The encounter with the Senior Pack-Leader Senessara had set Cephia's formidable temper burning like the heart of a forge. In the aftermath her squad had given her a wide berth as she vented her frustration in the training areas. Supposedly durable combat dummies disintegrated into splinters under her fury. Three heavy, security-issue truncheons broke under the strain as she battered her way through a dozen different practice routines, trying to get all the murderous energy out of her system before crossing paths with her superiors again.

In her current state she worried what she might do.

Another dummy vanished in a blizzard of broken wood as she ripped the truncheon through it. Cephia let out a snort of anger, finding herself longing for a weapon with a little more teeth – and for something a bit sturdier to use it on.

Breathing heavily, she stalked back and forth as a pair of Conclave staffers in plain blue robes hurried to clear away the debris and set up new targets for her anger. With the red mist in her mind she didn't even notice the sudden blare of the howlwire set built into the wall. It bleated again and one of the attendants eventually scuttled over to answer it.

Splinters flew as Cephia attacked another dummy, smashing a deep divot out of the shoulder joint with a powerful, double-pawed swing. As the echo of impact receded, the attendant – a reedy-framed quillkin – cleared his throat nervously.

"I... err, ma'am?" he stuttered.

"What?" She rounded on him with an irritated snort.

"Apologies, ma'am, but I have guard Roave on the line. He says it's urgent."

Exhaling a sharp breath of annoyance, Cephia tossed the truncheon aside and stalked across the room, yanking the receiver out of the attendant's paw without a word. The quillkin scurried away out of reach as she raised it to her ear.

"Guard-Leader Cephia," she snapped.

"Roave here, boss."

"Go ahead."

"Tayge and I are on level thirteen, Beech Quarter. We're in the maintenance section below one of the Agri-Tech offices."

Cephia's anger began to fizzle as she listened to Roave's voice. He sounded frustrated, a tightness in his normally cocksure tone. He'd found something he didn't like at all. And what was he doing at the Agri-Tech offices? In her absence she had squad running internal patrols in pairs, and Roave ought to have been in a different part of the tower entirely.

"What is it?"

"One of the designates has been murdered."

She blinked. He said it so simply that she didn't quite gather the words in straight away.

"Murdered?" she managed after a second.

"'fraid so, boss. You'd better get down here. This one's... I think it's one you're gonna want to be in charge of, if you get what I'm sayin, ay?"

"Peace'n'Fire." Cephia's muscles snapped rigid at the implication and she nodded. "Call in the others and lock that maintenance area down. Nobody touches anything, you understand? I'm on my way."

Then she slammed the howl-net receiver back into place and bolted from the room.

*

It took her maybe ten minutes to don her armour and make her way to the Agri-Tech offices of the Conclave. Situated in one of the secondary towers that jutted out from the main complex, they filled half a dozen levels, a small government department devoted to working with Wildhearth's agricultural districts. Focusing on improving irrigation, greenhouse construction and trading produce with other cities, it wasn't exactly the sort of department that a designate would kill for.

Evidently it had been enough to die for, though.

She passed several startled administrative staff and a couple of designates conversing in hushed tones in the surrounding passages, and cursed. Already word of the murder was spreading through the Conclave.

Fortunately her own people had reacted quickly. Cinder now blocked the door leading to the maintenance area, standing with her armbow loaded and her truncheon sizzling with destructive energy in the other paw.

"Roave and the others are inside," Cinder said as she approached.

"And the tech who found the body?"

"He's in there too."

"Good." Cephia paused; glanced back at the Conclave staff. "I don't care if the High Alpha comes down that passage. Nobody comes through this door without my permission. Understood?"

"Aye, ma'am." Cinder gave armbow a meaningful shake.

Satisfied, she gave the quillkin a nod and stepped through into the maintenance area. It was hot and filled with metal, air filtration systems rattling all around her. Wires snaked along the walls, plunging into dozens of ports from all directions, and cold blue lights shone from the ceiling. She could smell the burn of electronics, but the scent of blood cut sharply through it.

