As soon as they were away from the housesled, Keris turned to Len and let the mask drop. It wasn’t open hate, but it was a strong distaste that reminded her of some looks she’d had to endure in the past. She didn’t care for it one bit.
“Let me be crystal clear about something, Miss Wraithwhisper. I don’t like you.”
Len bit back a retort along with maybe a punch or two and took a single, careful breath before looking the woman dead in the eyes.
“And why is that, Keris?” she didn’t know where this was going, but any number of suspicions were already flaring up in her head.
“You’ve let my fool of a husband’s ideas go to his head. This gambit will ruin us.”
“Lady,” said Len carefully. “I didn’t let anything go to the man’s head. Hell, I’m only here because he sold ME on the idea. You’re beginning to make me wonder if it’s worth it.”
“Great, that’s perfect. Take your Banished mongrel and leave, then,” snapped Keris.
“Excuse me?” Len snapped, holding up a hand before Keseryn could do something stupid.
“I said leave, why don’t you just do it now and save us all some trouble.”
“Lady, do you not realize what’s coming your way? You’ve got a hungry commander from the Demon Army positively drooling at the chance to take you out and you’re going to just send away your only chance of getting out of this?”
“Oh, please, there’s not the slightest chance that a ragged bunch of dogs is going to be a threat to us? Look around you! The splendor of our clan is beyond compare. Any fools that attack us will be destroyed before they get close to us.”
In point of fact, Len HAD been paying attention. The sprawling city was impressive. Carts and displays littered the terrain, promising any number of opulent delights. What Len didn’t see, and hadn’t seem much of from the start, was fighters. Oh, sure, there were plenty of bodies on hand. Numerous families in any given house. Hundreds of them all neatly arranged in that wonderful stratification that she’d seen when they’d gotten there. Most of them either too old or too young to put up much of a threat against serious warriors. If Claymar’s troops got this far, it would be a bloodbath.
“Oh, it’s a very nice bunch of future corpses, I’ll grant you that,” said Len, her patience beginning to fray. “But as things stand you’re doomed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean.”
“Do you have the slightest idea what a proper team of military killers is capable of? Or is it just those little mock-battles that you people seem so fond of using as a means of deciding who’s qualified to remain in your society? I’ve seen maybe two guards this entire time, and they were sleeping.”
“Why should they need to do more than that? We are at peace? This ‘military killer’ you speak of, Claymar? One of his men has already arrived and is offering us peaceful negotiations as we speak.”
That took the wind out of Len’s sails. Someone was already here? What was their game? Was it someone she knew? Almost certainly not. Her mind raced trying to see the picture, settled on an answer that made the most sense, and pressed onward.
“You really think that he’s just looking for a simple negotiation? Are you out of your mind, woman? He’s here learning what he can about you before the slaughter gets started. And if you’ve been as open with him about the situation as you’ve been with me, you guys are just plain screwed.”
“You’re joking. The whole point of this night is a feast to celebrate the signing of the treaty. Didn’t Balar tell you anything.”
“Oh you son of a-” Len muttered under her breath. “No. He failed to mention that.”
“Well, now that you understand what’s really going on, surely you see that there’s no need for you to stay around any longer. You might as well limp back to your Hovel and wait for your betters to decide what to do with you.”
It took all of Len’s considerable willpower to keep herself from just decking the woman. It wouldn’t have done her any good and would’ve done much to make matters worse. Instead, she closed her eyes, counted to ten while taking deep breaths, and shot the woman a look of such powerful contempt that she staggered backwards. Keris recovered quickly, shaking off the sudden fear that the glare had inspired in her, and shot back with a glare of her own that was met with only a cool indifference.
“You know what, Kes?” said Len casually. “I think we might be better off finding our own way through the city today. Kerry here can go about her business on her own.”
“But my husband said for you to-,” Keris began, startled by Len’s sudden decision.
“Nah,” said Len, cutting her off. “I don’t think there’s much need for that. You do your thing, we’ll do ours. It’s probably best if we don’t have much to do with each other for the rest of the day. Catch ya later.”
“But-” Keris began again, but Len and her ward were already moving away from her fast, a perk of the more athletic garb they were clad in versus her attire.
“Man, what a bitch,” Len muttered when they were out of earshot.
“A what?” asked Keseryn.
“Err, don’t worry about it,” said Len, remembering that she was technically something of a guardian in these circumstances, and didn’t need to be teaching a child that sort of language. That was something that really ought to be picked up with friends your own age.
