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Authors: David Farland

BOOK: Sons of the Oak
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Fallion felt inside himself. He didn't feel special at all. He was just
frightened. And he wasn't aware of any powerful desires, except that his bladder was full and would soon need to be emptied. “No,” Fallion said.
Iome peered into his face, and her features softened as she smiled. Fallion could see wetness in her dark eyes. “Your father said, ‘He comes to finish what I could not.'”
Fallion wondered at that. His father had been the most revered king in two thousand years. He had led an army against the reaver hordes and won. People said that there was nothing that he couldn't accomplish. “What does that mean?” Fallion asked. “What am I supposed to do?”
Iome shook her head. “I don't know. But in time it will become clear to you. And when it does, Anders will indeed find that he has a worthy foe.”
Fallion wondered what to do. He couldn't fight. But suddenly he knew the answer. Fallion turned a step, peered out through the open doors, to the veranda, where a sudden breeze gusted, blowing the curtains inward toward him. “When he was dying, Da told me to run. He said that they would come for me, and I was to keep running. He said that the ends of the Earth are not far enough.”
Iome made a choking noise, and when Fallion turned, he saw her dark eyes glistening with tears. She looked to Sir Borenson, as if to confirm what Fallion had said. Borenson peered at the floor as if he were a wizard staring into some dark orb, and he nodded. “Those are the words he gave me,” Borenson said. “He told me to take the boys and run, and said, ‘The ends of the Earth are not far enough.'”
From the window, there came a sound, a distant rumble, the growl of one of the strengi-saats from the woods. Iome strode to the veranda, and considered closing the doors.
She stood listening for a moment. Across the fields, the cottages were all dark. Not a single lamp shone in a window. And now a ghost mist was rising from the warm River Gyell, spreading through the downs. A bell-like call sounded to the north of the castle, and Iome thought it odd. The creatures had come from the south.
She waited a moment, heard an answering call from the south, and two from the west.
They're circling the castle, she realized. Perhaps they're after more women. Or after my son.
She dared not ignore Gaborn's warning or even to hesitate to act. “I think
that you're right,” Iome said. “It would be best to leave quietly, and soon. Fallion, go and find Jaz. Tell him that you are to go to your rooms and pack three changes of clothing, your long knives, and perhaps a few trinkets, but no more than each of you can easily carry. Then go straight to bed and get some rest.”
“Yes, Mother,” Fallion said.
Iome watched as he hurried from the room, his feet rustling across the stone floor. She stood for a moment, thinking, then sighed deeply. She turned to Borenson. “You think well of Fallion. You could not hide the hope in your voice when you spoke of him challenging Anders.”
“I watched his father grow,” Borenson said. “He was a good lad, and I knew that he'd make a great king. But Fallion will be better.”
Iome smiled. No one could do more for his people than what Gaborn Val Orden had done. “All parents hope that their children will be better than they are.” She thought a moment. “But don't speak of those hopes to Fallion. He's just a child.”
“With enemies that are more than man-sized.”
“We'll leave before dawn,” Iome said.
“Do you plan to come?” Borenson asked. “It's a far journey.”
“I'll come,” Iome said. “You know where to go?”
“I have an idea, milady,” Borenson said. “When I received the command, I had an … impression.”
“Speak of our destination to no one,” Iome said. “Not me, not the children. The fewer people who know the way, the fewer who can reveal it.”
“I understand,” Borenson said.
“We must consider which guards to take with us. I'll want Daymorra and Hadissa, I think.”
“The fewer the better,” Borenson argued. “If we're to travel discreetly, exotic guards will attract attention.”
“Of course.” There was so much to plan, Iome's mind was spinning. If the boys did not have guards, then perhaps they'd need to protect themselves. “Do you think the boys are ready for their first endowments?”
Borenson gave her a hard look. Iome and Gaborn had both been loath to let their sons taste the first kiss of the forcible, to let them feel the ecstasy of having another's attributes flow into them, lest they yearn to repeat the experience over and over, and thus become corrupted.
Worse, Iome knew firsthand the toll paid by those who gave endowments.
She'd seen her own father become a drooling idiot after he gave his Wit to the wolf lord Raj Ahten. Iome had given her glamour to Raj, and had watched her own beauty turn to corruption.
