367 367 Shopping Trip
In order to keep the attention of the units in the city away from the Witches who were still fleeing, Wolfe altered his armour spell to create large black wings and flapped them gently as he flew out of the camp and toward the main road into the city.
If they didn’t know that he was coming, they would soon, even if he changed his appearance.
Showing up inside the city kitted up as a Demon Lord would just cause panic and possible murder attempts if some fool thought that he actually had a chance.
Dealing with Demons was a delicate dance. Everyone either hated or feared them, and quite often both, but telling them that they couldn’t come in or stay in your city was likely to start a massacre, so it was customary out here in the wilderness to put on a polite face and take their money.
Once he was on the road, with the attention of a number of merchant caravans, Wolfe changed the appearance of his armour spell again to look like plain gray wool travelling cloak over simple chainmail armour with a clean black tabard.
It let him blend in with the other merchants, farmers and guards, who had collectively decided to pretend that they didn’t see him fly there on huge demonic wings.
Wolfe jogged over to a cart, and the farmer reached down to help him up onto the seat.
“It’s always handy to have a man with a sword nearby. Even close to the city, the bandits can still strike. We were worried that they were waiting at the river this time, but nobody came, so they must have gotten all that they could handle for the day.” The farmer greeted Wolfe as he settled onto the weathered wooden bench.
“You could say that. I took offence to them shooting at me, so they won’t be bothering anyone for a while.” Wolfe agreed with a wink that caused the old farmer to give him a yellowed smile, showing off his missing teeth and the chewing tobacco stuck between his teeth.
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“I am planning to spend the night. The guards told me that it shouldn’t cost more than a hundred crowns for the night, and I can afford that.” Wolfe agreed.
The old man laughed at Wolfe’s words. “Sure, if you stay in one of those posh hotels they’ve set up for travellers and visiting officers. Us farmers, we stay with our wagons in the merchant quarter. If you don’t mind sleeping under a wagon, the company is better over there, and there’s no charge.”
The light was beginning to fade as they made it to the lineup outside the gate, and the guards were hurrying everyone through to get set up and off the streets before the evening curfew.
The guards at the door were wearing the uniforms of the Grand Dutchies, and Wolfe could sense the presence of dozens, possibly even a hundred witches with their aura suppressed wandering around the city.
This was exactly what he had been looking for, proof that a village had gone full traitor and was selling Witches to the Grand Dutchies.
Ella and Christa might have already rescued all the ones who were being kept prisoner in the camp, but there were a lot of Witches here in the city, and Wolfe wondered if there was a way that he could take a bunch of them with him.
Without resorting to mass murder, that was.
The whole situation in the wilderness was enough of a mess, to begin with. The more powerful monsters were much too far south, the Rebels from the Coven had allied with Gormana to form some weird trade alliance, and the villages that weren’t under the control of the Rebels were the actual danger, as they were working with the slave traders.
By Morgana Coven’s standards, they were all the enemy, but from an objective point of view, the Puritans, whose leaders had repeatedly tried to have Wolfe and his friends killed, were actually the more tolerable of the two groups.
Wolfe rode with the farmer toward the market and listened carefully as the man narrated the highlights of the town, which was already beginning to shut down for the evening in accordance with the Curfew Law.
“That’s the bank if you are planning to do a lot of business here, and then there is the Drunken Duck Tavern and the Auction House.” The Farmer spit on the ground at the last one, and Wolfe gave him a curious look.
“The prisoners that don’t get picked by the foreigners get sold on what they call work contracts. You’re a Demon, so I gather you can guess what happens to most of them after that.
Us Farmers, we try to get a few now and then, either as brides for our boys, farm hands, or just to keep them out of this place, but it’s also where all the taverns find their barmaids, and the craftsmen hire their storefront staff from.
A necessary evil, some call it. Personally, I’d rather that it was done away with entirely, despite having one of the girls at my own house milking cows.”
The last part dropped to a whisper as they got near a city guard in a military uniform, and Wolfe nodded that he understood.
“When is the next sale?” Wolfe whispered as the wagon trundled along behind the Oxen team.
“Tomorrow is Market Day, so they’ll start in the morning with the cheaper sales and move on to the more valuable ones in the evening. They’ve got a Witch working with them who will put a curse to enforce the contract on your servant for a fee, though I doubt you need one.”
Wolfe smiled back. “All they have to do is swear that they will serve me, and the magic will activate itself. I think I might have to take a few out of the city if I have the money. I’m told that the more rural farms need helpers too.”
The old farmer chuckled. “Aye, and wives. I reckon you might not even need to force them if you got them out of the city. Nobody in their right mind wants to live inside city walls. I’d rather deal with forest monsters.”