Well of Sorrows by Benjamin Tate Read Free Book Online Page A

bright outer sunlight. He stumbled down the steps, stood blinking as his eyes adjusted, his hand squeezed tight on the sling as anger assailed him. An anger tinged with doubt, with guilt.
    He wondered what his mother would think of what he intended to do. His mother, who wore Diermani’s tilted cross on a chain around her neck.
    He shoved the doubt aside, shot a glare toward Sartori’s estate, thought about the Armory on the wharf, of his father’s face every time he returned from town with nothing. The scent of wood filled his nostrils. Then he turned and headed farther south, toward the warehouses, toward the end of Water Street.
    Toward where he knew Walter and his gang would be.

     
    He saw Walter, Brunt, Gregor, and Rick before they saw him. Even then, fear tingled through his skin, setting the hairs on the backs of his arms on end and settling with an all too familiar queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. One hand clutching unconsciously to the satchel at his side, he ducked out of sight behind another warehouse. Breath coming fast and harsh, he fought the urge to run, to flee back to Lean-to, back to the quiet of the plains. He thought of how they’d beaten him until he’d pissed his pants, thought about how they’d humiliated him, how they’d driven him from the town too many times since then to count . . . and when his breath had slowed enough that he was no longer panting, when the fear had abated enough that he could loosen the fist that clenched the sling, he shifted to the corner and peered around it to watch.
    “Move faster, you slackers!” Walter bellowed, leaning against a cask set to the side of the warehouse door. Behind him, his cronies snickered where they lounged among a stack of empty crates and barrels. “My father wants this cart unloaded and back to the wharf before the next ship arrives.”
    The leader of the work crew cast Walter a dark glare, but he said, “You heard the little whore’s son. Let’s get this cart finished, lads.”
    Walter bristled, face going a stark red, the leader of the crew barely containing a smile as Walter’s gang burst out in laughter. One of the crew grinned, then heaved and swung one of the heavy sacks up onto his shoulder with a grunt.
    Before he’d gone two steps, Walter shifted away from the cask and caught the man’s ankle with his foot.
    The man staggered, tried to catch his balance, but Walter jerked his foot from underneath him, and he crashed to the street with a curse. The sack landed with the rip of burlap. Grain hissed from the rent in the sack, spreading across the ground in a smooth fan of gold.
    The leader of the crew leaped forward and knelt beside his worker. “What in the seven hells happened?”
    “His little royal pissant tripped me,” the man growled, wincing as he tried to move his shoulder.
    The leader glared at Walter, the tolerant anger he’d shown before now slipping into rage.
    “I did no such thing,” Walter said. “Your incompetent worker fell. Isn’t that right, Brunt?”
    Walter’s heavy sidled up to Walter’s back. “Yup. He fell. Tripped over his own feet.”
    “The sad sack can’t even carry a sack of grain,” Rick threw in from behind, then began to giggle.
    Colin’s shoulders tensed, right between the shoulder blades, and he found himself breathing harder.
    The leader stood slowly, the rest of the work crew halting and gathering behind him. He stepped over the fallen man’s body. Walter faced the man with confidence, his grin not faltering until the moment the leader’s hand snaked out, gripped Walter by the front of his shirt, and hauled him in close.
    “I’ve had enough of your attitude,” he said, voice low, but carrying in the sudden deathly silence, “and of you throwing out orders like you’re the Proprietor himself. You’re nothing but the second son of a privileged landholder. A bastard son at that. You won’t amount to anything.”
    Then he pulled back, hand clenched into a tight fist.