“It's a heady thing for a child,” Borenson said. “Jaz isn't ready yet. He acts like any other child his age, but Fallion's a good boy, very mature for his age. He could bear it … if you are ready to lay that burden on him.”
Iome bit her lip. She knew what he meant by “burden.” Iome had laid endowments upon her own husband, had given him endless strength and stamina with which to fight the reavers. And as a result, she had lost him.
In the very same way, she would be sacrificing her sons if she gave them endowments now. Their childhood would end the instant the forcibles touched their flesh. She might give them greater strength, speed, wit, and stamina with which to fight their battles, but in doing so she would lay upon them an onus, a burden of responsibility that no child should have to bear. The very attributes that saved them would warp them, suck the joy from their lives.
It was a quandary. Do I ruin a boy's life in order to save it?
“A thought, if I may?” Borenson said. “Your sons are going into hiding. But how long can they remain hidden if they bear the scars of the forcible?”
He had a point. If her boys had the strength of three men, the grace of two, the wit of four, the speed of three—how long could they hide such powers? Even if they managed to hide them, the runes that the forcibles branded into their skin would mark them for what they were.
And it would leave them only half alive, as she'd left Gaborn only half alive when she sacrificed him for the good of her people.
“Very well,” Iome said, letting out a sigh. “If my children cannot protect themselves, then we will have to protect them.” She gave Borenson a long, appraising look. “Sir Borenson, you were once the greatest warrior of our generation. With a few endowments, you could be again.”
Borenson went to the window and looked away, uncertain what to say, considering the offer. He had thought about this many times, and had turned it down just as many.
He had taken endowments when he was young, and in doing so, had turned strong men into weaklings, wise men into fools, hale men into sicklings—all so that their attributes would be bound into him.
But for what?
When a lord took endowments, those who gave them, his Dedicates, lost their attributes and stood in need of protection, protection that never seemed quite ample.
For once Borenson took endowments, every lord and brigand would know that the easiest way to take him down would be to kill his Dedicates, stripping Borenson of the attributes that they magically channeled to him.
Thus, in the past, those who had served Borenson the best had all paid with their lives.
Worse than that, Borenson himself had been forced to play the assassin, slaughtering the Dedicates of Raj Ahten, killing more than two thousand in a single night. Many of those had been men and women that were numbered among his friends. Others were just children.
Nine years past, Borenson had put away his weapons and sworn to become a man of peace.
But now, he wondered, dare I take this charge without also taking endowments?
I made that choice long ago, he decided. When I became a father.
“My daughter Erin is still in diapers,” Borenson said. “If I were to take three or four endowments of metabolism, she'd be ten when I died of old age.”
“So you dare not make my mistake?” Iome said.
Borenson had not meant to offer this painful reminder, but Iome had to understand what he was faced with.
“I want to grow old with my children. I want to watch them marry and have my grandbabies, and be there to give them advice when they need. I don't want to take endowments of metabolism. And without those, the rest would be almost meaningless.”
It was true. A man might take great endowments of grace and brawn and stamina, but that would not make him a great warrior—not if an opponent charged into battle with three or four endowments of metabolism. Borenson would die in a blur to a weaker man before he could ever land a blow.
“Very well,” Iome said. “I not only respect your position, I wish that I had been as wise in my youth. But if you will not take the endowments necessary to ensure my son's safety, then I will be forced to ensure his safety. At least, I'll come with you as far as I can.”
Borenson felt astonished. He had not expected her to abandon her kingdom. At the most, he'd thought that she might only accompany him to the
border. He gave her an appraising look. “As far as you can, milady?” Then he asked tenderly, “How far will that be?”
Iome knew what he meant. She hid the signs of aging from others, but she could not hide them from herself. Though she had been on the earth for less than twenty-five years, her endowments of metabolism had aged her more than a hundred. She moved like a panther, but she could feel the end coming. Her feet had begun to swell; she had lost sensation in her legs. Iome felt fragile, ready to break.
“You and my son had the same warning,” she said. “‘Hide.' But my husband's last words to me were, ‘I go to ride the Great Hunt. I await you.'”
Iome continued. “I suspect that I have only a few weeks left, at best. And it is my greatest wish to spend that time in the company of my sons.”
