The wind was whispering cruelty. In one breath it promised the end of summer, and in the next it hissed tidings of winter, each of its cold curls that snuck under eaves and through the paltry clothes of the poor suggesting that it was only going to get worse–get colder.

Ren shivered as the breeze wiggled icy fingers under the scrap of wool he hugged about himself. He missed his old cloak, the one that clasped shut in the front and wasn’t torn and didn’t smell like fish and piss. All the same, he’d learned a lot those first days in the alleys. It was a face of Katarn that most carefully avoided seeing. It was a world that hid within the shadows and folds of the city. A world of jaundice and hollow cheeks and missing teeth. A world of dull-toothed wolves dressed in stolen cotton. A world that also hid treasures.

The frayed and stained wool about his shoulders was one such treasure. A partially eaten lamb shank that hid beneath the makeshift cloak was another. It had taken months, but he now knew how to survive.

Footsteps.

Ren froze. When he’d first delved into the alleys he hadn’t been good at distinguishing what direction any sounds came from, unable to untangle the riddle of echoes. But now he knew. He had to hide. He wouldn’t get caught again. He was still bruised from the last time.

Ducking behind a corner, he peeked out with one eye. It always paid to know the goings on. Even as he did so, his knees quaked and his swollen eye throbbed as if anticipating another beating.

Four figures made their way into the narrow stone corridor he had just been in. One of them wore a fine wool cloak, complete with a hood lined in fox fur. He couldn’t actually see the fur well enough to identify it from this distance, but all the same, he knew. That was his cloak. It was Basher and his goons.

Gutter-piss! He had to get out of here.

Ren slipped from the corner and half-ran as fast as he could without making noise. He’d moved fewer than ten paces by the time he noticed another set of footfalls approaching from around the bend ahead of him. His heart thumped down into his gut, and he looked around for an answer, a way out. Somewhere to hide maybe?

Nothing.

Beastkin-bastard-of-a-dog-fucker! The curse that filled his mind was one he’d overheard coming from the mouths of city guards, and it felt appropriate right now. This alley must’ve been the cleanest gods-damned alley in the city. Sure, it was full of piss and shit, but there wasn’t a single nook or pile to hide in.

No no no no no! He’d have to cross the mouth of Basher’s alley to get away.

He stopped abruptly, biting his tongue to keep from crying out when he tweaked his ankle from the jerky movement.

As quickly as he could, he crept back to the corner. He’d have to time this right.

The biting wind blew again, and his wool flapped in the gust.

“Sure is a nice cloak you got there Basher,” said one of the goons, envy chattering from his own teeth.

“Ha!” Basher’s voice boomed. “Shoulda seen the little shit I took it off. Pathetic little mouse, he was. Too bad his coin-purse didn’t exactly live up to the cloak. You know me, though. I was merciful.”

Ren could only see his back, but he still remembered the crooked grin, the measuring eyes, weighing him like he was a sack of moldy grain, not a lost boy.

He shook his head. The footsteps were getting closer. He needed to move soon.

“I let him keep his pants and his shoes and his shirt. Damn magnanimous of me. I guess it might’ve been because he’d already pissed himself before I even gave him the fist.”

There was a chorus of laughter. Ren couldn’t move. Shame buried him and filled his limbs with lead.

“Pity though. Coulda kept him. Had one of those innocent faces. The kind Mistress Abissa likes so much. Might’ve fetched a few silver.”

Ren’s face drained of blood, and the cold that filled him had nothing to do with the weather.

“Don’t worry, Little-Fist,” Basher patted the arm of a man who was in no way little. “If I see him again, you can have a roll before we hand him over. We all know your type.”

“You’re the best, boss.” Little-Fist’s jowls wriggled when he spoke. “You said the boy was an easterner? Never had one of them.”

The terror that filled him now was a primal thing that wiggled into him and made his very soul itch. Ren had managed to avoid run-ins with Little-Fist, but he wasn’t the only kid in the Maze, and he’d seen the blank, glassy stares of those who weren’t so lucky. He tried to catch a breath but his chest was so tight he couldn’t bring in any air.

Then things got worse.

“What do we have here?” This voice wasn’t from the group around the corner. It was from behind him.

Shit. He’d waited too long.

Not bothering to turn and look at whoever had approached, he ran. This run wasn’t clean or quiet, it was the desperate, flailing run of a cat from wild dogs, or rather, a rat from hungry wolves.

Specters chased him from the shadows. The protruding pieces of loose masonry could have been hands grabbing him and holding him down. The pounding of feet chasing him could have been the pounding of flesh on flesh.

In his mind, all he could see was the fat, smiling face of the child grabber.

The alleys wove and wound, and he leapt across moats of mystery liquid and dodged past piles of shattered refuse that jutted sharp edges across his path.

