Free Nature Mage by Duncan Pile

merchants attempting the run, every hour counted if they were to steal a march on their competitors, which meant that courtesy took a back seat in the rush to make a profit.
    As Jonn led them out of the last stand of trees, three sets of eyes widened in amazement at the sight spread before them. A road so wide and flat that four wagons could pass abreast curved broadly in front of them, filled with a steady stream of traffic in both directions. Gaspi had never seen so many people in one place. Brightly coloured wagons driven by equally brightly clothed men and women rolled alongside hard looking mercenaries. Farmers with wagonloads of produce travelled next to parents taking their children on an exciting trip to the big city, and the whole fluid crowd was sprinkled with stranger people still, who didn’t fit into any obvious category.
    Jonn addressed his amazed charges: “A major road like this has a certain amount of danger for us. Soldiers patrol it regularly, but there are too many people for them to be able to keep an eye on everybody, so I don’t want you wandering off. Stick with me until I say otherwise.” Looking searchingly into their, and seeing no sign of rebellion, he nodded and led them on towards the road. They travelled the last few hundred yards to the road and joined the ever-moving crowd, swallowed up in the greater flow of people.
     
    Setting their pace according to the traffic around them, they turned their eyes to stare at the sights around them in continual amazement. Raggedly dressed children darted in and out of the throng, ducking beneath high-axled wagons, chasing each other and shouting in an endless game of ‘Tag’. A bored-looking farmer sat atop his wagon, nudging a duo of shire horses forward as they dragged his load of beets to market. A small man in patched hose and tunic slumped in an afternoon doze in the back of the wagon closest to them, skinny elbows sticking out at funny angles like sticks. As if sensing their scrutiny, he lifted his head and turned to look at them from his perch. His nut brown-face was so wreathed with wrinkles and burnt by the sun, it looked as if his skin must feel like a leather shoe. Peering beadily into their eyes, a sudden grin turned the wrinkles into canyons, his eyes all but disappearing in the mass of deep lines surrounding them. Producing a large copper coin from his pockets, he began to roll it across his knuckles, making it disappear and reappear again with deft movements of his slender fingers.
    The three youngsters stared goggle-eyed at this strange little man and his clever trick, and then gasped as one when a small, brown monkey leapt onto his shoulder from somewhere in the recesses of the wagon, and proceeded to stare at them with little black eyes. It had a pale, hand-sized patch over the top of its head, unhealthily luminous as if bleached by acid. Gaspi had never seen a monkey before, though he’d seen drawings of them in school, but it wasn’t just the novelty that held his attention. As the monkey gripped the small man’s shoulder, the gold coin slipped from the back of the small man’s hand to the ground, and his face slackened, looking suddenly empty and unsure, even afraid.
    The monkey seemed to be staring at Gaspi, leaning forward in intense scrutiny. One yellow-nailed hand clamped onto the man’s face to get a better grip and he just sat there unmoving, even though a hard little hairy finger was curling right into his mouth. After a few moments of staring at Gaspi intently, the unnerving creature looked away, its interest passing to the crowd of travellers, seemingly scanning people face by face.
    Gaspi continued to watch the monkey, discomforted both by its unusual behaviour and the incomprehensible reaction of the strange little man it clung to. Its little hairy face twitched slightly as its gaze moved from group to group, and then all of a sudden it tensed, its tail standing up rigidly above it as all the hair on its body stood