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Authors: David Farland

BOOK: Sons of the Oak
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THE BEACH
In Carris, when the reavers charged, I saw men grow weak at the knees and faint, while others leapt into battle and performed superhuman feats of strength. Thus I propose that the fear that weakens one man only serves to make another man strong.
 
—Duke Paldane
 
 
 
They all helped drag the away boat up onto the beach, Borenson lifting the prow while Fallion, Rhianna, and Jaz tried to get the back and sides. None of the children were slackers. Borenson drove them too hard in weapons practice for that. But they were still young, and Jaz especially had a hard time of it.
They wrestled the boat up over the sand dunes, through tough grasses that rasped beneath their feet, and it was a quarter of a mile before they neared the tree line.
As they struggled toward it, in the hills above them Rhianna heard a familiar growl, like distant thunder: the hunting cry of a strengi-saat.
Her muscles melted at the sound of it, and she dropped her corner of the boat.
Borenson whirled and drew his saber. Rhianna already had her weapon in hand. Fallion hadn't heard the sound, but recognized that something was up, while Jaz just grumbled, “Come on. Let's go.”
The surf splashing over the beach was a constant hiss, and Rhianna stood, straining to hear more, another cry in the darkness, or the thud of footfalls as one of the creatures dropped to the ground.
She heard a swoosh, the movement of branches as something heavy leapt from a tree, and moments later another hunting cry rose to her left, and oh so faintly, almost as if she imagined it, a third cry farther up in the hills.
The moon was rising, huge and full out over the ocean behind them. Rhianna searched across the beaches for sight of any shadows in the coarse grass, any dark patches where a strengi-saat might hide, but she could see nothing.
The creatures did not like open spaces.
Palm trees rose up ahead. There, giant ferns shadowed the ground, and vines corkscrewed up among the foliage. It was a jungle. The strengi-saats could be anywhere in there.
Borenson crept toward the children, had them huddle together, and put a big hand on Rhianna's shoulder comfortingly as he whispered, “All right. This is as far as we go tonight.”
“What's wrong?” Jaz asked. “What's going on?”
“We'll turn the boat over,” Borenson whispered. “Rhianna, I want you and Fallion to crawl under it, use it for a shelter, and get some sleep. I'll keep guard out here.”
“What's going on?” Jaz demanded again.
Borenson gave him a look, warning him to be silent, and whispered, “Now, I've a question for you. I'm thinking that it might be good to have a fire. It keeps most animals away. But it will also light up this beach for miles, and show us up to anyone or anything that's out there.”
So he wanted a vote. He looked mainly at Rhianna though, as if the choice were hers. He knew that she was terrified of the dark.
Each time that a strengi-saat approached, it brought the night with it, and she had learned to be afraid.
She had to balance the hope that a fire would give her with other very real dangers, though. Shadoath's people were supposed to live on this island. Were any of them left? How long could they survive if strengi-saats were about?
Could it be that Shadoath somehow controlled the monsters?
Rhianna wasn't sure.
“A fire,” Fallion suggested. He was nervous, shifting from foot to foot. “A small one. I can build a tiny one, and keep it small, until the moment we need it.”
Borenson peered at Fallion, measuring him. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
Rhianna wasn't sure what he meant. Could Fallion keep a small fire going, or was he asking something more?
Fallion was a flameweaver, Rhianna knew. And Myrrima had fought
against Fallion's training. She thought that he was too young for it, and fire was too seductive. Would Fallion be tempted to trade his humanity for Fire?
That's the question that Borenson is really asking, Rhianna decided. He doesn't want to bring Fallion to this beach as a child, only to watch him become an immolator.
“I can control it,” Fallion said. But Rhianna could see that he was worried.
He needs the fire as much as I do, she decided.
And so they flipped the boat over, and Rhianna and Fallion scooted beneath it. Borenson told Jaz, “Look around here, bring over some driftwood and put it in piles, along with some dry grass, so we can set it afire at need.”
So Borenson and Jaz remained outside, and Fallion put his arm around Rhianna and they lay together.
They had not been lying for more than a few seconds before the fire started.
Fallion didn't wait for his brother to bring some dry grasses or driftwood. The fire just seemed to sprout from the empty air, as if the heat were so great that it could not be contained.
It was a small fire, as promised. A tiny flame no bigger than a candle; Rhianna saw that it had formed on a twig of driftwood that Fallion had found in the dark.
But it was enough. It gave them some hope.
The curve of the gunwales on the boat let them see out a bit, to where Borenson's feet marched past nervously.
Rhianna trembled in fear, her heart fluttering madly.
Fallion whispered, “How did strengi-saats get here? Asgaroth opened the gate between worlds months ago, thousands of miles from here. Did they come by ship?”
“They couldn't have been brought by ship,” Rhianna decided. “We're too far from there. Besides, the strengi-saats that caught me were running wild.”
So Shadoath must have summoned her own monsters. But why? Why would she loose them upon an island, one where she kept her warriors?
“They're part of her army,” Fallion whispered as if she had asked the question aloud. She realized that he was drawing upon his powers; he'd seen into her mind. “They're her night sentries. Darker things stir in the hills.”
She turned, just enough to see his face. His eyes were wild, his face pale and drawn. Sweat was rolling from his brow, and he peered intently at his little flame, as if the fire were showing him things.
What has Smoker been teaching him? Rhianna wondered. He hasn't been training for long. Is he really that gifted as a flameweaver, or is it desperation that makes him strong?
It could have just been the tiny fire, but it seemed to Rhianna as if there were too much light in Fallion's pupils, as if distant stars were captured in his eyes.
THE MERRY JIG
Knowing when to strike and when to hold still, that is half a battle.
 
