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

day.

    Waiting for Londih upon the path to the council chambers was Pyla, Londih’s reeve, his second-in-command. Londih rubbed his forehead, instantly pained at the sight of his once-closer friend, who Londih himself had chosen to elevate to his position, and who he most certainly did not wish to speak to at the moment. The path was wide enough to walk by most men without pause or insult, but Pyla was fatter than most, and yet still quick on his feet, moving to intercept Londih, to block his path with his bulk, his rotten breath, his scheming ideas.
    “I don’t believe the first fact of this story, Honored One,” he began, pressing close to Londih, “This is some kind of trick meant to—”
    “Meant to what, Pyla?” interrupted Londih. “Who would trick us, and in this fashion? No, this danger is more straightforward than any such scheme.” His headache moved quickly, bloomed. “The boys wereattacked, and returned with these two bodies, creatures I had not seen before but that Orick recognized, from the old lore. Kenku, he says—raven men, and supposed followers of the Queen of Shadows.”
    “Kenku! The Raven Queen!” Pyla laughed. “When will we see these bodies?”
    “Orick brings them to council. The boys took the bodies to him first—not me, as they should have, as is my right as chief.” Londih wore the memory that slight in a tightened lip, a furrowed brow, but tried not to let his voice betray it, even as he could not help speaking it aloud.
    “It has been a long time since anyone thought to attack Haven, Honored One,” said Pyla, still dissenting. “Since before you were our chief, before your father was. Perhaps these creatures are just a raiding party, pushed up the mountain by some turmoil below. The weather, perhaps. Or a weak harvest or hunt. There’s no reason to assume that they mean Haven itself any harm.”
    “Perhaps, Pyla. But I do not think it will be that simple. Still, there is no need to panic, at least not yet. Haven has been defended before, will be defended again. Haven has its champion.” Londih gestured in the direction of the mountainside, the observatory.
    Of course, Haven has not needed the old man, not in many, many years, and who knows if he willcome now, when we call. And if not him, then who? Londih stopped his walking, cursed below his breath, then cursed himself silently for these displays of weakness, hesitation. What would we say at the council? He did not yet know. While he thought, he stamped his staff’s butt into the dirt, leaned his weight hard upon it. He looked at the crowded crystals, the light within, then the feathers atop and around its crown. He considered how the staff was not what it appeared to the other villagers, was not what it had appeared to be to him when his father carried it, and how he alone knew the truth.
    Village legend was that the staff, the Crook of Haven, was endless, that its crystals would forever shine as long as the chief of the village were true to his people, and Londih had never thought to question that belief. Never, that was, until he followed his own father up the path at the back of the village, up the mountain face which created the village’s fourth wall. There the Old Stargazer’s observatory waited, and there his father went, carrying the Crook in his wizened arms.
    Londih had been the seventh of his father’s sons, and as such barely spoken to even as a teenager, because with six siblings ahead of him there was little chance that he would ever be called upon to become the chief, the Crook of Haven. Or so Londih had thought before he entered the Observatory uninvited. There Londihsaw many things, skulking as he had been from the corners of the shadows. He knew to fear the old man, to avoid, if at all possible, making an impression on him at all, yet he followed his father and the Old Stargazer—old even then, even in Londih’s youth.
    Londih had followed behind his elders, and from his hiding places he saw the