It was the next day, and events of consequence closed in as the time detailed on the crumpled note came closer.

Lithe and little, two boys rushed out of the echoey courtyard of their slum central tenement. They screamed, laughed and shit talked every step as they ran along Yarborough Street. A revolutionary mural, with paint still dripping, decorated the down and out neighbourhood. The first boy, Iray, spotted an empty paint can next to the brazen political graffiti and kicked it out in front of him as though it was a ball. His scruffy bowl cut flapped back in his own breeze of motion. His taller, neater friend, Rafan, yelled through his blocked nose, “To me, to me!” And Iray obliged and kicked the can to his friend. One, two, back and forth. They enjoyed their game as they continued a determined race through the shadier neighbourhoods of Radasanth.

Gum, the increasingly talented assassin, had positioned himself on the roof of the building opposite the purported Castigar safe house. Through his sun washed eyes, the hidden shaman squinted as Iray and Rafan came around the corner. Rafan ran up to the door of the supposed safe house and slashed a red line across it with a brush he seemed to produce from nowhere. His buddy came next, slashing across in the opposite direction with a black line. Together the two lines made an X.


Using his vertical advantage, Gum could see that there were two police officers watching the event. The uniformed duo watched the kids with mouths agape, almost merrily amazed that two punks would commit a crime right before them. The male officer mumbled, “What the fuck?” to his female colleague. But she was gone. Her right hand held tight to her helmet so it wouldn't fly off, and her left hand was loosening her baton from his waist. The male officer met his duty head on and rushed after them too.

“Hmm, that was very strange,” thought Gum to himself. “No, I understand,” he whispered aloud as it clicked, he was fairly certain what would happen next.

With the coppers gone from the scene, two men tattooed men sauntered from a dark alley and into the light. They were inked head to toe in poorly scribed Loyalist symbols. They broke into a dash and rushed towards the door of the alleged Castigar safe house. The first of the bald headed brutes banged erratically on the door while the second screamed as loud as he could, “Sanctuary!!! Sanctuary!!! We're friends of the old Castigars, we're allies! LET US IN!!! QUICKLY!!! The Loyalists are coming!!! The Loyalists are coming!!!”

Gum knotted his brow at the lies of the terrorists below. He wondered and worried what to do. If he was to stay loyal to Senator Fordstein, who had lied and used him, then both the Castigars and the Loyalists were his enemy. Why intervene? But on the other hand, if he did intervene, maybe the Castigars could offer him a way out of his obligations to this mysterious Fordstein Society whose debt he was regrettably in. Both men were armed with simple axes but wore no armour. It would be easy for Gum to enter the fray and dispatch of them before any Castigars inside the safe house opened the door.

Whatever he decided to do, Gum had certainly come to the conclusion that it was time to start understanding this conflict so he could best turn it to his advantage and eventually get the hell off the rain swept rock in the northern seas.

“Oh, to be back in the warmth of the Xangu Nation,” he whined the words sadly to himself.