When the barge finally started to slow, a deep midnight had engulfed Wildhearth. It was more than natural darkness that Kappsi found herself sliding into. After long hours clinging to the boathook, staying half submerged and silent as they wound their way through the storm rattled canals, she felt like they were descending into another world.

The barge wound through a series of narrow defiles, heading south from Whaveloda and sloping deeper and deeper from the light of the city proper. Buffeted by rain and thrashing waters, trying not to get flattened against the narrow canal walls, Kappsi could only snatch glimpses of their route. The ramshackle, gloomy periphery of the outer districts grew around them, a place where all manner of illicit trade could be found. It was a world away from what she knew.

As darkness closed in the rain finally subsided, taking the gusting winds with it. Canal walls rose on all sides, blocking Wildhearth's heart from view, giving her the distinct impression they were descending into some kind of watery tomb.

The narrow defiles eventually opened out again as the subsidiary canals spilled back out into the main network that connected the outer city in a rough ring. Kappsi thanked small mercies that the waterways were quiet at this time of night, and took the opportunity to try and orient herself properly.

The coughing gurgle of the barge engine began to wind down and she stretched out her iced limbs. Even for an otterkin, staying motionless in the water for so long left her chilled and stiff. Taking great care not to disturb the water, she looked forward and aft to check on her brothers. They were still there; Skoppa waved lazily, looking for all the world like he was enjoying a pleasure cruise as he lounged on his back, one paw on the boathook. Haarm had the good grace to look thoroughly fed up, but he gave her a nod of readiness.

Twisting her body to look forwards, she examined their destination, and Kappsi did not like what she saw. The underdock the barge had slouched into was a dilapidated wreck, with dockside buildings leaning dangerously as unmaintained foundations gave way to the elements. Of the six jetties she could see, only two of them looked to be in working order, and one skeleton-armed crane loomed dormant over them. Half the lights in the place sat dead, leaving the other half to bathe the dock in an unsettling twilight.

The barge edged towards one of the functioning jetties and she tensed to spring. They would need to time this carefully. She knew approximately how close they'd need to be before the barge-herders would be sent out to guide the vessel in. Erring on the side of caution, when they were still thirty meters distant she punched a clenched paw in the air to signal the twins.

Surging up gently from the mucky canal water, Kappsi popped the boathook loose, took a breath, and allowed herself to sink soundlessly back beneath the water. She felt the ripples left and right as Skoppa and Haarm followed suite, and she swirled under the surface to locate them.

A couple of seconds later the burly twins came gliding into place alongside her. Kappsi tapped her chest, indicating they should follow her, then she corkscrewed her body around and powered off to the opposite bank of the canal. She found purchase on a cracked and pitted slipway, and slithered out of the water as softly as she could, up onto the damp wood of the dockside. Crates and barrels littered the place – they could have been here for years for all she knew.

The three otterkin ducked down behind a cluster of them, just as the barge-herders emerged onto the deck dove into the canal. Taking a moment to steady her breathing, Kappsi watched through a narrow gap in the crates as the boat limped into position.

"What a dump, eh?" Haarm murmured.

Skoppa let out a derisive snigger. "Stinks too. Aye, old Crimson Tooth'll be right at home."

"Keep it down, would you?" Kappsi whispered, thumping Skoppa lightly on the arm. "Now, where in the boilin' tides are we?"

The trio cautiously poked their heads a little higher over the barrels and crates. Ahead of them the barge had been moored tight and the barge-herders were scrambling out of the water. Beyond the half-wrecked dockside, they could see a rickety tangle of buildings, some with lights on and with kin blundering in and out, others sitting dead.

She could smell the cheap lasher and cooking meats from here. She didn't see any signs identifying the dockyard, which was odd, but given the state of the place, not a huge surprise. Further along to their left the canal split out into several tributaries that flowed further into the district.

Too small for a cargo barge, those little, artificial rivers would likely be for passenger boats, running throughout the district. Following the course of the tributaries, Kappsi saw several large, cube-shaped buildings looming out of the midnight shadows beyond the docks.

