…focus on helping the family escape.

All things considered, it’s not much of a choice. You’re here to save people, first and foremost; before it was by killing a woman, now it’s by saving those you can.

You move, pushing away from the window before climbing the gentle slope of the roof, passing over its highest point and carefully sliding down the other side. The building below should be the one the family ran into, and it’s fairly well tiled roof is within an easy drop. You climb over the edge and hang down, your toes just touching the roofs highest point when your finger tips are stretched to their limit, and you drop, splitting your legs painfully on each side of the tiles.

The yells and screams behind you bleed through the walls as the riot escalates. You acted without thinking when you poisoned the barrel, and you’ve done it again right now, rushing to save the family before asking yourself how. You don’t dwell on the decision, just regret not thinking it through more clearly; there’s no windows here, barred or otherwise, and no trapdoors, no way to enter the building below. You try to think of your next move. There’s no plank ladder on this side either. No going back.

You move forward carefully, ready to check the buildings other end for a way in, and you avoid a weak looking section in the process. It’s loose tiles look ready to catch your feet and trip you, prompting a quick roll and long fall to the street below, and so it takes a few second to look past your caution and realise your mistake. You move to the spot and start pulling at the loose tiles, several sliding out easily and rattling to the street below, until you have a hole big enough to slip through. You bang your knees and your elbows several times, but soon you find yourself inside a dark dusty attic.

The noise you make is countered by the muffled yells from the inn, which start to take on a more **** quality, as well as the far less muffled cries in the building below, from the women who’d call a ‘whore hole’ a home. You look about what is nothing more than a crawl space, seeing flickering yellow beams cut through the floor, made of candle light spilling through cracks of the old wooden building. They stretch out before you like a river of burning stars, ending in a long thin line at the end of the building which you hope is a trapdoor. You start crawling.

Light catches your eye from a crack directly beneath you. You look through it, hoping to see some of the layout, maybe the family your here to help. You can’t make any sense of what you see instead. Perhaps the crack is too narrow? It looks like… the tops of two heads, one black haired, and one brown, close to each other, but not. They seem to-

A loud slurping sound breaks your train of thought and one of the heads moves back. The other head, with its long brown hair, stays where it is, which is buried in what looks like a man’s crotch. You look away before your suspicions are confirmed.

The wet noises stop for a moment. “What you suppose there doing that’s got em so rowdy?” You keep crawling, knowing full well the cause.

“Did I say ‘stop suckkin’? Think I’da noticed If- Ah! Oh. That’s it...” The wet noises returned. Your face reddens further. So much for not wanting to know!

The next crack reaches into the next room and provides a far lewder sight. A dark skinned man lies on a bed, humping what lies beneath him. His bare behind bounces up and down and he grunts with the pace he’s set for himself. Sweat rolls down his back as he gasps and moans. Your about to move away when the voice of another man chips in.

“Come on! I want to see what’s going on!”

With a strained voice, the grunting man responds. “Fuck you! You already had a turn! Ugh! Let me have mine! Oh fuck! There probably- hugh- probably just fighting over one of the other bitches or something!”

You look closer, through the gap and the one next to it. The second man kneels on the bed, his arms reaching under the first, holding something down for his friend. The thing under them both makes wet noises as the first man humps it, but no other sounds. A pair of long red pigtails sprawl across the sheets, stemming from around the man’s chest height. You continue to crawl, memorising where the room is.

“Sounds worse than-“

“Just shut up an- Argh! Just...hold her. Or, umf, or your blood’ll be on these sheets as well. Argh! Gods! And still an ass fuckin to go!”

Tears sting your eyes. Tears of rage.

Another crack, another room. You don’t want to look down but the trapdoors not far away. You need a plan. This room is far more crowded. Men and women stand around, mulling the cause of the noise between them. What are they... There! Sitting on a man’s lap, the small form of a little girl, mop of red vibrant hair clearly visible. She looks between the faces around her, clearly terrified but thankfully still fully clothed. A man strokes her hair, his lecherous smile not slipping like his concerned comrades. His hand moves down, resting on her small thigh and pushing up her skirt. You want to scream at him, to punch your way through the wooden planks that separate you and descend like some bloody god of justice.

A simple plan forms, hastened to construction by the sight below. You crawl to the light of the trap door and pull the wooden door free. It’s hingeless: a simple square of wood used to block the hole to the attic. You look though, into a wooden corridor lined with doors, and see some stairs are nearby, leading down to the ground floor. Perfect. You pull your facemask down, take a deep breath and shout with all you’ve got.

