by Eric Vall
“I’ll stay!” Carmedy bounced on her heels and raised her hand in the air. The three other women each raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ll stay right here, I promise.”
Rana and Annalíse exchanged questioning looks before they glanced back at the cat-girl. Then the fox smoothed her bangs back and scrunched her nose.
“I don’t know if that’s--”
“If Carmedy wishes to stay outside, I shall leave Macha here to keep an eye on her,” Morrigan interjected as one of her pets leapt from her shoulder and descended to the back of the cart. “This should be an adequate solution.” A bit of relief came to the other’s faces.
“Alright then, it’s settled.” Annalíse nodded. She grunted as she bent forward and picked up one of the chests. “Stay right here, this shouldn’t take long.”
“Okie dokie,” the cat said brightly, and she leaned against the side of the cart while Morrigan, Rana, and I picked up the remaining chests.
“Stay put, okay?” Rana called to the cat as we filed into the shop.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” Carmedy said with a wave of her hand, and with that, we entered the building.
The inside of the small shop was cluttered and filled with dust which caused it to look grimy, and the fat man behind the counter looked just as grubby. We were the only customers at present, and his ample cheeks spread into a toothy grin when he saw us enter.
“Please, please come in.” He looked at the chests greedily and motioned for us to place them on the counter. “And what will we be trading today?” His eyes were still fixed on the chests, and he rubbed his greasy palms together.
“We have a variety of things to sell,” Annalíse said as she opened each wooden box. The man’s eyes bulged at the contents. “We have some chalices made of both gold and silver as well as jewelry and gems.”
“Well, of course, I’ll have to… inspect the merchandise before I can determine a price,” the fat man said with a wide grin.
“Of course.” Annalíse gestured for the man to go ahead. The man wiggled his fingers excitedly and began to scoop out the contents of each box before placing it on a counter. He squinted at piece after piece and would occasionally jot down figures on his paper.
“Such interesting items,” he mumbled as he rotated a clear gem in his dirty fingertips. After about half an hour, he finally wiped his palms on his tunic and cleared his throat. “I’ll give you four hundred gold pieces for the lot of it.”
I was unsure of whether this was a fair price or not. The value of currency had surely changed a great deal in the time that I had been asleep, and since I’d never had any use for money, I wasn’t well versed in the art of appraising. It would be best if I left the negotiations to the others, but I didn’t want the sleazy looking proprietor to pick up on my ignorance. So, I casually pursed my lips, folded my arms, and turned slightly to the side to feign contemplation. Now I could better see my minions’ reactions.
I glanced at Annalíse and Morrigan to get an idea of the fairness of the offer. Annalíse chewed on her lip. She too seemed unsure of the validity of the man’s offer. Morrigan wasn’t exactly paying attention to the process because she was keeping an eye on Carmedy via Macha. The elf stared off into space with wholly obsidian eyes. I turned to look at Rana. She twitched her tail in annoyance, and her blue eyes were filled with defiance. It was clear that the fox woman was not at all pleased with the price that the proprietor had set.
“Look here, butterball.” Rana narrowed her eyes as she leaned over the counter. “I’m not particularly fond of being cheated. One of those gems alone is easily worth two hundred gold pieces.” The fleshy man gulped in surprise.
“W-well the th-th-thing is, some of the items are a bit f-flawed.” The man’s cheeks jiggled as he stammered.
“Oh really?” the fox sneered. She picked up a blue gem from the counter and held it up a few centimeters from the man’s face. “Where is the flaw? Show me.” The man’s cheeks began to shake again, and his face started to flush.
“I… I, uh…”
“Having some trouble? Why don’t you look a little closer?” Rana yanked at the dingy collar of the man’s tunic until his nose pressed against the gem in her paw. “Go on, take a real good look.” I had expected Rana’s trademark sharp tongue and had already grown accustomed to the fox’s frequent sarcastic remarks, but I was a little surprised by her aggressiveness. Her intimidation of the shop owner was unexpected, but I had to admit, it was effective.
