“I still don’t understand why you wish to go here, Master Hassan. The Outlands are known to be dangerous enough that armies stay out. And you want us to sneak in?” he asked from his place beside the horse. Master Hassan was riding the horse next to him, hauling a cartful of seeds in massive sacks.

“Boy, one thing you’ll learn is that to be a good merchant, you’ve to look where others won’t.” Master Hassan chuckled, taking a swig from the old flask that he always kept near him. The thing was chipped and worn from years of use, the ceramic beginning to crack around the neck, but his Master kept it close like a third hand. Finishing up a long pull, he waggled a finger down the rocky path that they were walking along.

“Let me ask you something, boy. How much do you think a direbear pelt sells for in the Capital? Not even if you send it by to Ossia or Abaratt, but if you stayed here in Altaros, how much could you fetch a price for.”

The boy thought about the words, believing it to be another test from his master. As an apprentice, he had long since grown accustomed to these questions of worth and trade. “For a full pelt, well-skinned, I would imagine at least a hundred gold.”

Master Hassan nodded, his shaved head gleaming where it caught the sunlight. “Aye, good. And why is that?”

Falling silent as he thought, the boy nearly stumbled over a protruding root. His master always wanted a full answer. “An adult direbear would need at least ten men to take down. At least one would be a houndmaster, to flush it out of its den. The rest would have to be experienced enough to work together as a unit, so most likely a troupe of hunters willing to risk themselves for the sake of a single bear. That is sixty gold for the hunters at least, and the houndmaster will be fifteen if he’s worth his salt. After the skinning’s done, the costs are at least eighty to ninety gold.” The boy shrugged, mulling it over. “But all these are estimations based on minimums. If you want to be safe with your men, it could easily reach over a half-hundred. At the end of the day, it’s still just a pelt. Squeezing out more than ten gold profit from that would be a fortune.”

His master gave a rare smile in pride. “Good, boy. And that’s why no merchant worth the name ever deals in direbear pelts.” His gaze turned further down the trail, through the dense trees to where mountains stretched out of the horizon. “But what if I told you I could get three direbear pelts for all the seeds in the back of this cart?”

He almost stopped in his tracks, the tip of his boots catching on a stone as he stumbled in surprise. For the seeds in the cart? Those were grain sacks, filled with seeds for azhe and other common grains. One sack was perhaps forty silver at most; all together they were not even two gold. But what kind of madman would even have three direbear pelts, let alone trade them for seeds?

Seeing the disbelief in his apprentice’s eyes, the merchant smiled. “Aye, that’s what I’d think as well. Now hush. They don’t take too kindly to intruders, especially loud ones. They might know my smell, but they won’t know yours.”

The boy fell quiet, mind spinning in confusion. Know his smell? So lost in thought was he that he hardly noticed as they approached the foot of a mountain, as they strode out of the trees. He only realized when the horse began to whinny and nicker in nervousness, his master nearly shaken off the mount. The boy looked up then, a sudden gasp sticking in his throat as he saw the sheer mass of stone and weathered rock.

“The Pikes.” he breathed softly, seeing those massive pillars that seemed to scrape the sky and pierce through the clouds. Birds circled eerily, their distant forms black against the sky. Against a green sky, and that was proof by itself that they neared the Outlands. A green haze crackled with darting sparks, giving the air an electric energy that tingled the hairs on his skin.

But his vision was drawn to the base of the mountain that they neared, where the stone had been broken. A massive hole—closer to a tunnel—had been bored seemingly through the entire mountain. They were no lights, shadows hiding the depths. Yet it was wide enough to easily fit three carriages side to side, high enough for man to stand on a wagon. And then he saw the men standing at the entrance—only those creatures were not men.

The first had a hunched body with unnaturally long arms that fell to the ground. Thick cords of muscle wrapped around shoulders almost as broad as two men, ending with spade-like claws. A calloused hide covered its body, with ridges of bone running down its back. Its face bore a squashed nose revealing a squat, wide mouth lined with rows of thin teeth. Two massive yellow eyes sat in its skull, seemingly too-large to even rotate; the creature was forced twitch his head just to adjust its field of view.

The second was a bat-like thing, with two pairs of leathery wings for arms. They seemed more like gliders than wings, running from torso along the sides of the chest all the way to the tip of the tail, supported by spiny protrusions. Three claws tipped the limb, wickedly curved like a scythe. Even worse were the feet, scaled like a bird’s legs with talons large enough to serve as knives. Its face was long and tapered, with a bizarre beak that held serrated teeth inside. Beady eyes darted incessantly and independently of each other, constantly searching around.

“Be quiet, boy.” Master Hassan whispered, and he swallowed nervously before nodding in agreement. These things, they were demons—from the stories. But demons were animals, bestial and simple minded. They were servants at best, back when the faith used them as protectors of steeples. These demons seemed nothing of the sort; they eyed the two with a casual ease, sniffing the air for their scent.

Wordlessly, his master stopped the horse before disembarking with shaking fingers. The horse seemed ready to bolt at any moment, frozen in fear for the moment. The boy hurriedly carried a sack from the back of the cart, uncertain of what to do with it. His master pointed at the area in front of the demons, carrying a sack of his own, and the two approached in tenuous terror, slowly placing the seeds as if too fast a movement might cause those beasts to descend upon them with claws and teeth. The boy kept his eyes downcast, his heart pounding so loud he thought it might burst in his chest. Together they walked back to the cart, repeating the horrifying process in a silence so stark the winds themselves seemed to hold their breaths.

When they had finished, his master stood up with a head covered in sweat, looking nervously at the demons. The winged one pecked at one of the sacks, tearing open a ragged gash in the burlap as if it had been parchment, the seeds of azhe inside spilling onto the ground. It looked at its partner, nodding in a jerking motion that seemed almost like a bob of the neck. The big-eyed demon disappeared into the depths of the tunnel, returning after a brief moment with massive furs on its back. Brown and speckled, large enough to wrap around two grown men, they were undoubtedly direbear pelts. From the Outlands, the boy realized nervously, not daring to meet the demon in the eyes as it dropped them onto the ground with a cloud of dust.

Hurriedly, the boy and his master worked to load them onto the cart. The fur was soft as velvet, thick and of immaculate quality. The skinning had been done coarsely, muscle and tendon still stuck underneath, but refinement was a simple process. With skins like this, a fortune was too conservative a word.

Mounting the horse with a short huff, Master Hassan nodded to the demons. “P-pleasure doing business w-with you.” he stammered, uncharacteristically nervous. To the boy’s surprise, an answer came.

“The same.” grunted the big-eyed demon, with voice like grating stone and screaming steel. The two turned and disappeared back into that gaping maw in the mountain side, leaving the two men stunned in silence.

It was a few seconds before Master Hassan recovered, whispering softly to the boy, “Quickly now.” Hurriedly, they departed down the way that they had come, escape from these terrifying lands not coming swiftly enough. As they left, the boy snuck one last glimpse at the tunnel mouth. He noted dully that the sacks of seeds had all disappeared, only inhuman footprints in their place that led into the tunnel.