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Authors: David Farland

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BOOK: Sons of the Oak
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So he lay, his mother stroking his hair as if he were a puppy, content for the moment to be nothing more than a child.
A PRIVATE RECEPTION
Military commanders all know the value of training soldiers while they are still young. After all, twist a child enough, and he shall remain twisted as an adult.
 
—Shadoath
 
 
 
Out on the open ocean, the Pirate Lord Shadoath rode on rough seas, her ship rising and falling beneath mountains of waves. Her crew was panicking, but she feared nothing, for she had laid heavy spells upon the ship. The masts would hold and the hull remain intact. They would find their way through the storm.
So she stood, lashed to the mast, grinning like a skull, enjoying the ride. Her crew was as frightened by her apparent madness as they were of the storm.
It was then that Asgaroth appeared to her in a dream.
“The torch-bearer has faced me,” Asgaroth said, “and slain me.” He was dispassionate about his death. He had taken countless bodies over the millennia and would take an endless array in the future. “In doing so, he drew upon his powers.”
He showed her a brief vision of Fallion thrusting a torch into the face of a strengi-saat, the flames bursting like a flower in bloom; and then he showed her Fallion drawing back storm clouds, so that Asgaroth was limned in light, revealed to his mother's sight.
Shadoath smiled. Fear and rage. Fear and rage were the key to unleashing the child's powers, drawing him into her web.
“Does his every defeat taste like victory?” Shadoath asked.
“Of course,” Asgaroth assured her. “And now he is fleeing—right into your hands.”
Fear and rage. Fear and rage.
“Excellent,” Shadoath said. “I will greet him with open arms.”
SENDINGS
It is said that the old stonewood trees of Landesfallen reach out with their vast roots, entwining one another, until the whole forest is held fast in one solid mass. Those who watch them say that the old stonewoods actually seem to feel other trees, to seek out younger saplings and hold them safe, so that they are not washed away in the storm. I am convinced that those who are born with old souls are like that, too. They sense the connections between us, and struggle to keep us safe.
 
—The Wizardess Averan
 
 
 
In his sleep, Fallion had a dream that came startlingly clear, more visceral than any dream he'd dreamed before. It was much like the vision he'd had when he picked up the owl pin, as if all of his life were a dream, and for the first time he tasted reality.
In his dream, he was walking along the side of a hill, in a little port-side market. The houses were strange, little rounded huts made of bamboo with bundles of dried grass forming the roofs. In the distance he heard the bawl of cattle. The road wound along a U-shaped bay, and on the far beach he could see a young girl with a switch, driving a pair of black water buffalo up a hill for the night.
He'd never seen a place like this before, and he marveled at every detail—at the odor of urine by the roadside, the muddy reek of rice paddies, the song that the girl sang in the distance in some tongue that he'd never heard before nor imagined.
As he ambled along the road, he passed between two huts, and in their shadow saw metal cages with black iron bars, thick and unyielding. Two of the cages were empty, their doors thrown open. But in the third squatted a girl a bit older than Fallion, with hair as dark and sleek as the night. She
was pretty, all skin and bones, blossoming into someone beautiful. She kept her arms wrapped around her knees.
She peered into Fallion's eyes, and begged. “Help! They've got me in a cage. Please, set me free.”
The vision faded, and Fallion woke, his heart pounding. He wasn't sure if it pounded because he was afraid, or because he was angry to see such a thing.
He had heard of Sendings before, and wondered if this was one. Usually Sendings only came between those who shared some deep connection—a family member or a close friend. When one received a Sending from a stranger, it was said that would come from the person who was to be of great import in your life.
But was it real, or just a dream? Fallion wondered. Is there really a girl held captive? Does she need me to free her?
He wasn't sure. Hearthmaster Waggit had told him that most dreams were just odd thoughts bound together by the imagination into what sometimes seemed a coherent story.
The girl could have been Rhianna. She had a similarly pretty face, but the hair and eyes were wrong. Rhianna had dark red hair and deep blue eyes, not black hair.
No, Fallion realized, the girl looks more like the picture of my mother, the one on her promise locket from when she was young and beautiful.
And the cage?
Rhianna is caged, too, he realized, seemingly caught in a maze of fear and pain.
Was I dreaming about her?
And if so, why did it feel like a Sending?
At almost that instant, he heard Rhianna whimper, wrapped there in her blanket by the fire.
Nightmares. She was having a bad dream.
That's all that it was, Fallion told himself. I must have heard her cry out in her sleep, and that's what made me dream like this … .
 
 
 
