The Watch patrol moved along the street like scattered ghosts. Pale white figures in the predawn dark. White capes, white leather jerkins, and leggings. A tall one bent nearly double skulked along the wall, peering into the alleys and down the spaces between three and four-story buildings, then crossed to the other side to do the same. “Ffffffff!”
The group stopped, turning to the bent skulking figure.
“Ffffft!” a hissing sound from that one.
“Whistle idiot!" said one in the middle of the street. The others chuckled. “Light.”
“Me no can, Blenum, sir.” said the skulking one, the voice was high-pitched and squeaky like a rusty hinge.
“Keep trying monster.” replied the man.
“Yes sir.”
The lit torch, was suddenly bright and near blinding in the dark narrow street, held up by a stocky Dwarf. Red brown-haired and braided beard, wearing chain-linked armor under the white cape of the Watch. Two humans stayed in position watching up and down the street. A lithe dark-haired, pale grey-blue-skinned elf stood by the dwarf.
Blenum walked to the alley where the bent one now stood upright, towering over the others at just over 2.2 meters. Squinting red eyes reflected the light. The broad dark muzzle with leathery dark nose projecting forward. Tawny brown fur, with black spots in ring patterns, sticking out from the white leather shirt and covering the head and neck. A dark mane stood up between large rounded ears. The human looked up to the creature standing a head and half taller, pale hazel human eyes meeting the Ghenid's red. He had light brown skin, thick eyebrows, a strong square chin on a clean-shaven face. “What do we have Dracna?”
“Blood, fresh. Body.”
Blenum looked in the alleyway and then turned to the figure behind him. “Svarta, can’t you and Wage see in the dark like the Ghenid?”
The girl turned. Black-haired, the gaunt figure gave him a bored look with her violet eyes. “I let the dog do the sniffing.” she said. The dwarf shrugged.
“Me no dog, Elf!” came Dracna’s high-pitched growl.
“Wage, light here please.” Said Blenum motioning the dwarf over.
A black-furred body lay in the narrow alley amongst the trash and debris. Blenum carefully slid along the wall, motioning Wage the Dwarf to follow.
“Bugbear. They kill each other all the time, the filthy beasts.”
“Ask around? Witnesses?” asked Dracna, head and ears down as she gazed at the body.
Blenum laughed. Shaking his head. “Bugbear? In Monster town? No one cares. Filthy monsters. No one will report it. No loss. We’ll alert the body wagon to haul it to the poor pit. No one ever claims the body.”
To Dracna the thick metallic blood smell filled the narrow space, fighting with the stew of rotting garbage and rotten urine. Blenum did a quick search for pouches, belts, coins. Dracna wiped her mouth with the back of a furred hand. Swallowing. She thought that the old way died hard. The body is meat. The salty metallic taste of the blood. The words of the Clan Matriarch echoing in her ears. “We do not do this here. Civilized and not cannibals. Still the monsters to them. Do not give them more cause to hate us. Leave the dead untouched. The meat is unclean.”
Blenum stood, tucking something into a pouch on his belt. “Dracna, you stay and watch the body. Have a bit to eat, monster. No one will miss it.” He laughed.
She shook her head silently, eyes flicking from figure to figure of the Watch patrol. Wage looking back disgustedly.
Svarta blew her a kiss as the squad moved out along the street.
Dracna watched the torch marking the patrol's travel along the street, then leaned back listening. She whispered to the air "Anything Krarue?" Her Shadow, the chained ghost familiar of grandmother's brother, whispered in her ear that nothing living and larger than a rat moved nearby. She slipped into the alley and looked at the body. Squat, 1.4 meters, bandy-legged with hairy arms that reached almost down the whole length of body and legs, and covered with shaggy black fur sticking out of a bloody shirt and holey trousers. Nubby toes on blocky columnar feet. No shoes or boots. The large round head - hairless, swollen, colored and creased like a pumpkin but with a wide mouth full of sharp teeth stretching side to side. Deep-set triangular sockets with flat dead eyes. "Us they hate. Fear" she said to the body. "Monsters. Barbarians. Cannibals." She wondered if the Bugbear had any appreciation of the city, of art, of written words. The street orators or the theaters. She knows the wild ones hate everything but power and will sell their souls for a strong leader.
