It was almost dark by the time Raff led Kaz and Li back out into the city streets. Some shops were closed already, shutters or bars drawn over the doors and windows, while others were open and thriving. Kaz noticed these mostly sold food, but there were a few with armor or weapons on display. Lianhua had explained that they did this so people could see what they sold, but wouldn’t a simple picture have the same effect? And why were there so many selling the same things?
Raff paused outside of one particularly busy store, his expression conflicted, then sighed and walked on to an open door leading into a nearly empty shop. Kaz followed reluctantly, since the smells coming from the first place were enough to make him drool, while the second one smelled slightly off, as if whatever food it produced was made from ingredients that were almost spoiled.
“Wait here, Blue,” Raff said, ducking inside. He was gone long enough that three people emerged from the first store, which Kaz could still see further down the street. The only reason Kaz didn’t go inside to check on him was that he could still just make out Raff’s mana, which was steady in both position and speed.
When the human walked back out, he held a very large number of skewers containing roughly cut chunks of unknown meat. There were a few small, sad pieces of fungus and vegetables hidden among the greasy nuggets, but they didn’t look or smell any more appetizing than the meat.
Grimacing, Raff handed five skewers to Kaz, who struggled to hold them while also keeping his cloak closed. He managed to slide one in to Li, who bit his finger hard enough to make him drop it onto the dirty stones of the street.
Kaz eyed the four remaining skewers. They certainly didn’t look or smell good, but they were food, and he’d eaten worse. Well, he’d eaten less. In the heights, food was sometimes in very short supply, and went first to those who had the best chance of catching or finding more. And if they somehow managed to have food left over long enough for it to go bad, cooking it very thoroughly could make it safe enough that no one became seriously ill as a result of eating it anyway.
Right now, however, Kaz had food stored in his pouch, including a couple of rabbits he’d managed to stash after everyone else was done eating. There was no reason to eat this if Li thought it was dangerous. So, although it was very difficult to abandon what seemed like reasonably edible food, he dropped the skewers in the shadows beside a tall stack of boxes.
As he did so, Raff made a sharp right turn, causing Kaz to have to hurry to catch up. When he did, his ears… did not prick up, because they were useless and small, but oh, how he wished they could. Rising above the constant chatter and clatter of the humans around him, Kaz heard the cries of animals. Screeches, barks, howls, and roars reached him, and he stared in the direction from which they came, eyes wide.
Raff paused half a block away, looking back at him. “C’mon, Blue!” he called. “We have a bit more shoppin’ to do.” Kaz hastened forward, noting as he did that Raff was also empty-handed, all of his skewers having vanished somewhere in the short time he’d been out of Kaz’s sight. So he knew the food was bad, but hadn’t warned Kaz? Had he put them in his storage pouch to eat later? Or had he simply assumed that Kaz would throw them away if he couldn’t eat them?
As Kaz fell into step just behind Raff, the large male glanced at him and made a face. “Glad y’got rid of those,” he said. “That’s the only reason Albert stays in business. He won’t talk unless you buy somethin’. An’ the more information you need, the more you have to buy.”
Kaz missed a step, then had to catch up again. “So you bought information?”
Raff glanced around them, lowering his voice. “No, I bought rancid meat. The information was free.”
Kaz wasn’t sure what the difference was, but he nodded. “What did you learn?” This time, he drew the sound obscuration rune before Raff could finish his own version, prompting the male to give him an approving grin.
“Albert says absolutely everybody has been lookin’ for those girls. Not surprising, given that the King offered a reward of a thousand gold to anyone who returns the princess safely,” Raff said.
“Not your sister?” Kaz asked, confused.
The tall male looked grim. “No. No mention of Jinn at all, which is strange. If nothing else, our parents should have put up their own reward, just to make sure that no one interested in collecting the princess would hurt Jinn to get at her. But no, not a peep. They’re looking for Jinn, but Albert didn’t have the feeling they cared if she was dead or alive.”
That didn’t sound good to Kaz, but he was more concerned about something else. “If everyone is looking for them, what chance do we have?”
Raff’s shrug was almost convincing. “I didn’t go by Big Bro Gravy for nothing. If she’s still in Cliffcross, Jinn will find us, and if I know my sister, we’ll get a bonus princess as well.”