Outside the hostel, a driving wind blew over the sea, thundering over rough waves, lashing them to whitecaps.
The wind rode into the bay, veering this way and that, like a starling that has lost direction in a storm.
It hit the coastline, whistled among the pilings of the pier, and then rose up into the streets, floating over cobblestones, exploring dark shanties.
At one loud inn, where raucous laughter competed with pipes and the joyous shrieks of whores, a pair of sailors opened a swinging door. The wind rode in on their heels.
In a dark corner, at a round table littered with empty ale mugs, sat a man wide of girth, a man with a black beard streaked with gray, and curly hair that fell to his shoulders. His bleary eyes stared at nothing, but suddenly came awake when he felt the questing wind on the nape of his neck.
Captain Stalker came awake. He recognized the two men who had just entered the inn, and as he did so, he kicked back a stool, inviting them to his table.
His table. Stalker didn't own it, except when he was in port twice a year. On those days the inn, with its raucous noise and the reek of fishermen, became his court, while this stool became his throne.
Even lords flocked to his table at those times, dainty men who held perfumed kerchiefs to their noses in disgust. Wheedling little barons would beg to invest in his shipping enterprise, while bright merchants with an eye on profit margins would seek to sell him goods on consignment.
He kept his books on the table, right there by the mugs. He had plenty of ale stains on the parchment.
Though he was none too tidy, Captain Stalker was a careful man. He was used to testing the wind for signs of a storm, watching breakers for hidden reefs. He ran a tight ship, a profitable ship.
He was, in fact, moderately wealthy, though his rumpled clothes and windblown hair suggested otherwise.
Right now, he smelled a storm coming.
It had not been more than a couple of hours since Sir Borenson had booked passage, an aging force soldier straight from the king's court. With the death of the Earth King it was only to be expected that some might flee Mystarria—lords who knew that they would be out of favor under the new administration.
But much that Borenson had said raised warning flags. The man was notorious. Everyone in Mystarria knew him by name, and four men at the
inn knew his face. He'd been the Earth King's personal guard, and had taken the task of guarding his sons.
And now he was fleeing the country with his wife and children, only hours after some dark character had come offering a reward for information on folks just like him.
“There may be two boys,” the fellow had said. “Both of them with black hair and dark complexions—like half-breeds from Indhopal.”
It didn't take the brains of a barnacle to know who he was after. The princes of Mystarria were born to a half-breed from Indhopal—Queen Iome Sylvarresta Orden.
The reward for “information” was substantial.
The two sailors threw themselves down on stools. One whistled for a couple of fresh mugs, and a fat mistress brought a pair.
Both sailors leaned forward, smiles plastered across their faces, and eyed Captain Stalker.
“Well?” he asked. He knew that the word was good. He could see it in the men's bearing, their desire to make him dig the news out of them.
“It's 'em,” one of the sailors, Steersman Endo, said with a sly smile. “We 'eard the news over by the palace.”
Endo was a wiry little man with the albino skin and cinnabar-colored hair of an Inkarran. Like most Inkarrans, he couldn't bear sunlight, and so headed Stalker's night crew.
“There was a battle last night, just west of 'ere. Soon as the Earth King croaked, someone attacked the Queen's Castle up at Coorm, caught everyone nappin'. So the queen squids off with 'er boys, headin' east to 'er palace at the Courts of Tide. But she never makes it. She just disappears.”
Was it possible? Captain Stalker wondered. Was the queen really taking her children into exile?
Possibly. There was some logic to it. The queen had aged prematurely, having taken so much metabolism. She'd be dead in a year or two, and the children weren't ready to lead. She'd want to keep them safe.
And history was against her. There had been an Earth King once before, ages past, a man named Erden Geboren.
Like Gaborn Val Orden, he rose to power precipitously, and folks adored him. He was great at killing reavers, but like Gaborn, he could hardly bear to kill a man.
And when his own sister turned against him, he seemed to have just died, to have passed away from the lack of will to fight.
But Stalker knew something that few others did. There was the matter of Erden Geboren's family, his children.
Many folks wanted to make his eldest son the next king. Whole nations rose up in his support, demanding it.
But the cries were short-lived. In fact, the idea died out within a week—when Erden Geboren's children were found slaughtered in their beds.
Iome would surely be familiar with the tale. And she would have learned from it.
“We're going to make a lot of money,” one of the sailors, a deckhand named Blythe, said. “Shall I go find the feller what was lookin' for 'em?”
Captain Stalker whetted his lips, thought for a long moment. “No,” he said at last.
“There's fifty gold eagles reward!” Blythe objected.
“Fifty gold eagles?” Stalker asked. “That's only twenty-five for each prince. How many gold eagles do you think that the Court here spends a year, buildin' roads and buyin' armor and repairin' castle walls?”
Blythe shrugged.
“Millions,” Stalker said, the word ending as a hiss. “Millions.”
Blythe couldn't imagine millions. Fifty gold eagles was more than he would make in twenty years as a deckhand. “But … but we could get—”
Stalker needed to make him see the bigger picture. “What do you think will 'appen to them boys?” Captain Stalker asked. “What do you think that feller is gonna do—bugger 'em? Slit their throats? No, he has something else in mind.”
Blythe clenched his fists impatiently. He was a strong man, used to climbing the rigging and furling sails, hard work by any measure.
Captain Stalker saw the anger building. “Be patient,” Stalker said, reaching to his coin purse. He fumbled through a couple of silver eagles, decided that only gold might win the man's attention for a bit. He threw four gold eagles on the table. “Be patient.”
“Patient for what?” Blythe demanded, and the captain realized that it wasn't just money he was after. There was a hunger in the man's face, an intensity common to craven men. He hoped to see the children die.
“Think of it,” Stalker said. “We hold the children a bit, and what's this feller that wants 'em goin' to do?”
Blythe shrugged.
“Raise the price, that's what. Not fifty gold eagles. Not five 'undred. Five hundred thousand, that's what I figure they're worth—minimum!”
Captain Stalker had an uncommonly good eye for profit. Everyone knew that. Even Blythe, who knew little but pain and sunburn and the stiff wind on his face, knew that. It's what made the
Leviathan
such a successful ship.
Blythe looked up at him hopefully. “What's my cut goin' to be?”
Captain Stalker eyed him critically. He wasn't a generous man, but he decided that right now he couldn't be stingy. “Five thousand.”
Blythe considered. It wasn't equal shares, but it was a fortune. Blood flushed to his cheeks. His pale eyes glowed with undisguised lust. “Coooo …” he whispered.
Endo leaned back on his stool and took a swig from his mug, sealing the deal.
“Five thousand,” Blythe said giddily. “We're goin' to be rich!” He squirmed on his stool, peered up at his accomplices as if inviting them to celebrate.
“One thing,” Captain Stalker said, and he leaned close to Blythe to let the sailor see that he was serious. “You speak a word about this to anyone, and I will personally cut your throat and use your tongue for fish bait.”
BOOK: Sons of the Oak
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