Sons of the Oak r-5

by David Farland

  Within the bay, the water was calm. Fish teemed at the base of the huge trees, leaping in the darkness, and Fallion could see some young sea serpents out on the satin water, perhaps only eight feet long, finning on the surface, seemingly bent on endlessly chasing their tails.

  High above, in the branches of the trees, lights could be seen from a forest city.

  “Are we going to live up there?” Talon asked her father, fear evident in her voice.

  “No,” Borenson said. “We’re going inland, to the deserts.”

  In the distance, near the city, Fallion saw a pair of graaks flying along the edge of the woods, enormous white ones large enough to carry even a man, sea graaks that were so rare they were almost never seen back in his homeland. Their ugly heads, full of teeth, contrasted sharply with the beauty of their sleek bodies and leathery wings.

  The graaks were both males, and so had a ridge of leather, called a plume, that rose up on their foreheads. The plumes had been painted with blue eyes, staring wide, the ancient symbol of the Gwardeen. A pair of young men, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age, rode upon their backs.

  They’re on patrol, Fallion realized. He longed to be up there, riding a graak himself. It was something that his mother had never allowed him to do.

  Even if I fell, he thought, the worst that would happen is that I’d land in the water.

  And end up a meal for the serpents, a niggling voice inside him whispered, though in truth he knew that a young sea serpent, like the ones he saw finning now, were no more dangerous than a reef shark.

  The ship didn’t even bother to drop anchor. The captain just let it drift for a bit.

  “I’ll let you folks row in from here,” Captain Stalker said. “No sense attracting any notice, if you can help it.”

  That was the plan. They would row in during the night and follow the river inland for miles, hoping not to be seen for days perhaps, until they were far from the coast.

  Meantime, Captain Stalker would rush home and get his wife, then sail north and scuttle the ship near some unnamed port.

  Fallion was suddenly aware that he’d never see Captain Stalker again, and his heart seemed to catch at his throat.

  “Thank you,” Myrrima said, and the family grabbed their meager possessions as the crew lowered the boat.

  There were some heartfelt good-byes as Fallion and the children hugged the captain and some of their favorite crew members.

  Stalker hugged Fallion long and hard, and whispered in his ear, “If you ever get a hankerin’ for life on the sea, and if I ever get another ship, you’ll always be welcome with me.”

  Fallion peered into his eyes and saw nothing but kindness there.

  I used to worry that he had a locus, Fallion thought, and now I love him as if he were my own father.

  Fallion hugged him hard. “I’ll hold you to it.”

  Then he climbed down a rope ladder to the away boat. Borenson, Myrrima, and the children were already there, each child clutching a tiny bundle that held all that he or she owned.

  Myrrima was deeply aware of just how little they had brought with them: a few clothes that were quickly wearing down to rags, some small mementos, Fallion’s forcibles.

  We must look like peasants, she thought. She took the oars and rowed out toward the city.

  “Make north of the city, about two miles,” Stalker warned her, and she changed course just a little. The sound of waves surrounded them, and the boat splashed through the waters with each small tug of the oars. Droplets from the oars and spray from whitecaps spattered the passengers.

  Fallion watched the Leviathan sail away, disappearing into the distance.

  All too soon they neared shore, where small waves lapped among the roots of the stonewoods. The scent of the trees was strange, foreign. It was a metallic odor, tinged with something vaguely like cinnamon.

  Two hundred feet up, peeking through the limbs, lanterns hung. Among the twisted limbs, huts had been built, small abodes made of sticks, with roofs of bearded lichens. Catwalks ran from house to house.

  Fallion longed to climb up there, take a look around.

  But he had to go farther inland, and sadly he realized that he might never set foot in Garion’s Port again.

  “The Ends of the Earth are not far enough,” he recalled, feeling ill at ease. He scanned the horizon for black sails. There were none.

  So the boat crept among the roots until it reached a wide river. The family rowed through the night until dawn, listening to the night calls of strange birds, the rasping sounds of frogs or insects-all calls so alien that Fallion might just as well been in a new world.

