Watchguard Pack-Leader Ellewyn had a bad feeling.

She'd woken up that morning with a knot in her gut before she even set foot in the lawhouse to begin her shift, but dismissed it. Maybe it had been last night's meat. The Rock'n'Flame didn't exactly have the best reputation in the district, but their healthy discounts for watchguards meant that she and many of her comrades would risk it from time to time.

But somehow she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being hopelessly optimistic.

The Gjornharr District lawhouse was a grubby horseshoe of hardmud brickwork and ceramics, solid as the day it was built, but in dire need of a makeover. Ellewyn wrinkled her nose as she mounted the steps to the main door, noting the muck that caked the outer walls and the lichens crawling their way up the masonry. Someone needed to find a budget to clean the place up.

Not today, though. Over several long years, Ellewyn had gotten used to it.

A slender vulkin with brown fur, large flopping ears and thick curls of black headfur, she didn't fit most people's idea of a watchguard pack-leader. Graft and smarts, rather than physical prowess, had helped her climb the ranks until she finally gained command of a pack of her own. Gjornharr might not have been the flashiest district, that wasn't going to stop her making her mark.

Ellewyn stepped through the lawhouse's main doors, savouring the relative quiet of the dawn, and trying to shake the niggling feeling in her stomach that something was wrong. She exchanged greetings with other pack-leaders and watchguards under her command as they set out for their morning patrols. In the pack-den she gathered up a mug of steaming muskbrew, and let the herbal concoction blast away the morning fug as she strode through the lawhouse halls to her office on the first floor.

Something still felt off though, even as she shoved the door open and slid into her chair. Her desk was a functional slab of hard, dark wood with a computing rig and a series of neatly organised stacks of back-paper files on top of it. She took a moment to savour another sip of fresh muskbrew, before setting to work. Scooping up the closest file, Ellewyn flicked it open and started to read.

The case – or maybe 'cases' would be more appropriate – had been slowly gathering weight like an anvil sitting on the base of her neck. Seven kin from the district, mostly from the fringes at the docks and warehousing quarters, had been reported as missing. In a district as large and busy as Gjornharr, seven kin wasn't exactly a big number, but something about it still snagged her attention. The similarities between the cases made her twitch; all gone in the dead of night, no witnesses to speak of, save useless claims about shadows in the dark that gave her nothing to follow up.

Her superiors showed little interest when she tried to bring the matter to them, asking for more resources. A flat 'no' followed by, 'we've all got bigger problems' sent Ellewyn from their offices with her tail between her legs. But she hadn't forgotten, and hadn't stopped searching. She eased back into her seat, muskbrew in one paw and the case file in the other: reading, reading, reading in the hopes of finding something that might set her on a trail, no matter how slim.

Five minutes later, however, her earlier sense of dread was abruptly vindicated.

The howl-wire set built into the wall of her office shrieked into life. Ellewyn's paws snapped tight around the bark-paper, one claw punching a neat hole through a couple of sheets. Cursing, she dumped the ream onto her desk and stood up, stepping across the room and yanking the receiver out of its cradle.

"South-West Law, Gjornharr," she snapped. "Pack-Leader Ellewyn's office."

"Guard Crester, ma'am," replied the officer on the other end of the line. "I'm down at the canal maintenance levels with Lenoro."

Ellewyn's ears pricked up. "You were supposed to be patrolling the loading yards topside."

"We were!" Crester said quickly. "We were just doing our standard route when some beaverkin worker came running up from the docks screaming for watchguards."

"Ah. And why did they need watchguards?"

"Poor girl was half out of her skull, yelling about murder and demons and Peace-only-knows what else." She almost felt his helpless shrug down the howl-wire. "I figured something must've happened. We followed her down to the maintenance levels and she took us to one of the old sluiceways."

"And?"

"She wasn't making it up."

"Fangs," Ellewyn cursed. "What did you find, exactly?"

"Sorry, ma'am, but I think you should come down and take a look at this yourself. We've cordoned the area off but... well, it's not like anything I've seen before."

