Craw. Craw. Craw.


    Another night, another patrol. Erick walked through the streets, his spear in his hand as he looked for anything to do. The ever-present nightly fog of Cragg Hollow obscured his vision as he walked down the cobblestone streets of the city. He wore his guard''s uniform, a metal breastplate over a black shirt, leather gloves, boots, and pants with red lines down their hem. His uniform was his identity. He was a simple footman for the Military Police, ensuring justice was served across the Empyrean and all its holdings.


    "Cursed crows," he whispered as he walked down the street, looking out from the buildings to his left and out into the open sea to his right.


    "You''ll never move up with that attitude." Agnes stood beside him, holding her spear across her shoulders and dressed in the same uniform he was.


    "Who wants to move up in ranks?" Erick laughed. "They''ll throw me in an office job and away from people if I do that. Justice will sleep if I''m behind a desk."


    "Listen to you, still thinking you''re a hero." Agnes laughed, her braided ponytail shaking as she hunched over. "We serve the Scions boy, the Empyrean."


    "I''m no boy." Erick began to walk away, deeper into the fog.


    "Then stop thinking like one." Agnes followed after him as he continued his patrol.


    "You don''t get to tell me that," Erick whispered to himself as he peered into every shadow.


    "Oh, if it isn''t a guard." An old woman walked out of the fog, and Erick''s grip on his spear tightened before he relaxed.


    It was just an old woman, nothing more. She wore a purple dress that dragged on the ground from her stooped frame, and she looked up at him as she leaned on her withered wooden cane. The only hard part was the mask she wore. It was the mask that every citizen of Cragg Hollow seemed to wear, and it gave Erick the creeps.


    A porcelain white mask, blank of anything but a stretching smile both with the eyes and the mouth. Erick looked into that mask and reminded himself that there was a person behind it. He needed to respect the local customs within reason, per his training.


    "Good evening, miss," Erick said, bowing. "Any trouble tonight?"


    "Nothing." The woman laughed, coming closer to him with measured, steady steps.


    Click. Tap. Tap. Click. Tap. Tap.


    Erick resisted the urge to back away. He was alone out on patrol, and the woman was creepy, for sure, but she was just an old woman. This wasn''t some horror story told by his parents at night. This was the real world and not a fable.


    Aroo!


    The old woman froze as the wolf''s cry pierced through the night. Erick readied his spear as he looked through the fog. Wolves were a major problem for Cragg''s Hollow, though no one was sure where they came from. There weren''t any forests nearby the cove.


    "You best get inside, miss," Erick said as he ran. "I''ll find it and run it off."


    "Wait." She tried to reach him, but he was quickly running down the street and toward the source of the noise.


    "You''re quite the charmer," Agnes said, running behind him with her spear out. "Always were making the ladies fawn over you."


    "Not the one I wanted to," Erick hissed at himself as he ran.


    Arr!


    Erick ducked down an alley, and he found the culprit there. A shadowy creature that seemed to be made of falling ink sat on its haunches in the alley. Yellow eyes looked out at Erick as it wagged its tail. Erick pointed his spear forward and steeled himself.


    The creature had the appearance of a wolf, but it wasn''t flesh-and-blood. It and its kind had been a problem for the three months he had been stationed at Cragg''s Hollow. Melded from an inky blackness, they appeared all over the city, but no one except Erick ever wanted to do anything about them.


    "Come on then," Erick said, thrusting his spear forward. "You called, so let''s get this over with."


    The wolf looked at him with a twisting head before jumping up to the top of the alley wall and vaulting over it with two quick leaps.


    "Wait!" Erick ran after it, jumping on a nearby barrel to gain some height before attempting his own jump.


    He caught the lip of the wall with both arms, spear over the edge to give him extra leverage as he struggled to kick up and over the wall. Below him, he could hear Agnes laughing, and he felt his face burn as he finally pushed himself over and landed on the ground.


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    "Just like basic training." Agnes didn''t make a sound as she appeared behind him, and Erick shook his head.


    "After it," Erick told himself as he ran down the alley and hopefully toward the beast.


    He ran for a long time until his lungs burned and his legs wanted to give out, but he never seemed to catch the beast. Just like every night, it eluded him. Soon, he came up to the hill that rose up and over the edge of the cove and looked out over the city. He stopped there, catching his breath as he looked out over the fog-filled town below.


    "You should really give up on this," Agnes, ever at his side, said as he held his hands on his knees and breathed.


    "You should leave me be," Erick said between gasps as he squinted at the city below.


    "I can''t do that." Agnes laughed hollowly.


    The city stretched out before him, spires and towers sticking out from the fog cloud, but the shorter buildings were just shadows beneath that. The moon shone down from above, giving ample light to the town, but the damned fog was the problem. Soon, the light of the moon would be blocked by the cliffs above the cove, and then he wouldn''t be able to find anything at all between the street lamps that dotted the city.


