Scallion and Coarse were supposed to be watching the prisoners.

But, when Scallion thought about it, what was there to watch?

Prisoners sit in their cells, bound in their chains, and all they can do is croak and cry about it all day.

What’s there to watch?

Easiest job he’d ever done, except for the boredom. So Scallion and Coarse passed the time by rolling bones.

This was no simple street game.

“Now, this new game, I learnt it from a couple of old Bonebeaks, gods let ’em rot,” Scallion said.

Of course, Coarse didn’t grasp the rules. Coarse didn’t grasp much of anything unless it involved bashing and bruising and breaking.

“This ain’t no new game,” Coarse complained, scratching the back of his fat head with one black-feathered hand. “This is just broadsides with different numbers.”

“This ain’t nothing like broadsides, you dumb twit.”

“Is so.”

“You’re thick in the head. So thick I reckon if you fell off a tower, the street would break before your skull did.”

Coarse looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t know how. He leaned forward, his oversized body making his leathers creak as he inspected the dice as if somehow they would explain the game.

So Scallion decided to clue him in.

“Broadsides is nothing but simple betting. You know the odds going in, and you just guess ’em.”

“I like betting.”

“Well, then, my old friend. You’re gonna like this game, because this one’s better betting. It’s called Fair’s Fair.”

“How do you win?”

Scallion hid a smile. Now Fair’s Fair, this was a clever game. Rewarded smart thinking, quick counting, and sometimes a bit of sleight of hand. Which meant Scallion had quite the edge over Coarse. Soon, his purse would be fatter than Coarse after breakfast.

Scallion showed him the basics, and they played a full round. Live, no practicing. Already, the coins were flowing his way. But a dim light of understanding started to dawn in Coarse’s beady little eyes.

Fair’s Fair was played with cups and dice, but you never got to see the other players’ rolls until the end of the round. A proper gutter game. On the second round, Scallion rolled first. Then Coarse. Then Scallion rolled and hissed at his numbers.

Coarse grinned and picked up his cup, intending to roll again.

Scallion slapped his cup back down, spilling the dice across their squat, wooden table marred with knife marks and chicken scratch. One of the dice fell into the seed bowl sitting between them, mostly dry shells now.

“You idiot,” Scallion said, “it’s still my roll. If I think you’ve got doubles, see, I can challenge again.”

“But I don’t have doubles.”

“Liar,” Scallion crowed. “I can always tell when you’re lying.”

He could. Here was Coarse, a thick-necked, thick-skulled street thug, with that stupid yellow stripe on his throat. Trying to pull one over on old Scallion, a true featherhand who made his living on the noblest of Highcity pockets. Well, that, and this guard duty. Gods-damned debts. At least the imperials paid well enough.

Scallion made a show of letting his fingers fall to the hilt of his knife. He wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t actually pull a knife, unless Coarse made him do it. But that’s why he liked playing with old Coarse—he was as docile as the lamest hatchling in the nest. That is, unless he was paid to bruise you.

Down the prison block, a voice moaned from one of the cells. A painful kind of moan, the kind that made you cringe a little in your own gut, like you were feeling some kind of pain, too.

“Go check on him,” Scallion said, tossing a nod toward the cells. Down the hall, a lone gaslight sputtered out a greasy black smoke that made the shadows dance on the stone walls.

“Not me.” Coarse shook his dumb, feathered head. “I won this round, didn’t I?”

Coarse lifted his cup, showing his double sixes. Grinning like a street fledgling who stole his first pocket watch. A funny look for such a short and stubby avian. Coarse was all muscle, but where he got it from, Scallion never knew. All the dumb thug ever did was eat and sit like a stump.

“Nay, that was only a practice round, that was,” Scallion whined. “I was only showing you the game, weren’t I?”

“You took my coin.”

“Did I?”

“It’s your turn to check, Scallion. Fair’s fair.”

“Fair’s fair?”

“Yeah,” Coarse said, a smug little grin creasing the corner of his beak. “That’s what the game is called, isn’t it? Means I won, so you got to go check on him.”

That grin made Scallion’s blood boil. Now his fingers did wrap around the hilt of his knife, and he thought about flashing it right up to Coarse’s fat neck. Make him beg for forgiveness.

But.

The shift was young, and Scallion had plenty of time to fleece Coarse out of his wages. Better to keep the idiot’s spirits up for now.

