The Iron Chain

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You will honor me, sir, by raising your hands. You need not touch a particular cloud, but you will stretch in that direction or suffer the most dire consequences."

"And what consequences might those be?" harrumphed Claus van Clynne, settling his hands alongside his baggy russet coat as his gelding took a short, nervous pace to the side.

"I should not like to shoot you." The man locked his knees astride the gray-dappled horse blocking the path and flicked his coat back to reveal a well-polished flintlock pistol, cocked and aimed in the Dutchman's direction. "I must say, though, you would be an easy target, with so large a belly."

"Even the robbers take airs these days," complained van Clynne, who still made no movement to comply with the stranger's command.

Jake Gibbs, sitting on a black mare next to him, silently cursed his companion's obstinate nature. On the one hand, van Clynne's prickly sense of honor, not to mention his stubbornness, often proved valuable in difficult situations. On the other, it occasionally led him to annoy people at entirely the wrong moment, with difficult consequences.

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