Kaz looked around. The sounds were becoming clearer and clearer. Li’s little gold-scaled nose was poking out of his cloak as well, drawing in deep sniffs of air heavy with the odors of strange animals. He tried to shove it back in, and got nipped for his trouble.
the dragon snapped, a soft cloud of vapor emerging from her hiding place.
He shifted the folds of his cloak so the glittering scales fell in deeper shadow, and looked back at Raff. “Why did you go to the old-meat seller, then? Where are we going now?”
Raff sighed. “Albert thrives in the nastiest parts of Cliffcross, so if Jinn and Reina ran afoul of something… bad, he would know. Maleim is pretty good at keeping that sort of thing from settling in here, but it does pop up now and then.”
Kaz had no idea what Raff meant, but the human male was hurrying on as if he didn’t want to give Kaz time to ask.
“We’re heading to the only spot Albert knew where a couple of girls might have gotten ‘lost’. He said it’s been checked before, and no one found any sign of them, but he gave me the name of a guy in exchange for buying out his stock for the day,” Raff said, taking one final corner at a speed that was far too fast to seem anything except urgent.
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A broad, open area lay sprawled in front of them. Its edges were ragged, as if it had been expanded little by little, knocking down walls as needed in order to be able to accommodate everyone and everything there. It was still filled with people, but many of them seemed to be gathering their things, piling crates, boxes, and cages into carts.
Raff growled a little as he took them all in, eyes sweeping over the bizarre sight. Heads, tails, wings, and tentacles protruded from many of the containers being moved by the humans, and the sound of beasts rose each time a cart shifted.
“What is this place?” Kaz asked, fascinated and horrified at once.
“Beast market,” Raff said absently, starting to move forward as he stared from face to face. “Everything from exotic critters to dogs and cats’re sold here. Most of ‘em will be used for parts by mages, alchemists, and a few taxidermists who specialize in makin’ things even nature couldn’t dream up.”
What that meant, Kaz didn’t know, but as they passed, and he met the desperate eyes of captive animals, he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. These beasts weren’t being kept as beloved pets, or used for food. They were being treated as objects, and Kaz most definitely didn’t like it.
Raff gave a soft sound of satisfaction, and flicked his fingers toward Kaz. Kaz let the sound rune vanish as Raff approached a very tall, very thin man with a ring of long, thin brown hair clinging to the sides of his otherwise bald head. Did he have some disease or parasite that made his fur fall out? Kaz hung back, just in case, and found his eye caught by a cage already on a nearby cart.
A wing stuck out through the particularly thick metal bars of the cage. It looked astonishingly like one of Li’s, though the scales were primarily green, rather than gold. Upon seeing it, Li immediately began to squirm, nearly falling from his arms.
Kaz was able to hang onto her only because she wasn’t quite willing to truly hurt him in order to escape. His cloak writhed wildly as they struggled, though, catching the attention of the human loading the cart. He turned toward Kaz, sharp eyes taking in the flashes of gold scales as the cloak opened and closed.
“Eh? You have a wyvern already?” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his cold eyes. “And here I thought I had the only ones in Cliffcross this tournament cycle.”
Kaz clamped down on Li, who had stilled at the male’s words. “That’s a wyvern?” he asked, carefully not answering the question.
A spark of something lit the blue eyes nonetheless, and he pushed a few cages out of the way, revealing the one Kaz and Li had seen. The wing had been withdrawn, but now a green-scaled head poked out, staring at Kaz with furious red eyes.
It was like a dragon, but not like. The nose was a little too sharp, and the neck a little too short. Its skull was narrow and almost came to a point at the top. The brain inside that space couldn’t be very large. Most importantly, however, it had neither mana nor ki anywhere in its body.
Li settled back against him, disappointment surging through their bond. For a moment, she had truly believed she found one of her missing kin, and Kaz’s heart broke as hers did.
The human pulled a single heavy leather glove onto his right hand, then cracked open the cage. Quickly, he grabbed at the animal inside, which squalled its fury as it attempted to bite at him. With practiced ease, he pried open its mouth, showing a toothless orifice.
