“Mr. Darron! This is the Imperial Police, with cause! Open the door and step out unarmed!” I sat up in the dark. Throne is an Imperial city, meaning its policed by the purple guard, not any regional force, so the guys outside my door had probably served in tours on two continents, and kicked in doors like they were eating breakfast. I stood up and grabbed my pack while going over the layout of the room in my mind. I could see Ethelyn on the bed and thought about letting them take me, then I remembered Liana.

“Huh? What? I paid my taxes! What is this?” I slurred loudly as I slipped my boots on and stomped towards the door. The moment I was done yelling I cat walked towards the window.

“Open the door, empty-handed. You have ten seconds before we break it down!”

It would take them another ten to get past the bar. I made it to the bookcase near the window and pulled a coil of rope out of the back of it. I had tied it behind the bookcases to a support beam through a hole I had cut in the brick when I first moved in. It’s called a burglar’s noose on the streets, to give you an idea of how often it worked. I didn’t have much of a choice. I heard the unmistakable sound of an Imperial bow being ratcheted back. They always had one guy do that because the sound makes the smaller fish shit their pants. For me, it was just nostalgic. They might as well have sung a lullaby at the door.

“You’ve got 5 seconds!” I was out the window in three. It was raining and lightning flashed somewhere out in the city as I slid down the rope. I heard a crash from inside that meant the bar hadn’t held as long as I’d hoped. I all but fell down the rest of the way, burning the leather on my gloves, and knowing that another team of purple boys was probably waiting at the bottom with big smiles and loaded bows.

I dropped the last fifteen feet or so and rolled. There was no second team. It seemed that the guard had been tipped off by one of Marston’s crew, hadn’t had time to find out anything about me, and had expected a simple smack and sack. I took off into the plot behind the building and heard the first smack of a bow. I dodged to the left and the bolt skidded off the ground ahead of me. The guard started yelling down into the street and I heard him ratchet back the arm even through the noise of the rain.

In front of me was a wall and a gate that was chained up after hours. Behind the wall was the slim alley that ran between the two rows of buildings on the block. I put my foot in the gate and jumped up to grab the top of the wall above me. I started to pull myself up over it and heard the bow smack again and the bolt hit something concrete in the alley. I threw myself over and landed on the other side.

Looking back through the gate I saw figures come out into the lamplight outside the apartment doorway. I dropped down and ran to my left. I heard some more shouting from my window as the gate behind me clanged with the sound of metal hitting metal. I stayed close to the alley wall until I was far enough to be out of sight of the bowman, then I ran down the darkness in the center of the alley. All of the buildings had lamps on their back doors, but the orange light died just outside the gateways in the wall, and even there was beaten down by the rain.

I tripped once and skinned my wrist, and the next time I fell I thought I cracked my shoulder in half, but I kept running. When the high darkness of the buildings to my left gave way to starlight, I stopped and found the gate.

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I looked back down the alley and lightning flashed like a blessing. I saw three forms moving fast and low in bow stances, looking into the lamplit gateways as they passed, the metal arms on their weapons reflecting the white of the lightning and I remembered demons with weapons of fire. When the lightning was gone, it was pitch black again and I climbed over the wall.

There was no lamp on the other side. The building had burned months ago. All that was there now were gaping stone walls and some beggars tents. I moved through the alley on the side of it as silent as I could. Debris had clogged the drains and there was standing water and piles of rubble everywhere, but I moved fast. I had practiced this path every night I found sleep running away from me, which was often. I could have done it with my eyes closed, and in this weather, at this time of night, I might as well have.

As I got to the street I heard a shout far behind me. The guards had probably seen the bums in their tents and thought I had tried a bit of disguise. I stepped out onto the footpath and looked around. The lamps down the street lit up the shop fronts with wavering orange light, but the center of the street was black rain. There wasn’t a cab in sight. I ran down the dark street for as far as my lungs could take me, which was about a block and a half. I slowed to a walk and caught my breath before I ran off and on for another few blocks until I got to the docks district and sweet mother darkness.

Lamp laws were a myth here. The amount of oil it would take to light these massive warehouse fronts made it cheaper just to pay the tickets when they came. They didn’t need orange light to frighten off criminals here anyway. They had the Syndicate. If that wasn’t enough, then any lamp besides hanging the suns themselves out front sure as hell wouldn’t be. I wasn’t protected by the Syndicate, so I walked quietly and kept my knife naked, guiding myself mainly by sound and the silhouettes of buildings that pressed against the almost glowing sky.

I had just got to the edge of the bridge, which hung over the river like a black bow, when a horse and rider rode out of the darkness and stopped next to me. A dim hooded lamp hung at his knee. I put my knife up and faced him. He had bright red tassels hanging off the reins, a symbol as old as the tower itself.

“Late night to be walking the docks. Where are you headed?”

“The wife caught me whoring so I’m headed to the temples to sleep with the angels.” I said.

“Don’t go fuckin those old girls now. Wife won't like that either.” I laughed hard. Jokes from Syndicate guys were always the funniest jokes you ever heard, especially when you walked the docks on a dark night without your name on the books.

“That I won’t sir.” I said.

“All right, get lost.”

“My life in your hands.”

“My hands a shelter.”

I bowed and hurried away. I always wondered how they get those rites out of their mouths without choking on them.

The rain was still coming down and I stepped carefully on the slick stones of the bridge. I looked back often, and when I had gotten halfway across I saw the dull glow of a lamp swinging in the dark behind me. The way it moved I knew it was on a carriage, and sure enough, a second one joined it as the carriage turned on the bridge and faced me, the light from its lamps falling on the walkways on either side of the bridge as it headed up.

I knew I couldn’t outrun it. The horses were moving at a brisk trot. I moved to the edge of the bridge and pressed my chest on the thick barrier. I reached down and the outside face was smooth brick. The black water rushed below me, turning a dead grey as it frothed around the supports. The hoofbeats got louder.

I threw myself over and hung onto the edge of the brick by my hands. I managed to get one foot wedged somewhat in the mortar for whatever that was worth. By the time the light glowed above me my forearms already burned. I counted to ten after it passed then pulled myself up. My right hand slipped as I threw myself over and I slammed my chest on the barrier and landed on my knees on the sidewalk. The lights were fading into the distance and I waited until they disappeared past the rise of the bridge and I had found the wind that had been knocked out of me, then I moved fast.