Sons of the Oak

by David Farland

  Or maybe the torturer won’t come at all, Fallion wondered. Maybe they’ve forgotten about us, and they’ll just leave us here hanging on the wall until the rats gnaw the flesh from our bones.

  Jaz woke later that day. He did not speak. Only hung on the wall, sobbing.

  Fallion mustered enough energy to sing him a lullaby that their mother had taught him.

  “Hush, little child, don’t you weep.

  The shadows grow long and it’s time for sleep.

  Tomorrow we’ll run in the fields,

  And wade in the streams,

  But now it’s time for dreams.

  Hush, little child, don’t you weep.

  The shadows grow long and it’s time for sleep.”

  Fallion wondered at the words. His father had warned him to run, that the ends of the Earth were not far enough. Borenson had promised the children meadows to play in, and hills to climb. In Landesfallen they were to enjoy their childhood, put their fears behind them.

  It’s all a lie, he realized. They’ve got nothing to give.

  Or maybe we did something wrong? Fallion thought. Maybe I didn’t understand the message?

  Fallion tried to remember the message, but his mind wouldn’t work.

  “Jaz,” Fallion croaked after a long time. Jaz held silent, and Fallion wondered if he had fallen back to sleep when finally an answer came.

  “What?”

  “What were the last words that Father said when he was dying?”

  Jaz stayed silent for a long time, then grunted, “He said, something about … ‘Return a blessing for every blow … .’”

  The words seemed to strike Fallion like a mallet. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten those last words. They’d seemed like only the rants of a dying man, the idle chatter of one who was fading from consciousness.

  “Learn to love the greedy as well as the generous, the poor as much as the rich, the evil as well as the kind.” The words seemed to resound, rising up from his memory. His father had said something like that when Fallion was small, a babe of two or three, cuddling in his father’s arms. He’d been talking about his own personal credo, the guidelines that he’d chosen to live his life by. But Fallion didn’t remember that last, “A blessing for every blow.”

  Could his father possibly mean that literally? Was he supposed to show kindness to those who now kept him in chains?

  Fallion had nothing else to do but ponder this.

  And fortunately, it was only a few hours later that a visitor came to the cell again.

  Fallion had drifted into a half sleep, and woke to keys rattling in a lock, and a squeaking door.

  A girl was opening their cell, a young girl perhaps a couple of years older than he, pretty, with raven hair.

  She held a candle in one hand, and had set a silver jug on the ground while she carefully tried the keys.

  Fallion thought that he recognized her, though he’d never seen her before. He managed a groan, and the girl looked up, startled, almost guiltily.

  Yes, he recognized her dark eyes, the hair falling down around her pale face.

  “You!” she said in surprise. “I know you! You’re from that dream!”

  Fallion peered at her, and the world seemed to somehow tilt askew.

  “Yes,” Fallion said. “You were in the cage.”

  And she’d begged him to set her free.

  She peered at him, trembling lightly, and Fallion realized why she had come.

  Here is my tormentor, he thought.

  Not the man in the dark hood with the tongs, but this girl.

  Jaz had wakened. His breathing came raspy, and he peered at the silver ewer as if to drink with his eyes. “Wa,” he whispered. “Wa.”

  The girl said no more. She looked away guiltily, then picked up the pitcher and stepped forward carefully, as if to keep from spilling a drop.

  Near Fallion’s feet, she set the pitcher down.

  Is there water in it? he wondered. Or maybe even cider? He was so thirsty, that being this close to drink made his head reel.

  The girl stared up at him, her dark eyes boring into his. “We got it wrong, didn’t we, in that dream? You’re the one in the cage. Not me.”

  Then Fallion’s mind seemed to leap, and he said, “We’re both in the cage. We’re both in chains, but just of different kinds.” She stared at him, confused, and so he added, “I hang in chains on the wall, but you are caught in the chain of command. There’s nothing for us in that pitcher, is there? You brought it only to torment us. You’re waiting for me to beg. What are you supposed to do if I beg?”