He broke out of the alley, onto a street, diving between builders hauling squared off chunks of sandstone, and slipped into another alley across the way.

There was a great crash behind him accompanied by yells from the builders.

Basher’s voice cut through the noise, echoing after the fleeing boy, shouting instructions to cut him off and cursing “little street-rat spies”.

A straight stretch and he sped up. Muscles and lungs burning, screaming. But he didn’t care. Couldn’t care.

Ashy-Ary, a street rat both younger and wiser than Ren, was ahead and looked up from where he crouched over a pile of garbage. The boy’s eyes widened when they met his and recognized the frenzied desperation. There was no need to say with words that Little-Fist was coming. Ary bolted around a corner and squeezed through a small hole in the wall as Ren hurtled past.

Another cross section and he took several sharp turns, hoping to lose them in the maze of twisting alleys.

The pounding footsteps that belonged to Basher, Little-Fist, and the other goons seemed farther away, but he couldn’t shake them.

Another street, this one filled with more foot traffic. He joined the crowd, trying to hide between a group of turbaned traders, whose silk robes billowed in the wind, and several university scholars wearing the simple red and yellow robes of the Royal College.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Peeking back, past the rippling silk curtain provided by the gaudy merchants, he watched as Basher and six goons burst into the street and spread out.

One was pushing through the crowd, directly toward him. Thankfully, the thug was still casting his gaze wide, which meant he hadn’t spotted Ren yet.

Just a little farther and he might make it out of this. He cursed the traders for their slow gait as the goon got even closer.

Now.

He ducked into an alley and sprinted. He ran and ran. Some of Basher’s spotters had taken to the roofs, so he just kept on going, until the shouts from above faded and could have been nothing more than vendors hawking goods in the distance.

Finally, he neared Copper River Avenue and paused to catch his breath. This was pathetic. His heart pounded in his chest from fear as much as exhaustion, and he’d already sweated through his stained and worn out shirt. Every fiber of him burned, even his bones. He’d never been a fighter. It shamed him to admit it. He’d never been able to protect himself, so it hadn’t been a surprise when he’d folded like a chicken wing underfoot the day the debt collectors had come for his family.

Why had this all happened? It wasn’t fair. They hadn’t done anything wrong. They’d just taken a loan to start up their shop when they came to the city, then another loan when Dad got sick. They could have made it work. Could have paid it back.

A tear trailed down his cheek and he pounded his empty fist against the wall. He hated himself. He hated that he was powerless, that he was a coward, that all he could do was run.

No.

His eyes dried as images flashed behind them. Puddles and sharp edges and loose ropes and shadows. He couldn’t afford to stop being a coward, but next time he’d make sure he struck back.

Ren took a bite from the lamb shank as he stepped out onto the street and joined the throng of humanity. It was still busy and he joined the crowd of workers and artisans and stray merchants who milled about on their way to their homes or their favorite watering holes. He let out a bitter laugh around the cold meat in his mouth. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d been looking forward to his sixteenth birthday and debating where to take Sitara since he was finally going to be of legal drinking age. That day had come and gone, like the grains of sand that sometimes flew in on the winds from the south, forever lost.

The residual salt on the meat brought more saliva to his mouth even as the chunk traveled down his throat toward the empty chasm that was his stomach. No. None of that was important now. The past was gone, along with everyone it contained. Nothing mattered but the fact that he had more meat left on the bone.

A group of ladies in sheer silks of red and purple and yellow leered at him as he neared. Clearly not impressed by his savage display.

He was too tired to feel embarrassed, and took another bite as he passed them and the beaded doorway behind them that sighed like a gaping mouth, murmuring of giggles and moans and clinking coins over the delicate tune of a flute. The musician was actually quite talented, but Ren wasn’t going to stop and listen.

These women of the night gasped as he passed, holding their noses and stepping away from him as if afraid of being infected by his filth and poor fortune.

He locked eyes with one of them and licked his teeth clean, collecting all the loose pieces of lamb flesh and swallowed them in one big gulp. He wondered when he had gotten so bold. Months ago he’d found himself stammering whenever he passed by the scantily clad women that advertised such places. Now, though he felt their disgust and contemptuous discomfort, it mostly just felt good to be noticed.

But really, was he so revolting? He cursed fate and the spirit-damned wind that cut through him. He thought back on his first days out on the street. Back before his stench and filth had cut paths before him through crowds that seemed to have eyes that couldn’t quite land on his form. Back when he was simply invisible for the first time in his life. He’d begged for help, for food, for shelter, for money. Even when he’d yelled, nobody would look his way. Someone had dropped a copper bit once, and he still wasn’t sure if it had been an accident or a way of offering aid without having to acknowledge him.

In fact, in those days–before his face had become so caked in filth, and his clothes so stained and ragged–it had been a prostitute, dressed in a sheer gown of silk, who had offered him bread and a piece of chicken and a kind word. Seraphina.

