Renegade Heart Read Free Page A

take a sip of water from the tin cup beside his bed. He drank gratefully and then dropped his head back against the pillow.
    “I don’t know,” Enola answered once he was settled again. “Mistress Valistra won’t tell me, but I know it was the Orphan Master.”
    Her words stirred up a hazy memory of the Orphan Master coming at him with his heavy cane raised. Beyond that he struggled to remember anything except the pain.
    “There was someone else,” he said with a troubled frown. “Someone holding me.”
    “Fadiosa,” Enola muttered darkly.
    “Fadiosa?” Wolf echoed, nodding as a little more of the fog cleared in his head. “She was on the desk.”
    “Why?” Enola asked, innocently assuming Fadiosa must have been bent over the desk for a punishment. “Do you think she had done something bad?”
    “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. She was as angry with me as the Orphan Master.”
    “Well, she’s gone anyway,” Enola told him and relief flooded his aching body. “Mistress Valistra sent her away and has taken a new apprentice. The Orphan Master asked to see you and Mistress Valistra refused. I heard her say if he came near the infirmary she would tell his wife.”
    Puzzled, Wolf shook his head, unable to understand why the Orphan Master’s wife should care if her husband visited him or not.
    “I thought they were going to kill me,” he said suddenly. He could still not remember everything that had happened that day, but the fear remained with him as vividly as the cut on his cheek. He lifted one hand and his fingers gingerly traced the ridge of scar that stretched from just below his left eye to the corner of his mouth. “I’m going to run away.”
    Enola gaped at him, opened mouthed. “But where will you go?”
    “Don’t know. Anywhere but here.”
    “What about me?” Enola asked, her lips quivering as she struggled not to cry.
    “I’ll come back for you,” Wolf promised. “However many turns it takes, I will make my fortune and build us a home. Then I will come back and take you away. I promise.”
    Two days later, Wolf was released from the infirmary and, true to his word, by early evening he had gone.

The next morning, having spent a sleepless night in a cold, damp alleyway, the boy made his way to the city limits. Wolf was no stranger to the bustling city beyond the orphanage. Although many of the older children had ventured forth on errands for Valistra or the Orphan Master, he doubted any of them had explored The Walled City as thoroughly as he had. Whenever he played truant from lessons or prayers, he spent his time roaming the streets and finding his way around. Often, he had to hide from the City Watchmen lest they think him a runaway and now that he was one, he would be wise to travel through the city with extra care. He dared not even imagine the beating he would get if he were caught and returned to the orphanage.
    Wolf’s aim was to somehow sneak through the guarded city gates and into the vast open countryside beyond. Renegade country. The very word made his heart leap with excitement. Even in the orphanage, stories reached them of the savage renegade bands who roamed the land. Bands consisting of deserters from the King’s Army and criminals who had fled from the townships. Opposed to the King’s Law, they raided merchant wagons and robbed unwary travellers. Sometimes, the merchants and travellers were foolish enough to defend their wares and inevitably ended up dying for their misplaced bravery. The younger children would squeal in mock terror at the tales, but Wolf listened, enthralled. To him, the life of a renegade sounded like freedom and adventure.
    He had heard the adults at the orphanage say he was stupid, just because he did not know his letters and numbers the way Enola and the other children did. But Wolf was smarter than any of them gave him credit for. He knew the things that mattered. Knew he wanted to be a renegade one day and no amount of reading and