The Beast Hunters: the Beast Hunter of Ashbourn, #1 by Christer Lende

Author:Christer Lende
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, epic, beast hunter, monster, beast, creature, dragon
Publisher: C. A. Lende Publishing
Published: 2022-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

A Meeting with the Gallows

The cells were cold and poorly lit, the air damp. Occasionally, a tear ran down her cheek, but the heaviest crying was over. Ara rested her head against the rock wall behind her. No matter how much time passed, her heart and her breathing wouldn’t calm. Her fingers wouldn’t stop shaking.

Topper was in the next cell, separated by the stone wall. “This is terrible,” he said. “We have to find Robert.”

What if the dwarves were about to abduct him, and they couldn’t save him because of the constables? Had they solved this piece of the puzzle, only to fail to save Robert?

“Are they going to kill us?” she finally dared to ask. The question had been running through her mind for hours, but her brain wouldn’t let her form the words, too afraid of the answer. Her question echoed through the empty cells. They were all alone. Perhaps there were other sections of the prison with more cells, where other criminals were locked up.

“I don’t know,” Topper said. “But if so, I will take all the blame.”

“What?” she asked. “No, I—”

“Ara, listen to me. If they, for some screwed up reason, want our lives, I’ll take all the blame.”

“I can’t let you—”

“Yes, you can.” Topper swallowed hard. “Trust me, it will all be okay.”

“No, I can’t—”

“Promise me, Ara!”

She had never heard him this stern before, his words bouncing back and forth between the prison walls.

“Trust me when I say, it’s going to be okay.”

“How can it be?” she asked.

Khendric and Topper had changed her life in a way she had never believed possible. They had given her the chance to find herself again, to piece herself back together, proving there was always hope, even in the darkest of times. Her life after Alena’s death wasn’t a life worth living. Yet from the mud that had been her life, a flower had blossomed the day they saved her from the rura. It flourished tall, stretching toward the sun—oblivious to the coming wind. It howled and she struggled to stay rooted. She wiped away the seemingly eternal tears.

“Topper,” she said through her sobs. “What if this is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if this was all the time we had together? And now comes the end.”

“Stop, what are you talking about?” He lowered his voice. “Khendric is still out there.”

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and rested her face in her palms. “He can’t break into a prison, Topper, and he has probably gone to save Robert from the dwarves.”

No answer.

“Just let me take all the blame if so,” he finally said.

“I can’t do that.”

“Listen, Ara,” he said. It sounded as though he had moved closer to the bars. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“What?”

“There’s a reason you must put the blame on me.”

A heavy metal door opened and the noise rang loudly through the cells. Several sets of footsteps approached. Four constables stopped in front of their cells, with Officer Martyn in the middle. His sickening smile put fear into Ara’s heart, her stomach felt like it was full of squirming eels.

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