Bramblewick Thistlehop's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Morning came gray and damp. Bramblewick stepped out of the crooked tent with a stack of fresh cards in his coat pocket. His twelve students were already lined up on the stone steps, waiting. He had no building, no plan, and no second day prepared. He cleared his throat to begin — and heard heavy boots crunching up the path behind him. Durgan Embersmyth came up the path with four dwarves hauling a blue and gold tent on poles. Behind them rolled a heavy table with an anvil for its base. They set it down in the clearing like a flag planted in soft ground. "Heroic Consultant," Durgan said, bowing his head. "I read your cards. I am enrolling." Bramblewick's mouth went dry. Twelve heads turned. Refusing the High Chieftain meant losing a powerful neighbor, and probably the road home. Accepting him meant the academy belonged to Durgan by sundown. He felt for the failure speech folded in his pocket and pushed it back down. Then he reached deeper and pulled out the leaf-pressed ledger he had been saving for someone important. He opened it on the anvil table. "Name and clan," he said, voice steady. "You enroll as a student. Same rules as the rest." Durgan smiled and signed. The dwarves cheered. The blue tent went up beside Bramblewick's crooked one, twice as tall, gold tassels swinging. The twelve students stared at the new pavilion, then at Bramblewick, and he saw the shift in their eyes — they were not his anymore. He had kept the enemy off his back and lost the center of his own school in the same breath.