Snippet #2679343

Pack camels scurried down the streets lining Dol-Duna's market place, the air echoing with the cries of merchants, advertising the quality of their various wares. Crowds of people lined around various stalls, those promising miracle cures and luxurious jewelry proved to be some of the most popular, although the biggest lines tended to wrap around the stands that offered food and drink. A man wrapped in a weather brown cloak, Uluru, found himself in one such line, a large, strange smelling, burlap sack slung across his shoulders as the woman in front of him just completed trading a freshly harvested bundle of corn for a hot plate of steamed vegetables.

As the woman made her way out of the line, Uluru moved stepped forward, hefting the heavy sack over his shoulder with a grunt and placing it gently down the wooden stand. "What've you got for me, boy," the old merchant running the stand, gray sidebruns, sticking out of both sides of his mostly bald head, squinted at Uluru, his nose practically reeling back from the robust odor emanating from the contents in the sack.

"The husk of the antbane raiding your crops," Uluru answered, opening the sack as a reptilian head, sporting compound insect-like eyes rolled out of it, to the shock and mild disgust of the merchant. "Heard you and your wife complaining about it a few hours ago. Thought, I'd earn a little extra food if I took this thing down and brought it's hide in with my others," Uluru explained as the creature's tongue suddenly slid out of it's mouth and onto the table with a grotesque plop.

Uluru sighed heavily and quickly pushed the tongue back in the beheaded beast's mouth and looked towards the merchant, adding, "You might want to hurry and store this. The minute you kill one of these things, they release an odor pungent enough to wilt fresh bloomed desert blossoms within a three meter radius, but salt 'em and store 'em over a couple days and it should be fine."

"Hmm...would make an excellent trophy mounted on my wall, I'll speak to the taxidermist.." them merchant said, looking back up at Uluru. "How much do you want for it?"

"Well, for that..." Uluru began, reaching into the sack and pulling out a large pile of red and black striped fur. "This..." he added before pulling out what appeared to be a pair of wings belonging to a birdlike creature. "And that...I'd like two camel's humps swimming in that peas and cabbage stew," Uluru gave a wry smile.

"I know what this is..." The merchant stated as he handed the antbane's head to his daughter, who attempted to steer her nose away the smell of the beast's head as she hurriedly carried it into the storage room, but to no avail. "And I know what this is," the merchant continued, patting the red pelt. "But these..wings. Never seen a bird with wings like these before...You'll get one hump and the stew for everything else, but you can keep the wings. I don't like trying my hand at cooking strange animals," the merchant offered sternly. "Could be poisonous, look at these green colors along the sides of the feathers..."

"This is ridiculous," Uluru grumbled at the merchant's stubbornness. "They're wings, they're not poisonous, and you're a cook. What's it matter what they're from? You need me to spell it out for you?" Uluru asked, irritably. Noting the merchant didn't seem to take kindly to his words, Uluru sighed and spoke calmly, "Look...I caught this outside the city, last night. Spent two days prior tracking it down to it's nest. Went to find the head of the caravan that hired me to track the damn thing down, and guess what? Caravan was a no show when I got back. I traced their steps and it looks as soon as one of their scouts got confirmation that I'd killed the thing, their leader decided to split without paying me what she owed. So surely it can't be that difficult for you to part ways with a little extra food"

"I'm sorry to hear that and I understand your frustration, but forgive me for not trusting a stranger who insists that I cannot tell the difference between a non-poisonous animal and clearly poisonous one. If you don't like it, then you may try your luck at the bar on the other side of town," the merchant shot back.

"You can take my word on it, then," Uluru insisted. "My time at the University has taught me more than enough about what these sands have to offer."

"What's a university?" the merchant asked angrily, folding his arms and glaring at the cloaked man with immense hatred.

***

Uluru sat propped against the wall of a stone hut, hungrily chowing down on his single camel's hump and vegetable stew, making special note of how it was noticeably less than the portions f the same meal given to the merchant's other patrons. Was good though and as he began watching a trio of street performers perform feats of acrobatic daring, Uluru began to wonder if this town will manage to offer him any new leads in his search or if it'd just end up being another in a long line of dead end.