Four-year-old Fallion and Jaz had rushed out into the Great Hall of the castle, stumbling in fear and shouting to the guards, “Help! Help! The camels are coming!”
Sir Borenson, who was taking breakfast at the time, had laughed so hard that he fell off of his stool. He took the boys outside in the fog and drew his sword very dramatically, cursing all camels and commanding them to do no harm.
Then he led them toward the sound of the eerie calls. There, in the courtyard, they found a puppy chained to a stake—a young mastiff that alternately howled and panted as it tried to pull free.
“There’s your camel,” Borenson had said, laughing. “The Master of the Hounds bought him last night, and was afraid he’d try to run home if we took him off his chain. So he’ll stay here for the day, until he figures out that he’s family.” Then the boys had laughed at their own fear and had petted the puppy.
Now as Fallion rode, he heard trees snapping, saw the fear on Borenson’s face.
We’re not children anymore, he thought.
He looked to his brother Jaz, so small and frail, riding in his haste. Fallion felt a pang of longing, a stirring desire to protect his brother, something that he’d often felt before.
Fallion suddenly heard a strange call, like deep horns ringing one after another, all underwater, then a sudden screeching and the sounds of trees crashing, as if some enormous creatures tangled in battle.
Fallion imagined Daymorra fighting there against the creatures, and whispered the only prayer he knew, “May the Bright Ones protect you, and the Glories guard your back!”
Fallion opened his eyes to slits. Darkness was coming fast even as his horse lunged out of the woods and leapt down a sloping field. The garnet air seemed wan and diffuse, as if filtered through fire-lit skies. Fat grasshoppers leapt from the stubble as the horses pounded past, and there in the grass, white flowers yawned wide, morning glories with petals that unfolded like pale mouths, getting ready to scream.
There were more cries in the woods as the party reached the road. Somehow they had circled behind the widow’s place. Her black dog raced out from under her porch, giving chase, but could not keep up with the force horses. Soon it dropped away, wagging its tail sheepishly as if its defeat were a victory.
Something stirred inside Fallion, and he heard his father shout, “Run!” Fallion spurred his horse harder. “Run! The ends of the Earth are not far enough!”
Again his father’s image intruded in his mind, a dimly recalled green figure, a shadow, and Fallion felt his presence so strongly that it was as if the man’s breath warmed Fallion’s face.
“Father?” Fallion called out.
Fallion looked behind him, wondering what could be giving chase, when he felt something pierce his stomach.
He glanced down to see if an arrow was protruding from his ribs, or to see if one of the black creatures that inhabited Rhianna was there. His wine-colored leather vest was undamaged. Yet he could feel something vital being pulled from him, as if he were a trout and a giant hand had pierced him and now was yanking out his guts.
He heard a whisper, his father’s rambling voice. “Run, Fallion,” he said. “They will come for you.” And then there was a long silence, and the voice came softer. “Learn to love the greedy as well as the generous … the poor as much as the rich … the evil … . Return a blessing for every blow … .”
Suddenly the voice went still, and there was a yawning emptiness in Fallion. His eyes welled up. Fallion saw sheep running headlong down from the hills, and everywhere, everywhere, from all of the guards, grunts and cries of pain issued. Fallion could feel keenly a wrongness descending upon the world.
“Sweet mercy!” Waggit shouted.
Borenson growled, “The Earth King is dead!” and somewhere in the distance, from Castle Coorm, whose towers rose above its gray weathered walls, a bell began to toll.
Fallion had never known a world without an Earth King. All of his young life, he had felt secure. If danger arose, whether from assassins or illness or accident, he had known that his father’s voice would whisper in warning, and he would know how to save himself.
Suddenly he was naked and bereft.
The horses galloped hard along the dirt track. Borenson cast a fearful glance uphill.
“Above us!” Borenson shouted. Darkness thickened all around, as if the last of the sun had dipped below the horizon, sucking all light with it.