Salt packing houses, if her memory served. There were several of them back in Whaveloda, where rich sea salt from the Coastlands would be delivered, processed and sold throughout the city. She frowned. Right now, that didn't seem to help.

Then Haarm let out a groan of realisation. "Ah, scupper me. We shoulda known yer murderin' friends would set up around here."

She looked at him, askance. "You know where we are?"

"I think we washed us up in Helsfur."

"Peace'n'Fire," Skoppa cursed. "Y'sure?"

"We went southwest outta Whaveloda and down – that's the right direction. And a while back the Helsfur docks used to get a lotta salt shipped in from the Coastlands."

"But we get the Coastland shipments through Whaveloda."

"We do now. Somebody in Whaveloda scooped that contract and left the poor rags here high'n'dry. On top o' that, they got caught in all that mess last year with the enforcers."

Kappsi grimaced, raking a claw through her headfur and tightening the clip that held it in place. It would be her luck that the trail would lead them here. Helsfur was a district known by many, for all the wrong reasons. It was a violent, almost lawless melting pot of different species, even more so in the aftermath of the failed enforcer plot that had taken so many lives. She didn't envy the watchguards who had to work in this nightmare.

"Well, there's our boy," Haarm muttered, inclining his head to the docks.

Kappsi looked back to the barge to see the otterkin barge-master disembarking, with the fearsome Crimson Teeth emerging close behind him.

"Whatcha wanna do?"

"We came this far," she replied, looking at them with a shrug. "I... I know Helsfur ain't quite what we bargained for, but if we wanna find Brickle-,"

"It's alright, Kappsi," Skoppa assured her, moving closer and leaning forward to touch his forehead to hers. "We ain't about to bail on you now, right brother?"

"Right," Haarm agreed, hefting his boathook meaningfully. "Let's see this through, eh?"

Sheer love for the garrulous twins bubbled up in her chest and she felt tears well in her eyes. Gulping down a lump in her throat, she grabbed Skoppa tight around the neck, hugging him close. Heaving in a steadying breath, she sniffed and straightened up again as she looked at her brothers.

"Thanks, guys," she said hoarsely.

"Aye, well you're buyin' the drinks for the next month," Haarm chuckled, before peeking up over their barricade again. The levity faded from his face. "Looks like they're on the move. Time for us to get goin'."

Padding softly on the rotten wood of the dockside, Kappsi led the way, hunkering low behind collapsed railings, abandoned cargo crates and wrecked boats that had been hauled onto the embankment – left never to recover from their wounds. Crimson Teeth stalked away from the docks with his escort, leaving the otterkin barge-master brooding on the deck.

They skirted around the barge, looping around to the left and through a jumbled alleyway out of the barge-master's eyeline. A handful of ragged-looking kin skulked in the alley over some makeshift firepits roasting meats and glugging at bottles containing liquors Kappsi could only guess at. She drew herself up to her full height as she strode forward.

The residents of Helsfur might have been dangerous individuals, but three young, fit otterkin carrying heavy boathooks did not make for easy targets. Suspicious eyes followed them, but no-one tried to accost the trio as they emerged back onto a proper street, the cubes of the pack houses rising into prominence a few hundred yards ahead. Somewhere a tram-carrier clattered along rails, the sound mingling with a constant hum of harsh voices that battered off of Helsfur's walls.

Her eyes picked out Crimson Teeth in the gloom. The lanky creature stalked forward with an unmistakable gait, guards spread around at a safe distance. Guards or not, she got the impression they were staying out of arms reach of the beast they were chaperoning.

"C'mon," she whispered harshly, breaking into a jog as the group disappeared around the side of a building up ahead. They were making a straight line towards the salt packing houses, so she decided to run parallel, rather than follow directly and risk a careless glance over the shoulder blowing this whole plan to pieces.

With the twins right on her tail, she skittered into the adjacent side-street and made a beeline for the looming cube-shaped structures up ahead. She could still smell the salt in the air, some deposits left behind when the great industrial centre closed down. One of the tributary canals cut through the street alongside them, dark water burbling towards their destination.

