Ash & Alloy

“Tortured. Maimed. Forgotten. But still breathing.”

The red and golden gate looked gloomy and ghastly beneath the pouring rain—so unlike its earlier self, when lanterns flickered on either side of the broad, polished road and whispered promises of mystery. Now, drenched in darkness, the gate stood cold and silent. The dragon arch that once beckoned with allure now leered like a warning. Its scaled body curled tightly around one column, the snarl carved into its face sharpened by shadow.

Each pillar bore the ancient crests of the founding fathers—those who had journeyed from the eastern isles to the mainland—etched into wood and kissed here and there with flaking gold.

There was nothing inviting left—no drifting melodies from unseen musicians, no warm scent of spices curling from food stalls. The district stood hollowed and mute, its shutters sealed tight, windows shivering beneath the unrelenting fists of rain.

Far beneath one of the city’s oldest buildings, through a rotting cellar and beyond a tunnel half-claimed by collapse, the air grew still and strange. Whispers of ancient secrets clung to the damp stones. Somewhere in that buried dark, rats skittered and bats stirred—until the silence broke. Boots rang out, sharp and deliberate, descending toward the deepest cell.

With his eyes closed, he listened carefully, gauging his captors’ numbers and movements. Two hours earlier, one of them had come too close—and earned a broken nose for his mistake. Despite the shackles binding his wrists, Logan had drawn the man in and headbutted him hard enough to knock him flat, blood had sprayed, the man howled, and Logan had wrapped his legs around the thick neck like a serpent, dragging them both down in a chaotic sprawl. He might have finished the job, but more hands had grabbed him, hauling him away and slamming him against the cold stone wall. Now he hung from a heavy chain anchored above, his body swaying weakly like a discarded marionette.

The sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the corridor—familiar and unmistakable. Logan recognized them as belonging to the same men who had ambushed him in that back alley two weeks ago. It had been a rookie mistake to let his guard down then, and now he paid the price in bruises and shackles. He tilted his head slightly, listening as the boots drew nearer, counting them off: one pair, a second, a third… then something shifted. Another set joined them—a heavier tread, more deliberate than the others, distinct in its measured rhythm. Polished boots, military by the sound alone. He forced his head up to look, the movement pulling his body in a sluggish sway, like a marionette left to tangle in its own strings.

“Well, well. Seems we’ve caught a Raven. Rank and name?” came a voice with a northern lilt.

Logan didn’t respond at once. Instead, he studied the man carefully—sharp eyes that missed nothing, a walking stick held with the casual authority of someone used to command, a regal posture that spoke of military training. But beneath the polished demeanor, there was something darker, something ruthless coiled just out of reach, waiting to strike.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Logan said evenly, his voice thick with the cadence of his eastern accent.

The man tilted his head and stepped closer, tapping Logan’s chin with the tip of his cane.

“He’s one of yours,” he barked to a lackey behind him, as if offended by the thought.

Then, waving them off, he pulled a hidden blade from his cane. The goons backed off, quickly vanishing up the stairs.

The officer stepped forward, voice cutting through the cell with practiced ease. “So—who do you work for?”

Logan smirked, blood crusting at the corner of his mouth. “I work only if it pleases me,” he replied, keeping the accent thick, the expression insolent.

He let his body sag, swaying faintly in a show of weariness, but his gaze remained steady—sharp and alert beneath the curtain of hair. Every inch of him hurt, but pain meant he was still alive, still calculating. Every movement of the man before him was weighed with care. There was a subtle limp in the left leg, nearly hidden, and a stiffness in the neck that suggested an old battle wound. Logan made quiet note of each detail, committing every flaw to memory with the same ruthless precision that had kept him alive this long.

The officer’s cane cracked against Logan’s shoulder with a sharp report. He grunted from the impact, his body shifting under the weight of the blow, but the sound that escaped him was controlled—more a reaction than pain.

The officer snapped, “I asked you a question, you filthy eastern rat.“”

Logan looked up slowly, meeting the officer’s glare through the curtain of blood and sweat matting his face. He said nothing—just stared, defiant and unflinching despite the pounding in his skull.

