Tristan really enjoyed the food that’d been provided to him by Katarina, and while the tiny room evoked a sense of claustrophobia in him, Katarina didn’t seem to mind at all, casually tossing her packs and saddlebags into a corner and collapsing onto the narrow cot in exhaustion. He himself settled himself by the door as guard against intruders.
Katarina’s mind was churning even as she slept, a confusing mass of emotions, snippets of conversation, bits of dreamstuff. Threading through all of it, however, was the need to find the man they’d lost.
Once again, Tristan was forced into a position where he was forced to think for himself. It wasn’t something that he was supposed to do. The Matriarch did the thinking, he did the following. It was he that brought his fangs and claws to bear for his matriarch, but it was his matriarch who decided what the prey was.
Katarina obviously wanted to find the man they were chasing, but for some reason he couldn’t understand, she couldn’t differentiate between his smell and the smell of others, or perhaps she had missed it?
This concerned him. As matriarch, it was her responsibility to sniff out threats, food, shelter, and define the territory that he was to protect. He wasn’t certain if the man was a threat or food, but she pursued him.
She’d never eaten any of the people she’d captured, but she had killed a few. That could mean that the man was a threat to Katarina’s territory. He could understand that.
He’d learned her signals easily enough; they were simplistic and any pup worth his fur would have learned them in a heartbeat, but... could it be that she couldn’t understand his signals? There was a lot she seemed to overlook, and that worried him. For one, she never seemed to notice when The Thunder That Looked Like a Woman made her appearances. He was terrified of that one, and he would hunker down against the ground and huddle and whimper whenever She showed up.
Katarina tossed in her sleep; an old nightmare stalked her mind as she slept. It often haunted her, a dream of pain, betrayal, and a great, tearing hurt that seemed to rip through her whole body. If that nightmare was to appear in front of him, he would tear it apart with his teeth if he could.
So thinking, he leaked a little in fear as The Thunder That Looked Like a Woman appeared in their tiny cell without warning. The Thunder That Looked Like a Woman watched Katarina for a few silent minutes, and then, terrifyingly, looked to him. He squinched his eyes shut and made a mess of himself as the ozone scent of lightning washed over him. He whimpered a little as a new nightmare intruded into Katarina’s mind; a nightmare that stood not more than a couple of feet from her bed, glaring down at her.
The Thunder That Looked Like a Woman disappeared from his senses, and he hazarded a quick peek. The Thunder That Looked Like a Woman had vanished again. Though the new nightmare still stalked Katarina’s sleeping mind, The Thunder That Looked Like a Woman had left. He got up, thoroughly disgusted with the shameful puddle he’d made, and settled himself next to Katarina’s bed, as close as he could, to gain what comfort he could.
*****
Katarina awoke in the morning and nearly stepped on Tristan, huddled up next to her bed. Her nose wrinkled; he’d piddled on the floor overnight. She shook out her hair and rebraided it, then gave Tristan a pat.
“Hey, piddle-pup.” She chastised gently. “Let’s get some food in us and keep looking. Derid couldn’t have gotten too far away.” She paused, and then added a “hopefully”.
Breakfast was taken in the temple’s cafeteria, where she sneaked the wolf some bits of bacon to him. He was a faithful companion, though she hadn’t been entirely successful in teaching him not to do his business inside buildings. Well, it was something for the acolytes to clean up, anyway. Something like that built character.
After she finished eating, she pulled out her gun and disassembled it and went through the Rites of Cleaning. Tristan didn’t much like the smell of the gun, but he was endlessly fascinated by the cartridges that were coated in beeswax. Perhaps he’d encountered some honeycomb before he’d been given to her.
First on her list of things to do was to meet with the Bishop. She pushed herself up from the table and waved her hand; Tristan fell into place behind her as he’d been trained.
The bishop, a portly man with chocolate skin and a syrupy smile greeted her warmly.
“I’d heard that a Witch Hunter had arrived in the city, but I had no idea it would be a woman!” He exclaimed gently, and spread his hands wide. “Please, tell me what you need.”
“I’m looking for an escaped Witch. His name is Derid, and he’s got a Sanctioning mark on his cheek.” She explained. “I told this to Greenstreet last night.”
The Bishop gave her a baffled look. “I received no such report.” His face grew troubled, and he continued, “Though, if I must be completely honest, that man’s been trying to undercut my authority ever since I was appointed as Bishop to this region. Aston is developing into a major concern and the need for an administrator like Greenstreet is rapidly becoming obsolete.”
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Katarina frowned at this. “I don’t see how this is relevant.” She argued.
The bishop sighed. “He’s been acting suspiciously lately. And, as I said, he’s trying to undermine my authority. There’s a possibility that he’s given this mage of yours refuge.”
“I don’t understand. What does he stand to gain by giving a Witch refuge?” Katarina asked.
“Whatever that mage is capable of, he can have them create all sorts of mischief about town, and lay the blame at my feet. My authority is undermined; he seizes power.” He shrugged and shook his head. “If I were you, I’d give his mansion a once-over and see what you turn up.” He adjusted the stole that lay across his shoulders. “Meanwhile, I’ll have some militia, men that I trust, quarter the city. Just to be on the safe side.”