The pudgy man gulped again. Clearly, he wasn’t used to being challenged by the customers he tried to swindle. He was very unlucky to have Rana as a patron. The man’s breath became labored, and his chest heaved in distress. Rana knew her valuables, which was no surprise. She was a thief. I felt no pity for the flabby man though since he had brought this upon himself. I couldn’t help but chuckle when the plump shopkeeper began to sweat in response to Rana’s not-so-subtle threats.
“P-perhaps I was mistaken,” the pot-bellied man tried to explain, all flustered.
“Hmm, yeah, I’d say you were very mistaken,” Rana snarled as she released the man’s tunic. “Care to try again?”
“I will give you two hundred gold pieces for each of the gems as you asked,” the man said quickly.
“How about the chalices? And the jewelry?” Rana raised an eyebrow. The man hesitated.
“Sixty-five for the silver chalices, eighty for the gold,” the large man grumbled. “The jewelry, I will give you one hundred and fifty for the whole lot.” Rana sighed and slowly shook her head as she clicked her teeth.
“See, now you’re doing it again.” The fox tapped on the counter annoyedly. “Ninety for the silver chalices, one hundred and seventy for the gold, and four hundred for the jewelry.”
“Two hundred for the jewelry,” the man grimaced.
“Three hundred. Take it, or we’ll walk out right now.” Rana folded her arms. The man blinked rapidly. He was quiet for a moment and then groaned in defeat.
“Very well,” the man said with a wince. He turned to his till and began to count out our money into cloth sacks.
“Hey,” Rana said sharply. The man nearly jumped out of his skin. “I’d count that money carefully if I were you. We wouldn’t want to take up any more of your time should you make any… mistakes.” Rana’s words were calm, but they achieved their effect. The man turned pale and then continued to count the money with quivering hands.
“Nice going, Rana.” Annalíse smiled and elbowed the fox playfully.
“Yes, very impressive.” I nodded in agreement.
“Call me the queen of haggling,” Rana said with a mock bow. “You just have to know how to handle these guys.” She nodded in the direction of the shaken proprietor. “We will have more than enough money to buy food and supplies to last us until we get to the next town. In fact, we have enough for all of us to have our own rooms at an inn if we want.”
“Sleeping in a bed would be wonderful.” Annalíse sighed blissfully. “I’m tired of sleeping on the ground.”
“Personally, I don’t much care where I sleep,” I said with a shrug. “I am simply glad to be rid of my dungeon and to be amongst civilization. However, I am pleased that we have gotten a fair price by Rana’s standards.”
Rana and Annalíse blinked at me in surprise. Rana sniffed and turned her attention back to the agitated shop owner.
“I understand,” Annalíse said with a kind smile. “Freedom is a precious thing. To be able to roam as you please ... it is a priceless gift.” As she spoke, her eyes drifted away from me and to the empty air beside me. Somehow I got the feeling that she hadn’t only been talking about me.
As we waited for the man to finish counting the money, I realized that Rana had neglected to sell the talisman that she had placed around her neck. Had she forgotten about it amidst her haggling? I doubted that was the case. For whatever reason, the jewelry must have struck her fancy, and she had decided to keep it. I didn’t really care ab
out selling the trinket, but I found it interesting that she was so attached to it.
The portly shop owner had nearly finished counting out our money when Morrigan suddenly turned to leave.
“She’s gone,” the pale elf said flatly, and she abruptly left the shop without another word to the rest of us. Annalíse groaned and walked out of the building in a huff. Rana hissed at the proprietor to hurry and snatched the bundles of money as soon as he had counted out the last coin.
The two of us quickly left the shop and its very unnerved owner. We joined the other two women outside. It only took a second to see that Carmedy was gone, and so was Morrigan’s raven.
“What happened? Where is Carmedy?” Rana asked as she looked back and forth between the human and the elf.
“She ran off again.” Annalíse threw her hands into the air in exasperation.
“Oh no, not again.” Rana’s voice was filled with annoyance as she looked up and down the street. “I knew we shouldn’t have left her out here. When is she going to learn that she can’t run off whenever she wants to?”