—a saying of Rhofehavan
 
 
 
Stalker took the captain's chair at the inn. It was a sloppy dive called the Merry Jig, one that he remembered well. It was famous for featuring sour ale to go with its overcooked fowl, all served by wenches so ugly that they threatened to give womanhood in general a bad name. But the inn did have one redeeming feature: it had kept musicians playing nightly now for over a hundred years.
Once a lively place, it had apparently fallen on hard times. The serving wenches were gone, replaced by a couple of lads with greasy hair and bad teeth. The other ships lying in the harbor apparently didn't have crew ashore, for the establishment was empty of all but the most hardened of customers—a pair of the drunkards.
“Let's have some ale, and some of your lousy bird for dinner!” Stalker shouted as soon as he took his seat, waving his hand in general so that the lads would know that he was buying for the whole crew. He waited sullenly.
His men were coming ashore in waves, a dozen at a time rowing across in the ship's boats. It would take the better part of an hour to unload.
Just after the fourth shore boat had unloaded, bringing some of the guests from the ship—which included Myrrima, the babe in her arms and her brood of children clinging to her robe, Shadoath arrived.
Shadoath strode into the inn wearing no armor, for she needed none. She was a Runelord at the height of her power. Her speed and her grace served as her armor.
Shadoath was a petite woman of tremendous beauty. It was as if sunlight had entered the room, all somehow captured and subdued beneath a surface
that glowed like a black pearl. She held her back straight, eyes high, a study in poise.
Her beauty contrasted greatly with the creatures that followed on her heals. They were not apes, at least not of any variety that Stalker had ever seen. They were hairless, with warty gray skin as thick as a warthog's, and arms so long that they walked on their knuckles. They had no ears that he could see, just dark circles, tympanums behind their jaws. Their huge eyes had no whites to them at all, and they squinted as if the room was too bright for their liking. They wore no clothes, only belts that carried strange weapons—clubs with animal teeth for spikes, curved knives that fit around the hand like brass knuckles, and other things that were stranger still.
And there was no joy in their eyes, no emotion that he could discern. The deadness of them, that's what made Stalker shiver.
Shadoath's eyes were dark and sparkling, as if her pupils were black diamonds. Her ebon hair fell over one naked shoulder, curling in toward her cleavage.
Every curve of her—shoulders, breast, stomach, thighs—seemed to drive him mindless with reptilian desires, and Stalker had to struggle to restrain himself.
Stalker had often admired Myrrima when she walked the decks, but Shadoath—Myrrima was a pale shadow beside her. Shadoath had to have forty or fifty endowments of glamour at the least. No man could linger in her presence and not desire her. The smell of her alone ensured that.
She killed your children, Stalker reminded himself, hands shaking while his whole body quivered with desire.
Among the men, only Smoker seemed immune to her charms. The wizard stiffened as she passed, and his eyes glowed brighter, as if he struggled to keep from unleashing some hidden fire.
“Captain Stalker,” she said, her voice as sweet as any birdcall, “I've missed you.”
He forced a smile. Her voice was high, and though she tried to move casually, she did so with great speed. Four endowments of metabolism, at least, he imagined.
She stepped to his table, took a seat. Her body was all air and poise.
This woman is battle-ready, he realized. Brawn and grace to the hilt.
A hundred endowments brawn and grace and stamina she has at least, perhaps even hundreds.
He could see the scars left by forcibles there deep between her breasts. Her body, beneath the silks, was a mass of scars.
Where are the townsfolk? he'd wondered when he first peered out from the ship. Now he suspected that he knew. She'd put the forcibles to them, and now held them prisoner in her Dedicates' Keep.
She sat beside him, leaned forward. Stalker's eyes fastened on her cleavage, the mesmerizing sway of her breasts, the skin so rough down there, like rippling waves above a clear pool.
“So,” she said, “tell me, where are the boys?”
“What boys?” Stalker asked.
“The princes of Mystarria. The Sons of the Oak.” Shadoath said loudly enough so that all could hear. She smiled, but there was a predator's hunger deep in her eyes.
“Not on my ship,” Stalker said evenly.
