Martin laughed as he watched the warehouse burned, sending its poison smoke climbing into the dawn sky. He had been laughing for nearly a half an hour, his throat raw. The bodies in front of him were a study in blood and brutality. The last of the thugs was crawling from the burning warehouse, a smoking body dragging broken legs. Martin looked on the sight of the man crawling through the blood and filth of the man’s companions, leading him to yet another laughing fit.

  “K-kill me. You son of a bitch. Just… just end it.”

  And Martin obliged. It was among the bodies that the Watch found him, and there they placed him in chains, dragging him to the Trap for all of the crimes he had done.

  And as they locked him into the dark room, his throat torn, they could still hear the huffing rhythm of his laughter.

  Martin had brought three men with him. They were strong men, loyal but of no great talent. In the end this raid was just another day, a simple task of breaking heads and taking loot. The best of them, a giant Sariani who the other men called Thunk, wore a silvered hammer over his shoulder and had the wild eyes of a Waker. The others, Finch and Wren, were true Barrow men, coming with alley bows and bashers. Wren added to his kit the stubby stabbing sword favored by the King’s army, and Martin was sure he knew how to use it.

  “We’ll go in at nightfall. The work is being done for the Ladies, and you’ll be paid well. I doubt it will take more than tonight, but if all goes well I will get you all a week of pay. Forty copper. Anyone you take down is worth ten copper, so keep your counts and make them honest. Don’t kill unless you have to, but if you must, make sure to curse the bastards to whatever Hell they believe in.”

  They scouted the place in the evening, looking for the best place to strike. Men and girls came in through the front door of the warehouse, and only the men came out. Martin noted the striped uniforms the bruisers wore, counting the faces as he sat in the room he had rented from a kind little woman who had seemed to know he was coming. Their provisions came in a covered carriage along with the lamplighters, and Martin went down to the stable to see what his coins had purchased. His man, a sallow merchant known as Burly, met him to check marks off of the slate.

  “Pitch and fire salts. Twenty hand irons. A battering ram, and enough oil to do the job ten times over. The carriage will take bolt fire, but a strongbow will punch a hole through it. The carriage is fitted to ram, reinforced wheels and axles. I got it off of a man who had hoped to use it to ram and raid a merchant’s house, died unexpectedly of too many questions.” the black merchant smiled, and Martin handed over the gold he had been given.

  “Forgotten?” the warrior asked, looking for a further pinch.

  “I’ll take a dray from the stable I had a boy bring in. Such a rush job? There hasn’t been enough time for my memory to fill in. Remember, Martin Redbeard, that if you are found…” the merchant raised his hands to the sky, “that you found this all fallen from the sky itself.”

  “I consider all of the debts I owe you wiped, Sir Martin. Thirty five gold, plus these three. The wagon will sell for six to the right buyer, or four back to me. The rest of it was gained at a steep discount from certain shipbuilders and an alchemist’s stores, so get rid of it all when you burn it.” The merchant sighed as Martin paused extending his hand. “If you gave me a week I would have kept it cheaper. As it is? The Takrim anger me, and their own work in this city has been reprehensible. They bring qishi and Wake and poppy into the market, and many folk’s businesses have suffered.”

  “Fine. Deal. Your debts are cleared, but expect any further work to be at a higher rate.”

  “I would expect nothing less, hedge knight.”

  The men loved their new toys, and were excited to hear Martin’s plan. The warehouse had a door for loading and unloading, and the heavy locks would never hold up to the battering. The small ram would do for any doors within, and then it was only a matter of getting the women out and the fire in and it would be wrapped up with a neat hand.

  “Easiest silver I’ve ever made.” Wren said, checking his gear as they sat in the rented rooms. “Do you think we’ll get more work like it?”

  “As much as I can get. The Lady is quite free with her purse, when the need is there.”

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  Finch finished his piss, cinching his breeches back to place and leaning into the conversation. “All that traffic, and they’re not letting anything out? What’s the point of this whole venture? Are they breaking them in?”

  “Ya, and more besides. Takrim like pliant girls, and if they’re anything like what I have seen you’ll revel in a bit of mayhem on the whoresons.” Martin finished his bottle of watered down wine and went to take his own constitutional around the block.