She examined the wounds. Sharp and blunt. Several attackers. She sniffed and looked around, quickly spotting the dark drops of blood behind the body, on stone and rubbish running deeper down the alley. She followed the trail to the next street. More blood. Another Bugbear lay at the curb. Several bloody spots on the cobblestones and raised walk. Dracna scanned the scene. A bloody dagger by the alley. She took that. She checked the Bugbear. Dead. The bloody dagger was wiped clean on the body. She searched for pockets, pouches or hidden stashes. A key. Some coin in a bag under the arm. Into her pouch. Empty cheap wood scabbard. A scrap of paper with a map, that seemed suspiciously like this part of the street. A boarding house marked up the street. The sign was visible hanging further along the way. Not some Bugbear duel. Ambush. Who and why? She looked up and down the street. The tenements. Small shops. No candle lights. Someone heard or saw something. This was not a quick knife. Blows were traded. Noise made. They stayed to take the weapons. She thinks. That they could see. Someone else. With poor night vision - Human, Centaur, or Gnome. The other monsters that lurked in the shadows and prowled the city streets at night didn't need torches or lanterns to see well.
She spoke in the Ghenid language. "Krarue, I give you blood and you will look in each room facing this spot." She scooped some of the jelled blood onto her own dagger and recited a chant while tipping the gore into the vapor of the ghost's form. The offering swirled, broken up and vanishing with the misty shape. She grabbed the second body and dragged it back to the first to resume watching. No one will talk of the missing Bugbears. The bodies are only passing interest for the neighborhood. Probably the fight will be talked about. Probably not to her. Blenum wouldn't care. "Just another filthy Bugbear." Maybe another Sergeant? She waited and watched, thinking. She heard her Shadow's report about the rooms. Humans and other smooth skins sleeping or talking about the noise of a fight. And she waited, passing the hours in the predawn gloom. After sunrise and the stirring of people, the body wagon rolled up with a Goblin and Human chatting with the Centaur pulling it. They gave her a double check -seeing a Ghenid in the Watch Whites was unusual even for this city. Her kind are still seen as savage barbaric monsters. She let them load as she headed back to the watch station, the morning crowds edging away from her.
She considered the sergeants. The Elf Senic. Loud. Flashy. Selfinterested and just filling his Order's obligation to work the Watch. Taking his cut from skimming officers. Barmia is a human female with a goal to move up the ranks. What they call "By The Book". Plecol is a sturdy fixed point, another human, being and doing what he likes best. Seeing himself and the Watch as having an important duty to the city. He may be the best choice and she heads to his box. She found him overseeing a patrol that was gearing up, and waited for his attention.
A glance at her, turned into a sweep from head to foot. " What have you been doing?"
Surprised, she looked down. Her whites were dirty and streaked with dried blood and dirt from her absent-mindedly wiping hands on her leather jerkin and breeches after hauling the body. The straps loose, and bits of fur showing. Ears ascew in surprise she forced them back up. "We find dead Bugbears. Think ambush not duel. Find this" She showed him the paper with the map.
"I heard from Blenum. Bugbears? There was another?'
"Yes, next street. Signs fight. Same map. Maybe some see?"
"If it is important the Tribunes or someone will contact us. Tribunes look after the residents of their districts. Requests will be made. Otherwise, it is done."
Her ears drooped. "It not smell right."
"You think there is something?"
She nodded. "Not right. Bigger fight. They leave dagger - not see in dark. Some not Bugbear, not see in dark. Map."
"Maybe you are making something of nothing. Like I said, if it is important, we will hear about it."
