The sky was grey as ice. As always, the Foot’s streets were quieter than a mausoleum. Two men and two women dressed in brown stalked their prey from roof to roof, unassuming were it not for the ravenous look in their eyes. They looked like a pack of starving wolves – minus the sleek fur and noble visage. Divine dexterity fuelled their movements; their movements were fluid, bringing to mind snakes dancing to an inaudible tune. Their quarry was oblivious; the killers were impossible to spot without first knowing they were there.

Captain Jackson of the Old Guard stumbled beneath them, a thousand wounds curdling with rot. The giant’s face was pale and strained, his eyes bloodshot. He sweated and gasped like someone hanging from a noose. The red lamellar armour that served as his badge of office was splintered in several places, now less than functional. His weapon – a halberd covered in blackened flesh – was dragged behind him by a limp arm. Here was the visage of a dying man. Nevertheless, the Oxblood continued onward.

The boy who was once Tasmaronian Barberfellow watched the group approach. He had been given many names: ‘Tas’, ‘Master Barberfellow’, ‘boy’, ‘spy’, ‘hostage’, ‘meat’, and, most recently, ‘Bab’. There were enough to get lost in. It had been a long time since he had been sure which one was him.

He liked Bab the best, though.

Bab stepped out into the street, directly in front of the Captain. The gargantuan man barely managed to avoid trampling him, instead falling against the side of a building. He turned to issue a rebuke to the scribe, vague recognition in his gaze, however Bab was already scampering away.

An assassin leapt from a rooftop, daggers plunging towards Captain Jackson’s neck.

The giant twisted around and thrust his weapon upward, impaling the woman through the chest. However, the motion gave him no space to dodge or deflect the arrows flying towards him. Two embedded themselves in his left arm, while another narrowly missed his knee. The killers were silent from their vantage. Jackson spun, and flung the weakly struggling assassin towards the trio. They scattered, one falling to the street while the two others jumped to separate roofs, their comrade crunching where they had stood moments ago.

As the fight began in earnest, Bab ran into a nearby building. If he interfered, chances were a stray arrow or swing would end up killing him. He wouldn’t put it past his so-called ‘allies’ to use him as a shield either. Even so, he wanted to stay nearby; the fate of his family was riding on the outcome of this battle.

Peeking out the window saw Captain Jackson decorated with five more arrows, using his meaty fists to send vicious jabs at one of his assailants. His halberd had fallen beside him – too slow of a weapon to match the Foxbloods attacking him. With inhuman agility, the dagger-wielder flowed around the Oxblood’s punches, opening cuts on his trunk-like arms. Yellow pus dripped where his rotting wounds were reopened. Yet the slices remained relatively superficial – Jackson always managed to pull away just in time.

Time was not on the giant’s side. Two more wounds opened as he attempted to hit his combatant, every attempt dodged or slipped minutely, while arrows began peppering his body from the rooftops. The Blooded was flagging under the onslaught. With infection ravaging his body, it was astounding he was only just beginning to run out of breath.

With a thrust of a dagger, the assassin buried his weapon to the hilt in Jackson’s arm and began ripping it through his forearm. That turned out to be a fatal error; the killer was too busy trying to cause more damage to avoid a blurring fist, which punched through flesh and bone like a hammer through butter. Gore splattered across the street, and the Oxblood lifted the corpse with his still undamaged right arm, using it to block several arrows. Once again, he tossed the body towards his remaining foes.

Then he charged towards Bab’s building.

The scribe cursed and hurried away from the wall as Captain Jackson crashed through it, shattering the sandstone as if it were made of leaves. Bab scrambled behind a cabinet, yet a hand was already curling around his leg, hurling him against an unbroken wall. The boy curled on the floor, breathing heavily, wondering why he wasn’t dead.

“I HAVE YOUR BOY!” came a sonorous bellow. Bab covered his ears, wincing, but the words managed to penetrate anyway. “LEAVE ME BE, AND HE WILL LIVE!”

The response came in the form of a high-pitched voice, almost completely obfuscated by the ringing in Bab’s skull. “Do you have any proof, Sir Oxblood?”

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Jackson nudged him with a booted foot. “Speak,” he commanded in his deep, rumbling tones, “speak, and you’ll live, little scribe.” Bab gulped. The Captain had recalled who he was.

“I-it’s me!” he called. “Uh, uh, Jackson, he uh, he’s got me!”

Everything was silent for a moment, besides the Oxblood’s laboured breathing and the slow drip of blood falling to the ground. Then, from outside: “Alright! Get yourself gone, Sir Oxblood!”

