Tony had gathered his staff in the cellar, around the large map of Flea bottom. Lira, Jem, and a solemn-faced Theron stood around him, discussing the final preparations. The lantern's glow threw their huge shadows against the stone walls, turning them into giants conspiring in the bowels of the world.
"He made a mistake," Tony began, his voice low and sharp as a new blade. "He reacted exactly as we wanted. Now that those men aren't watching us, we can deploy all the Moucherons to strike the final blow."
His finger traced a path on the map. "The Weavers' Alley is the perfect choke point. One main entrance and exit. Flat roofs on both sides. It's a box. Our box." He looked up at his lieutenants. "We won't just stop them. We'll annihilate them."
Theron, who had been silent until then, spoke up, his voice a low rumble. "These aren't training targets, boy. These are men—hardened killers. Thirty, maybe forty of them, enraged. You're children. And only you three handle these weapons well; the others are green."
"We are soldiers," Lira corrected him, her green eyes gleaming with a cold light. She had spent the last weeks killing in the shadows. The fear of direct confrontation had left her, replaced by an icy confidence in her weapon and Tony's strategy.
"Lira's right," Jem added. He was no longer the fallen leader. The prospect of a frontal fight, even an asymmetrical one, had rekindled the flame in him. He no longer fought only for vengeance, but for redemption. "We have the weapons. We have the ground. We have the plan."
Tony turned to the blacksmith. "I understand your worry, Master Theron. You gave us the tools. You won't like to see our blood spilled. Aside from our crossbows, I have a little surprise that should give us a clear advantage."
Theron looked at him for a long moment. He saw in Tony's eyes a determination so absolute it was almost inhuman. He saw in Lira's eyes the coldness of a born assassin. He saw in Jem's eyes the fury of a warrior. And he made his decision. He had not forged those monsters of steel to leave children to wage a war alone.
"I'm a Northerner, boy. We don't leave our own to fight without us. And you've become one of mine. Give me one of those crossbows. My strength is worth three of your Moucherons."
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The preparations were a dark, silent ritual. Tony picked his strike team. In addition to Jem, Lira and Theron, he chose six other Moucherons among the oldest and most disciplined—those who had shown a semblance of aptitude and an unshakable composure during the discreet drills Lira had run. Kael, though not a fighter, was named chief armorer, tasked with checking every mechanism, every string, every magazine with maniacal precision.
They armed themselves in the dimness of the forge. The ten "Black Widows" were handed out. The Moucherons' hands—more used to filching purses than holding instruments of war—slightly trembled as they took the cold weight of steel. Tony made them repeat the reloading motions again and again until fear gave way to muscle memory. They blackened their faces with soot and grease, erasing their identities, becoming an anonymous unit of specters.
Tony's plan was brilliantly simple, exploiting the enemy's psychology and the topography of the place to perfection. "We'll split into three teams," he explained, his voice a whisper in the cellar. "Lira, you take four shooters on the East roof. Jem, you and four others on the West roof. You'll be our hammers. Theron and I will be the anvil. We'll block the alley exit after they pass through. No one shoots before my signal. The signal will be a single whistling bolt that I'll fire myself, then the sound of jars smashing. When you hear it, unleash a barrage on the torch-bearers. Darkness is our best ally. Then you'll target the men trying to regroup. Aim for legs, arms. Sow chaos and panic. Don't waste your bolts. Make each shot count. Understood?"
A chorus of nods answered him. There was no room left for fear—only for execution.
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As they moved into position, Tony turned his back on Theron, masking the tremor that had seized him. Theron, Jem, Lira—they were all there, ready to trust him with their lives and their souls. The reality of the situation struck him with unexpected violence. He was the strategist, the one who had conceived the instrument of their salvation—the killing machine. In another world, another life, he would have forged gleaming armor, high-tech weapons to save lives. He had been the flying billionaire, the hero who took on guilt so others could breathe. He was Iron Man—the embodiment of benevolent power. Here, in this child's body, he was the opposite: handing out handcrafted crossbows, tools of death, and shaping children into soldiers. He was the architect of their damnation, turning a band of hungry kids into a military unit. He felt the crushing responsibility of that transformation. It had never been about waiting for a savior. Vengeance was their only horizon. But by arming them and commissioning them to kill, he assumed moral responsibility for every bolt fired, for every life broken, rotten as it might be. They would not have waited for him to act to kill to survive, but by organizing them he offered both a justification and a burden they should never have had to bear. He was at once the ideal of Iron Man—protector of the innocent—and the absolute antithesis—one who robs them of innocence to save them. He would carry that weight alone.
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Weavers' Alley was a throat in the daytime—at night it was a fissure of darkness between two rows of dilapidated hovels. Lira's and Jem's teams took up positions on the roofs, melting into the chimneys' shadows. They were invisible, silent predators waiting for their prey.