As she spoke, Iome felt a thrill. She had never considered abdicating her throne. It was a burden that she had carried all of her life. Now that the choice was made, she found herself eager to be rid of it, to relinquish it to Duke Paldane. No more meetings with the chancellors. No more court intrigues. No more bearing the weight of the world upon her back.
“I see,” Borenson said softly. “I will miss you, milady.”
Iome gave him a hard little smile. “I'm not dead yet.”
Borenson did something that she would never have expected: he wrapped his huge arms around her and hugged her tightly. “No,” he said. “Far from it.”
She escorted him to the door, let Sir Borenson out. Outside, her Days stood beside the door, waiting as patiently as a chair.
Iome smiled at the woman, feeling a strange sense of loss to be losing this piece of furniture. “Your services will no longer be required,” Iome said. “I hereby abdicate my throne in favor of Duke Paldane.”
The rules were clear on this. Once Iome abdicated and named her successor, the Days was to leave.
The young woman nodded, seemed to think for a moment as she listened to the counsel of distant voices. “Will Fallion be needing my services?”
Iome smiled patiently. The Days performed no “services.” They merely watched their lords, studied them. Perhaps at times there were lords whose endowments of glamour and Voice could sway a Days, but Iome had not known of one. Iome had had a Days haunting her for as long as she could
remember. She would be glad to be rid of the woman, finally. “No, he won't be needing you.”
The Days took this in. She had to know that Iome was taking her sons into hiding. An ancient law forbade a Days from following a lord into exile, for to do so would be to alert the very people that the lord was forced to hide from.
“Then I shall hurry on my way,” the Days said. Iome wondered at the use of the word
hurry.
Was it a subtle warning? The Days turned toward the tower door, looked over her shoulder, and said, “It has been a pleasure knowing you, milady. Your life has been richly lived, and the chronicles will bear witness to your kindness and courage. I wish you well on the roads ahead. May the Glories guard your way and the Bright Ones watch your back.”
THE STRONG SEED
No man is as strong as a mother's love for her child.
 
—Iome Orden
 
Fallion worked breathlessly to finish packing in his bedchamber while Jaz did the same. It wasn't that Fallion had much to pack; it was that he felt excited. He only recalled ever having one real adventure in his life: when he was four, his mother had taken the boys to Heredon. He remembered almost nothing of the trip, but recalled how one morning they had ridden along a lake whose waters were so calm and clear that you could see the fat brook trout swimming far out from shore. The lake seemed to be brimful of mist, and with the way that it escaped in whorls and eddies, Fallion almost imagined that the lake was exhaling. The vapors stole up along the shore and had hung in the air among some stately beech and oaks, their tender leaves a new-budded green.
Their expert driver kept the carriage going slowly and steadily so that Fallion and Jaz could sleep. As the horses plodded silently on a road made quiet by recent rains, Fallion suddenly found himself gaping out the window through the morning mist at a huge boar—a legendary “great boar” of the Dunwood. The creature was enormous; the hump on its shoulders rose almost level with the top of the carriage, and the long dark hair at its chest swept to the ground. It grunted and plowed the fields with its enormous tusks, eating worms and soil and last season's acorns.
The driver slowed, hoping to pass the creature quietly, for a startled great boar was as likely to charge as to flee. Fallion heard the driver mutter a curse, and suddenly Fallion looked off out the other window and saw more of the beasts coming out of the fog and realized that they had inadvertently driven right into a sounder of the monsters.
The driver pulled the carriage to a halt. For long tense minutes the boars rooted and grunted nearby, until at last one beast came so close that it brushed against a wheel. Its casual touch devastated the carriage; suddenly the axle cracked and the vehicle tilted.
Fallion's mother had been sitting quietly, but now she acted. The royal carriage had a warhorn in it, for giving calls of distress. The bull's horn, lacquered in black and gilt with silver, hung on the wall behind Fallion's head.
Quietly, his mother took the horn down, and cracked the door just a bit. She blew loudly, five short blasts, a sound that hunters made when chasing game.
Suddenly the great boars squealed and thundered away, each lunging in a different direction.
But one huge boar charged straight out of the fog, its snout lowered, and slammed into the carriage. Fallion flew against the far door, which sprung open on impact, and hit the soggy ground. Bits of paneling rained around him, and for a long minute he feared for his life.
He sprawled on the ground, heart pumping, fear choking him.
