The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) (23 page)

“My help? What could I possibly help you with? I’m just a boy.”

“I know you’re not, but I won’t tell anyone else if that’s the story you’re trying to stick with. That doesn’t mean I don’t need help. I’ve got my own preparations to make before the battle, between the gathering of materials and the readying of rituals, and I’m sure your time with the Old Stargazer has prepared you well for the task. Would your master mind if I borrowed you for a few days?”

Nergei knew he should at least try to go ask, but he also knew there was no found. The master would
not answer the door, and as long as he stayed in the looking room there was no need for Nergei.

“No,” said Nergei. “He will not mind my absence at all.”

“Good,” said Mikal. “Let’s get to work.”

Pain in the old man’s hands, an ache from knuckle to knuckle. Fire in his bones, fired in the dark of the observatory’s orrery, its topmost room. As the mechanics of the sky moved around him, rendered in copper and bronze, he stepped again to the edge of the viewing platform, looked out at the night sky
.

His whole life he had studied the stars, and when the stars began to speak to him, he had listened and listened well. Then, when his star had chosen him, he’d make his pact with that power, taken its magic into his body in exchange for a promise, one that he did not expect he would live long enough to fulfill. And yet he had. He had lived longer than any man should have, longer than any of his fellows who’d climbed the mountain in the last days of the empire to garrison the village, the Haven whose true purpose no one else living remembered. And of course that was what the Old Stargazer intended, was the reason he had encircled the village in illusion and wardings, curses and traps. It was why he had done that and worse, once he was the last of them still alive
.

All that, and his pact invoked, his debt come due: A power coming to earth, and himself the vessel it would claim
.

It was not impossible that he could still escape, but it was unlikely, and there was pain in his hands, in his arms and legs and back and bones. There were the kenku, strange harbingers at the gates, and he did not know who they served. Not the stars, he was sure—whatever magic had granted them wings was hardly the same as that which had carved his bones into the painful shapes—and there was no other reason for Haven to be threatened other than his own presence, than what his presence had protected all these years
.

Not the villagers, and not the village, but what lay beneath both
.

His garrison. His Haven. Here, the last warriors of the empire of men would live on beyond the destruction of their power. Here, even though time and magic would let the memories slip away, the children of the empire would be safe. They would thrive. And with them, the idea of an empire of men could continue to exist as an ideal. And one day, from the seed of this little Haven, this former garrison, the empire might rise again. One day. Perhaps
.

But the pact, invoked. Haven, threatened
.

And in the sky: The star, the one whose presence he could feel in the sky, even when he was inside, even
when he could not see it for ceiling or clouds. And how it called to him. And how it told him it was coming. And how it would be here too soon, too soon for him to save himself or anyone else
.

E
kho and Orick were right. The kenku were coming.

It was no longer simply a guess, an opinion of both the villagers—who, with few exceptions, had begun to exhibit the first signs of panic, which worried Sten—and also of the mercenaries, who had begun to quiet themselves, to prepare. For two days, Magla and Mikal had walked the top of the village walls together, discussing the best places to position archers, and for Mikal to work what magic he could. It seemed likely that the kenku would come from both the front and the back of the village, and so the already stretched group of archers would have to take both positions. Magla would organize and lead the archers near the front gates and upon the walls, and Mikal would lead those in the back, alongside the hunter Orick and his son, supplementing their smaller number of archers with spellcraft.

Following behind the siblings were Nergei and Luzhon, each of whom had taken on the roles of assistant and messenger for one or the other. Luzhon—who had never before fired a bow before the past weeks, at least as far as Nergei knew—had taken up with the archers, and carried her own weapon, and Nergei had spent nearly every waking moment since the charnel pit with Mikal, who would teach him no magic but other things instead, bits of herbcraft and history, bits of lore about great wizards of the past. His mouth moved constantly, spilling so much that it was hard for Nergei to tell what was of consequence and what was not, and so Nergei tried to remember all of it.

During the battle, the two teenagers would serve at Magla and Mikal’s sides, and then as messengers, if necessary. It would be dangerous work, and neither had been asked to take it on. Instead, each had volunteered independently, and then been surprised to see they had taken on similar roles, in similar company. It warmed Nergei to think of that, to wonder if it would create a bond between them, but he tried to keep these thoughts out of his mind, especially during the final moments of preparation.

Once the walls were breached—and the walls would be breached, as Sten had answered every single query on the subject—then there would be hard fighting in the streets, and in the town square. That would be the
work of the archers too, but also Sten and Spundwand and Imony and Ekho, and all the villagers who claimed to be better with a blade than with a bow, which was not many and certainly not enough.

