“Pleasure doing business with you,” Mousethief told the otter and tossed him a bag of credits.

“No problem at all,” the otter replied. I moved the large duffle bag onto the motorboat Mousethief had rented. It was long and narrow, and built to handle some serious waves. Also, with two engines at the back it was fast. That was the most important thing.

Once on the motorboat, I untied us from the pier and sat down in the passenger seat at the front. Mousethief already had the motor going and was slowly moving away from the pier and into the harbor.

“No crazy driving?” I asked, a bit surprised.

“Not that far to go and we are doing a stakeout,” Mousethief replied. The water was a little bit choppy and it took about half an hour to go from the pier where the motorboat had been at the shipping docks where the cargo ships came in and out.

Mousethief stayed fairly far out into the ocean. It was evening and we sat out there looking through binoculars at the ship. I was really glad for my skill Sea Legs and Sea Stomach, otherwise I would have been dying right now instead of feeling slightly queasy.

“I really need a skill to just go straight to the fighting,” I muttered. Mousethief overheard me and laughed.

“I used to think the opposite. A skill to get out of any and all fighting.”

“Why are we even watching now? Nothing is going to happen until nighttime?” I asked.

“To know what ships are where and get a sense of their movement. I will need your help for this. While I have great timing, boats were never my specialty,” Mousethief replied.

“Well, you didn’t skip on the heavy weapons,” I said while glancing at the duffle bag.

“Something like this is going to be a gun fight. Trust me. No Ancestral Spirits or anything like that. Dogs aren’t aligned with the Snakes or the Great Lizard Empire at all. But they do harbor a lot of resentment for what happened to the Croft Empire,” Mousethief replied.

“Should I expect them to be like Fenrir?” I asked while thinking about that blood thirsty wolf.

“No. Wolves and dogs, might have a common ancestry. Like cats and panthers. But they have different instincts. Also, when there are two similar creatures, one group tends to be subsumed by the other. Like field mice and door mice. In that case, the lines tended to blur together. What were they even teaching you in school?” Mousethief answered.

“The glory of the Warrior and the Covenant Church. Also, math, science, and history,” I replied.

“Well the first bit is propaganda. I can promise you that.” I already knew that. “But Fenrir is the last of his tribe. The Paladins crushed them after their refusal to integrate. He survived by eating the corpses of his family members,” Mousethief said, and I felt sick. “Yeah, it is totally messed up.”

“So, he began eating creatures after that?” I asked.

“Something like that. That was one of the hardest missions I went on with your father. He vowed never to do captures again after that. Even if the Covenant Church likes capturing creatures.”

“That isn’t going to happen as you know. I need to kill them all,” I replied.

“Well, just be careful and don’t fall into a blood rage no matter what, when you are up against guns. That is a death sentence.” I knew that but didn’t complain about the reminder. Mousethief was only looking out for me.

I lowered the binoculars and stretched my arms a bit, letting out a yawn. I then brought them back up and kept watching the shipping port. I then looked around, Mousethief had positioned us quite well, away from the main channels in and out of the port. Also, it was fairly slow this evening as well, so there weren’t other vessels to deal with.

The sun slowly set, and the sea was bathed in the blue light of the Warrior’s Soul. The other moon, Warrior’s Blood wouldn’t be out tonight. The blue light was calming in a way that the red light wasn’t. “There, see it,” Mousethief pointed. I looked at where he was pointing and saw the silhouette of a ship in the darkness.

It was at least three times larger than our motorboat and I could see figures moving on it. “That’s our target,” Mousethief said, and I agreed with him. After that it was more waiting. The small ship pulled up and there was a lot of activity for a few minutes are barrels were moved onto the ship. Then it took off again.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“They clearly have someone in the docks who has been paid off,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but grabbing them would risk sending out an alert. Better to go through the Nine Tail Syndicate for something like this. Surprise is our best advantage, best to no risk it,” Mousethief said. I agreed with that.

As the ship sailed away up the coast, Mousethief turned on the engine, but kept the lights off and began following the ship. I kept track of them in the distance. The ship eventually turned on its lights after half an hour from the docks and kept going.

It was near dawn when it pulled into the harbor of a small fishing town. Mousethief kept us fairly far out and I noted the dogs unloading barrels into an enclosed truck. It wasn’t a proper shipping truck, but a moving one with plywood walls and a roof on the back. There were no markings, it all was plain white. “They are going inland most likely, since they are loading up a truck.”

