NO SPUR BUT YOU, MY BROTHER

A powerful gang of cockerels, a series of killings, and bitter quarrel between siblings.

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IN DEEP NIGHT, A COCKEREL CROWING

An ill omen, folk say—of bad weather at dawn; of vengeful spirits passing through; of violence, death, to be discovered tomorrow.

In Sang Sarama, a cockerel crows every night. Folk keep their windows shut. Neither screams nor begging will get them to open.

A GRISLY FIND

Another morning, another body. Did you know who this was?

On the steps of Broken Bone Alley: a lanky girl, her neck open, her thumbs missing. Quick Aniya. A runner, passing messages for the Left Spurs.
In the wet market trash heap: a greasy man, stabbed in the heart, right hand gone. Mashud. A rum merchant selling opium toddy for the Right Spurs.
Dangling from a park tree: a cat, shaved, hung by their own disembowelled innards. Temujan Binggara. A custodian of the River Stone Lane Temple.
Nailed to their front door: an ink merchant, bled from punctures all over, right index finger severed. Tika Manyusha. The city’s most reliable fence.
In the wreck of her palanquin: a woman and her servants, shredded by glass bomb. Dyo Ra Smisha. Judge and known associate of Kathik Shah.
In front of Great Might Martial Hall: a cockerel, his right spur removed long ago; his head more recently. Mathik Shah. A senior guru of the Left Spurs.

These killings are a countdown. When Mathik dies a line is crossed. The schism within the Spurs escalates into daytime war.

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THE SPURS

A hundred years ago, with blood and fire, Brother Bantam won the gamecocks of River Stone Lane their freedom.

They became the Spurs—a mystic society, an organised gang. Today they brew opium toddy; run protection rackets; own coffee houses.

Recently the Spurs are divided. Their future is the question. Do they gentrify, go legit? Or do they finish the revolution Brother Bantam started?

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THIRTEEN CHICKS COFFEE HOUSE

On every roof ridge: statuettes of its namesake, lined up. Its third-storey balcony is a parapet, made from bullet-resistant teak.

Inside: the balcony overlooks dining tables, were important persons can make deals while high on toddy and distracted by jiggling dancers.

ONG TONG GATHIK, AMBITIOUS COCKEREL
Strong, steady, careful. Haggling, spur arts, bomb-craft.
Spur blade. Mail coif, breastplate. 2 spirit.

To prove his conviction, he cut off his left spur. To profit from it, he got himself adopted into the Ong Tongs, a powerful merchant family.

Has a hedge fund manager’s ruthlessness. The murders he orders are designed to provoke the Lefties into indiscriminate violence.

When that happens, Gathik will station his men around warehouses, noble manors. The Righties will appear to stand in defense of the city.

RIGHT SPUR
Sensitive, quick, careful. Spur arts, coordinating, gambling.
Spur blade. Leather jack. 3 spirit.

They aim to join existing hierarchies, enter into respectability, make money. If the world is divided into owners, and the eaten—they will be owners.

They have their left spurs removed. They wear necklaces, clothes imitating human styles. They show up in gangs of five.

Each gang carries a porcelain bomb: shrapnel and fine, lung-lacerating dust. Blast as wide as a building, deals d6 harm to everybody in range.

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GREAT MIGHT MARTIAL HALL

A row of shops, dividing walls knocked down to make a street-length longhouse. Training dummies. Instructors clucking out move names.

Mothers send their boy-children here to study. Learning how to fight is holy; for many chickens joining the Spurs is the only opportunity they have.

KATHIK SHAH, PARANOID COCKEREL
Strong, quick, wilful. Spur arts, meditating, herb craft.
Poisoned spur blade. Totem of Brother Bantam. 4 spirit.

“I have no better right spur than you, o my brother,” quoth the Bantam. So Kathik cut his off, in obeisance to holy words.

Like an aging crime boss whose criminal empire is falling. The assassinations he orders are meant to curtail the Righties’ enterprises—to no avail.

Kathik is about to lose his younger brother Mathik and his human lover Samisha both in short order. He will order the Thirteen Chicks burnt to the ground.

LEFT SPUR
Strong, quick, careful. Spur arts, flying, boasting.
Spur blade. Charmed ring. 3 spirit.

No more eggs snatched from a hen’s belly. No more lives sacrificed in the ring, or at the table. Emancipation for all fowl!

They have their right spurs removed. They wear piercings; their green-brown-red plumage is oil-preened to a gleam. They show up in gangs of four.

All carry the blessing of Brother Bantam: if injured, their bleeding clots into a substance strong as steel. Typically they shape these into throwing stars.

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RIVER STONE LANE TEMPLE

Once a cockfighting arena, it was never renovated, so chicken-kind would not forget. The cages have long rotted away, but the timber stands remain.

In the pit: Brother Bantam, in copper—chest puffed, wings out, spur mid-strike. To be initiated as a Spur, a cockerel must ritually battle this idol for a night.

BROTHER BANTAM
God of war, god of wind, god of wisdom.

His life was the squeeze of a cage, the scream of a crowd, the squint in his eye as he watched those he fought bleed out, die.

He fought his brothers. He would kill them no longer. Instead he killed his trainer, and the crowd, and the idea that cockerels had to fight each other.

Worship is traditionally reserved for male chicken-folk—but Brother Bantam seized godhood by expanding the circle of liberty. Could he not do it again?

Offering: Give all: A lock, that you broke. A bag of money, earned through violence.
Blessing: Choose one: You shape blood from your injuries into tools which clot steel-strong, lasts a day. Your bellow halts all other creatures as long as you sustain it, for one combat.

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THE COMBS

They are exclusively a brotherhood, the Spurs. And while Lefties might believe in general galline liberation—cocks are still the priority.

The Combs began as a group of hens. They admit non-chickens. They believe that freedom is a virtue, applicable to all peoples. They preach vegetarianism.

“Nothing but a clucking circle,” a Rightie might say. “Blasphemers!” a Leftie might say. “They think humans should be let into the temple!”

SATHIKA SHAH, REVOLUTIONARY HEN
Strong, quick, wilful. Spur arts, theology, disputing.
Spur blade. Charmed necklace. 3 spirit.

Has spurs as long as any cockerel. Still has both. “Why should I cut either? This Rightie-Leftie thing is turning us poultry-minded!”

As exasperated as a suffragette. You encounter her at the Thirteen Chicks or the Great Might, trying to talk sense into her brothers Gathik and Kathik.

When gang war breaks out Sathika and her fellow Combs will put their bodies between the two sides, in an effort to stop hostilities. They will probably fail.

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