Free Legend of the Three Moons by Patricia Bernard Page A

grabbed his bag.
    With a growl Nutty flew at the thief's face and Chad unsheathed his dagger which was more than enough to make the thief back off. Chad scurried back out into the market square but had to jump out of the way of the two huge Goch herding the brawlers into a corner.
    `They will be locked up for the next fifteen days,' said a familiar voice. `My Uncle Bengg is amongst them so there'll be no fishing and no fish to sell.'
    She was interrupted by a shouting man wearing even higher stilts than hers. `Get dancing, Clarissa! That's what you're paid to do. Dance or you'll end up in prison with your uncle.'
    Clarissa the stilt-girl flashed Chad a goodbye smile and whirled away calling for everyone to dance with her. Chad ran after her. `Can you see a black-haired boy wearing a cape like mine?'
    Clarrisa danced in a circle searching the crowd, but said she couldn't see anyone like that. As the man on stilts stamped towards them again she danced off.
    Afraid that Lyla had been herded up with the disgruntled gamblers, Chad headed to where the two Goch were using their tails and necks to surround the subdued men. Lyla wasn't amongst the frightened men but, just as Chad turned back to the market, the closest Goch lunged its blind head at him and stretched its probing purple tongue towards his startled face.
    Nutty attacked the Goch's front legs nipping and biting at its smooth grey skin. With a loud boom, it swung its eyeless head away from Chad and down to its leg in search of what was annoying him. Chad escaped into the retreating crowd and a minute later a tail-wagging Nutty joined him.
    Behind them a Gochmaster's whip bit into the Goch's neck causing it to rear back and crush a fisherman who was too slow in moving away.
    After losing Chad, Lyla wriggled through the fighting gamblers to a safe place between a stall selling fried octopus and another selling a purple drink. Her headache was almost gone but she was hungry and thirsty. With nothing to barter with, all she could do was stare as the people handed over tickets in exchange for food and drink.
    `What be you staring at?' demanded the drink woman, whose bright flower-print dress and scarf showed that she was not from Mussel Cove.
    `I'm wondering where people get their tickets from?'
    `They exchange their fish and produce at the Bartering Hall for tickets. When the market is over I take my tickets to the Bartering Hall and choose the goods I want for my tickets. It's just another way the Raiders tax us.' The woman's eyes turned crafty. `Unless you have something you want to barter privately.'
    Lyla shook her head. `I have nothing but as you are so busy I could wash your cups in return for a drink?'
    `A boy who washes cups! Now there's a miracle! So how many cups will you wash up for one cup of purpleberry juice?'
    `At least one hundred,' Lyla answered, hoping that by then Chad would have passed the drink booth.
    `It's a bargain. Climb under the bunting and take off your cape.'
    Lyla washed two hundred cups and had two cups of fizzy purpleberry waiting to be drunk when she saw Chad carrying Nutty. She held up a cup and called out, `Tree! Over here, I have a drink for you.'
    `Heh,' yelled the drink woman. `I'll thank you not to take away my customers. I've come all the way from Mizzen Bee to sell here. I'll wash my own cups from now on.'
    Lyla and Chad sat down on a kerb to drink their juice and were discussing the delicious taste of the purpleberry when they noticed the stilt girl again. She was arguing with the stilt man.
    `If you think I am going to pay for a whole day, then you're mistaken,' the man shouted. `Half a day is all you're worth. And give me back my costume and stilts.'
    `But I have danced since sun up,' Clarissa argued. `You always do this, Arnolt Beetlehead. You always find an excuse not to pay me the full amount.'
    `Then don't work for me,' snarled the stilt man. `Only you will, because I'm the only fool who'll employ a Raider's reject. Especially one