It wasn't difficult to follow the smell, and after a few turns through the passage she discovered the rest of her squadron, the unfortunate technician, and a very, very dead body. Myra and Roave flanked the corpse, while Kelter stood slightly further down the passage to ensure no-one could come wandering in from the opposite direction. The tech – a male wolfkin – sat up against the wall with Tayge looking over him. His eyes looked like they were about to pop right out of his skull, and she could see his paws trembling, even though he had them clasped tightly together.

She couldn't exactly blame him. The scene he'd uncovered was not something any technician was meant to see. Cephia immediately saw the similarities between the murders Illando had described in the districts, right down to the gore-red symbols that now infected the metal walls. Her eyes were drawn to the double-triangle motif that seemed to be the calling card of the Savage Fire, painted right above the dead body.

And not just any dead body. The long, dark robe and formal bodywrap that the deerkin victim wore marked him out as a designate. His throat had been torn open by something a lot bigger and blunter than any blade, leaving his head to loll forward under the weight of his antlers. A chasm of bone and blood filled the space where his chest ought to have been.

Cephia felt her jaw tightening with rage. Someone had just murdered a Conclave Designate in broad daylight.

"Do we have an identification?" she said, ice forming on her words.

"Designate Indikkara," Myra replied, standing with one paw resting warily on the handle of her truncheon. "We found his scent key."

Her eyes narrowed and she glanced around. There should have been guard patrols moving regularly through these parts of the tower. With the febrile atmosphere in the Conclave and beyond, the security presence had been increased significantly. And yet, a random technician had stumbled across this mess.

"Who's sector is this?" she demanded.

"Duty roster has Guard-Leader Boel's squad on patrol on this patch," Roave answered quickly.

"Then where in the Peace and bloody Fire are they?!" Cephia looked around furiously. "Why did some technician find this body instead of our damned guards? Are they even in this tower?"

"I... err, I'm not sure, ma'am-,"

"Then go and find them! Nobody can walk in here and do this to a designate, then walk right out again without inside help." Her eyes blazed as she glowered at her subordinate. "Do you understand?"

Roave swallowed hard and nodded, saluting sharply. "Ma'am."

Then he scurried off, leaving her to seethe over the implications. She knew Boel well enough. He was a stolid, if unimaginative vulkin who'd been promoted in the wake of the enforcer scandal. In that time he'd shown himself to be one of the handful of Conclave guards determined to carry out his duty without prejudice. She had a hard time believing he could be involved in this mess, but the facts forced her to consider the possibility.

They waited, loitering in the blood-soaked gloom for several minutes. She occupied her mind by trying to understand how something like this could have happened without anyone seeing or hearing it. It was possible he'd been killed elsewhere, but smuggling a body all the way up here would have been virtually impossible to do unseen.

She'd run though several increasingly bonkers scenarios by the time Roave returned, trailing a group of four guards behind him. They slouched along with all the energy of a sleepwalk until they saw the body, but even then they didn't react how she might have expected. Eyes widened and the newcomers cast sharp glances at each other, but they didn't seem as surprised as they should have been.

Unease crawled up her spine.

"Nasty, nasty," remarked a foxkin guard, wrinkling his nose as he looked at Indikkara's body. "What happened here, eh?"

"You in charge of this group?" Cephia asked.

A nod. "Aye."

"Then maybe you want to explain to me how this-," she gestured to the body, "happened on your watch? Where in the Fire were you?!"

She glared at the other guards, demanding an answer. They glanced at each other blankly, before the foxkin gave a dismissive shrug.

"We were walkin' our route," he grunted. "Patrol I got given didn't take us down here. We just go where we're told."

"And who gave you that patrol route?"

Another shrug. "Guard-Leader Nestor."

"Boel's squad were already meant to be on patrol in this tower today," Roave snapped. "And I reckon you all know that well enough, ay? So what's Nestor playin' at? Where are Boel's people?"

"We're not playing at anything," interjected a deerkin guard with an affronted snort. "Just following orders. Nestor told us we were taking a patrol swap with Boel's unit."

