Path to the Void [Points of Light 1 - RPG fantasy]

1.03

I was careful to remember which turns I took as I made my way through the town, so that I could find my way back to the alley later. It was fairly easy as long as I kept to the main streets, which slowly slanted downwards as you got further into town. Most of them lead to the bend in the river that formed one side of the town, or to the stone bridge across a narrower point of the same river to the north.

I kept to the side of the crowded square where the majority of the market was being held; it was overwhelming enough without bumping into people every couple of steps. There was the scent of frying meat and vegetables and fresh-baked bread, mixed with the smell of people and animals – I made my way around the back of an enclosure full of squirming, squealing piglets and stopped there to watch the people in the square for a while.

People moved back and forth between the carts set up in the center of the square, housewives in long dresses and children darting at their heels, all with baskets slung over their arms or a few who balanced them on top of their heads. Most of the young men were apprentices of some craft or another, helping their teachers sort and sell their wares, but there were a few who roamed the crowd as well, most of them with some kind of weapon belted to their hips. Some wore the colours of the town’s guard over their mismatched armor, but just as many went without – blades-for-hire, looking to rent themselves out to protect the carts of merchants who would be trundling down the roads to other towns after this. There were a few women among them too, with swords or bows or long knives like the one still strapped to the back of my belt.

I wondered about their lives, moving from place to place as they could find work, and about my revelation earlier that morning, about how best to take down the briarwolves. Seeing the world as a mercenary couldn’t be such a bad life, could it? But if that was the case, why did all those people – men and women both – with swords strapped to their belts look so unhappy, with their eyebrows scrunched together and frowns on their faces?

It was at that point that I did notice one exception to that rule. The woman was young, only a couple of years older than I was, and wearing full armor that was, if not better quality, then at least better cared-for than that of the mercenaries. There were designs of golden sunbursts worked into some of the plates, and trimming the bottom of the tunic she wore underneath – those had to be the symbol of the Church of Light. Min hadn’t shown me any of the symbols associated with the spirits (since, of course, she couldn’t recognize them herself), but I couldn’t think of anything else that that bright marking could mean.

The crowd left a space around the woman in armor, but it wasn’t the same as the space they had left around Min and I. It was a space bordered by respectful nods, not suspicious glances, and children violated it freely to run up and touch her armor before trotting away back to their parents, with looks of wonder on their faces. The smile she gave to the children was small, but warm, as though she expected this sort of thing; the glow of her smile, her armor, and her gold hair made her one of the most striking people in the crowd. I had to wonder how every person in the crowd wasn’t periodically glancing her direction, the way I was, distracted by just the sight of her.

After some time, she disappeared into the crowd, beyond my sight between the people and horse-carts, and I slid my way out from behind the little enclosure of piglets (quite startling the man who was selling them) and went back to roaming the streets.

—-

At some point, I found my way down towards the water, and stood against a section of wooden railing overlooking the docks. The workers down there were busily unloading goods from carts onto barges, or from barges onto carts; regardless of the activity in the rest of the town, they didn’t even look up from their work.

A breeze floated off the water, carrying the smell of the marshy far bank; the river water was a somewhat murky green, and flowed slowly but steadily towards the south. There was a road that lead south alongside it, but hardly anyone used it if they had the money to take a boat – or so the man a few yards to my right was saying to the woman accompanying him. I didn’t know how true that was, but I did know that there were a pair of guards at the entrance to the docks that weren’t letting anyone who wasn’t a merchant or a worker down there. It was too bad. I’d only wanted to see the water up close.