“Maybe we won’t find them.”

  It had been two hours in the Tannery and the lamps were flickering. Soon true dark would fall, the taverns were letting out to the crowds and the district would be Barrow dark. For the children it would be an advantage, but they had to hope that the bastards could be caught out. They had seen plenty of toughs, gangs and killers but none of the ones they needed. They had no coin to bribe anyone, no muscle to beat it out of anyone, and Ori was so sore that he felt like an old man trundling along with his grandchildren.

  “This is hopeless and you know it, Oriole.” Wisteria said, looking into the crowd. “Even if we find them we’re never going to have the energy to take them. “We can return, claim that we failed, and come back and tune them up when you’re healed up.”

  “No. We were sent on to find them and we will find them Wist. I have no time for whining, so you can stay, take to your feet, or to my fist.” Crane whispered, grabbing the taller boy and wrenching his ear.

  “Fuck! You bitch! If you weren’t a girl I would -”

  “Run away, most likely. Or beg me to not beat you again, and again…”

  They continued their hushed argument as Ori looked, trying to spot his attackers. A glimpse of another striped shirt made him pause, but then he saw by the weak light the shirt was not black and white but blue and some sort of gold. He saw the lights flicker, then muddle into a whispering haze, the faces going blank in the crowd only to form into a new scene.

  They were circled around each other dicing. The one called Blade seemed to be winning, and Dirk wasn’t too happy with the situation. The last of the oil was running out, but they had carried a small globe with them for light. He knew the globe, a smith’s prentice, an ironwork that held some strange magic from the Folly. The men must be respected, as anyone in the Barrow with a prentice would find it stolen and sent off to one of the gang’s hideouts.

  East. East to the dog and bear, then down the alley.

  Ori shook his head, wondering where the voice had come from. Owl had stood between the bickering thieves, his hands locked on Crane’s shoulder and around Wist’s belt.

  “Ya alright Ori? Been out of it for a moment there.” Owl’s face showed concern, while the other two just looked peeved at asking the question. “We need to get moving and find the pricks who tried to kill you, remember?”

  “East. I’m feeling east. Who’s with me?” Ori clapped his hands, hoping to the Mother and Father that he hadn’t just gone around the bend. “If you don’t want to come, head back. If you want glory come with me.”

  They walked down the street, dodging the vomiting men and the qishi addicts too dazed to not stand in the middle of traffic. Two men were fighting in the center of a circle in the middle of the street, and Ori was nearly knocked down when the crowd tried to open to let them take the fight to the board walkway. The jouncing knocked Ori’s head to the sky, and he saw them. A bear rearing on its haunches surrounded by three hounds on a sign outside of the tavern. Even now Ori saw the light of the prentice in the alley, and waved his cadre to the mouth of the alley.

  “Is that them Ori? You lucky son of a bitch.” Wist whispered, producing his basher from a place behind his back. “What’s the play?”

  “We can rush them. Four on three, we’re buzzed but they’re drunk. May get lucky.” Owl replied, his fists disappearing the full length of his basher between them. “I’ll take front, Ori guard’s the mouth, and we crush them to the wall. “

  “Or we think like thieves. Smart, with our heads and not our coinpurses.” Crane quipped, looking up and around the buildings. “Wist, come with me. Owl, douse that lamp then stay back, guard the mouth. Ori? How well can you act like a wounded kid looking to save his pride?” #

  The boy came towards them. He looked closer to death than when they had left him, but in a nice new shirt. The little lord had decided to come and challenge them, and they wouldn’t be members of the Black and Whites if they weren’t ready to take the fight to some upstart cockless kid trying to challenge. The boy held a basher in his hand, its rough wood looking out of place with his bright white shirt and lordly grace.

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  “Gentlemen. It took me awhile to find you, but I wish for satisfaction.” the little lord said, tapping the wall with the stick and hobbling forward. “If you’re all man enough to give it, I shall say.”

  “Oh, hear that Stab?” Dirk asked, elbowing the one who had near ripped the brat’s arm out off his body. “Little boy wants a bit more fight.”

  “Looks like he’s got one more punch in him. Best make it count, you cocksucker.”