“Evidently not today.” Annalíse rubbed at her forehead in frustration. “She hasn’t run off for a while, so I thought she had learned her lesson. Morrigan, you were supposed to be watching her.”
“I was watching her.” Morrigan narrowed her dark eyes. “She disappeared into the crowd.” The elf spoke with a hint of irritation in her voice. “I tried to have Macha follow her, but there were too many people in the street.”
“Well, she can’t have gotten far,” Annalíse said. “Morrigan, you stay here with our stuff while we try to find her.” The elf nodded silently in return as the rest of us walked down the street and began to search for the missing cat. Countless peddlers shouted out the goods they had for sale and their apparently reasonable prices, but much to their annoyance, we brushed past each one as we searched for Carmedy.
“I can’t believe she’s doing this again,” Rana said as she scanned the crowd.
“She has done this before?” I asked as I quickly poked my head into a tiny butcher shop. There were five women inside, all human, so I closed the door and rejoined Rana and Annalíse outside.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Annalíse mumbled as she stood on her tiptoes to look behind a row of carts that sold shawls and various jewelry. “I’ve lost count of how many times she’s disappeared on us.”
“I haven’t,” Rana said under her breath as she cupped her hands and peered into the window of a bakery. Suddenly, she let out a gasp. “Why that little… hey! Get a load of this,” she called out to us. Annalíse and I joined her at the window and peeked inside to see what had caught her attention.
I stifled a chuckle at the sight before me. Inside was Carmedy with her back leaned against the counter, a face covered in chocolate and a thick partially eaten slice of cake in each hand. The man behind the counter, who I assumed to be the baker, said something to the cat and pointed to a display of pies. Carmedy gave the man a wide grin and nodded her head before she returned to her desserts.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Annalíse grumbled as she walked toward the door of the bakery. “We don’t have time for this.” She stormed into the shop and slammed the door behind her.
“That’s Carmedy for you,” Rana said as she burst into laughter.
Rana and I continued to watch through the window as Annalíse approached Carmedy. The cat looked up from her snack and cheerfully waved at the tall woman, blissfully unaware of the trouble she had caused. A very irritated Annalíse began to speak to the cat, and she gestured for her to put the cake pieces down on the counter. Carmedy looked down at her treats sadly and then looked back at Annalíse. The warrior-woman frowned and placed her hands on her hips, so Carmedy slumped her shoulders and placed the half-eaten desserts on the counter. Then Annalíse grabbed the feline’s wrist and pulled her out of the shop as though she were a child. The baker behind the counter scratched his head in confusion as the women exited.
“Carmedy, I’m only going to say this one more time,” Annalíse said as she pulled the small cat down the busy street. “No. More. Running. Off.”
“But I was hungry,” Carmedy whined. “I was only gone for a little bit, I was coming right back.”
“You looked like you were setting up shop to me,” Rana laughed.
“Did you see all the stuff they had in there?” Carmedy said, and her green eyes bulged as she recalled the bakery’s offerings. “They had fresh baked bread, chocolate cake, cinnamon buns, apple pie, cherry pie, pecan--” Her list was interrupted by Annalíse who cleared her throat.
“Oops… um, sorry,” the cat said sheepishly. “Won’t happen again. Promise.”
Carmedy’s little adventure had taken some time out of our travels, but I found it hard to be upset with her. Her innocence was somewhat charming, and her commentary often amused me.
“By the way, Annalíse, I’ve been meaning to mention our little… encounter with those thugs in the woods,” Rana said as we weaved through the crowd. “I didn’t expect you to be able to speak those creeps’ language. Very impressive.” She patted the human woman’s shoulder.
“I am proficient in many languages,” Annalíse said nonchalantly. “Thirteen to be exact.”
“Thirteen?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes,” Annalíse said. “The mastery of languages is expected of…” She suddenly paused, and her mouth hung open. “Um, of students at the school which I attended.”
“Geeze, what kind of school makes you learn thirteen languages?” Rana asked with a wince.
“It was a very… strict school,” Annalíse said with a pained expression. “Now, let’s get going. I’d like to get at least a few hours of travel in before it starts to get dark.”