  It had been a fight, but Martin had seen worse in the War. They got the carriage up to speed in the alley, driving the horses to speed on hand leads. Martin cut the collars as they came over the turn at full speed, using the guides to get the cart to gently turn. They lost almost no speed as the impromptu ram hit, and Wren and Finch were out as Thunk guarded the stores and Martin laid about with his basher.

  Six guards, all in the striped uniforms of their gang, went down within thirty seconds. One attempted to run but was struck down with a bolt from Wren to the upper thigh. Irons on every set of arms and the men were subdued. They had only a short time before the nosy got into the fray, and Thunk had the barrels unloaded within minutes.

  Wren and Finch lugged the barrels two to a man, the malnutrition of the Barrow showing in their difficulty in lugging the heavy barrels around. The hay that covered the floor would be great kindling, and Martin proffered an ax to each man to crack the barrels and let the thin pitch soak in. Each man took cloths and soaked them, placing them at the beams and crossings of the wooden structure, putting a bit of fire salt at the sensitive points. Five minutes and the whole place was set to go, and they moved on to their main mission.

  “There’s a pit underneath the boards. Check there, and behind the goods in the back. They have to have the girls hidden somewhere, and we’ll want all of them out by the time we light it.” Martin motioned towards the doors. “Thunk? Get the doors sealed, I don’t care if the carriage is torched. This is a recovery, and the Lady will tend to my needs. Now we need to keep this quiet.”

  Martin went down with Wren into the pit, his eyes adjusting from moonlight to the darkness of the underground. It feels like home, doesn’t it? Martin thought, though he could not tell where the thought came from. He had spent time as a night raider when he was just Martin Stonefist, the brawler who would be knight. Even in his youth he had always hated the dark, and the damned place smelled of something, tickling the back of his memory.

  You know you’re not supposed to be here, boy. You know that I bring her here to mind her manners.

  Martin felt his heart startle as a cold hand touched his shoulder. Spinning and ready to bash, he saw the faint features of Wren before him. Would have had to pay for him, just as he had to pay he thought, then shook his head to clear his mind.

  “This place is wrong, sir.” Wren whispered, close enough to Martin’s ear to feel his breath. “I’m hearing things, seeing things. We need to get this place lit and get out. Now.”

  “We’ll find the women, and then we’ll go. Now, for the love of Mother and Father help me find them so we can.”

  Mother. Mother. Her face swollen and crawling with flies. Mother, who had dared to raise her hand. She was there for four days in the dark, and when he saw her the boy -

  No. Not now.

  The smell got worse as they creeped into the darkness. Martin heard Wren curse as he hit a beam, felt pitch fall sticky and warm down the back of his neck and under the chain mail he wore. Martin barked his leg on a table, cursing under his breath. The place was a tinderbox, but they needed light to get through.

  Ask and I give freely, patricide.

  The light was blinding. Fearsome light, sharp and white as a midsummer day with a hangover from three days of hard drinking. Martin saw them there; the girls, strapped down to each table, their mouths moving in a strange motion. Covered in blankets, until he realized the blankets were soil, no it was their skin and the things were growing…

  Martin saw his face. The face of a nobleman bloated black from the garotte, a mission for a Guard who had connections. The face of the first man he killed in the war, a boy really, his guts spilling through the fingers of his right hand as his head sat in the crook of his left elbow. Then the face of his first murder, the one that Martin had been running from.

  He had found him walking home. The bastard was whistling a tune, a drunkard’s song of barley and wheat. Old Martin, once a strong man, now one eyed and cruel to anyone who couldn’t raise a hand to him. The younger knew what happened when you raised a hand.

  They had fought in the alley. Old Martin was strong as a cornered boar, but his cunning was no match for the speed of his mirror image. The younger beat the old man’s face to splinters, breaking the bones of his hand. Never gonna be a smith with those hands, no sir. Now he was going to be a beater, the kind of man who takes silver and brings it back soaked in blood and triumph. They called him Stonefist, and when he showed the Captain why he had done it the old man saved him from dancing the air. “No one would blame you, your father was trash, and you were a good son.”

  You were a good son (liar, cheat)

  You were a good son (killer, raider)

  You were a good son (thief, broken)

  Come and give your old man a hug, sweet Martin Prentice. Embrace me and let me tell you of the things I’ve learned since you killed me. Your mother is here with me, broken little Martin, she is mine complete. She went to the darkness with fear of me and I came to her and her cries are the sweetest Paradise I could earn.

  Come on Martin.