Night Watch

The patrol passed the warehouses at the darkest hour of the night. Rakshen saw a dark strip crossing the cobbles and stopped, thinking the rain had dragged something there. It was a length of fabric caught in the wheel of a crate left by the door. Nivra freed it and rolled it up carefully. Varsi, arriving from the harbour with the day's final message, found them debating whether the fabric should be registered among lost property. “If you left it here,” she said, “tomorrow somebody would be registering a fall as well.” Nivra handed the cloth to the storehouse and resumed the patrol. Nobody would write a chronicle of that night. To Rakshen, that was a good sign.