The Middle City’s Warrens was a deadly and treacherous place. While there were certain routes through the shifting maze of masonry and refuse considered relatively stable, nothing in them lasted forever. Trying to map the Warrens was the epitome of madness, as hordes of burrowing rats and other, more sinister, creatures collapsed and carved new tunnels through the twisted mass on a daily basis, entire sections appeared, rotated, and disappeared with no rhyme or reason, or were just demolished by the constant internecine warfare between the gangs of ghouls, zombies, and the Warrens’ own native offspring. He’d once heard some Upper City scholar pose the theory that just as the three cities’ Dead Piles acted as a focus for bodies coming to the Plane, the Warrens acted as a focus for dead buildings. It was as good an explanation for the blasted place as any, he supposed.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the Warrens, it was one of the most dangerous places in the Nameless City, and certainly the most dangerous place in the Middle City. And since it was the only way for the non-elevated to get from the Middle City to the Lower City, it was also one of the most well-traveled. Couriers could demand exhorbant fees to make runs through the Warrens to deliver packages, and more than one mercenary group could be hired as escorts through the shifting maze if the price was right. More often than not, William knew, those groups left their clients as Lost Ones in some random alley with considerably lighter pockets.
But that wasn’t merely the way of life in the Warrens, it was an encouraged art. William could name the dozen or so gangs that currently claimed supremacy in the Warrens, though he’d seen many more rise and fall during his time here. Most of them owed allegiance in some form or other to either Meredith the Ghoul Queen or Deckard, the head zombie man of the Middle City. When those two weren’t driving the zombies and ghouls to kill each other, they were encouraging them to kill themselves. In theory it was to ensure that only the strongest remained to serve them, but William had a feeling it had more to do with their mutual fears that one day someone would come along and send them on a long overdue trip to the Crematorium.
Of course, William was a special circumstance. He’d pushed the line against both Meredith and Deckard more than once and yet had been allowed to continue existing. Part of that was because he had proven to be a ridiculously hard son of a bitch to kill, but mostly it was because he was a damned good killer in his own right. Still, after his last incident with one of Deckard’s favorite ‘associates’, William had almost used up the last of his good will. Meredith had only continued to extend her protection to him because he had offered to deliver the Broken Thorn Paw to her leaderless and mostly intact. Even so, he was treading on thin ice when it came to the Ghoul Queen’s favor. Just another reason why he needed to get a key and get out of this god’s forsaken place.
William stopped, hearing the scab before the would-be ambusher could even jump out to bar his path.
“What’s this?” the zombie laughed, reaching up to reaffix the side of his jaw that unhinged when he did so. “A lone rotter out to make his way in the world? You may think you’re a big baddass with that blade you’ve got but I’ve got Ole’ Sweetsie here,” the zombie waved the long, jagged knife he carried menacingly. “She and the three of me boys I got with me thinks that your fancy blade there’d be more comfortable with a bunch of scabs like us than with a sad, lonely rotter like you.”
Ignoring the threat, William looked casually around, easily spotting the scab’s three companions. One of them took a bit of finding though, and might just have a real future in the Warrens. Assuming he lived long enough, that is.
“Hey, rotter!” the lead zombie yelled, waving Ole’ Sweetsie again, “I’m talking to you.”
“Shit, I dunno Jacks,” one of the zombie’s companions piped up. “He don’t look like no easy mark.”
“You should listen to your friend,” William said nonchalantly. While it wouldn’t really take him much effort to make these fresh scabs Lost Ones, he really did have better things to do.
“Shut the fuck up rotter,” Jacks spat and took a step forward.
“Wait!” Another of his companions, the smart one, called out. “Ain’t he that Gor’Havah guy we were told about?”
“Gods’ shit,” another one suddenly cried out fearfully. “I think Yobo’s right.”
“No rutting way,” Jacks spat, though he didn’t sound quite as arrogant as he had before. “All that Gor’Havah shit was just spook talk.”
“I ain’t so sure man,” the last zombie called out. “Maybe we should just let him go.”
“Fuck that,” Jacks screamed. “Who’s going to take us seriously if we can’t even fucking deal with one lone rotter on our turf?”
“You really should listen to them,” William repeated, though in a decidedly less neutral tone. He was very quickly becoming annoyed with the situation.
“And I told you to Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Rotter!” Jacks brandished Ole’ Sweetsie once again, the steel back in his voice. “So what if you are this Gor’Havah guy, huh? That means I get to make a name for myself as the scab who Lost One’d Gor’Havah.”
“Better than you have tried scab.” William sighed inwardly, he could see where this was going and just wanted it to be over. His only hope was that Jacks’ friends retained their own common sense.
Jacks screamed an incoherent string of curses and hurled himself at William, Ole’ Sweetsie cutting the air in front of him savagely. Spurred on by their leader’s fearless charge, two of the other zombies followed suit. The obsidian edge of William’s warscythe flashed in the darkness as it caught Jacks in the temple, mid-stride, and parted his head neatly in half. Ole’ Sweetsie flew from his limp grasp to be lost amongst the refuse and he managed one surprised blink before collapsing in a heap at William’s feet. The other two zombies didn’t even have time to register Jack’s final death before the warscythe ushered them too into the ranks of the Lost Ones. Less than a handful of seconds after the attack had begun, it was over.
“Gods’ shit,” the last remaining zombie, Yobo, quaked fearfully at the sight of the massacre, dropping to his knees atop the rubble which he had hidden behind.
“Don’t worry … Yobo was it?” Yobo nodded vigorously. “Well Yobo, looks like you were the only smart one.” William paused to wipe the zombies’ ichor from the blade of his warscythe with the back of Jacks’ shirt. “I’d recommend finding some smarter scabs to throw your lot in with next time. Now get out of here.”
Yobo wasted no time in vanishing back into the shadows of the Warrens, while William resumed his path back into the Middle City.
By all the unnameable gods above, he needed to get out of this place.
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