The Order, a theocratic authoritarian state, had been locked in a devastating war with the cryptid rebellion for over fifty years. This holy war, The Great Crusade, had cimed tless lives in their struggle for pary dominanbsp; Fag a seemingly unstoppable advahe High Messiah resorted to trench warfare, creating the grim ranks of the Tren.

  Hunkered irench, bat medic Watters braced against the muddy wall. The stench of iron and decay hung thi the damp air, almost a taste. Spent brass ched underfoot, a grim terpoint to the unseeing eyes of the dead. This was the Tren’s home. This was Watters' home.

  The once pleasant sounds of birdsong and buzzing bees were repced by the crack of bullets and thunderous mortar fire. He was in hell.

  A wounded soldier, no older than een, y before him, tears streaming down his dirt caked face as his guts y out across the mud. “I-I ’t feel my-my legs, Doc!” he gasped.

  Watters’s blood-soaked hands shook as he tried to fort the doomed boy, a victim of stray shrapnel. The reek of blood and mud was suffog. "Stay with me,” Watters pleaded, his voice hoarse, desperately trying to tain the spilling iines. “Just stay with me!” A bullet zipped through the young soldier’s skull. Watters’ hands froze, blood dripping from his fingers, the boy’s unseeing eyes mirr a dozen others lost to this crusade. Damn it, Watters thought, his stomach twisting. He was just a boy. The ground trembled with the relentless mortar barrage.

  “Tren!” a grizzled voice cracked from afar. Watters sed the corpse-den hellscape. “Tren! Fall in!” Further dowrench, the Lieutenant Bishop waved frantically, pressed against the slippery mud wall. "Fall in! We move!” he screamed, pointing towards a nearby wooden dder.

  Watters stared back at the dead soldier. For what? Another boy gone—for the Messiah’s glory, or just more mud?

  “Tren! Fall In!” The Lieutenant Bishop roared, his voice raspy and muffled by his helmet.

  Watters swallowed his dread and turo his ander.

  The Lieutenant Bishop’s armor, once gleaming white, was now stained gray, caked in blood and dirt. His cape, tattered and frayed, g to the mud wall.

  Watters smmed against the wall, fag his ander. “We move once air support clears them out. Ready your redeemer!” The ander’s voice bellowed, rag a bullet into his massive sidearm. “Today we will vanquish those foul beasts and wipe them from the earth!” he screamed, his voice harsh.

  Jet engines screamed overhead. "Are you ready, Tren?!” he yelled as bombs rained down ahead.

  Knog awakehe doctor. It was a dream.

  A deep, tired sigh escaped Watters’s lips as he pihe bridge of his he knog persisted. Dawn was breaking, but his first appoi wasn’t until afternoon.

  The soft glow of his oil mp illumihe narrow hallway as Watters shuffled to the front door. "Okay, okay, I’m up. Hold on!" he called, rubbing his eyes. He opehe door to find, Officer Daniels.

  Daniels looked troubled, as if he’d seen a ghost. “Sorry to wake you, Doctor, but we have a situation.”

  “A situation?" Watters asked, rubbing his eyes.

  "There's been an attack,” Daniels said, shuddering, his face pale, eyes teary.

  “Where?”

  “In the alleyway, near O’Leary’s bar.”

  “Another drunk on a fence?”

  “Worse sir, a child.”

  “A child?” Watters’s stomach wrenched. "What on—at this hour? Who—?"

  "Grab your coat, Doctor,” Daniels said, pointing to a nearby coat rack. “The chief wants to see you.”

  The first slice of dawn was creeping over the horizon, painting the sky a brilliant e and pink. Watters sighed, a deep dread settling upon him. “Okay, let’s go.” He extinguished his oil mp and grabbed his bck wool peacoat.

  Watters was Barrowham’s town doctor, and er. Nights like this were rare, but when they came, the results were often tragic. Tonight, Watters feared, would be no different.