Sons of the Oak

by David Farland

  —The Wizardess Averan

  In his sleep, Fallion had a dream that came startlingly clear, more visceral than any dream he’d dreamed before. It was much like the vision he’d had when he picked up the owl pin, as if all of his life were a dream, and for the first time he tasted reality.

  In his dream, he was walking along the side of a hill, in a little port-side market. The houses were strange, little rounded huts made of bamboo with bundles of dried grass forming the roofs. In the distance he heard the bawl of cattle. The road wound along a U-shaped bay, and on the far beach he could see a young girl with a switch, driving a pair of black water buffalo up a hill for the night.

  He’d never seen a place like this before, and he marveled at every detail—at the odor of urine by the roadside, the muddy reek of rice paddies, the song that the girl sang in the distance in some tongue that he’d never heard before nor imagined.

  As he ambled along the road, he passed between two huts, and in their shadow saw metal cages with black iron bars, thick and unyielding. Two of the cages were empty, their doors thrown open. But in the third squatted a girl a bit older than Fallion, with hair as dark and sleek as the night. She was pretty, all skin and bones, blossoming into someone beautiful. She kept her arms wrapped around her knees.

  She peered into Fallion’s eyes, and begged. “Help! They’ve got me in a cage. Please, set me free.”

  The vision faded, and Fallion woke, his heart pounding. He wasn’t sure if it pounded because he was afraid, or because he was angry to see such a thing.

  He had heard of Sendings before, and wondered if this was one. Usually Sendings only came between those who shared some deep connection—a family member or a close friend. When one received a Sending from a stranger, it was said that would come from the person who was to be of great import in your life.

  But was it real, or just a dream? Fallion wondered. Is there really a girl held captive? Does she need me to free her?

  He wasn’t sure. Hearthmaster Waggit had told him that most dreams were just odd thoughts bound together by the imagination into what sometimes seemed a coherent story.

  The girl could have been Rhianna. She had a similarly pretty face, but the hair and eyes were wrong. Rhianna had dark red hair and deep blue eyes, not black hair.

  No, Fallion realized, the girl looks more like the picture of my mother, the one on her promise locket from when she was young and beautiful.

  And the cage?

  Rhianna is caged, too, he realized, seemingly caught in a maze of fear and pain.

  Was I dreaming about her?

  And if so, why did it feel like a Sending?

  At almost that instant, he heard Rhianna whimper, wrapped there in her blanket by the fire.

  Nightmares. She was having a bad dream.

  That’s all that it was, Fallion told himself. I must have heard her cry out in her sleep, and that’s what made me dream like this … .

  Outside the hostel, a driving wind blew over the sea, thundering over rough waves, lashing them to whitecaps.

  The wind rode into the bay, veering this way and that, like a starling that has lost direction in a storm.

  It hit the coastline, whistled among the pilings of the pier, and then rose up into the streets, floating over cobblestones, exploring dark shanties.

  At one loud inn, where raucous laughter competed with pipes and the joyous shrieks of whores, a pair of sailors opened a swinging door. The wind rode in on their heels.

  In a dark corner, at a round table littered with empty ale mugs, sat a man wide of girth, a man with a black beard streaked with gray, and curly hair that fell to his shoulders. His bleary eyes stared at nothing, but suddenly came awake when he felt the questing wind on the nape of his neck.

  Captain Stalker came awake. He recognized the two men who had just entered the inn, and as he did so, he kicked back a stool, inviting them to his table.

  His table. Stalker didn’t own it, except when he was in port twice a year. On those days the inn, with its raucous noise and the reek of fishermen, became his court, while this stool became his throne.

  Even lords flocked to his table at those times, dainty men who held perfumed kerchiefs to their noses in disgust. Wheedling little barons would beg to invest in his shipping enterprise, while bright merchants with an eye on profit margins would seek to sell him goods on consignment.

  He kept his books on the table, right there by the mugs. He had plenty of ale stains on the parchment.