Above, thunder rolled across the rooftops. The storm lashed the city in relentless fury, a violence that mirrored the mood below.

Far across the city, high in the palace tower, a tall figure stood before a lattice-paned window, watching the rain as it carved silver trails down the glass. His steel-grey eyes were unreadable, hands clasped neatly behind his back. The storm made the city tremble—but it was not the weather that unsettled him.

A knock at the door snapped the silence.

“Come in,” the man said, his voice quiet but carrying the unspoken weight of command.

It was the Prime Minister—short, pink-faced, always out of breath. “Your Highness, there’s a leak—”

The door burst open, the tension in the room breaking like glass. A man clad in green strode in with practiced confidence. Two others followed close behind and pulled the door shut behind them. One of them wore the ceremonial robes of a clergyman, the fabric heavy with old rites.

The man by the window turned slowly, firelight catching on the silver in his mane. His eyes—cold, calculating—fixed on the smallest figure among them. Though no titles had been spoken yet, his bearing alone announced what he was: the Emperor.

“Royal Protector Crispin. Sergeant Major Lester,” the Prime Minister wheezed, donning his spectacles. “Clergyman Emil.”

Lester nodded. “Go on, Emil. It was one of yours.”

Emil stepped forward. “Your Highness, our Raven in the Dragon District has been captured. The Iron Serpents have him.”

The Emperor’s expression sharpened. “One of yours, Crispin?”

“Aye, Your Majesty. One of my best. I doubt he’ll need rescuing.” But worry creased Crispin’s brow.

Alexander Montgomery leaned on the desk. “Anything else, Archibald?”

“N-no,” the Prime Minister muttered and shuffled out.

Alone, the Emperor and his old friend shared a moment.

“What worries you?” Alexander asked quietly, though his voice held the same weight it always did.

Crispin sighed, rubbing the beads on his wrist. “I’m afraid the leak is from one of mine. They’re always one step ahead.”

Alexander frowned. “Do you trust the Raven?” he asked, voice steady but low.

“With my life,” Crispin replied. “I’ve overseen his path from the beginning—closely.”

Alexander leaned in slightly. “But?” he said.

“But he’s one man,” Crispin admitted. “And I don’t know how deep this goes.”

“If he’s half the man you were—” Alexander began.

“He’s twice that,” Crispin said, a weary smile flickering across his face.

They drank in silence, each praying the boy would survive.

The rain slowed down as the two men finished their drinks in silence, each praying to their own gods quietly, to guide the young man out of whatever horrible situation he was in, before it was too late.

Logan’s stamina and pain tolerance were quite high although he could feel that his strength was slowly waning. He no longer had to fake that he was weakened as he hung from the shackles, his knees were trembling for real. His head felt heavier by the minute. He was quite sure that he had lost at least three teeth and his left eye was so swollen that he could no longer keep it open.

“Dirty foreigner,” the Butcher sneered, spitting on Logan’s shoulder with a spit landing on Logan’s shoulder as his head lulled while he tried to control his breathing — using each and every lesson of self-control and self-preservation he had learnt from his Mentor. He counted back from five and his breath was calm again — his heart rate was normal, but he knew this was his last shred of strength.

Fortunately, his torturer was growing more exhausted than he was. He was out of breath and his lashes were softer — for a solid three hours he had been beaten to a pulp. However, it was clear that the torturer was more tired than his prey.

“Only van zing left, you know… ze ultimate zing zat makes a man scream…” the Butcher muttered, circling Logan like a vulture Logan had stopped listening to the sluggish harangue since his good eye caught that in frustration his captor was pacing back and forth, moving around him.

“…I vil peel zein skin from ze bones, inch by inch,” the Butcher whispered, his voice a sickly rasp at Logan’s ear The filthy breath of the Butcher curled against Logan’s cheek, acrid and damp. That was the moment—he knew he had no choice. It was now or never. Summoning the last reserves of strength, Logan shifted, feeling the bruises protest as he moved. He used the chains like a pendulum, launching himself forward in a sudden, vicious swing. His body slammed into the Butcher before the man could react, every inch of him turned into a weapon—shoulder, ribs, momentum—colliding with the brute in a single, brutal arc.

