Starting from the first town, we had to disguise the princess. She’d passed through this region before, and there could be many people, like retired soldiers and officials, who might recognize her at a glance. I kept up a constant light magic spell around her, which distorted her appearance and made her look like a human. She also had to take off her translation pendant and speak exclusively in the human language since we’d learned about her accent.
The town itself was beautiful. The river this high up was clear and cold, with small rapids and a waterfall just outside of view from the town square. There were tone buildings with narrow rocky pathways, ivy-like plants creeping over the walls, and a small market of traders bringing goods from far away. The traders peddled food and clothes, small iron tools, and jewelry of various sorts. Some of them went around the town, talking to farming families and bundling up grains, fruits, domesticated monster hides, and some other animal by-products.
We were led around the town by a short, balding demon who was impressed by our ability to speak his language. He said they didn’t know there were other sentient beings on the other side of the mountains, and were looking forward to trading with us in the future. We found out he was the chief official of the town, in charge of things like tax collection and army levies. He was sent by the nearby large city, and not the capital, which made sense because of the fragmented nature of the kingdom. I’d already realized, thanks to the princess’ information, that this kingdom was like those ancient old world kingdoms from my previous world where administration was delegated to cities. The capital only really dealt with the cities, without interfering too much with what they did within their regions. Some cities were run by officials from the capital, while others had local rulers who had pledged fealty to the king but were mostly autonomous. Some of these local ruling families had been running these cities longer than the royal family had been running the capital.
And the nearby city was run by one of those ancient ruling families. The balding demon told us the traders that we could see in the town square had come together in a seasonal caravan, and we could follow them back to the large city tomorrow. He said we might have to contribute to the mercenaries guarding the caravan, but it would be worth it because of the large number of monsters.
“Oh and also,” said the balding demon as he led us to a small campsite. The campsite was right by the river on a beautiful field full of wildflowers. This was where the trading caravan was staying and we were about to talk to the leader of the caravan. “Our city loves trading for goods from all kinds of places. If you could share with me the path you took through the mountain, we might even be able to send a caravan within a few weeks.”
I smiled at the official. “It was a strange and difficult path, my friend. I’m afraid I can barely remember it.”
The official nodded slowly, his mouth slightly agape. “Alright, well, perhaps you’ll be able to gather an escort party in the city. You should meet with the lord, he might give you some gifts as well. Our people value hospitality, after all.”
I thanked him but he didn’t leave. He kept talking for a little while longer, and I couldn’t figure out a way to politely get him to leave. Eventually, after wearing us out with a pointless conversation, the balding official finally revealed his real objective.
“This may seem like a strange question, friends, but I was wondering if you may have come across any corpses on your way through the mountains,” he asked.
I frowned. “Corpses?” I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. Are there so many to find that you were expecting us to see some?”
“No, no,” he said with a short laugh, “it is a sad, sad, situation, I’m afraid. Our dear princess and her entourage were chased into the mountains by dangerous monsters almost two years ago. We have searched all along the nearby mountains, but we could not find any trace of her. I was just wondering, perhaps she made it a little further inside the mountains than we were expecting.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” I said, “but no, we did not see any traces of demons before we happened upon one of the villages nearby.”
“I see,” said the balding demon, “well, I should get going, I have to buy some things from the traders before they close up their stalls. Best of luck to you, travelers!”
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As we watched the official walk away, Kelser stepped up to me and whispered in the human language, “so they’re still looking for the princess?”
I nodded. “Yes, and he has every right to be suspicious.”
“Why do you say that?” said the princess, also speaking in the human language.
“Language,” I said, “it’s strange that we can speak their language. I suspect the only reason we aren’t being questioned more aggressively is because they don’t know how powerful we are. We did just cross a seemingly impassable mountain range, after all.”
“Right, and we haven’t told them about our magic yet,” said Kelser. He panned his gaze around the campfire, where one large fire was being prepared. The traders were using a small wheel based drill tool to light the tinder, and would use the main fire to light the other smaller ones. Nobody had used any magic in front of us on this side of the mountains.
“When can I use my own language again, by the way?” asked the princess.
“You can’t use it if we decide to join the caravan,” said Kelser.
Kol frowned. “Then we should just head off on our own.”
“That would be even more suspicious,” said Kelser, “what if the official sends hunters after us or something?”
“But we can’t trust everyone in the caravan either,” said Kol.
After a little more bickering, we entered the caravan leader’s tent. The leader was a wizened old lady. She said she’d be glad to let us accompany her but the mercenaries were very strict about the number of people they would guard, so we had to pay for our own protection. She said she was willing to pay for us if we had any goods to exchange with her of if we promised to give her a part of the gifts we would get from the local lord.
“Thank you for your hospitality and kindness,” I said, “but we were thinking about traveling on our own. If you could just tell us the way, we will head out after lunch.”
The old lady raised a droopy eyebrow and stared at me. “I would advise against that, travelers.”
“Thank you for your concern, but you don’t have to worry about us. Tell me, how far down the river is the city?” I asked.
“No, you cannot follow the river,” she said, “there are—”
“Monsters?” I said, “don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”
It took a while, but eventually the caravan leader revealed that it would only take a few days to get to the city if we followed the river. It would take much longer if we joined her in the caravan. I thanked the old caravan leader, and followed Kelser and Kol back to the town square. A middle-aged woman fanned meat over charcoal while yelling at her children to stop playing around. She was a local from this town, trying to sell food to the traders. Her food stall was the only one I could see, but the traders did not seem interested at all.
As we passed by, the middle-aged woman put on a wide smile and tried to usher us towards her stall. “Come, weary travelers, have a taste of our local delicacies! I promise you will not find anything like this in the entire kingdom!”
She was definitely exaggerating, but the meat did look quite good. It was marinated in some kind of strange sauce, with a few charred spring vegetables also cooking over a skewer. The woman said she’d give us a travelers discount, but the princess told me her prices were actually the same as what she’d give to a local.
I reached into my pack and brought out a small lump of silver. It was pressed flat like a coin, but didn’t have any markings on it. Kol had already told us about the currencies of the kingdom, and said that it was better to trade directly with precious metals than to try to forge a coin. The value of coins was based on their material anyway, so this should be fine.
The middle aged demon woman happily accepted my silver and gave us all a serving of meat and vegetables. It was filling and hearty, just like the food from the village, but the herbs and seasonings gave it a slightly more complicated flavor. After seeing that we had some silver to spend, many other traders and merchants tried to hawk their wares to us, but we ignored them as we walked to the banks of the river. Slinging our packs over our shoulders, we left the town after saying goodbye to the balding official, who also tried to warn us about the monsters by the river, but let us go once he realized we wouldn’t listen.
Surprisingly, nobody sent anyone to follow us after all.
“Maybe they were all just worried about us after all,” I remarked.
Kol frowned but didn’t say anything. The roar of the waterfall filled my ears as the first town faded into the distance.