“Hang on. I am going to pull into the port. You get on the truck and go to its destination. I will handle the investigation in the port,” Mousethief replied and gunned both engines. I fell back into my seat as the boat took off. The motorboat bounced up and down, cutting through the water. I felt ill. Mousethief took the motorboat to some other docks away from the ship. I left the binoculars behind and quickly hopped out.

I quickly leapt out of the boat onto one of the piers. There were several mice that gave me startled looks as I raced up the pier and to the road that ran along the shore. I darted between two buildings and quickly scaled up a two story building to the roof. Once there, I knew I would draw less attention.

Racing across the tops of the buildings. I saw that the dogs had finished loading up the truck and picked up my speed. At least the side roads and alleys were small, allowing me to jump from roof top to rooftop. Even with the steep slant they had, I quickly made my way towards the truck, easily keeping my balance.

Several dogs piled into the truck and it took off. As it reached the end of the pier, I kicked off the roof I was on as hard as I could and stretched my body out. The truck paused at the intersection and pulled out, turning away from me. Luckily, I jumped right away. I landed on the plywood roof, rolling, and then using my claws to stop myself from tumbling off the top of the truck.

My claws dug into the plywood, as my hind paws dangled off the side of the truck. I pulled myself back on, using all my claws to hold myself to the roof as the truck quickly left the fishing village. At least they weren’t driving like Mousethief.

The truck traveled on a main road but then moved over to a dirt road. I kept my head down and my ears bent back as we went through a forest and tree branches were just over the truck. I did hear the dogs speaking inside the truck, but couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying.

After pulling into a small parking lot, I noted several one story buildings around the area and some fields. Thankfully, the truck was high up enough, I wouldn’t be spotted easily from the ground.

“Another shipment, all secured,” I heard a dog say, labeling them dog one in my mind.

“Good. No trouble?” Dog two asked.

“Nothing. But who knows how long that will last,” dog one replied.

“Don’t worry about it too much. It’s being handled. Let’s get all this unloaded, back it up,” dog two said. The truck began moving again and backed up to a building. I could hear the dogs moving under me as they moved barrels of fertilizer out of the truck.

Now what? I didn’t see any statues or cultist behavior. At most they seemed like an isolated farming community stealing farming supplies to help their crops. ‘Avatar,’ I thought, and Mes appeared. ‘Hey Mes, anything in particular I should head towards?’

‘Hmm,’ Mes said as they looked around with binoculars. ‘Nope. Nothing here drawing on energy. Just dogs and guns. Lots of guns. You should probably kill them all.’

‘Thanks Mes. That’s it,’ I replied. Mes gave me a nod and then disappeared. I remained perfectly still and listened in, trying to place all the creatures around me and get an accurate count. Based on the buildings and what I could hear there were about 80 dogs. That wasn’t counting the puppies.

I breathed slowly, hardening my heart. There was only a single road in and out of this place, but they could run into the woods. There were no walls, only a couple of fields around a cluster of small buildings. Only one other vehicle as well.

The fact they had guns already meant they were criminals. The gun laws were very strict. Freeing my claws from the plywood, I slowly crawled across the roof of the truck, onto the metal sheet roof of the building. I carefully tested my weight as I moved across the roof silently towards the back.

Getting surrounded was a bad idea. So, my plan was to come in from one direction and take out as many dogs as possible before the alert went up. I had no doubt that Mousethief had handled the dogs back at the ship and would eventually show up. But I was the Assassin, this was my job.

Why couldn’t it have been some Apostates? Focus, Mittens. I made my way across the roof and the back of the building didn’t have any creatures. I leaned my head over and there was a concrete wall and several windows. There was no back door. I could access the windows, but they were all shut.

I slowly made my way to the sides of the roof of the building I was on. Making sure I was quiet, and the metal roof didn’t bend under my paws. This was also why I didn’t even consider having the claws on my hind paws coated. Too much noise and ripping up surfaces.

Making sure no dog could see me, I checked one side. No windows and no door. Then the other side, and there was just a door, no windows. I quickly flipped off the roof and landed next to the door and tested the handle. It was locked. I made my way around the edge of the building and began checking the windows at the back.

I heard the side door open and close. A couple of dogs were approaching from the side of the building towards the back.