Freed of their chaperone, the pair got to properly enjoy the sights of the city. The nature of the streets was a strange thing to behold. Since every building was essentially its own household, the layouts tended to be in blocks with the sleds back to back. The status thing was still on full display, with most of the sleds being roughly the same size. Every ten sleds, without fail, there was a break with room for wagons and other assorted foot traffic to make their way through with ease. There weren’t any street signs to make things clearer, but the general setup was easy enough to understand.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
For the time being, they avoided heading towards the center. That seemed like a higher-risk approach than they needed to bother with at the moment and Len was doing her best not to make waves. Instead, they wandered the streets observing things curiously. It seemed like every house had something on offer to purchase, with plenty of barter and haggling going on at all times. Most of what was sold seemed to be non-perishables, and Len was beginning to worry that they’d have to go hungry as the day went on. This all changed when they entered a new block of housesleds.
They’d been walking for hours at this point, observing the wares, chatting with the locals, generally just amusing themselves, getting more and more hungry as the day went on. There hadn’t been more than the odd pack of nuts to tide them over and desperation was starting to set in. As she began to give up hope of ever finding sustenance, Len’s nose caught the scent of something savory. A spice she wasn’t familiar with, yet was drawn to. It took Kes several more moments to pick up on it, but when she did, a flash of interest crossed her face. The pair’s eyes met, they nodded, and they began the quest in earnest.
As they made their way towards the scent, they noticed that the stands around them began to change. What had once been small displays of personal crafts turned into a grander array of very different sleds. Where most of the ones they’d seen had clearly been set to the task of housing families, these sleds, they were designed for food. The sight reminded her of some of the more impressive food truck competitions she’d seen on TV, or the one massive yearly celebration of gluttony that her home town had put on. Stall after stall lined this street with benches for sitting to enjoy the meals. People milled around, plucking up bits of food from their favorite stalls and carrying it with them or simply sitting and chatting pleasantly. Len grinned with enthusiasm and continued to track the scent.
It didn’t take long. For all the delightful melange surrounding this chunk of the city, the very distinct mixture of tangy and earthy was easy for them to follow. It didn’t hurt that it was also the spot with the longest line of folks waiting. A pair of massive rotisseries stacked tall with meat rotated in front of a flame pit. The equally massive woman manning the stand would take a customer’s order then perform an intricate pattern of slices to relieve just the right amount of meat from the skewer. With a flash of her scimitar, she’d launch the meat over her shoulder to have it land exactly where she desired it: the waiting plate of an expectant customer. Each display of finesse earned its own cheers and hollers of approval and she continued her work without rest. Every once in a while a rotisserie would be exhausted and a new one would be brought out by her assistants. The whole affair had equal parts of showmanship and culinary expertise on display and Len was enthralled.
It took perhaps twenty minutes of waiting for them to make their way to the front of the line. It was not a boring wait. Every time they thought they’d seen every trick in the performer’s repertoire, she’d pull out some new tool or flourish, and the performance would change. At one point she wielded a rapier of clearly elven design. The blade sang through the air. Not figuratively, the silver woman engraved in the pommel literally sang an aria of impossibly ancient origins, all for the entertainment of the onlookers. At another, she pulled out a pair of wickedly barbed kama to do her work. Regardless of the tool she wielded, the excesses of her movements, and the sheer duration of the performance, her hands never wavered, she offered no signs of weakness, and betrayed no emotions beyond joy at her work. Len was tempted to offer her a job on the spot, but something about the situation told her that there’d be no winning her over that way. Instead, she made her order, enjoyed the display (a sword cane that had literally materialized out of thin air), and took her leave with Kes.
Even if the display itself hadn’t been as jaw dropping as it had been, the food itself was a delight. The perfect mix of sweet and savory, with different cuts mixed in that added a crisp texture at just the right point. The women both found their dishes empty before they realized what had happened. Together, they stared forlornly at the clean plates, then dropped them off at the table for used dishes (some sort of communal affair that it seemed all the stalls used).
“That was…” Len began, breathing a contented sigh.
“Amazing,” Kes said dreamily, offering up her own.
Satisfied with their initial survey of the city, the two began to make their way back to Balar’s house. Len didn’t have perfect recall or anything like that, but she was reasonably sure that she’d be able to find her way. In spite of that, something was beginning to gnaw at the back of her mind. An itchy feeling like she’d missed something important and that it was about to bite her in the ass. She’d learned to trust those feelings and spent the remainder of their jaunt scanning for potential dangers at all sides. Kes remained oblivious.