The Hero, the Sword and the Dragons by Craig Halloran

Author:Craig Halloran
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780988464261
Publisher: Two-Ten Book Press
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

No one outside seemed to mind as we pushed our way through the bewildered crowd of the neighborhood, loaded our prisoner on my horse, and galloped towards a part of town I knew better. The authorities weren’t likely to give much chase, if they even bothered at all. Some parts of the city were void of the common rules of order.

“Here,” I said to Brenwar, turning my steed inside a large barn of stables.

A stable hand, a young man, straw colored hair, and sandaled, greeted us with an eerie glance at my wriggling captive.

“No questions,” I said, handing him a few coins.

“No problem,” he said with a smile as broad as an ogre's back.

Stables and barns are good places to do business, or interrogations, for that matter. No echoes, and the smell of manure tends to offend most people, keeps them away. I shoved the cleric from my saddle, and Brenwar dragged him inside the stables over the straw and stood watch outside.

As I said, the Clerics of Barnabus are an evil lot, and we go way back. The fact that one had already come after me was a stroke of luck, both good and bad. Bad, because they almost got me killed. Good, because this man would lead me to their next nefarious plot. Normally, some desperate person would tell me something or find someone that would, when I asked after dragon articles. I’d follow their information, and sometimes that led to a dead end, but oft times it led me to where I was going. The Clerics of Barnabus, it seemed, had become privy to my ways. And when it came to dragons, they had eyes and ears everywhere. From then on, I had to be more careful how I went about gathering information.

Now the hard part. Interrogation. Taking information from an unwilling mind by force. It wasn’t a very dragon-like way of doing things, but it didn’t always have to be brutal.

I pinned the man up against the wall by the neck and jerked the rag from his mouth. His impulse to scream was cut short as my fingers squeezed around his throat.

“Urk!”

“That’s a good little evil cleric. Keep quiet, and I’ll let you breathe.” I squeezed a little harder, forcing his eyes open wider. “I talk. You answer, quietly. Understand?”

He blinked.

That was pretty much all he could do, and I took it as a definitive yes. I could tell by the tattoos on his head that this acolyte was only a few notches above a lackey of the cult. He had some magic, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

“See my dwarven friend over there?” I said.

Brenwar peered inside, holding a manure shovel in his hand.

“Look at what he does to people that don’t cooperate.”

He took the shovel, blacksmith hands holding both ends of the wooden handle, and grunted.

Snap!

The skin on the cleric’s already gaunt face paled. His eyes blinked rapidly.

“Now, I’d say that shovel’s thicker than your skinny bones. So, I suggest you answer my questions, in detail, or you’ll be going home in a wheelbarrow.

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