  The lordling walked on, closing the distance. Thirty feet away he began coughing, a wracking cough that seemed to shake his entire body. “Little pissant is gonna die before he gets here!” Dirk said, his hands still empty and his voice hard and telling. They weren’t going to just beat the boy this time. Not after what he had tried to do. No, this was going to be a true victory, the little boy brought down by three men and tossed off the Banks to float to the river.

  Right after I take that too big shirt from him, thought Dirk.

  The boy was back, and closing. Twenty feet and Dirk saw the cold in the kid’s eye. Did he have anything to worry about? The lantern was dark out in the mouth of the alley, and the three cutters turned dicers were in a dead end. None of the Bearbaiter’s patrons would come calling, even if they cared about any screams other than their own as they fucked and drank themselves into a coma. The nearest walk was twenty feet above them, and the landings were clear except for the little catamite who had come to pass out on the railings before the boy came calling.

  Ten feet, and he saw a glimmer on the shirt. Glam? The boy’s father’s shirt, maybe some trickster work thrown on the thing. Protection, but there was an exposed head and all below the waist. A squeeze of his coins and a bit of a twist and the lordling would be a young maid, and they would finish him in seconds. As soon as the little cock got into kissing distance, tried his first swing.

  Blade heard the whistle as well as Dirk did, but the bottle caught Stab right in the top of his head. Ale poured over his head as the thug dropped, a clay vessel broken over his head. A look to the railings showed another figure, looked like a man, with an alley bow and quiver at his side.

  “Aha. Well, I guess I forgot to mention there were others. If you wouldn’t mind backing against the w-” the lordling’s speech was cut as Dirk charged him, a tackle taking the stick thin kid down. Dirk felt the pain in his shoulder then heard the thump of the bow’s firing, saw the fletching sticking clean through to his breast.

  “You fuck. You play a man’s game, now pay a man’s price.” Dirk surged forward, the pain in his shoulder not overcoming his rage. He stepped to the area where Blade had driven the lordling, finding his best man down on the ground wiping at his eyes while the boy stood with his hands wrapping his slightly too long basher.

  “Hotfoot. Good to mix into oil to rub into sore joints, but a thief knows it’s real use is to blind. We’re one for one now, Dirk. You seem to have sprouted feathers. Don’t you know only Barrow folk claim to be birds?” the boy’s smile was bloody, but the thug had seen those eyes before. They were driven eyes, the eyes of someone ready to do work and damn the cost. “I’ve got others with me, guarding the alley, and my two retainers on top of us. What’s your plan, you thincoined childbeating little weasel?”

  Dirk bolted toward the alley mouth, looking for a way. He felt a thump against his leg, the little crossdealing cocky brat had thrown his basher. If the others were there maybe there were others at the mouth, but he could scream for help, and staying here was a death trap.

  Fifteen feet and he heard the boy laughing behind him.

  Twenty, and he stumbled against a cart, and lucked out from taking another alley bolt to the throat.

  Twenty five, and the alley was opening to him.

  Thirty, and he was home free, off to the Hide, rouse the boys and come back in a fury for -

  The one waiting out in the street was big. Near big as Stab, but he was still a boy. No fuzz on the cheeks, and only a basher to take on a wild animal set to run. He was steady, set into a crouch Dirk had seen in the fighters of the Barrow. Someone had trained the boy, but Dirk had fifteen years of street dirt and brawling to a bit of training. Dirk pulled his knife and dropped low, holding his namesake like a pick and ready to stab his way out.

  “Sir, you need to stop or I’m going to have to brain you.” the lummox said, so proud and sure of himself. Dirk loved taking down a sure man, and the gods had placed one in his way while his friends lay in pain for a bunch of skullduggery.

  “Be a shame to have to kill you son.”

  “I agree. Be a shame to see you die, sir.”

  It was a standoff. The boy never let him make a space to run, the blows of his stick striking out at Dirk. They began at easy to block, but as the bolt dug further into Dirk with each move the kid seemed to be getting warmed up. A strike to the side took the thug’s wind, and the boy’s next strike, a lazy sidearm towards his skull was barely dodged. He stabbed out with the blade only to feel a rap on his knuckles, to feel the blade drop as the power of the boy’s strike made his hand go numb.

  “Now, sir, I insist. Down the alley, or meet the Mother as your sins are washed away. Your call.”

  Brats and retainers. I get taken down by brats and retainers.