“BETRAYAL! THE OTHER CREW’S ATTACKED! EVERYONE TO THE INN, NOW!” You hesitate before adding “CAPTAINS ORDERS! FIGHT OR DIE!” You duck back up into the attic as the first door is thrown open.

“Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!” one man shouts as he runs for the stairs. A thunder of feet follow him, then a pause, then two more sets of boots thump to the stairs before heading down.

“...barely finished. Arse is still mine when we...”

You listen to them fade as they rush to fuel the **** you started. You hear a voice from a nearby room star to rise.

“...an’t goin nowhere! For fucks sake come on!” It sounds like its coming from the little girl’s room. A door opens and throws the voice into sharp focus. “We need to go! We-“

There’s a strangely wet thump, followed immediately by the sound of a body hitting the floor. “No one gets between me an mine.” The voice is from another man; cold and mad both and in vast measures. Another wet thud sounds out into the hallway. “Nobody.”

You listen for more but can’t hear anything other than distant fighting. It sounds like it’s reached into this building; likely your own fault, but thankfully limited to the floor below. You risk a look through the attic hole. The corridor is empty, save for a lump in the nearest doorway; the body of a man that keeps the door from closing. You drop down as quietly as you can and draw your dagger, praying to the gods that no one comes through any of those doors.

“All right girl. Yer gonna lie back on that bed there an stick them little legs in the air. Yer old uncle Lud’s gonna make ya into a woman.”

You dart for the door kept open by the body. The man you saw with the girl on his knee stands over a bed, trousers down and holding the girls ankle. She’s no more than six or seven years of age and shakes with terror. “Common! Let me bloody that puss! I’ll make you-“ It’s all you let him say, his sentence ending with a quiet “ack” and a stiletto rammed through his heart. You grit your teeth as you breathe hard. It’s up to the hilt. He falls like a sack of bricks.

You yank the blade free and it slides out with sickening slowness. The girl looks on, face still tinged with terror. You put your fingers to your lips in a shushing motion, hoping she doesn’t scream. Foolish really; she would have screamed if you didn’t arrive in time and it would hardly cause comment in a sinful building like this one, let alone when a war is going on nearby. To try your best to smile and comfort her.

“Stay here” Her eyes go wide and she shakes her head. What do you say? You’ve never been great with children. “I’m here to rescue you but I need to find your family. I-I’ll be right back...Ok?” She seems ok with that. At least she stops shaking her head. You step out the door an unconsciously try to close it, only for it to bounce on the body slumped across its threshold. The screams definitely sound closer now, but also different. More frightened and panicked. Something else nags at you, a wrongness in the air. Smoke.

You move to the room next door, where you saw the red pigtails. Opening it slowly, you soon see that the room only has one occupant. A girl with long red pigtails, older than the one in the other room but still only around 13 or 14. She cry’s into her hands, silent sobs that shake her and blanket she’s wrapped herself in. You rush over to her and turn her to face you. Time is running out and there’s no comfort you can provide right now.

“I’m here to rescue you. Get up and come with me.” She looks at you in confusion, as if not accepting that your there. Fresh tears roll and her face starts to scrunch. You grab her head and look hard into her eyes. “I know it hurts. It gets better. You need to be strong and come with me now...Your family won’t leave without you.” Manipulative and possibly untrue but it’s all you’ve got. You grab her hand and pull her up off the bed. She stops the sheet from falling with her other hand.

You pull her to the door, only to run into the little girl; her straight red haired head bumping you just below your boobs and winding you slightly. Guess she didn’t want to stay put. You open a nearby door. There were three, weren’t there? Isn’t that what the red sash wearing pirate said in his in his disgusting overture? That there were two or three? You think back. He said there was seven kids; two right here, three girls in the hall and the boy. There should be another one in this building.

“Where’s the other?” You think allowed to yourself, looking about at the many dangerous doors to try.

“Down.” the little girl respond behind you in a voice so quiet you can barely hear. You look back at the two girls. The elder confirms with a shaking voice.

“They only brought us up...up...”

You don’t need her to finish. You grab her arm, making sure she holds the other to keep your dagger free, and say “Down then!” before heading for the stairs.

