David Farland: Sons of the Oak

Suddenly he was naked and bereft.

The horses galloped hard along the dirt track. Borenson cast a fearful glance uphill.

“Above us!” Borenson shouted. Darkness thickened all around, as if the last of the sun had dipped below the horizon, sucking all light with it.

Tears of pain filled Fallion’s eyes, and he looked up the mountain. Daymorra came riding hard from under the trees. It seemed that a wind swept toward her, rattling the pines along the mountainside, causing whole trees to pitch and sway and crack and fall. But it was no wind. Instead Fallion saw creatures-like scraps of blackest night, floating about in a mad dance, landing in the trees and shaking them. Their growls rose, deep and ominous, like distant thunder, but they held to the woods, and did not dare race into the open fields. Instead, they leapt from tree to tree, following through the woods, while the trees hissed and bent under heavy weight.

And then all of the horses were speeding away, down the long winding road, while the enemy fell behind. Borenson brought out a warhorn and sounded it, in hopes that the far-seers at Castle Coorm would hear and know that they were under attack. The far-seers with their many endowments of sight might spot them from the castle. But Fallion knew that at such a great distance, he would look as tiny as an ant.

The night suddenly descended, falling instantly and unnaturally to smother the world.

It was the end of a golden age of peace. Fallion knew it. Everyone knew it. Even the sheep felt it.

Fallion squinted in the unnatural darkness as the horses thundered. Rhianna clung to him, gibbering with pain or terror, and he felt hot tears splash down from her eyes to his back.

Are there monsters in her? Fallion wondered. Are they eating their way out? What are we running from?

And instantly he knew: for years the old folks had said that the world was becoming more like the netherworld. They said that fresh springwater tasted better than old wine. The hay in the fields smelled sweet enough to eat, and often folk spoke in awe at how vivid the stars now burned at night. And the weather: the lazy summers let fruit grow fat on the trees, while the winters came with a sharper bite. Some said that the world was becoming more “perfect,” bringing perfect weather, perfect children, perfect peace. But there was a dark side, too. New terrors were said to be hiding in the mountains, creatures more vile than anything the world had known.

And now, Fallion thought, perfect evil has been unleashed upon the world.

As night fell, Queen Iome Sylvarresta clutched the ramparts of Castle Coorm beside her far-seers and watched breathlessly as Sir Borenson fled down the mountains, blowing his warhorn again and again.

Iome had as many endowments of sight and hearing as any far-seer. Each time her children rode over a hilltop, she could see their frightened faces, pale and round in the failing light.

But she could not discern what enemy chased them. Her tears at the loss of her husband kept welling up, and though she wiped them away savagely with the sleeve of her cloak, new ones kept filling their place.

“There’s something in the woods above them, keeping pace,” one far-seer said. Indeed, whole pine trees shook and swayed on the ridge above, and black shades floated among the branches. Iome could hear distant bell-like barks, animal calls. But no amount of squinting would reveal the enemy.

“The boys look well,” the far-seer said, trying to comfort Iome.

The words had little effect. Iome felt numb with grief at the loss of her husband. She’d always known that this day would come, but it felt far worse than she had expected.

I should not mourn him so, she thought. I lost him years ago when he became the Earth King, and his duties stripped him from me. I should not mourn him so.

But there was an ache deep inside her, an emptiness that she knew could never be filled. She almost felt as if she would collapse.

She mentally tried to shove the pain back.

The sun was falling, retreating to the far side of the world. Already the vale around the castle was shrouded in darkness, and all too soon the last rays of sunlight would fade from the hilltops in the east, and the world would plunge into blackest night.

Iome bit her lip. A dozen force knights were already galloping into the hills to the children’s aid.

I’ve done all that I can, Iome thought bitterly.

And it did not seem enough. Worry fogged her mind. Gaborn had not been dead for two minutes before the boys fell under attack.

It reeked of a plot, of enemies lying in wait. Iome looked back into the shadows behind her, where her Days stood quietly studying the scene. The Days was a rail of a woman, with long trestles of hair braided in cornrows, a doe’s brown eyes, and the sullen robes of a scholar.

If there was a plot, the Days would probably know of it. Every king and queen had her own Days whose sole purpose in life was to chronicle their lives. And each Days had given an endowment of Wit to another of his order, thus sharing a single mind, so that in some distant monastery, this woman’s other half scribed Iome’s life, while others scribed the lives of other lords. If any king or queen in the land had a hand in her husband’s death, the woman would know.

But she would not tell, not willingly. The Days were sworn to strict noninterference. The woman would not warn Iome if her life was in danger, wouldn’t give her a drink if she was dying of a fever.

Yet there were sometimes ways to gather information from them.

Iome glanced at the far-seer, pretended to rivet her attention upon him, and said, “Gaborn was not dead five minutes when the boys were attacked. Could it be a plot?”

Iome glanced back to her Days, to see her reaction. She showed none. Inwardly, Iome grinned. When the Days had first come to her, she had been young and immature. Iome had been able to read her as easily as if she had been a child. But she could not do that anymore.

Iome felt old and weak, full of pain.

Suddenly the boys topped a hill three miles off, and there met the knights that Iome had sent to their aid.

For the moment they are safe, Iome thought. Now I must take measures to ensure that they remain that way.

By the time that Rhianna reached Castle Coorm, she was sick with grief and fear, and felt certain that something was gnawing at her belly. A few dozen commoners had begun to gather outside the castle walls to pay their respects to the fallen Earth King.

They had lit torches, which now reflected from the waters of the moat, and guttered in the evening breeze, filling the vale with sweet-smelling pine smoke.

As their mount descended from the hills toward the castle, she could hear hundreds of peasants singing:

“Lost is my hope.

Lost is my light,

Though my heart keeps beating still.

Oh, remember me when we meet again, my king beneath the hill.”

Borenson shouted for people to clear the road, and Rhianna heard cries of “Make way for the prince!” followed by gasps of astonishment as people looked up at the boy who rode in the saddle before her.

Only then did she realize that she rode behind Fallion Orden, the Crown Prince of Mystarria.

Rhianna was weeping bitterly for each precious lost second spent behind the armored knights that guarded the way and the townsfolk that gawked at the prince.

Fallion squeezed her hand, which was wrapped around him from behind so that she was clutching his chest, and whispered, “Don’t be afraid. We have good healers at the castle. They’ll take care of you.”