Or at least Sten did not think it would be enough.

There were too many variables still unanswered, too much he did not understand: How many would there be? Would it be kenku alone, or something else besides? Would they really come from both the road and the mountainside?

Would the new, higher nets and stakes even slow down the kenku, who Ekho did not believe could fly that high, or would they receive no grace from all that effort at all?

Sten did not know, could not know, but it was not the time for doubts, at least not public ones. He had asked the village chief and the other village council members to gather the villagers in a central place, and because the council chambers were too small they met instead in what Londih had called “the ruin,” a long barren bit of broken stone and fallen walls at the end of the village, near the path up the last spire of the mountain, where the observatory stood.

In front of the only wall still standing, Sten paced the rubble-strewn earth and waited for the rest of the villagers to assemble. Amidst them were the mercenaries, each dressed in traveling clothes
rather than their armor or other battle-dress, all except for Ekho, who he had never seen dressed any other way. Even he wore only the simplest of breeches, a shirt stained with the work of the last few days. The next day would be a day for armor, but that night was for simpler things: He would speak, and then they would eat, and then they would go to their rest.

He would lie to them, and then he would tell them that they would not die, that if they did as he and the others commanded they would be safe. It was not true—not for all of them—but there was nothing else to say, no alternative that had ever presented itself to him on the night before a battle.

When the crowd was assembled—some hundred villagers, maybe slightly more, maybe slightly less—and after the Crook of Haven had said a few words, Sten stood and spoke to the crowd. He told them that he and the others would stand for them against the kenku, against whatever enemy came after them. He said that they would not run, and also that they would lead the villagers so that they might not run. He detailed again the plans, made sure that everyone knew their places, from the archers to the footmen, to the few men and women who would guard the old and the weak and the young and the lame—what few there were of all of them, in the harshness of the
Haven winter—and as the snow fell he told them what he would do.

He said, “Whatever comes inside your village, I will be there to raise a sword against it. Whatever the odds, I will stand at the front of the fight and I will put my shield in front of you so that I might take the blows that come after. You have hired me to protect you, and I will do my best.”

Sten said that, and while he did not believe it would be enough, he tried to make them believe; tried to instill in them the idea that a man and a dwarf, and an elf and her brother, and a monk and a goliath would be enough to protect them, when already a centuries-old old man had not been.

Sten tried to make them believe, and before he was done speaking, tried to find the words to make himself believe, as well.

Sten and Spundwand stood together watching the tree line. But Sten noticed that his friend was distracted. He ran his hand over the wall. “What is it?” Sten asked.

“It took this wall to show it to me, Sten. You don’t see it?” said the dwarf. “You don’t recognize what we’re standing in?”

The broken wall of the building, the near-buried foundation, Sten considered them both, then shook
his head. “It’s just a building, just a ruin. It’s old enough, but—”

“Maybe you wouldn’t recognize the shape after all. Most of these were destroyed so long ago, after the fall of the empire.” Spundwand sighed, motioned with his hand. “But I’ve been inside one of these before, before the whole world moved on. This is an Imperial barracks, or at least what’s left of one. Nerath, Sten. This is an outpost of Nerath. I know this masonry. I know this craftsmanship.”

“Are you sure? Why would the empire have secured Haven? There’s nothing here worth taking, and nothing around to defend.”

Spundwand shrugged, stroked the braids of his beard. “Maybe not. But that old man in the observatory knows something he’s not telling us—not that he’s telling us anything at all—and if he’s as old as the villagers think he is, then he knows this garrison was here once and hasn’t told anyone in generations. Why would he do that?”

Sten didn’t know, and said so to the dwarf. “We can’t worry about that right now, my friend. Get your mind back into the here and now. Dead empires will remain dead. We must watch the trees, my friend.

“But when this is over—if we survive—then we’re going up that hill, and coming back down with an answer. Haven owes us that much, and I imagine the
Stargazer owes Haven more.
He
is what this place has been protecting all these years—and now us too, tricked here by the village’s children to fight an old man’s war.”

He put his hand on Spundwand’s shoulder, moved him toward the streets outside the ruin. “He has offered us nothing in return for our service, but that does not mean there’s nothing to take.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Spundwand, looking up at his friend’s face, suddenly hard in the end of the day’s light.

“I don’t know, old friend. But you know these people are going to die tomorrow—many of them—no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try. And if that’s just part of some old man’s game, then he and I will have words, and hard ones, and it will not go well for anyone.”