DRAGONSGATE: Preludes & Omens (Bitterwood Series Book 6) by James Maxey

Author:James Maxey
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Word Balloon Books!
Published: 2018-09-20T18:30:00+00:00

Hurt

HER FATHER’S EYES revealed his thoughts more clearly than his words, Anza thought.

To a casual listener, Burke sounded calm, even disinterested, as he spoke to the shackled and bruised prisoner on his knees before him.

“You’re going to be hung, Cain,” Burke said, in the same tones he might have used to say, “It’s going to rain later,” or “I think it’s time for lunch.” But in Burke’s eyes, Anza saw hatred, contempt, and something close to rage. Beneath this, in the way he stood and breathed, in the stiffness of his neck and the tension of his torso, she saw something more terrible. Her father was afraid, and not with a fear that pushes a man to fight. Instead, her father stared into a pit of bottomless despair he might never climb out from if he toppled.

“I didn’t do anything!” Cain screamed, the iron chain around his neck rattling. “I tell you I lost the gun!”

“No,” said Burke. “Two weeks ago you reported that your gun had misfired and that the barrel had split apart. You said you tossed it into the river so that the three earth-dragons pursuing you couldn’t get their hands on it, then proceeded to fight them off with your sword. It was quite the tale of heroism. You even had the scabs and bruises to show from the fight.”

“Because it really happened!” said Cain.

Burke nodded. “I believe a fight happened. But you weren’t fighting dragons. You got into a fight with the man you were riding with, Jubal. You told us the dragons killed him, and you didn’t know what had happened to his rifle.”

“I swear that’s the truth!”

“Burke,” said the third man in the room, standing next to the door, looking doubtful. “I’ve known Cain a long time. He’s a god-fearing man, one of Ragnar’s first converts. Why would you— ”

Burke glowered at the speaker, his stern expression bringing the big man to silence. The new focus of her father’s disapproval was Stonewall, captain of the rangers, and the man who’d assured Burke that Cain could be trusted when the gun had first gone missing. Stonewall wasn’t an easy man to intimidate. He was unnaturally tall, seven feet if not a few inches more, with a muscular build that made him look as solid as his namesake.

“Stonewall, you said you’d checked out his story,” said Burke.

“I had no reason to doubt his word. I still don’t.”

“Your blind trust in this fool might doom us all.”

Stonewall didn’t respond to this, but his face was easy to read. He still hoped that Cain was innocent, that everything was a misunderstanding. At the same time, in the fine lines around his eyes and mouth, she saw a second emotion. Guilt. Part of him worried that the accusations were true, and the failure to discover Cain’s treachery before now was entirely his fault. Anza felt sorry for Stonewall. She’d fought side by side with him when breaking Vulpine’s siege of Dragon Forge. He’d saved her life. She had

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