“Come on.” Doors turned. Left the dying officer behind. Started hurrying back towards the Sparway. Towards the Agriont. Didn’t know what’d happen when they got there, just like they hadn’t known what’d happen when they started kicking that officer.

Regrets were for tomorrow.

“They’re here.” Shawley watched a set run down the alley below, footsteps clapping from the fronts of the narrow buildings, and he tossed back the last of his wine and swung his legs from the window seat.

“Who’s here?” slurred Rill, her eyes all unfocused from the husk.

“The Breakers, you fucking dunce,” and he planted his hand on her face and shoved her back onto the bed. She caught her head on the headboard as she fell, and put fingers to her scalp, and the tips came away bloody, and Shawley had to burst out laughing. He’d always been quite the joker.

He took his hatchet from the table and slid the haft up his sleeve. “Good time to settle some scores, I reckon.” And he perched his hat on his head at just the right angle, straightened his collar in the mirror, took one last pinch of pearl dust, then trotted jauntily down the stairs and out into the street.

There was an explosive feel to the air. A feel of things ripped up so they could be put back together a new way. A woman ran past him, screaming, or maybe laughing, and Shawley tipped his hat to her. He was known for his good manners. Then he stood out of the way so some men could dash by, gripping his axe all the while. Just in case, you understand. He wasn’t the only one with scores to settle, and Shawley had a lot of enemies. Always had a talent for making ’em.

He passed a ragged old couple stripping a dead officer lying in a slick of blood and swaggered on, keeping his head down, sticking to the back streets and the shortcuts. Always had a knack for finding his way. He’d been worried that getting through Arnault’s Wall might be a problem. Been thinking about slipping through the sewers, though it would’ve ruined the nice boots he’d stolen off that merchant. But the Sable Gate stood wide open. Must’ve been a fight there, a crowd dragging the bloody corpses of some King’s Own up onto the walls. The guts were hanging out of one. The head was off another. Shawley had no clue where it might’ve ended up. Seemed impolite to ask. He tipped his hat to a hideous woman with no more than four teeth in her head and slipped through the gate.

He could hear the violence, further on. The mad noise, spreading through the richer districts inside Arnault’s Wall. They might call it the People’s Army, and there might be a few high principles tossed about, but if you wanted his opinion, there were plenty of thugs with pretty excuses mixed in, and no small number who weren’t even bothering with the excuses, just turning a quick profit from the chaos. Evidence of their handiwork all over. Shawley stopped to filch a nice ring off a corpse that someone had left begging. Always been blessed with sharp eyes.