  She peered up at him, but did not answer. She was forbidden to answer their questions, to tell them anything but lies, to give them any hope.

  I’m supposed to spit in it, she thought, and then leave it at your feet, to torment you for two more days.

  She looked over to Jaz, saw that the younger boy was unconscious. He’d be dead in two days. She’d seen enough of the beggars die to know that.

  She turned and began to hurry away, candle in her hand.

  “Thank you,” Fallion said.

  She whirled on him, unaccountably angry. “For what? I didn’t give you anything!” She was to give them nothing. She’d be punished if she broke the rule. And if he ever claimed that she’d given him a drink, she could lose a finger.

  “Your eyes gave me drink,” Fallion said.

  She glared.

  She rushed from the cell, and turned the key in the lock.

  “What is your name?” Fallion called, just as she finished.

  She was not supposed to answer questions.

  She looked this way and that, up and down the hallway. “Valya,” she whispered, then ran.

  35

  THE RANSOM

  You cannot make a fair trade with an evil man. Either he will not make a fair trade in the beginning, or else at the end he will rue the choice, and change the deal.

  —a saying of Indhopal

  Aboard the Leviathan, Borenson lay abed while the crew secured a pair of properly cured logs to use as masts, then shaped them with hatchets and set them—a difficult task under the best of circumstances. The work would take them three more days.

  Borenson wasn’t sure what had saved him—his own toughness, luck, or magic.

  Stalker and the crew had found him early in the morning and carried him back to the ship, a difficult march of nearly twenty miles along the sand. They arrived just as the light was fading and the strengi-saats began their nightly prowl.

  On the ship Borenson hovered near death, a vile infection brewing in his gut.

  Smoker thought that he was lucky. A horseman’s lance is made to breach armor. The point is steel, sharp enough to puncture plate mail, but it is only as the lance is driven home and the shaft wedges into an opening that the weapon does its damage, ripping a man apart.

  Borenson had taken only a shallow hit, the lance puncturing his gut and driving six inches, nicking his backbone. Had the blow hit his liver or pancreas, he’d have died within moments. The acrid stench of the wound and the quickness with which it became infected showed that the lance had punctured his bowels, nothing more.

  Luck. He stayed alive partly out of luck, and maybe just a bit of stubbornness. He’d decided that even though his time had come, he was not going to die in the night. He’d felt determined to save Rhianna, to stay with her till the morning, and then die.

  After she’d left, he’d clung to life a little longer, hoping for rescue.

  Under normal circumstances the wound would have killed him. In the end, it took more than stubbornness and luck to save him—it took magic.

  Smoker laid his left hand on the wound, where the swelling and pus were the worst, and peered at a candle as he “burned” the infection away.

  Borenson felt no pain, only a warmth not much hotter than a fever.

  When Smoker finished, Myrrima ministered in his place, washing the wounds away and drawing runes upon his wet flesh, bidding him to he
al.

  They managed to save his life.

  But the wound didn’t leave him with enough vigor to do much of anything. He lay abed, fretting, while Myrrima scouted the island, hunting for Rhianna and the boys.

  She was beside herself with worry, and stayed up much of the night pacing. She’d lost three charges in a single day, and though she searched the beach for Rhianna for two days before turning her hopes to finding the boys, she found no peace. She was wearing herself out.

  “You’re a mother,” Borenson told her. “You’ve got a babe that wants your breast, and other children that need a mother. Let someone else go. Smoker can hunt for them, and some of the crew.”

  “I can’t leave it to others,” she said. “They were my charges. Besides, I’m Water’s warrior still, and a Runelord. No one aboard the ship is even close to being my equal in battle.”

  “Captain Stalker will send men out,” Borenson assured her. “Stay with your children.”

  Myrrima searched inside herself, and could feel no peace. “It’s not just that I lost three children,” she said. “It’s who I lost. Gaborn told us that Fallion could be a greater king than he, that he could do greater good, but also greater evil. Asgaroth knew what Fallion was before he was even born. He wanted Fallion even then. And now, Fallion is in their hands … .”

