burst of red. The sound of a gunshot followed a fraction of a second later.

Dagger stood to her full height, picked up her hammer and to the sound of the crowd's enraged, confused screaming, shattered the little cluster of fighting men fumbling at their weapons. The man who caught the brunt of her blow flew several feet, cartwheeling bonelessly with a square dent in his ribcage. Dagger stepped in and swung again, smashing a knee to pulp, then around in an arc to crush the man's head. She thrust with the head of her weapon and a guard stumbled back spitting teeth.

The last guard backed away and the crowd rushed forward.

Dagger turned and sprinted for the tavern while Powder covered her, dropping worker, guard and citizen alike from her perch on the tavern's roof. The mob's few, untrained guns sent little puffs of dust up around Dagger as she neared the door.

Pitch and Saber threw it open.

As the first of the mob closed the distance, Dagger dove through as Pitch heaved a thin glass jar over her. It shattered against the paving stones. The liquid inside sizzled when it hit the air and became a sickly yellow and pale blue fog. The mob ran into it heedlessly, as Pitch and Saber slammed and locked the door. A moment later the screams of rage and the meaty slam of fists hitting the door and walls of the tavern turned to howls of terror and demands to be let in and away from the terrifying visions that walked among them.

The Armory barricaded the door with a banquet table.

"I hate running," Dagger said, catching her breath. "What's our status?"

"Vice says twenty," Saber said.

"Twenty!? The price is going up."

"He might have told them we were in a hurry."

"Somebody needs to teach our holy man how to bargain."

"Do you get to do that with god?"

"If god's dead and you're dealing with his fucking butler. Okay. Twenty. Anybody keeping count? I dropped one for sure. A second's on his way but gangrene will take too long. Powder?"

The sharpshooter was coming down the stairs. "I got five," she said, "and if anybody tries to come in through the hatch on the roof, we'll get another two. Three if we're lucky."

"You left a bomb up there?" Saber asked.

"On a tripwire. Why? Did you want to guard the hatch?"

Dagger looked at Pitch. "I don't suppose whatever you threw out there is lethal?"

Pitch shrugged. "Maybe one or two will die of a heart attack?"

"Next time throw poison."

"Sure, boss," Pitch said dryly, "next time I'll throw poison gas while you're still outside. Everybody get in close. Somebody fetch Vice."

"I'll get him," Saber said, pausing only long enough to stop by one of the street level windows and thrust his sword through the bars and into a workman fumbling inside with a prybar. "That makes six," he called and dashed upstairs.

"Fourteen left," Dagger told the rest.

"What about them?" Pitch asked, pointing at the innkeeper and his staff, who were clumped in a corner with eyes like dinner plates. It was hard to know who they were more worried about, the mob outside mindlessly shooting at the walls of the inn, or the killers inside talking about the number of bodies that had to hit the ground. Dagger looked at them.

"An easy four more," she mused. "We could be down to ten."

"It's a battlefield, captain. Not a butcher shop," Powder said, even as she raised one of her scatterguns. "You sure?"

Dagger swore. "Lock them in the basement."

"Let's go," Powder said, gesturing with her weapon and herding the inn's staff and owner ahead of her barrels to the basement steps. "You'll be safer down there."

"This is my inn, you can't just..." the innkeeper said, but his feet knew their business even if his mouth was propping up his dignity.

"We can. We are. Now move," Powder said.

"Do we return home upon a celestial pathway paved in gold?" Vice said in an excited, tense voice as he clumped down the stairs. He'd shed his cloak, and his white beard seemed to blaze in the dim light.

"Twenty, Vice? Really?"

Vice shrugged. "The machinery of the heavens winds down, grows less efficient in its disrepair. We ask much and deliver little, such is the way of mortals when they provide sustenance to the gods. What can such short lives know of hunger that spans eons?"

Dagger rolled her eyes.

"Everybody gather close," Pitch said. "We can debate the economics of theology when we're dead."

The Armory stood in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, and leaned in as Pitch took a vial from his rig, shook it thoroughly and pulled out the cork. Fumes wafted out in blue-tinted vapor. One by one they inhaled deep from the vial. The lights of the inn brightened and their breath quickened in their chests. The air caught fire, they could smell the sweat, fear and the unfired powder in the guns of the slavering army outside their four, fragile walls. Dagger stepped back away from the circle, pinched the bridge of her nose and snorted hard into the back of her throat. Her feelings were swept away by a chill, dispassionate calm and she looked at the others as they eyes and hands steadied.

"That burns," Dagger said. "Pitch, lace the windows. Powder, load up for close range. Saber put your dancing shoes on and ready your short blades. Vice, don't get killed first."

"That is in the hands of..."

"Just fucking don't, alright?"

"Yes, Dagger."

The door shuddered.

"They have a battering ram," Saber noted dispassionately.

Pitch went to the door and rigged a jar above the jam. Then he went to each of the windows on the ground floor and spread a thin layer of gel on the surfaces. Powder unrolled a canvas bundle. Inside were four short-barreled, wide-mouthed pistols. She packed loose shot and powder in each and primed them to fire, then she tucked them in her belts. Dagger wrapped both hands around the haft of her hammer and stood a few feet from the door, waiting for the inevitable breach. Steel whined on stone as the workers pried away the bars over the windows. Overhead there was an explosion.

