OathBlade (Wattys2015)

8. Questionable Company*

The evening bazaar made Merchant's Lane seem tame. Stalls, tables, even simple blankets thrown on the ground all held items for sale with eager vendors and traders reaching out to any who passed by with promises of amazing deals and one of a kind items.

Elery walked through the plaza, admiring a few of the clothing vendors. Her fleut pouch was cinched back onto her belt while her belongings lay in a room at the inn once again. As did her armor. She shifted her arms and shoulders, unable to shake the unsettling sensation of its lacking weight.

The vendor went on and on about the fabric quality as she looked through the items. She tuned it out. Instead, she examined it herself. Though it appeared to be a quality stitch, she found multiple weaknesses in the seams that would guarantee faster wear and tear. Her mother, though not an expert seamstress, enjoyed the fine art of tailoring. After her father would regale her with stories of his trips and battles, her mother would teach her of stitching and archery. The latter of which she was woefully unskilled, but the former...

"A travesty..." Elery murmured.

"I beg your pardon?" the vendor asked.

"This stitching." She pulled the tunic from the rack and turned the cloth inside out, pointing to the weak stitching midway up the side. "One tug or snag and this stitch will break."

"I-I assure you—"

"You can do very little to 'assure' me of anything, sir. Take pride in your work enough to speak truthfully. Do not sway people with sweet words of perfect clothing simply to make a few fleut. Hone your craft and you can charge the world a fortune, rather than lie to your customers and craft nothing more than a bad reputation." She set the tunic on the tabletop. "Or are you so greedy you have no pride in anything but the coins in your pockets?"

The man fell speechless and she turned away, walking down the path between vendors. People brushed by her in ebbs and flows of traffic, most ignorantly devouring pleasing words the vendors spewed. They huddled like livestock round a feed bucket, marveling at the items without so much as picking them up to inspect them.

Weary of the crush of people scavenging the random array of wares, Elery moved toward the outer edge of the plaza. The demesne lay far to the east, well beyond her sight. She was closer to the docks than the entrance of the city where the salt air was strongest, filling her lungs with brine with each inhale. Waves lapped against the shore and schooners pulled away to deeper water. She paused as she reached the dock, then stepped onto the mildewed wooden planks to watch neldreds circle above each of the ships like a halo. They screeched and chirped, searching for their next free meal as fishers hoisted a large net over the edge and threw it into the water.

A sharp gust of wind picked up Elery's hair and blew it in her face. She ran her fingers through to push it back, and while she struggled with her hair someone bumped against her. She gasped, stumbling toward the side of the pier.

"Pardon, friend!" A man grabbed her by the arm and helped her right herself.

"Thank you." She turned to look at him.

He was already running, fleut pouch in hand.

She glanced at her belt, then to the man. He moved deftly into the crowd and vanished.

Elery rushed toward the bazaar and lifted her gaze to the rooftops. While she chewed her lip, a flickering red light shone above the crowd. A fire familiar bobbed and moved around the crowd. She smiled and ran around the left side of the plaza, keeping her gaze fixed on the familiar.

The thief broke from the crowd and ran up the street with the familiar still flying above his head. He glanced back briefly, gave a jaunty wave, then ducked down a side alley between two houses.