For a kingdom that birthed wind elementalists, Galecrest, the Kingdom of Notus's capital, stunk something fierce, Egan mused, as he neared the Galecrest's marketplace, near the port. He was privately cursing Drevan in his mind for sending him here.
"Something's up in that wind pit. Check it out, eh?" Drevan had told him.
My ass. Egan thought bitterly. Generally speaking, Egan was a man more prone to laughter than anything else, but he had been there a week and there was nothing of note that he could find. Sure, Egan still found the slave markets in the city of wind to be an oddity, but, perhaps the air heads had been sucking too much salt air and it was rusting their already questionable intelligence.
Egan had just done another once over slums and was intending to head back to the inn he was staying at after swinging by the slave market. He wore the hood of his dark colored cloak up to cover his face. He hated the place, but, of all things in Notus, it stuck out as being the most suspicious, and he intended on giving it one final look over before getting out of this reeking city. He then intended to find Drevan, even if he was on the Eastern Continent, and put his boot up his ass for wasting his time in a city that smelled of rotting fish.
As Egan came upon the slave market, he stayed near the outer edge of the crowd gathered there, and observed a burly man wearing iron chains on his wrists and ankles and nothing else being shown to the crowd like he was cattle. People were already bidding on the man, and Egan sneered in disgust. He wanted to go over there and just blow up the market in a storm of fire and ire, but he was not foolish enough to out himself as an elementalist in a country that was beginning to hate them. Worse case scenario, he could start a war between Notus and Pyraeth, and he'd already seen how that could end.
As a fat, odious man whose fancy outfit did nothing to improve his visage won the final bid on the burly man, Egan huffed a disgruntled breath and turned to leave. A crack of a whip and the dragging of chains over wood had his stomach rolling, and he made to hasten his steps only to halt suddenly.
Did those assholes just say dragon!? Egan thought with disbelief. No, not even these airheads would be so stupid. However, reality disagreed with him.
****
The air stunk of despair as Sienna was whipped and dragged up onto the wooden platform to be displayed naked to the crowd below. He could feel the bite of iron chains on his wrists and ankles, fresh whip marks burned across his back, and dull throbs denoted the colorful patches of bruises that roamed across his body.
The collar around his neck pulsed with sickly purple light that signaled the enchantment which trapped him in this weakened, human form of his. His long black hair hung in tangled curtains past his hips, doing little to preserve his modesty before the leering crowd.
He kept his blue eyes fixed on the middle distance, refusing to meet the gaze of any potential buyer. His body trembled despite his best efforts to remain still; fear coiled tight in his gut like a living thing, but he would not give these humans the satisfaction of seeing him cower. He was two hundred years old, young for a dragon, but he had soared through storm clouds and bathed in lightning, and he would not break.
A slaver's whip cracked once more across his shoulders. Sienna flinched but did not cry out.
"This one's got spirit," the slaver announced, his voice carrying over the marketplace. "Freshly caught dragon from the Windspire Mountains." A mummer of surprise fell over the crowd before the slaver continued. "Not to worry, good folks of Galecrest, see this collar here?" The slaver gestured toward Sienna's neck. "Not only does it bind the dragon to his human form, it also robs him of his power." The slaver grinned, a cruel smile full of yellow teeth. "Now, shall we start the bidding?"
"Just a moment," a deep timbre voice called out. "You say he is a dragon, but what proof is there that you are not simply trying to sell near dead goods for far more than they are worth?" The mummering of the crowd seemed to agree with the man's assessment.
The slaver frowned unhappily, "Now, my good sir, surely you can see how the tips of his ears are slightly curved here and how his eyes have a hint of a slit."
The deep timbre voice that belonged to a man draped in a dark colored cloak took on an air of disbelief. "Is that all?" He drawled. "Both things are easily faked by ma… ah… well it's easy to fake."
The slaver could apparently hear the lazily aborted insult as he sneered at the cloaked speaker. "With all due respect, good sir," the slaver began with gritted teeth, "if you're not interested in the product, perhaps you should move along?"
Magic subtly filled the air and the wind blew toward the cloaked man, in an attempt to remove his hood. It blew fiercely enough that it lifted Sienna's hair and whipped it toward the stranger, but it only slightly stirred the edges of the stranger's cloak before it whooshed back toward the slaver and Sienna, flinging the dragon's hair out behind him causing both the slaver and Sienna to glare albeit for different reasons.
Under the cloak, Egan grinned in satisfaction. Egan was now certain that the slaver was convinced he was a wind elementalist when, in reality, he had quickly superheated the air causing the flow to reverse back to where it came from.
Casually, Egan drawled, "I never said I wouldn't buy him. I was just surprised by your blatant fraud." Egan was smiling under his cloak at the slaver's obvious fury as he continued, "Considering how he looks one step from the grave, I think it's quite generous of me to offer 30 gold for him."
"Thirty gold!" decried the slaver. "It's worth far more than that!" The slaver had been hoping to get at least a thousand gold if not more for the dragon.
Egan snorted derisively, "Doesn't look like he is from the care you've bestowed upon him." Egan sighed dramatically, "In truth, thirty gold feels like a scam as it is."
The slaver glared in fury at Egan and the surrounding crowd that was nodding in agreement with Egan's words. He knew he had lost, and clenched his fists in barely controlled rage. "Very well, good sir, it's yours for thirty gold." Foisting the cargo he was now unsure he could sell onto the man who had never actually said he would buy the dragon, but had caused this fiasco.
Egan grinned under the cloak, but gave a huff of irritation toward the slaver. Egan headed to the back of the wooden platform, making sure indignation showed in every measured step. When he reached the back of the platform, he found another slaver holding the dragon's chain while another man flanked them.
Egan threw a bag of gold toward the man holding the chain. "Count it and hand him over now." Egan grunted feigning vexation.
The slaver holding the chain smiled viciously as the man that had been flanking the slaver and dragon stepped forward and raised his hand, wreathed in magic of sickly greyish black color that quickly flared out and surrounded Egan and the dragon.
Egan didn't flinch even as the dragon staggered and a cry of pain escaped him. "What…' Egan growled dangerously, just barely holding back his more volatile nature, "was that?"
The slaver gave a brutal smile as he threw the chains towards Egan. "A binding." The slaver gestured plicating towards Egan. "For your safety, of course, good sir. With this, it can never turn against you. It must obey you and can never be more than 30 feet from you."
Egan clinched his fists under his cloak. "I never asked for that!" He spat.
"No, of course not! Why would you need to request what was mandated by the crown?" Slaver replied, practically oozing malice and insincerity.
Egan fists tightened and he could hear his teeth creak, but he managed to reply, "Fine. Then remove the chains. They're an eyesore."
The slaver complied and shoved Sienna toward Egan, who managed to catch him before he fell.
Egan supported the dragon and turned him away from the slave market and towards the inn he'd been staying at. He said nothing as he did so. He could not afford to give the slavers any more openings. The binding was enough of a surprise, Egan didn't need anymore issues cropping up even if he truly wanted to comfort the dragon.