The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) (17 page)

The Old Stargazer had claimed the kenku already knew exactly where Haven was, but if they didn’t, they would soon. The villagers and the mercenaries would lead them right there, through the old man’s illusions and wards. And yet what choice did they have but to return?

An urgency filled Nergei, pushed him past the exhaustion of the travel, of the constantly sloping ground. He did not share his concerns with anyone else yet, knew they would do them no good. He would take them directly to the Old Stargazer, and let his master decide who should be told, and how much. That was his duty, and he would do his best to fulfill it.

As the party made its way through the foothills, it fell to Luzhon to tend to her father, and so she spent her days walking beside the nag and the cart, talking to Pyla. His bulk made it hard for him to climb down
and out of the cart, so at night he stayed in the structure, packed away like another piece of luggage, albeit one that complained, that scolded Luzhon whenever she did anything he didn’t care for. Chief among his complaints was her interest in the mercenaries, especially the warriors, whose equipment and skills fascinated her. Her home was in danger, and she wished to be able to protect it as well as the hired swords hopefully would.

Watching the fights in the city—an experience she relived often, in her quiet moments—it had become clear to Luzhon that while she had watched the boys at their budding sword play over the past few years, she had learned very little. Or rather, what she had learned was inaccurate: Kohel had swung a sword as if he were chopping wood, but Luzhon hadn’t realized how poor his technique—and hers—was until she saw the example of someone better, like Sten and the other warriors they had gathered.

So she wanted to learn from the warriors, if they would teach her, but of course her father did not want her to, had never wanted her to. He forbid her to do so, in fact, and while he was awake, she obeyed his orders.

While he was asleep? Then she did as she wished. Luzhon approached Sten by the fire, sitting down beside him where her father could not see her easily,
if he happened to awake before she was finished. She might have preferred Magla or Imony, but she did not yet want to be an archer, or at least not only one, and she did not want to give up her blade. For the moment, Sten was the best choice—and anyway, he was awake, poking the flames with a found stick, while the others slept. Sitting down beside him, she asked, “Can you teach me to fight? Or to understand a fight as you do?”

“The life of a sellsword is not one to aspire to, my child,” said Sten, turning away from the fire and toward Luzhon.

“The life of a farmer, or the wife of a landed man is not, either.”

“I will have to take your word on both counts, there, I suppose. But, yes. I can help you learn to fight.”

“Thank you,” Luzhon replied.

“You have an aptitude for it already, you know,” said Sten.

“What do you mean?”

“Something in you. You watched Spundwand and I at the games, and knew that I was observing it in a different way, yes?”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“When you sat with us, I saw the same in you. But I spent years with a blade in my hands to learn my craft. You are different, I think.”

“If you say,” Luzhon replied, unsure what Sten meant. “May I ask you why you never bet on the matches? You and Spundwand could have done with the gold, you say. If you are aware of who will win and who will lose before the fight begins, why not wager?”

“It seems to me that there is no sport in it, child,” said Sten. But Luzhon peered at him skeptically, and after a moment he continued, “And, also, none of the gamblers would take my bets anymore. I was kept out of it. My friend and I were informed that we could watch whenever we wanted, but were told not to speak to any of the other gamblers, not to have anyone else place bets for us, and never to bet on the matches.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” said Luzhon. She scuffed a foot in the dirt.

“Gamblers make bets, child. The people who run gambling houses do not. They are not gamblers. They are merchants, even if the goods they sell are games of chance. They are also willing to protect their investments with great and powerful force.”

Luzhon looked at Sten. He had been taciturn up to that point. She had not expected him to have so much to say.

“Perhaps that is a good first lesson,” he said. “But sword play is not about odds. It is about balance.” And he pulled his blade from his sheath and stuck it in Luzhon’s hand, watched her curve her grip around
the hilt, the blade tipping toward the ground. It was much heavier than her own, but Sten assured her that strength would come with practice, and skill soon after.

“And if the sword is not your weapon, then perhaps the hammer, perhaps the bow. There are many here who will teach you what you wish to know,” he said, stroking his moustache, “if only you will let them.” He corrected Luzhon’s grip with his own fingers, steadied the sword so she could hold it straight. “Talk to Magla, and to Spundwand, and of course to me. Even if your father does not want you to fight, that does not mean he will get his wish. Your village may be in very great danger, and everyone within its walls should be prepared, yourself included.

“I can sense it in you. You are—or have the capacity to be—very brave,” he finished, “and that bravery will serve you and your people well.”

“I do not feel brave,” said Luzhon. “Not as brave as I want to.”

“You are brave enough,” said Sten. “Any braver, and you might be foolish enough to believe that the fight ahead will be easy, or that it will bear no cost, and that would bring only tragedy upon you.”

Luzhon lowered the sword, turned her face back to his. “What do you mean?”

“Every battle I have ever fought in is one that I have won, or close enough. A lifetime of victory, and yet
I have nothing to show for it.” His eyes looked into the fire, and Luzhon looked into its reflection there. “Nothing except the friendship of Spundwand, which I value more than any other. Everyone else we have befriended is dead, or else now an enemy of ours, and the world is no better a place now than when we started. It is a hard road, Luzhon, and already you have taken the first steps upon it. I hope your luck is better than ours.”

T
emley pulled up his cloak to guard against the sudden, unexpected chill. As he and Erak approached the camp where the kenku staged their attacks on Haven, Temley noted frost on the ground, and the bite of cold in the air. “It’s spring,” he said to Erak. “The cold?”

“Our doing,” Erak said. “Let me show you.”

