The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) (26 page)

“Brother,” Nergei heard Magla shout to Mikal. “Their arcanist. We should fight their magic with our own.”

Nergei looked on to see the bird man in heavy robes and headdress, the one holding up a staff of wood topped with the antlers of a great stag, pitching charms in the sky that burned the arrows of the Haven archers out before they found targets. And he was not alone. Near him stood another kenku, but one whose body was twisted and strange. It was slender, limbs as thin as branches. It had a shaggy head, but not one covered just in feathers. There was something else. Moss, more like. It held twin totems in its hands, one of dark gray bone and one of polished pale ivory. A cloak of leaves surrounded it. The kenku spellcaster helped provide it cover as it, too, advanced with the kenku army. Nergei saw Mikal craft more missiles from the magic in his influence, sent them in the direction of that twisted creature.

Kenku bandits sacrificed themselves to shield the creature. “I must get closer to that one, Magla. Watch my back.”

“As ever,” said Magla. She was nocking arrows and picking off targets with precision, but took a moment to carve out a path for Mikal to approach the kenku cloaked in leaves and moss.

“Stay here,” Mikal called to Nergei.

Spundwand and Sten met up with Imony in the center of the clearing, where she was surrounded by the
prone bodies of three kenku who had tried to flank her. In a single spinning move, she had sent them to the ground. “Brickboots, my friend. Can you offer me Moradin’s mercy?” She had taken a blade to the side, and a wound shone with her blood. Spundwand said a prayer and felt the dwarf god’s grace within him. Sten held back a kenku charge, spinning his blade with little art but great vigor, as Spundwand placed a hand on the woman’s side. The cut remained, but the bleeding was stanched. A kind of peace settled on Imony’s face. “I owe an offering,” she said.

“The head of one of these bandits should do, my lady,” replied Spundwand. Imony nodded and sought one out. Sten shifted back beside the dwarf as Imony rushed away, and Padlur stepped up beside.

Nergei did as Mikal asked, but watched him as the half-elf went down to face the twisted kenku. Mikal had instructed him, told him all he could about how the boy could, with reliability, call the fire from within himself, but Nergei had managed no more than a wisp of flame. “My years have been spent searching books, studying how to access the world’s magic. You are a different sort, Nergei. You have it within you. The kind of study I have had to do would be fruitless for you. I envy you, really.

“What you need, then, is to understand the key to unlocking the power in you. I have discussed it with others like you, and they say it is not a question of discipline, not really the exercise of some muscle that you have that others don’t, but it is like that. To let the power indwell, and then to release it is a matter of compelling it as a man seduces a lover or convinces another to follow him. It is not willing it to happen, but being of a disposition that draws it to you. Anger and frustration can trigger a small flare of what is within you, but you will never control it, and will never be able to count on it to do what you want it to do.” Nergei understood, but had little experience with any interaction beyond his long time spent with the Old Stargazer.

From the rooftop, Nergei watched and wondered if he would ever be of any use not simply to the people of Haven, not just the old man, but to anyone. Would he find it within himself to protect those he wanted to protect, and to defeat those he needed to defeat. Confidence crippled, the boy took to his knees, and simply watched the fray.

Mikal approached the twisted kenku, sending another wave from his orb to knock down the kenku bandit who had been standing with him. A long, vegetal beard trailed off his face, clear to Nergei even from the rooftop. The creature clucked at Mikal.
His skin—rough and thick patches of brown and green—appeared to ripple and move. But it was not his skin. It was something on him. Nergei strained to see, and noticed a few tiny creatures floating around the beast.
Flies? Bees? Wasps?
wondered Nergei.
Was his body was crawling with insects?

The kenku knocked his totems together, clucked and tutted, and held his arms out to Mikal. The little creatures swarmed from his body, shot out from his arms in a cloud. It leaped at Mikal, who dropped to his hands and knees, and yelled an incantation. A purple field bubbled out from his orb and surrounded him, but it did not stop the whole of the swarm. A few penetrated the force, and dived toward Mikal’s back. Nergei saw Mikal react as if they had stung him, and saw him curl with what he assumed to be pain. The kenku knocked his totems together again. The insects formed another cloud, and shot forward.

