System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 95
“Tawn, stop!”
Aveline pressed a hand to her forehead; her lovely cheeks puckered like a bitter gourd.
The little boy before her was dodging jester Frozz’s pursuit, darting through the caravan like an overeager cock, as if he still believed he had a pair of wings. His arms were awkwardly raised behind him, he hunched his back, stuck out his rear, craned his neck and kept “flying,” imitating the old Tawny Falcon, though he could not rise an inch.
He shook his arms and kept making a bright, childlike “yak, yak,” but his tongue seemed tangled into a knot, sometimes upturned, sometimes curled under; Aveline feared he might bite his own tongue.
“Sigh, a troublesome child,” someone said.
The others in the troupe folded their arms and watched the farce with equal parts sorrow and amusement — Tawn’s liveliness had, for the moment, pushed back the shadow cast by the troupe master’s suicide.
“A bit of mischief’s fine,” Roy said cheerfully, “better than grief and doom. Besides, don’t tell them about Aaron for now. Wait until they’re older.”
“But that little Fenn’s worse.” The youth remembered the ludicrous sight in the wagon — the little girl who took herself for an Owlcat and tried, as she once had, to perch on a staff and rest.
Her body, however, was no longer birdlike; she could not bear her weight and fell, blacking her head in a dozen places, crying at first in soft sobs, then falling silent as if some absent father had been recalled to her mind, sitting on the ground like a porcelain doll.
Worst of all, these two children had a painfully small vocabulary, could not speak like others, and their minds lagged behind those of children their age. They were only unusually sensitive to kindness and mockery.
“Gods grant they return to themselves soon.”
...
A pallid day. It had been a week since The Sea Scorpion’s Enigma left Shaerrawedd. Once they crossed into the principality of Ellander they turned west and reached the capital, Ellander.
The great city lay south of the Pontar Valley, which itself sat to the west of the Mahakam ridge.
By the by, the Pontar Valley sits at the meeting point of the four largest northern realms — Temeria, Redania, Aedirn and Kaedwen — and is one of the North’s most important military regions.
There’s a saying among folk: whoever wields the Pontar Valley can command the whole North.
Its importance spoke for itself.
As a springboard into the Pontar, Ellander’s standing rose with the valley. It was not only a military stronghold but a trading hub; though it could not match Novigrad with its thirty thousand souls, its permanent population still exceeded ten thousand.
A large populace brought merchants in droves. Traders from across the south and north converged here and formed merchant guilds; carts laden with regional wares gathered in constant traffic, trade thrived, and a host of other guilds — architects, smiths — prospered in equal measure.
It was not far from Vizima, Temeria’s capital; the roads were good.
On a busy morning, a long line formed before the city gates, armored guards wearily checking every person who passed.
Seeing this, Roy nodded to Aveline, acting troupe master for the time being, arranged to meet at an inn inside the walls, then pulled the Witcher away.
“You haven’t been to Ellander in a while,” Roy explained to the puzzled Letho, “as far as I know, Ellander’s not much for Witchers these days.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.