Gunvald loathed Breham. From the pompous, self-important assholes in the Central City to the abhorrent slums that encircled it like a ring of filth, the place was a cesspit, so of course it was where his friend Darius got himself locked up.

A foul breeze swept through the slums, bringing with it the damp smell of decay and tossing Gunvald’s shoulder-length black hair behind him. It was a smell that stuck in Gunvald’s nose and would stick there long after he left.

If he had to storm a prison, he figured he might as well have an ale or two in him before doing so, and he sure as shit wasn’t gonna get one in Central City.

Breham’s slums were vile shitholes, but the eastern slums were exceptional in their squalor. Dilapidated buildings leaned precariously against crumbling walls. Windows were shattered or boarded up. Filth and debris littered every street and alleyway, creating an inescapable maze of feculence, especially in the dim moonlight.

The streets seemed to rot beneath his feet as he walked. Despite all that, Gunvald walked slowly and deliberately, his four swords, Dimittis, Iudicium, Cinis, and Obitus, dragging on the ground behind him.

The four weapons, a gift—if you could even call them that—from Death herself, were each equipped with a thick ebony chain that wrapped itself around Gunvald’s torso, digging barbed hooks into flesh to hold them in place. It was purely out of spite that Gunvald let them drag behind him.

By the time Gunvald turned down the alley toward The Wretched Dove, the wind had picked up and blew his ragged cloak over his right shoulder, exposing his ornate black cuirass. Even in the dim light of the moon, anybody with eyes could see that it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill armor. It had intricate inlays and carvings, craftsmanship only the extremely wealthy could afford, and stuff like that always drew the wrong kind of attention in the slums.

“You take a wrong turn, Centi?” a man said, leaning against the cracked stone of the tavern wall, arms folded across his chest.

He was dressed in a ragged brown shirt and sported a long, unkempt, graying beard, with two similarly ugly men standing next to him, holding wooden mugs.

One of the other men, a skinny, balding man, tapped his friend on the chest and said, “Well now, what do we have here?”

The three men fixed Gunvald with glassy-eyed gazes. “You’re a long way from home, Centi.” the third man, a short, fat guy, slurred.

Centi. A slum word used to describe people from the Central City. Gunvald never particularly cared for it. Not because of the negative connotation, but because it was lazy as shit. Uncreative. Even for a slum dweller with a limited education.

“I’m just looking for a drink,” Gunvald told them.

“A drink?” the slum dweller chuckled.

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” the balding slob said, thrusting his wooden mug against Gunvald’s chest.

The mug bounced off his chest and clattered to the ground at his feet, the remnants of its contents left dripping down the front of his cuirass.

Gunvald sighed. He had stolen the armor from a dead nobleman years ago, but that made it no less aggravating that it was now covered in ale, and the three men’s drunken laughter snapped Gunvald’s last thread of patience.

Gunvald reached over his right shoulder, and the thick black chain connected to Cinis, the black-hilted bastard sword, slithered into his grip. The icy feeling that coursed through his hand was something he never got used to.

Gunvald swung Cinis by its chain in a wide vertical arc and drove it through the top of the bald man’s head with a loud crack and a splash of gore.

The man’s body jerked and convulsed, spraying blood in a gruesome mural on the tavern wall. Then he crumbled to the ground.

Graybeard gaped at Gunvald, then down at his friend.

Gunvald wrenched back the chain, pulling the bloody sword from the man’s skull, and tossed it over his shoulder, letting it clatter on the street behind him.

Then he held his hand at his hip and let the longsword Dimittis find his grip.

He raised its thin steel blade over his head. Graybeard’s eyes widened, and he flailed his arms up. Gunvald swung Dimittis down in a curving arc, severing the man’s arms at the forearms.

Graybeard fell to the ground, blood streaming from his stumps. Gunvald watched the life drain from the man’s eyes, then turned his attention to the fat man.

The man’s mouth moved rapidly, lips trembling, but no words came out. Piss blotted the crotch of his trousers. Gunvald dropped Dimittis to the ground, and the black chain of Iudicium coiled around his torso and down his arm, pulling the sword’s hilt into his hand.

The man stumbled toward the street, crying and mumbling. Gunvald drew his arm back and hurled Iudicium at him. The hooked blade plunged into the man’s back and burst from his chest with a big chunk of meat on it. The man staggered forward, screaming.

Gunvald pulled back the black chain, feeling the resistance of the hooked blade severing the man’s spine. Then he flung sword and heavy chain over his shoulder and turned toward the peeling, rotting door of the Wretched Dove. He heard a man yelling obscenities from inside the tavern, and he sighed. It was a man he was hoping to avoid.

