The axe was an unfamiliar weight in my hand the wooden handle felt a little big. But I guess it was made for a giant wolf so there is that.

I was more used to a bat or metal pipe, the odd firearm if it was available. An axe was new to me but it looked bitching and I figured I couldn’t walk around punching everything forever and so…the axe.

The Captain was still trying to disentangle himself from the corpse that was once Niel. His movements grew more panicked the closer I got until he was almost thrashing about, his hands clawing at the dirty ground to pull him away.

I hooked my foot beneath the body and flipped it over and off of the man, not because I was overly worried about him but because I had no idea how to swing an axe correctly and didn’t want to get it stuck in the dead body instead of the live one.

“W-we’re sorry!” The Captain begged, his helm slipping further down his face and he pushed it back with one shaking, gore covered hand. A smear of blood trailed along his cheek from the action, like some morbid war paint. “But you started it..you hu-”

The axe passed through his face with so much ease that I lost balance. The blade bounced off ground in an explosion of sparks, as I staggered forward. The feedback sending vibrations through my hand and up to my shoulder.

Damn, I’m a strong fucker. That swing was a thing of art!

The two halves of the Captain's face created a ‘V’ shape that stretched down to near his neck and all sorts of weird shit were spilling out to pool on the ground.

“Gaah! Fuck!” I yelled in shock as the eyes blinked at me. One from each side. I panicked and kicked the body away and it twitched again before going still. “Fucking regeneration crap!”

There was a whimper from behind me and I turned back around, the axe still hanging at my side with little bits of the Captain dripping off it. Titus hadn’t moved from his place against the wall. He was slumped in on himself, a broken twisted shell of a man. He wasn’t causing any problems.

I took one last look back down the alley at Nel. She was wiping the blade of her dagger clean on Tam’s shirt, his body lay unmoving.

“I can’t let you live,” I said quietly to Titus as I walked towards him. “it’s not in my nature to leave a threat behind me and the one time I did…look around. This is a fucking mess.”

Titus watched my advance, his mouth shaking as snot ran from his nose. His eyes were empty even as tears rolled down his cheeks to disappear in his beard. The odd whimper escaped him.

“I’ve decided to find the cause of the infection that's turning the Denvii batshit crazy and I’ll probably come across your boy if they have him. I can’t promise I’ll save him, that was the one she made,” I pointed at Nel before crouching in front of him and placing the axe blade against his throat. He didn’t fight or push me away, he just kept staring at me with those empty dark eyes. “but if she tries then I’ll try and who knows…maybe we’ll succeed and your boy will be free.”

There was a spark of hope, somewhere deep in those dark orbs, and that's when I overclocked enough to push the axe completely through his neck and sever his head from his shoulders.

No man should die so devoid of hope.

I stood up and jerked the axe from the wound before jumping back as the blood vessels and arteries the axe blade had been blocking were free and their ruby red contents went spraying everywhere. Even with my precautions I still got some on me.

“God, I hope the kid's mother is alive,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head.

I looked around the alleyway, now littered with bodies and dripping with blood. This was not good! Someone was bound to walk past and look down the alley, or the guard the Captain had sent off would come back. We needed to move. Fast.

Nel was bent over, her arms up to the elbows in her pack. She looked up when I approached and pulled something out before throwing it at me. I caught the soft bundle and held it out. It was a cloak, much like hers but a darker shade of green, almost black, and the edges were worn and frayed in places.

“It’s a little short but will have to do,” She said, her attention already back on her pack.

I picked up one of the shirts that had flown out of my sack during the start of the fight and used the now dirty cloth to wipe the blood off my axe head and my hands. That done, I sheathed the weapon and threw the cloak around my shoulders. It stopped halfway down my calf and forearms and was tight across the shoulders. I ended up hunched in on myself but it hid most of the bloodstains so I put up with it.

Nel hadn’t been idle. She’d pulled out a wide range of items and they now littered the ground. The pack, deflated and empty, was slung across her front and she started adding things back into it, stopping now and again to adjust something.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, looking back over my shoulder at the mouth of the alley. “We need to move! If someone comes by and sees this, we’re fucked. I can’t take on the whole garrison.”

I think. I mean, I am pretty awesome, so it could happen but I’d rather not find out.

“And what do you think would happen if someone saw these?” Nel hissed back, her spider legs waving around.

“I thought this was a trade town? Wouldn’t there be other Denvii around?”

“Not judging by the way those idiots were acting!” Nel’s legs stabbed out at all the dead bodies.

I watched two of the legs curl around across her torso in an X shape, another two wrapped around her waist and the last two hung down, hugging her human feet. The pack nestled over her stomach and with a grunt of effort, she threw her cloak back around her and pulled the hood up, covering everything. She affected a stooped posture, the pack hanging heavy at her stomach as the legs made her hips look large and a little deformed.

