The walls of Baltimore loomed before us. For all the power of my suit, for all the confidence I felt in my abilities, I swallowed hard. A tidy pool of fear settled in my gut, impossible to shift or deny.

This was Baltimore.

Baltimore was the feared place. Their Griid-lords were the dread lords. This was a land of strange laws, of barely veiled anarchy. This was the land where violence spewed and victories were won with an abundance of blood.

The Burgh was an intimidating place. The Burghsmen were a hard and savage people, every man a warrior, every heart hardened in a way that made ours seem decadent and gentrified. But Baltimore was something else. This was the manifestation of carnality. It was the darkness of the human soul made corporeal in towers of stone.

Olaf and I left the wagons to disperse. The land beyond the walls of Baltimore was festooned with shanties and sprawling streets. The city had grown beyond its fortifications. It was a land of wealth and splendor in its own way. Baltimore never wanted for Flows. What they failed to win in the Falling, which was no small fortune, they gained through mercenary work.

The streets beyond the wall were busy. Merchants and traders and common folk thronged, shouts and jeers raining easily between all. My eyes caught glimpses of women and men in scandalous attire, costumes that barely let the imagination work at all. Women stalked the streets in dresses that veered low over the chest and brazenly high above the knee. Shaven men walked the streets with their upper bodies naked. They were painted strikingly, their faces made up. My eyes lingered involuntarily on a woman in a red dress. I couldn't take my eyes from the curve of buttock that peaked so temptingly from the hem of her tiny skirt. She caught my eye and gestured explicitly for me to come and join her. I looked away, my cheeks glowing.

The walls were decorated with corpses. Among them were the bodies of the Freemen of Dallas. It seemed Baltimore had lent its services to the Queen of Miami.

I swallowed hard at the thought of entering the city. It was hard to imagine that a functioning archive existed somewhere in this den of sin and madness.

Olaf, smiling oafishly at a young lady whose breasts were concealed by nothing but judiciously applied strips of tape, said, "So… um… you're going to the library… I don't know if I'm a library kinda guy…"

I said, "What will you do?"

Olaf said, "Some interesting-looking bars around…"

He said all of that in a dreamy daze as his eyes roved the array of enticing female flesh all around him.

I said, "You'd drink here? Aren't you… you know, put off?"

He said, "By what?"

"Well… it doesn't exactly look safe, does it?"

Olaf turned his head to me and treated me to a broad easy grin. He tapped the huge chest plate of his armor that covered an equally huge chest beneath and said, "What have I got to worry about?"

I considered that maybe Olaf would never have been worried about his safety in a bar of questionable repute regardless of Griid-suit.

I said, "Maybe you should be worried about what Tara would think if you get carried away by the ladies of Baltimore."

He waved off the idea easily. "What? Me? I'm not gonna get carried away by them. Not gonna carry any of them away either. Just a drink and some nice scenery."

His eyes tracked the nearly bared posterior of another mostly disrobed lady as she walked by. Half mumbling to himself, he said something under his breath that I couldn't catch.

As though rousing from a slumber he suddenly widened his eyes and slapped my shoulder. "So that's a plan? You'll go poking around in a library and I'll entertain myself? We've a caravan to lead again in the morning. I'll meet you here at first light. Don't worry about me, I'll find my own lodgings."

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I hesitated, searching for something to say, but Olaf was already ambling towards the door of what looked to me like the seediest and most murderous tavern on the street. A gaggle of weedy-looking men, rough and scarred, hung by the door. As the towering Griid-lord approached they backed away with obvious alarm. He was right, of course. We had nothing to fear from ruffians or murderers. It was something I would need to grow used to.

Before I turned back to the main gate, a voice spoke behind me. The voice was gravelly, rough, at ease. A woman's voice, but a voice scarred by life. There was something nearly chilling about it, something I couldn't identify.