There was something about the way that Annalíse had spoken. I got the impression that she was lying or, at the very least, hiding something. She had behaved a bit strangely when she had spoken to me back at the trade shop. It didn’t make sense, she seemed to be a person of honorable character. What possible reason would she have to lie about the reason behind her adept language skills?
“It’s always rush, rush, rush with you,” Rana moaned and interrupted my thoughts. “But okay, I get it. Places to go, dungeons to conquer.”
Before long, we reached the shop where Morrigan was waiting with our riding animals.
“I see that you have found her,” the pale elf said blankly as we approached.
“Yes,” I said. “We found her in the bakery.”
“Hmm,” Morrigan uttered disapprovingly as she looked at the cat who had only now finished wiping the last of the chocolate from her face. The elf shook her head as she walked away to join Annalíse who had entered a nearby shop to buy supplies.
“Hey, isn’t that the talisman you took from one of the chests?” Carmedy pointed to the gold piece around Rana’s neck as she climbed onto Xerxes. “I thought you were selling that.”
“I changed my mind.” The fox shrugged as she took her seat in the donkey cart. “I can change my mind if I want to.”
“But why? It’s not very pretty looking, and you could probably get a fair price for it. Don’t you always say every little bit helps?” The black cat looked puzzled and tilted her head to one side.
“I said I don’t want to, okay?” Rana said sharply.
“Alright, alright.” Carmedy held up her hands in defense.
“I’m sorry.” Rana looked at the green-eyed cat apologetically. “I just… I just like it, okay?”
“Okay,” Carmedy said with a small smile. “Sorry I said that it wasn’t pretty.”
“It’s okay, pussycat,” Rana said with a grin.
“We’re back,” Annalíse called to us. She and Morrigan had returned from their shopping, and each carried a large stack of bundles wrapped with brown paper and twine. They loaded the provisions and supplies into the cart. Morrigan finished before Annalíse and soon left to prepare to mount Scylla. As Annalíse continued
to arrange the items that they had bought, I observed that she had returned with a new weapon. She still had her pristine sword at her waist, but now she had another blade inside of a scabbard that was slung across her back and held by a strap that went over her shoulder.
“You’ve obtained a new weapon?” I asked as I pointed to the sword on Annalíse’s back.
“Oh, yes, I did,” Annalíse said awkwardly. She seemed surprised that I had spoken to her. The freckled woman walked toward me to show me what she had purchased. As she approached, I saw that the scabbard itself was a work of art. It appeared to be crafted of high-quality leather of a reddish-brown hue. The top part, as well as the pointed bottom end of the encasement, bore detailed silver carvings of dragons with outstretched wings. The silver quillon of the sword formed a straight line, and the design resembled that of a dragon’s scales. The sword’s hilt had an identical scaly pattern. I already found the weapon remarkable, and it had yet to be unsheathed.
When Annalíse reached me, she proceeded to remove the sword from its impressive home. I marveled at the weapon as its sharp points and silver faces gleamed in the sunlight. The metal was utterly flawless, and the etching of a long scarlet colored dragon’s tail curled down each side of it from the top down to the sinister pointed end.
“It’s magnificent,” I breathed.
“I thought so too.” Annalíse nodded with a pleased expression on her freckled face. “I was worried you might be upset I spent a lot of money on it, but it was one of the few items I saw that seemed worth buying.” She seemed to be waiting for my approval, which struck me as a touch odd. I’d given them the treasure to purchase supplies. Why would I be upset that she spent money to improve herself?
“I trust you and the others to properly equip yourselves should we come across things that suit you.” I smiled at the swordswoman. “As your master, you are a reflection of me, and I am glad you have found a weapon befitting one of my minions.”
Rana snorted at my comment as Annalíse’s cheeks colored, but then the tall warrior looked at the weapon thoughtfully. “I am glad you approve then.” She let out a slow breath. “The man in the shop said that it had been forged with dragon’s fire. I’m not sure if that’s actually true, with dragons being gone now, but it’s a beautiful weapon nonetheless.”
