Free The Sorcerer's Ascension by Brock Deskins

man’s shoulder bone, the blade slipping between the upper ribs just below it, piercing his heart.
    Azerick paused for a few moments as the man slumped forward onto his face, thinking about what he has just done. As Azerick stood over the body, bloody knife in hand, he processed the fact that not only had he just killed a man but somehow knew that it would not be the last life he would likely take in the years to come.
    Azerick shook off these thoughts, stripped the belt and knife 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. First, he would get his books back.
    Azerick 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 pain of his recent loss and the renewed anguish that tried to rise as he thought of his father.
    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 that he would use to temper himself like a finely crafted sword, a sword he would thrust into the bowels of his enemies.
    He made his way back to the common quarter of the city and the not so respectable inn that was his home just several hours ago. It looked like the place where his mother was alive and trying so desperately hard to take care of him and make a life for them just earlier that same day. Now she was gone he thought, as 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 of him. Here these emotions 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 all his loss and pain he would make them pay. He would make them wish to the gods that he had not survived his life in the streets. He would never be a victim again and anyone that tried to make him one would pay dearly some day, one way or another.
    He knew that 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.
    He pulled the clothes out of his bag to make room for his books and slung the satchel over his shoulders. He then went around back and climbed the small, slanting porch roof that hung over the door that led straight into the kitchen. From there, he pulled himself up onto a small ledge that separated the second floor from the first. Pressing himself face first against the wall, he sidestepped and edged around the tiny ledge until he reached the window to his former room.
    He slipped the blade of the bloody knife he had taken from the man in the alley between the two sides of the window shutters and lifted the latch that held them closed. He quickly stepped from his narrow perch into the room and froze, listening for any sounds of disturbance. He heard nothing but could smell the blood that had seeped into the old floorboards that the soap and water used to clean it up with could not reach.
    Azerick looked around the room and saw nothing but blood stains. Everywhere