Sons of the Oak r-5

by David Farland

  “Don’t spoil the merchandise,” Blythe warned his struggling charge. “Them folks is cargo, payin’ customers. Anything ’appens to the boy, and you’re dead. Understand?”

  Streben craned his neck and looked back to Stalker, as if seeking permission to press the attack.

  Stalker stepped forward, and as his men held Streben, Stalker struck a heavy blow to his nephew’s gut.

  Unlike Fallion, Streben didn’t manage to hold his breakfast down.

  “Listen to me,” Stalker said. “I know you. You’re a sneak that comes up to men from behind and slits their throats. But I’ll not ’ave that from you ’ere. That boy is under my protection. Got it?”

  Streben gave a sneer so full of rage that Stalker couldn’t resist. He slapped the sneer off his nephew’s face.

  Streben spent the rest of the day swabbing decks.

  20

  SMOKER

  I serve a higher Power, but I do not always understand its will. I have enough faith in it that I do not need to know its will.

  — The Wizard Binnesman

  Throughout the afternoon, Fallion kept his eye to the horizon behind, catching glimpses of the black ship. It was losing ground, but kept following.

  Worrying about it would drive Fallion mad, he knew. He had to keep busy. He could wear himself out for a few hours a day in weapons practice, but he needed something more.

  As he and Rhianna wandered the ship, they chanced upon Captain Stalker coming out of his cabin, and Fallion caught a glimpse inside. The place was a pigsty, papers stacked and falling all over his small desk, spilling onto the floor, goods in boxes waiting to be stowed, floors that hadn’t been scrubbed in months.

  Fallion let the captain close the door, then bowed deeply and said, “Sir, I wanted to offer my thanks for your help this afternoon, for restraining that man.”

  “My nephew, Streben?” the captain said with a sly smile. “No thanks are needed. ’E’s an ass, and asses need to be whipped. I’ll see that ’e stays in line.”

  “Sir,” Fallion said, “I was wondering if I could be your cabin boy, fetch things, clean your room.” The captain drew back, hesitating, and Fallion offered quickly, “I’d want no pay… only, I’d like to learn how to run a ship, to navigate.”

  “You know your numbers?”

  “Some,” Fallion said, not wanting to boast. “I can multiply and divide.” The truth was that Hearthmaster Waggit had been teaching him geometry, enough so that he could calculate how far a siege engine could hurl its payload. Once you knew how to triangulate, it wouldn’t take long to learn to navigate.

  Stalker smiled thoughtfully, though Fallion could hardly see the flash of teeth beneath his black moustache. “Is it a life at sea that you’re contemplating?” he asked. But secretly he was wondering how to put the boy off. It was a decent offer, and normally he’d have considered it. But he had too many secrets to keep concealed.

  “Perhaps,” Fallion said. He didn’t really want a life at sea, but he was thinking that someday he’d need to know how to run a navy. “It intrigues me.”

  Children Fallion’s age were easily intrigued, Stalker knew. They could be intrigued by pulling the stuffing from a rag doll or peeling carrots.

  “A generous offer, lad,” the captain said. “Let me think about it for a day or two…”

  Stalker had no intention of letting Fallion work in his cabin. Yet he grudgingly found that he admired the boy enough to want to let him down easily.

  They said their good nights, and each went their separate ways.

  Rhianna took the lead, walking slowly, hesitantly. Fallion kept close by, in case she stumbled. Her wounds were healing quickly, at least on the surface, but she could tell by her pain how deep they went.

  I might never be healed, she realized. She’d heard the healers whispering to Borenson after the surgery. They had said that she’d probably never have babies.

  At her age, that didn’t seem like much of a loss.

  But the hurt went deeper. The horror of what had happened would stay with her forever.

  So she took her steps gingerly, convalescing.

  Humfrey the ferrin had wakened from his daylong nap, and as evening neared, he scrambled ahead of them with his little spear, peering behind barrels, inspecting nooks, seeking for rats or mice to eat, or treasures to collect.

  As they moved about the ship, Rhianna noted that Streben watched Fallion constantly, glowering, and they could not avoid him. The young man was on his knees, swabbing decks, and the children had to step past him with each circuit of the ship.

