The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) (9 page)

The beginning of the journey had not been as difficult as Nergei had imagined it might be, although that had not stopped the soft Pyla from complaining, or his own feet from aching at the end of every day. Although the paths around Haven were narrow, they eventually joined a wider road, once paved with heavier stone but made uneven by upturning roots, rainfall and wind, centuries of each. None of the other travelers seemed to notice, but Nergei could not help studying the road, its well-made construction. It was old—although exactly how old Nergei couldn’t have said—but it had weathered its long life upon the mountain better than most structures did, and anyway, what was the point of the road? It did not lead all the way to Haven, but there were no other junctions, no crossroads anywhere along the miles the party had traveled to that point.

Nergei thought back to the history the Old Stargazer had taught him, but so little of it had had to do with Haven itself, or the mountain around it, a realization Nergei had never had before. Why would he have needed to learn about Haven? He already knew it well, spent every day trapped between its low walls, or by the forest around it. Instead he had learned of the empire, of its fall from greatness, the wars against the elves and the orcs and worse. He had read volumes about more ancient heroes too, ones that predated the empire, that worshiped different gods and died for forgotten kings, and his master had also taught him of wizards past, of the forces in the sky and across the planes to which they owed their fealty.

Once, Nergei had tried to brag that he was the most educated person in Haven, at least after his master, and while that was perhaps true, it had done him no favors. There was no glory in being smart with books, at least not in the village, which outside of the Peloran priests had no other scholars, and even if they had they might still have prized other knowledge more highly, those of the trades, and of the hunting and farming that sustained those trades.

Nergei’s studies had not prepared him for life in the village, but they had made him an able apprentice for his master, and he had never considered what else they might one day do. Only as he trod down
the mountain road, lagging behind the rest of his companions, did he wonder if there might be some other purpose to his education, if his knowledge of the world’s history might somehow prepare him for understanding its present.

He did not know, but he would soon find out, and for now that was enough.

It was midday, and while Nergei knew the youths could all push ahead, Pyla would call a halt for lunch before long anyway. His fat waddles slowed them already, and his whining even further. The only thing that kept Nergei respectful to Pyla was his own learned politeness, and also his observation of what happened when someone was less forgiving. Kohel pushed Pyla hard, made faces when the older man protested, and all it did was infuriate the councilor—who Kohel clearly did not feel threatened by, as Padlur or Nergei might—and also his daughter, which Nergei would also not want to do.

Every time Kohel joked at Pyla about his weight, his pace, his need to break and eat or breathe, Nergei watched Luzhon’s face instead of Pyla’s. What he saw there was a growing disgust with Kohel, perhaps a manifestation of what had always been there, or so Nergei allowed himself to hope. For so long, he had assumed Kohel’s interest in Luzhon would be reciprocated, and only since the day in the clearing had
he realized the shame of his error. He had assumed Luzhon would pick Kohel over him because he himself would do the same, not because he knew anything about her, not about who she’d become since they’d entered their adolescence, when the decline of Nergei’s master had also isolated Nergei.

And there he was, out in the world, farther from his master after only a day than he had ever been before. There was a week of travel to get off the mountain, but even the whole mountain was not all of one piece, as it was easy to imagine. Only Padlur had gone that way before, but as usual he was quiet when asked about what was ahead, about how far they had to go each day, always shrugging, always saying, “You follow the road, and the road leads you to the city. There’s no need for anything else.” Then he would disappear again, leaving Kohel to march alone beside the nag and the cart while he scouted around the road, up the cliffs and through the trees, ignoring his own advice.

At first, Pyla had complained about his absences, recognizing as Nergei did that the sword and bow Padlur carried were their best weapons against whatever dangers the mountain might have held, but even those objections faded fast. The mountain did not seem threatening, and even as their distance from the safety of Haven increased, there didn’t seem to be any worse waiting for them. At night, their fire held
back the darkness, and while they heard the howls of wolves upon the heights and the sound of other beasts moving in the trees, nothing approached. Nergei hadn’t necessarily slept well, but that had more to do with the hard ground and the cold air than any fear, and that too puzzled him.

He found himself walking during the day, hanging behind Luzhon, afraid to speak to her, thinking,
I am not afraid, I am not afraid
. Repeating it not as an affirmation but in unending wonder, and where did his new confidence come from?

The fire he felt in the clearing with the kenku, he had thought had left him after he had burned through the bird man, after he had set the tall grasses to smoldering, but he was once again able to feel it, something heating up within his blood. It wasn’t anywhere near the level it had been when the flames had arced from his hands, but it had only diminished, and if he concentrated it was there to be felt.

As he walked, he focused on that feeling, focused on isolating some part of it, because it was more than one thing. It was a heat, yes, but it was also an icy shiver, was also a darkness floating in the hollows of his chest. Always before, Nergei had felt constrained, trapped by his circumstances, but his new feelings felt reckless, dangerous, made him feel reckless and dangerous, too.

Control
, he thought.
I must remain in control of myself
.

He thought that, but still he teased at the feelings, like a loose tooth better left alone, like a scab that demanded to be picked. There was the taste of acid under his tongue, never felt before, and lights that could be made to dance before his eyes, blinding sparks.

It was in one of those states, halfway down the mountain, that Nergei found himself when Luzhon spoke to him for the first time on the trek. He had been chasing some sound in his footsteps—something barely there, but that might be able to be amplified, if he could just feel it more, a thunder perhaps—when his concentration was broken by a smell, or rather a scent: Luzhon, beside him.

He looked up, a guilty flush on his face, as if he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, and perhaps it was that, because there was a curious look on the girl’s face.