Tears of pain filled Fallion’s eyes, and he looked up the mountain. Daymorra came riding hard from under the trees. It seemed that a wind swept toward her, rattling the pines along the mountainside, causing whole trees to pitch and sway and crack and fall. But it was no wind. Instead Fallion saw creatures—like scraps of blackest night, floating about in a mad dance, landing in the trees and shaking them. Their growls rose, deep and ominous, like distant thunder, but they held to the woods, and did not dare race into the open fields. Instead, they leapt from tree to tree, following through the woods, while the trees hissed and bent under heavy weight.
And then all of the horses were speeding away, down the long winding road, while the enemy fell behind. Borenson brought out a warhorn and sounded it, in hopes that the far-seers at Castle Coorm would hear and know that they were under attack. The far-seers with their many endowments of sight might spot them from the castle. But Fallion knew that at such a great distance, he would look as tiny as an ant.
The night suddenly descended, falling instantly and unnaturally to smother the world.
It was the end of a golden age of peace. Fallion knew it. Everyone knew it. Even the sheep felt it.
Fallion squinted in the unnatural darkness as the horses thundered. Rhianna clung to him, gibbering with pain or terror, and he felt hot tears splash down from her eyes to his back.
Are there monsters in her? Fallion wondered. Are they eating their way out? What are we running from?
And instantly he knew: for years the old folks had said that the world was becoming more like the netherworld. They said that fresh springwater tasted better than old wine. The hay in the fields smelled sweet enough to eat, and often folk spoke in awe at how vivid the stars now burned at night. And the weather: the lazy summers let fruit grow fat on the trees, while the winters came with a sharper bite. Some said that the world was becoming more “perfect,” bringing perfect weather, perfect children, perfect peace. But there was a dark side, too. New terrors were said to be hiding in the mountains, creatures more vile than anything the world had known.
And now, Fallion thought, perfect evil has been unleashed upon the world.
2
THE CUT THAT CURES
Not all pain is evil. Sometimes we must pass through greater pain in order to be healed.
—The Wizard Binnesman
As night fell, Queen Iome Sylvarresta clutched the ramparts of Castle Coorm beside her far-seers and watched breathlessly as Sir Borenson fled down the mountains, blowing his warhorn again and again.
Iome had as many endowments of sight and hearing as any far-seer. Each time her children rode over a hilltop, she could see their frightened faces, pale and round in the failing light.
But she could not discern what enemy chased them. Her tears at the loss of her husband kept welling up, and though she wiped them away savagely with the sleeve of her cloak, new ones kept filling their place.
“There’s something in the woods above them, keeping pace,” one far-seer said. Indeed, whole pine trees shook and swayed on the ridge above, and black shades floated among the branches. Iome could hear distant bell-like barks, animal calls. But no amount of squinting would reveal the enemy.
“The boys look well,” the far-seer said, trying to comfort Iome.
The words had little effect. Iome felt numb with grief at the loss of her husband. She’d always known that this day would come, but it felt far worse than she had expected.
I should not mourn him so, she thought. I lost him years ago when he became the Earth King, and his duties stripped
him from me. I should not mourn him so.
But there was an ache deep inside her, an emptiness that she knew could never be filled. She almost felt as if she would collapse.
She mentally tried to shove the pain back.
The sun was falling, retreating to the far side of the world. Already the vale around the castle was shrouded in darkness, and all too soon the last rays of sunlight would fade from the hilltops in the east, and the world would plunge into blackest night.
Iome bit her lip. A dozen force knights were already galloping into the hills to the children’s aid.
I’ve done all that I can, Iome thought bitterly.
And it did not seem enough. Worry fogged her mind. Gaborn had not been dead for two minutes before the boys fell under attack.
It reeked of a plot, of enemies lying in wait. Iome looked back into the shadows behind her, where her Days stood quietly studying the scene. The Days was a rail of a woman, with long trestles of hair braided in cornrows, a doe’s brown eyes, and the sullen robes of a scholar.
