Where a street narrowed between two and three level apartments, a patrol of six made their way with long pikes in hand. Their red and blue checkered tabards of the Baron’s colors were stark contrasts to greys and browns of the thin men and women who backed themselves to either side to make way. Rimmed iron helmets lifted and swayed with their eyes as they moved through the crowd.

  They couldn’t get more than two side-by-side without taking up the entirety of the street where they were, but that was no nevermind. They shoved whoever caused them to shift back into single file out of the way with harsh words and sometimes a good kick or punch as a reminder.

  A woman in an apartment above them pressed open the shutters of her window and called out, “Here’s what’s left of your breakfast, checkered bastards!” And she dumped the bucket of chunky refuse over top of upturned helmeted faces with a splash.

  The Baron’s men didn’t pause for more than a second to the roar of laughter surrounding them. The two who were doused in her feces and urine stood dumbfounded for a moment, smelling the drips from their faces and helmets on their hands. The others kicked through the door and stormed up the stairs into her apartment. No one can say how many times they hit her, only that when her face went through the window, they left her there, hanging limp over her own windowsill and emerged below, dragging her husband in chains. He was barely conscious.

  That was when the street was no longer a street for the patrol, but a clogged funnel of clubs, knees, and fists, that came in tidal waves from all directions. They couldn’t see anything else, even as they were slowly climbing to the ground. They only felt it all.

  Their bones were shattered. Their faces became nothing for them but pain. Their thoughts were clouds of torment. They felt the weights of their weapons and helmets lifted. Then they felt their lungs filled by the water they were suddenly plunged into, the same water that muffled the cheers.

  It was their day to rest. Once a month, everyone gets a day. And today was it for these two friends. They had spent most of their lives together in Strasbourg. Grown together in the trade district. Their fathers were friends. Their mothers were always glad that they played together. When they joined the Baron’s Men, their parents had the same worried-yet-proud looks. The worry faded with time for both of them. They were sergeants now. They spent their nights at home. One had a wife, a son, and a dog. A little house along the Rhine, on the north end. The other was still single, but who needs a family when he’s got his best friend’s to care about?

  Today was his birthday and his friend had talked his wife into letting them celebrate a little. Not too much, that was why they were in the pub early. Before supper. Get a few shots of schnapps and a beer or two, then back for a good bit of fish-head stew and some story-telling for the little one. He would play with the dog for a while before going back to the barracks.

  “You look nice and plump,” a man at the bar in the pub said, smelling of far too much liquor. He burped. “You checkers always get your fill.”

  “And you always get to be safe in your bed at the end of the night,” was his answer. He didn’t want to fight. He never wants to fight. Fighting hurts. Really, he just liked the pay. And he hated bricklaying more than he hated fighting.

  The man grabbed his shirt in a fist and twisted it with a jerk. He stumbled, the drunk pulled harder. “Eat our food! Drink our drink! What are you going to take next?”

  His friend jumped in when he crashed through stools. He wanted to cry out for them to calm down. The drunk had reason to be angry. He was angry, too. If he could, he’d change all of it. But there was nothing he could do but his job and his job was to keep the streets safe and protect the city against the coming siege. Not fight a drunk. But his friend struck him with a hard right.

  He didn’t get a chance to get to his feet. He was scrambling when the brawling started—when one, then two jumped in against his childhood friend. They were right over top of him, he needed to back up just to get room enough to stand. But that never happened. A broken wood peg shot through the back of his friend’s head and he was frozen in horror beneath it.

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  When asked afterwards, he couldn’t say what happened. His captain kept shouting at him. It sounded like nonsense. He just remembered the peg. His friend, the closest he ever had to a brother outside the army, was dead and he did nothing but lay there beneath him. The blood on his face and shirt was the blood of the only person he ever cared about more than his mother and father. He didn’t know that it was also the blood of eight men and women who were butchered by the other Baron’s Men who went to the pub that afternoon.

  He didn’t go back to barracks. He didn’t go to tell his friend’s wife and son what happened. He didn’t play with the dog. He sat at the edge of the river, lost, while his captain shouted at him. Eventually, his captain would give up and have him carried to the dungeons.

  Gar whistled after they finished their little volley of rocks at the patrol. Lyon de Salaud had told them that the Spider Bitch was going to need him to make them on edge. Make them want to rough some people up. Make the people believe someone would do something about it. So, that’s what Gar did. And he picked just the right spot. Nice and snug a spot, where his gang could escape easy.

  It was where six streets came together and branched off toward the islands, two of which went for the big Cathedral and the Baron’s Palace. No closed in alleys. That meant they couldn’t get cornered easy. And the old sewers were easy for their little bodies to get into. Except Gar and a few of the others, that is. But for them, they could run faster and, if need be, they could fight.

  The ambush was perfect. They waited for the patrol to come through, waited for them to slow and spread over the street a bit. Then, the small ones crouch-crawled across the street awnings on either side until the soldiers were in the middle of them. The windows behind them were already open. And, in case the soldiers thought they were smart, they all went to stairs onto rooftops. The Spider Bitch taught them something they never thought of before; the streets aren’t just the streets.

  Gar made the signal from his perch at the corner of a weaver shop. The rest of the gang rushed across behind the patrol of—well, Gar never really learned to count. He’ll tell Lyon it was fifty, if it goes bad. A hundred if it goes well.

  All at once, on Gar’s signal, rocks flew. The Baron’s men, holding their pikes, ducked their rimmed iron-helmeted heads and tucked into each other.

  Gar threw a couple. He had filled his pockets with some sharp ones. A big one from one of the girls in the back made a loud thump and knocked one to his knees. Gar whistled through two fingers and waved his other arm.

  The gang scattered. Gar turned and sprinted around the side of the building. It went perfectly! Now, Lyon has to give him the big shares! He’ll be able to poach the Rhine districts. Get some fat prizes and the little ones some warm places to sleep! Gar beamed as he ran.

  He missed a turn. Oh, well, the next one isn’t much further.

  The Baron’s men were following him, but they had armor and he was smaller. Faster. They were old and slow. He could beat them. He was still smiling. The excitement. There was no way that Lyon would overlook how well this went. And, if they’re following him, that means the little ones are safe.

  Two Baron’s Men crossed in front of him and he slid to a stop. The smile instantly faded. Their pikes were out.

  Gar swallowed down. He tried to catch his breath. He looked around him, frantic. There were no doors, no windows. Just brick walls on either side of a street that slanted toward a deep puddle in the middle of it. The rest of the Baron’s men, the rest of the patrol, jogged to a stop a few paces back from him.

  Gar’s shoulders sank. His eyes widened. As one of the men approached him, towering high above him, he tried to cry out, “I’m sorry, I was just playing and I didn’t know! I’m only fourteen!”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have lied this time. Or maybe it actually wasn’t a lie. He couldn’t remember if he was thirteen or fourteen. He always made himself older to Lyon de Salaud so he could get more for the other orphans. This time…this time, he will never know.

  Gar’s skull cracked with a single blow from an iron mallet wielded by the Baron’s Man. He landed face down in the puddle in the center of the street with a rippling splash. The men-at-arms walked away to return to their patrols.

  Surrounded by the reflection of the orange and pink glow of the setting sun through its ripples, his body lay strewn in the puddle. Ripples that started small and sharp around his lanky arms and boney elbows, around the matted strands of hair that reached into the depths around his ears and neck. Ripples that plumed outward from his long legs and oversized bare feet, even those below the surface where his face would forever look onward, in desperate confusion and wonder.

  Ripples that became lapping waves onto the stones of the street.