Looking down so the lip of her hood hid her face she walked with a limp towards me, her body shaking and shuddering. Honestly, she looked like some overweight hag with a gimpy foot if you didn’t look too close.

“You really think that's going to work?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

She lifted her head, her eyes glaring at me from the shadow of her hood. “It’s the best we have! I wasn’t expecting to have to hide so I left my leg hiding spell back at home.”

“Holy shit! There’s a leg hiding spell?”

“No!” Nel let out an exasperated sigh “I was being sarcastic. Now pass me your hand, and stop walking so straight.”

We walked out of the alley at a calm pace. As if nothing were wrong in the world. I looked like a guard or concerned son helping his fuck ugly, deformed, lumpy mother go about her daily walk.

The alley exited onto an old cobblestone street lined with buildings in various shades of cream. Wooden shutters covered most of the windows and the doors were closed. The place looked deserted and I wondered if that was some security thing? No one wanted to be right next to the wall if it were attacked. I glanced back over my shoulder and looked at the wooden ledge that ran along the top of the wall. I couldn’t see the guard that was meant to be on patrol which was good. Masters of disguise that we were, we still stuck out like a sore thumb simply by being the only people out and about.

“We need to find a crowd and blend in,” I said to Nel, looking around at the buildings and street.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, making for an adjacent street. “Find a way to talk to the mayor? He might be the best source of information. There’s just so much that’s not adding up.”

“You do realize that he’s probably the most well-protected individual in this town at the moment right?” Nel said, shuffling along next to me.

“Probably,” I admitted, glancing around as we moved passed more buildings, I could hear more noise from up ahead but for the moment we were still alone and obvious.“Where the fuck is everyone when you need them!”

That’s when the shrill sound of a whistle tore through the air from behind us. Cussing, I kept my head down and pulled Nel along as the road slowly sloped upwards. More whistles rang out, three sharp blasts that tore through the air and set me nerves on edge.

“Easy,” I said to Nel. “Remember, you’re an old lady. Don’t walk too fast. Guilty people run. Innocent people walk around like chickens with their heads cut off wondering what's happening.”

I pushed a trickle of energy into my hearing augments and focused on the sounds around us. I could make out the jumbled hubbub of noise from above that spoke of a town not completely in lockdown. The sharp rap of boots on stone reached me seconds before a man dressed in the same yellow tabard as the Captain came hurtling around the corner of a building ahead of us. He was without chainmail and the sword at his waist flapped about as he ran down the slope.

I continued moving slowly, my head down and my ears following his movements. Nel shrunk in on herself more, her arm still wrapped around my elbow for ‘support’. The hurried footsteps slowed down and I fought back a cuss.

Thinking fast I looked up, furrowing my brows into a scowl, and locked eyes with the guard. He was young and freshly shaved. His hair was little more than stubble. His eyes, clear and blue, eyed me with suspicion.

“Ya there! Guard!” I snapped, falling back into Dockside slang and trying to emulate the same accent Tam and them had had. “What’s going on? Is it those Denvii? Are we ta be attacked?”

I saw most of his suspicions vanish when I spoke directly to him and even questioned him.

“Head back to your home and bar the doors!” He barked, jogging passed us as more whistles rent the air.

“But is it them Denvii?” I yelled after his back. He didn’t respond and we were already moving.

The buildings around us changed as the slop evened out. They were more colorful and the streets marginally cleaner. Windows were thrown open and voices drifted out of them. Also, there were people. A lot of people. One second there was no one, then there was an onslaught of people as they went about their days. Adults stood in pairs or groups, talking and laughing as children ran between their legs.

It looked cheerful. The women were dressed in colorful but simple clothing and carrying baskets and bags, the men laughed and joked, some had pipes hanging from their lips. It was cheerful and it was wrong.

I noticed it as Nel and I slipped into the press of bodies almost unnoticed. Everyone was too happy. The laughs were loud, too loud, and they came too often. The smiles were stuck in place and showed too much teeth. Eyes were too wide, the whites too obvious and occasionally they would flicker towards the wall and the sound of the whistles.

The people were afraid and they had been for some time. So long in fact that they had to leave their homes and go back about their business, so they acted as if everything was alright once in public and hoped it would be.

“Are you still determined to meet the mayor?” Nel asked.

“It’s the quickest way to finding out what’s going on with the Denvii and the abductions. I don’t want to use the Champion card unless I have to but I will if it gets me what I want...That is unless you have a contact here?” I maneuvered us around a cluster and men and women talking about the rising price of goods in the market.

“No. I only came here irregularly and the Brood traders never stayed here long. Perhaps if we can find out what happened to the other Denvii who lived here, I think a few lived near the market but I’m not certain…I know the Dryads kept a permanent stall along with the Harpies. Maybe we can check there.”

“The Dryads have herpes?”

“Harpies.” Nel corrected. “They send their young down from the mountains to practice their arts among the masses.”

“Okay, whatever. Is the market on the way to the Mayor's house?”