    "Why do you insist on tormenting me, Agnes?" Erick whispered, turning back to Agnes. "You''re already dead, Agnes. For over a year now."


    She smiled at him the same way she always had during basic training. A stupid training accident had taken her from him long before he could ever tell her how he felt. Scions, he was an idiot, and her shade seemed to be a constant reminder of that. At his words, she disappeared, just as she always did, leaving her smile last before it too fell away.


    "Never get an answer for that." Erick sighed as he looked up at the night sky.


    The stars above him twinkled, and he took to watching them for a while. One thing he missed on patrol was looking up at the night sky. It just hadn''t been possible due to the fog the last three months. He used to go out and look at the sky with Agnes every night.


    Erick reached up and wiped the tears that were wetting his cheeks.


    "You have a duty. Get back to that," he scolded himself, taking one last glance up at the night sky.


    It was then he noticed that one of the stars was wrong. One of the stars streaked across the night sky and toward the bay, trailing a line of light behind it. Erick had a few moments to watch it before he knew what it was. A slipship was coming in for a hard landing.


    "Alarm!" He ran off into the night, back toward the city and the docks.


    <hr>


    Captain James Hawkins believed in order. He sat at his desk on the Little February, the schooner-class slipship moored in the waters around Cragg Hollow, reading message after message. He loved order, but he hated paperwork. He stood up from his desk, nearly hitting his head on the beams above him, and made his way toward his cabin door.


    "A good view of the night is what I need," he said. "A breath of air and salt will get me back to work."


    So long as he did not run into his most annoying subordinate, he would be fine. He would remain in control and be back to work. There was little chance of running into Private Landson. The man should be out on patrol and far away from Captain Hawkin''s ship.


    Hawkins opened the door with one meaty fist and ducked through it to step to the other side. Fog covered the night around him and immediately soured his mood. He would give anything to be posted somewhere else, somewhere his skills would be recognized. However, here he was, on some little crappy outpost out and away from a major island. He''d never move up in the ranks if he never got out of Cragg Hollow.


    "Order through strength," he told himself as he walked over to the railing and looked out over the bay.


    In his limited vision, he could see the docks below, and his ship rested in the water there, the lodestones off. The ship acted more like a sailing ship than one of the nightsea, but there was little point in keeping the stones running during a permanent assignment. It was safer and more effective to keep the system off and only to do monthly tests to ensure that none of the systems were broken.


    "Alarm!"


    Captain Hawkins''s jaw clenched tight as he looked out in the fog. He knew that voice. Private Landson ran out of the fog and down the docks. Captain Hawkins sneered. He didn''t need a reason to hate a private, but Private Landson never hesitated to give him cause.


    Weakness defined the man, and Captain Hawkins hated weakness.


    "Report!"


    "Sir!" Private Landson stopped and saluted, his hand coming up to his chest as he stared out into the night. "There''s a slipship coming in fast. Crash landing."


    Whir. Splash. Sploosh.


    A ship careened through the fog like a ghost and crashed into the bay as if on cue. Water spiked up into the air, and a wave rushed over and slammed into the Little February. Captain Hawkins braced himself, gripping hard onto the railing on the side of the Little February and gritting his teeth as the water washed over. Below him, Private Landson maintained his attention, only dropping to a squat stance long enough for the water to wash over.


    "A little late, private!" Captain Hawkins yelled. "Alarm! Lieutenant Tanis, go find Doctor Livesay and drag him back from whatever bar he''s slouching in. We''re going to have injured. The rest of you, wake up and get to work. We''ve got a ship to recover.


    From below decks, the lieutenant appeared first, dressed in his customary dueling suit with his rapier at his side and his feathered hat already tipping in greeting with a tug of his finger. Behind him, several uniformed men filed out and started down the ship''s deck toward the gangplank.


    "On it, sir. Step," Tanis said before disappearing in a blur of motion.


    He reappeared down the dock. The other men filed down the gangplank and started getting ropes ready as some of them jumped in the water to swim out to the sinking slipship in front of them.


    "What are you doing, Private?" Captain Hawkins yelled down to Private Landson. "You''ve got a job. Get to it."


    "Yes, sir!" Private Landson relaxed his attention and started working with the other men to recover the ship.


    Captain Hawkins crossed his arms as he looked down at the sinking ship. It wasn''t every day that a ship crashed into the water. He could already see the Military Police''s insignia on its side, an ''M'' and a ''P'' next to each other on a black and red flag. However, what was more notable were the burn marks that ran along one side of the ship. It had been attacked mid-route. There weren''t many people stupid enough to stand up against the Military Police, and attacking one of their vessels was tantamount to suicide in the long run. There had to be a reason the ship was attacked, which meant there had to be something valuable on board.


    "All the more reason to pull it out of the water," Captain Hawkins said as he made his way down the gangplank to help pull the ship out of the water.