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I wonder if I’ve slipped up somehow. If so, I don’t know where it was. Certainly, I might have missed some bit of merchant culture somewhere. Then again, maybe this man just doesn’t like me.
That’s okay. I’d rather people like this didn’t like me.
“Yadat happened to be where I hadn’t tried making money yet. Whether I end up coming back or not isn’t certain.”
His fanged grin rises again. “Well, then I certainly hope that your health potions sell well. I’d recommend you set up somewhere in that row. That’s where all the medical wholesalers are.”
I nod. “Thanks for the tip.”
With that, I walk over to the row of booths that he’s pointed out. Unfortunately, I haven’t learned anything about Kriseri, and anything I ask him will just make me look suspicious. Hopefully, I’ll do better once I start actually selling some potions.
I spot an empty booth and walk quickly over to it. Next to me is a booth selling various freshly gathered herbs and another selling potions. There are chained and beaten humans at both.
I walk to the herbs booth.
“I’m looking to sell some health potions,” I say. “Would this be a good place to set up?”
The woman who’s running the booth looks confused. “For health potions? No, this is for non-magical remedies. You’d want to be over there.”
She points to another row of booths halfway across the square. Not a bad trap on the part of that merchant. Not many people who’d come to a non-magical remedies section looking for health potions.
“Thank you. I must have gotten lost.” I start to walk away, then pause, as if I’ve just thought of something. “Are you native to this area?”
“That’s right,” she says. “I’ve been gathering and selling herbs here for years.”
“I’ve been thinking about expanding my business into this area,” I explain, worrying slightly that if the other man got suspicious of me, she might too. “But before I do any of that, I want to know if things are safe around here. I don’t want to try and expand somewhere and then have a war break out.”
“You’re asking if I think there’s going to be war?” she asks. I can tell from her voice that it was definitely too direct a way to approach it.
“Just if you’ve heard anything. Troops building. Traders getting stopped. Anything like that.”
She thinks for a moment. “I don’t talk to competition.”
Before I can even say anything, she turns to one of her two humans. “What are you standing around doing nothing for? Go find me some customers!”
I walk away before the human can pitch me on buying herbs. Yadat is apparently not a trusting place. Frankly, I’m not sure if people are hiding things from me because they think I’m a spy or because they think I’m a fellow merchant.
I keep noticing the humans and their dull, miserable stares everywhere I go in this market. Before getting to know Rory, it used to be easy for me to just look away from humans most of the time.
I still found it a little disconcerting when someone was cruel to a human, in the way it’s disconcerting when a child plucks the legs off an insect. Now, it’s become something more. Now, when I see these humans, I imagine Rory in their place. I imagine someone showing all this cruelty to one of my friends.
There’s nothing that makes me angrier than that.
Unfortunately, I’m here as a spy. I can’t make a scene, because people who make scenes get noticed.
It’s then, as I’m walking to the next row, that, almost as if the town is trying to test me, I hear the screams of humans and the angry hissing of naga chasing them.
I turn around. There are several humans running, all women. They’re coming from a few different directions, and there are naga soldiers close behind them and surrounding them. It takes me a second to realize what I’m looking at. It’s a round-up. The soldiers have picked out a few unattended humans who were probably sheltering in some building nearby and are gathering them together to dispose of.
For a moment, my hand wants to draw my weapon. But I resist. I’m a spy, and as much as I hate having to stand by during brutality like this, that’s exactly what I have to do. For Prince Zalith.
The soldiers are moving the humans towards a stage. The humans look terrified more than anything else. They’re looking for any opportunity to escape, but the net of naga soldiers keeps closing tighter and tighter around them.
The crowd is closing in, too. They’re watching all this with a gaze that’s almost hungry. I hate having to blend in with them.
That’s when I notice her.
She’s one of the humans being corralled into the village square. A laborer, by the looks of it. She’s surrounded by other weary-looking slaves, naga soldiers at their backs who look hungrily at the women being forced up onto the stage.