Then the buildings fell away.

It was sudden, like someone had flicked a switch. One minute the sickly dark structure of Helsfur leaned in around them; the next they emerged onto a broad ledge overlooking the salt packing works. She skidded to a halt, dropping into a crouch in the dim light, peering down into the crumbling expanse. The industrial sprawl formed a basin that stretched almost a kilometre from left to right, and the canal that they'd been following spilled down into it. All around the lip of the beast-made crater other subsidiary canals flowed, forming a networked lattice between the big, silent monoliths.

Silent, but they were not all hidden in the darkness.

The door of one of the great cubes was lit up, not by electricity, but by a pair of bulky, tripod mounted braziers that blazed in the night, steam boiling off them from the faint drizzle still falling. From their vantage point Kappsi watched in amazement as a huge crowd of kin milled around outside the structure, far more than she'd ever expected to see. There must have been well over a hundred of them down there, some wearing the ragged cult robes, others dressed in kilts, bodywraps and work overalls.

"Bloody tides, there's a whole crowd of 'em down there," Haarm gasped, shaking his head. "What in the Fire is this?"

"Looks like a big old town meeting," Skoppa replied.

"And I reckon the guest of honour's on his way," Kappsi murmured, tapping them both on the shoulder and pointing. "Look."

To the right of them, their quarry descended into the basin, traversing the dangerously narrow stairways with feral ease; two, sometimes three at a time. The guards struggled to keep pace, stumbling and scrambling after their master.

Sure enough, when Crimson Teeth approached the lit up entrance to the packing house, the sea of kin parted with reverence, raising clenched paws skywards and chanting in a low, growling tone. It took a few seconds for the sound to drift across the distance between them and coalesce into something Kappsi recognised as language. A single word ebbed on the wind.

Kendris. Kendris. Kendris.

Skoppa's face twisted with discomfort. "Y' reckon that's its... name?"

"Thought he was Crimson Teeth?"

"That's just according to the myths," Kappsi said, narrowing her eyes as she examined the structure more closely. "But we're not gonna figure anything out from up here. We gotta get into that place."

"We're probably best dodgin' the front door," Haarm said.

"What about the freight entrance?" Skoppa suggested. "Should be one on the south wall."

He rocked his head from side to side in thought, unconvinced. "Maybe. Don't look like the place has power though. Those doors got some heft to 'em."

"The flood drainage hatches," Kappsi said firmly. "They're all around the lower level. With the storm they're probably drowned right now. We could swim right up one and into the basement level."

Haarm considered that for a moment. His expression wandered through incredulity, cautious optimism, realisation, and then anxiety. He'd just figured out that her suggestion made perfect sense, and that meant there would be no getting out of this.

Skoppa shrugged awkwardly. "Got any better ideas, brother?"

"Nope."

"Then let's go before any of us can change our minds, eh?"

"Aye." He nodded to Kappsi. "After you, little sis."

She tapped her boathook against one paw and smiled dangerously. Then she set off, scampering down the steps to their left and sliding into the narrow tributary canal with barely a ripple.

Burying herself deep into the confined space, she let her body move with the flow of the water, gathering speed as the canal sloped downward. A twitch of her long tail left and right kept her on course, and through the blur of water she could see the packing house expanding rapidly in her vision.

Kappsi deftly negotiated a sharp left, a turn that would have propelled a weaker swimmer clean into the unyielding canal wall. As the canal began to level out she pulled her arms tight to her body, her whole lithe frame writhing back and forth as she endeavoured to keep up her speed. In a matter of moments she was gliding along parallel to the packing house's eastern wall.

She steadied her nerves, letting the rush of water pound in her ears for a moment, blocking out all the insanity of the last few days. She longed to be back home, back at the docks with Brickle by her side, joking their way through the working day, shovelling down bowls of Loffe's chowder and dark beer as the world blundered on around them. Instead she was out in this Peace-forsaken place, getting ready to try and sneak into some kind of freakish cult gathering, with a creature from Wildhearth's darkest myths right in the middle of it.

