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. Colin felt hope surge up into this throat, almost fell out of his hiding place behind the warehouse But then someone muttered, “What’s going on here?”
A man emerged from a cross street, accompanied by a contingent of Armory guardsmen dressed like those Colin had seen on the dock. The man was dressed in the fine silks of the nobility-white shirt with ruffles at the neck and down the front, loose sleeves, a blue vest over it with gold-painted buttons and gilt stitching. The tailored brown breeches were tucked into knee-high boots. He wore a powdered wig, the hair stark white in the sunlight, and a hat whose sides were folded up to form a rough triangle.
Everyone in the work crew-and in Walter’s gang-froze. The leader of the crew lowered his fist and released Walter’s shirt with obvious reluctance before stepping back.
“Nothing, Proprietor Sartori. We’ve simply had a… mishap.”
Sartori held the leader’s gaze a moment, then shot a glance toward Walter. The lines around his eyes and mouth tightened. “Is this true, Walter? Was this an accident?”
Walter tried to flatten the creases in his shirt as he answered. “Yes, sir. An accident.”
Sartori drew in a deep breath. “I see. Accidents seem to happen on a regular basis in your vicinity.” Walter seemed about to protest, but his father cut him off. “I don’t recall sending you here to oversee this shipment.”
“You didn’t. But I thought with my brother out at the new mill-”
“That you could be helpful. Ah, yes. I understand. Since it appears that this shipment is almost unloaded, perhaps you could be helpful… elsewhere.”
A black look crossed Walter’s face, but he hid it from his father by looking toward the ground. “Yes, sir.”
Turning toward his gang, he motioned Brunt, Gregor, and Rick down the street, heading directly toward Colin. Behind them, the leader of the crew attempted to apologize, but Sartori waved him silent.
“Clean this up as best you can,” the Proprietor said. “Then report to the docks. I’m expecting the arrival of the Tradewind today, along with… someone of significance to the West Wind Trading Company. I need you there.”
And then Colin heard Walter mutter, “Look what I see, boys. A loiterer from Lean-to.”
Colin’s gaze dropped from Sartori to Walter, now only twenty paces away.
His heart leaped into his throat. Then he spat a curse and dodged behind the cover of the warehouse.
He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, down the length of the warehouse, the tread of Walter’s gang close behind. As soon as they were out of sight of his father, Walter began calling out names, taunting Colin as he ran, joined by Brunt and Gregor and Rick. Pulse thudding in his neck, in his chest, Colin cut left at the end of the street, cut right again after that, slipping in the dry grit of the street as he took the corner too fast. Catching himself with his left arm, he rolled, hip hitting the hard-packed earth with a wrench, but he used the momentum to swing back up into a crouch and then leaped forward. It gave him a brief glance of Walter and his gang coming up from behind. But the older boys weren’t moving fast, had barely managed to close any distance at all, confident they would catch up.
And after the incident with Sartori, blind and stupid enough to continue following him.
Colin suppressed a grin, then sprinted for the far end of the street.
When Walter and his gang finally rounded the last corner, they found Colin standing in the middle of the back street, feet spread, satchel on the ground to one side, waiting. All four of them ground to a halt, Brunt snorting in derision.
“Looks like the Bontari squatter is begging for a bruising,” he muttered.
Colin said nothing, which made Walter frown. He shifted to the front of the group, wary, Brunt to his immediate left, Gregor and Rick to his right, but a step behind. Only Gregor seemed to pick up on Walter’s hesitation.
Walter’s gaze flicked down toward Colin’s satchel, then toward the hand Colin held behind his back. “What do you have in your hand?”
Colin brought his hand forward. A strange prickling sensation coursed through his skin. Fear and excitement and anticipation all mixed together smothered him like a wool blanket, so thick it felt hard to breathe.
“It’s something my father gave me,” he said.
He let the pouch go, but held onto the knot, felt the cords unravel, felt the sling jerk when it reached the end of the straps, then swing there, a stone already in place.
Gregor sucked in a sharp breath, but Walter and the rest frowned in confusion.
“What is it?” Rick asked.
“It’s a sling.” Gregor had already taken a step backward, had begun to turn.
Walter’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Colin. “He doesn’t know how to use it.”
Colin smiled. A moment before Gregor broke and ran, he saw a flicker of doubt in Walter’s eyes.
Colin wound up and threw without any conscious thought, the tingling sensation surging through his arms, into his fingers.
Gregor was the tallest of the four, the easiest to target, the easiest to hit. The stone struck him in the back of the head before he’d taken three steps and he fell to the ground like a sack of grain, landing with a dull thud, arms and legs loose and gangly, dust rising in a puff.
“Diermani’s balls!” Brunt shouted. Rick took a step away from Gregor’s body, eyes wide.
Walter didn’t even turn to look. His entire face had gone taut with rage.
Colin slipped another stone into the sling, began twirling it by his side.
“Is he dead?” Walter asked.
Rick hesitated, then sidled close enough he could look and still keep Colin in sight. Colin had used an underhanded swing to hit Gregor, not an overhead one, and he hadn’t used enough force to kill, but he’d learned that you could never be certain of the outcome when dealing with a sling.
“He’s still breathing,” Rick said, his voice cracking with relief.
“Good.” Walter’s eye darkened. “Brunt, take care of the little pissant.”
