Chương 79: The Northern Market

Their load had grown considerably after dealing with the giant monster. Kichan could not carry the heat sac bare, so he braced it between two pieces of shell and tied them into a temporary box. Valkyrie pressed thin films of water across the gaps to stop the heat from leaking directly. Riphiel checked the path but kept looking back. She had never seen a traveling party climb a mountain carrying anything like that. Argaon was not surprised in the least. If anything, he quietly watched the way Kichan bound the heat.

"Not bad. It should last for a while."

"I need longer than a while."

"Then the market is your best choice." That was enough to make Kichan hurry. A market meant goods. He adjusted the temporary heat-sac box in his arms. Containers, partitions, things to trade—where people gathered, those things existed. Most importantly, so did food. The northern market came into view as they rounded a ridge and descended. Stone houses stood among tents. The wind was fierce, so every tent had been tied low and tight. Animal hides and bone weights swung from the roofs of the stone buildings.

The smells of dried meat, wet leather, and long-boiled herbs mingled within the market. Some wooden barrels looked human-made, but most of the faces selling from them were not human. Demihumans with broad ears, others with short noses and heavy jaws, and still others with thick fur covering their arms had laid out meat, roots, bones, and ore. Something resembling tear-shaped fish hung salted beside piles of dried roots. Across the way, needles and fishing hooks shaved from bone stood in rows.

The stone stalls carried the cold scent of ore. The leather stalls smelled sharply of fat from freshly skinned beasts. Kichan slowed every time he passed one. This was less a simple trading post than a warehouse of materials that made him want to build something the moment he touched anything. The trouble started as soon as the party entered. Whispers spread. One elf. One saber-toothed tiger. A water spirit. A gleaming Dust. An unidentified man in human form. And a human carrying something like a club.

They were not ordinary customers by any measure. Kichan ignored the stares and looked first toward the food smells. Smoke from grilling skewers caught his eye. He could even hear fat dripping and flames flaring. His stomach answered. One merchant approached cautiously. He was a broad-shouldered demihuman with short arms.

"Mercenaries?" Kichan answered at once.

"No." The merchant looked between the saber-toothed tiger and the wake-up rod.

"Hunters, then?"

"No."

"Then what are you?" Kichan was already looking at the skewers. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"We came to eat." Riphiel almost tried to explain, then stopped. More detail would probably make them sound even stranger. The merchant paused as well, then moved aside with a baffled expression. Kichan went straight to the skewer stall. Thick pieces of meat charred over coals. Chunks of salty cheese and dried roots lay beside them. The strong smell of fat improved his mood at once. But the moment Argaon casually reached for a second skewer, the back of Kichan's hand struck first. Smack.

"Food expenses." Argaon stopped his hand.

"I showed you the road."

"Two skewers cost too much."

"One and a half."

"Who decided the half?" Riphiel pressed her lips together. If anyone ever asked her how a dragon and a human came to haggle over the price of a skewer, she would not know where to begin. Kichan took the skewer and bit into it. Salty. The fat was good, though. A little cheese brought the balance back, and he picked up a piece of black bread from the next stall.

"Worth packing." Meanwhile, Riphiel listened to the voices around them. Markets were always loud, but today there were more low voices than laughter. They spoke of fighting along the human border, demihuman roads being blocked, and missing children. Some claimed the human army had taken them. Others said demihuman groups had hidden them. Every story differed, but every voice ended on a sharp edge. Kichan saw her expression and already looked tired of it.

"Humans always turn things into this."

"We do not know the truth yet."

"Ever seen smoke come out of a chimney with no fire?" A louder argument erupted deeper in the market. It was too loud even for Kichan to ignore while eating. Several people had formed a circle around a thick-armed craftsman who was shouting and waving his hands. His kind had heavy shoulders and jaws. Stone dust and grease had worked into his palms. They were the hands of a craftsman. Riphiel briefly translated what she heard.

"The storage facility has failed. Monsters coming up from a nearby dungeon have cut off the path…" The craftsman threw a stone fragment at the ground. His words seemed to mean that stone capable of holding both heat and cold lay inside, but the monsters prevented anyone from entering. The market's storage depended on that stone. Since the structure failed, food and medicine had begun to spoil. Kichan looked down at the temporary box around his heat sac. Preservation was his greatest problem as well.

Hot and cold materials could not simply share one undivided bag. The merchant who had asked whether they were mercenaries approached again, more carefully this time. He looked over Kichan, the tiger, the wake-up rod, and Argaon, then named the reward in a low voice. To Kichan, it was only a cluster of unfamiliar words.

"What's that?" Riphiel listened, then drew several long grains in the dirt with one finger, followed by a slightly curved head of grain. Kichan stared at the drawing.

"Rice?" Riphiel looked between the picture and his face.

"I do not know whether it is the same grain you know. It grows only in tiny amounts here and is treated almost as medicine or ritual grain. It trades at a very high price." Kichan's eyes changed.

"Can you make a meal from it?"

"I do not know whether it will be filling, but I have heard that it is cooked before eating." The merchant offered one sack if they solved the dungeon problem. People nearby stirred at the promise. Several turned toward him, and one swallowed a curse. Kichan did not answer immediately. He frowned as he chewed another bite of skewer.

"I hate dungeons." He meant it. The word itself irritated him. A dungeon was obviously narrow, dark, and full of things no one could see from outside. Argaon spoke lazily beside him.

"That stone is the finest material for a cooking surface or preservation box." Kichan stopped chewing. Heat sac. Shell. Magic bag. Partitions. Rice. The materials locked into one line inside his head. Kichan looked at the merchant, but did not stand yet. He finished chewing and swallowed the skewer. He disliked the very word dungeon. Dark, damp, and full of unknown structures—whether it was ingredients or people's stories, everything would tangle in a place like that.

But another calculation settled over the annoyance. A plate for the heat sac. A structure to separate hot from cold. And one sack of something resembling rice.

"Is the entrance far?" After Riphiel translated, the merchant pointed beneath the cliffs. Less than half a day along the rear market road. Kichan surveyed the market again. Piles of dried meat. Bone needles. Old medicine bottles. Cheap metal scraps. And people desperate enough to offer precious grain as a reward. If the storage facility remained broken, the entire market's food supply would become precarious. Even Kichan could see it. When food went wrong, people sharpened quickly.

Argaon took another bite of skewer beside him.

"It is exactly the kind of trouble you dislike."

"I know."

"You will still enter." Kichan clicked his tongue. Things he hated and things he needed often arrived together.

"Where is it?" Riphiel sighed quietly.

"So you are going in after all."