The smell of smoke is stronger now. Much stronger. It’s getting hotter as well. The sound of fighting seems distant: out in the streets maybe? Streaks of pain and rage tell you it’s still pirate against pirate. You head for the stairs, keeping both eyes open for signs of straggling hedonists. You descend cautiously, but quickly, pulling up your face mask as you go. The girls follow you. What are you going to do if you find the mother dead? Or the other siblings dead? How are you going to get them off the island? What if you don’t find them at all? The breathing of the children following you fills your ears. Their lives a weight of responsibility. If the rest of their family is dead, will it be your fault? You started all this. They would have been abused -horribly abused, perhaps for a very long time- but they would be alive. You mentally slap yourself. These thoughts aren’t helping and you’re not the enemy. You need to concentrate on what’s happening now. The knife leads the way, ready to be used again.

A body lies at the foot of the stairs, throat cut and eyes open. Fortunately, an exit also sits some distance down the narrow corridor, open to the back street and its night air. You can see it thicken with gently falling ash. No signs of life, outside or in. You move further into the building and start searching.

As you approach a slightly open area at the end of a corridor, a voice sounds behind you.

“Harriet? Deirdre?” You turn as the disbelieving mother scoops up her children and a wave of relief washes over you. A loud bang from a nearby room quickly replaces it with cold dread. You point to the exit behind you.

“Get out.” She looks at you, eyes widening as she sees you for the first time. Smoke starts to dance across the ceiling, seeping through from above. You can hear the fire now.

“But my daughter.”

“I’ll find her! Go!”

She grabs the girls and heads for the exit, distracting you for a moment when you realise she’s still naked. You’re going to have to find clothes for them. A door opens nearby and a man steps out. Your eyes meet. You move first.

You thrust at him as he raises a makeshift club defensively. It looks ripped from a table and has several nails still sticking out of its end. Your stiletto chips a chunk out of the wood and you quickly turn your thrust into a full on dive, maintaining the offensive and sending you both crashing through the door, splintering it just as it swings closed and catches the latch. Its poor construction sends planks clattering across the wooden floor and lays a bed for him. You look down. He’s beneath you; lying between your legs as you straddle him. It takes a half second for both of you to shake it off; you both attack. He swings his club up, his poor angle making for an ungainly swing, and you block with your left arm, barely feeling the nails bite into your flesh. Your right arm lifts up and darts down in short order, driving the dagger point through his eye and out the back of his head. He cries out in a gargling sputter, grabbing your wrist and trying to pull you off. You wrench the dagger to one side, practically pulling it out the side of his head. Only then does his arm fall, his body still.

You look up at the room, gasping at the short but violent bout. A girl sits on a nearby bed, holding a sheet up over her nakedness. Peeking over it, she looks little more than pair of big eyes and a mop of messy red hair. You pull the dagger free and stand.

Your right arm feels heavy, almost sending you back to the floor with its weight. You look down and wince. The club, definitely a table leg, is stuck to your arm, the nails driven right through. Heart still pounding with the fire of the fight, you pull it free, almost throwing up at the noise the nails make against your flesh. You throw it away.

“Who...” the girl asks. You look at her and freeze, heart stopping as she lowers the bedsheet. Her face is badly cut.

No, wait; you look closer. She has a hair lip; a birth defect that splits her upper lip to her nose, leaving some of her teeth permanently on display. The effect is unnerving, but you quickly shake it off, feeling shame: look at you, unnerved by a child. She can’t be more than ten. From the stained sheet wrapped around her nakedness and the tears on her face, she needs you to be strong.

“I’m an agent of the principalities. I’m here to rescue you.” You offer your hand and after a moment’s hesitation, she takes it.

You pull her to the door and look out. The corridor is smokier than ever and you have to duck to see properly. This whole building is nothing but dry wood and clearly burning from the top down. You doubt you have more than a minute before the whole place collapses. An orange glow comes from around the corner, but the corridor is devoid of life, all sane people having left by now. You start to pull the girl but find her resistant. You look at her and see her staring at the ruined face of the man on the floor. Her face is twisted into a scowl.

“He...” You can barely hear her.

A cracking noise sounds overhead and the flames low roar seems to be coming from everywhere. Despite it all you stop and stare. You’ve seen that look before. You’ve worn that look before.

“He’s dead! You’re not! That’s justice! Move!” You yank her out the door and down the corridor. You suddenly know what she needs to hear, what you needed to hear all those years ago. The feeling of revelation surges through you as you both sprint to the exit.

