Free The Sorcerer's Scourge by Brock Deskins

class, after you have cleaned out the stables, do whatever Ken needs you to do to fix his forges, mop out the downstairs, and do whatever else it takes to make this disaster look like it never happened.”
    “Two months! That’s not fair! I’ll miss summer festival!”
    “You want to know about fair? Go visit the nine graves of the children that died defending this keep and ask about fair! Imagine more gravestones belonging to the people you will inevitably kill from your foolish recklessness! What if Colleen had been downstairs with the twins and gotten swept away? It was only dumb luck, again, that prevented exactly that from happening this time.”
    Azerick turned to Roger. “You were with her?”
    Roger nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    “Then you are grounded for one month and will help with everything I have told Ellyssa to do.”
    “Azerick, it’s not Roger’s fault! He tried to tell me not to, but I did it anyway!”
    “You’re right. It is not his fault. Just like it is not the fault of most victims who get hurt from someone else’s selfish actions. You have shown me time and again that punishing you does little good. Maybe if someone close to you suffers for your actions you might actually learn something. Now go start on the hall.”
    Ellyssa jumped to her feet and ran to the tower in tears as Roger followed more slowly. Azerick looked at the crowd that had gathered.
    “I am sorry, everyone. I will do what I can to make sure something like this does not happen again.”
    Azerick was so furious he did not know what to do so he simply began walking. Rusty fell into step beside him and waited until they were near the outside wall before speaking.
    “You do know this is partly your fault, don’t you?”
    Azerick came to a stop and turned on his friend. “How is this in any way my fault?”
    “I warned you before you took off and picked a fight with the Black Tower that it was dangerous and irresponsible to shift all focus to applied magic and neglect magical history, particularly dealing with ethics. This is exactly what I feared would happen. I am just surprised it took this long and from only one student.”
    “This is not about the curriculum! Ellyssa has always been stubborn and reckless.”
    Rusty began ticking off his fingers. “Powerful for her age, willful, reckless, does what she wants despite practical wisdom or the advice of her closest friends. Now who does that remind you of?”
    “This is different! I did what I thought best given some extreme circumstances. I was trying to protect the school and these children. She was trying to figure out a way to avoid stairs!” Azerick defended.
    “She’s eleven! You were at least twenty when you turned a nobleman into a donkey for being rude when you could have easily just shut the door in his face!”
    “He was not hurt. It was a temporary spell.”
    “And you were certain of that when you cast it?”
    Azerick paused and thought back to that day. He had practically grabbed a scroll at random since it was not a spell he actually knew. Transmogrification was not an area he delved into much.
    “Reasonably,” he replied. “Fine. Return to teaching the ethical use of magic. Make it a major fundamental of the history lesson.”
    “Thank you,” Rusty replied a bit haughtily.
    “I really hate you sometimes. Do you know that?”
    Rusty smiled. “Because you know I am right?”
    “It certainly does not help.”

CHAPTER 4
     
     
    “Say what you want about the watch captain’s intuition,” Samone remarked as she poured over a stack of papers, “but his records keeping skills are spot on.”
    “I find that those with the least imagination are often highly organized,” Brother Charles responded. “Given his complete lack of theoretical flexibility, it is no surprise his orderliness borders on the obsessive.”
    Griff looked up from his own pile of papers. “Way too many big words, Chuck. How about dumbing it down for the kid over there?”
    “I