Shana Darrow, the one her own men called the PoisonSheath, captain in the Vermatian city guard, knelt over the body.

“Just another dirt rat what got drunk and fell in,” said the man behind her. “Ain’t no point wasting our time on this one.

Shana made no attempt to hide her irritation at the fool. “I wasn’t aware that doing our job was considered wasting our time, Sergeant. And it is clear this man didn’t die from drowning, but rather from a pointed weapon.”

Behind her she felt, more than saw, the sergeant make the sign of Tenatun’s Protection over his heart. He whispered something, though Shana didn’t need to hear the words to know he talked of ‘the black witch’. She preferred it to Poisonsheath, although the latter was more creative. After all, she was black. And she was a witch. At least she was in the eyes of those who knew nothing of the ancient ways.

Shana sighed, wondering not for the first time why she had been saddled with the stupidest men in all of Verma. A cursory glance would have told anyone with half a brain that this man didn’t die by drowning. There was no bloat to the body, the lips were still soft pink and not deep blue, and there was a bloody great knife wound in the man’s abdomen.

“So what should we do?” Asked Willis, a boy barely a man and still too new to the company to have developed the same ill-disguised suspicion of Shana that the others shared.

“Well, I suggest we keep our eyes open for more bodies,” Shana replied.

“What do you mean?” Willis squawked.

“This is one of the Black-foot’s men. The third of his gang to wash up dead this week.

“Bullshit,” Sergeant Shurst declared.

Shana didn’t bother to reprimand him. He’d been on the payroll of the Black-foot for years now. There was a good chance he’d be among those to wash up on the banks of the Napa river in the near future. Instead, she rolled up the dead man’s trouser leg to show the black piece of cloth around the ankle. The ensign of the Black-foot gang.

“But… how did you know?” Asked Willis.

“Witchcraft!” Shurst spat.

“Acumen, Sergeant. You’d do well to learn some.” Shana knew Shurst had no idea what acumen was. Unsurprising, since it hadn’t deigned to visit him even once throughout the man’s thirty plus years of life. “The heel of the man’s boots are still ingrained with the red-brown clay found in the earth around Black-foot’s hideout. You can see it here, in these scuff marks at the back of the heel. Likely caused by the body being dragged. This also tells us that not only was this man often at Black-foot’s, but he was killed there too. The fact that the mud is still ingrained in the boots indicates he wasn’t in the water long enough to drown, and if he really was killed at Black-foot’s then it suggests his gang were attacked. Hence my earlier suggestion that we keep our eyes peeled for more bodies.”

It was mostly bullshit, of course. It could be true. It might even be true, but Shana had no idea if the clay on the man’s boots really did come from Black-foot’s. It could have come from the riverbed for all she knew. It didn’t matter, it only mattered that the others were too stupid to not believe everything she said. It also didn’t take a genius to understand that Black-foot’s gang had been attacked. Most of th gangs in the east of Old Town had suffered attack in the last few weeks. It made sense Black-foot’s would, too. Of course, she’d long since given up hope that any of the men under her command might be able to see what was right in front of their eyes.

“Wow,” whispered Willis, clearly taken in by her bullshit.

Shana hid a smile. He might be young, but he was just as dumb as the others. She rose and dusted herself off. “Arrange for the body to be delivered to the city morgue. Sergeant, where is Isais?”

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The big sergeant could only shrug.

Shana sighed again. It was just like her brother to disappear when she needed him. She would have felt a lot more comfortable doing what she had to do next with Isais at her side. Still, Shurst and Willis would be enough. Between them, they made one half-competent, albeit intellectually lacking , adult.

“Forget the body then. Shurst and Willis, you come with me.” She turned to the third man of their group, who had been tasked with keeping any curious civilian away from her investigation. “Ali, please find my brother and tell him to join me in Old Town if he can.”