They entered a camp of peaked, makeshift tents of animal hide and gathered branches. The kenku sat in small circles around campfires chirruping at each other, making quiet sounds from deep within their throats. Conspiring, it seemed. They cocked their heads at Erak and Temley, giving tense, sidelong looks until Erak made a gesture that appeared to calm them. They were sharing berries and strips of meat, tilting their heads back to swallow. They turned up skins to let wine drip down their throats.

“Provisions are getting low. We make the final attack soon, Temley. Now that you are here, the real work can commence. The final spells to be cast. The final plans to be made.” Erak led Temley to a tent, like the others but with glyphs roughly painted around the hide. A noise came from within. The ground before the flap was frozen solid, and a trail of white frost spread out from it.

“The cold,” said Temley. “It’s stronger here.”

“Indeed,” said Erak. He lifted the tent flap and snow blasted out. Inside, pure white frost hung in the air like fog. Inside, four kenku sat facing one another. They spoke or sang—to Temley, it all seemed like singing, the language of the kenku—a simple, repeating chorus. The chanting kenku were covered in heavy animal furs and only their beaks protruded. But still they shuddered in the extreme cold within the tent. “Winter bringers,” said Erak. “These kenku—this tribe conscripted by the Raven Queen for this siege—are from the Grand Spire Mountains to the north. They excel in cold-weather combat. When needs be, they bring their
conditions
with them.”

“Praise be to the great power of the mistress of winter,” said Temley, awestruck.

On the way to the kenku encampment, Erak had told Temley the story of their black-winged allies. They were not like the brigand kenku who roamed
the rest of the world in small bands, stealing and breeding mistrust. They had the same features as their brethren, though a careful look showed them to be a bit bigger and a bit more substantial. They favored the same short blades and bows, but leaped a bit farther, and could hold themselves aloft a bit longer because of their greater strength. They could not soar like the ravens or crows who shared their earliest ancestors, but could push themselves into the air for a short time and use their winged arms to carry them. “And they can float from great heights without injury, making them natural tree-dwellers and ambushers,” Erak said. “And though stealth and misdirection remain powerful weapons in their arsenal, this tribe of kenku is able to face a war party head-on if needs be.” They were well trained with their blades and unafraid of one-on-one combat.

All that was a consequence of their breeding. “The Grand Spire Mountains tribe was isolated and rarely left their home. Only when the Raven Queen truly needs them do they gather in companies and raiding parties and journey to the south,” said Erak. They spent most of their time training and worshiping the frozen peaks of the Grand Spire, the deliberate turns of fate, and the end of life brought about by the shadowy goddess. “They refuse, even, to learn the languages of the southern lands,” said Erak, “and speak
a willfully obscure dialect of their own language.” On the rare occasions when other kenku would encounter the tribe, it was always tense. The Raven Queen’s tribe viewed all with suspicion, but none so much as members of their own race who had assimilated into the world. They would often obscure their dialect more in those situations, using words and an accent that sounded old to the other kenku, making the tribe appear out of time, ancient. “But this is only when the tribe deigned to speak to outsiders of their race. They just as often ignore them outright, or take up arms against them,” said Erak with admiration. “They feel no allegiance to the creatures they see as imperfect versions of themselves, and see no reason to stay their blades.”

The Raven Queen’s tribe were as cold-eyed as their home, and as merciless as the blizzards they brought with them.

“They have been preparing the battlefield for weeks now. Haven will be overcome with an unnatural winter in days. Then, they mount a siege and you follow behind. When the village is occupied, and the old man is attempting to regain control of it, you enter, track him down, and kill him.”

“He will be mine,” said Temley simply, directly.

The cold within the tent became too much for Temley and Erak, so they closed the flap. The sound
of the kenku chant was muffled by the hide, but it rung in Temley’s ear. A language he did not know, certainly, but perhaps one close to the natural speech of the Raven Queen herself. Was it his goddess’s words he had heard? Was it the voice of his mistress? His spirit stirred at the thought.

“This way,” said Erak. “Let us show you the face of your oathsworn enemy.” Temley’s reverie broke, and his resolve hardened. The one—he would soon know the one intimately. He would soon stare upon the one’s visage. His heart lifted at the thought of it. His task. His target. His prey.

Erak walked, Temley in step behind him, to the camp’s largest tent. Around it were racks of short blades and small barbed spears. Kenku fenced and flocked around one another in pairs, in trios, and in quartets of mimed combat. Three holding the barbed spears spun like grounded vultures around an unarmed kenku who remained perfectly still, small black eyes closed, in the center of the whirl. They appeared to be picking their moment. The dance was long and tense for Temley. Longer, it seemed, than needs be with the unarmed focus for the others. He was large, and his stillness seemed to indicate a great, terrifying confidence. That thrilled Temley.

One circling kenku lunged forward impulsively. The large kenku made a hop to his left, and the
lunger’s spear fell past him. The large kenku avoided the barbs by grabbing the other kenku’s arm with his left hand, pulling him closer, and using his free right arm to direct a hard blow to the lunger’s neck. It cracked loudly. The lunger’s body wilted. The large kenku held fast though, and pivoted, lifted the stunned creature by turning the backhand blow into a neck lock, and tossed him behind into a second circling kenku. They tangled together and fell prone. That left the large kenku facing the final adversary, who had lost concentration while watching his target dispatch two of his allies in mere moments, in a mere gesture. It was clear to Temley that the large kenku could’ve used the hesitation to his advantage, but instead, he gathered himself, crossed his feathered arms over his chest, and stood straight and tall again, closing his eyes. His last standing opponent lowered his head and his spear, conceding to the superior foe.