Free The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path by Brock Deskins Page A

slits of the black helmed warrior and smiled. With a surge of strength, the valiant king shoved with all his might and sent them both over the rail and into the muddy waters of the river below.”
    General Baneford continued to look up at the young sorcerer’s recitation, seemingly compelled to hang on his every word, and swallowed nervously as he looked upon the young man’s smile, the very smile he imagined that King Archibald wore just before he threw them both into the frigid river.
    “I think you see where this is going, General. Archibald quickly shed his breastplate and gauntlets and swam to the distant shore. Bertrand was not seen again until Archibald’s men managed to dredge his corpse out of the river several days later. The king knew that the armor was too dangerous to leave intact so he had his most trusted wizards scatter the pieces throughout the realm. Now tell me, General, how long can you hold your breath?” Azerick asked, his smile sliding from his face to be replaced with a cold look of unchallengeable purpose.
    Azerick raised his staff and a dwarven rune for stone and water flared. The solid granite at General Baneford’s feet suddenly lost all cohesion and flowed over the tops of his boots.
    “What do you want from me!” he shouted, suddenly feeling more vulnerable and helpless than he ever had in his life.
    “I told you what I want, General. It is a very simple request really.”
    General Baneford sighed in frustration. He hated to tell this wizard or demon or whatever the hell he was anything, but he had never actually pledged any sort of loyalty to the black tower wizard as he had Ulric. He had fulfilled the spirit of their bargain to the best of his ability. Perhaps if he gave him the black tower he would not continue to pry.
    “I don’t know who sent the assassin, but I do know the Rook is affiliated with the black tower wizards who are the same ones that asked me to get them the armor,” the general told Azerick truthfully.
    Black tower wizards. A great deal was starting to make sense to him now. The black tower wizards were an order of wizards bent on reclaiming the power they once wielded in the realm. Even the king treaded lightly where the black wizards were concerned. The slow but inevitable attrition of wizards that were able to attain truly powerful levels of magic eventually allowed the good people of Valaria to cast them out of the kingdom. They rebuilt their great black tower in a city a few days ride southeast of Langdon’s Crossing in Sumara.
    The Rook was affiliated with the black tower who had his father attempt to smuggle a piece of the armor into the kingdom. He gets caught and the tower sends the Rook to silence him. But why did the Rook come after him? He had nothing to do with the armor or the politics behind its acquisition.
    The attack on Miranda was no mere hold up. Could it have been a kidnapping and was it linked to all of this? The bandits had failed because of him. It was possible someone had sent the Rook in retaliation. Whatever the reason, it appeared that someone in the black tower would have answers.
    “Tell me about Darius Giles and his murder.”
    “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
    “He was a prisoner in Southport. He had one of the pieces that I assume you recovered somehow,” Azerick explained. “Someone killed him in his cell. I am surmising it was the work of the Rook as well.”
    “I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t stepped foot in Southport in nearly eight years. I was told to recover the gauntlets from some king’s men around that time and that was a hundred miles from Southport. Now get me out of this blasted hole or leave so my men may retrieve me, we had a deal!”
    “I am well aware of our deal, General. I am a man of my word, are you?” Azerick asked.
    General Baneford shed his ebony and gold helm. “I am a man of my word, wizard.”
    “I will free you but you must order your men to stand down and leave us all