“IF YOU DON’T MIND…” Jackson panted, then spat a gob of phlegm on the ground. “I’LL BE TAKING THE KID WITH ME!”

“Okay, okay!”

He grabbed Bab by the scruff of his shirt and hauled him upright, then began dragging him backwards through the derelict house. They emerged out the opposite side. The remaining male assassin stood on the street, an arrow cocked in their direction.

“ALRIGHT!” the ground shook with the force of the Oxblood’s expansive voice, “LET’S TAKE IT NICE AND EASY!”

The Foxbloods let them retreat further before they struck. The archer fired his shot directly at Bab. Jackson cursed, then flung the boy away, catching the arrow with his left arm once again. He began charging towards her, only to be intercepted by the remaining killer, who leapt off a roof, daggers poised, in nearly the exact same motion that saw their comrade impaled moments earlier. This time, however, the giant was missing his halberd.

Captain Jackson thrust his fist upward, missing the falling assassin slightly as the woman twisted her body mid-air, wrapping herself around the Oxblood’s thick arm. He howled as she plunged her dagger into the giant’s good arm, repeatedly. Arrows flew constantly, however most missed his madly staggering form. Jackson weakly battered at her with his other arm, yet studded with arrows as it was, the motion lost all force, his efforts next to useless. The killer slithered like a snake, ripping open flesh, sinew, cartilage, and veins. Pus and blood spewed across the street. With a roar, the giant leapt onto the ground, crushing her under his weight.

Bab watched as the woman shrieked, one of her legs twisting unnaturally. Jackson staggered upright, and the killer began hopping away, only for her back to be crushed under the immense weight of the giant’s boot. She wailed, and with his opposite foot, he squashed her skull like an overripe grape.

An arrow glanced off of his thick skull, opening a small cut. The injury paled in comparison to his mangled arm, dangling uselessly in a waterfall of severed muscles and bursting blood. He turned his back to the marksman, hunching into a ball as he tore strips of fabric off the dead woman’s clothes. His fingers shook as they clumsily wrapped the fabric around his ruined upper-arm, tying it tight enough to turn the skin around it white. Yet the blood didn’t stop.

Arrows pierced his monstrously muscled back. The onslaught suddenly stopped. The archer had run out of ammunition. Bab saw the man sprinting towards another quiver, still attached to the second assassin killed. Captain Jackson staggered upright, shafts sticking out of his entire left side, looking like the victim of some overzealous acupuncturist who had then taken a saw to an unprotesting client. Bab watched in a stunned stupor as the Oxblood began stumbling forward. He picked up speed.

The killer slid for the quiver, yet Jackson was faster. The final assassin was trampled into a gory paste.

Bab stilled, hoping the giant would forget he existed. Jackson turned, and began slowly walking back down the street, in the direction he was originally heading. His steps became smaller and smaller. The giant’s fall sent a cloud of dust flying into the air.

The gambit had succeeded. It had cost House Leyden four Foxbloods, but they had the blood of one of the world’s greatest generals. It was worth ten times its weight in gold – generations of Blooded would have added their mark to the Oxblood, inscribed remnants of their life into the godsblood. The effect was usually minor, however this particular strain had been in human veins for a long time, accumulating more and more power with each generation. Taking it from the Esfarians would be a massive blow.

Bab saw the logic, yet all it meant to him was him and his family’s heads were back on the chopping block. If Leyden’s cell in the Foot was wiped out, the execution of three generations of Barberfellows would immediately follow, orchestrated by dead-eyed Blooded on dark, clouded nights. It was the House's promise to him. But they had succeeded, and so Bab would be threatened back into slavery. And he was sure Master Reagan would be livid at being denied whatever secret he pursued so vehemently; the expedition was meant to provide an opportunity to steal it. The Master was never pleasant, but his fury was always painful.

The worst part was, they would probably kill him when their business in the Foot was done. All he had been through, only to end up at the bottom of a shallow grave, in the middle of nowhere. Like he had never existed at all.

Still. The scribe’s thoughts moved at breakneck speed. There were five Blooded, dead or dying in the street. The Leydenese would recover the spilled divinity by the end of the day, he was sure. Things would go back to how they used to be. He would spy, steal, and betray, and then he would die.

Or, he could take a chance, and commandeer the power splattered across the street. Maybe, if he made himself important enough, he could keep his family, his new friend, and himself all safe. He could live. Everyone could live.

The hope was thin and strained and an executioner's blade hung above it, but it was all he had. He knew there was no other choice.

The sky was grey as ice. He gripped the broken wing dangling from his wrist.

Bab lowered his lips to a corpse.