The Horse Race (The Crowder Chronicles)

Story night at the Adventurers Club is a monthly affair…

… A time for telling true, or tall depending on the teller, tales of faraway lands and the people who live there.

To the biggest crowd in Club history, Jacob tells the story of Abaja and Samira, the horse and woman who stole his heart in a desert halfway across the world.

Love is a harsh mistress and the Fates care not at all what they do; giving with one hand and taking away with the other with no thought to consequences. Any man can survive being shot in the back. Losing the woman he loves can have that same man inviting Death to his hearth.

Raymondo de Santonia’s fragile ego is thick as a piece of paper and about as sturdy. He’s a liar, a cheat, a man completely without honor. A man for whom public opinion mattered more than anything else. He would put Crowder in his place, even if he had to cheat to do it.

In a tale spanning two long nights, the story is told and the grudge is born.