Page 57 of Wolf Caged
“An elkyn. Beautiful creatures, are they not? They are very temperamental though and hard to tame.” Jenavyr gestured towards the ones in the pen that were rubbing their sharper front horns against the wooden fence, as if they were irritated and itched. Their antlers were small compared with the one the farrier was working on, barely as long as their pointed horns. “These are young. They will need to be worked for many more years before they are tame enough to pull the carts. But I prefer horses. The black one you see there is mine.”
“A beautiful creature.” I meant it.
It was large—far larger than I had expected a female to ride—and looked like a very patient beast as it stood stock still in one spot, idly chewing hay, as if it was waiting for its appointment with the farrier and was aware that was the reason it was here. An intelligent beast, one Jenavyr clearly loved as she gazed at it.
We walked onwards, weaving through wooden market stalls that had been set up in a square near a large pond that filled the space below one of the retaining walls, my gaze roaming over the tools and items on sale, and then the bread and vegetables that had been laid out in baskets.
Surrounding the square were more half-timbered buildings, each with a store on the ground floor. Tailors and seamstresses, bakers and butchers, grocers and confectioners. There were even furniture makers, small book shops, and places selling intriguing antiques. I stopped outside a store that had bowls of coloured powders and several moody but beautiful seascapes on display in the bay window. This town had everything, and I wanted to explore every shop one by one.
But Jenavyr pulled me onwards.
We passed a weaponsmith and I slowed, watching the shirtless muscular fae male as he beat the steel with a great hammer, each strike precise as if he had honed his skill for centuries.
Maybe he had.
Unseelie appeared to be very long-lived if the ages of my handmaidens were anything to go by.
“I must speak with Garandil.” Jenavyr released my arm and briefly smiled at me before heading into the forge, where the soot-streaked male set down his tools to greet her.
I paused to take in the town and the people that bustled around me, fascinated by it all, bewitched even.
But the longer I stood there while Jenavyr spoke with the blacksmith, the stronger a feeling within me grew.
There was tension in the air.
My ears twitched, my wolf senses sharpening as I watched the people, looking closer now. Something wasn’t quite right about this place.
Few of the people smiled at each other, even when they were deep in conversation or seemed close to one another. I studied the people coming and going, that feeling crystalising into something I could grasp and put a name to.
It was sombreness.
It was the best way I could describe the heaviness in the air and the way people went about their business, but none laughed and few smiled.
My gaze roamed to the castle that loomed over them all.
The people here weren’t happy.
Why?
Jenavyr stepped out of the forge and looked from me to the people I was watching. “Perhaps we should head back soon. You must be tired.”
“I’m not. I want to see more.” I didn’t want to return to that room that suddenly felt small and stifling as I thought about being trapped inside it with nothing to do. “What’s over in that direction?”
I pointed back the way we had come, to the place where the road had branched into two.
“The docks.” Jenavyr took my arm again, glancing once more between me and the people as we turned, her grip more rigid now.
The townspeople weren’t the only ones feeling tense. Part of me whispered to return to the castle as she wanted, but the rest of me howled to see more of this town because I wanted to understand why its people were so solemn.
“Docks,” I echoed. “I’ve never seen docks before.”
It was enough to have me marching forwards, past all the fascinating stores and the intriguing people. People that only became more intriguing as we entered a broader section of road and a more industrial area of the town. Large warehouses lined the cobbled road, and there were more carts here, rolling up from the docks I caught glimpses of through the buildings. The tall masts of the ships called to me, but they didn’t hold my attention for long.
Standing outside one of the wood and stone warehouses were a group of what appeared to be goblins, each of them barely tall enough to reach mid-thigh on me. Their leather caps had been fashioned to accommodate their long, pointed ears, and rugged pants and sleeveless tunics in earth tones made their skin that ranged from light sage to deep forest green only stand out more to me. I tried not to stare, but diverting my gaze from them only had it snaring on something else.
Dwarves.
It was the only word that came to mind for the trio of stout, bearded males dressed in leather and plate armour that were looking over several heavy sacks of minerals that had been leant against the stone lower half of another warehouse.