You see it, ash falling thick and fast in the street, but fire free, lit by orange light. You’ll have to get them off the island somehow. The chaos can only help. Captain Washkin can wait. You’ll get her next time.

“Help! Please! Don’t leave me here!” The female voice cuts through the wooden wall, ****, pleading. There’s a door near the exit, leading into the room the voice comes from.

“Damn it all!” you shout, frustrated. Why didn’t the woman leave before now? Any fool could see this place is on fire! You shove the girl out into the night, and she turns to look at you.

“But-“

“Go!” You point, and see her mother come out of a nearby building. Good enough. You turn to the nearby door, slamming into it with your shoulder, expecting it to be jammed. Instead the door fly’s open freely, leaving you stumbling inside and looking around an empty dimly lit room in confusion.

“Please! Get me out of here!” The voice comes from the darkness to your left and you jump when you see a pair of eyes looking at you. You squint, keeping low against the smoke and try to make out more. The eyes are in a face, of course, but the face is so brown it’s almost black. A mop of wiry black hair spills across some of it and she appears trapped in a stock; wooden bar clamped around her neck and wrists, fitted to a stand that’s connected to the floor. Another victim.

You rush to her side, pressed for time already, and try to work the lock that keeps her trapped. Fortunately, its mechanism is fairly simple; after a few tugs the top section of the wood swings up, freeing her neck and wrists. She stands immediately and falls forward into you. You catch her, grabbing her wrist and pulling the arm over your shoulder, helping her walk towards the door. With skin that dark, she must be from the southern empire. What’s she doing all the way up here? You may not know her motives but you think you can guess the pirates: she’s naked and the stocks had her bent over and exposed. A whore or a captive? Her arm seems too knotted with muscle to be a whore. Her legs are weak but seem to gain strength with each step. A captive then. Either way, they left her to die.

You go through the door and into the corridor, a few steps away from the exit. It’s too narrow and you’re **** to move the woman in front of you, half carrying, half shoving her forward. A thunderous crashing sounds above and you shove her as hard as you can. New light illuminates her tumble into the street, dark form separated briefly from the night. The blazing wooden beam that slams into your back is nothing compared to the one that crushes your leg. You scream as you hit the floor.

You look up and the woman is before you, illuminated by the fire of the building. She tugs your arms before she leans over and pushes on the wood. You don’t even feel it move. Strange; that for all the darkness of her skin, her nipples should be darker still. Strange that you should notice. He face returns once more, stressed and ****.

“I-I can’t help you!”

For all the heat that fills the air, a shiver runs down your spine. The moment stills, the distant voices faided, the fires roar quiet. She looks sad, and so so sorry. That’s not… That can’t… You still needed to...

“Yes you can!” Your grab her wrist, looking into her brown eyes that sparkle with captured light. She can help! “There is a family with red hair outside! Get them to Coronac! Save them! Don’t let me die...” Your voice breaks and tears sting your eyes. “Don’t let me die for nothing!”

Her expression is anguished, but your words put a hardness into it. Will she? Southerners are strange, and perhaps untrustworthy. “I...will.”

You pull the dark cloth from your mouth. “Swear it! Please!” You’re lips and voice shake. Why now? Why are you being a coward now?

“I swear.”

You thrust out your other hand, putt the handle of your stiletto firmly into her. “Take this!” Orange glow throws her into stark relief against the night outside. “Don’t let me die...” You cry before you can finish. You always thought you would be brave in the face of ****. The truth is a bitter thing. You see in her eyes that she understands before the tears blur away your vision of her.

The fire reaches your feet. It’s so hot.

“Don’t let me...” you whisper. The roar swallows all noise while the fire consumes everything else. Its bright light reflects on the sliver blade, held still and steady by the skilled hands before you.

She’s good.

You don’t even feel it.

Anna wore her mask today. She always preferred to. The looks she got were...different; still fearful, but more respectful, less disgusted. Besides, matching her usual black clothes, it helped remind her of that night.

The others didn’t like to think of that night or the days before it. Anna liked to dwell on it. Well...perhaps liked is a strong word, but it gave her the strength she needed: the cold rage she craved. It was a night of pain and humiliation, a night of violation; the night of the fire and the shadow: the spectre that killed them all. An Agent of the Principalities. An Agent of Salvation. An Agent of the Gods. It was the night a hero broke down that door, stabbed her **** through the eye and saved her family. A night four years prior to today. The memory would be especially useful here.

