Sons of the Oak (39 page)

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Authors: David Farland

BOOK: Sons of the Oak
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THE ATOLL
Each man thinks himself an island of virtue, surrounded by a sea of louts.
 
—Jaz Laren Sylvarresta
 
 
 
In the long night, Fallion's graak grew tired. It was a far journey, and even with light winds Windkris could not go on forever. The poor reptile began to cough as it flew, and the flesh at its throat jiggled, as if it grew faint from thirst.
Fallion considered abandoning the beast. He did not want to cause its death. But he was too far out to sea now to turn back.
By some good fortune, he spotted a small atoll, a rock that thrust up from the ocean. He stopped for a long while and let Windkris rest. The rock was hardly big enough for him to get down from his mount, perhaps fifteen feet across. So he sat upon Windkris as the black water surged all around them and watched the sunrise.
It was not until late in the early morning, when a pink sun had climbed into the sky, that Fallion reached Wolfram.
He recognized the island from the charts, its white sand beaches and the play of waves around it.
He let Windkris drop, and it flapped along its length.
The island seemed empty, uninhabited. There was no sign of the
Mercy.
He flew up and down the coastline at such a slow speed that it seemed to him that he spent hours observing its every detail.
There were no fires to warm Dedicates, no hidden towers or compounds to house them.
They're not here, he realized. But there are two other islands nearby. I'll let my mount rest for the morning, and then leave.
He let Windkris drop to the beach and take a young sea lion as a meal.
Fallion found a pile of driftwood and curled up in the sand beneath it, gaining a little shelter from the wind as his mount rested.
 
 
 
As Fallion slept, Sir Borenson made his way toward Stillwater on the family rangit, bouncing and jostling all along the road until his head pounded in pain.
At each little village, he shouted warnings to whomever he could, telling them of the invasion, thus raising the countryside.
It was hard work, long work, made all the harder because he was traveling over rough roads in the heat of the day.
The journey to Stillwater normally took two days by rangit. He intended to make it in one.
Time and again, his thoughts turned back to the children, and to Myrrima. He'd left her with the family. A couple of years back, she had lost her endowments—all but her glamour. She was no longer the warrior that she had once been. She was a healer, a water wizardess living at the edge of the desert. Most of all, she was a mother, and she liked it.
She longed for another home, one with a stream or a lake nearby, but had forgone that. “Anyone who is looking for us will know to look near water,” she'd said, and so Myrrima insisted that they move to the hottest, most inhospitable patch of rocky land that they could find.
“Someday,” Borenson had promised her time and again, “I'll find us a proper home.”
Borenson worried that his wife and children would be captured, or worse, and it was only with great difficulty that he turned his mind away from such thoughts.
It does no good to worry, he told himself. I can't change what might happen. My course is set, and to turn back is worse than to press on.
And as he raced over the hillsides, into lush country where wild rangits grazed on the green spring grass, he stopped at the top of a hill and looked down upon a silver river. The grass was of a kind that he'd never seen back in Rofehavan. Rangit grass, the farmers called it, and it had a scent and texture like no other. It was exotic and spicy sweet in its smell, like oat grass with just a hint of sandalwood, and when he sat down upon it, it felt almost silky to the touch.
As his mount sat huffing and coughing from the labor of climbing—Borenson was a big man, after all, and growing fatter by the year—Borenson marveled at the beauty of the hills and vales that spread before him.
There was nothing like this that he could remember back in Rofehavan. Nothing half so lovely. And if the journey to Landesfallen had not been so far and the tales of it so frightening, Borenson imagined that folk would stampede to reach this place to lay claim to a few acres of its lush grounds.
The beauty of it threatened to overwhelm him.
“I'll come back here when the war is over,” he told himself. “I'll buy a place as beautiful as this valley, and I'll never leave.”
 
 
 
An hour before dusk, Fallion flew above a nameless atoll and knew by the smell that he had found Shadoath's hidden Dedicates.
The island was small, a single volcanic cone rising from the sea. Its surface was almost solid basalt, a hint of smoke rising from the cone of the volcano. In ages past, seals and seabirds had harbored here; fertilized by guano, plants and trees had sprung up in profusion. Thus the lower edges of the volcano were a riot of green.
There was no harbor, no sign of easy access to the island. The
Mercy
had come and gone. He'd seen it sailing north back toward Garion's Port, and had given it a wide berth. But this was the place, Fallion knew as he approached.
The smoke hung in the still evening air for miles around, and to Fallion's nose, the attuned senses of a flameweaver, it was the taste of the smoke that told him that humans were about.
If the smoke were coming from the cone of a volcano, it should have smelled of sulfur and ash, the heart of the world.
Instead, it tasted of wood and meat—of cooking fires.
Fallion urged Windkris higher. The old reptile was flagging, fading fast. But it took him above the rim of the volcano, and Fallion peered down into its crater. Even then, Fallion did not see the encampment at first. The crater was filled with stones and a shallow lake, and it was only near one rim that smoke issued.
Fallion spotted shadows in the sheer cliffs, even in the dim light, suspicious shadows that whispered of hidden caverns.
He let Windkris make a single pass, gliding above, and the scent of smoke
and bread became stronger. A beaten path in the grass led to a single opening, a shadowed tunnel.
The encampment appeared to be asleep. At least no warhorn sounded at his approach; Fallion saw no guards.
But a single guard did see him. Lying deep under the shadowed arch, her sea green eyes peering warily out a door, the giant ape Oohtooroo spotted the black shadow of a graak glide across the evening sky.
She growled in outrage.
Grabbing a heavy spiked club in one hand, she went to a cot in a corner and shook her beloved master awake.
Abravael rubbed at his eyes, peered up warily. He hated this assignment, hated this place. The rock seemed to freeze each night by dawn and then bake in the afternoon heat. He hated his mother for sending him here. But she had insisted. She was going to war and needed someone that she could trust to guard her Dedicates; Abravael was the person in the world that she trusted most.
It took him long seconds to realize that Oohtooroo was frightened. She peered outside, nostrils flaring, growled, then rumbled, “Bird. Big bird.”
“It's all right,” Abravael said. “You don't have to worry about birds.”
“Evil bird. Stranger rides it.”
Abravael shot up. A stranger riding a graak?
Abravael hastened to pull on his pants, unsure whether to grab them first or his warhammer. His mind dulled by his afternoon nap, he peered around for his boots.
Oohtooroo growled, and Abravael heard footsteps crunching in the gravel outside.
“Kill the stranger,” Abravael hissed.
With a grunt like a wild boar, Oohtooroo charged out from the Dedicates' Keep.
 