For three hours, Logan had feigned the exhaustion of a refugee, body limp, eyes dulled with pain—just as he had when luring in the earlier hoodlum. But beneath the façade, the feral part of him waited. When it surged up now, it did so like wildfire, adrenaline unlocking strength he hadn’t known was left in him. The killer’s instinct was sharp, precise—every motion honed by years of silent training. The familiar feeling surged through his body, unleashing a strength he hadn’t realized still lay dormant within him.

“Zwine…” the Butcher spat the Butcher’s muffled insult barely escaped as he stumbled, thrown off balance. Logan’s hands found the cold metal of his chains again, and he gripped them with renewed purpose. Muscles coiled, he flung himself one more time, hurtling toward the man who was only just regaining his footing. as the “Butcher” lost his balance and stumbled — it was too late. Logan’s fingers wrapped around the chains of his shackles as he lifted his lithe form from the ground and swung one last time towards the atrocious man that had managed to stand on his feet.

Both men staggered under the momentum of the swing, careening toward the cell’s jagged edge. The ring anchoring the shackles above couldn’t hold their combined weight. With a metallic shriek and a final groan, the ring anchoring the shackles tore free from the ceiling, unable to support the weight of both men, with a loud cling it detached from the rock.

They crashed to the floor and skidded dangerously close to the precipice—an exposed cliffside within the cell, its edge dropping into what seemed a bottomless void. Logan’s left hand found stone, scrabbling for purchase, fingers digging in as panic rose. Logan grabbed the edge of the solid ground with his left hand, but the feeling of safety never came to him as the “Butcher” held onto the chains that were still shackled to both of his wrists.

Incoherent insults echoed while Logan threw a few kicks in his opponent’s direction and missed. He was heavy and must have been surging with adrenalin as well, he tried to climb up the chains and pull Logan down.

Logan made a desperate attempt to haul himself upward, muscles screaming in protest. But the Butcher’s grip on the chains anchored him, dragging at his broken body, preventing escape. Their fates remained tethered together by iron and blood. With desperation, he clumsily pulled himself up enough so that he could place his left elbow onto the solid ground.

Amidst the frenzy—kicks flailing, chains biting into his raw wrist—he barely noticed his fingers brushing the hilt of the unclaimed blade lying close to the brink. Somehow, in that desperate scuffle, his hand had found it. He gripped it tightly and turned his head to assess the moment with the cold clarity of a man out of options.

“You are mad?!” the Butcher of Thousands of Innocents shrieked, his words slicing through the cavern’s emptiness, bouncing wildly off the stone like the final cries of a man who had already slipped past fate’s edge.

“Ztop—I vil tell you ze name, ze name of our leader, it iz—” the Butcher stammered, desperation cracking his voice Logan silenced the plea with a wild, unblinking glare. He turned his focus inward, pressing the blade’s hilt against his own wrist again and again with measured violence. The pain didn’t matter—what mattered was the break—the crunch of bone that would free him. He felt it snap, sharp and brutal. Then, with one final breath, he angled the blade and carved through flesh and sinew. A clean severance, no hesitation...Due to the weight his wrist was carrying, it was not that hard to break his bones. Once he was sure that his bone was shattered. He looked at the man below him before taking a deep breath and hoping the blade was sharp enough.

“Baztaaard—” the Butcher screamed The insult was lost to the void as Logan hauled himself up, his good arm trembling, the stump slick with blood. He collapsed onto solid stone, gasping, mangled, half-blind. His senses reeled. Somewhere behind him, the Butcher vanished into the dark. And somewhere ahead, the cellar door creaked open. Or had he imagined it? He had cut off his own hand, was beaten to a pulp, and knew he was only seconds away from passing out when he heard the cellar door creak open—or at least, he thought he did.