  As dawn began to brighten the sky, they drew the boat into the shelter beneath the great trees, and found that it was a place of eternal shadows.

  The murk of overhanging trees made it as dark as night in some places, and the ground was musty and covered with strange insects-enormous tarantulas, and various animals the likes of which Fallion had never seen- flying tree lizards and strange beetles with horns.

  They found a barren patch of ground and met up with Landesfallen’s version of a shrew: a tenacious little creature that looked like a large mouse but which defended its territory as if it were a rabid she-bear. The bite of the shrew was mildly poisonous, Borenson was later warned, but not until after he discovered it through personal experience.

  The shrew, disturbed by his approach, leapt up on his leg and sank its teeth into Borenson’s thigh. The shrew then squatted in the clearing, squeaking and leaping threateningly each time that he neared. Sir Borenson, who had battled reavers, Runelords, and flameweavers, was obliged to give way for the damned shrew.

  As Fallion nursed a fire into being, using nothing but wet detritus, the others set up camp.

  He marveled at the raucous cries of birds unlike any that he’d heard before, the weird twittering calls of frogs, and the croaks of lizards.

  The earth smelled rich, the humus and dirt overpowering. He had been at sea for so long, he’d forgotten how healthy the earth could smell.

  But they were safe. There was no sign of Shadoath’s pirates. They were alive, and tomorrow they could push farther inland.

  For at least today, he thought, we are home.

  43

  THE NIGHTMARE RETURNS

  We cannot always run away from our problems, for too often they follow.

  — Hearthmaster Vanyard, from the Room of Dreams

  Five years passed before Shadoath heard the words “We have found him.”

  The spring that Fallion had gone missing, she’d sent her agents through every port in Landesfallen, searching for the boy. Bribes were offered, threats were made. After a few months without any progress, innkeepers went missing and wound up in her torture chambers.

  The Borenson family had disappeared, and apparently never made it to any port.

  Yet Captain Stalker had found his way home, Shadoath knew. His wife, in the village of Seven Trees Standing, disappeared, and six months later Shadoath got word that the remains of the Leviathan were crashed upon some rocks on the shores of Toom. The captain and all hands were reported dead.

  Shadoath had changed the focus of her search then, sending men to the north countries of Rofehavan. She imagined that the Borensons had decided to flee back home to safety.

  He might be in Mystarria, she reasoned, or even off in his mother’s old haunts in Heredon.

  Thus, the trail grew cold, and in time Shadoath turned her thoughts to other things. Her armies began making raids into the southlands of Inkarra, slaughtering villages and bringing back gold and blood metal. Her assassins struck down powerful leaders in far places.

  She took endowments of stamina, sight, and glamour. In time, she smoothed the scars from her body. Though her right eye remained forever blind, with enough endowments of stamina and sight, she regained vision in her left.

  She sent out an army of minstrels to sing new songs, powerful songs that called for change, songs that reviled dece
nt lords, accusing them of tyranny, while true tyrants were praised within their own borders as men of great strength and vision.

  And the peasants responded.

  Chaos washed across the world, and in a dozen countries revolutions arose. In Orwynne, good men refused to serve as Dedicates to their young king, suspecting that he was a tyrant. He responded by outlawing all minstrels-a group that by ancient law could not be silenced-and thus in the minds of many proved that he was a tyrant indeed. When the Knights Equitable slaughtered his Dedicates, and then put him to the gallows, only his wife and children protested.

  In the northlands of Internook, folk who had always been too poor to afford forcibles heard songs that decried the “tyranny of the Runelords,” and were taught to long for a day when none existed. It was no surprise when the peasants revolted, slaughtering the few Dedicates that lived within Internook’s borders.

  The folk of Alnick soon tried to follow in their footsteps, marching upon the castle. There Queen Rand threw herself from the battlements, ending her life so that she might free her Dedicates, sparing them from murder.

  The call for revolution spread, even as the blood-metal mines in Kartish gave out.

