The corner of the tavern had a small ladder installed for the chimney sweepers, and Stasia dashed up the rungs to the rooftop. From there she sprinted, her powerful legs easily vaulting the narrow gaps between buildings. The boisterous laughter of the soldiers attracted her like a beacon, and she caught up to them when they stopped at another alleyway. Two stood at the entrance while a third loosened his belt and pulled down his pants so he could piss.

“Couldn’t you have done that inside?” one of the two at the entrance muttered.

“I didn’t need to then,” the pissing man shouted back.

Stasia crouched at the rooftop edge. The world tinted red, colored by the stubborn tears in her eyes and painted with a hateful brush. She lifted her ax. An ambush would have been smarter, but she didn’t want victory. She wanted a fight. She wanted blood.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked.

The pissing man heard her growl and looked drunkenly toward the sky.

“What the—”

His statement abruptly ended with her ax smashing directly into his open mouth. The edge sank down to his shoulder, so when she ripped it free, his jaw and clavicle tore with it. Blood splashed across Stasia’s hands, and it was a warm pleasure against the night’s biting cold. She kicked the dying man away and greeted the other two soldiers with the saber-toothed grin of her mask.

“Bloody hell,” said the scarred man. The other took the lead, his sword gleaming in the reflection of the moon. Stasia blocked his downward swing with the handle of her ax, and as the sound of metal on metal rang in her ears, she shoved the ax upward, swiped sideways to earn herself needed space, and then slipped past.

It was madness, putting herself directly between two opponents, but she wanted the scarred man first. Let them surround her, she thought, let them try. A scream was bellowing from her throat, one she did not remember starting. She blocked a chop, ducked underneath a swing from behind her, and came up and around while thrusting the sharpened spike at the bottom of her ax handle. It punched below the breastplate and sank several inches in the direction of his lungs. The man screamed, wet and weak. Not the scarred man. Not her desired prey. She ripped the spike free and twirled.