 
 
In the early evening, Jaz stood guard at the Toth Queen's Hideout.
The mountain blocked his view to the west, but he could smell fires rising from the jungle out toward Garion's Port, and smoke had turned the sky a hazy yellow.
Far below, he saw something rise up out of the woods, a graak winging
toward him. It had been soaring above the forest, and with the slant of the evening sun, it had been hidden in shadow. But now it climbed high enough so that the afternoon sun touched its wings, and suddenly it appeared, blazing white.
The small rider had some heavy bags slung over the graak's back.
It had to be Nix, bringing back supplies. Jaz felt his stomach grumble in anticipation of food.
For a long minute Nix winged toward him.
Then he spotted a second graak, flying low above the trees, miles behind. The rider was too large to be a Gwardeen; instantly Jaz felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach.
He knew that rider. It was Shadoath. He felt certain—not because he could see her face or recognize her outline. It was just an instinct, one that sent a shiver down his back and drew a strangled cry from his throat.
“Shadoath is coming!” he shouted, warning the others.
 
 
 
Fallion was stalking toward the cave quietly when a pair of shadows unfolded from the cliff walls above, came gliding down toward his mount.
Strengi-saats! he realized, pulling his long knife.
They floated toward him, thinking him to be just a child. Perhaps in the past they had killed others, taking them easily as they stood rooted to the ground in fear, or stumbled off into the brush.
But Fallion was ready. He stood, mouth open, feigning terror, letting his hatred for the beasts lend him strength.
He felt rage welling inside him, mindless and consuming, and the fire inside him begged for release.
Yea, my master,
he whispered,
I consecrate their blood to thee. Let these be the first of my kills this day.
As the largest one neared, Fallion lurched forward and rolled, blurring in his speed.
He struck the throat of one great monster, raking it, and blood gushed as it roared. Fallion rolled beneath it, and the strengi-saat swiped vainly at him with its claws, then winged away, snarling in pain.
The other strengi-saat saw what had happened, tried to veer away, and Fallion rushed toward it.
He felt like a force of nature as he leapt into the air, twisted away from its gnashing teeth, and slammed his blade into the strengi-saat's tympanum.
The monster roared, but the cry cut short as Fallion's blade pierced its brain.
Fallion and the beast both dropped to the ground heavily, and as Fallion hit, he twisted his ankle.
For a moment he stood above the monster as it heaved and grunted, some part of its brain still struggling for breath, while its claws raked the air.
Fallion tested his ankle, stepping on it gingerly. He felt like a fool. Taking a fall like that could leave him with broken bones that would take weeks to heal.
The first strengi-saat had raced off into the woods, and now was roaring.
I left it wounded, he thought. And now it is more dangerous.
But the roars of pain became keening cries, and Fallion knew that the monster would bleed out in time.
I need to be more careful, he thought as he limped toward the hidden keep ahead.
Fallion's head was down, watching the path, when the sea ape lunged from the shadows of a tree.
Instinctively, Fallion leapt aside, clearing the trail. The ape bolted past, teeth bared, knuckles digging into the dirt.
Only years of training had saved Fallion.
The ape whirled and peered at him in surprise.
She rose up on her hind feet and waved an enormous club overhead, white spikes bristling from it.
Shark's teeth, Fallion realized, gazing up at the triangular teeth in the club.
The sea ape swung it down in a great arc, seeking to smash Fallion.
He rolled aside.
The impact shattered the club; the sea ape peered at it in astonishment.
Fallion had no desire to hurt the beast. He knew little about them, and knew that this ape was not acting on its own. It stupidly served its master.
“Leave,” Fallion said slowly, “and I will let you and your master go in peace.”
To his surprise, the ape's eyes widened in understanding, and it stared hard at him.
In a vague dream, Rhianna peered at Fallion. The ape's heart pounded with bloodlust. He was not food, she knew. He was not flesh to eat. But he posed a threat. He had come to slay Abravael. She could not allow that.

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