The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4

by Brock Deskins

  “I understand. You take care of yourself and yours too. We’ll make it. I know it.”

  With a final farewell, Azerick left the alley and wandered the city for hours thinking about the injustice of it all. He thought about who might have been responsible and the revenge he would exact for the loss of his father, home, and friends. He thought about what Ewen had said about the Duke’s actions. They certainly seemed strange. Even if the Duke was involved in some nefarious scheme or conspiracy that made it necessary to sacrifice his father, what could he do about it? He would have to be able to prove it.

  Azerick knew he would kill any man, even the Duke, if he were responsible for murdering his father. However, he could only act on proof, not suspicion alone. Even if he did find that the Duke had his father murdered, how would he get to him? Azerick was just a street urchin now. How would a common sneak thief ever be able to take on a man of power like the Duke? Azerick decided it did not matter. Somehow, someway, and some day he would get his vengeance, even if it took the rest of his life. He would take down the King himself if he had to.

  ***

  Celeste was making her usual rounds serving mutton stew, ale, wine, and spirits to the evening crowd at the less than reputable inn where she worked and lived. It was a boisterous night bordering on rowdy. Several ships had called into port today and unloaded a large amount of cargo, and the ship crews were blowing off steam as well as their newly earned coin. One table in particular had been giving all of the serving women a hard time, groping, pinching, and making lewd comments. Celeste was at this moment fending off the advances of a large, besotted sailor.

  "C'mon, love, show old Harlow what you got under them skirts," the heavily built, drunken sailor urged as he pulled her down onto his lap, his breath reeking of powerful spirits.

  "The only thing I have for you, sir, is what you see on my serving tray or behind the bar," Celeste said firmly but politely as she tried to extract herself from Harlow’s groping hands.

  "Oh, listen to the pretty tongue on this one, lads. She sounds like a right Lady, don't she," Harlow brayed, his breath making Celeste's eyes water. "I bet she knows how to use it for more than just talking too!"

  His loud guffaws were accompanied by the laughter of his friends as one of them joined in on his harassment. "You got it right, Harlow; you got you a real Lady there. I heard she was the wife of a noble or some such before her man got hisself killed for treason."

  Harlow's eyes lit up with renewed interest. "Is that right? Well I never had me a real Lady before. What say you and I go upstairs and have us a bit of fun?"

  "I will do no such thing, sir. Now unhand me!"

  "Oh come now, I just got paid and I know all you serving gals are just whores with a side job. Now let's go." Harlow stood and began pulling her toward the stairs.

  "I said no!" Celeste upended a large flagon of ale over the belligerent sailor's head.

  Harlow's face turned red at her rejection and the public humiliation as the other patrons laughed at his plight. "Teasing whore!"

  He threw her to the floor, upending her tray of food and beverages. The food and drinks came crashing down, much of it landing on her, soaking and staining her clothes. Harlow was reaching into his vest with a look of pure wrath in eyes when Delbert, the fat innkeeper, intercepted him.

  "Here now, sir, leave her to me and I'll take care of you and your friends," the innkeeper said, gently laying a restraining hand on the furious sailor. "The next round of drinks is on the house. Celeste! Get upstairs and clean yourself up, and when you come back you had better treat my guests with a hell of a lot more courtesy! And the contents of that tray are coming out of your pay, you can be assured."

  Celeste fled up the stairs to her room and was in tears as she stripped off her soaked and soiled dress. She cursed Harlow, Delbert, Duke Ulric, the King, and the gods themselves for the plight in which she and her son had found themselves. She knew Delbert would make good on his threat of making her pay for the spilled contents of her tray as well as those that were "on the house." She was barely able to make ends meet by taking in laundry, and this would put her in debt to that fat pig.

  Her body gave an involuntary shudder at the thought. She had been able to fend off most of his lecherous advances for nearly a year already. Celeste did not like the idea of being in debt to the man, and she knew what he would demand to pay it. She felt a hard, calloused hand clamp over her mouth and pull her back toward the bed. No one heard her muffled struggles just as no one except Harlow's friends ever noticed the big man leave his table and stalk up the stairs after her.

  ***

  Azerick had been chasing Ewen’s words and the conspiracies he imagined for most of the day. Someone had framed his father then murdered him. He refused to believe his father would ever knowingly commit any crime, much less treason. The more he thought of it the angrier he got. At least now he had something upon which to focus other than the insubstantial gods, terrible luck, and fickle fates. Azerick swore he would find out who did this terrible thing and make them pay. With the purpose and direction of revenge now in his life, Azerick headed back to the shabby inn and up to his and his mother’s room. At the top of the stairs was a group of people. Three city watchmen, the innkeeper, and one of the other women who worked at the inn gathered outside his room. The woman spied Azerick as he crested the top of the stairs. She broke ranks from the group standing outside his room’s open door, gently grabbed him by the arm, and turned him back toward the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” Azerick asked as she hustled him back down the stairs.

  “Just wait down here, boy, and someone will explain it all in a bit.”

