Jon donned a brown cloak and followed the man until they were deep in the slums, zig-zagging through a maze of narrow, gravely footpaths. On either side of him now were shoddy dwellings, but he soon followed the man into a path walled on either side by thick planks driven into the ground.

He let the man make it through the whole stretch of the fenced path before he entered it, himself. The ground was laden with wooden planks to make stable footing. Even so, mud was beginning to claim the planks. It was like walking in a trench in the Western Front.

Once he was out the other side, he was confronted by a tall palisade of scrap wood. In the middle was the gate — and a guard.

The guard was alarmed, and being one of the more well-informed ones, he had an inkling of who he was looking at. His instincts told him to fight or flee, but the fact that Jon hadn’t killed him yet meant that the reaper might have had other business here — and this place was all about business.

“What’chya here for?” the guard asked, standing with his back straight and a club in his hands. In reality, he really didn’t want to die today.

“Quill,” Jon said.

Understanding dawned on the guard’s face. Looked like he didn’t need to die today, after all. “Watchin’ or fightin’?”

There was the roar of a rough crowd on the other side of the gate. “Both.”

The guard unlatched the gate, opening it, letting the hollering and hooting of the men on the other side rush out in all their cruelty. “Behave yerself. Jump in the pit when the ones in there are done.”

Jon stepped into a bloody arena made of wood scraps and dirt. Here, men witnessed their greatest brothers be brought low by those even greater. Here, humility gave arrogance a stern beating, and depending on the rules of the game, certain death.

Comrades and brothers stood by and watched from the edges of a deep pit, content to cheer for their champions whose ambitions brought them to face the Knight.

Blending into the crowd, Jon spotted the man in the navy blue coat jump into the pit, joining two others on that side of the pit. They didn’t seem to be at odds.

From the murmurs and conversations around him, he surmised their identities: Marcello the Crazed, an elite of the Red Steel Foxes, and who wielded two, short, forward-curving blades; Larry Sing, leader of the Raven Gang, wielding a dueling rapier; and the man in the navy blue coat, William King, leader of the Alley Killers, the Children of Sinners, the Saintmakers, and the Black Hands. Someone climbed down into the pit and ran up to William to give him his weapon, a halberd of many utilities: as spear, axe, and hammer.

On the opposite side of the pit stood the Knight: Herr Sleiss ex Reich. He stood before them, hands resting on a longsword planted in the ground. He donned whatever was left of his original armor: the left hand’s gauntlet, the chest piece, the cap-like helmet, greaves for the right arm, and guards for his legs, kept in place only by suspenders hanging all the way from his shoulders. What other parts of his armor that had rusted or seen too much damage, he’d replaced with some equivalent in metal scrap and thick padding.

Jon’s eyes flitted between the two sides. He could just get in there, turn the fight into a 4v1, and take out Sleiss that way, but interrupting the fight like this would render his purpose here moot. He needed to fight according to the alleys’ sense of honor so that everyone here would recognize Damian Quill as everyone’s boss. After all, who would get in the way of a man who could call upon the reaper?

... Plenty of people, perhaps — but! Far less than simply dealing with all of them, no?

The three back-alley leaders looked just about ready. “Who’d’ve thought we’d be on the same side one day, huh?” Larry said. He drew his rapier with some swagger, picking his teeth with a twig all the while.

Marcello’s teeth chattered. “Shut up, shut up,” he said.

William mirrored the Knight’s stance, planting his halberd before him. “Crazy’s in the right. Put your head in the fight, boy.”

“How’re we splitting it after we do the do?” Larry asked.

“Don’t talk like we can actually win.” William clenched his teeth. He picked up the halberd and leveled the point against the Knight. Between the three of them, he knew he was the only one who stood any chance at even damaging the Knight; his armor was just too strong, and he’d heard that his longswording skills were impeccable. Even just approaching him would be difficult.

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A halberd might have better reach than a longsword, but only a strike from the halberd’s beak could do any reliable damage. He’d need to rely on his teammates to distract the Knight long enough for William to cave in the man’s helmet —

Marcello screamed and charged. “Just die! Just die!” he cried. The audience cheered him on, but more mockingly than anything else.

“Ah, knew it” —

“After him!” William interrupted Larry. “While the idiot’s still alive!”

If they lose their numbers advantage, they lose, period.

While William and Larry rushed forwards, Marcello was busy running headfirst into the Knight’s sword point. By some cursed Skill, Marcello bent his body in strange ways, avoiding the sword point. He chopped at the Knight’s neck.