“All right, Coarse.” Scallion didn’t bother to hide his clever smile. “All right. Fair’s fair.”

Scallion pushed himself out of the chair and brushed the seeds off his trousers. “Next round, we’re playing for triple.”

Then, he thought, I’ll show you what’s fair.

Scallion scuffled down the hall, his talons clicking on the stone. All this dust made him thirsty, made him want for a drink.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The new prisoner was in the last cell at the end of the hall. Nice and fresh. The bluescales threw him down here only a week ago.

“If you can make him talk,” the imps told him, “you’ll earn a whole week’s pay.”

Most prisoners wanted to do nothing but talk. They’d sing like jungle canaries, sing you any song you like if they thought you’d listen to them. I’m innocent. I wasn’t even there. Scales got the wrong guy. Sing, sing, sing.

But this one was different. Never opened his beak if he didn’t have to. Still, it would be a bit of fun to try and make him squawk anyway. Bit of fun, indeed.

Scallion made his way down the prison block. Most of the cells were empty, just bars and shadows. A little unusual, but given the current events, Scallion suspected the bluescales weren’t taking many prisoners lately. Didn’t matter to him as long as he got paid.

And the cells that weren’t empty, well, Scallion and Coarse made regular beatings to keep the prisoners quiet. Hard work, yes, but satisfying stuff.

This newest prisoner, a big old corvani from Lowtown, was supposed to be “high value,” whatever that meant. But why would the imperials shove a high-value prisoner down here? Then again, who knows why the bluescales do anything?

To Scallion, a prisoner was a prisoner. Good for a bit of fun and not much else.

Another moan came from the corvani’s cell, sounding even sicker than the last.

It was too dark to see into the cell at the end of the block. Normally, the moonlight would show in from the barred windows, but tonight, with the Empire making a clean sweep of the city, burning half the Cauldron, all the sky was black. Not to mention that big boat with the hole in it, floating in the sky.

“All right,” Scallion breathed into the darkness at the end of the row. “What’s this then?”

He could see the shape of an avian sitting on the floor. Slumped against the bars. An old corvani, lumpy and shapeless in the shadows. “You. What’s all this moaning about?”

The shape of the avian did not move.

Scallion rapped a talon on the bars. “Don’t like your room? Here, let me see if I can make it better.”

He pulled out his long knife and slid it through the bars, meaning to give the corvani a little tickle between the ribs.

A talon shot out from the wrong corner of the cell, huge and grisly.

The bastard had tricked him—but Scallion was quicker than that. He skirted out of the talon’s reach.

The prisoner shoved his great black beak between the bars, snapping and hissing and cawing his frustration. Chains wrapped around his hands, and his feet caught against the bars, and metal raked on metal.

“Ho-ho! You almost got me, you did. Bit of a spring for someone your age, isn’t it?” And then he called over his shoulder, “Hey, Coarse! New prisoner almost got me!”

“Did he?” Coarse’s voice came back from down the hall.

“I think someone’s due for a clipping. Get me the snappers, will you, Coarse? And one of the burners, too. I think this one might be ready to talk after all.”

Scallion never took his eyes off the prisoner, all huge and angry and totally helpless.

He could hear Coarse taking his sweet time digging through the tool cabinet. The fumbling of keys, something heavy being dropped against the bottom of the cabinet.

“You going to take all day, Coarse?”

“Still looking!” the other avian called back.

But the shift was young, and Scallion had all the time he could ever need. While he waited, he tapped his knife against the bars, making a meaningful tink-tinking sound. “I bet you’ve got a good set of pipes on you. Are you a screamer? Or do you prefer to beg?”

Another wooden bang echoed down the prison block. Clumsy git.

“Quit messing about!” Scallion called down the prison block. “Haven’t got all day, have we?”

A new light was pouring into the prison block from the hall out yonder. Bright enough to make Scallion blink a few times.

Another bang followed by a mewling squawk.

“Coarse?”

Scallion turned to see an avian standing in the light at the end of the block. Not Coarse. A corvani, midheight and corded in the kind of muscle Scallion always thought of as the thief’s build.

Strangest of all, the newcomer had a fake hand. All glinting metal, and fingers made to look almost like real fingers. Quality work, that, Scallion couldn’t help but think. Nice and shiny. Worth something, I reckon.

“Is this block F?” the stranger spoke. His voice came out a dry, ragged drawl. As if it had been a very long day, and he was tired of not getting what he wanted.