  Azerick did not know what was happening, but he thought he glimpsed something through the open doorway that looked like blood. The sight made his mind run wild with thoughts that turned his blood to ice. He was left alone with his thoughts to imagine the absolute worst possible scenarios for nearly an hour before he heard the group tromping down the stairs. The same woman who had brought him downstairs approached with a look of sorrow on her face.

  “I’m sorry, kid, but there has been a terrible accident, and your mother was hurt very bad. I’m afraid she’s gone.”

  “Gone? I don’t understand,” Azerick said weakly, blinking away tears threatening to escape and run down his dirty face.

  However, inside he did understand. He just refused to accept it. His brain blocked out the possibility of him losing the only person in the world he had left. It was simply too much of a shock for him. It had been less than a year since he lost his father, and now his mother was gone too.

  “I’m sorry, boy, but done is done, and there isn’t anything you can do about it now,” the fat innkeeper said without a hint of compassion as he dropped Azerick’s bag at his feet. The bag carried what appeared to be all of Azerick’s clothes but little else.

  “What about my books?” Azerick asked quietly in a toneless voice.

  “The constable said everything else had to be left untouched so they can investigate and see if anything is in there that can help them find out who cut up your mother. Now you just move on and go wherever it is you gotta go. I’m not running an orphanage here.”

  “Delbert, have some compassion. Ain’t you got no heart under all that blubber?”

  “I’m just an innkeeper! There’s nothing I can do for the boy. Are you going to take him in? Are you gonna feed him and clothe him outta your pay?”

  The woman’s silence answered the question. Azerick picked up his bag, left the inn, and walked out onto the street. He did not know where he was going, just that he had to keep moving and thinking. Sometime after midnight, he found himself in an alley in a part of the city that made the common quarter look as grand as the park within the palace grounds. Azerick thought living penniless in a shabby room in a rundown inn was as bad as it could get, but now he was truly homeless; homeless with no one to care for him. He was completely on his own at the age of thirteen, or was h
e fourteen now? He was not sure, and he really did not care.

  He thought about Ewen and his promise. He wondered if he could go to him now. Surely the Duke would not send his men after him for taking in a homeless boy just because of his father would he? What if he refused to take him? Could he handle the rejection after all he had lost? No, Ewen would likely take him in regardless of the danger to himself, or his family. Azerick was sure of that. But did he have the right to put that kind of burden on his friend? Was Azerick’s life worth jeopardizing the life of his only friend in the world and his family? He did not know, so he decided to sleep on it. He was exhausted from walking, weeping, and the sorrow threatening to destroy him.

  His only consolation was that it was summer and not raining. He curled up in a ball against the filth-littered wall of the alley, surrounded by trash. He used his bag of clothes as a pillow, and quickly fell into a restless sleep. Azerick did not know how long he had slept. He figured it could not have been long before the sound of footsteps alerted him to the fact he was no longer alone. He came fully awake when hands grabbed him roughly around the waist and strong arms lifted him from the ground.

  “Well, what have we here?” a voice asked, carried by the foulest of breath. “A wee little cully all by his lonesome left out like a present just for me.”

  With the exception of being caught by the Watch for stealing or freezing to death in the winter, predation was the greatest danger facing the city’s street children. His initial fear was that slavers had grabbed him, likely to be sold in Sumara far to the south. But a completely new kind of terror coursed through Azerick’s body as he tried to fight the hands that were now grabbing roughly at the laces of his breaches. Azerick fought his rising panic and forced himself to think quickly but calmly.

  He caught a brief reflection of light from the belt of the man attacking him. He reached back, grasped the hilt of a knife or dagger, and pulled it out. Reversing his grip on the handle of the blade, he thrust it behind him into the soft flesh of his attacker. The man let out a bellow of pain and surprise and released his grip.

  “You done stuck me, ya little bastard!” the man bellowed as he pressed his filthy hands against the profusely bleeding wound.

  Azerick did not hesitate. Using the training Master Ewen had instilled, he ducked low, pivoted on his right heel, and slipped behind his assailant. As the man staggered and held his hands over the fresh wound in his belly, Azerick drove his newly acquired blade into the man’s right kidney. Azerick knew from his studies that the kidney was especially vulnerable and caused an enormous amount of pain when struck or pierced. He was quite familiar with anatomy, and he knew the location of most of the body’s tender parts.

  The man seemed to choke on the scream trying to escape his lips as agonizing pain lanced up his back, completely overriding the bite of his original wound. He dropped to his knees in front of Azerick while trying to reach behind him and put his hand over this newest source of agony. Azerick thrust forward once more, stabbing the man high in the back. The knife skipped off the bottom of the man’s shoulder bone, and the blade slipped between the upper ribs just below it, piercing his heart.

  Azerick paused for a few moments, thinking about what he had just done as the man slumped forward onto his face. He stood over the body, bloody knife in hand, and processed everything that just happened. Not only had he just killed a man, somehow knew it would not be the last life he would take in the years to come. He looked at the knife and the droplets of blood dripping off the tip to spatter onto the ground. His life was now irrevocably defined by death.

  Azerick shook off these thoughts, stripped the belt and scabbard from the body, grabbed his bag, and ran from the alley. It was unlikely anyone would bother calling the Watch in this section of the city, but he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the dead man as he could just in case the Watch may have heard the man’s scream and felt either duty-bound or simply bored enough to investigate.

