Death Comes To All (Book 1) Read Free

come
true.”

Chapter
One

    From
the very first, Drom knew he would never forget the first time he met
Garan, or the man who was first introduced to him as Garan. Not in a
thousand years. For the rest of his life he would think back upon the
night that would change his life forever.
    Anyone
who didn’t know Drom would have wondered, and with good reason,
what a young sorvinian man was doing at the Staghorn Inn on a night
like that to begin with. Most sorvinians would never have strayed
from their farms long enough to have made it that far.
    Of
course, Drom was nothing like most sorvinians.
    While
Drom's father was sorvinian, his mother was human. Growing up in a
farming community of sorvinian children had been brutal for Drom, who
looked different from all the other children. Those children all
looked like the bulls that the sorvinian race had been created from,
while Drom looked neither human nor sorvinian, at least not enough to
pass as either one of them completely.
    Drom
had inherited his father’s sorvinian ears, and like his father
he was covered in short, coarse fur from head to foot, but the
similarities ended there. His nose and mouth looked human, instead of
the wide, bovine muzzle that his father sported, but unlike his
mother’s small features his were wide and distorted.
    He
would always be seen as different. Not just different but downright
ugly, at least in his opinion. He simply didn’t fit in. When he
became older and his horns, the pride of any sorvinian man, didn’t
grow in at all, it became even worse for him.
    Unlike
other sorvinians, he hated the idea of living out his entire life on
a farm, watching crops grow. He longed for the adventure that lived
in the stories that the traders would tell him when they came to buy
his father’s crops. His mother had taught him to read and
write, something that few of the traders seemed to know, but the
handful of books his mother lovingly cared for only left him hungry
for more adventure than what those well known pages could offer.
    That
was how he had come to the decision that it was time to leave the
farming life behind, at least for a while, and see what the rest of
the world had to offer. His father disapproved, but was good enough
not to say anything about it. His mother kissed him goodbye and, with
only a small pack of supplies and a hand-drawn map his mother had
given him, he headed south toward the distant city of Port Dayton.
    Which
was how he now found himself in the Staghorn Inn, one of the more
disreputable places in the city. Its only advantage was that it was
cheap. According to the city guards he had talked to on his way in it
had the cheapest ale and the cheapest rooms, perfect for anyone brave
or stupid enough to walk through its doors.
    Drom
was brave, at least in his own opinion, but he didn't consider
himself stupid. He was, however, dangerously low on funds. His
parents hadn't given him much to see him on his way. After paying the
taxes to the mage they barely made enough for their own needs. He had
enough for food and lodgings at the Staghorn for five days, perhaps a
week if he stretched it out. Until he found some sort of work he knew
he would have to be frugal with what little he had.
    The
place seems clean at least , he thought as he looked around the
room.
    The
lights were dim, although Drom suspected that most of the customers
preferred it that way. The majority of the light in the room came
from the small fireplace set halfway across the room from the bar.
The few small oil lamps scattered around the rest of the room gave
off little light, but it was enough, just barely, for Drom to see by.
    The
bar room was large, with thick, unpainted wooden walls. The heads of
various animals, mostly deer with large, multi-pointed antlers and
glass eyes that gazed unblinkingly at the patrons around the room,
decorated the walls. Drom was grateful that the two round wooden
tables gave incoming patrons a clear pathway to the bar. Judging by
the