The Dragon's Doom

1
To Conquer a Kingdom
 
 
The rattle of keys awakened an echo in that dark and stone-walled place, and then a heavy door scraped open, flooding torchlight into a damp darkness that had lasted for decades. Old Thannaso, who kept the locks and hinges—and the manacles that waited on the gigantic wall wheel within, gleaming now in the leaping flames—well oiled, was as blind as deep night, and so had no need to light his way when he worked.
A lithe, slender man who wore skintight garb of soft, smoky-gray leather on his body and a half-smile upon his darkly handsome face held the torch high and behind his own shoulder, to peer into all corners of the cell. A little water was seeping in high on the south wall, glistening as it ran down the stone, but of intruders—beyond a small, scuttling legion of spiders—he saw none. Craer Delnbone was one of the best procurers in all Asmarand…which is to say that after too many years of escapades enough for a dozen thieves, he was still alive. If Craer’s bright eyes saw no intruder, none was there.
The woman who followed at his elbow saw nothing either. She was ... read full excerpt from: The Dragon's Doom ebook