The Meeting Place
I swatted at another fly as it buzzed around near my eye. The little bastards were large, about the size of a child’s thumb. What’s more is that they were blood-lickers; they would land on your skin and try to pry open your scales, then they would lick up whatever blood pours out. They were persistent and would often come flying back even if you scare them away the first time.
Strangely enough, the bugs didn’t seem to bother any of the other lizards in the caravan. Unlike me, they were all bare-chested which should have been a smorgasbord for the little blood eaters. But the flies never came near them. Whatever solution they had come up with to stop the bug bites they didn’t seem too fond to share with me. So I did my best to suffer in silence, in the heat, with all these bugs buzzing around.
The caravan wasn’t too large. The lizards used a type of sled to carry their wears around. Since tires would sink in the muck, the sleds had pontoons on either side to keep it sliding across the mud and water. We had three sleds’ worth of metal weaponry to trade, and each sled was pulled by two burly lizardmen. We were also escorted by four warriors, each wearing wooden armor and armed with a stone-tipped spear.
I swatted at another fly, this one fat with stolen blood. It exploded against my neck, dark red liquid staining the fabric of my cloak.
“Damn it,” I muttered, stooping down to scoop up some water to clean the stain. We were currently crossing a shallow part of a wide area of water; I wouldn’t call it a lake, but it was almost as big as one. The water was about knee high and somewhat cleaner than the water in this swamp usually was.
That was when I saw it. Through the somewhat murky water, I spotted a tail. At first, I thought it was the tail of a lizardman, but It was too long, too large. Before I could shout a warning, the tail snapped like a whip and the creature propelled itself forwards. One of the warriors who was escorting us yelped as he was dragged underwater by something.
The porters dragging the sleds fell into a panic and jumped onto the top of the sleds to get out of the water, while the warriors rushed to help their downed compatriot. They all gathered around the spot where he had vanished and looked around, frantically searching for any sign of him. After a few seconds, one of the warriors must have spotted something in the water, because he threw down his spear and dived in.
A few seconds later, the warrior erupted out of the water with his friend in his arms. The other warrior was held tightly in the embrace of a gigantic serpent, one that was attempting to squeeze the life out of him. The warriors dashed in and attempted to slay the beast with their spears, but the stone tips refused to pierce the snake’s thick scaled hide.
I watched as the warriors repeatedly attacked and failed. I looked over to the porters, who were all standing by and watching the warrior die. Now I personally didn’t care if this one lizard died or not, but these people were my ticket out of this swamp. The more of them that were alive, the better my chances were of making it out of here.
“Don’t just stand there!” I shouted to the porters. “Grab a sword and help them!” I trudge to one of the sleds and tore off the tarp covering it, revealing the dozens of swords in the shipment. None of the porters had moved. “Well?”
“The Eldest will be displeased if we damaged the merchandise,” said one of them.
Damn it, I didn’t have time for this.
“Forget you, then!” I shouted before grabbing a longsword from the pile. I then raced through the water towards the warriors, who had now gotten desperate enough to try using their teeth to injure the giant serpent. The warrior that it had caught was gasping desperately as the snake slowly squeezed the life out of him.
“Out of the way!” I said to the warriors and they backed away as I came near. I drew up the sword and saw the serpent’s diamond-shaped head near the warrior’s shoulder. I noticed it look up at me before I swung the sword down onto its neck. The first chop managed to slice halfway through the snake; the second took the head completely off, showering the caught warrior in dark red blood.
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The serpent’s body slackened upon its death, and the warrior was easily able to free himself. He stood up with the help of his friends and began hacking and coughing. As soon as he could breathe, he turned two yellow, slitted eyes towards me and said, “Thank you, Magician.”
“You’re welcome,” I told him. I then trudged back to the sled I had taken the sword from. The porters were all looking down in shame as I came near. I didn’t bother to say anything to them, there was no need to. I simply threw the bloody longsword back onto the pile and walked away.
We were all soon moving again after a brief respite. A short time after that, the flies came back.
Damn it.
It wasn’t until an hour later as we were continuing to trudge through the swamp that I realized I had been speaking in the lizardmen’s language. All without knowing I was doing it.
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We arrived at the lizardmen’s meeting place in the middle of the second day of our journey. It was held every week in a small basin in the middle of the swamp right beside the crossroad of two rivers. There were numerous lizardmen there, perhaps more than a hundred. Many had come here dragging sleds as we did, but some came in sleek little boats, traveling through the river to carry their wares.
And there were a lot of wares. Cloth, animal skins, dyes, medicinal herbs, spices; every tribe in the Wetlands had a specialty, and it was here that they showed it off. I even saw one sled full of fruits and vegetables, which was strange since I’ve never seen lizardmen eat anything but meat.
“We will trade our wares with the Traders first,” One of the warriors told me. Ever since I had saved their friend, the warriors had gotten much more talkative to me. “Then we will trade what they give us for whatever else we may need.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll probably be going off with them since they’ll be going to a human town.”
The warrior nodded. “Just be careful. I don’t know why you would want to visit a human settlement, but if you must you should beware their treachery. Humans are known liars and scoundrels.”
Huh, don’t I know it.
We met up with the Traders’ caravan and soon our lead warrior and the Traders’ leader (a short, thin lizard with a broken horn on his nose) began to negotiate. Once they were done haggling, I walked over to the Traders’ leader to do a little negotiation of my own.
“Hello,” I greeted him in Drakkis.
Broken Horn looked me up and down. “My, you are a big one, aren’t you?”
“I suppose,” I said. “I heard that you were going on to Wayfaire from here. I’d like to join you, if I may.”
He made a pleased sound. “Yes, yes. A person of your… disposition would be most welcome on this journey. We could always use another set of eyes, and another set of claws if we run into any trouble. Yes, yes. You are most welcome to come along.”
Huh. And here I thought I would have to negotiate a price for tagging along with them.
“We are going to be leaving soon,” Broken nose said. “Why don’t you join the others?”
“Others?” I asked.
“Yes,” He pointed to six lizardmen who were standing near the caravan. They each looked haggard and thin, as if they had not been eating very well.
“Who are they?”
“Oh, they are banished. From one tribe or another, for doing foolish things I know not what,” he explained. “I’ll be taking them to Wayfaire, same as you. The humans there don’t care about race. Good place for the banished to settle down.”
I see. They were the riffraff and undesirables. The dregs of society kicked out for not conforming. Ha, my type of people, actually.
Before joining the group, I walked back over to the Rust Shaper’s caravan to bid them farewell. As I did, I noticed that they had a fair amount of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal in one of their sleds, freshly traded. Huh. I guess Thrishop is trying to get his money’s worth for that gunpowder formula I traded him.