[Envinyatar]

Only midmorning, and already the merciless sun beat down against the green shuttered windows of the Three Palms. What few patrons there were sat in the back courtyard beneath the tall trees that lent their name to the tavern. Never mind that there were only two of them now, one of them having blown over in the great storm some twenty years back. The cracked wooden sign at the front of the grey, clapboard building had three palms carved on it, and Three Palms it would remain.

Three weeks without a billet. Khazdifir felt landlocked here in Umbar, though a short walk westward would bring him within sight of the bay. He ran his finger through the wine that lay puddled on the surface of the table before him, drawing it out in lines. A crude map of the bay formed, and he swept his finger from the harbor at its eastern edge westward and into the Great Sea.

That is where he wanted to be. Now. A ship rolling beneath his feet, and the cool, salty breezes of the sea stinging his face. He could feel the texture of the rope rigging beneath his feet as he climbed to the crow’s nest. See the waters before him shimmer like a thousand, faceted jewels beneath the sun. He would hover there, far above the deck, like his namesake, the kestrel, unmoving in the wind, his sharp eyes seeing to the rim of the sea.

Khaz sighed, and called for another glass of wine. The small purse at his belt was growing thin, he noted, as he gave the server a few coins to bring him a full bottle. He poured himself another glass and sipped at it slowly. The bottle would have to last him well into the evening.

When it was dark, he would slip down to the quay and look for a likely ship to sign on with. A gaff rigged cutter, perhaps, fast and deadly. Something likely to turn a good profit from its ‘business’.