The market was crowded. Lizards and other scalies moved about freely from stall to stall inspecting the wares, while the furs, whether chained to walls or shuffling in coffles, were the wares. The wolfess hadn’t seen much of the market. She had been lead through some of it on the way in, but since then she hadn’t moved from the post where she had been displayed for sale. Like all the other girls that had been chained up waiting to be slaughtered, she had listened to the screams of the dying off in the distance. Now as she was lead away in a coffle, the screams were growing louder. Their minders didn’t need to tell her that they were being taken to slaughter. The line of condemned furs came to a halt, each girl bumping into the one in front. The wolfess was somewhere in the middle, and could only just see the front girl being chained to a post while their guards went to talk with some merchant or butcher. Her head snapped to the side when she heard a scream ring out close by. “No-no-no-NO. You can’t! Please NO! Let me GO!” A butchers shop on the corner of two roads had a gallows set up down the side of the building. It was little more than a wooden bar supported by two legs at either end, but four vixens were already hanging by their necks from it. The screams and fuss were coming from the fifth, who two lizards had just brought round from the back and were now binding up to be hung. The lizards, who appeared to be butcher and apprentice, were having no problems containing the screaming vixen. The older one was simply holding the doomed fur by her arms, which had been bound behind her back. Meanwhile the younger of the two, presumably an apprentice, was kneeling on the ground in front of the girl, trying to tie her legs together without getting kicked in the face. The girl put up a fierce fight, but it would only prolong her life a few seconds. When the wolf looked closer the apprentice had simply wrapped her legs in something that looked like a belt. It was well worn, and presumably could be reused on the next piece of meat. Meanwhile the other four vixens struggled and kicked as best they could on the gallows. They too had their arms and legs bound. As one of them, a silver fox, turned on her rope the wolfess could see that each girl had the same fur dye tattoo on their right ass cheek and breast. By the way she kicked and screamed, the fiery orange vixen they were adding to the gallows was a wild tribal girl that had been captured. No properly raised cattle girl would make anything like that much fuss on her way to be slaughtered. From the shared tattoos, the five girls were presumably from the same tribe. “NO PLEASE” the still screaming girl screeched as the butcher picked her up and dropped her feet onto a long stump under the middle of the gallows, between the other four vixens. “WE’LL DO ANYTHING, Just let us down” she screamed as the butcher tossed the rope forming her noose over the bar. The apprentice caught it, gave it a tug and passed it back to the butcher to throw over the bar again. The pair were obviously experienced and had the rope secured in moments. The wolfess wondered if the vixens were sisters. They looked fairly similar, although their fur patterns varied. The girls were almost certainly being culled for their pelts, the lizards only bothered to hang a girl when their pelts were worth enough to not sully. Besides the silver and red fox, there was a vixen with pearly white fur, one with a reddish marble pattern and a light grey platinum fox. The wolfess did not have a pelt worth skinning, and was probably going to be butchered alive. “Please don’t do this” the vixen broke down sobbing with her last words before the apprentice plucked the stump from under her legs and the screaming finally stopped. The screaming nearby at least, now the wolfess could hear the more distant cries of pain and sobs of fear as the five vixens slowly strangled. The pair of lizards paid no heed to their victims as they walked back into the shop, the younger carrying the stump with him. The last vixen to be strung up kicked about furiously as she dangled from her neck. Her face was a mix of fury, fear and indignation. The other foxes on the gallows were faring worse, and the wolfess could tell what order they had been hung from how much they were still struggling. The platinum vixen was barely still moving, but still probably had a minute left to live. The wolfess had been paying attention to the the vixens, so only just noticed as the girl in front of her started to move. She hurried along before the chains linking the front and rear of their collars pulled taut. The wolfess moving along as coffle worked its way towards their painful fate. She glanced over her shoulder one last time at the group of vixens swinging on their gallows. The white vixen had exhausted herself from thrashing, the silver fox now only twitched on her rope and the last to be added had started to cry.