"Why?"

"How should I know?"

"Then where is Nestor?" Cephia's voice tightened into an enraged hiss. Unlike Boel, Nestor was a surly, lazy beaverkin who ought to have been tossed back down to the docks instead of given command of a security detail. Why a dead-weight like him would suddenly start interfering with patrol routes, she could only guess at.

"Spying on the boss isn't our job," the foxkin sneered back. "Send him a howl if you wanna talk to him."

That was more than enough disrespect for one day. She took two powerful strides forward, bringing her face close to the guard and letting out a sharp growl of anger. He flinched back, but not far enough to avoid the backswing of her clenched paw.

Cephia belted him across the jaw, hard enough to hurt, but with nothing like the force she was capable of unleashing. The foxkin let out a yelp of surprise and staggered back, but she caught him by the collar of his armour, wrenching him towards her.

"Tighten up your tongue when you speak to me, guard," she spat through gritted teeth.

His comrades started to move to his aid, paws reaching for truncheons, but the click of armbows behind her arrested their progress. She glanced back to find that Tayge and Myra both had their weapons aimed, while Roave and Kelter edged forward, baring their teeth in challenge.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Tayge stated breezily. "How 'bout you let the boss have a word with your friend, eh?"

"Unless you want to dig a bolt out of your skull," Myra added with a lot more menace.

The other guards stopped in their tracks, shooting each other worried looks. Once it became clear that none of them were going to do anything stupid, Cephia turned her attention back to the foxkin. "Now, why has Nestor got you patrolling someone else's sector?"

The bravado had been knocked out of the guard along with one of his teeth, and he recoiled in fright.

"Peace'n'Fire, I just do what I'm told!" he yelped, eyes wide as he strained to keep his head away from her jaws. "We just got our patrol orders changed a few hours ago – I don't make the bloody assignments! Y'wanna know why Nestor put us on this route, y'gotta go an ask him!"

She clung onto the guard for a few more seconds, fighting down the urge to smash his head against the wall. With an effort of will, she released her hold and shoved the foxkin hard, sending him cannoning back into his companions. He hit the ground with a yowl before the other guards hastily hauled him upright.

"Get out of my sight," Cephia snarled.

"You're crazy, y'know that?" the guard babbled, still shaking. "Bloody wolves. You'll get what's comin' to you, the lot of you." Before she could respond he whirled around, propelling his companions back the way they'd come. They beat an undignified retreat, disappearing round the corner. Their steps receded away, leaving Cephia's squad in silence once more. She exhaled slowly, but a sense of dread kept her hackles up.

"Dunno about you, boss," Tayge said after a moment, "but I'm startin' to get a real bad feeling about all this."

*

Leaving her guard pack to deal with Indikkara's body, and keep anyone else away from the scene, Cephia returned to her small cubicle of an office, with the intention of digging out Guard-Leader Nestor's records. If she wanted to interrogate another member of Conclave security, she needed to make sure she had all the facts she could muster before taking that plunge.

Cephia fired up her computer rig – a standard Conclave model of a fat steel case wrapped around the boulder-like monitor – and set to work. She pulled up Nestor's service file first, scanning it with a critical eye. He didn't seem to take many trips out into the city – not recently at any rate. Alongside him, she dug out the official patrol routes for the day, and brought up routes that covered the Agri-Tech officers.

Nestor's name was nowhere to be found. Tension tightened her jaw. Whatever swap of patrol the Guard-Leader had arranged had not been logged on the official record. That meant that the responsibility for the attack, officially, landed on Guard-Leader Boel.

Cephia knew better than that. Nestor had changed a patrol, and in doing so allowed someone to come in and murder Designate Indikkara. She didn't have outright proof beyond the foxkin guard's admission, but she knew a set up when she saw it. But to avoid an official log went beyond the powers of a lowly Guard-Leader. Someone higher up the chain had expunged the record.

It didn't take long to find his direct superior, and she somehow wasn't surprised to discover who Nestor reported to.