But in moments all that he could hear was the sound of the great boars thundering over the hard ground, and his heart thumping, and he realized despite his fear that he had never been in real danger: his father had not used his Earth Powers to whisper a warning. If Fallion had been in real danger, his father would have told him.
Now, outside his window, Fallion heard a strange howl. It started like distant thunder, turned into a long catlike yowl, and ended like some bizarre animal cry.
Jaz looked up to the window, worried.
Now, Fallion knew that he was going into real danger, and he had much to prepare. He put his clothes into a bag: a pair of green tunics heavy enough for traveling, a warm woolen robe the color of dark wet wood, boots of supple leather, a cape with a half hood to keep off rain. And that was it.
But as he worked, he had to put up with Humfrey, his pet ferrin. Humfrey was only six months old, and not much larger than a rat. His back was the color of pine needles on the forest floor, his tummy a lighter tan. He had a snout with dark black eyes set forward, like a civet cat's.
As Fallion and Jaz worked, Humfrey hopped around them, “helping.”
The small creature understood that they were going somewhere, so he made a game of packing, too.
Peeping and whistling, he shoved the mummified corpse of a dead mouse into Fallion's pack, along with a couple of chestnuts that he trilled were “beautiful.” He added a shiny thimble, a silver coin, and a pair of cocoons that Fallion had been saving over the winter in hopes that he might get a butterfly in the spring.
Fallion reminded Jaz, “Don't forget Mother's birthday present,” and pulled out a small box of his own, checked to make sure that Humfrey hadn't gotten into it. Inside was an oval cut from ivory, with his mother's picture painted in it, from when she was young and gorgeous, filled with endowments of glamour from beautiful young maidens. Fallion had been working for months, carving a tiny, elegant frame out of rosewood to put the picture in. He was nearly finished. He made sure that his cutting tools were still inside the box. Humfrey liked to run off with them.
When he was sure that he had everything, Fallion pushed the box into his bag.
Humfrey hopped up onto the bed and whistled, “Food? Food?”
Fallion didn't know if the creature wanted food, or if was asking to pack food.
“No food,” Fallion whistled back.
The little ferrin seemed stricken by the statement. It began to tremble, its tiny paws, like dark little hands, clutching and unclutching—ferrin talk for “worry.”
Humfrey made a snarling sound. “Weapons?”
Fallion nodded, and Humfrey leapt under the bed where he kept his hoard of treasures—silk rags and dried apples, old bones to chew on and shiny bits of glass. Fallion rarely dared to look under his bed.
But Humfrey emerged triumphantly with his “weapon”—a steel knitting needle that he had filed to a point—probably using his teeth. He'd decorated it like a lance, tying a bit of bright red horsehair near the tip.
He jumped up on the bed, hissing, “Weapon. Weapon!” Then he leapt about as if he were stabbing imaginary rats.
Fallion reached down, scratched Humfrey on the chin until he calmed, and then went to the blades mounted on the wall above his bed to select a knife. There were many princely weapons there, but he chose a simple one,
a long knife that his father had given him, one with a thick blade of steel and a solid handle wrapped with leather.
As he took it from the wall, he marveled at how right it felt in his hand. The blade was perfectly weighted and balanced. For a nine-year-old, it was almost as long as a sword. At the time that his father had given him the blade, a belated gift for his sixth birthday, Fallion had thought it a trivial thing.
It was a custom in many lands for lords to give young princes weapons with which to protect themselves, and Fallion had been gifted with many knives that had greater luster than this one. Even now some were mounted above the bed—fine curved daggers from Kuram with ornate golden scroll-work along the blades and gem-encrusted handles; long warrior's dirks from Inkarra carved from reaver bone that glimmered like flame-colored ice; and a genuine assassin's “scorpion” dagger, one whose handle was a scorpion's body and the tail its blade—complete with a hidden button that would release poison onto the blade.
But for right now, his father's simple knife felt right, and Fallion suspected that his father had given it to him for just this time in his life.
Did my father's prescience extend this far? Fallion wondered. His mother had told him that his father sometimes sensed danger toward a person weeks or months in advance. But it only happened when his father looked long at that person, and then he would cock his head to the side, as if he were listening for something that no one else could hear.
Yes, Fallion decided, his father had recognized danger. And so Fallion claimed his knife now, believing that his father had known how right it would feel in his hand, perhaps even knowing that Fallion's life might depend upon this blade.