'Mess' just didn't quite say it.

The time for rumination quickly vanished, when Kappsi spotted a dark and fast-approaching divot in the right wall of the canal, with water flowing from above – out of something. As she'd hoped, the drainage hatches of the old place still functioned. Such emergency measures were common in pack houses like this and, crucially, didn't require power to operate. If water breached the lower foundations, they would simply open up and spill the overflow into the surrounding canals.

She didn't need to look back. She could feel the disturbances in the water behind her as Skoppa and Haarm drew close, the burly twins moving through the water as easily as air. Kappsi slowed, edging to the right.

Whipping out a claw, she caught the corner and swung herself into the overflow channel, a space only just large enough for one otterkin to fit. Lowering her head, she powered forward with all the force she could muster. Fighting uphill and against the current for even a short distance took all of Kappsi's considerable strength, but she ploughed her way to the surface, breaking free and sucking in a grateful lungful of salty air.

She stood up, and found herself standing in waist deep water, a flash flood currently being unleashed into the canals by the emergency drainage system. Then, remembering her brothers, she quickly waddled out of the way, leaving space for Skoppa and Haarm to come barrelling into the flooded lower level behind her.

"Alright, we're in," Skoppa panted, shaking water from his headfur and looking around the dank, gloomy space. "Now what?"

"Listen." Haarm tapped an ear with one claw.

It took a moment over the splash of the water, but she picked out the sound again – the chanting of that word.

Kendris.

"Guess we follow the music," she said, starting to wade through the water towards the exit hatch of the basement. "C'mon."

With a trail of canal water dripping in their wake, the trio slopped up and out into the main level of the pack house, and without doors and water to deaden it, the chanting was fearsomely audible now, coming from the far end of the immense cube. In the distance, past abandoned conveyor belts, wheelbarrows and yawning skips, she could see a glow. The chanting continued, making every piece of fur on her body prickle with discomfort.

"I don't feel like havin' to explain myself to old Crimson Teeth if one of those crazies spots us," Haarm whispered, pointing at a metal stairway to their left. "C'mon, we'll use the gantries. Let's take a look at what in the Peace'n'Fire we're dealing with."

Kappsi followed Haarm as he mounted the stairs, his steps deliberate and delicate so as to avoid any unnecessary creaking as they ascended. Following his example, she and Skoppa moved up onto a level of bulky metal gantries suspended more than thirty feet above the packing house floor, running around the edges of the room, but also criss-crossing across the empty space, supported by immense, salt-bitten girders. A honeycomb of chambers filled the upper level, mostly offices and excess storage rooms, long since devoid of light and life.

The glow on the bottom floor, however, swelled alongside the volume of the chanting that had begun to take on a feverish pitch. They slunk along the gantry until they reached a t-shaped junction, keeping low behind the solid lattice of safety mesh slung along the paw-rail. Kappsi could hear the thunder of frantic voices below them, the heat of braziers misting the air. Gulping, she nodded to the twins, pressing a claw to her lips. Taking a deep breath and bracing herself for what they might see, she started to raise her head to peer over the railings.

A sharp click sounded from behind them.

Kappsi froze before she got high enough to look down on the gathering. The noise had come from right behind them. Right behind them. It took a moment for her to place it, but when she did, her eyes widened and her lungs tightening with fear. An armbow had just been loaded. Somehow, someone had managed to slink around behind them. Fangs they would have had to be invisible! It didn't seem possible.

But possible or not, they'd been caught.

"If you want to stay alive, I'd turn around very carefully," a harsh voice whispered.

She turned her head to the left and right, looking at Skoppa and Haarm. Both of them looked tense, ready to burst into action if an opportunity arose, but right now she knew any sudden moves could get them killed. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head, and then began to turn around.

Kappsi rotated with agonizing slowness, until she found herself staring at the gleaming metal point of an armbow bolt.