“P-Please, I-I don’t know anything!”

Anna remembered when they made her mother choose between sucking those men or watching them **** her sister. Her knife sliced down the man’s arm. He screamed of course. They all scream at this point. Aiden let him, pushing the man’s other arm up his back and pinning him against the wall. It was good to see him out and about. Away from his drink for a time.

“Ahhhh! Ok. Ok. Please don’t- I’ll...I’ll talk...I’ll talk.”

Anna sighed, this case had already taken too long. “Where are they?”

He started panting, wild eyed. “I-I-In an Inn. N-north side of the city. The ‘Bridge o Stings’.”

Anna took a deep breath, remembering. The moment they took Fiona the first time, beating Aiden **** for trying to stop them. Anna’s knife buried itself in the little weasels shoulder. He screams again.

“That’s strange, because I happen to know for certain that they’re not in the ‘Bridge o Stings’. Care to explain why you lied to me?”

The man gibbers out a response and the interrogation continued. All in all, he talked much sooner than most, giving two new leads. Still, he’s involved. His guilt is undeniable.

When Aiden turns him around, Anna looks into his eyes. The moment the man took her maidenhood and released a few seconds later. No, that’s too much of a shocked blur. Instead, she thought of his second round, the one that lasted much longer instead, and the thought sinks her knife into the man’s belly, once, twice, three times. He fell into the mud, watching helplessly as Anna and Aiden walk away.

Strange that she could only think of that moment when she killed. Aiden pulled out a flask and took a swig. ‘I supposes that we’re all a little broken in some ways’, she thought to herself.

As she walked to the docks, she mused on the thought. Mother seemed the same, broken, keeping an almost **** eye on them all sometimes, but she’s kept the family together. The occasional panic attack was perfectly manageable. Fiona, Anna’s eldest sister, will be with her now as well, helping her keep an eye on children. Mother, Fiona, Nancy, and Penny, had all carried to term without problems. That must surely leave scars, especially for Penny after twins, but it could have been worse; Harriet, Anna’s slightly older sister, didn’t survive her own still born bastard. Maybe she was too young. There isn’t a day that goes by that Anna doesn’t thank the gods that buck toothed bastard didn’t do the same to her. Neither of his seeding’s took hold, though she learned later that it would have been very unlikely before her first bleed. Nancy would be with her husband. He didn’t know of course, thinks the child is her sister. Penny would be sleeping. She worked at night. Mother didn’t approve.

That just left Deardry. She doesn’t speak much, even though Anna was sure they didn’t touch her. She seems otherwise normal. Studying to be an alchemist of all things. Anna had offered to train her to be an Agent, but she had simply shaken her head.

Anna had signed up as soon as they would take her. They weren’t happy about it at first, but the priests knew that service to the gods has no age limits. They did try to get her in robes, serving in some dusty chapel, but Anna knew that life wasn’t for her. Justice is about action. A great woman taught her that.

Turning left down a side street and taking the quick path to the docks, Anna started to think of all the good she’d done, all the criminals she had executed. Self-congratulatory, sure, but why not? It’s an anniversary. The gang in Litchfield she broke, murdered in their sleep by ‘unknown forces’. The arsonist brothers, burnt alive. The Durrumn St killer, still technically unsolved but he’d confessed to it before succumbing to his injuries. The gang war she sparked in Lilia’s North district. That one soured her mood slightly. She’d found her target and got him alone, but she had to get on her back to do it. Well...technically hands and knees; men still didn’t like looking at her face. Not a proud moment, but watching the corpse wagons rolling throughout the following days had soothed her soreness somewhat.

Still, against all her successes, her one bright dream remained unfulfilled. Sometimes, in-between the nightmares, the dream would come. A dream of walking into the darkest places and bringing light; of kicking down doors and stabbing rapists through the eye. Sometimes she would save herself. For some strange reason, she would sometimes save the masked woman who saved her. She would be that woman, in the dream: calm, unbreakable, in control. If she kept at it; kept killing criminals, kept saving people; then maybe, just maybe, it would be fulfilled. That one day, she’d be a hero.

For now she would go to the docks and see if her blood wrought reputation had yet overtaken people’s initial impressions of her.

Putting her dreams to one side for now, she’d settle for people giving straight answers without the need to stab them.