  As Azerick once again moved through the city, he planned his next move. He needed a place to stay; somewhere that would offer him some sort of shelter from the weather, the opportunists, and the predators of the city’s darkened streets and alleys. He knew that if was going to survive he would have to contain the despair that that threatened to overwhelm him. The adrenaline and fury brought on by the recent attack helped him compress the torment of his recent loss and the anguish manifesting as he thought of his mother.

  All these emotions burned inside him hotter than the fires of blacksmith’s forge. The flames would have consumed a lesser man, but Azerick’s resolve to avenge his family turned that searing heat into a tool he would use to temper himself like a finely crafted sword; a sword he would thrust into the bowels of his enemies. But first, he would get back his books.

  He made his way back to the common quarter of the city and the less than respectable inn that had been his home not long ago. Just a few hours ago, it was the place where his mother was alive and trying so desperately hard to take care of him. Now she was gone, and a familiar fluttering once again entered his belly. Azerick pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the problem at hand. He buried his emotions, pain, and loss so he could focus and survive the days ahead. He shoved those emotions away where they would remain buried for a long time; perhaps forever.

  He had to take care of himself now in a world that cared not one bit if he lived or died. But he would live, he vowed, and when he found those responsible for his torment, he would make them pay. He would make them wish to the gods he had not survived his life in the streets. He would never be a victim again, and anyone who tried to make him one would pay dearly.

  He knew the fat, heartless innkeeper would have barred the door this late at night. Any resident of the inn caught outside when he closed up would have to find another place to spend the remainder of the night or just sleep on the stoop.

  Azerick pulled the clothes out of his bag to make room for his books and then slung the satchel over his shoulders. He went around the back and climbed the small, slanting porch roof hanging over the door leading into the kitchen. From there, he pulled himself up onto a small ledge separating the second floor from the first. Pressing himself against the wall, he sidestepped around the tiny ledge until he reached the window to his former room.

  He slipped the bloody knife blade between the two sides of the window shutters and lifted the latch securing them shut. He stepped from his narrow perch and into the room and froze, listening for any sounds of disturbance. He heard nothing, but he could smell the blood that had seeped into the old floorboards that the soap and water used to clean it up had failed to reach.

  Azerick looked around the room and saw nothing but blood stains. Everywhere he looked he saw the remnants of what had happened in this room. The dark stains were visible even in the wan moonlight on the floors, walls, and ceiling. This room would have to be completely repainted before it could ever be rented out again; probably in a dark shade of paint at that.

  He pushed all these thoughts from his mind. His cursory glance showed that his books were no longer here. Azerick was unsurprised to find they were gone. Anything that may have held any value had been stripped from the room. Azerick knew where he would likely find his books. He silently crept across the floor to the room’s single door and pressed an ear to it. He heard no sounds in the hall, and quietly opened the door. With equal stealth, he slipped down the corridor to the door at the far end where the innkeeper lived in the best room the inn had to offer.

  Again, he pressed an ear to the door and listened. The sound of snoring lightly reverberated through the door. He tried the handle, but it was locked. This was not unexpected either. The innkeeper, being an untrustworthy man, never trusted anyone else. He probably assumed everyone lived by the same greedy standards he did. Azerick pulled his knife out and slipped it in the doorjamb to see if he could pry open the latch. He worked the catch with a light scratching and scraping of the knife tip on metal and wood, but he w
as unable to trip the lock.

  Azerick made his way back to his old room, slipped back through the window, and out onto to the small ledge. He hugged the wall and slowly sidestepped his way around the building until he reached the window that opened to the innkeeper’s room. The window was already open to let in the cool evening air during these hot summer months. He slipped his legs over the sill and silently dropped to the floor where he paused and surveyed the room.

  In the center of the chamber against the wall immediately on Azerick’s left, just a few feet from him, was the occupied bed of the innkeeper. The middle of the large lump in the bed rose and fell with the rasping snores reverberating through the room. In the far right corner, he spied a stack of uniformly stacked dark objects. He carefully crept across the room and saw that it was indeed his beloved books. He slipped the bag from his shoulder, set it on the floor, and began to pack his books away. It took only a few seconds to stow away his last book and began to make his way across the floor to exit through the door on the opposite wall.

  As his foot set lightly down upon the aged wood floor, a floorboard gave slightly under his weight and creaked loudly. Azerick froze in mid step and listened as the snoring ceased to fill the room. The innkeeper came awake with surprising suddenness. He turned the wheel of an oil lamp on the nightstand next to his bed and cried out when he saw the intruder in his room.

  “You! What are you doing here, boy?” he demanded as recognition dawned on his face. “Thief, you came back to rob me! I’ll thrash the hide off you, boy!”

  With that promise, the innkeeper rolled off his bed and onto his feet, his nightshirt flapping in the flickering light of the oil lamp.

  “They’re mine. You stole them first, you fat bastard!”

  The eyes of the portly innkeeper filled with rage as he lunged with his arms outstretched and his hands grasping for the throat of the boy who not only broke into his home to rob him but also cursed and insulted him!