"Fair enough." Gabriella dismounted and tended to her horse. "Thank you, Captain…?"
"Kannis. And you are Sister…?"
"Gabriella DeZantez. You know Solnos well?"
"I've been through it a few times. Don't remember seeing anyone from the Swords Of Dawn there, so I'm assuming you're a new arrival. It's not a bad town. The people are hard working. We've just come up from Fayence. Things weren't too bad, considering."
"Considering what?"
"Ah, the locals down there are getting themselves jumpy about things that go bump in the night. Farmers and villagers from the lands west of Fayence have been flooding into the city, claiming there are goblins out there. There's no such thing within five leagues of Fayence and Lord Aristide is going blue in the face denying that they even exist. You and I know different, of course. But the farmers down there are scared and Aristide's words aren't doing any good."
Gabriella didn't like the thought of goblins. It was something the Order would have to keep an eye on. "How far have these goblins been reported?"
"A few days' ride west of Fayence. Nowhere near the city itself and there are some burned villages right enough. I can't imagine them coming much further, though. You know how they like to stay close to their nests and all the nests are in the World's Ridge."
"Indeed. Well it's certainly a situation that we will keep an eye on. Many thanks for the food and your hospitality, but I must be getting back to Solnos now."
"Well met Gabriella. If you ever need a good troupe of well trained men, be sure to look us up."
Erak and his merry band were no longer touring the town with their hymns when Gabriella rode into Solnos. One of the soldiers was waiting at the church's plaza to lead her to where Erak and the others were waiting for her. "Where did they go?" she asked, once she had turned the horse over to a squire.
"A disused shop in the craft quarter," the soldier reported. "It's this way. You could smell the Dreamweed from half way down the street."
"All right, let's visit this shop."
The soldier had been right enough. She could smell the Dreamweed from several doors down. The street contained several open fronted shops belonging to carpenters and potters. The scent was coming from behind a closed door between a cobbler and a carpenters shop.
Erak grinned as she approached. "Just in time for the fun."
"What happened?"
"Brotherhood. He led us a merry chase, but we followed him here. I was just about to give their door a knock."
She kissed him on the cheek and said: "Don't let me stop you."
Erak marched up to the door and knocked. "Open up, in the name of the Lord!"
"Send in that girlie we can see and we'll show you something to have faith in." There was a chorus of loud guffaws.
Erak scowled and lifted a foot, ready to kick the door down.
"Wait!" Gabriella called. "How can I refuse such a charming invitation?"
She had hoped they would see sense but, if not, that was God's will, and she would do what had to be done. She noticed then that an eye was peering out at her from a peephole in the centre of the door.
She smiled and then jammed a finger into it. The man on the other side fell back with a startled scream and Gabriella slammed the sole of her foot into the door. The thin wooden bar snapped and the door crashed open.
The first man that rushed her caught the edge of the door in his face, and tumbled over the one-eyed body sprawled before him. Gabriella smashed the boss of her shield into his face and slashed with her sword at the man next to him. Another man in the room lunged at her with a short spear, but she sliced the iron head off it with her blade, then punched the iron edge of her shield into his throat. He dropped, rasping and gurgling.
There was a crash from upstairs and Erak and Gabriella both charged up the short stairway, expecting an attack at any moment. An open door banged in the breeze and Gabriella darted through it, just in time to see a man pick himself up in the street below and run like a champion athlete. "Follow him!" she roared to the nearest soldier-at-arms in the street. "See where he goes! Take a horse if you have to!" The soldier was already running.
A moment later, a storm of hoof beats erupted as the fugitive took a horse and fled towards the edge of town. The soldier wasn't long behind him, having acquired a mount of his own.
There was nothing more Gabriella or Erak could do about him for the moment, so they moved around the upper floor carefully and quietly, just in case. She already knew there would be no-one but flies and roaches in the rooms. Every room was the same: mouldy cushions and termite-ridden furniture. Things skittered in the corners and she was perfectly happy for those creatures to remain hidden in their webbed nooks and crannies. In the cleanest of the upstairs rooms, there was a small altar facing a bronze icon with two circles linked together. The symbol of the Brotherhood of the Divine Path. The find lifted her spirits.
"This is our lucky day," Erak muttered.
Back downstairs, Gabriella searched the corpses, finding a tattoo of the same linked circle design on one's wrist and one on the other's shoulder. She hauled the surviving man to his feet.
"You look like a fine upstanding man to me, perhaps you can tell me some interesting things in return for your life?"
"Like what?"
"Like where can we find the other members of the Brotherhood?" Erak said.
The man coughed blood and shook his head woozily. "Just us."
"I wish I could believe that."
"'S'true. Just us. Everybody else buggered off weeks ago. Went south."
Gabriella was puzzled. "Went south?" Was Lord Aristide of Fayence gathering support from them, the way the Empire of Vos relied on the Faith in the last war? The Brotherhood weren't numerous enough to provide military support, but they were a ready-made network of spies.
"Because of the gobboes, you know?"
"Pretend I don't," Gabriella said quietly.
The man focussed bleary eyes on her and managed a mirthless laugh. "They're not nesting any more. Un-nested. Nest-less. Down past Fayence, in the World's Ridge, there are now opportunities."
"With gobboes — I mean, goblins?"
"No! Without goblins. Without. Now that they've been driven out."
Gabriella turned to Erak. "Let's take him back to the church. We might get more out of him when he's sober."
"Good idea. I'll see if I can find a Healer. This one could take hours to sober up and days to come down from the Dreamweed."
While Erak and the soldiers-at-arms carried the wounded Brotherhood man back to the church, Gabriella emerged into the sunlight and looked around at the streets and the people in them. How many of the men around her were in the Brotherhood?
She had stood there for several minutes, looking for tattoos and furtive glances, before she realised what she was doing. Cursing herself for being so stupid, she began walking towards the market square. If she could find a Healer, he might be able to make the Brotherhood man worth talking to a lot quicker than would occur naturally.
As she neared the market square, a small boy ran up to her and tugged at her cloak. "Enlightened Sister!"
"What can I do for you lad?"
"Brother Brand says to tell you that he's waiting for you outside the wheelwright's workshop."
"Where is that?"
The lad grinned brightly and held out a hand. Gabriella tossed him a penny, and the lad pointed east. "Past the market square, towards the east bridge."
"Thanks, lad." As the urchin darted away with his prize, Gabriella set off in the direction the boy had indicated.
She moved quickly but unhurriedly along the north edge of the bustling market square, offering benedictions and smiles to those she passed. She wanted the people to know that the Faith was there for them, to help them. Some viewed her with suspicion, she saw, but she offered them kind and encouraging words and promised to pray for the success of their businesses or family lives.