Dragon Precinct Read Online Free PDF Page A

right-handed.
    An armed and armored priest. Interesting.
    As he sat down on one of Olaf’s wobbly wooden chairs, Genero offered the blessings of Temisa on the Cliff’s End Castle Guard, to which Danthres grunted indifferently. Although both sides of her heritage had numerous religious traditions, Danthres had not been raised in any of them during her childhood in Sorlin; that sort of thing didn’t go on there, particularly when she was a girl. What she’d seen since departing that place—both before and after getting involved with law enforcement in Cliff’s End—led her to think that the gods were capricious at best.
    “It’s such a tragic waste,” Genero said, looking down at the floor. “I have to admit, I never thought that Gan would go on to greet the next life in this way. I expected him to die in a fight—or failing that, as an old man in bed surrounded by beautiful women. Perhaps Temisa has rewarded him with that in the afterlife.”
    “Perhaps,” Danthres said dryly, wondering if everyone was going to comment on the unexpectedness of Brightblade’s mode of dying, “but I’m more concerned with how he got there.”
    Genero looked over at the wall. “I’m sure it was just an accident. He’d been drinking quite a bit, and he could be a very clumsy drunk.”
    “So you don’t think he was murdered?”
    “No, of course not.” He peered up at the ceiling. “Gan was one of the great heroes of our time.”
    “They tend to be the ones with the longest list of enemies.”
    Now, finally, Genero looked at Danthres. “I can assure you, Lieutenant, that all of Gan’s enemies are quite dead.”
    “Really?” Danthres asked dubiously. “How lucky for him.” She leaned back in her own chair. “I’m told, Brother, that you and Mr. Brightblade arrived here along with five others. What was your business in Cliff’s End?”
    “We were on our way to hire a boat. In fact, Gan and I planned to go to the Docklands to begin the hiring process this morning.” He smiled slightly, the first time his facial expression had truly changed since he walked in. “Obviously, that will have to be postponed.”
    “Obviously,” Danthres said, making a mental note to send a message to Mermaid Precinct to have their foot patrols keep an eye out on the Docklands for the remaining six members of this little group. If any of them made any move to hire a boat, she and Torin needed to know about it. “Where were you headed?”
    “No place in particular.” Genero again looked at the wall. “We were simply looking to take a voyage onto the Garamin Sea and enjoy ourselves.”
    It was everything Danthres could do to keep from laughing out loud. “A ‘voyage’?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just to some random destination on the Garamin?”
    Again, Genero looked at Danthres. “You seem to have trouble believing me.”
    You don’t know the half of it. “Look at it from my perspective, Brother—the idea that an elf and a dwarf would take a pleasure cruise together is a difficult one for me to wrap my mind around. Add in that they’re taking it with three humans and two halflings, and I’m afraid I find it impossible to believe that it’s just for pleasure.”
    Genero nodded. “I can see why you in particular would think that, given your background.”
    Danthres’s mood soured even further. But then, her dual heritage was fairly obvious. Her face combined the worst elements of the two races: her mother’s wide nose, large brown eyes, and shallow cheekbones did not go at all with her father’s pointed ears, high forehead, or thin lips.
    “I’m sorry,” Genero said quickly, “I didn’t mean to give offense.”
    Favoring the priest with her nastiest smile, Danthres said, “When you’ve given me offense, Brother, you won’t have any trouble knowing it.”
    “No doubt. I assume, based on your age and accent, that your parents’ union was not a happy one?”
    Danthres’s first rule of interrogation was that she asked all