When Magla’s brother fell, she nocked two arrows at once. She sent both toward the kenku, splitting them to try to hit both its arms. One was unable to pass through the swarm, but the other did and buried itself in the creature’s wrist. The totem fell, and the portion of the cloud that had formed from it dispersed. The other, the creature redirected to Magla. As they got close, Nergei heard the buzz. They were indeed wasps.

Ekho had been in the woods, Sten aware that she intended to sneak behind the kenku bandits, catching them up in thorny traps and ambushing the stragglers. When he saw her charge from the clearing to join the battle proper, he knew her culling had been discovered. The kenku spellcaster with his antler staff did not see her coming, distracted as he was neutralizing the archers, and was the first to fall to her hammer. He didn’t even have time to squawk, to warn the others. She strode up behind him and swung the hammer to his head, removing it cleanly with the strength of the hit. The canopies of force that stopped the arrows dissolved, and the arrows began to rain down, finding kenku armor and muscle.

Next to the kenku spellcaster stood the robed figure with the massive blade. He was unmoved by the fall of the kenku, barely registered the goliath’s appearance. When she swung her hammer at him, he dodged it easily, stepped aside, and with a motion threw the cloak away. Sten saw that beneath he wore simple black clothes, a raven emblem on his breast. He and Ekho exchanged a stare, and words, but Sten was too far away to hear. There was a change to the man’s countenance—his pale skin darkened, and his features sharpened. He held his blade at his shoulder and began to run at an astonishing pace toward the entrance to Haven.

Sten readied himself to face the new foe, completely out of place among the raven men.
Why does this human fight alongside the kenku?
he wondered. But he did not dwell.

No matter
, he thought.
Perhaps I can consult his corpse
. Sten lowered himself to prepare for the man’s charge, but to his confusion, when the man neared him, he shifted his direction as if to simply run right by. Sten shifted to block him, but the human was too fast. He did not even bring the great blade from his shoulder, instead giving Sten a simple shove on his way by. “Not for you,” the man shouted.

It took Sten a moment to reconcile. He looked at Spundwand who, side-by-side with Padlur, was engaged with a squad of kenku, but who had seen the strange encounter. “Run, old man. What other choice do you have?” he called.

And Sten decided Spundwand was right. He would try to catch the human with the blade. For the first time in many years, Sten ran as fast as he could, cursing his old legs.

Nergei saw Ekho approach the twisted kenku and Mikal. The rest of the defenders of Haven seemed to be holding their own, but the wizard had fallen to his knees and was surrounded by a faltering field of
energy. Nergei had gotten closer, come down from the rooftop and snuck around the walls, worried that the half-elf was in the greatest danger, but sure that there was nothing he could do. Swarms of wasps slammed against the magic. The kenku was gathering a new swarm, too, to send against the archers. Ekho gripped her hammer and approached him from his flank.

“Stone mother,” it said, “why fight with these
humans
? They disrespect the mountain.”

“And your kind brings winter before it is time,” Nergei heard her defiantly reply.

“Winter is the cycle. Summer is the cycle. Tearing down the trees for houses, though. This is not the cycle.” The creature pointed his totem to the rooftops, and the swarm flew to the archers.

Ekho drew up her hammer and swung it, but the kenku sunk away and it missed. He stomped his foot into the frosty ground and a line of crawling insects—bright red ants?—scuttled forward. They climbed Ekho’s leg, bit hard, and her knee buckled. She growled low, and breaking through the ground, a thorny vine wrapped around, crushing the ants and creating a guard for her foot and calf.

Nergei looked up and saw the swarm harrying the archers, giving the remaining kenku a chance to advance on the defenders who remained in the clearing. There was a cry of “Fall back, my friends.
We will hold them off from the entrance,” and the orphan was certain it was the voice of Spundwand.

Ekho gathered her strength, and the roots below the kenku emerged and twisted around his spindly legs. She seemed to offer further encouragement with a trilled sound, and the root constricted, snapping the creature below the knees. It howled, knocked its totem to its chest, and pulled from within a divot in its shoulder a small green seed. The seed bloomed and the creature blew it toward Ekho. In the air, the blooming seed went orange, erupted in fire, and it struck her in the chest.