The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) Read Online Free

nothing, and then he felt the heat in his hands, and then the heat everywhere else, surrounding him, licking his arms and legs and neck and hair, then lashing out from his body. Tongues of flame shot from the vortex spiraling around him, striking down the bird men one by one as they charged. Their blades burned red, fell from their talonlike hands, and their robes burst into flame, turned to cinder and ash. Oneof the bird men fell at his feet—feet surrounded by blackened earth and burnt bramble, a smolder encircling his stance—but the others turned, wheeled in their near-flight, retreated, chittering wildly to each other. Nergei noticed that it wasn’t precisely flight, their movements. They bounded far, and floated, but did not sustain flight for long.
    As they fled, they at last gave up their mimicry of Nergei and the others’ voices, and found their own cowardly caws and clucks of retreat.
    When the last creature had fled the clearing, Nergei sunk to his knees, felt the fire drain from him. Nearby, Padlur sat upon the ground, his hands pressed to the gash in his thigh, trying to pressure the wound into clotting. Nergei struggled to turn, his body exhausted, soaked in sweat and adrenaline. Behind him, Luzhon stood crying, looking ashamed of her tears. Nergei pushed himself to his feet, determined to go to her, to put aside his own questions at what he had just done—he was no wizard, not even a wizard’s apprentice, despite his years at the feet of the master—to comfort the girl he had wanted his whole life. He wondered if she might at last see him as someone worth having, but then there it was. The thoughts returned, the dreams making a mockery of the real world Nergei knew. She could never want him.
    Nergei had almost managed to smile by the time he got himself to his feet, only to have the impulseflee his face as he found Kohel’s own face inches away, breathing hard.
    “What was that?” asked Kohel. “Was that all your doing, or your master’s?”
    Nergei’s smile dropped, then lost the expression altogether when he realized Kohel meant the creatures too, not just the fire. Before Nergei could respond—he had never been quick to speak, and was not quick then—Kohel pushed him backward, his hand a wedge against Nergei’s chest, so that the smaller boy tripped over his robes and tumbled backward to the dirt.
    “Stay there,” said Kohel. “Don’t you dare get up.”
    “No,” said Nergei. “You don’t tell me what to do anymore. I saw you. I saw what a coward you are, and I’m not afraid of you.” Whatever slim courage had pushed him out into the clearing, it welled up again, helped him to his feet. He set his face, stared Kohel in the eyes. “I also saw what you tried to do to Luzhon, and I won’t let you do it again.”
    Just as he had when the bird men approached, Nergei opened his hands, hoping for the heat again, knowing that he shouldn’t. He knew that whatever had happened before wasn’t meant to be used in such a way, but how could he resist. Already once that day he had seen Kohel shamed with fear, and also himself—himself and Padlur, of course—made into heroes instead.
    He open and closed his fist, but no heat came.
    All that burned was the grass in the clearing, the downed bird man, and Kohel’s eyes. The arrogant boy’s face was filled with rage.
    This is what it looks like when a man becomes capable of murder, Nergei thought, but the look hardened, became static in Kohel’s eyes, and the chief’s son still managed to curl a smile from his lips. “Is that so, orphan?”
    Nergei shook off the insult, pulled himself as straight as he could, reached his body up toward the greater height of Kohel. “Yes,” he said. “I saw, and Padlur saw, and Luzhon saw. We all saw.”
    Kohel turned, looked at the shaking Luzhon, dared her to speak, laughed at her silence. He looked at Padlur, who Nergei could see was clearly listening but pretending not to, still binding his leg, busying