  To make matters worse, Humfrey was attracted to the rag that Streben used to wash with, and each time they neared, Humfrey would leap at the rag and hiss, playfully poking his spear at it, certain that Streben was swabbing the deck for the ferrin’s entertainment.

  And several times when Fallion drew near, Streben would glance around to make sure that no adults could see, and then hiss softly through his teeth, as if warning Fallion to stop walking on “his” deck.

  Fallion tried to ignore him. There was nothing else that he could do. They would be sharing the same ship for months, eating in the same galley.

  Still, Rhianna knew by instinct that it was dangerous to antagonize a man like Streben. She would grab Fallion’s hand and hold it whenever he got too close, trying to urge him away. She warned him once, “Don’t go near him. He’d kill you if he could.”

  “I don’t think so,” Fallion said. “He knows what would happen.”

  But Rhianna wasn’t so sure. She’d heard Iome and the others talking about Asgaroth, the locus, and Rhianna felt sure that he was lurking near. No matter where they went, Asgaroth could follow, lodging himself in the mind of the nearest foul person. And what better hovel would a locus find than in the mind of someone like Streben? And how easy would it be to drive such a fool to madness?

  They were walking past some barrels where an old man was smoking a reed pipe with a stem as long as his arm, a bald man with skin as white as tallow and eyes the color of sea foam. Several children, including Borenson’s own brood, had gathered round to watch him smoke, for in Mystarria the habit was all but unknown. Rhianna had never seen anyone smoke except when they were injured and needed opium for pain. But this fellow seemed to smoke for enjoyment, and the smoke from his pipe had a sweet, intoxicating scent.

  Right now, he was blowing smoke rings. In the failing light of the evening, the bowl of his pipe burned hot orange as he inhaled, and then the smoke ring came out between his lips a deep blue-white.

  As Rhianna passed, she noticed, not for the first time, that the old man watched Fallion with keen intensity, and each time that he saw Fallion, he nodded in greeting, as if to an old friend.

  But this time he set aside his pipe and said, “Listen to girl. Beware Streben. There much of shadow in him.”

  Fallion stopped and stared at the fellow. “What do you mean?”

  “Inside, every man part light, part shadow. In Streben, is great shadow, trying to snuff out light.” He tapped Fallion’s chest with his pipe and said, “But in you great light, struggle to burn through all darkness. Streben sense this. Hate you. He kill you, if can.”

  What does he mean? Rhianna wondered. Can he see into the heart of a man?

  The smoker peered at Fallion a moment, as if considering a further argument. “Streben has nothing to be proud of. No honor, no courage, no wealth. He hollow. He look inside self, find nothing good. So he imagine to self, rebellion is strength. Rebellion is courage. He not see that rebellion foolish. He kind of man who kill you to make himself feel strong, even if he know must suffer for it.” Smoker drew a quick puff of smoke, then leaned close. “Maybe he think punishment worth it. Captain his uncle. Maybe he hope not get punished.”

  The smoker let some smoke out through his nose, and Fallion peered into the man’s eyes, eyes that Rhianna could see were bright, too bright, as they reflected light from a sun that had nearly drifted below the horizon.

/>   Fallion asked, “Are you a flameweaver?”

  The smoker laughed. He inhaled from his pipe, blew out a puff of smoke that shaped itself into a wispy gray dove, then flapped up into the air. He turned his pipe and offered Fallion a puff.

  “Are you a flameweaver?” Smoker asked, mocking.

  Rhianna felt unnerved by the fellow. He was obviously a flameweaver. At first she had thought that he was just bald, but now she saw that he had no eyebrows, no hair of any kind, for the roots had burned away, and that was all the proof that she needed.

  She pulled Fallion’s arm, urging him to follow. But as if on impulse Fallion took the pipe and drew a deep breath. The other children all peered at him with wide eyes for his audacity. He inhaled deeply, as if the weed tasted sweet in the back of his throat, but he coughed and hacked it out anyway.

