Redheart (Leland Dragon Series) Read Free Page A

ear sticking out like a flag on a banner wagon.”
    “I gave you a new bowl free of charge, didn’t I?” growled an enormous man emerging from a door behind the bar. He planted fat hands on the wood, his belly squeezed against its edge. His nose was wide. Rust-colored hair clung in fuzzy patches to his head. “And it wasn’t just her cooking losing my customers. The sight of her,” he said, and shuddered.
    “Kept the rats away, though!” said the barkeep. More laughter hit the roof. The men clanked their tankards together and drank to that.
    Jastin couldn’t help but chuckle. For such a desolate town, spirits were high in the Brown Barrel Inn. Now was the time to strike. He set his tankard on the bar. “Rats, maybe, but what about dragons?”
    The laughter silenced. Men at the bar exchanged looks. “It’s just a word,” Jastin said, and rested his elbows on the bar, eyeing the men. “No dragon trouble in this town? Is that what your sign means?”
    The silence continued for some minutes, until the barkeep set his hand on the bar. “You got an interesting way of making conversation, stranger, but you’re right about our sign. No dragons around here, not for a long time.” He poured a fresh mug of ale, and pushed it toward Jastin with a pointed look.
    “Just curious, my friends,” said Jastin. “I’ve had run-ins with a dragon or two, myself, and I like swapping stories while I drink.” He tugged his coin pouch from his waist, and let the heaviness of it thud to the bar.
    A wrinkled old man stared at Jastin’s full pouch, and then lifted his chin. “Dragons ate my goats last summer. Ever’ last one, they did.” He looked into his empty mug and sighed. “Spent ever’ last copper I had on a new herd.”
    Dark frowns settled onto the old man. Jastin only smiled, and clapped him on the back. “Barkeep,” he said. “A filled tankard for my friend.”
    After another short lull, a mousy and toothless man rose from his stool. “I seen a dragon.” He offered his empty tankard with grimy hands.
    “Is that so?” Jastin caught the barkeep’s eye and nodded to the man’s empty mug. It was filled, too.
    Another man spoke out, then another. Voices ran over top of voices as Jastin settled comfortably onto his barstool. The men clamored for ale as their stories of dragons spilled from their mouths like sap from the willow trees. Each man’s gory details bested the one before him.
    Then a young man stood up in a darkened corner of the room. His hair was long and stringy, and the color of dung. “Hey,” he called out over the others. “I seen a dragon. Day before yesterday. Right outside the village.”
    All eyes in the tavern turned. Jastin raised his eyebrows. “You don’t say.” He carried a fresh, foamy mug of warm ale to the man and held it out. “Tell me about it.”

Chapter Four
     
    “My fellow dragons,” Fordon Blackclaw announced in his carefully practiced bellow. His ebony claws gripped the carved podium at the center of the dragon council arena. “As leader of your honorable council, it is my oath-bound duty to remind you that this conflict is not in the best interest of the Dragon-Human Relations Pact.”
    “We have a right to speak our minds,” called a Green, whom Blackclaw didn’t recognize.
    Leaning aside, he whispered to Fane Whitetail, his advisor. “Who speaks?”
    Fane squinted across the stadium. “He is too young to be Min Greenscale, though he bears the same snout. Perhaps a son?”
    Blackclaw looked out across the arena that was writhing with scaly dragon heads and spines. He hadn’t seen so many tribes gathered in one place, even here on Mount Gore, in a number of years. He was heartened, and sucked in a deep breath of pride. His ideas were working. His ending would come to pass. Anticipation raised wetness at the back of his throat, and he had to swallow to keep from spraying spittle when he next spoke. “It is true, honorable Kind, that you have the right to speak