  The world grew ripe for destruction, and as it did, Shadoath prepared. Her army of strengi-saats had multiplied and grown fat on the carrion left in the wake of her small wars in Inkarra.

  Shadoath had almost forgotten Fallion. But last fall she had been visiting a small port in the north of Mystarria, and as she walked down the busy streets, studying the work of local weapon-smiths, she spotted a sailor that she recognized.

  She’d only seen him once, for a few seconds, yet with a dozen endowments of wit, Shadoath remembered his face vividly. He had been just another sailor in the crowd on the night when Shadoath had fought Myrrima. He was supposed to have been dead, washed up on the rocks of Toom.

  She took him then, and a few days under the hot tongs loosened his tongue.

  Fallion had gone ashore near Garion’s Port.

  She sent her agents out again, had them search up the Hacker River with its many tributaries, and told them what to look for.

  She knew Fallion better than he knew himself. She’d fought him time and again, over many lifetimes.

  “Look for a lad well versed with a blade, one who has made a reputation for himself. He will be quiet and unassuming, driven and as sharp as a knife, but well liked by others.”

  And so now one of her scouts had returned, a minstrel in green-andyellow-striped pants with a shirt of purple and a red vest. He looked like a fool but sang like a sweet lark, plucking his lute as he danced around.

  “I found him. I found him. And for a fortune I’ll tell you whe-ere,” the minstrel sang, doing a jig around the throne, glee shining in his eyes.

  Shadoath grinned. “Fallion?”

  The minstrel nodded secretively.

  She reached down to her belt, threw her whole purse full of gold onto the floor. “Where?”

  “He’s a captain among the Gwardeen, and goes by the last name of Humble. For three years he has led graak riders at the Citadel of the Infernal Wastes, and only recently has he been transferred to the Gwardeen Wood, just north of Garion’s Port.”

  “A captain-so young?” she wondered. Instinctively she knew that it was true. Young, ambitious, well liked.

  The name “Fallion” was common in Landesfallen, and the boy had apparently kept it, changing only his last name.

  The Gwardeen were notoriously closed and secretive, and their graak outposts were often difficult to reach. The Citadel of the Infernal Wastes was a fortress only eighty miles east of Garion’s Port. But it was high in the mountains, some said “impossible” to reach by foot.

  Shadoath tried to imagine the life that he had been living. Fallion would have spent years flying missions over the inland deserts on his graak, making certain that the toth had not returned. He might even have spent the midsummer and winter months down in their ancient tunnels.

  No wonder she had not found him.

  The minstrel plucked his lute, as if begging attention, and then continued. “He has a brother serving under him: a boy named Draken. And there is an older woman that he visits in Garion’s Port-petite and beautiful, with raven hair.” The minstrel strummed a few notes to an ancient love ballad.

  Valya.

  Shadoath smiled.

  The minstrel strummed and sang, “How will we catch this bird? How will we clip its wings? For with only a word, other larks will warning bring.”

  Obviously he had been thinking. The Gwardeen kept watch at all times, and Fallion would be ready to fly away at a moment’s notice.

  “I don’t have to find him,” Shadoath said with a smile. “He is a Gwardeen, sworn to protect Landesfallen. I shall make him come to me.”

  44

  HEIR OF THE OAK

  In times of trouble, the world always looks for a hero to save it. Be careful that you don’t heed their call.

  — Sir Borenson, advice given to Fallion

  On a lazy summer afternoon at a tiny inn called the Sea Perch, built high among the branches of the stonewoods, Fallion sat listening to a minstrel sing.

  “Where, oh, where is the Heir to the Oak,

  Strong of heart and fair of face?

  His people mourn, and their hearts are broke,

  They say he dwells in some far-off place.

  In Heredon’s wood, on Mystarria’s seas, one can hear the ravens cry.

  Their calls disrupt the dreams of peace

  That in tender hearts of children lie.

  Where, oh, where is the Heir to the Oak?

  Exiled to some fairer realm?