  Borenson was too weak to care for his own children. Erin needed her mother’s breast, and when her mother left for the day, Erin whined and cried. Talon would bounce her on her knee, try to keep her satisfied until nightfall. Draken, at five, would wander around the little room making messes, bored out of his skull, while Sage would beg to know, “When is Mommy coming home?”

  The time that Borenson spent without Myrrima was pure torture, but it was a torture he would have to endure.

  “Go find him then,” Borenson said, “and be quick about it.”

  He sighed, and considered for the thousandth time how hard it was to raise a king.

  On her fourth day of scouting, Myrrima found the fortress where Fallion was held, and she despaired.

  She peered out over a valley filled with dark tents where at least a quarter of a million soldiers camped, while a vast fortress crouched on a hill above them like a bloated spider, its various outbuildings spilling down the hillside like appendages.

  “What can we do?” she wondered.

  Smoker stood at her back, a small pipe in his mouth. He looked down, but his eyes did not focus.

  “We get boys.”

  She looked up at him in disbelief, studied his pale, expressionless face.

  “We’ll be discovered,” she objected.

  He closed his eyes, in agreement. “I be discovered. You, though, have endowment—look like Bright One.”

  He was right. The army was made up mainly of the gray creatures, which the locals called golaths. But the Bright Ones seemed to serve as their masters.

  A commoner would never make it past the guards.

  But with her endowments of glamour, Myrrima might well be able to pass for a Bright One.

  Do I dare risk it? she wondered. If I’m caught, I’ll leave my own children motherless.

  There was no right choice. She didn’t dare risk it. But she would never be able to live with herself if she left the boys alone.

  Better to die swiftly, she told herself, than to live as a shell, a mere hollow thing.

  “Let’s do it then,” Myrrima said.

  They couldn’t try to rescue the boys now, she knew. The ship wasn’t ready to sail yet. Rescuing the boys wouldn’t help, if they couldn’t make a clean getaway.

  But there was one chance.

  Myrrima needed to scout ahead, get a closer look.

  “Stay here,” Myrrima told Smoker.

  She strode down the hill, onto the muddy road, and made her way through the vast encampment, studying the terrain.

  To her surprise, no one stopped her. Shadoath’s people had not needed to worry about security for a very long time.

  It wasn’t until she reached the palace gate that she was challenged. Several Bright Ones watched the gate, handsome men, perfect men by their looks, all in elegant burnished black mail with black capes.

  “Halt,” one of the men demanded. “State your name and business.”

  “Myrrima Borenson,” Myrrima said. “I’ve come for an audience with Shadoath.”

  “On what business?” one of the Bright Ones asked.

  “I’ve come to offer a ransom for the princes.”

  The Bright Ones looked at one another, and presently one of them raced up the road, into the confines of the palace itself, a tall black building made of basalt.

  Meanwhile, Myrrima had to step aside as locals pressed through the gates—golaths carrying food and other gear about as if they were an army of ants.

  Myrrima studied the Bright Ones, taking special notice of their mail. It was splint mail—a suit of light and sturdy chain mail hooked to metal plates to cover the vital areas. The plates were enameled, and so shone brightly.

  The epaulets curved elegantly at the shoulder, and at the cuff thickened into lip, a design that Myrrima had never seen before. It would have severely reduced any damage from a downward stroke with a blade or an ax, and would deflect a blow away from the vulnerable spots on the arm. She decided then and there that she must have some, even if it meant ripping it from these dead men’s bodies.

  The breastplates that they wore showed a similarly innovative design and high level of craftsmanship, and were engraved with runes of protection. Myrrima recognized some of those runes, but others were strange to her.

  The man that she was studying smiled at her, perhaps imagining that she fancied him. Myrrima smiled. “Nice armor.”

  But she wasn’t studying it to admire it. She was studying it to discover its weaknesses.

