Find the Outsider.
Kill the Outsider.
And to do that he needed the Twin-bladed Knife. It had been here, in Dunwall, at the factory. The Overseers were still looking for it.
Daud looked down at the body of Overseer Woodrow as he lay huddled against the chimney. The young man was gently snoring, his lips quivering, his eyes flickering behind closed lids. The Overseer would be missed, yes, but someone would find him up here, on the almost impossible to reach platform.
Eventually.
Daud cocked his head. Perhaps the story Woodrow had heard in his chapterhouse was right. Perhaps the reason why the Overseers hadn’t found the knife was because someone had found it before them.
Heretical artifacts were rare, but not unknown, the black market trade in them—along with bonecharms and other more common objects touched by the black arts—could be surprisingly busy. And if the stories of the reappearance of the Twin-bladed Knife had reached Daud on the other side of the Isles, then its existence would be common knowledge here in Dunwall, if you knew whom to ask.
And as it happened, Daud did, because if you were interested in the heretical and the arcane, there was just one place to go. It was a place he hadn’t visited in a long time—even as a Whaler, he had had no cause to enter the territory, and he knew that most of the other gangs of Dunwall felt likewise.
But it was a place to find answers and a place to pick up the trail.
Wyrmwood Way.
And once he got there, Daud knew exactly who he had to see.
3
THE STREETS OF DUNWALL
18th Day, Month of Earth, 1852
“With regard to Section 5, subsection 1, paragraph 4, clause 7B, officers of the City Watch are obliged to report to their posts upon enaction of Special (Executive) Orders, Protocol 6, thus authorizing the establishment of cordons and restricted zones of access; further, that upon enaction of Special (Executive) Orders, Protocol 7, the City Watch shall be empowered to enact and enforce a curfew, the parameters and limits of which shall be at the discretion of the commanding officers, upon the orders received through the City Watch Command, the Royal Protector, and/or the Imperial Throne of the Empire of the Isles, whomsoever has been declared to occupy such positions of state.”
—ADDENDUM TO SECTION 5, NOTES ON EXTRA-ORDINARY COMMAND AND EMERGENCY PROCEDURES
Extract from the City Watch Operational Manual (twenty-seventh revision)
The journey across Dunwall from the Tower District to Wyrmwood Way had been an interesting one, andhad taken Daud far longer than he had intended, even though he’d traveled in the open for the most part. Daud had decided to forgo the shadows and rooftops and had stuck to the streets. It had become clear soon enough that with all the commotion, nobody was going to stop him, or even give him a second look.
Dunwall was in uproar. The initial activity of the City Watch as they tried—and failed—to pursue their own Empress had quickly spread into a city-wide mobilization, the streets filled not just with guards but Overseers too. In contrast to the slight panic of the City Watch, the Overseers moved through the streets with a sort of austere calm, their masks a menacing presence as they lurked in smaller numbers among the increasing numbers of ordinary citizens who were now taking to the streets, as word of what was happening in Dunwall Tower coursed through the city like a fire. The information was sketchy, incomplete, and in parts contradictory, as news of this kind always was this soon after the event in question had taken place.
There had been a coup. The Empress had been deposed—some said she was dead, some said she was in hiding. Daud, at least, knew the truth, although as he made his way through the crowds he kept his mouth firmly shut, listening to the gossip swirl around the crowds like gnats dancing in the summer sun, but contributing nothing himself.
This had nothing to do with him. He existed apart, an observer—no, an outsider, he realized, not without a small sense of irony.
Daud tried to move off the main avenue, his progress becoming slower as the crush increased, but he found most alternative routes cut off by City Watch and Overseers as they began to funnel the crowds into moreeasily controlled spaces. That was logical and didn’t surprise him.
What did surprise him was the discovery of a third faction of quasi-military officials, helping—no, commanding—the others. They were dressed in uniforms of baggy beige pants and short-sleeved tunics that were a blueish-green for most, a darker red for a couple of others, in each case contrasting with the white leather belts and bandoliers that crossed them. They all wore tall white caps with a short brim at the front and a longer one shielding the back of the neck. On the front of the caps was a silver badge, signifying the authority for whom these strangers worked.
Daud knew the uniforms and knew the badge. He had known them his entire life. They were the Grand Serkonan Guard, a long way from home, but here in Dunwall, in the middle of a coup, and apparently in quite some numbers. And, more importantly, it was the red-coated veterans who appeared to be giving the orders—to their own men, and to the Dunwall City Watch and even the Overseers as well.
That, Daud thought, was interesting. Whatever had gone down at the palace, clearly the Duke of Serkonos himself, that pig Luca Abele, had something to do with it.
Daud watched as officers of the Grand Serkonan Guard conferred with their counterparts of the City Watch and the Overseers, as more members of each faction began assembling in the narrow street behind them. They were about to move on the crowd, with the intention of driving them back inside, and no doubt