  The old fellow laughed. “Maybe not flameweaver. Not yet. But great light in you, Torch-bearer. Why you come here, hey? Why old soul hiding in young one’s body?”

  That seemed to trouble Fallion. “You can see that?” Fallion asked. “You see inside me?”

  Smoker answered, “Not see, feel. You walk by, and I feel heat in you, light.” He reached out as if to touch Fallion, and Fallion touched the man’s fingers, then pulled his hand away quickly.

  “Hot,” Fallion said.

  “You want feel inside of people?” Smoker asked, taking a couple of quick puffs on his pipe. “Take much smoke. Maybe then you will see…”

  Fallion didn’t want to smoke. “Can you see the shadow creatures that live inside men? Can you see a locus?”

  The old man got a secretive look. “Shadoath,” he said. “In Landesfallen, we call it a shadoath.”

  Rhianna hissed in surprise, for it was the name that Asgaroth had used when talking of his master.

  Smoker turned to her. “You know this name?”

  Rhianna nodded.

  Smoker smiled, showed his yellow teeth. “Is pirate lord by that name, yes? Her fame grows. She knows what inside her.”

  “She?” Rhianna asked. “Shadoath is a woman?”

  “Children, get away from there!” Myrrima shouted.

  Rhianna whirled. Myrrima had come up behind them, and though Rhianna had never seen her angry, her rage was palpable now.

  Water wizards and flameweavers did not get along.

  The children stood in shock for a moment, and the little ones were quickest to run to their mother, but the old flameweaver tapped Fallion’s chest with the bowl of his pipe. “This one, he not yours. You know that. He know it now, too.”

  21

  A KILLER IN THE DARK

  Sometimes I have looked into the heart of a peasant and found something so malign that it fills me with horror. But more often I have found something so beautiful that it causes me to weep for joy.

  — Gaborn Val Orden

  That evening after dinner as the children slept, Myrrima took her husband up on deck for a late-night stroll. The winds were light, the evening cool; stars burned down like living coals.

  “I caught Fallion talking to that flameweaver today,” she said when they were alone. “I think he suspects what Fallion is.”

  “Have you caught Fallion trying to shape flames, set fires?”

  “No,” Myrrima said. “But we will soon enough. You saw how he burned away the clouds when we fought Asgaroth, summoning the light?”

  “I saw,” Borenson said with an air of resignation. “We knew that this day would come.” He said the words, but he did not feel them. It seemed an irony that Fallion’s father had fought a bitter war against Raj Ahten and his flameweavers, only to have sired a flameweaver of his own.

  “It’s a seductive power,” Myrrima said. “Those who use it learn to crave destruction. They yearn to consume.”

  “Fallion is a good boy,” Borenson said. “He’ll fight those urges.”

  Myrrima’s voice came ragged, “He’ll lose that fight. You know it, and his father knew it.”

  Borenson gritted his teeth in determination. Unbidden, he thought of the curse that Asgaroth had laid on Fallion, predicting a future of war and bloodshed. Is that why Fallion was waking to his powers now?

  Or was this part of Asgaroth’s plan, to push the boy, force those powers to waken before he was mature enough to handle them?

  Borenson had never really known a flameweaver. Oh, he’d fought them in Raj Ahten’s army, and he’d seen a couple of folks demonstrate some small skill at bending flames at summer festivals, but he’d never known one intimately. He’d never tried to raise one.

  Gaborn had warned him that this would happen, of course. He’d warned him long ago when he begged Borenson to become Fallion’s protector.

  “Give him something to hold on to,” Gaborn had warned. “He won’t always need your sword to protect him. But he’ll need your love and your friendship to protect him from what he can become. He’ll need a father, someone to keep him connected to his humanity, and I won’t be there.”

  Borenson stopped and rubbed his temples. Why did I let Gaborn talk me into this?

  But he knew the answer. There were some jobs that were just impossible for common men, jobs that would cause them to falter or break. And some combination of stupidity, audacity, and the need to protect others forced Borenson to accept those jobs.

  Wearily, he led Myrrima to their bed.