If there was a plot, the Days would probably know of it. Every king and queen had her own Days whose sole purpose in life was to chronicle their lives. And each Days had given an endowment of Wit to another of his order, thus sharing a single mind, so that in some distant monastery, this woman’s other half scribed Iome’s life, while others scribed the lives of other lords. If any king or queen in the land had a hand in her husband’s death, the woman would know.
But she would not tell, not willingly. The Days were sworn to strict noninterference. The woman would not warn Iome if her life was in danger, wouldn’t give her a drink if she was dying of a fever.
Yet there were sometimes ways to gather information from them.
Iome glanced at the far-seer, pretended to rivet her attention upon him, and said, “Gaborn was not dead five minutes when the boys were attacked. Could it be a plot?”
Iome glanced back to her Days, to see her reaction. She showed none. Inwardly, Iome grinned. When the Days had first come to her, she had been young and immature. Iome had been able to read her as easily as if she had been a child. But she could not do that anymore.
Iome felt old and weak, full of pain.
Suddenly the boys topped a hill three miles off, and there met the knights that Iome had sent to their aid.
For the moment they are safe, Iome thought. Now I must take measures to ensure that they remain that way.
By the time that Rhianna reached Castle Coorm, she was sick with grief and fear, and felt certain that something was gnawing at her belly. A few dozen commoners had begun to gather outside the castle walls to pay their respects to the fallen Earth King.
They had lit torches, which now reflected from the waters of the moat, and guttered in the evening breeze, filling the vale with sweet-smelling pine smoke.
As their mount descended from the hills toward the castle, she could hear hundreds of peasants singing:
“Lost is my hope.
Lost is my light,
Though my heart keeps beating still.
Oh, remember me when
we meet again,
my king beneath the hill.”
Borenson shouted for people to clear the road, and Rhianna heard cries of “Make way for the prince!” followed by gasps of astonishment as people looked up at the boy who rode in the saddle before her.
Only then did she realize that she rode behind Fallion Orden, the Crown Prince of Mystarria.
Rhianna was weeping bitterly for each precious lost second spent behind the armored knights that guarded the way and the townsfolk that gawked at the prince.
Fallion squeezed her hand, which was wrapped around him from behind so that she was clutching his chest, and whispered, “Don’t be afraid. We have good healers at the castle. They’ll take care of you.”
He seemed to be a kind boy, quick to give comfort, and she remembered how he had been the first to offer her a ride.
He’s quick to help, as well, she decided.
And what seemed to be long wasted moments later, the horses finally thundered over the bridge into the castle.
Fallion shouted “Make way, make way!” and the horses cantered through the streets up to the keep. In minutes Rhianna dismounted and was whisked inside, where she gaped at the splendor of the Great Hall.
Servants had begun preparing a feast. Maidens had begun bringing bowls of fruit—local wood-pears and shining red apples, along with more exotic fare all the way from Indhopal—star fruits and tangerines to set upon the tables. Children were strewing pennyroyal flowers upon the stone floor, raising a sweet scent. Huge fires blazed in the hearth, where young boys turned the crank on a spit, cooking whole piglets that dripped fat and juice to sizzle in the flames. A pair of racing hounds barked at all of the excitement.
No sooner had the party entered than a knot of maids surrounded Fallion and Jaz, offering sympathy for the death of their father. Fallion tried to look stoic while wiping away the tears that came to his eyes, but Jaz seemed to be more sentimental, sobbing openly.
At the far end of the hall, Rhianna saw the queen herself hurry forward, an ancient woman with watery eyes and hair as white as ice, prematurely aged from having taken numerous endowments of metabolism. She stood tall and straight like a warrior, and moved with the grace of a dancer, but even Rhianna could see that her time was near. Even the most powerful Runelords died eventually.