“Looks like a dragon, don’t it?” he asked, showing his own missing teeth in a broad smile. “No teeth, though, just these plates they use to mash up their food. These little ones’ll eat almost anything, so they’re easy to care for. You just gotta keep their claws clipped.”
He flipped the wyvern over, and it flapped its wings wildly, revealing a surprisingly wide chest and no forelimbs at all. It had wings and two rear legs, and that was all. Those rear legs were adorned with ferocious talons, however. Not just the ones on the foot, but a few that stabbed out higher up on the back of the leg as well.
“These’re still nice ‘n long, though, if you’re a potion-maker. Won’t have to wait for ‘em to grow back before you can harvest it.” He sneered. “Most folks’re too scared to leave ‘em, but they won’t get you, so long as you’re smart.”
Kaz took a step back from the fury in the wyvern’s red eyes. It looked like it would gladly kill everyone in the square if it could just reach them with those vicious claws.
The human gave it a little shake, and it shrieked again. “See? Good an’ healthy. Good fighter, too.” He laid a finger beside his nose and closed one eye at Kaz in a slow, deliberate manner. It clearly meant something, but Kaz didn’t know what. He only knew that anger was slowly building in his own gut. Anger at this man for the lack of respect he showed a living creature, and at all of the humans who would pay or be paid for its life. Kaz understood killing to eat or protect, but this was sickening.
A bell began to ring. Deep and slow, it rose above the surrounding chatter and the racket of packing and departing carts. Everyone stopped, eyes going wide as they turned toward the source of the sound.
It came from the castle. As Lianhua had said, the building rose high on a hill, and its tallest tower could be seen from every part of the city where Kaz had gone so far. The ringing tone was coming from that tower, and by pushing ki into his eyes, Kaz could just make out the glint of silver as a bell swung, inconceivably massive and heavy.
“Incursion!” someone yelled, and suddenly everyone was moving much more quickly. With an angry grunt, the male holding the wyvern shoved it back into its cage and locked the door again. Without even bothering to set the rest of the cages back into their neat stacks or tie them down, he picked up the handles of the cart and began to jog away, hauling it after him.
Kaz looked around, seeing that everyone else was focused on their own tasks, then took a deep breath and summoned a ki bolt. It flashed forward, its light almost lost in the glow of the ki-lights standing on top of poles all around the area. When it struck the wheel of the cart, however, there was a loud crack, and the wooden wheel burst into splinters.
Some of those splinters struck the people scurrying around, causing them to yelp or howl. The male pulling the cart fell backwards as his load tipped over, spilling across the stones. The wyvern’s cage was far too sturdy to break, but some of the others weren’t, and animals - furred, scaled, and feathered alike - pulled themselves from the wreckage, shrieking in triumph rather than fear and anger. Kaz hurried forward, surreptitiously flicking ki bolts at a few of the other cages and carts nearby. More animals burst free. Most of them ran, but a few struck out at the humans, sinking teeth and claws into flesh.
The whole area was engulfed in pandemonium. People who had already been upset by the ringing of the bell now broke down entirely. Like the animals, they fled, leaving everything behind. Kaz waded through the chaos, ignoring the animals that attempted to bite him. None of them were strong enough to hurt him, or they wouldn’t have been held by such flimsy cages.
“Blue!” Raff’s deep bellow rose above the shrill screams, and Kaz turned to look as his hand hovered over the solid metal lock hanging from the wyvern cage. The creature hissed, almost like Li, its neck stretching as it attempted to bite at him.
Raff shoved a human female aside, and she stumbled, then righted herself. At first it seemed she might stop to berate the big male, but then more bells picked up the sound of the first, and the color drained from her face.
Everything stopped. Even the animals seemed aware that something had changed, and they all stared up as a light split the sky. To Kaz’s eyes, it held all the colors of ki, sharper and brighter than any he had seen before. The golden ki in the Tree almost looked like this, as did the rich, deep ki of the giant serpent, Heishe.
Something dark formed in the middle of the light. It seemed to swell, and then the ki-light burst like a popped bubble, leaving a darkness far more profound after the brilliance of the light. The dark thing dropped through the sky, falling straight down toward the earth, which shook at its impact.