Two sundowns. The sun had been dragged below the horizon twice since they had arrived in the Protectorate City. There had as yet been absolutely no leads.
The job that Eian had accepted was supposed to be a simple one. A delivery of sorts. What the delivery was, he didn’t know, and hadn’t planned to pry. It was merely a bundle of letters, mostly fairly new. The only dangerous part was to have been a trek through the desert, namely in those parts where he had expected there to be bandits. There had, fortunately, been no bandits.
What awaited them in the city, though, was much more troublesome. From what little information he had gathered, there had been a bandit attack of some sort. People may or may not have died. The only definite was that things were getting chaotic.
Even that information, though, was hard to come by. Eian had found loose tongues in the bars and even information brokers, but most turned away a suspicious outsider like him. People were wary of his very presence. It was understandable that they would react as such, but it still. It didn’t help Eian in the slightest.
Then there was the matter of his target. Mox Ierba. A simple blacksmith, or that’s what Eian had been told.
But now, surveying the blackened, smoky wreckage that used to be a blacksmith’s workshop, Eian wasn’t so sure. It was obvious that something had befallen the man, but what that was, and where he might be, was well sealed behind closed lips.
”Any luck yet?” asked a voice behind him.
Eian glanced back at Shari and slightly shook his head. ”None. Have you found any of the Cron Suil in the marketplace?”
”Seems like they left at the first signs of trouble. No one could tell me where they were headed.”
”And the Balu Chital?” Eian asked. There was usually at least one in a city at any time. They did need jobs, and the cities were naturally the easiest places to get them. In this case, it would hopefully be one who dealt in information and had a good network, neither of which Eian had. Information and the gaining thereof was not Eian’s strong suit, unless it involved stealing it outright, preferably in physical form.
”I’d have told you that first if one was here.”
Grimacing, Eian turned back to what had once been the forge. It would be best, now, to return the letters to the one who had given them the mission and tell them that their man was probably dead. A fruitless journey, all the way from Solaria… Their feathered companion would most assuredly be less than content with that bit of news. He had already seemed uncomfortable with the atmosphere of this whole town, and the palpable anxiety that hung over it.
”Rysdin went off somewhere earlier. He’ll be back soon, so we wait here. He should know the place. If we are to leave, we do so at sundown today.”