Amid the bustle, Sir Borenson grabbed Rhianna and picked her up, hugging her to his chest as he shouted, “Call the surgeon, hoy!”
For his part, Borenson planned to leave the boys in the care of the cooks and maids and their mother. The boys were well liked by the help. As toddlers, Iome had sent them to the kitchens to work, as if they were the get of common scullions. She did it, as she said, “To teach the boys humility and respect for authority, and to let them know that their every request was purchased at the price of another’s sweat.” And so they had toiled—scrubbing pots and stirring stews, plucking geese and sweeping floors, fetching herbs from the garden and serving tables—duties common to children. In the process of learning to work, they had gained the love and respect of the common folk.
So the maids cooed at the boys, offering sympathy at the death of their father, a blow that one heavyset old matron thought could somehow only be softened by pastries.
Borenson told Waggit, “I need to get this girl to a surgeon, and learn what I can from her. Her Highness will be eager for news. Give her a full accounting.”
Then he carried Rhianna through a maze of corridors and steps, and soon was panting and sweating from exertion. As he carried her, he asked, “Where can I find your mother or father?”
Rhianna was almost numb with fear. She didn’t know how much she could trust this man, and she dared not tell him the truth. Her stomach hurt terribly. “I don’t have a da.” And what could she say about her mother? Those who knew her at all thought that she was daft, a madwoman. At the very best she was a secretive vagabond who traveled from fair to fair to sell trinkets, staying only a day or a few hours at each before she crept off into the night. “And my mother … I think she’s dead.”
Wherever Mum is, Rhianna thought, even if she’s alive, she’ll want people to think that she’s dead.
“Brothers? Sisters? Grandparents?” he asked as they bustled up some stairs, brushing past a maid who was hurrying down with a bundle of dirty bedding.
Rhianna just shook her head.
Borenson stopped for a second, peered deep into her eyes, as if thinking. “Well, when this is all over, maybe you can come live with me.”
If I live, she thought. Rhianna could feel the mail beneath his robe, hard and cold. The epaulets on his shoulders dug into her chin. She wondered if he was a hard man, like his armor.
“I think you’d like it at our house,” he continued. “There’s plenty of room. I have a daughter a little younger than you. Of course, you’d have to put up with some little brothers and sisters.”
Rhianna bit her lip, said nothing. He seemed to take her nonanswer as an acceptance of the offer.
They reached a tower chamber, a simple room with a soft cot. The room was dark but surprisingly warm, since one wall was formed by the chimney from a hearth. Borenson laid her on a cot, then ducked into the hallway with a candle to borrow light from another flame. In a moment he was back. The ceiling was low, and bundles of dried flowers and roots hung from the rafters. A single small window had heavy iron bars upon it to keep out the night. Rhianna found her eyes riveted to it.
“The creatures were following hot after us, weren’t they?” she asked. She’d heard the bell-like calls all down the mountain, had seen dark shapes, larger than horses, gliding among the pines.
“They followed us,” Borenson said. “But they didn’t dare come into the open. They stayed in the woods.”
“It’s the shadows they love,” Rhianna said. “I think they were mad that I left. They want their babies back.”
She tried to sound tough, but her courage was failing. Dark fluid had begun to dribble out from between her legs.
They’re eating me, she realized.
She looked up at Sir Borenson. “I think I would have liked to have lived with you.”
Borenson paced across the room peering at the bundles of herbs, as if wondering if one of them might be of some help. He went to a small drawer and opened it, pulled out a tiny gold tin. It held some dark ointment.
He took a pinch and rolled it into a ball.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“A bit,” she said, trembling. But to be honest, she wasn’t sure of the source. Her stomach was cramped part in fear, part in hunger. She hadn’t eaten in two days. She felt weak from hunger and constant terror. She hadn’t slept much, and now she felt as if she were in a dream and dared not hope for a happy ending.
Sons of the Oak Page 3