That set a tremor of unease up her spine. Crester was not some wet-behind-the-ears pup on his first tour. He'd worked Gjornharr's patrol routes longer than she had. The district had its fare share of violence – anything that unsettled the experienced watchguard was enough to get her attention.

"Alright," she said after a moment. "Keep the scene secure, and for Peace sake don't touch anything, understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'll be there soon. Sit tight." She sank the receiver gently back into place and rubbed her eyes with one paw.

So much for optimism.

***

Ellewyn winkled her nose as she descended into the dank, brooding streets of the Gjornharr docks. They didn't get a huge amount of traffic here, and as a result the canals weren't in the best of shape, with cracked walls and clumps of moss nestling in the stonework. Ill-maintained lights sparked and ragged-clothed kin scuttled away at the sight of her watchguard armour. She loosened her truncheon in its sheathe, just in case.

Striding more confidently than she felt, she reached the docks – a stretch of canal bank thumped into a roughly even shape and bustling with otterkin and beaverkin. Rickety looking barges bumped against even worse-looking jetties. The canal sloped gently away from her, vanishing into the tight gunnels of Wildheath's waterways.

She passed through the dockyard, sparing enough of a glance for the workers to keep any violent behaviour muzzled, at least till she was out of earshot. Further down the canal banks lay a small metal door, currently hanging open, that descended down the thick walls and to the gloom of the maintenance levels.

The scent of damp swirled around her as she mounted wooden stairs slick with damp and creaking with each step. As watchguards went, Ellewyn wasn't exactly heavy; she shuddered to think what might happen it someone larger tried to make this descent. Making a mental note to call for a work crew to visit this section of the docks, she continued on.

The watchguard Lenoro was waiting for her at the bottom; a squat, cream-furred female who, at the moment, looked thoroughly uncomfortable.

"Watchguard," Ellewyn said, giving her comrade a nod.

"Ma'am." Lenoro's short muzzle dipped respectfully.

"Where's Crester?"

"About fifty yards along the bank." The guard pointed. "Said I should stay here to keep anyone else from coming down."

"And the witness?"

"She's with Crester."

"Alright then. Stay here – nobody comes through until I say, alright?"

"Aye, ma'am."

As she walked past, Ellewyn got the distinct sense that the other watchguard was more than happy to stay as far away from whatever they'd found as possible. Squaring her shoulders, she braced herself for something bad.

Crester waited for her along the narrow walkway that ran parallel to the canal, standing at the mouth of an overflow sluiceway. Taller thank Lenoro, but skinnier with it, he had wiry black fur and a gentle, round muzzle. His long brown headfur was slicked back between his pointed ears, his face forming an uneasy grimace when he saw her approach. Beside him a haggard-looking female beaverkin sat, knees hugged to her chest, rocking back and forth gently. She looked up briefly at Ellewyn's approach, before returning her gaze to the lapping waters of the canal.

"Sorry to call you all the way down here, ma'am," Crester said, inclining his head to her apologetically. "But I didn't want to leave the scene, and you needed to see this."

"Don't worry about it," Ellewyn replied, waving a dismissive paw and nodding to the sluiceway. "So it's...?"

"In there," Crester confirmed. "Never seen anythin' like it."

"Murder?"

"A lot more'n that, I reckon." He stepped aside. "Just, fair warning, ma'am. It's a nasty piece of work."

No more waiting around, Ellewyn decided. She could deal with shocks as well as the next guard. Gjornharr was not a place of peace and plenty. Kin here fought for what they wanted; she'd seen a lot of bad things done in the name of a few extra stamps. So she steeled herself, stooped her head and stepped past Crester to look into the sluiceway.

She quickly wished she'd skipped her breakfast.

"Fangs!" she coughed in disgust, clapping a paw over her muzzle as she got a clear look at exactly what had spooked the other watchguard so thoroughly.