Gunvald grunted, “Get off,” and tried to loosen the swords’ chains from around his torso, but they coiled tighter.

“I said get off!” He clenched the chains and tried to push them away from his chest.

There was a momentary battle of wills, but the chains finally relented and coiled back into their the pommels. Gunvald spat on the swords behind him and pushed through the tavern door.

The tavern was worse than he remembered. Its interior was a chaotic jumble of tables and chairs of every conceivable shape and size that looked like old driftwood tossed by the sea into a cavern. The air was heavy with the sour stench of stale ale and half rotten food.

The bar, a ramshackle counter of decaying wooden doors balanced on wooden barrels, was still standing on the far side of the room. The stools in front of it looked one fat ass away from collapsing.

Gunvald made his way towards the bar, and the handful of patrons went silent, except for the high constable, Olin Tibout.

“What the fuck, Gunvald?!” Olin shouted across the tavern, flailing his thick arms. His brow was deeply furrowed, and his large hands clenched into fists. He marched towards Gunvald, shoving aside a chair.

Despite being shorter than Gunvald, Olin’s bulging muscles gave him the illusion of being much bigger than he was.

Gunvald didn’t move.

“I’m just here for a drink.” He sat down on a cracked bar stool.

Olin’s fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white. “Don’t give me that shit, Gunvald. I know why you’re here. And the screaming outside? Was that all necessary? Am I gonna find three corpses out there?”

“They were in my way.”

Olin shook his head and gazed up at the ceiling. “This fucking guy.”

Gunvald shrugged.

Olin stepped up so close that Gunvald could smell the beer on his breath. “You’re here to bust your buddy Darius,” Olin said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Gunvald nodded. “Since you know why I’m here, this should be quick.”

Olin chuckled and loosened his fists. “You don’t think I knew this day was coming the second Darius was thrown into Whitestone? That I haven’t had my men preparing every single day for the moment you stepped foot in Breham?”

“I’d be more concerned if you hadn’t.”

Olin ran a hand through his short, tousled brown hair.

“Listen, I’m only telling you this ‘cause for some ungodly reason I still consider you a friend—stay away from Whitestone.”

“Unless you’re holding Darius somewhere else, I can’t do that.”

“For fuck’s sake, Gunvald!” Olin kicked a stool across the tavern. “If you want to die so bad, just stab yourself with one of your stupid swords and save everybody a lot of headache.”

Gunvald waved the bartender over.

“Do not give this man a drink,” Olin shouted, jabbing his thick finger at the bartender. “I swear to Fiarus if you even glance at a mug, I’ll throw your ass into Whitestone faster than you can blink.”

“Come on, Olin,” Gunvald said. “Can’t I even get a drink?”

“You’re lucky to even be sitting here right now after whatever shit you just pulled outside. I could have fifty men waiting out there for you before you could even stand up.”

“That’s impressive,” Gunvald said.

“You’re testing my patience, Gunvald,” Olin shook his head. “Have you ever sat down and really thought about how fucking stupid this is?”

Gunvald had thought it about it. He thought about it every day.

“Death!” Olin continued. “The actual Death. Immortal right hand to the queen of the underworld. Yeah? You think you’re just gonna walk up to her and stab her in the face? That doesn’t sound fucking insane to you?”

“She took my family.”

“Even so, you’re fucking delusional, Gunvald. You know that? Do you honestly think this is what Lea—”

Gunvald grabbed Olin’s throat and pressed his fingertips into the man’s larynx. “Never say her name. You hear me?”

Olin slammed his fist down on Gunvald’s forearm, knocking the hand from his neck.

“You know damn well that wasn’t my fault,” he said, rubbing his neck.

Gunvald clenched his fists and stood up. The few patrons that had remained out of curiosity scrambled toward the front door.

“They were your men,” Gunvald growled.

“And you butchered them and got me sent to this shithole of a city. You want revenge on Death for killing your family? Fine. It’s your funeral. But freeing Darius Ryker? No, I don’t think so. With all the shit he’s pulled, especially in Central City alone, he’s never getting out of Whitestone.”

Gunvald turned and started for the door, his footsteps echoing loudly in the otherwise silent tavern. When he got there, he turned around and said, “I’m not leaving here without him, Olin. Friend or not, if you get in my way, I’ll kill you.”

Then he swung open the tavern door and left.

Whitestone prison sat on the edge of the eastern slums, its white marble walls, a stark contrast to the squalor surrounding it, gleamed behind its ten-foot iron fence.