I turned to find my path blocked by a Griidlord in the black and purple of Baltimore. She was an Axe. Long and lean, more lightly built and armored than any Axe I had ever seen. To her back was strapped something more halberd than axe, the haft long, the huge bladed head hovering high above her. Her hair was a shock of red framing a face that was not beautiful but somehow intense, sensual, and very, very dangerous.

I said, "Ravyn Lightsbane…"

A legend in our time. She was hardly less regarded than Julia Rosegold. She regarded me with the same predatory hunger that Axes always applied to Swords. She wanted to put me down, even now, as I stood in the street. I wanted to Assess her, to see her level, but I feared provoking her if she realized I was using my skill.

She stepped closer to me, brazenly eyeing me up and down. "When I heard the Butcher was coming to town I had to get a look for myself. It's a shame we never had a chance to meet during the Falling. I hear you have a mighty skill to use on Axes. I'd have liked to see how that felt…"

As she said this, she ran a hand across the protrusion of her bust. Her fingers ran slowly over the bulge of her breasts and I swallowed hard.

I said, "There's always next Falling."

She smiled wickedly. Her eyes seemed to express a desire to do more than fight me. I felt like meat before a hungry wolf. "Oh, there is indeed. I find it's always more exciting to know a little of a man before you kill him. I wouldn't have wanted to miss this opportunity. To get to know you a little."

I said, "I'd be just as happy not to see you on the field, my lady."

"My lady?" she cackled, throwing her head back. She was so unselfconscious. "Oh, that would be so disappointing. Your legend is running before you, Blood Prince. I hope if the chance comes you won't deny me the chance to see your Axe-break."

There was silence between us. A man wearing nothing but what seemed to be leather underpants sauntered past, raising questioning eyebrows at me.

Lightsbane said, "How were you going to pass your evening? With nothing to do till morning? A long night to fill?"

The suggestion was beyond evident. Was she inviting me to bed at the same time as professing her desire to end my life?

"I was hoping to visit your archives…"

Lightsbane's brows shot up. "The archives? You've come to the city of sin and you want to read? What subject could possibly be so enticing?"

The way she said enticing made my knees quiver. I wasn't sure if it was from fear or enticement. There was something about her that oozed sexuality.

I said, "I've been researching with my Chaplain and he asked me to see what was in the records about… the destruction of Cleveland."

She reacted to me. The mention of Cleveland seemed to tame her, taking the air of the predatory seductress and the depraved serial killer all at once.

Forlornly, she said, "I remember Cleveland…"

I said, "You were there?"

She nodded, suddenly girlish and soft. My mind whirled at the version I had seen of this woman. "I… it was before I won the suit. I was a child then. I was there when it happened."

I said, "When the storm came?"

She nodded slowly. There was still a devil in there, a devil that wanted to bed me, a devil that wanted to best me in the field. But there was an actual human on top of it all, and the human was suddenly in control. "There were so few of us that survived that day…"

I said, "I didn't mean to bring up something painful…"

She flashed a smile. "I'm all about the pain, young Prince. Good and bad. But… what did you want to know?"

I hesitated. Did I want to reveal that my interest was in Joel Montagnion's part in the destruction of the city? Or Danefer Ma-at Ra's? Was there a danger in revealing my fascination? What could she know of it? She could have hardly been more than a child when the Entropy Storm devoured the first iteration of the city.

I said, "I'm really just gathering information for Chaplain. I don't exactly know what his interest is. I'm humoring the old fella, you know? But he seems to think there was something going on in Cleveland at the time. Something… esoteric…"

She considered me carefully. Her eyes assessed me again, but this time it was less about sexuality and more about measuring who I was.

She said, "I think I like you, Blood Prince. It makes me no less excited to take your head, don't mistake me. If anything it will make it all the sweeter… but today there is no Falling, and I don't think you want to ride with me between the sheets…"

I blushed.

She said, "I think I will help you. I know someone who can answer your questions…"

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