Propped up against the wall, a few meters inside the sluiceway, was a dead otterkin, but the body was so badly mutilated that she wouldn't have known, were it not for the distinctive, plank of a tail lying limp off to one side. This unfortunate soul had been opened from gut to throat like a grizzly cocoon, and the stone around them was soaked with gore. That would have been enough to send her hackles prickling, but on the wall behind the body a series of bizarre murals had been painted in the blood of the victim.

For a moment Ellewyn didn't know what to do. She stood there, frozen to the spot as she tried to make sense of the scene. Murder was nothing new to her. The animal kin of Wildhearth had retained enough of their innate savagery that a bad grudge could easily find itself ended permanently. But a brawl in the alleys and a knife in the ribs was a far cry from the ritualistic slaughter in front of her.

This was new, and deeply unwelcome.

"Ma'am?" Crester said uncertainly from the mouth of the sluiceway. "What do you think?"

"I think we've got a very big problem," she replied, unable to contain the faint tremor in her voice. Clenching her jaw, she fought down the nausea roiling in her gut and tried to examine the scene objectively, focusing on details; breaking down the whole sickening tableau so that for just a moment she could forget it had once been a living, breathing individual.

The attack had been done with a blade – she could tell that much. Messy as it first appeared, the unfortunate otterkin had been carved with the skill of a medicary before their innards were used to create the ghastly graffiti on the walls behind. Some of it looked like a script, but she didn't recognise the dialect, while other individual symbols had been painted larger and alone. She saw something that looked like a snarling, fanged maw, another that appeared to be a flame. Directly above the dead otterkin's head was a symbol made of two triangles, facing each other with points overlapping. Murals or gang markings perhaps.

Though she'd never met a gang who would do something like this.

She edged a little closer, squinting. There didn't seem to be any identifying clothing for the otterkin, just a ragged, shapeless overall that had been torn up as thoroughly as its owner. Swallowing hard, Ellewyn glanced back over her shoulder.

"Anyone see who did this?"

Crester shook his head. "Don't think so. We'll speak to the dock workers on shift last night though – this looks pretty fresh."

"No more than four or five hours," Ellewyn agreed.

"Any idea who the poor soul is?"

She shook her head, but a grim possibility had already entered her mind. "Can't say for certain, but we've had too many folk disappearing off the docks recently." Ellewyn pressed a paw to her chin, thinking back to the file. "Over the last two months I've had a lot of reports like that; kin just dropping off into the Fire. You figure they just leave sometimes, but..."

"You think this is one of them?"

"I hope not," she sighed. "But they're not in much of a state to identify any more."

"A real mess, right enough," Crester agreed.

Ellewyn straightened up and shuffled backwards out of the sluiceway, taking a deep breath. Suddenly the dank air of Gjornharr seemed like the freshest thing she'd ever tasted. Then, composing herself, she turned to Crester.

"Alright, get her back to the lawhouse," she said, pointing at the beaverkin. "I want to talk to her. Leave Lenoro here and we'll keep the scene clear. I want a medicary down here and the rest of the pack on the docks speaking to everyone who was on shift last night. Nobody's on a day off anymore – all claws sharp, alright?" Ellewyn tapped a claw against her thigh in thought. "And I need to speak to a Senior Pack-Leader about this."

"I think Coyle's on shift-,"

"No, no." She flapped a paw at him impatiently. "Coyle and the others won't give a damn. Gjornharr's enough of a mess – they don't want a sniff at this. They'll just tell me to get on with my investigation, no extra guards, no extra help."

"So... who do you want to speak to?"

"Send a courier to with a message Palharr," she replied. "Mark it for Senior Pack-Leader Bronco's attention and for the sake of the Peace don't let anybody see you do it."

"Ma'am..."

"Just tell him that Pack-Leader Ellewyn from Gjornharr District needs to speak to him. I'll meet him in Palharr – he can pick where and when."

Crester nodded, shifting uncomfortably from footpaw to footpaw. "What do you think's happening, ma'am?"

Ellewyn looked back at the tunnel.

"If I'm right," she said. "We're about to start finding a lot more bodies."