Free Mind Forged: Book One of the Enchanters of Xarparion by T Michael Ford

Idiot! You’re only a stupid enchanter and you think you can take me on? Me, Naton Rad! A fire wizard! I could kill you with a single spell!”
    “ Doesn’t matter who or what you are. You have no right to threaten anyone, let alone a fellow student.”
    “ We’ll see how noble you are when you’re a pile of ashes. An enchanter, what a joke,” Naton spat, as he readied two more fireballs, his cheer squad stepping back to give him room. “Any last words before you die?”
    “ That’s enough, Naton! You’ve had your fun, now leave before you really get hurt!” The voice came from a shorter, genial looking student a little older than I was who had approached silently from the rear of the hall. He had a strong earthy presence and I could tell he was a good guy just by looking at him. He was a leader and behind him were five other earth wizards and they all looked ready to fight.
    “ Stay out of this Hons; this is not your fight!”
    “ You made this my fight when you threatened Julia with your fire magic. And from what I hear, this enchanter stepped up and protected her. So from the way I see it, you mess with him, you mess with us!” Hons and the other earth wizards readied their own spells, lifting large chucks of stone from the floor.
    Naton growled , “Damn, that fireball was only strong enough to maybe give her sunburn, or maybe burn some of that curly rat’s nest she calls hair!”
    “ Your last tantrum like this ended with a wind wizard at the healers for over a week, now leave!”
    “ Fine, I’ll go, but don’t think that we’re done yet, Enchanter! You better watch your back!” He stormed off with his buddies to the other side of the dining hall, well away from us. Hons sighed and then offered his hand. “My name’s Hons.”
    “ Alex.”
    “ Good to meet you, Alex. And thank you for helping Julia for us. That jerk will bully anyone who is smaller than him.” I looked over to Julia. One of the other Earth Tower girls was hugging her, while she was sniffling on her shoulder. Hon’s sighed “That’s Lin, she and Julia have gotten close, being the two newest to the tower and all. Lin tells me she cries a lot in her sleep. I take it you knew her before she came to the school, do you know why?”
    I felt all my accumulated anger at Naton drain off and I looked down at my feet, not entirely sure if it was my story to tell . “Hons, she had a really hard time before she got here. Her parents were killed when she was little and she had no one so she ended up at an orphanage, a pretty bad one at that. This place is the first good thing that has happened to her. She may be afraid that this is all a dream and she’s going to wake up.”
    “ I wish she would have told us that; but now, maybe we can help her heal. Has she told you that she’s working to become a druid?”
    “ Yes - she’s so excited to have finally found friends and a niche in life.”
    He nodded warmly . “We’ll do everything in our power to help her along; Druids are especially precious to our discipline. We sometimes go years at a stretch without having even one qualify. This year we are fortunate to have two, Lin and Julia.” He looked around as if gauging the time from the level of activity in the dining hall. “Alex, it was good to meet you. I think you are one of the good guys. But you better get a move on if you’re going to make it to class on time. And don’t worry about Julia. I’ll make sure she at least has Lin with her here at all times. And try not to fret about Naton, if any of the earth wizards see him messing with you, we’ll back you up.” All the others murmured their approval; Lin was by far the most supportive.
    “ Thank you. It was great to meet you all, but I gotta go; Darroth will have my head if I’m late!”
    Running all the way to the forge, I found Darroth already at work and in rather high spirits, the beats of his hammer sounding like massive drums on the anvil.
    “ Glad to see you’re