"They're inside," Saber said and dashed up the central stairs of the inn to hold the top, a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, the knuckle bow studded with sharp edges meant to rake. He met the first four attackers, one town guard and three in workers' clothes. He leaned away from a club and slashed the inside of the man's arm, severing the arteries at the bend of his elbow and raked his dagger guard across the face of another. The front door shattered off its hinges and the five workers holding it jammed themselves in the doorway in a knot. The jar above the door fell and the thin glass shattered over their heads. The liquid inside sizzled, eating through their clothes and skin. They howled and fell back outside, rolling in the dirty street to put out the invisible fire they could feel all over their bodies. But there were no flames, only hungry heat. The next ones that came through, Dagger scattered with her hammer, shoving them back with a thrust of the massive steel head as Powder slid beneath the swing and fired one of her big pistols with each hand. A roaring wave of hot lead shot shredded them down to the bone. Townsfolk climbing in the windows touched Pitch's gel, and a few seconds later began to scream and froth at the mouth. Two fell dead, and the other two were so distracted from drowning inside their own lungs that they fell easily to Vice's armored fists. Pitch tossed a glass jar through the open window and a wall of white hot fire rose up, burning unnaturally on the paving stones.

"Fall back to the kitchen," Dagger called, braining one worker with her hammer and reversing it to stab another with the sharp pike on the end. At the top of the stairs Saber ran through one worker and kneed another in the balls. He ran his dagger in a tight circle around the man's neck and blood prayed over his boots and trousers. Saber leapt over the high railing and landed lightly, but slipped in the blood on the floor and fell. Dagger dragged him to his feet by his collar.

"That was graceful," she said.

"I am a jungle cat."

They backed into the kitchen through the big double doors as the townsfolk boiled into the common room and absorbed the ground the Armory could not hope to hold. The kitchen was a dead end, but with only one door in or out, they had a chance to bottleneck the assault and ruin its power of numbers.

"Pitch, burn the..." Dagger was calling as a clay jar sailed over her head and hit the top of the doorway, breaking and scattering white hot flames across the wood, blocking it.

"...door," Dagger finished with a satisfied nod. "Well done. What's the tally?"

"Eight more than I am sure of," Vice said.

"Two from the stairs," Saber said, "four likely, but two already there."

"You felt them go?" Dagger asked Vice. "They're not just outside raving or waiting to die?"

"Saber is right. Ten."

"That leaves four more," Dagger said.

"Easy enough," Powder muttered as she fed her hungry guns.

"I've never killed a whole town before," Pitch muttered.

"What about the time with the resevoir?" Saber asked.

"I told you about that?"

"You were stoned," Saber said, apologetically.

"That makes sense."

"We don't have to kill a whole town," Dagger said.

"Four more," Powder intoned and nodded with satisfaction as her guns were ready.

A shot rang from outside and half of Dagger's head vanished in a red burst.

"Fuck," Saber muttered.

"Oh, now I'm pissed," Powder muttered.

"You can feel anger?" Pitch asked her.

"It's more the knowledge that anger is what I should be feeling."

"Interesting. Remind me to take some detailed notes later."

"Science can wait," Saber said as he and Vice grabbed Dagger's body by the shoulders and the Armory moved as one mass to the far corner of the kitchen and took cover behind the central prep table. Made of heavy wood and steel, it would provide cover from gunfire. Powder snapped off a shot from over the top and dropped a figure coming in through the door.

"Three," she called. "Vice!"

Vice knelt across Dagger's dead body and clasped his hands, muttering in a gutteral language. Saber met the next cluster of townsfolk through the door and gutted the first under his clumsy swing. Pitch stood, put a slender tube to his mouth and puffed hard. The dart that flew from the end landed in a man's cheek and he felt thrashing to the ground, his face as purple and swollen as a late summer plum. Powder opened up with her scatterguns and two more attackers vanished from the waist up. The walls were spattered with red. Vice prayed harder through the noisy brawl.

"One more," Saber said as the townsfolk swarmed the room, crouching as Pitch's flame barrier burned itself out. A bottle decorated with a flaming rag flew through the door and shattered against Pitch's head. He went up screaming like a torch, and Powder kicked him back from Vice. Pitch fell smoking, clawing and beating at himself weakly as the fire took his life. The townsfolk rushed them and smothered Powder under a pile of bodies, pummeling and kicked and swinging truncheons that crushed her skull even as they also hit each other. One man fell screaming around a shattered kneecap. Saber met their crush, tackling them away from Vice and falling back with two guards on top of him. He sank his knife into the man's gut and dug upwards, wriggling his hand like he was stirring a butter churn.

"You're the last one," Saber grated as the man sputtered and coughed warm red across his face. He tasted salt as the second guard put a pistol under his chin and pulled the trigger, blowing out the top of his skull.

"Vigil, we are coming home," Vice said with satisfaction as the townsfolk grabbed him, swarmed him under and beat him to death. He died with a beautific, if broken, smile.