Eventually, even she stopped being able to see him as a human.

He’d learned that invisibility could be a blessing in its own way, when he used it and stuck to shadows. Admittedly, it was a gift that cut deep even as it kept him safe from staggering drunkards with cruel eyes and guardsmen looking for someone on whom to take out their marital problems.

That had been the last piece of meat. Three bites. Somehow it had looked like more when it was on the shank. His stomach burned, even hungrier. Sure he could find another sliver if he took the time to look later, he slipped the bone into his waistband.

The sun was getting low, throwing shards of red light down the street even as city workers began flitting between street lanterns, lighting them as they went. His stomach growled and his body shivered, reminding him that the beauty of the city was something only the employed and wealthy had time to enjoy. He needed to go to his shelter. Hopefully he’d find some food on the way.

He tried to be thankful that he’d escaped Basher and Little-Fist. Tried to comfort himself with small victories. But the only true comfort against the gnawing in his gut would be food, and the only balm to the cold would be shelter and a blanket. And anyway, tomorrow the brutes would be on the warpath, scouring the underworld for the ‘rat spy’ who had gotten away.

At the mouth of the alley that led to his ‘home’ on the west side of Copper River Ave, lay a beggar. He at least had a nice and thick, if filthy, cloak.

“Leggo of me!” a voice yelled from up the street.

Ren swiveled, following the sound. Four city guards pushed a drunkard up against the wall of a shop. A shattered vase lay before a vendor’s stall, and the mustachioed salesman was staring daggers between the shoulders of the hulking guardsmen.

Time to go. It wasn’t illegal to be poor and homeless in Katarn, but it was a crime to do so visibly. He’d learned that the hard way in his first weeks on the street.

He started to turn down the alley, but his gaze caught on the beggar.

“Hey friend, we’d best get going.” Ren nudged the man with his worn out shoe.

The man looked up at him, eyebrows raised, and the eyes beneath those brows–though framed by a spiderweb of age-lines–were surprisingly lucid. At least one of them was, the other eye was a milky, pure white with strange dark scars like lightning burns emanating from it. After a moment, the man smiled.

To be so old out on the street. How long had this man been alone? Alone like him.

He cursed himself when it occurred to him that if they were together, any pursuers might get distracted by the old man, who he could easily outrun. When had he started thinking like this?

“I’m sorry,” said the beggar. “Would you be able to give me a hand up, son? I find myself quite exhausted.”

“Certainly, elder.” Ren instinctively offered an arm, even going as far as to support the man when he came shakily to his feet. The beggar was even bonier under his cloak than Ren would have expected. He pulled the man’s arm over his shoulder and helped him along, step by step, into the alley. “Do you need me to take you somewhere specific?”

“How kind of you to offer, child. No. I’m new to this city. I haven’t had time to find the city housing for the disaffected.”

“What do you mean?” Ren screwed up his face. This man talked like an aged scholar, not like a wandering vagrant.

“Shelter for the homeless? Do they not have such things here in Katarn?”

Ren sighed. They certainly didn’t have anything like that here. The rodents had better housing options than the homeless.

“Elder,” Ren paused, he really didn’t want to do this, but he could feel the old man’s weakness as if it were his own. “I’ll take you somewhere safe for the night.”

“Thank you child.” The older man clapped him on the back with his frail arm. Ren was surprised by how much force was behind the gesture.

The sun sank as they wove through the tightly stitched passageways of Katarn’s underbelly. Months of muscle memory and the pinprick light of stars were all that guided them once the long shadows of day’s end had turned to a blackness that encompassed all.

They came upon a pile of junk much like any other, only this one belonged to Ren. He let the old man go and scooted aside a broken stool, revealing a hollow beneath the pile. This was his “home”. His shelter from wind and cold nights. Made of a shattered dresser and the pieces of an old armoire and some burlap sacks, it kept out most of the assaults that the sky rained upon the houseless denizens of the world but, more importantly, it hid him from the men who scoured the night with wolfish grins, and evil hearts.

The beggar was shaking on his feet, barely able to stand. Ren tried not to think about how similar his father’s weakness had felt when the illness started eating at him.

“Elder, please use this shelter,” he said, and gestured toward the hollow space.

“My deepest thanks, child,” said the old man. He collapsed, somehow falling sideways into the hollow, and worming his way the last bit of the way.

Ren grimaced as he moved the stool back in place and trudged away. Hadn’t he helped the man so he could use him? The wind howled, biting at his flesh, laughing at his foolishness. Just a street rat alone with nowhere to go. Not even a pile of trash to call home anymore.

Now what was he going to do?

Stupid question. He chastised himself. The only thing to do was find a new place to sleep for the night and avoid the dark figures that fed on Katarn while most were asleep in their beds.