Bleat! Bleat!
The goats' desperate wails rose above the market's din—a chorus of creatures who understood, with the unerring instinct of prey, exactly what waited for them. Their voices were high, thin, the voices of things that had been born to die and knew it.
Thack! Thack! Thack!
The goats lost their battle for sonic dominance. The butcher's knife, rising and falling with mechanical precision, sang a louder, more final song.
Ashan and Toric stood before the stall, taking in the tableau. A small herd of goats huddled in a wicker hurdle, their bodies pressed together, their eyes white-rimmed with terror. The butcher was a mountain of a man—broad, burly, his face dominated by a thick moustache that twitched with each downward stroke of his blade. Before him on the blood-grooved table lay a fresh hide, its inner surface slowly drying in the afternoon heat.
Around the stall, strips of dried meat hung like macabre decorations. The air was a thick marriage of two competing odors—the sharp, savory saltiness of curing meat, and the deeper, more primal scent of fresh blood still finding its way to the ground.
Ashan's eyes flicked toward Toric—a signal, nothing more.
Toric stepped forward, clearing his throat with theatrical emphasis. "Aye, mate! We're here to barter!"
The knife continued its rhythm. Thack. Thack. Thack.
Toric's lips compressed. He closed the distance in three quick strides, his hand shooting out to catch the butcher's descending wrist. The knife stopped mid-swing.
"Listen for a heartbeat, yeah?" Toric's voice had lost its genial tone.
The butcher's eyes registered fury, but he only grunted. "Two fish for child goat meat. Three for adult."
Too high. Toric's tongue clicked against his teeth.
"What about offal?" Ashan's voice cut in, calm and assessing.
"Same price." The butcher's gaze slid to the boy, dismissed him, returned to Toric. "Decide fast. I don't have all day."
Toric leaned toward Ashan, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble. "Captain, this is robbery. And whatever you're planning to invent—it'll need materials. More than seven fish can buy. Plus we still need to live. Eat. Sleep. Not starve."
Ashan didn't respond. He simply stepped forward and laid six fish on the blood-stained table. "Two adults. One child." His voice was calm, absolute.
The butcher's knife paused. "Kid. I don't bargain."
His apron was a Jackson Pollock of animal sacrifice—spatters, sprays, handprints in dried brown and fresh crimson. He was a man who had long ago stopped noticing he was covered in death.
"I'm not bargaining." Ashan's eyes met his without flicker. "I'm informing you of the transaction."
The silence stretched. The butcher's small eyes examined the boy before him—the too-calm face, the too-steady gaze, the too-confident posture. His hand tightened on the knife. Then he slammed it into the table, where it stood quivering, embedded deep.
"Bah!" The laugh that erupted from him was hoarse, surprised, almost admiring. "Kid's got stones. Actual stones. Bargaining with me in my own shop!" He shook his head. "Fine. Take your meat. But if it's—"
"He's the one!"
The shout came from behind, accompanied by running footsteps. A man burst through the gathering crowd, his face red, his hands shaking, his finger pointing at Ashan. "These two! They claim to be the mistress's men! This morning on the fishing shore—they murdered our Oron! Right there in front of everyone! I saw it!"
The market's chaos didn't stop—it shifted. Conversations died mid-sentence. Transactions halted. Heads turned. The atmosphere thickened with something more dangerous than commerce.
The butcher looked at Ashan again, reassessing. "This kid killed that drunken idiot Oron?" A pause. Then—"Hahahaha!" Around him, other shopkeepers joined in, a chorus of dark appreciation.
"You hear that? Oron got taken out by a child!"
"Finally! That bastard's been asking for it for years!"
Ashan didn't join the laughter. He leaned slightly toward Toric, his voice a thread of sound. "You were asking how we'd afford materials?"
Toric's eyes widened slightly as understanding dawned.
Behind the meat table, the butcher and the informant stood side by side—the former still chuckling, the latter red-faced with indignation.
"So, kid." The butcher stepped forward, slamming his hands on the table. "You still want to bargain? You killed our man. One of ours. I don't care if you're the Mistress's own get—nobody mocks the Master's crew on Master's ground. Nobody." His hand shot toward the quivering knife.
It never reached it.
Ashan moved—not fast, not slow, simply there. His hand closed over the knife's handle an instant before the informant's, and in the same fluid motion, he pulled. The blade came free. The butcher's fingers, still reaching, continued their trajectory for one confused moment before landing on the meat table with soft, wet sounds.
"AAAAAGHHHH!" The butcher's scream was pure, unfiltered agony.
Ashan was already moving, vaulting onto the table, the knife an extension of his will. It rose. It fell.
Thok.
The sound was identical to the butcher's own rhythm, but the result was different. The knife split skull, continued through brain, emerged from throat. The butcher's body parted in two uneven halves, painting the stall in broad strokes of crimson.
Ashan stood amid the ruin, droplets of blood painting new patterns across his face and clothes. He spread his arms slightly. "Well. Obviously, we'll pay for materials by killing the Master's crew and taking what's theirs." He let the words hang. "They've been trying to sabotage the Mistress's plans. It's only right that we remove the obstruction."
The market was frozen. Even the goats had stopped bleating.
Crazy. Absolutely insane. Toric's thoughts raced. He's killing them and blaming them for attacking the Mistress's interests—which is complete bullshit, but bullshit with enough truth-adjacent shape that people might want to believe it.
He closed his eyes for one heartbeat. When they opened, they were blazing with manufactured fury. "HOW DARE YOU! You dare attack the Mistress's enterprise? You dare threaten her appointed representatives?"
The spell broke.
Swords cleared sheaths. Knives appeared from belts. A fisherman raised his oar like a club. A vegetable seller hefted a wooden crate. The crowd surged forward with the unified purpose of violence.
"Kill them!"
"Butcher the bastards!"
"Paint the ground with their blood!"
The market achieved new depths of chaos. But ordinary humans, however numerous, are still ordinary humans.
Toric's sword became a blur. Prana flooded his limbs. He moved through the first wave like a scythe through wheat—disabling, breaking, scattering. Arms were severed. Legs were shattered. The momentum of the crowd became its own enemy.
His breath came in ragged gasps. Too many. Storms – there are too many of them.
Where's the captain? Why isn't he—
"Please! Please don't kill me!"
The man who had tried to sneak up on Ashan now knelt before him, his hands clasped, his face wet with tears and terror. "Please, I have a family, I have children, I have—"
The knife left Ashan's hand in a flat, spinning arc. It buried itself in the man's throat. He collapsed into the spreading pool of his own blood.
Now then. Ashan crouched beside the butcher's divided corpse, his fingers moving through blood-soaked clothing. Let's see what you two were carrying.
His fingers closed on a leather pouch. He hefted it—coins, by the weight and sound. Enough coins. Nice haul.
The informant's body yielded nothing. Ashan kicked it aside in dismissal, feeling ribs crack beneath his foot.
His gaze found Toric, still fighting, still holding, but visibly tiring. The crowd pressed from all sides. Weapons found gaps in his defense, opening small wounds that bled freely into larger concerns.
He moves well. For a rogue, he understands combat instinctively. Decent. Useful.
Should I intervene?
The smirk that spread across his face was wide, cold, and entirely private. No. Being too flashy makes them fearful. Fearful people do stupid things.
His eyes swirled—grey-white whirlpools that drank the light. Discretion is the better part of not getting overwhelmed.
His presence vanished.
Not hidden. Not obscured. Erased. One moment the boy was there. The next, there was only empty space, and the unsettling certainty in every mind that something important had just slipped away.