  Though he was none too tidy, Captain Stalker was a careful man. He was used to testing the wind for signs of a storm, watching breakers for hidden reefs. He ran a tight ship, a profitable ship.

  He was, in fact, moderately wealthy, though his rumpled clothes and windblown hair suggested otherwise.

  Right now, he smelled a storm coming.

  It had not been more than a couple of hours since Sir Borenson had booked passage, an aging force soldier straight from the king’s court. With the death of the Earth King it was only to be expected that some might flee Mystarria—lords who knew that they would be out of favor under the new administration.

  But much that Borenson had said raised warning flags. The man was notorious. Everyone in Mystarria knew him by name, and four men at the inn knew his face. He’d been the Earth King’s personal guard, and had taken the task of guarding his sons.

  And now he was fleeing the country with his wife and children, only hours after some dark character had come offering a reward for information on folks just like him.

  “There may be two boys,” the fellow had said. “Both of them with black hair and dark complexions—like half-breeds from Indhopal.”

  It didn’t take the brains of a barnacle to know who he was after. The princes of Mystarria were born to a half-breed from Indhopal—Queen Iome Sylvarresta Orden.

  The reward for “information” was substantial.

  The two sailors threw themselves down on stools. One whistled for a couple of fresh mugs, and a fat mistress brought a pair.

  Both sailors leaned forward, smiles plastered across their faces, and eyed Captain Stalker.

  “Well?” he asked. He knew that the word was good. He could see it in the men’s bearing, their desire to make him dig the news out of them.

  “It’s ’em,” one of the sailors, Steersman Endo, said with a sly smile. “We ’eard the news over by the palace.”

  Endo was a wiry little man with the albino skin and cinnabar-colored hair of an Inkarran. Like most Inkarrans, he couldn’t bear sunlight, and so headed Stalker’s night crew.

  “There was a battle last night, just west of ’ere. Soon as the Earth King croaked, someone attacked the Queen’s Castle up at Coorm, caught everyone nappin’. So the queen squids off with ’er boys, headin’ east to ’er palace at the Courts of Tide. But she never makes it. She just disappears.”

  Was it possible? Captain Stalker wondered. Was the queen really taking her children into exile?

  Possibly. There was some logic to it. The queen had aged prematurely, having taken so much metabolism. She’d be dead in a year or two, and the children weren’t ready to lead. She’d want to keep them safe.

  And history was against her. There had been an Earth King once before, ages past, a man named Erden Geboren.

  Like Gaborn Val Orden, he rose to power precipitously, and folks adored him. He was great at killing reavers, but like Gaborn, he could hardly bear to kill a man.

  And when his own sister turned against him, he seemed to have just died, to have passed away from the lack of will to fight.

  But Stalker knew something that few others did. There was the matter of Erden Geboren’s family, his children.

  Many folks wanted to make his eldest son the next king. Whole nations rose up in his support, demanding it.

  But the cries were short-lived. In fact, the idea died out within a week—when Erden Geboren’s children were found slaughtered in their beds.

  Iome would surely be familiar with t
he tale. And she would have learned from it.

  “We’re going to make a lot of money,” one of the sailors, a deckhand named Blythe, said. “Shall I go find the feller what was lookin’ for ’em?”

  Captain Stalker whetted his lips, thought for a long moment. “No,” he said at last.

  “There’s fifty gold eagles reward!” Blythe objected.

  “Fifty gold eagles?” Stalker asked. “That’s only twenty-five for each prince. How many gold eagles do you think that the Court here spends a year, buildin’ roads and buyin’ armor and repairin’ castle walls?”

  Blythe shrugged.

  “Millions,” Stalker said, the word ending as a hiss. “Millions.”

  Blythe couldn’t imagine millions. Fifty gold eagles was more than he would make in twenty years as a deckhand. “But … but we could get—”

  Stalker needed to make him see the bigger picture. “What do you think will ’appen to them boys?” Captain Stalker asked. “What do you think that feller is gonna do—bugger ’em? Slit their throats? No, he has something else in mind.”

  Blythe clenched his fists impatiently. He was a strong man, used to climbing the rigging and furling sails, hard work by any measure.