  It will take a blow to the armpit to defeat that design, she realized. There is a good space there under the arm that is still unprotected. Likewise, the throat is open, along with the base of the neck, and behind the knee. Many of the usual places.

  Arrows wouldn’t do for such a fight. Even a saber would be tricky. A dirk might be best, something short and sharp.

  The messenger returned, and bade Myrrima to surrender her weapons and follow him. She handed her bow and knife to one guard, then was escorted up a short hill, to the steps of the keep.

  The basalt exterior was ugly, but the thick stones looked almost impenetrable.

  Inside, the palace was grand. The tall roof soared three stories, stone arches offering support. Many high windows made it feel as if the room were open to the sky, and indeed finches and other songbirds could be seen flitting about in the rafters. There was no antechamber or offices for minor functionaries. The palace was open, a vast hall. The walls covered in polished white oak and burnished silver, with tapestries of white silk, made the palace seem full of light.

  Shadoath reclined upon a couch covered in white silk. Today she wore enameled black armor, with a cape of crimson. Near her feet was a smaller couch, and resting upon it were two youngsters, a boy of perhaps seventeen, and a young girl, perhaps eleven. Her children.

  Myrrima approached the queen. Shadoath watched with the glittering eyes of a serpent.

  Myrrima knelt at the bottom of the dais.

  “Your Highness,” Myrrima said. “I’ve come to offer ransom for the princes.” It was the only believable story that she could think of.

  Shadoath smiled, and Myrrima had never seen such a beautiful face marred by such a cruel expression.

  “What do you offer?” Shadoath asked.

  The only thing that she had that was of worth was Fallion’s forcibles.

  They might just be enough to buy his freedom. But would he regret the price? Myrrima wondered.

  Those forcibles were his legacy. He might never see their like again.

  Is this what his father would have wanted?

  “Three hundred forcibles,” Myrrima said. It was all that the boys had. “For t
he pair of them.”

  “Do you have three hundred forcibles?” Shadoath asked. Myrrima was intensely aware of Shadoath’s predatory gaze. If the woman knew that she had so many forcibles, she’d steal them. The weight of her stare was overwhelming, and Myrrima had a sudden suspicion that she would never make it from the palace alive.

  Myrrima sought to be her most convincing. “I don’t have them here. I would have to return to Mystarria.”

  “Then why not offer three thousand forcibles?” Shadoath suggested, “and a thousand pounds of gold for good measure?”

  Myrrima licked her lips, told the first lie that came to mind. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I am but the daughter of a poor merchant. I was taught that one should never make one’s best offer first.”

  Shadoath seemed offended. “You expect to haggle as if I were some peasant dickering over the price of parsnips?”

  “Forgive me. It seemed wise.”

  Shadoath smiled. She peered at Myrrima as if she had penetrated her secret.

  “If I were to give you time to bring the ransom, would you really bring it? Or would you return with a flotilla of warships and try to seize the boys?”

  “That would be unwise,” Myrrima said. “You would still have the children at your mercy.”

  “But if Chancellor Westhaven tried to rescue the boys, and they died in the skirmish, who would blame him? It would leave him free to assume the throne … .”

  “Westhaven is not that kind of man,” Myrrima said, surprised that Shadoath would think so ill of him.

  Shadoath only smiled. “All men are that kind of man.”

  Was that really true?

  In a few years, Fallion would reach his majority and be ready to assume the throne. Would Westhaven refuse to turn it over?

  Myrrima believed that he was better than that.

  “So,” Myrrima pressed. “Three thousand forcibles and a thousand pounds of gold … . Do we have a deal?”

  Shadoath shook her head.

  “I don’t know if I could go any higher,” Myrrima said. “Blood metal is growing rare, and I doubt that Mystarria has more than three thousand forcibles to its name. The Brat of Beldinook recently invaded, and on that account, many of the forcibles may have already been put to use. A higher price could bankrupt the nation.”