She looked at him as if she'd caught him in a lie. “Two boys, dark of skin, with raven hair, both of them nine or ten years of age.”
“No one like that on my ship,” Stalker said. “See for yourself.”
She peered as if her eyes alone could pierce him, shatter his wall of lies, tumble down a fortress of deceit. All around them, sailors muttered, “That's right,” “That's the truth, ma'am.”
Without turning, still peering into his eyes, she said softly, “Is that the truth, Deever Blythe?”
Blythe stepped away from the bar and stammered, “In a manner of speakin'. We dropped 'em off, up the north shore, 'bout an hour ago.”
There were gasps from the crowd and soft little cries. Stalker tried not to let Shadoath see the rage boiling up in him. Smoker gave Blythe a fierce look.
You're a dead man, Blythe, Stalker told himself.
Blythe smiled broadly at Stalker, downed his beer, and hurried out the door. Smoker made as if to follow, but one of the crew grabbed his arms, restrained him.
“Go and get the boys,” Shadoath ordered the ugly creatures at her back.
The pair whirled and headed toward the door, walking on their knuckles.
There was a ring of metal, a swirl of robes. Myrrima plunged a dagger into the neck of one of the imps.
The blade should have driven between the monster's top vertebrae and its skull, but the steel was no match for that ugly gray skin. The blade snapped and the creature fell forward, flailing to the floor, knocking over stools.
Before Stalker had a chance to rise to his feet, Shadoath was up from the table.
What happened next was a blur. Myrrima whirled toward Shadoath to do battle, and there was a hiss as fog came pouring in under the door, rushing through cracks in the window. The whole inn suddenly filled with mist so thick that Stalker could hardly see from one wall to the next.
But Shadoath was faster still, too expert for Myrrima. She became a blur. She leapt in the air, kicked Myrrima in the face, somersaulted, and landed lightly on her feet. Somewhere in that time, there may have been a roundhouse kick to the legs. Myrrima went flailing backward with a groan, her flesh smacking to the floor.
The other imp caught Myrrima and held her firmly.
Blood flowed freely from Myrrima's face, running from her nose, from a split lip, from a scrape above her eye. Stalker wondered what had stopped the fight, and then stared in horror as he saw that Shadoath had grabbed baby Erin from the counter.
Myrrima struggled lamely, the little imp gripping her, grunting with delight, his face pressed against hers.
The babe shrieked in terror as Shadoath held it by the feet, a dagger laid to its throat.
Shadoath whispered, “You have a choice: you can die while your children watch, or I shall kill your children as
you
watch—starting with this babe … .”
At the end of the bar, Smoker exhaled a breath of smoke while fire blazed in his eyes. He was ready to go incendiary.
“No!” Stalker shouted, throwing the table aside. But he didn't dare attack. Shadoath, with her endowments, couldn't be beaten by the likes of him.
And he knew that she would gut the baby quicker than another man would gut a rabbit.
“They're under my protection,” Stalker shouted. “‘Safe passage.' That's what I pay for. Safe passage for me and mine. These folks is cargo, bought and paid for.”
Shadoath smiled for an instant. Stalker knew that she was thinking about killing them all. There was nothing that any of them could do to stop her.
All he could do was to appeal to whatever vestiges of humanity remained in her.
At last she tossed the babe to Myrrima.
“These you can have,” Shadoath said, “but not the princes. The princes are mine.”
Myrrima caught the babe, fumbled to get her upright. Little Sage was screaming, fighting to get to her mother, but one of the crew had grabbed the child to keep her safe. Draken and Talon both were weeping bitterly, but had the good sense to keep their distance.
One little imp surged out the door, eager to do his master's bidding.
Outside the inn, there was a strange snarling, a roar like thunder, and Myrrima's eyes went wide with terror.
Shadoath peered at Myrrima and whispered, “Relax. By now, I'm sure that the boys will be eager to be captured.”
Shadoath smiled at her secretively and strode from the inn. It was as if the sunlight went with her, the glory departing, leaving the room to look dull and dingy. Without her, the room was a cave full of cobwebs and shadows. It almost surprised Captain Stalker when Smoker moved, went to the door to watch her depart. Compared to Shadoath, they were all dead things.

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