Scallion didn’t know why he answered, but he did. “That’s right.” Something about the newcomer’s stance, as if he were meant to be there and Scallion was the one intruding.

The stranger’s talons clicked on the hard prison floor. He pushed past Scallion without a second glance. When he reached the prisoner’s cell, the stranger clamped his metal hand around the iron door handle.

Those metal fingers looked so real as they moved. Some fancy tinker work, Scallion thought. Or maybe even old tech.

The stranger squeezed the door handle, squeezed through it as if the wrought iron were as soft as warm butter.

The door swung open.

“Horace,” the newcomer said into the darkness of the prison cell.

“Well,” the prisoner answered. “Aren’t you the last person I ever thought to see.”

“This is me, paying my debt.”

“Which one?”

“All of them. Or would you rather keep the chains on?”

The name Horace stirred a memory in Scallion. Wasn’t one of the Lowtown bosses called Horace?

But the better part of his mind was distracted by that hand. It really did look like old tech. Wonder what it costs.

Wonder what I could get for it . . .

He could call for Coarse, but then he might have to share in whatever this was. And where was that lazy lout, anyway?

Scallion’s hands wandered down to his knife. He slid it out of its sheath as quietly as possible.

The stranger was already snapping the prisoner’s chains with that hand of his. As easy as twigs.

A thin, strained voice whispered up from the depths of Scallion’s mind. Maybe you should go. Just walk away from this. But Scallion had never been a very good listener.

Horace the prisoner was rubbing at the places on his wrist where the shackles had bitten his skin. He was talking to the newcomer as if Scallion weren’t standing right there, half hidden in the shadows.

“Let me guess. You’ve got a job?”

“I do,” the silver-handed stranger said.

“Well?”

“Remember when we first saw the Fangs? You had a plan to take them out.”

“Ah.” The prisoner sank back into his cell. “Eolh, if that’s what you want, you’d better put these chains back on me right now.”

“It’s going to work.”

“That’s what we said last time. Nineteen years ago. Remember Ivan? They never found his beak. Just bits of feather. We never even got to test the explosives on the Fangs, anyway. What if they weren’t strong enough?”

“They weren’t,” a new voice said. Scallion hadn’t noticed this newcomer at all. Gods damn you, Coarse, where did you go?

This newcomer was a xeno. Slender and short, like a fledgling that still wanted to grow. And when the xeno took off his hood, Scallion felt a rush of memory surging through his mind. Incense, and holy song, and temples lined with statues of the gods.

Now, the voice in his head was shouting at him: You should not be here.

Even Horace lost his cool. “By the gods,” his voice shook, “is that really him?”

The xeno—the human—answered, “Your explosives wouldn’t have scratched the drones. But I have a better way. I can let you in.”

Scallion was no gutless gaskal, nor was he a sniveling redenite. He was an old hand, and this was his prison.

But there’s three of them! that little voice shouted. One of them a living god!

Scallion’s one advantage was that all three were content to ignore him. The only thing standing between Scallion and the exit was the human.

The bluescales were looking for the human, weren’t they?

A clever thought whispered through his mind. You could be rich, Scal. His fingers tightened around the hilt of the knife. Richer than a king.

“Horace, we need your help,” the corvani thief said. “We need people who aren’t afraid to fly.”

“You mean you need people who aren’t afraid to die. And for what, Eolh? For a city that spits on us?”

“Do it for Lowtown. Do it for those who’ve already left us.”

“Jouri is dead, Eolh. Everything is different now. You think I can just walk out into that burned-out city and find two dozen suicidal avians, just like that?”

“We did it before.”

“Nineteen years ago,” he said again. He shook his head, staring down at his broken chains. “Is this your price, then? Is this what I have to pay to walk out of here?”

“No,” Eolh said. “You’re free, and we’re square. And this is me asking my old friend for a favor.”

Horace the prisoner put his winged arms behind his back and stretched with a groan.

Scallion could see it now. This is your chance—while they’re distracted.

He took a slow, careful step.

The prisoner exploded out of the cell and smashed him to the floor with a screech. One grisly talon bit into Scallion’s arm, making him drop the knife. The other wrapped around Scallion’s neck, squeezing so tight he couldn’t even gurgle before he died.

The prisoner kicked Scallion’s corpse into the cell, wiping his talons on the dead avian’s clothes.

Then he turned to Eolh. “Have it your way, old friend. Let’s take back this gods-damned city.”