  In her dream, Rhianna lay draped over the limb of an elm, the cold moss and bark pressing into her naked flesh. Her clothes were wet and clung to her like damp rags, and her crotch ached from where the strengi-saat had laid its eggs, the big female pressing her ovipositor between Rhianna’s legs, unmindful of the pain or the tearing or the blood or of Rhianna’s screams.

  The rape was recent, and Rhianna still hoped for escape. She peered about in the predawn, the light just beginning to wash the stars from heaven, and her breath came in ragged bursts.

  She could hear cries in the woods. The cries of other children, the snarling and growls of strengi-saats, like distant thunder.

  As she listened, the cries rose all around. North, south, east, and west. She dared not move. Even if she tried to creep away, she knew that they would catch her.

  Yet she had to try.

  Trembling, almost too frightened to move, she swiveled her head and looked down. The ground was twenty feet below, and she could discern no easy path down, no way to go but to jump.

  Better a fast death from a fall, she thought, than a slow one freezing.

  With the barest of nudges, she leaned to one side, letting her body slide over the limb. As she began to fall, she twisted in the air, grasping the limb. For a moment she clung, her feet swinging in the air, until she let herself drop.

  Wet leaves and detritus cushioned her fall, accompanied by the sound of twigs snapping under her weight, like the bones of mice.

  Her legs couldn’t hold the weight, and she fell on her butt, then on her back. The jarring left her hurt, muscles strained to near the snapping point, and she wasn’t sure how fast she would be able to limp away.

  Nothing is broken, she told herself hopefully. Nothing is broken.

  She climbed to a sitting position, peered through the gloom. There were shadows under the trees. Not the kind of shadows that she was used to, but deeper shadows, ones that moved of their own accord.

  The strengi-saats were drawing the light from the air, wrapping themselves in gloom, the way that darkling glories did in the netherworld.

  Do they see me? she wondered.

  She waited for a brief second, then leapt to her feet and raced to keep up with the rhythm of her skipping heart.

  With an endowment of metabolism, she hoped that she could outdistance the monsters.

  But had not gone thirty paces when a shadow enveloped her and something hit her from behind, sent her sprawling.

  A strengi-saat had her. It held her beneath an immense paw, its claws digging lightly into her back, as it growled deep in its throat.

  She heard words in her
mind. More than a dream or her imagination. She heard words. “You cannot escape.”

  Rhianna bolted upright, found herself in the hold of the ship, felt it gently rocking beneath her.

  It had been more than a dream. It was a memory from her time with the strengi-saats, a memory that she knew she would never get free of.

  The only thing that hadn’t been real was the strengi-saat’s voice. The creatures had never talked to her, never spoken in her mind.

  She had a sudden worry that the creatures still hunted for her. She had escaped, but she worried that it was only for a time.

  She wondered even if it was more than a dream. Could it have been a message? Were the strengi-saats capable of Sendings? Could they force messages upon her in her sleep?

  She had no idea what the answer might be. Until a week ago, she’d never seen a strengi-saat.

  Yet they showed a certain kind of cruel intelligence. They hunted cooperatively, and watched one another’s charges. They attacked only when it was safe.

  But there was something else that bothered Rhianna: the strengi-saats talked to one another, growling and grunting and snarling throughout the day-not like birds that rise in the morning to sing in their trees, warning others from their realm. No, this was more like human speech, a near constant banter, exchanges of information. They were teaching one another, Rhianna had felt sure, plotting their conquests, considering their options in ways that other animals could not match.

  Rhianna got up, peered about by the light of a single candle. Everyone was asleep, even Myrrima, who hardly ever slept. The Borenson family was lucky. They had a cabin in the hold, the only one set aside for travelers. The other refugee families were forced to huddle among crates, camping on blankets.

  Humfrey saw that Rhianna was awake, and the ferrin leapt on her feet, gave a soft whistle, and looked toward the door. He wanted out. Ferrins were nocturnal, and the ratlike creature was wide awake.

  Rhianna didn’t think that she would be able to sleep anyway, so she crept from under her blanket, tiptoed to the door, and pushed. It swung silently on leather hinges. She lifted Humfrey and climbed up to the open hatch, under the starlight.