  Captain Stalker saw the anger building. “Be patient,” Stalker said, reaching to his coin purse. He fumbled through a couple of silver eagles, decided that only gold might win the man’s attention for a bit. He threw four gold eagles on the table. “Be patient.”

  “Patient for what?” Blythe demanded, and the captain realized that it wasn’t just money he was after. There was a hunger in the man’s face, an intensity common to craven men. He hoped to see the children die.

  “Think of it,” Stalker said. “We hold the children a bit, and what’s this feller that wants ’em goin’ to do?”

  Blythe shrugged.

  “Raise the price, that’s what. Not fifty gold eagles. Not five ’undred. Five hundred thousand, that’s what I figure they’re worth—minimum!”

  Captain Stalker had an uncommonly good eye for profit. Everyone knew that. Even Blythe, who knew little but pain and sunburn and the stiff wind on his face, knew that. It’s what made the Leviathan such a successful ship.

  Blythe looked up at him hopefully. “What’s my cut goin’ to be?”

  Captain Stalker eyed him critically. He wasn’t a generous man, but he decided that right now he couldn’t be stingy. “Five thousand.”

  Blythe considered. It wasn’t equal shares, but it was a fortune. Blood flushed to his cheeks. His pale eyes glowed with undisguised lust. “Coooo …” he whispered.

  Endo leaned back on his stool and took a swig from his mug, sealing the deal.

  “Five thousand,” Blythe said giddily. “We’re goin’ to be rich!” He squirmed on his stool, peered up at his accomplices as if inviting them to celebrate.

  “One thing,” Captain Stalker said, and he leaned close to Blythe to let the sailor see that he was serious. “You speak a word about this to anyone, and I will personally cut your throat and use your tongue for fish bait.”

  17

  SMALL ARMIES, SMALL VICTORIES

  Children look at the world with an unjaded eye, and so see everything.

  —The Wizard Binnesman

  Iome surprised herself by sleeping. She didn’t often sleep. She woke in the morning to the creak of the door coming open.

  Sir Borenson entered softly, tiptoeing to the hearth to stir up the embers and get a fire lit.

  The children were all asleep, and Fallion still lay in Iome’s lap. She drew the blanket back over him and hugged him, regretting that she had not held him more often.

  “Lots of folks awake down in the common room,” Borenson whispered. “Lots of rumors flying. Everyone in the city has heard how Asgaroth attacked Castle Coorm, and how the queen somehow took his life in single combat.”

  Iome grinned, even though the news disturbed her. “All of these years we’ve been hiring spies when we might as well have just resorted to the nearest inn.”

  “Common folk know an uncommon lot,” Borenson quoted an old proverb. He grinned. “Rumor says that the queen is holed up at the Courts of Tide. And to prove it, the queen’s flag is flying, to show that she is in residence.”

  Someone is thinking, Iome realized. Was it Chancellor Westhaven who raised the queen’s flag?

  “Maybe that’s what drew the assassins last night,” Borenson continued. “A milkmaid who delivered to the palace this morning swears that she saw thirty-nine bodies laid out on the greens: all of them Inkarrans.”

  Iome bit her lower lip, imagined the Inkarrans with their bone white skin and silver hair, their strange breastplates and short spears. Inkarran assassins? It would have been a bitter fight, for the white-skinned Inkarrans could see perfectly well in the darkest night.

  What worried her more was the sheer number. They’d never made an assault in such force before.

  “We’ll have to spend the next couple of days inside,” Iome said. Though there was little danger from more Inkarrans for the next few days, it seemed likely that other assassins would be watching the court.

  “My thoughts exactly. Myrrima can bring the meals in. She can tell our hosts that we’ve taken sick.”

  So that was the plan.

  They all stayed inside the small room, and Iome spent the day playing child’s games—Village Idiot and Three Pegs. Borenson showed the children how to tie some sailor’s knots—the thumb knot, the bowline, the rolling hitch and clove hitch—and described in glowing terms what life would be like aboard the Leviathan, though he avoided telling anyone of its destination.