Two guards stood at the large steel front doors. The guard on the left, a formidable-looking man, was jerking his head rhythmically and rubbing his eyes repeatedly. The young kid on his right was sitting on the ground snoring, his sword and shield hanging loosely from his grasp.

If this was Olin’s way of being prepared, Gunvald wasn’t impressed.

Gunvald conjured himself into the air, floated over the iron fence, and set down in front of the guards. He felt a little dizzy using magic, as he had since he ended his service as the Hand of Death, and his power was fading faster than he had hoped.

He clamped his hand over the formidable man’s mouth, plunged a small dagger into the side of his neck, and gave it a twist. The man’s spear clanked to the cobbles, and he grabbed Gunvald’s arm, but it was too slippery with blood to grip.

Startled by the spear hitting the ground, the younger guard woke up and stared at Gunvald, then at the other guard’s body, which slumped to the ground next to him. He grabbed his sword and tried to grab his shield, but Gunvald stomped his foot on it. The kid scrambled to his feet and pointed the blade at Gunvald.

“You… You’re him…” he stammered.

“Who?”

“The… the…”

“Go home, boy.”

The kid swallowed hard and held his position. “I can’t let you into the prison.”

The last thing Gunvald wanted was to add this kid to his ever-growing body count, but he summoned Dimittis to his hand, hoping to instill enough fear into the kid to make him run.

The kid stared for a moment longer before doing just that.

Gunvald searched the dead man’s body for the prison keys. He found a thick key ring in the man’s left pocket, opened the prison doors, and stepped inside.

Not a single guard in sight. If Olin thought this was preparation, he was an idiot.

The air was stale, and as expected, the gray, cracked walls of the hallway looked nothing like its shining marble exterior. What he wasn’t expecting was the rune lamps carved into the ceiling.

What kind of pretentious asshole uses rune lamps in a prison? Rune magic was a dying art, and rune lamps were more expensive than they should be. On top of that, the lights barely penetrated the prison’s grim darkness.

“We get in, we get out. That’s it,” Gunvald muttered, not sure if to himself, or the wretched scraps of steel dragging behind him.

The swords clattered loudly as Gunvald walked down the hallway, but still no guards. The hallway ended at a descending staircase. A cacophony of laughter and screaming coming from below. He didn’t bother to gather up his swords to walk down. The noise was more than loud enough to drown out the sound of them banging down the staircase.

Gunvald stopped at a wide stone platform a few steps above a corridor between two rows of cells, two of the doors of which hanging open. Three guards were slouched in wooden chairs on the left side of the platform. A fourth guard, with a similar build to Gunvald’s, stood in the doorway to a small room just behind the three men. Their bloodshot eyes and the scattered liqueur bottles on the small table in front of them confirmed Olin was full of shit. Nobody had planned for Gunvald. Hell, until Gunvald stepped in the Wretched Dove earlier, Olin likely thought he was dead.

The laughter stopped. “Who the hell are you?” one of the guards bellowed.

Another guard, a thin man with an eye patch that barely covered the scarred lump of flesh beneath it, rose from his chair and steadied himself on the table. “You’re him, ain’t cha? The death guy?”

The two other guards staggered up. One had a jagged scar down his cheek and looked on the verge of vomiting. The other, a flabby mess of a man, looked so drunk that Gunvald doubted the man even knew he was in a prison let alone supposed to be guarding it.

All three men fumbled to draw their swords. Dimittis and Obitus coiled into Gunvald’s hands. Eyepatch was closest. Gunvald drove Dimittis into his gut and stabbed Obitus’s broken, jagged blade into his neck.

He sidestepped Scarface’s lumbering, wild swing, and the man stumbled and knocked over their table, sending the liqueur bottles crashing to the floor.

Scarface tried to steady himself, but Gunvald plunged Dimittis deep into the guard’s chest, painting the air with a mist of blood.

The guard in the doorway didn’t give a shit about the about the other guards, that much was clear. He stood there, smirking and staring at Gunvald.

The flabby guard tried to raise his sword, but got it caught under a leg of the flipped table, and he stumbled forward. Gunvald dropped Obitus, grabbed Dimittis with both hands, and cut deep into the flabby man’s stomach, spilling his guts onto the stone floor.

The flabby man staggered around the platform, tripped over his own guts, and tumbled down the stairs to the corridor between the cells.

“Not bad,” the guy in the doorway said. “But I’ve seen better.”

Gunvald shrugged. Then he kicked the last standing chair at the guy and called Cinis to his hands. The man jumped out of the way of the chair and drew his sword. Gunvald swung Cinis at his head. The man parried and their steel blades clanged together.

