Chapter 4Even as he took a seat in the parlor at Raven’s Peak and stretched his long, sore limbs toward the snapping fire in the hearth, Canaan had a difficult time completely shaking off the strangling dread that had plagued him since the campsite. Although it had lessened somewhat, it nevertheless continued to loom like a specter on the mind’s horizon, black and malignant and without form. If he could just put name to this sickening foreboding, he reasoned, he might conquer all traces of it, perhaps even discover the whereabouts of his missing scouts and—
“Perhaps ridding yourself of them will do you good.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, roused from his dismal thoughts. He swept off his hat and tossed it on the floor beside the chair.
“I wondered if removing your boots would help you to relax