“Seeing as the Mayor's house is at the very top of the hill and everything is on the way there, yes.”

“We head to the market and have a quick snoop around,” I said, the plan formulating in my mind. “if we can find a Dryad or Harpie to question then great. The longer we’re just walking around the more likely it’ll be someone will get curious and I doubt the Guards are just going to ignore the bodies so we can’t spend too long on the street. I say thirty minutes to snoop around, if we don’t find a Denvii by then we continue to the Mayor.”

Arm in arm and as fast as we dared but as slow as was natural we made our way around the people and along the streets. I had no idea about the layout of the town but that was the beauty of its design. I knew I needed to go up if I wanted to get to the market and eventually the Mayor’s so all I had to do was pick a street with an upward slope. Impossible to get lost.

The buildings grew in height as we walked up and the change to the people and what they wore were more subtle. It was the small changes that stood out though. The woman wore jewelry and the precious stones and metals sparkled in the sunlight. The men were more often clean shaved than bearded. The coat of paint on the buildings was more fresh, less faded and chipped. The windows had wrought iron bars in fancy designs.

“These are the merchant houses,” Nel informed me. “Above them are the markets and above that the most successful traders and those belong to the House of Hoe.”

House of Hoe...hehe...my mind went to a dirty place.

The market was crowded with people and the noise almost deafening. Stalls lined the sidewalk and spilled onto the roads. Carts took up space in the alleyways and corners as people hawked their goods from the driver's seat. The buildings were more open with wider doors and windows and cloth awnings provided shade across the front.

“This is insane!” I almost had to shout to be heard and Nel pulled her cloak tighter around her.

Masses of people moved about in a chaotic blur of haste and greed. One lady stood near us, her hands on her plump waistline, as she yelled at a small withered man behind a counter. The man was giving as good as he got and was waving a carrot in her face. She tossed a bunch of coins at him and scooped up a bundle of some leafy green vegetables before tossing them into the wicker basket at her foot, picking it up, and stomping off.

“Most work for the larger houses,” Nel explained. “And I doubt they care about the missing people or the Denvii.”

“Too distant and too early.”

“What do you mean?” Nel’s hood twitched towards me and I knew she was fighting back the urge to look up at me.

“Well think about it, the way this town is set up with the rich overlooking the rest, the market in the middle to cater to both sides,” I shrugged. “It’s all about the money. The big houses probably don’t care about what’s happening until it directly affects their way of life and it’s too early for that.”

“It’s disgusting,” Nel said. “The Brood watch their own and if one falls on hard times, we all fall on hard times.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you: that whole one for all and all for one crap, it creeps me out. This,” I waved at the people around us. “This I understand. It’s like Dockside, Money talks. Now come on, we need to go look for the Denvii before guards start swarming this place looking for suspicious individuals.”

I followed Nel as she led me down the street and around a few bends.

“It’s gone.” She said, looking at a man selling rolls of brightly colored cloth from a stall. “They’re stall used to be right here.”

“Hold a moment,” I said, releasing her hand.

The man looked up as my shadow fell across him. “Hello good sir, come to see my wares? Pick out something for the wife? A brightly colored outfit for a special dress, perhaps? Important man like yourself no doubt attends all sorts of functions. Come closer.”

I got to give him credit. He almost sounded like he believed I was important even though I looked homeless in my too-small cloak

“Ain’t here for no cloth,” I growled, slipping into character. “Looking for those thrice blasted Vegetable heads, used to run this stall for’ you came long.”

The man blinked at my rough tone but then a smile turned his frown upside down when he realized I wasn’t angry with him but with the Denvii, just like everyone else. Common enemies make everyone think their friends.

“Oh, they got run off by the guard after the last raid by their people, hmmm,” The man tapped his chin in thought. “That would be two days ago. The Mayor hasn’t actively hunted them down but I think it’s only a matter of time before he does. The people aren’t too happy with them.”

“I ain't too happy with them!”

“I understand your sentiments, good sir. Yes indeed! But you aren’t going to find them out here. They’ve left the city or all in hiding.” The man smiled. “Now, would you like to buy some of the finest Sandashi Silk this side of the Great Sea?”

“Do I look like I wanna buy ya silk?” I scoffed before turning around and making my way to the waiting hunched form of Nel.

“They went into hiding two days ago, or they left town. He didn’t know and I don’t think he cared.” I told her. “Do you still want to look for them?”

“No,” she said sadly. “I have no idea where to look next and you’re right. We need to keep moving.”

“Might be a little late for that,” I growled as I heard a whistle blowing in short, sharp tones.

Looking over Nel’s shoulder I caught sight of a group of Guards as they pushed through the crowd, their yellow tabards flashing as they walked. Occasionally one of them would step out of the group to roust someone. Normally this involved pushing them against a building and holding onto their collar while yelling questions in their faces.

I knew the type. Thugs more than guards.

“Fuck,” I growled. Looked like I might be taking on a whole garrison.