Gunvald spun away and kicked him in the gut, sending him sprawling into the wall. Then Gunvald charged in, kneed the man in the face, and felt the satisfying crunch of his nose breaking, but the jackass rolled to his feet and wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve. Then he lunged forward, swinging wildly. Obitus swung itself up and deflected the blow while Gunvald stuck Cinis through the man’s gut and yanked the blade up and out with a sickening squelch.

Gunvald dropped Cinis and stared at Obitus, lying on the stone floor, glazed with blood. In the ten years he’d been burdened with the swords, they’d whispered incessantly in his head for blood, but not once had they ever moved without his command.

They’d stayed out of his way, sure, but he’d always assumed it was by some subconscious order he didn’t realize he was giving. If this had anything to do with his waning powers as a Hand, then his revenge on Death needed to come sooner rather than later.

A cell door slammed. A tall, lanky, twenty-somethingish man glanced up at him from the cell corridor.

“Hey Addy,” the guard said, unsheathing his sword. “You might wanna get out here.”

Great. More fucking distractions.

Gunvald sighed and approached the stairs leading down to the cells. Thanks to Obitus, he had forgotten about the two open cells and the guards that were likely in them.

One of them, apparently Addy, who appeared around the same age as the lanky man, stepped out from the closest open cell.

“Look,” Gunvald growled, walking down the steps, “I’m only gonna say this once. You leave or you die.”

Judging by their faces, Gunvald already knew how this was going to go. The lanky man would disappear like smoke, but Addy? Yeah, he was going to die tonight.

“I don’t think so, old man,” Addy said.

The swords whispered in Gunvald’s mind—just kill them and get it over with. Hell, the swords might just do it themselves at this point, who the fuck knows?

As expected, the lanky man dropped his sword and raised his hands above his head. “I… I’m going… please… don’t… don’t kill me.”

Gunvald heard a sharp inhale of breath as he walked past the man without a second glance. The man fled up the stairs, footsteps pattering into the distance.

“Pussy,” Addy said.

Something about the arrogance in Addy’s stance pissed Gunvald off. The way Addy shifted his weight. The way he twirled his sword. Not to mention his stupid fucking grin.

Addy glanced down, apparently to watch Dimittis’s chains crawl around Gunvald’s arm and pull its hilt into his left hand. What he should have been watching was the dagger Gunvald slipped into his right hand.

Gunvald flung the dagger spinning through the air into Addy’s Adam’s apple. Addy dropped his sword and grasped at the hilt in his neck. Blood poured down his chest and he crumpled to the floor. A loud outburst of cheering and hooting erupted from the cells.

Gunvald stepped over Addy and walked down the corridor, looking for Darius. Some prisoners cheered him; others begged to be freed, still others just stared from the backs of their cells.

In the second to last cell on the right, Gunvald found Darius Ryker, the Broken Gunmage.

Darius’s usually well-groomed black hair was now a disheveled set of locs, his dark skin was ashy, and he had purple welts on his face and arms. Gunvald tried a few keys from the ring and found the one that opened the cell door. Darius did not move.

“After all the shit I just went through,” Gunvald said, stepping into the cell, “if you’re gonna make me carry your ass outta here, I’m just gonna leave.”

“Gunvald?” Darius asked.

Darius dragged himself to his feet with the help of the cell wall. His wrists were clamped with heavy steel manacles. He took a few weak steps forward and head-butted Gunvald.

“What the fuck?” Gunvald took a step back.

“That’s for leaving me in here so long.”

Gunvald rubbed his head. “For the record, I didn’t even know you were in here until a week ago. And I didn’t get you thrown in here. You did that on your own.”

“The fuck I did. No, what I did should have got me thrown into Garrison, or maybe Newgate. Being friends with your dumbass got me thrown into this fucking hellhole.”

Gunvald shrugged. “Listen, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

He was only half sincere, but it was the best he could do.

Darius shook his head and smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? Does it erase four months of fucking torture? No. But it’s nice to hear.” Darius held his chained wrists out in front of him. “Now get me out of these fucking things.”

Gunvald held up the ring full of keys.

Darius sighed. “We’re gonna be here all fucking night.”

The thumping of footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Darius’s eyes went wide. “Please tell me you already took out Horace?”

“I guess not,” Gunvald muttered. “Here.”

He handed Darius the key ring and exited the cell.

“Wait…” Darius said

Gunvald ignored him, stepped out of the cell, and was immediately knocked to the ground. Gunvald fell, rolled, and came to a stop on one knee. He reached his right arm back for Obitus.