She shook her manned head. "Like in hunt. Trail not right."
"Stop chewing that bone and get cleaned up Dracna."
She bowed and retreated to the barracks. Dracna peeled off the armor, scrubbed the spots and stains, polished the buckles. Set it on her stand. She sought food in the mess. A bowl of porridge and eggs. Then she went to her bunk, in the monster corner of the barracks, with kobolds and the minotaur, to sleep. Early morning and evening the barracks would be full of chat, dice, bragging and talk of the day. Now in the late morning, it was quiet and mostly empty - except a scattering of night patrol members asleep, and the kobold. Kobolds made everyone uneasy. Furred dog faced ape like things standing maybe a meter tall, with horns on their heads above their pointed ears and naked rat tails. Chittering buzzing voices. Glowing eyes. They don't even sleep....just sat with eyes open and staring, or closed with ears twitching. Just being around them made the skin itchy. Dracna thanked Great Mother's mercy- there was just one there. Next to her bed the minotaur, Ubra, was asleep in his bunk. She went to hers.
She awoke in the early afternoon and dressed simply in a long robe tunic, white short cape, blade and dueling medallion, and set off from the Watch station. She went to the district market, skulking at the margins, listening to the musicians and the orators reading their poetry. She went to the House of Apza, a bath that had several small pools, changed frequently and favored by the furred residents of the district. She paid the fee at the door and then paid an attendant to put her possessions into a guarded wall pocket. She made a point of showing and wrapping her things in the short cloak embroidered with the mark of the Watch. Then she made her way to one of the female's rooms. Empty. This suited her and she climbed into the hot water bath, dunking and soaking. Thinking. This was more than Bugbear tribes fighting. The one who can't see well in the dark. A chief or supervisor who isn't a Bugbear. The Bugbears fit into the city in that they had patrons or chiefs, much as the city residents had tribes made of guilds, houses (or like her people, clans), or chiefs in the form of district tribunes. So, whatever it was, the Bugbear chiefs didn't seem to want the officials to know. Some other gangs fighting? Why should she care? No one else does, it was just monsters like her after all. Beneath notice and without status. That scratched at her.
That night was another regular duty patrol. Dracna showed her sergeant, Blenum, the map. "Sir, I find. Bugbear second had. Same street."
"Of course. Stupid monster probably needed the map to remember where the fight was supposed to happen. You are making something out of nothing, you big beast."
Dracna, clenched her jaw shut and nodded.
The patrol wandered the streets watching for cutpurses, prowlers and cat burglars. She is not just sniffing, listening and watching for the usual clash of combat, cries of injury, loss or fear or the flicker or scent of fire. She looks for the darker shadows and has her own shadow, Krarue, also on alert and surveying for trouble, or clues. Stopping at the tavernas, the public houses, the inns. Looking for trouble, drunks and fights. Blenum talked to the door, the keeper or barman. "No troubles yet tonight? Good. Good! We have a long patrol, but we can keep an ear open to you for the consideration. Here when you need us, first priority, eh?" A few gold pass from hand to hand here. A few coin there. Bribes to let someone go, or to have the patrol look the other way. The usual business.
They patrol and take what they want from the kiosks, small grills and left over baked goods. More of the sergeant's special fee. Something for the whole Hand: The Dwarf, Wage. The humans- Han and Darji, and the dark elf, Svarta. Even a grumbled cut for the filthy monster, Dracna. Everyone gets a piece in the game. She understands this. Very Ghenid. Her clan matriarch, the S'oang M'he demanded half of Dracna's own pay as a constable of the Watch. She could bind them all tight with the Soul Chain, the Ghenid Aedoteerua. Instead it is weak oaths and words of humans and elf, dependent only on their willingness to obey, without the cold touch of the ghostly power of the underworld holding the words over them. Or the Bahku oaths, as binding as the Soul Chain in their ways. This obedience is bought with coin.