Herr Sleiss stopped it with his gauntleted hand, gripped the sword, and, knowing this type of person, pulled the sword along with its wielder, bringing them closer — close enough for him to headbutt Marcello’s naked face with the fore of his helmet, which had a little ridge just for this specific attack, fracturing the orbital bone of Marcello’s skull and knocking out the madman, turning him into a bloodied mess on the ground. The audience let out some sympathetic groans and “oof”s for him, but not much else.

Larry and William arrived at the same time, against whom Sleiss played his longsword, waving it between them to stave them off, sending their heels screeching to a stop. Larry simply didn’t have the reach, and really, his only valid target now was the Knight’s face; everything else was just too darn armored! William, on the other hand, got a few jabs in with the point of his halberd — jabs which Sleiss ignored in favor of raising his longsword in wrath guard, and when William’s next jab came, he wrought the blade down, in one stroke forcing the halberd aside and leveling his sword point right in William’s face.

All the while, the audience — the gangs’ official observers and anyone looking to make a bet — cheered and hollered. The action was just coming on!

With the Knight occupied, Larry took the opportunity to make a stab directly into Sleiss’s face. Sleiss waved his gauntleted hand that way, the attack bouncing off his palm and deflecting just inches past his cheek. William took this opportunity to break away from the bind and bring his halberd up into the air.

The only reason he was able to break away, however, was because Sleiss broke away from the bind, himself. He spun his longsword the long way around overhead, switching grip and building momentum.

Larry wasn’t able to regain his footing after making such a daring, committed attack, and the tip of Sleiss’s blade swiped past Larry’s eyes as he stumbled, taking them. It continued flying on its arc, cutting into the shaft of William’s halberd, which was still just barely falling back down, like a katana through a silk curtain.

William finally brought his halberd down, but the weight was off. The shaft came down faster than normal, lighter than usual — shorter than it should be. The next he saw was the steel hunk of the halberd’s beak-and-blade fly over Sleiss’s shoulder.

The bettors in the audience complained, but all the rest fell silent. The match was decided at this point. Some held onto hope, but for those gangs who had been single-handedly brought to heel by the Fallen Knight, this was as good as done. A handful had already left.

William wished he had the privilege to leave as nonchalantly as them. He backed away, putting ample distance between him and the Knight. Next to Sleiss was Larry, kneeling and crying out blood, grasping his face, looking for his eyes. No doubt, that move had been some kind of knightly Skill. What were its limitations? Use conditions?

Sleiss raised his sword and let Larry’s head roll, silencing his cries, and silencing the audience’s remaining murmurs. William doubted he would live long enough to find out.

He took out a dagger and a length of wire, and began affixing it to the end of the shaft. Sleiss just stood there, waiting for his opponent to regain his footing.

“You’re a knight, aren’t you?” William said, tightening the wire. “Isn’t it strange that you’re going through so much trouble to make yourself king? I can give you what you want.”

William planted his new spear on the ground, but Sleiss readied his sword. “I kill kings,” he simply said.

“You hear that, boys!” William announced, pointing the spear at Sleiss in the same breath. “Ain’t gonna be a king left in this place!”

He advanced point-first, strutting forth in measured steps. His ears hallucinated old battles and the fighting lines falling apart, his comrades being cut down all around him; for a time, these two soldiers were on opposite sides of the same war. Survival in such a hellish place was only achieved through one thing: facing only the enemy before them.

William swiped and thrusted, and Sleiss cut down his spear once more, turning it into a fighting staff — but unrelenting, he continued to advance with the blunt of the shaft pointed forward, still attacking, beating Sleiss’s armor at any opportunity. He made a committed attack, intending to smack the Knight in the head, forcing him to cut the staff into a fighting stick.

With Sleiss’s sword raised, William took the opportunity to swoop down, grab the cut-off dagger from the ground, and wrestle with Sleiss. For a moment, William’s men held hope, watching their leader wrestle with the Weissian giant. William stabbed into Sleiss’s side, looking for some kind of nick in the patchwork armor.

Sleiss slugged him with the gauntlet hand, sending him barreling off to the side, sending William’s men quiet. They watched as the Knight spent no time to stand over William, step on his chest, and raise his sword — point down. Until the very last moment, William defied him, punching his iron-shelled shin.

The sword came down, driven through William’s heart. The two locked gazes, the calmness of their eyes speaking their last words for them: that they were only soldiers, who had fought like automata out of duty, not of hate. They needn’t curse each other into the afterlife.

William breathed his last, and his head laid aside. Sleiss pulled the sword out, and the commotion among the observers grew. He took out a handkerchief, apt for cleaning the blood from the blade. One wipe of it with the handkerchief only managed to spread the blood into a thin film.

From the red film reflected, behind him was a man in black.