Daud tightened his grip on the Overseer’s neck and pushed the young initiate back, slamming him onto the gantry. Woodrow cried out in surprise as he realized, finally, where he was.
“What… How did we get up here? How did we—”
“Listen to me, Woodrow,” said Daud, his beard once more brushing his captive’s face. “We are going to get along just fine. We will become great friends and we will talk and sing long into the night, and the day you met the Knife of Dunwall will be the greatest day in your entire life. Because if you answer my questions truthfully and you give me the information I require, I will let you live, and for the rest of your days you will be thankful for every breath of air you take.”
The Overseer whimpered and tried to nod his head as best he could.
“And if you don’t,” said Daud, “I will throw you off this platform and the Abbey of the Everyman will be less one initiate.”
Woodrow’s eyes widened again. “Please, just… please—”
“What are the Overseers doing at the factory?”
The boy gulped in air. He had stopped struggling, but Daud kept a tight grip on his neck, although he could still breathe… just.
“Patrol,” said Woodrow. “I was on patrol at the slaughterhouse. Change of shift. You must have seen the others.”
“Why is the factory important?”
“I, er…”
“Why is the factory important?”
“Heresy!” Woodrow screwed up his face. “A black magic rite—witchcraft! Something unspeakable happened.”
Daud narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”
“There was a man. A stranger, from… somewhere else. Tyvia, some said. A traveler. He gathered a group of mercenaries around him and they used the factory as a base of operations.”
“For what?”
“He had an object. An artifact.”
There it was. “What artifact?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Nobody knows!”
“You’re lying!” Daud lifted the Overseer by his collar and swung him over to the edge of the gantry. The Overseer cried out and twisted his neck around to look down. There was nothing between him and the roof of the mill except two hundred feet of air.
“Nobody has seen it!” Woodrow turned his head back around to stare up at Daud. “We only know what the Sisters of the Oracular Order have told us.”
Daud cocked his head. “The Sisters saw it in a vision?”
“Yes. Yes!”
“What did they see? Speak!”
At first the Overseer shook his head, then he nodded, spit flying from his mouth. “Some kind of weapon. That’s all I know, I swear to you. That’s all any of the initiates in my chapterhouse were told.”
So, the stories were true. He was following the right path after all.
Overseer Woodrow gasped, but Daud relaxed his grip on the youth’s neck. Woodrow gasped again, his chest heaving.
“So that’s why the Overseers are here, isn’t it?” asked Daud. “This stranger brought the artifact to Dunwall. Whatever he was doing at the factory, something wentwrong. He was killed and the Abbey of the Everyman think the artifact is still here. So the Overseers have spent eight months sifting through the wreckage.”
“It’s dangerous,” said Woodrow. “Heretical artifacts cannot be allowed to exist.”
“You never found it,” Daud said. “You’re still looking.”
“Please! Don’t let go! Don’t let go!”
Daud leaned down over the Overseer. “Then keep talking. What else have you heard in your chapterhouse?”
“Now they’re saying the artifact was taken! Someone came in, after the explosion. They found it and took it. Before the City Watch had the cordon up. Before the High Overseer called us in to search.”
Daud snarled. “Who took it?”
Woodrow shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. The senior Overseers don’t believe the story. That’s why they keep looking. But I’m only telling you what I heard.”
Then Woodrow closed his eyes and began to speak, softly, and quickly, the words tumbling out without pause. “Restrict the Wandering Gaze that looks hither and yonder for some flashing thing that easily catches a man’s fancy in one moment, but brings calamity in the next.”
“Woodrow.”
“Restrict the Lying Tongue that is like a spark in the heathen’s mouth.”
“Woodrow!”
There was a crack of gunfire, a shouted warning, once, then twice.
Daud looked up, his grip on Woodrow relaxing. The Overseer slid a few inches further toward his demise and cried out in terror before Daud caught him again. Daud frowned, peering in the direction of the sound.
The gunshot had come from the east, somewhere toward Dunwall Tower itself, the imperial palace justa few streets away. Daud’s eye was caught by movement below; looking down, he watched as officers of the City Watch appeared from several different streets around the mill, grouped together like ants after their nest had been kicked, then ran toward the Tower.
Hanging from his arm, Overseer Woodrow jerked into life. “Help me! Somebody, help me! Help me—”
Daud swung Woodrow back up onto the gantry and spun him around, wrapping an arm around the man’s neck. Woodrow’s eyes bulged and he scrambled to get purchase, but it was no use. Five seconds and Woodrow stopped struggling. Ten and the Overseer was out cold, his body slumping against Daud’s chest.
Daud let Woodrow’s unconscious form slide down against the curve of the chimney.
Two more gunshots sounded and more shouting, far away.
Daud crouched on the edge of the gantry, and from inside his jerkin pulled out a small spyglass. As he focused on the commotion, he felt a rush of adrenaline, the stirring of a long-distant memory rising up from somewhere in his mind.
Daud scanned the streets close to Dunwall Tower through the eyepiece. Soon enough he found four guards running down a wide avenue. Daud tracked them until they joined a larger group in a small square. The men pointed and shouted, the morning sun reflecting off their bandolier buckles. Some of them had their swords drawn. An officer had his pistol in his hand, and he used it to point toward the Tower.