Below, Tony and Theron hid in a deep recess near the alley's exit, with a tannery cart they had set to block the passage at the right moment. Two jars of foul-smelling concoction waited for their hour.
The wait was an eternity. Then they heard it: a distant rumble of boots, curses and drunken laughter. The Black Dogs were coming. They numbered about thirty, led by a massive Groleau carrying a crackling torch. Boisterous, loud, swollen with rage and liquor, they marched toward death and ignorance of it.
They plunged into the alley. From her perch, Lira counted them. Thirty-two. The heart of the pack. Her pulse quickened—not with fear, but with a cold excitement. Groleau stopped in the middle of the alley. "Go on! Set that shack on fire!" he shouted, pointing at a hovel where a faint light flickered, a sign of human presence. "Show these ghosts what it costs to defy the Black Dogs!"
One of his men stepped toward the building, torch aloft. This was the moment.
Tony stepped from the shadows, a smaller, lighter crossbow in hand—one of the prototypes he had kept for himself. He aimed at the sky and fired. A bolt, specially crafted with holes drilled in its head, climbed with a whistling in the night—a shrill, lugubrious sound like a banshee's cry. Theron—who alone had the strength—hurled the two jars; they barely shattered before choking the street, a putrid, acrid stench that burned throats and noses, breaking Groleau's men's formation and disorienting them.
That was the signal.
On the roofs, eight crossbows lowered. The first volley was flawless in its coordination. Ten flights of bolts fell upon the group. The targets were the torches. Men carrying them collapsed, struck in the hands, the arms, the chest. In three seconds the alley was plunged into near-darkness, lit only by a few torches sputtering in the mud.
Confusion swept through them. The Black Dogs, blinded and surprised, howled. "Where's it coming from?!" "Ambush!"
Before they could comprehend, the second wave began. This was no longer a barrage but precise, targeted fire. The Moucherons—accustomed to the dark—picked their targets with ruthless efficiency. A man trying to rally his fellows dropped, a bolt in the knee. Another, drawing his sword, took a volley in the shoulder that spun him around.
It was a harvest. Men fell like flies. The dry, repetitive clack-clack-clack of crossbows dominated the cries of pain and panic. Below, Tony and Theron shoved the cart, blocking the only exit. The trap snapped shut. They too opened fire.
Panic turned into rout. The Black Dogs, terrified, tried to flee but were trapped. Some tried to climb the walls but were picked off by Lira's shooters. Others curled up on the ground, praying. In less than two minutes, what had been a pack of predators was a herd at the slaughterhouse.
Groleau himself was a raging beast. He had been hit in the thigh but still stood, sword in hand, roaring in fury amid his men's corpses. "COME OUT!" he bellowed, his voice ringing through the silent alley. "Show yourselves, cowards! Fight me like men! FIGHT ME!"
His challenge went unanswered for a long moment. Then a silhouette stepped from the shadow near the cart. It was a child—small, thin, dressed head to toe in black, face smeared with soot. He held a crossbow in one hand, pointing it carelessly at the ground.
Groleau squinted, incredulous. "You... the little genius... was it you from the start?" "From the start," Tony confirmed, his calm voice carrying easily through the deathly silence. Groleau's rage turned to hysteria. "A brat! We were slaughtered by a damn brat! Come here, I'll tear your head from your shoulders! You filthy bastard!" He limped toward him, sword raised.
Tony did not move. He raised his crossbow slowly. "You made a mistake, Groleau. One mistake, but it changed everything. You thought you were master and I was slave. You forgot that a slave can forge chains too. Chains for his masters."
Groleau was less than ten meters away. He lifted his sword for a desperate strike. Tony's first bolt went with a dry thwack. It hit Groleau in the knee of his good leg. The bone shattered with an audible crack. The colossus fell screaming, his charge broken. The second bolt pierced his wrist, dropping his sword with a clatter of metal. He was disarmed. The third struck his shoulder, pinning him to the ground as he tried to rise. He was immobilized.
Groleau lay in the mud, defeated, impaled, yet still alive, panting with pain and fury. He looked up at Tony with eyes full of hatred. The child approached slowly, the crossbow still leveled. "You see, Groleau, it's not about fighting like a man," Tony said, standing over him. "It's about winning."
The final bolt, fired at point-blank range, sank into Groleau's throat, ending his gurgling hatred in a last convulsion.
The silence that followed was absolute. The few surviving Black Dogs who had hidden among the dead rose slowly, hands in the air, their faces drained of color. They dropped their weapons, which clattered into pools of blood. They surrendered.
From the roofs, the other Moucherons climbed down and joined their de facto leader. They gathered around Tony, forming a silent, lethal guard. They were no longer a gang of thieves. They were an army.
Tony looked at the survivors, then at the territory that spread before him. Part of Flea Bottom had just been freed from its tormentors. He had not merely won a battle. He had conquered a domain—a realm of mud, misery, and blood. But his realm.