  Does he follow his father’s roads?

  Calling a field his fort, the forest home?

  Where, oh, where is the Heir to the Oak?

  ‘Lost,’ some say, to light and life.

  But faithful hearts still hold this hope:

  His return will herald an end to strife.”

  The song struck Fallion to the marrow. It wasn’t just the quality of the singer’s voice. Borenson had warned Fallion that the people would cry for his return.

  Not yet, Fallion thought. I’m not ready yet. Do they really want me to come so soon?

  Fallion had hoped to wait until he was sixteen. On his sixteenth birthday, it was customary to crown a prince as king.

  But Fallion doubted that there would be anyone to crown him by the time he returned home. By all accounts, Chancellor Westhaven had tried his best to hold Mystarria together. But the Brat of Beldinook had torn it from his hands, and then had begun a reign of horror over its people, “punishing” them for the death of her father at Gaborn’s hands, persecuting any who dared admit that the Earth King may have been right in executing him.

  There were tales of starvation in Mystarria, of forlorn crowds rioting at the Courts of Tide.

  In Fallion’s mind, such “nobles” were waging wars that only weakened themselves and destroyed the very people they hoped to govern.

  The song brought a little applause. Few people were in the inn at this time of the day. Fallion tossed a small coin to the minstrel.

  “Thank you, sirrah,” the minstrel said.

  The man was fresh off a ship from Rofehavan, and Fallion hoped for more news from him.

  “Are all the songs that you sing so forlorn?” Fallion asked.

  “It has been a rough winter,” the minstrel said. “The folks in Heredon liked it well enough.”

  “How fares Heredon?” Fallion asked, for it was a place close to his heart.

  “Not well,” the minstrel said. He was a small man, well proportioned, with a gruff voice. “The Warlords of Internook seized it two years back, you know, and the peasants there all remember a time when they were ruled by a less-cruel hand. Many a tongue was singing that song last summer at the fair, and so in retribution, the lords at Castle Sylvarresta set fire to wheat fields. They say that the sky was so full of smoke, that in Crowthen it becam
e as dark as night.”

  “It seems to me that any lord who made war against his own peasants would only weaken himself.”

  “Aye,” the minstrel said. “Still the people croon for the return of their king. It’s that Earth Warden Binnesman that put them up to it. He told them that ‘the stones’ woke him at night, troubling him, calling for the new king. Lord Hagarth would have sent the old wizard swinging from the gallows, but the Earth Warden ran off into the Dunnwood, where it is said that he lives among the great boars, gnawing wild acorns.”

  Fallion wondered at that. Binnesman had anointed his father to be the Earth King. Fallion had never met the man, at least not since he was very small, but he knew that Binnesman was a wizard of great power.

  “Do those beyond the borders of Heredon share the hope for a new king?” Fallion asked.

  The minstrel smiled. “About half and half, I’d say. Some hope that the Earth King will return from the dead, or that his son will reign in his stead. But there’s a good many that never want to see a Runelord sit a throne again. ‘Death to all Dedicates’ is the call of the day.”

  “What would we do without Runelords?” Fallion asked. “What if the reavers were to attack again, or the toth?”

  “Our people have more to fear from evil leaders than they ever have from outside forces,” the minstrel said. “There’s some that whisper that it should not be so. It’s said that long ago, the Wizard Sendavian and Daylan of the Black Hammer stole the knowledge of rune-making from the bright Ones of the netherworld. They took it, but such knowledge was not meant for man. Only the truest, the noblest among the Bright Ones, were permitted to bear such runes, and no man is that good.”

  Fallion had heard this rumor before, too, not six months back. Yet Shadoath had come from the netherworld, and she bore such runes.

  The door to the inn opened, and outside stood a young girl, nine years of age, with skin as pale as milk. Her silver hair fell to her shoulders. She wore the gray robe of a graak rider, and held under her arms a pair of baskets of fruit and bread that she had bought at the local vendors. She was one of Fallion’s troops. It was time to head home.