Daud immediately crouched into a combat stance, years of training and a lifetime of experience guiding him almost without conscious thought. Still hidden in the dark he darted away from the rubble, toward a long rectangular depression cut into the factory floor to his right—a whale oil overflow tank, choked with debris and filled with water. But there was still enough space to crouch low and observe the intruder unseen.
The light from a hooded lantern caught the wall on the other side of the factory, then swept around as the newcomer moved forward, out of the shadows near the street entrance and into a shaft of moonlight streaming in through the broken wall. The intruder wasn’t a guard of the City Watch, out on his patrol. The man belonged to another kind of order altogether—an order infinitely more capable and dangerous.
The intruder wore black breeches underneath a long charcoal-gray tunic, belted at the waist and harnessed with narrower leather straps over the shoulders, the wide cuffs embellished with bold gold motifs woven into the cloth. His face was hidden behind a golden mask, the features molded into a scowling, twisted visage of anger, the forehead engraved with a symbol, a horizontal pitchfork passing through a large capital C.
An Overseer, a member of the militarized faction of the Abbey of the Everyman. Brutal zealots, deployed only for very particular reasons, situations where black magic and witchcraft—heresies—were suspected.
Now, that was interesting. An Overseer in the ruined factory. No wonder the authorities wanted to keep people away. Which meant…
The stories were true. It had been here. And they were still looking for it.
The Twin-bladed Knife was real.
And he was getting closer.
The Overseer strode across the factory floor, passing his lantern beam over the rubble, over the walls, making no attempt at stealth.
Of course, it was no wonder the City Watch patrols had been so clearly disinterested in their duties that Daud had been able to practically walk straight past them. The City Watch and the Abbey of the Everyman had an uneasy, suspicious relationship—or at least they had, when he had last been in Dunwall. If the Overseers were here, then the Abbey was in charge. The City Watch would resent their authority and would resent being assigned to simple guard duty while the Overseers gave the orders.
He hadn’t seen any other Overseers on his way in, but then again, he hadn’t exactly dawdled outside. With the cordon in place, his primary goal had been to get into the factory quickly. It had been sheer luck that he hadn’t run into them.
And it was sheer luck that one had come in now, alone.
The Overseer turned, facing away from the debris-filled whale oil tank.
Now was his chance. Time to truly test himself, to see how much of the old ways he really did remember.
Time for the Knife of Dunwall to come out of hiding.
Daud raised himself up, fists clenched. He exhaled slowly, focusing his mind, drawing on a tether to somewhere else. A tether he’d grown increasingly reluctant to use. But Daud was nothing if not practical—if you had a tool, it was stupid not to use it. An opportunity like this wouldn’t present itself again, of that he was sure.
As the Overseer moved away, Daud dashed forward, boots silent in the two inches of water on the factory floor. He reached out with his left hand, the Mark of the Outsider engraved into the back of it burning fiercelyunder his glove as he drew on the power that had been granted to him so many, many years ago.
The Overseer had no idea what was coming as Daud leapt through the Void, transversing the fifty yards that separated them in a blink of an eye before grabbing the Overseer around the neck with a forearm and pulling backward, dragging him off balance. The Overseer grunted and dropped his lantern, his feet kicking in the water as Daud reached out again, transversing the pair of them up onto the top of one of the makeshift props that held up the wall opposite, then again, up over the crumbling wall of the factory and onto the moonlit rooftops of Dunwall, dragging the now unconscious Overseer with him.
It was time to get some answers.
2
A (VERY) HIGH ROOFTOP, TOWER DISTRICT, DUNWALL
18th Day, Month of Earth, 1852
“The last Overseer, no doubt consumed with terror at seeing his brothers fall so easily, sank to his knees and begged for mercy. Daud spoke a single word that made my entrails squirm in my belly upon hearing it. The Overseer shrieked like a madman until his mask split in two, as though struck by some hammer and chisel, and a stream of blood gushed forth from the crack, bathing Daud’s boots.
I closed my eyes at that point, too overwhelmed to witness any further atrocity. I could only hope that if that foul heretic discovered me next, my life would end swiftly. But when I opened my eyes, Daud was nowhere to be seen. That was the last I ever saw of the Knife of Dunwall.”
—THE KNIFE OF DUNWALL, A SURVIVOR’S TALE
From a street pamphlet containing a sensationalized sighting of the assassin Daud
Daud leaned back against the damp old brick of the gargantuan chimney, and watched as the sun rose overthe city of Dunwall. The sky was clearing, but enough thick clouds lingered to turn the sky brilliant banded shades of yellow, orange, red, even purple, and in the growing morning heat the rain of the night was evaporating from the ocean of slate that made up the collected rooftops of the city, creating a thin mist that smelled of clean stone. From this altitude, standing on the high metal gantry that orbited the chimney at nearly its summit, the view was nothing short of spectacular. Stretched out all around, Dunwall glittered, as though the entire city had been scattered with
