Faithful Pebble
Part Eighteen
He could smell the alcohol on the man's breath tainting the air, baptizing his nostrils with sour drunken filth. It only seemed to paint the alleyway an even dirtier dusty brown, a sickly shade of olive green that seemed to seep into the man's greasy hair, rugged whiskered dotted chin and jealous filled eyes. They were blood shot and narrow, glassy sunken slits carved beneath a face that was almost too handsome.
He sneered, the drunk, the young warrior, the man pretending to be a boy—no, strike that. Reverse it. He lifted his gloved armored hands and fisted them into the wanderer's tattered jacket slamming him up against the side of the village tavern. They were out of sight, hidden from everyone except for clear wide peeking little eyes, snotty noses and dirty itchy fingers, things well below the notice of a budding hero. Said hero grunted, "What do you have in the bag?"
The rope was coiled around the wanderer's left shoulder. It was obvious and so the sojourner blinked up at him, his hands open and mouth gaping. "M-my lunch and—"
"You goin' to the well?" the hero interrupted. The young man tightened his grip around the wanderer's collar lifting him easily off his feet. "You goanna save her?"
The man, seeing something darken in the hero's eyes, licked his lips and shook his head. "No, I'm only hunting. The rope is my normal weapon for ensnaring game. I figured I'd just catch something to sell in town before I make my way elsewhere. You can look through my bag. I have knives and skins and—"
"She belongs to me." The hero had listened long enough. He interrupted just to make his point then suddenly, as if the encounter hadn't happened, the man started to laugh. Plopping the wanderer on his feet, he dusted off his jacket and then fetched his sack. It was filled as the "hunter" had said with an addition of a warped basket in which his lunch was housed. He pilfered the rum cake then thrust everything into the wanderer's fumbling hands. "Good luck hunting," he snickered.
Again, the wanderer licked his lips. In silence, he watched the young warrior stagger away his eyes hard, his jaw tight.
He looked down the well.
"No, the girl answered. "It's my fault that I am down here. No one has…"
You are lying to me, he thought.
Thank you for reading. Calla