David Farland - Sons of the Oak

In the woods above them there was a distant crack, like a wet limb snapping under heavy weight.

“I smell evil,” Daymorra whispered. “It’s coming.”

Suddenly a voice inside Fallion warned, “Flee!” It was his father’s voice, the warning of the Earth King.

All the others must have heard the same warning, for Waggit instantly grabbed Jaz’s reins and went thundering downhill through the woods.

Borenson fumbled with his boot-knife for an instant, thinking to put it away, but then stabbed the damned creature that lay on the limb through the belly, and it wriggled on the end of his blade. He marveled at its strength, until it let out a shrill bell-like bark.

And in the woods, uphill, an enormous roar sounded, shaking the air, a mother crying out to her young.

There was the sound of limbs snapping and trees breaking, and Borenson looked back. Fallion was trying to turn his mount, mouth wide in horror. Borenson slapped its rump, and the horse lunged away uncertainly.

Rhianna wrapped her arms around Fallion. He locked his own small hand over her fist and thought, We were all wrong. My father didn’t send me here to see some old woman. He sent me to see this!

He glanced back into the woods, trying to discern what gave chase, as Borenson sheathed his knife.

Fallion’s heart was pounding like a sledgehammer upon an anvil. His father seldom sent warnings, and only did so when a man was in mortal danger.

There was a sound like the churning of wind, or the rising of a storm up the hill, as if something were rushing through the trees. Fallion peered up through the woods, and it seemed that he saw movement-dark forms leaping and gliding through the trees. But it was as if light retreated from them, and the harder he squinted, the less certain he could be of what it was that he saw.

“Ride!” Daymorra shouted as she drew back her arrow. “I will hold them off!”

Waggit and Jaz were already gone, leaving Daymorra to her fate. Borenson spurred his own horse and kept just off Fallion’s flank. Soon the horses were galloping at full speed.

Fallion’s training took over and he clung to the saddle and crouched, offering less wind resistance as an aid to his swift force horse and making a smaller target of his back. Rhianna clung to him, warming his back. With his ear pressed against the horse’s neck, he could feel the heat of its body on his cheek as well as between his legs, could feel every thud of its hooves against the soft humus, and could hear the blood rushing through its veins and the wind wheezing through the caverns of its lungs.

He was suddenly reminded of an incident from his childhood: on a foggy morning, not five years ago, he and Jaz had gone out on the parapet. The streets had been all but empty so early in the morning, and Fallion had heard a strange sound, a panting, as if someone were running, followed by a call: “Wooo-OOOO. Wooo-oooo.”

Both boys thought that something was coming for them, scrabbling up the castle walls, and they tried to imagine what it might be. So they ran into the room and barred their doors in fright.

They tried to imagine what kind of animal might make such a noise, and Fallion had ventured that since it sounded like a horn, it must be an animal with a long neck.

In their room, the boys had a menagerie of animals all carved from wood and painted in their natural colors. Jaz suggested that it might be a camel that was chasing them, though neither boy had ever seen one. And in his mind, the sound immediately became a camel-black and huge, like the war camels that were ridden by the Obbattas in the desert. He imagined that the camel had sharp teeth dripping with foam and bloodshot eyes.

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.