Senessara.

Not for the first time, the old wolfkin commander reared her head, right into the teeth of this mess. Cephia frowned, fresh waves of unease washing over her. Since the fall of High Alpha Threndarr, everyone had written Senessara off as a useless drunkard, spending her twilight years buried in a bottle of lasher.

Now it seemed like Senessara had dipped her claws into something a lot more sinister than that.

Peace and bloody Fire.

She was still trying to decide how to tackle this, when a blinking indicator flashed up in bottom right of the screen where her personal message log could be found. The stark white glyph of a curved fang flashing beside it marked the message as extremely urgent.

Cephia frowned, peering accusingly at the indicator, weighing up if this could possibly be urgent enough to postpone her investigations. She had a horrible feeling that she had only just scratched the surface of what was going on right beneath her paws.

But the curved fang glyph stared out at her desperately. Ignore me at your peril, it seemed to say. Only someone with access to the Conclave's howl-net could force something into her attention like this. Letting out a frustrated huff of breath, she relented and opened the message. Inside she found a howl-wire code and a line of text that read: 'For Conclave Guard-Leader Cephia. Call urgently.'

Her frown deepened. She was in no mood to play games. Flexing her claws, she stood up, crossed the room to the howl-wire set and punched in the code, before lifting the receiver to her ear. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to clear her head as the howl-wire bleeped rhythmically, hunting for a connection. When a sudden clunk cut off the bleeps, her eyes snapped open.

"Guard-Leader Cephia?" The voice was not one she recognised.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Who am I speaking to?"

"My name is Anvaal – Conclave Designate Anvaal. I represent northern Almachora District." Cephia blinked in surprise as he continued. "Thank you for calling. I apologise for the cryptic message, but I have information that I did not want to write down where it could be accessed by... other parties."

"Other parties?"

"I think you are well aware of who I'm referring to."

She turned, leaning her back against the wall as she tried to sort out just what in the Peace and Fire was going on now. Everybody in Wildhearth knew the name of Designate Anvaal – the old, bullish deerkin who had spearheaded the impeachment of the previous High Alpha. Almost single-pawed, Anvaal had unveiled the enforcer plot and hurled it into the face of the Conclave, upsetting the old order of the city in a whirlwind of righteous anger.

How that tangled him up with the Savage Fire cult, she had no idea.

"Well, you've got my attention, Designate," Cephia said carefully. "But this is way off protocol. You have assigned security already, and I'm up to my neck here. This better be important."

"I assure you it is. I heard the news about Designate Indikkara."

"How in the Fire-,"

"I have friends in the Conclave. I hope that I'll be able to count you among them."

Her tail curled uneasily. "I'm listening."

"I need to meet with you at my offices. I knew Indikkara well. We worked together during the impeachment of High Alpha Threndarr. He was a good worker and loyal to the city, and deserved much better than this butchery."

"Designate, I sympathise," she answered. "And I'm sorry about your friend, but I'm afraid I don't understand. What do you need from me?"

"Things are worse than you know," Anvaal answered heavily. "It is difficult to know who to trust. From what my sources tell me, you are someone who is trustworthy. I require your help, and if you care about Wildhearth's survival, you will give it to me."

"I don't like being spied on, Anvaal, but if you've been keeping an eye on me, you already know that I'm loyal to Wildhearth. That said, I need a bit more information. Do you know something about the people that killed Indikkara? Do you know why?"

"I believe I do."

"Then tell me. Then I'll decide if we should meet."

Anvaal paused for a moment. She could hear his weighty breaths crackling on the line as he considered her words. Eventually, there was a sigh.

"As you wish," he rumbled. "The murders in the districts, you are aware of them?"

"Very."

"And you would agree that they seem random; brutal, designed to shock and frighten the population?"

Cephia nodded slowly. "It looks that way, yes."

"Well I can tell you with certainty that the attack on Indikkara was not random. He was assassinated. He and designates like him are being targeted."

"And how can you be so sure?"

"Because, Guard-Leader, they also tried to kill me."