3rd Day of Spring, 510AV || The Castle Commons
"Fuck me, bastard fuckin' covered me!"
"Stay away from me, yeh cunt, I don't wan' any a' that on me-!"
"Ruros' Balls, will you two shut the fuck up?!"
It's amazing what a pint of piss splattered over the right mewling bodies can accomplish. One tick the Daggerhand breakers had been a clutch of scowling, taciturn intimidation, and the next they were being laughed halfway down the street. Sunberth street life was always been defined by a curious bravery in it's lack of concern for whom it offended, and proved that staunchly in the unfolding scene.
The people in the tenement block saw this as a good omen; the man watching from the alley as both a breaking point, and an opportunity. For employment.
"That's right, you bastards, sod off, the lota' ya!" A sharp, strong voice boomed out from one of the top windows, the figure it was attached to shaking a fist as the half-dozen Daggerhand proxies shied away from the stinking patch of water the emptied chamber pot had made. And that was just the ground impact; not the human. "We're not leaving! Not for you, not for that rotting sod who beats us down, not for anyone! This is our home!"
He stressed those two words, and the man in the alley noted with a tingle of amusement an amateur orator plying his craft. On cue, a chorus of voices jeered and cheered in response. The youth with the tangle of black hair nodded furiously at their support.
"That's right! Our home, and we will damn well defend it! Find another corner of this city to bloody bleed!"
"Man's got a proper n' solid wish t'see Dira some time soon, aye?"
The companion of the watching man waited for an answer, but all he got was scratching and rooting as the man dug around for some tinder. A few scrapes, grinds and spark later, he had enough to light the pipe in his hands, smoke puffing and curling away from under the brim of his hat.
"Aye."
"Fifth day it's been like this." The Daggerhand Brother ground out the words with true and fervent disgust, eyes burning into the rabble-rouser hanging halfway out the top window as much as the tall, hatted man's were icy. "An' before y'ask, it ain't as easy as that."
"As what?"
Brother Bosheefus turned to the shorter, squatter man and pointed briefly at the boarded and barricaded ground floor. "Just stormin' the place and killin' all the bastards. They knew we'd send the lads round, an' they took steps. We'd need to level half the sodding building to dig 'em out."
"Wiv' a platoon a' men," the tall man said, eyes still fixed on the tenement block, now ringed with jeering and laughing street trash, taking a break in their day to enjoy the spectacle of the Big And Bad shooed away by the Small And Plucky. "Few blokes who know what they're doin', though..."
"Aye. That's why you two're here."
The man filled his lungs with pungent, sizzling smoke. It drifted freely from his mouth and nose, numbing the skin it hissed over, inside and out, leaving naught but a narcotic tingle as it went. He watched and saw decades in the curious and oddly inspiring scene. Sunberth was not, as many people believed, some oligarchy of gangs and syndicates. It was an anarchy, and the real, true but mostly sleeping power in the city was the mob.
Thousands of people, going about their lives, often flawed and afraid but each one with an ember of that half-insane Sunberth ideal that said if the toffs and nobs took too many liberties, there was only one practical solution:
Get together with a few hundred friends, fill your hands and burn the cunts out. Even the Daggers and the Eyes and the Birth don't anger the mob.
What he saw was but a microcosm of that sentiment, but he knew it was one that was directly interfering with business. Bosheefus had told him that the higher-ups wanted that block; some business deal with the Gated Community, a merchant who'd paid good and hefty coin for the property, but one thing, please get rid of the squatters who'd been there for years.
Sure, the Daggers said. Not a problem. And now some of them are both covered in piss and not doing their job. Even worse, they're being seen to not do it.
"You fine with the rate?"
The man nodded as Bosheefus spoke again, bowl of his pipe crackling as another mouthful of plant matter was incinerated. The Brother shifted a little on his feet as he looked at the tall man in the hat and his smaller but just as mean partner. You wouldn't find any Daggerhand ink or colors on those two, but they were reliable workers, or so he'd been told. That didn't mean he wasn't uneasy around the big one, though.
"Good, cuz we need this shite knocked on the fuckin' head an' sharpish. People are already talkin', 'bout how the Daggers can't-" He paused, eyes flickering around nervously, voice dropping as if he were about to hideously blaspheme. "How they can't handle their business. Can't keep their word. No fuckin' way are the big boys letting that one slide."
"Wouldn't worry about that," Short And Squat said with a grin that split and crinkled the awful tattoo covering his nose and half his face. "Guys in there? Looks like they've got balls an' a little brains, but they ain't street daemons. We get in there, foxes inna chickens an' that shite, won't take long t'mop 'em up."
The smoking man didn't hear anything he disagreed with, or even needed his commentary. He kept watching and recognized both balls and bravery in the men and women and some children in that rotting husk of a building. It was derelict and filthy and mostly without windows or even a roof in places, but they were risking the wrath of the damn Daggerhands to keep it. They'd fortified it like a citadel and cocked a snoot at the menacing muscle the syndicate had sent.
Story will be around the city within a bell. By tomorrow, the doubts will have voices, and they won't shut up...
"We'll handle it," said Konrad, wooden pipe tap-tap-tapping against the wall. "An' quick."