Ali, who had been busy picking at his teeth with a dirty fingernail, stopped long enough to give a grunt. He wandered off, in no apparent hurry to see Shana’s orders carried out. Shana doubted her brother would ever receive her orders. Most tended to avoid Isais if they could. But Ali was a liability and would likely see them all gutted if he accompanied them across the river into the territory of the gangs.

“Er, Old Town, Captain?” Willis asked, hurrying to keep up with Shana who was already well on her way. Willis was a tall, gangly youth whose armour barely fit and whose sword wouldn’t have looked more out of place if it had been strapped to a newborn foal.

“That’s right, Willis. We are going into the Old Town.”

“What? Why?” asked Shurst, a poorly hidden note of fear in his voice.

“There is a man there I am long overdue a visit.”

For weeks there had been rumour of a new player in the gangs of the underground. A madman who had appeared out of nowhere and, with his pet giant, quickly ripped through the established crews and built a small army capable of overrunning even the most powerful of the dead city syndicates. Shana had no idea if this rumour was true, for her time had been kept busy by the recent incursion of dead body’s leaking out of the old town and into the main city of Vermasse.

The city watch cared little about what happened in Old Town, but now somebody seemed to be deliberately bringing violence into sight of the citizens of Vermasse on the right side of the river. When the first bodies washed up, Shana had petitioned her commander to take a regiment into the Old Town and route out whoever was behind the murders. She had been shot down then, like she had been every time since. Now, she was done asking. These were her streets and, regiment or not, she was determined to keep them safe.

“Just how do you propose we find whoever it is we’re looking for? There’s no way we can make it through Old Town without being seen,” Shurst said, as they crossed the narrow bridge that separated the old city from the new.

“Whomever. And I intend to be seen, Sergeant. We are the city watch, are we not? What do we need to fear? Our jurisdiction spans both sides of the Napa.”

Shurst didn’t reply. He was too busy looking miserable.

The three crossed over into Old Town under the twilight of the day. Shana knew the broken ruins well. The Vermatian City Guard’s keep looked out over much of it and she had often spent her free time studying the layout. Everything she had heard about the newcomer ravaging the Old Town told her to start with the Red-Eye gang. Or what had once been the Red-Eye gang.

She lead the trio south, and then east. They skirted fallen-down buildings and buildings that should have fallen down but still clung precariously to life. Some areas were still inhabited by the old, the disabled, or the downright destitute. Low sounds and voices came from these areas, but where the guard went silence followed.

Behind her, Shurst and Willis talked nervously. She considered hushing them, but it would make no difference now. They had already been spotted. Shurst and Willis, of course, were oblivious to the cutthroats around them.

“Ok, you have followed us long enough!” Shana said, stopping in the middle of a dark open square. Shurst stopped beside her, Willis took too long to register that she had halted and walked into the back of her foot. He quickly apologised but Shana waved him to silence.

In the dark, she could hear the soft sound of footfalls. Somewhere else the sound of leather scraping on rock hung in the air.

“I’d like to see whoever leads you,” she called into the dark. Still, nobody answered.

“Are you sure they’re—”

“Quiet!” Shana hissed, cutting off Willis mid-sentence. She took a step forward. “There are 4 of you,” Shana continued. “Two in the shadows by the old gate. Another over there by the tree. And of course, you, who I assume to be the leader, slinking behind the tumbledown wall.”

A figure stepped out from behind the wall. She was a short woman, but big. Hefty and powerful, Shana had no doubt this woman could handle herself if it came to a fight. “Actually,” she said in a deep voice. “There are five of us.”

“Ah yes,” Shana said. “How could I forget the bowman to my right?”

The woman frowned. “If you knew, why did you say there were four?”

“Why indeed?”

“Very clever. The woman smiled, though it fell away quickly. “What do you want?”

“I want to meet the man who leads you.

The woman laughed. “Nobody wants to meet him.” She looked Shana up and down. “Though I imagine he’d probably like to meet you very much.”

Shana straightened her back. “Then why don’t you take us to him?”

The woman gave a gap-toothed and rather chilling grin. “Your funeral.”