The massive, muscular hulk towered over him. A thick blanket of long gray hair nearly obscured his pale face, smashed in nose, and giant underbite, but not his rancid stench.

“He’s a half-ogre,” Darius called out.

Gunvald shook his head to clear it. “No shit.”

The half-ogre smiled, a large glob of drool dripping down onto his chin.

“Horace, I presume,” Gunvald said.

Horace pulled an enormous studded club from his belt and hoisted onto his shoulder. Gunvald had only fought a half-ogre once before and barely survived, even with his Hand powers. He’d hoped he’d never have to again.

“Hey Horace,” Darius yelled. Then he jumped forward and smashed his head into Horace’s face.

Horace grunted, lifted Darius into the air by his neck, and slammed him down next to Gunvald.

“Really?” Gunvald said. “Another head-butt?”

Darius raised an eyebrow and held up his hands to show Gunvald his chained wrists.

“Just stay out of the way.”

Gunvald clambered up and lunged at the half-ogre. Horace raised his club and swung it down. Gunvald met it with Obitus in a shower of sparks. Horace roared, swatted Obitus away with a giant, gnarled hand, and swung his club again. Gunvald stumbled sideways and narrowly avoided it. Horace’s follow through tipped him off balance, and Gunvald stabbed him in the side. Blood splattered across the open door of Darius’s cell and across the stone floor. Horace bounced off a cell’s bars, regained his footing, and displayed his fucked-up teeth in a wide grin.

Gunvald tossed Obitus on the floor, summoned Cinis into his hand, and swung the sword in a wide, spinning arc. The blade clashed against Horace’s club so hard Gunvald’s arm went numb. Horace tried to grab him, but he twisted away and swung Cinis at Horace’s chest.

Horace caught the blade with his bare hand and laughed. Gunvald tried to pull it away.

Darius lunged at Horace from behind and slammed his manacled fists into the half-ogre’s lower back. Horace staggered forward and turned around to attack Darius.

Cinis’s anger at not cutting through the half-ogre’s hand flooded into Gunvald’s mind. Gunvald found himself seething, clenching his teeth. He jumped onto Horaces’s back, wrapped Cinis’s chain around the half-ogre’s giant neck, and wrenched back. Horace flung himself backwards, slamming Gunvald into a cell door.

“Squeeze, damn it,” Gunvald told the sword. “You give no shits about doing it to me.”

Horace slammed him again. Gunvald grunted and his grip on Cinis’s chain loosened. “C’mon you bastard piece of tin,” he growled, pulling with all his might. At last, Cinis started squeezing.

One hand on the chain, Gunvald summoned Obitus into the other and slammed the broken blade into Horace’s side. The half-ogre roared as Gunvald twisted the broken blade and green blood sprayed into the air; then the monster stopped roaring, stopped doing anything, and toppled forward, face-first on the stone floor, sending Gunvald flying into Darius.

The inmates whooped and whistled and howled with joy.

Gunvald rolled off Darius.

“Hey, you good man?” Darius asked. Hands still chained, he dropped the key ring on the floor. “You look a little tired.”

Gunvald lay back on the stone floor. “Shut up.”

Darius slammed his foot into Horace’s head. “That’s what you get, asshole.” Then he got up and started rifling through the pockets of the half-ogre’s grimy, blood-drenched tunic with his chained hands.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gunvald asked.

Darius pulled a small key ring from Horace’s pocket and dangled it in front of Gunvald’s face. “Horace was too stupid to be trusted with anything more than a cell and manacle key, and I sure as shit ain’t waiting for you to try every fucking key on that monstrosity you brought in here.”

Gunvald snatched the keys from Darius and unlocked the manacles.

Darius rubbed his wrists. “Damn, that feels good.”

“Here.” Gunvald tossed Darius the small key ring. “Make yourself useful.” He gestured towards the other cells.

Darius hesitated. “Uh… you know most of these people can’t be trusted, right?”

“We’re gonna need them.”

“Alright. I just think— wait, what do you mean we’re gonna need them? Need them for what?”

“To get out of here.”

Darius sighed. “Let me guess, you ran into Olin?”

Gunvald shrugged.

***

It took about twenty minutes for Darius to unlock all of the cells and release forty-six of the most wretched souls ever born and even less time for Gunvald to convince them to go along with his escape plan and lead them back to the steel front doors of the prison.

“Wait for my signal. Got it?” he told them.

A few of the men grunted; others said nothing.

Darius whispered, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Gunvald pushed open the doors. The morning sun blasted his eyes, and he put up his hand to shield them. When they adjusted, he saw Olin Tibout standing by the fence with about thirty armed watchmen.