Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

When one of the wagon wheels cracked, the driver plowing into a stone he couldn’t see in the darkness, Colin’s father reluctantly called a halt, and the wagons broke and made camp for the night. Tensions were high, men and women snapping at each other as food was prepared, as Paul and the others worked late into the night repairing the wagon wheel, cursing everything and everyone in sight. Colin and Karen settled down near one of the wagons on the grass, both ordered to try to sleep by Colin’s mother as she bustled from one end of the camp to the other. They stared up into the black, featureless sky, listening to activity on all sides-the cursing, the pounding of tools, the sharp cry of a child hushed harshly by a woman’s voice-until Colin heard Karen shift in the darkness, rolling onto her side, elbow propped on the ground.

“Are you scared?” she whispered.

Colin almost lied to her, the words instinctive. But then he thought of the gallows, of the horror of watching the wagon crash down the Bluff, of the terror of hearing the dwarren attacking, of fumbling with the ties on the wagons and smelling the smoke as the people inside cried out and scrabbled at the hides that trapped them.

“Yes,” he murmured and was shocked to hear exactly how scared he was in the roughness of his voice. His could feel his heart beating, faster than usual, and he couldn’t seem to make it slow down.

He jumped when he felt Karen’s hand come to rest on his chest, as if she could hear his heart as well. But then he realized she’d laid her hand over the pendant she’d given him, the vow.

His heart faltered.

“Colin,” she started to say, and Colin heard the question in her voice.

Before she continued, he said, without hesitation, “Yes.” He didn’t know when they’d have time to make the vow, but he knew he wanted it. They’d need Domonic to bind their blood together in the vial of the vow, to marry them in Diermani’s eyes. As a priest, he was the only one in the wagon train who could do it, the only one who had the power.

Karen was silent a long moment. He thought she was crying, but he wasn’t certain until she laid her head down on his chest and he felt the tears seeping through his shirt. He raised a hand tentatively to her head, and as he stroked her hair she nestled in closer. He could feel her trembling, could feel her silent sobs.

Eventually, he felt her grow still, heard her breathing slow. He began to drift off himself, but his mother’s and father’s voices drew him back.

“We’ll never be able to outrun them, Tom!” His mother’s voice was bitter, hard, but practical. “Not if they truly want to catch us. We’re being slowed down by the wagons, by those on foot. The dwarren have gaezels. And if what you say is true, they don’t have to worry about lugging around all of their supplies.”

“What do you expect me to do, Ana? We can’t just stop and hope to hold them off. Look at how many died when it was just a scouting party attacking us! Eleven men! Eleven! And this certainly isn’t a scouting party following us now.”

“What do the Alvritshai say? They seem rather calm about all of this.”

Colin’s father snorted. “They tried to warn us away, remember? They told us to head back west as soon as they found us. But no, we were too stubborn to listen to them.”

“Walter is.”

Colin tensed at the accusatory note in his mother’s voice, felt the same taint of hatred in his own chest. Karen stirred in her sleep as if troubled, then settled.

Colin’s father was silent a moment. Then: “It wasn’t Walter’s fault. And it wasn’t the Alvritshai’s fault either. None of us wanted to go back. We got ourselves into this mess because none of us has anything left to go back to in Portstown.”

Colin heard his mother sigh.

“What do they say now? Do they know what’s going on? Are the dwarren coming after us, as they did the previous wagon train? Gathering over a thousand men seems a little extreme to take out those of us that are left.” Bitterness had entered her voice again, and it made Colin shiver. He didn’t think they knew anyone could hear them. Their voices were soft, but unguarded. And he hadn’t moved since they’d arrived, hadn’t even opened his eyes.

Colin’s father didn’t say anything for long enough that Colin thought his parents had drifted asleep. But then: “If I understand Aeren, there’s more than one group of dwarren. This group isn’t really after us. Apparently, the groups are at war, and we’ve accidentally stumbled into the middle of an upcoming battle. We’re trapped between three forces-the dwarren we saw to the west, another group coming up from the south, from across the underground river, and a third coming down from the northeast. From what Aeren says, the dwarren have been fighting each other-and the Alvritshai-for years.”

“There are more Alvritshai out there?”

“Apparently Aeren is leading a small scouting party of his own, some kind of trial. He’s sent the others back to warn the rest of the main group to the north.”

“Why didn’t he go himself? Why didn’t he just abandon us?”

“Eraeth’s been trying to convince him to do just that, but I think he feels responsible for us. He led us to the previous wagon train, right into the middle of the upcoming battle. He intended for us to see the burned out wagons and turn back west, but he didn’t know the dwarren were gathering, didn’t expect to run into their scouting party. He’s made some type of vow to get us out if he can.”

Before Colin’s mother could respond, a low grumbling roll of thunder came from the northeast. The grass rustled as both his parents shifted position, and then his father swore.

“The storm’s going to pass right over us,” he said. “It’s going to slow us down even more.”

“But if the dwarren are fighting their own people, or they’re gathering to fight the Alvritshai, they probably don’t care about us,” Colin’s mother said. “We should be able to escape them.”

“Not if we can’t get out of their way. And right now, according to Aeren, we’re caught neatly in the middle of them all. Our only chance is to head east, as fast as possible.”

As if in answer, lightning flared, bright enough and close enough that Colin could see it through his eyelids. Thunder followed, but not closely. The storm was still distant.

“We’ll have to move as soon as the wagon wheel is repaired,” Colin’s father said when the thunder had growled down into silence. “If we hope to have any chance of escaping, we’ll have to travel all night, storm or not.”

Colin heard his mother shift, knew she had stood by the sound of her voice. “I’ll spread the word. You go check on the repairs.”

He must have dozed after they moved off, because the next thing he knew, his mother was shaking him and Karen awake, and the storm was almost on top of them.

“Get as many of the kids into the wagon as possible and then head out!” she shouted over the wind. “Stay close to the wagon!” In a flash of lightning, he saw his mother’s face, the lines of age he’d never seen there before stark, the gray in her hair he’d never noticed glowing silver as the wind blew it into her eyes and she pulled it aside in annoyance. The resultant crack of thunder shuddered in Colin’s skin as he scrambled to his feet, Karen beside him. And then darkness descended, so complete he couldn’t see his mother anymore, could barely see Karen’s face though she was standing right beside him, her hand closed about his upper arm.

“What about the storm?” Karen yelled. “Shouldn’t we wait it out?”

“There’s no time! We’ll have to weather through it!” Ana replied. Her voice came out of the night, torn by the wind, but they both knew she’d moved on to the next wagon.