Even as he drew the weapon from the wall, a strange compulsion overtook him, and Fallion found himself strapping the blade to his side.
Just to be safe, he told himself.
Indeed, everyone in the castle was trying extra hard to be safe tonight. Jaz had lit a dozen candles in the bedchamber, and the scent of precious oils filled the room along with the light. Every lamp had been lit in every hallway. It seemed that everyone was wary of what might be lurking in the shadows.
As Fallion considered whether he should hone his blade now or wait until morning, Jaz went to the window and opened it, looking out.
“Fallion,” Jaz said in wonder, “the hills are on fire!”
Fallion strode to the window, peered out. Humfrey scurried up Fallion's pant leg and then leapt onto the windowsill. The window was too small to let a man climb through, and too small for both boys and a ferrin to all peer out of at once.
Fallion's nostrils flared at the taste of fresh air.
There in the distance, high up in the hills above the fog-covered bottoms, an angry red star seemed to have fallen to the earth.
“They've set the forest on fire,” Fallion said. “Mother sent Daymorra to find the bodies of those girls—the ones that had the babies in them. But the strengi-saats must have carried them away first. So Daymorra probably set fire to the hills, to burn them out.”
“I'll bet that the monsters carried them in their mouths,” Jaz said, “the way a mother cat will move her kittens once you've found them.”
“Maybe,” Fallion said.
One of the monsters snarled in the distance, across the river to the north of the castle. Jaz turned to Fallion, worried.
“Fallion, I think we're surrounded. Do you think that Mum will have us fly out?”
In Mystarria, each castle had a few graaks, giant flying reptiles with leathery wings, to carry messages in times of distress. The graaks could not carry much weight for any distance, and so the graak riders were almost always children—orphans who had no one to mourn them if they were to take a fall. But if a castle went under siege, as a last resort the royal children would sometimes escape on the back of a graak.
Fallion felt an unexpected thrill at the thought. He had never flown before and would soon be past the age where he could ride a graak.
Why not? he wondered. But he knew that his mother would never allow it. Graak riders were given endowments of brawn and stamina, so that they could hang on tightly and endure the cold and lonely trips. His mother wouldn't let him ride a graak without endowments.
“She won't let us fly,” Fallion said. “She'll send us with an escort.”
“
Let
us fly?” Jaz asked. “Let us fly? I wouldn't get on a graak for anything.”
“You would,” Fallion said, “to save your life.”
Humfrey darted under the bed and came back up with a wilted carrot. He threw it up on Fallion's pack, and snarled, “Weapon. Weapon, Jaz.”
Fallion smiled at the ferrin's sense of humor.
Jaz picked up the limp carrot and swished it in the air like a sword, and the ferrin cried in glee and thrust with his spear, engaging the human in mock combat.
Fallion glanced back at the fire and wondered about the strengi-saats. He didn't always think quickly, but he thought long about things, and deeply.
When Borenson had cut Rhianna open, all that Fallion had seen were eggs—ghastly eggs with thin membranes of yellow skin, cast off from a hideous monster.
But what would the monster have seen? Her babes. Her love. And a strengi-saat would want to protect her young.
How far would she go to do it?
Fallion remembered a heroic tabby cat that he'd seen last spring, fighting off a pair of vicious dogs in an alley while she tried to carry her kitten to safety.
With a dawning sense of apprehension, Fallion got up and ran out into the hallway. Humfrey squeaked and followed. As Fallion raced out the tower door, along a wall-walk, he grabbed a torch from a sconce.
Sir Borenson and Fallion had left Rhianna in her room, to sleep off the effects of the drugs she'd taken. The healers had said that she needed rest.
Perhaps she'll need more than that, Fallion thought. Perhaps she'll need protection.
As he ran, Fallion tried to recall their retreat from the hills. The strengi-saats had given chase, but had not attacked. Like mothers protecting their young, he thought, just trying to drive us off.
And now he realized that once they had driven off the men, they'd gone back to their children. In fact, Fallion realized now that as they had run, he had heard bell-like calls in the woods far behind them. At least one of the strengi-saats had remained to guard the young.
With rising apprehension Fallion redoubled his pace.
But when we first went up there, he wondered, why hadn't the strengi-saats stayed at the tree to guard their young? Most animals would have stayed to protect their offspring.

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