  Jaz had the good sense to ask if they would see pirates or sea monsters on the voyage, and Borenson assured him that they’d see both, but most likely only from a distance.

  Such news disappointed Jaz, who certainly was the kind of boy who would want to catch his own sea monster and keep it in a watering trough.

  Fallion remained thoughtful for much of the morning, and held aloof from the children’s games.

  What his mother had told him last night affected him deeply. He felt that he needed to prepare, and though others had groomed him all of his life, now Fallion considered his own future.

  I must get ready, he thought. I must build my army. But why would anyone want to follow me?

  He thought of the soldiers he knew, the powerful lords and captains that he liked. They each had qualities that he admired: courage, fortitude, discipline, faith in themselves and in their men.

  Am I like that? he wondered. If I work hard, can I be the kind of person that others look up to?

  Fallion had known many great lords, men who had taken endowments of brawn so that they had the strength of five men, and endowments of wit so that they had the intelligence of three. He’d seen Anders who had taken endowments of glamour so that his face seemed to shine like the sun. Even Myrrima had taken enough glamour from others so that, despite her age, she remained seductive. He’d heard men with endowments of Voice speak in debates, enthralling audiences.

  Fallion was nothing like them.

  But I can be, he told himself. I have the forcibles that I need to become that kind of man.

  And what of my warriors? He looked at the children playing on the floor: Jaz, Rhianna, Talon, Draken, Sage. Even little Erin still in her diaper.

  Iome had told him that greatness could be found in the coming generations.

  So it was with some embarrassment that he finally got up the courage to speak to the children. He didn’t know how to ask it, so he just broke in on a game and asked, “Do you want to join my army?”

  All of the children stared up at him for a moment, giving him blank looks.

  “No,” Talon answered. “We’re playing Rope a Horse.”

  Sage, who at three never wanted to be left out of anything, blurted, “I’ll play dolls with you. Want to play dolls?”

  Fallion shook his head. “This is a real army. I’m not talking about playing.”

>   “Who are you going to fight?” Rhianna asked.

  “The strengi-saats,” Fallion said, “and Asgaroth, and anyone like him.”

  Nearly all of the children backed away. Talon was maybe the best fighter that Fallion knew, for a seven-year-old. Her father had been training her for years. But she shook her head demurely and looked down at the floor. “I don’t want to fight them.”

  Jaz, Draken, and the other children looked as if they were frightened witless. But Rhianna, the oldest of them, peered up at him, her fierce blue eyes growing impossibly more savage, and said through tight lips, “I’ll fight beside you.”

  “You will?” Fallion asked.

  She nodded slowly, surely. There was no doubt in her voice, no hesitation. She understood that this was a serious endeavor. “You saved my life. I’ll fight for you anytime, anyplace.”

  “Good,” Fallion said. “As soon as we get on the ship, we start training.” He reached out, and the two shook hands at the wrist, sealing the bargain.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Fallion felt as if he were floating on air. He had started his army.

  Iome watched the exchange, gratified by the seriousness of their tone, but pained by it as well. She didn’t want her son to grow up so quickly.

  More than that, she worried that she could offer little more in the way of guidance. She had told him to prepare, to begin building his army. But how could a nine-year-old prepare?

  She had no answers for him. The truth was, she had never found them for herself.

  Once, an hour later, while the rest of the children were playing, Fallion came up and asked his mother, “Do you think you can kill a locus?”

  Iome looked to make certain that the others didn’t overhear. The children were huddled in a corner, giggling and snorting as they played Village Idiot, a memory game where a child said, “The village idiot went to the fair, but he forgot to take his …” and then he would add something bizarre, such as his duck or his pants or his eyes, bringing giggles and snorts of laughter. Each child in the circle then took a turn, adding something new to the list of things that the village idiot forgot—his codpiece, his bowels, his pretty pink pig—until the list became so unwieldy that the children began to forget. When a child messed up, the others would all chime, “You’re the village idiot!” and then keep going until only one child remained.