Chapter 7 – Part 3

“Missy, heel!” Pienna commanded impatiently. Her loyal companion had obviously found a fish or something, and was hissing and spitting as she reached a paw down into a small gap in the docks to swat at whatever it was. The cat’s sudden lunge and bared fangs was scaring the wits out of the sailors and making Captain Notak very nervous.

“Mistress Pienna,” the human male said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, “I really wish I knew more, but I do not. I appreciate your coin, but I must direct the loading and unloading, else my best sailors will become ill with venereal disease and bad wine.”

She waved her hand, not really wanting to hear any more about the carnal desires of Notak’s men. Thankfully he silenced himself abruptly. “I thank you for your help,” she said, bowing her head. It wasn’t much for the two dozen pieces of gold she had spent, but perhaps the lack of knowledge was a good indication as to where they weren’t yet.

The Captain bowed back, eager to get back to hiding the contraband from Breland within larger boxes of innocuous goods. He didn’t only hear ‘whispers or words’ from Breland due to sharing stories in a tavern.

She snapped her fingers and Missy sprung up, her paw rather wet, and they headed down the docks back to the town. It was not a long walk, barely a hundred yards. The locals considered it a long walk. She did not. As much as she liked Cree, she had more global concerns.

She found herself remembering an animated bridge-laying wagon that her house had built when she was a child. First it had been used to enable river crossings, then crevasse crossings, and then finally to smash several platoons of Brelish infantry into smears of dead flesh. The metal extensions that it laid out, when fully put together, were half-again as long as this pier.

She’d hated it, seeing so much worked metal being used to end life, and end it so horribly. The Cyran general who’d watched the demonstration had been so gleeful at the carnage. She’d known then that House Cannith was not for her.

She abruptly found herself free of her reverie as a half-elf approached her. He was a druid, and he bore the insignia of her order. She seemed to remember his name. He was nervous, and the squirrel on his shoulder, his animal companion, danced on one shoulder with empathy.

“Sister Pienna,” he asked, as if there was another druidess with a panther by her side in the small town of Cree. He stammered a bit as she fixed him with a stare that was perhaps more determined than she meant it to have. “I – I have been sent to – to find you.”

“By whom?” she asked, stroking Missy’s neck.

She knew the answer before he told her.