“What are you doing, Nergei?” she asked, matching her stride to his, and just like that, the feelings were gone.

Not gone
, thought Nergei.
Just harder to find, with Luzhon standing there
.

“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to blank his face of his concentration, to its previous determination.

“You’re soaked with sweat,” she said, cocking her head at him.

“I’m just tired,” he stammered, lying at first, but then, as soon as he said it, feeling truly exhausted. He hadn’t realized that chasing the hints of magic had been so tiring, not with the exhilaration there to mask it.

Exhilaration, and also fear, for so long had his master forbidden him to explore the magic he himself practiced, and—before—Nergei had always obeyed him.

“Maybe we’ll stop soon,” said Luzhon, smiling. “You’re not the only one.” She adjusted her own pack, hiking it up her shoulders, its weight at least as heavy as Nergei’s, if not heavier. Her green eyes glowed in the lowering light, and Nergei marveled at the muscles in her arms, pushing at the sleeves of her travel clothes. She was stronger than he was, by perhaps a significant margin, and it was a welcome reminder that even if the kenku had not interrupted Kohel’s unwanted advances, chances were that Luzhon could have done so herself.

At that, Nergei found himself smiling, despite his tired muscles, despite his nervousness about their journey, its seriousness still not something he had fully reckoned with. He couldn’t help his grin; Luzhon taking down Kohel is something he would have gladly watched.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked, interrupting his descent again into his thoughts.

But Nergei didn’t say, couldn’t say. He shook his head, and Luzhon didn’t press him. For a while they
walked together in silence, and for Nergei, that alone was enough, enough for a while.

Luzhon lay awake throughout the night, her bedroll dragged beside the lowering flames of the fire, as close as it was safe to do, while behind her slept her father in the tent they were meant to share, and in another Nergei and Padlur. Only Kohel was still awake, keeping watch farther away, in the edges of the lit space beside the still-wide road, where he claimed he would be able to see better, his eyes better adjusted to the dimmer light. Luzhon had no doubt that was true, but of course she also knew he was avoiding her, both for what he had done to her in the woods, and also what he had failed to do, after the attack. His pride had been injured, and if there was one thing Luzhon had learned about the boys of the village, it was that no good would come from injuring their pride.

All her life, Luzhon had been among the most beautiful girls in the village, but that was something she could not control, and so thought little about. What she had wanted instead was to be like the boys, with their archery, their forestry skills, their abilities with hammer and anvil, with the butcher’s tools. She had been told from the first that there were no constraints upon her in those ways—that if she wanted to be a
hunter, she could—but that had not turned out to be true, and mostly that was her father’s fault, and even there on that trip she was along not because her father believed her the equal of the three boys, but because he feared to leave her alone in the village.

No, what Luzhon had learned was that when you showed the boys that you could wrestle as good as they could, that you could throw a knife or shoot a boy, all you did was push them further away. The boys of Haven did not want to be bested by a girl, did not believe her when she claimed that had never been her intent after she had hit some target, or won some race.

And then there was the journey, another chance to prove herself, and still she did not know if she would take it. There were no women in Haven who Luzhon wanted to grow up to be like, and she was not sure that what the men were was what she wanted, either. Somewhere, there would be some better model for her, and Luzhon would keep her eyes open for it.

Until then, there was the night all around, and the fire to keep fed, helping even though no one had asked her to help. Outside the halo of light from the fire, the land was flatter than Luzhon had ever seen, if not exactly flat. Above, where Haven was perched, the slopes were steeper, the paths less sure, and the sounds different, or at least less noticeable. There in the dark, Luzhon heard the wing beats of bats overhead, the
hoots of owls, the scurrying sound of animals in the brush, hopefully small ones. Two nights before there had been a bear somewhere in the dark, growling in the distance before Padlur moved through the trees to scare it away, and after that Luzhon felt safer in a way that had persisted not just the rest of that night but in the days after. Yet again she felt anxious, but more for the longer-away future to come, the danger in the city to come, the danger at home in Haven, waiting for their return. And what if the kenku attacked before they returned?

The idea of returning to find their home gone was unthinkable, and so Luzhon stopped herself from thinking it.

Still, some other worry nagged at her too, some feeling that something watched them from the trees, or from above the trees. Not the kenku again, not exactly, but something like them, maybe.

As if to confirm her fears, a sound grew through the trees, and then the sky was filling, all above her, with black shapes, flapping their wings, blocking out the moonlight, the stars. Luzhon shivered, thinking them a roost of bats, but as she stood out of her bedroll she saw that they were not bats, but ravens, hundreds of ravens, and all at once they opened their throats and began to caw, to call out to each other, and, Luzhon thought, to her, so many voices all speaking at once,
and all of them warnings, warnings or else threats, and even after the birds had flown away and left the night to return to its quieter hours, even after that she knew that whatever bravery she had been summoning was undone, and there would be no more sleep that night, no matter how badly she needed it.

CHAPTER FIVE

A
t the bottom of the mountain, the plains awaited. From the back of the cart, the councilman told them of his previous visits to the city, of what they might expect to find as they approached, but the youths were all exhausted, and none responded as they might have before. Together they led their nag and their cart out of the foothills, and even that land was more rolling than steep, more grassy than forested. The same wide pavestones led them forward across prairie and farmlands, past villages smaller than Haven, some too small to name even, and all sparsely populated. It was not hard for Kohel to see why. “Who would want to live in such a hole?” he asked. Not he, not down in the mud and muck, the flatlands covered in nothing but grass and grain. He preferred the mountain, preferred Haven’s station at the top of
the world, and that was where he always believed he would make his life, taking his father’s place as chief, as keeper of the Crook.

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