Katarina let out a short sigh, and then gestured at Tristan.
“A moment, Witch Hunter-” The Bishop suddenly asked. Katarina turned and eyed the man curiously, impatiently twirling her hat on one finger.
“What do you feed such a beast?” He asked with unvarnished curiosity, gesturing at Tristan, who looked back at the Bishop.
Katarina raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious? Heretics and blasphemers.” She exited the office, Tristan on her heels.
For a moment, just a moment, the Bishop could imagine Katarina ordering that monstrous beast to tear out his throat, could feel the teeth digging in, the hot spurt of blood, the crunch of a crushed windpipe.
*****
Instead of following the Bishop’s advice, Katarina left the city, and returned to the trail she’d made in her pursuit of Derid. Sometimes it helped to retrace ones’ steps to get a fresh start, a different perspective, with a clear head.
She examined one of his footprints, now devoid of any magical residue carefully, prodding it with the tip of her finger, before moving on to the next one. Tristan circled her as she sat in thought, trying to figure out if there were any clues or signs she could use to track the errant mage.
There was a thread, a tenuous hope that dangled precariously, a hint, a possibility that lurked on the edge of Katarina’s mind, something she couldn’t quite fix in her mind, so she went back and forth between the two footprints while she tried to make sense of the shadow of a clue the mage had left her.
Suddenly, it clicked, but it was so stupid it wasn’t even worth considering. Many peasants were superstitious in their own ways; one of their superstitions was they would take thin nails, like the kind used in shoeing horses, and crisscross them into a six-pointed star on the heels of their boots, a simplified lily. Some chose to do it on the left foot, so that their hearts would be protected by the Goddess, others the right so that their minds and affairs of business might fall under the Goddess’ own protection, and still yet others, both feet.
Derid’s prints held neither.
It was a small thing, an inconsequential thing. Any tracks he’d made in town were probably obliterated, but if there was a chance, she’d bet on it. She slowly walked back to the town, eyeing the churned up earth and she was right, the tracks of the commonfolk here had prints with nails in their heels, but there appeared to be a print that had neither. When she approached it, Tristan gave a small bark and sniffed a different print.
Katarina raised an eyebrow, but examined it. It certainly was the same size and shape of Derid’s shoe prints, but there wasn’t anything that distinguished it from any other- except that Tristan led her to another in the road, and then still yet another until they arrived right at the door to the first tavern they’d arrived at.
“Coincidence.” She muttered, but Tristan led her around into the alley and towards the back, where the prints stopped. He gave her a little whuffing bark, and she knelt to consider the tracks and the impressions. Whoever had made these tracks had slipped in the mud in a strange way.
Katarina squatted and absentmindedly scratched Tristan behind the ears as she considered the story told in the mud. There were several sets of footprints, two of them large, with prints that pressed deeply into the dirt.
“Two large and heavy guys.” she mused to herself.
Had she seen people like that last night? There were a lot of people in the tavern that could have fit the description, and a good many of them were lumberjacks by trade.
There were cart tracks, too. One set seemingly lightly pressed into the first, the other set much heavier.
She idly wrapped her braid around her neck and tried to reconstruct what had happened. Logically, someone had made a delivery here. A handcart, loaded with something heavy, had stopped here, the load was removed, and then taken into the inn, and then the cart was taken back to wherever it had left.
Except that the tracks were telling the story in reverse. Someone had brought an empty cart to the back of the tavern, and then a heavier load was taken away. The smeared footprint would account for the posture of someone who was climbing into such a thing. Something else didn’t fit, either.
Delivery carts in the cities were usually made with broad, thick wooden wheels. The wheels on this cart were narrow and banded with metal. Not the type of cart that one would use to carry cargo into a muddy street. A heavy cart with thin, narrow wheels would sink in the mud and be difficult to move.
“And it’d leave pretty obvious tracks to follow.” She muttered and Tristan seemingly whuffed his agreement.
Katarina eyed Tristan. “What do you think? Should we follow the cart?” She asked, and not expecting anything in response added, “bark once for yes, twice for no” in a sardonic tone.
Tristan barked once, sharply.
“Hmm.” Katarina muttered. Coincidence, surely. She carefully moved around the area to examine the tracks from different perspectives, weighing her decision. It was far more likely that something had been unloaded by cart, rather than Derid conveniently finding a cart to jump into. Anyone pulling such a thing would immediately understand that there was a grown man’s weight in the cart.
Tristan immediately trailed the cart with his nose, looked back at Katarina, and barked once again.
“I’m trusting you on this.” She remarked skeptically as she rose to her feet.
*****
The ruts in the mud were destroyed in several places by foot traffic through the mud, though now that Katarina had a trail to follow, she was able to pick it up several feet ahead later. Also, Tristan seemed to follow the trail easier than her, so even when it faded, she was able to pick it right back up on his lead.