Aldwyn's Academy by Nathan Meyer Page A

a deep scar.
    Behind them, Dorian heard loose pebbles skid across rocks and the crunch of snow under heavy feet. Whatever was coming for them was not more ghosts, it seemed.
    He looked frantically around, casting about for anything to help him or a place to hide.
    “We’ve got to find cover,” he said over the wind.
    He saw Caleb nod, face grim.
    A cloud passed from over the moon, and light the color of old bone fell on the ground. He saw the great wooden pillars of bridge supports with massive hemp ropes stretched across the short span of crevice.
    On the other side Dorian saw more low, crowded hills and the dark mouth of a cave. His heart hammered in his chest so hard that the rush of blood in his ears was deafening.
    “This way!” he pointed.
    The wooden planks of the rope bridge gleamed dully in the soft light.
    Dorian’s feet slid on the icy rocks and he almost went down, but he gritted his teeth and his Slippers of Spider Climbing held fast.
    Caleb, who was heavier, was having an even tougher time scrambling after him.
    Dorian lunged forward and ran to the bridge.
    Again out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flurry of motion but he didn’t dare look. He had an impression of a white plume of breath coming from behind a hut-sized boulder, and then another cloud passed in front of the moon and plunged the setting into midnight blue again.
    He felt the planks of the bridge under his feet and he reached out with his free hand, finding the thick column of rope. His footsteps echoed into the deep space beneath him as he ran.
    He was headed for the very edge of the school grounds now, as far from safety as he could get and still be at the academy.
    Make us proud
, he heard his mother’s voice say again.
    He felt tears building behind his eyes as he struggled. He blinked them back angrily.
    Halfway across the bridge, lightning snapped like a whip and the thunder hammered almost immediately.
    The bridge rocked in the growing tempest.
    Dorian couldn’t believe how quickly the storm had found them. Wind whipped his hair, stung his face, and plucked at his clothes as he left the rope bridge.
    “This storm isn’t natural!” Caleb yelled.
    The half-orc clung to the rope guides of the bridge, struggling to stay upright.
    A drift of old snow had piled up on the far side of the span, and for the first time Dorian thought to wonder how early winter seemed to have found Aldwyns.
    Nothing was as it seemed, he realized. Banshees gave warnings. Helene was a princess. He had discovered himself in the midst of some evil plan.
    Dorian kicked his way clear of the clinging snow, Caleb grunting behind him. He heard the ropes of the suspension bridge creak in protest behind him and he spun, catching the image of hulking, shadowed figures on the bridge.
    Then, as lightning cracked overhead again, the sky lit up with stark, harsh illumination so brilliant it was blinding.
    “Bugbears!” he shouted.
    “I can smell ’em!” Caleb growled.
    The larger cousins to green-skinned goblins, the humanoid monsters were more aggressive and organized. As bloodthirsty as any other of the evil races, they lived for war and to enslave creatures weaker than themselves.
    The bugbears shuffled forward, the cold black steel of bare swords naked in fists that resembled bear claws.
    They loomed nearly seven feet tall. Dark hair bristled in curtains, framing bestial faces, big pointed ears, and jutting, jagged teeth that looked like broken daggers as the beasts grinned.
    Dorian’s father had fought them numerous times in his career as a warlord of the court, and the boy knew from his father’s tales how savage and bloodthirsty the goblinkind were.
    “Go, run!” Caleb yelled. The half-orc stepped forward, putting himself between the two massive creatures and the frightened boy. “I’ll hold them off.”
    “What?” Dorian’s voice was almost a shriek. “You can’t fight those bugbears alone!”
    Caleb shoved him hard, pushing him forward.
    The