David Farland - Sons of the Oak

Not the man in the dark hood with the tongs, but this girl.

Jaz had wakened. His breathing came raspy, and he peered at the silver ewer as if to drink with his eyes. “Wa,” he whispered. “Wa.”

The girl said no more. She looked away guiltily, then picked up the pitcher and stepped forward carefully, as if to keep from spilling a drop.

Near Fallion’s feet, she set the pitcher down.

Is there water in it? he wondered. Or maybe even cider? He was so thirsty, that being this close to drink made his head reel.

The girl stared up at him, her dark eyes boring into his. “We got it wrong, didn’t we, in that dream? You’re the one in the cage. Not me.”

Then Fallion’s mind seemed to leap, and he said, “We’re both in the cage. We’re both in chains, but just of different kinds.” She stared at him, confused, and so he added, “I hang in chains on the wall, but you are caught in the chain of command. There’s nothing for us in that pitcher, is there? You brought it only to torment us. You’re waiting for me to beg. What are you supposed to do if I beg?”

She peered up at him, but did not answer. She was forbidden to answer their questions, to tell them anything but lies, to give them any hope.

I’m supposed to spit in it, she thought, and then leave it at your feet, to torment you for two more days.

She looked over to Jaz, saw that the younger boy was unconscious. He’d be dead in two days. She’d seen enough of the beggars die to know that.

She turned and began to hurry away, candle in her hand.

“Thank you,” Fallion said.

She whirled on him, unaccountably angry. “For what? I didn’t give you anything!” She was to give them nothing. She’d be punished if she broke the rule. And if he ever claimed that she’d given him a drink, she could lose a finger.

“Your eyes gave me drink,” Fallion said.

She glared.

She rushed from the cell, and turned the key in the lock.

“What is your name?” Fallion called, just as she finished.

She was not supposed to answer questions.

She looked this way and that, up and down the hallway. “Valya,” she whispered, then ran.

Aboard the Leviathan, Borenson lay abed while the crew secured a pair of properly cured logs to use as masts, then shaped them with hatchets and set them-a difficult task under the best of circumstances. The work would take them three more days.

Borenson wasn’t sure what had saved him-his own toughness, luck, or magic.

Stalker and the crew had found him early in the morning and carried him back to the ship, a difficult march of nearly twenty miles along the sand. They arrived just as the light was fading and the strengi-saats began their nightly prowl.

On the ship Borenson hovered near death, a vile infection brewing in his gut.

Smoker thought that he was lucky. A horseman’s lance is made to breach armor. The point is steel, sharp enough to puncture plate mail, but it is only as the lance is driven home and the shaft wedges into an opening that the weapon does its damage, ripping a man apart.

Borenson had taken only a shallow hit, the lance puncturing his gut and driving six inches, nicking his backbone. Had the blow hit his liver or pancreas, he’d have died within moments. The acrid stench of the wound and the quickness with which it became infected showed that the lance had punctured his bowels, nothing more.

Luck. He stayed alive partly out of luck, and maybe just a bit of stubbornness. He’d decided that even though his time had come, he was not going to die in the night. He’d felt determined to save Rhianna, to stay with her till the morning, and then die.

After she’d left, he’d clung to life a little longer, hoping for rescue.

Under normal circumstances the wound would have killed him. In the end, it took more than stubbornness and luck to save him-it took magic.

Smoker laid his left hand on the wound, where the swelling and pus were the worst, and peered at a candle as he “burned” the infection away.

Borenson felt no pain, only a warmth not much hotter than a fever.

When Smoker finished, Myrrima ministered in his place, washing the wounds away and drawing runes upon his wet flesh, bidding him to heal.

They managed to save his life.

But the wound didn’t leave him with enough vigor to do much of anything. He lay abed, fretting, while Myrrima scouted the island, hunting for Rhianna and the boys.

She was beside herself with worry, and stayed up much of the night pacing. She’d lost three charges in a single day, and though she searched the beach for Rhianna for two days before turning her hopes to finding the boys, she found no peace. She was wearing herself out.

“You’re a mother,” Borenson told her. “You’ve got a babe that wants your breast, and other children that need a mother. Let someone else go. Smoker can hunt for them, and some of the crew.”

“I can’t leave it to others,” she said. “They were my charges. Besides, I’m Water’s warrior still, and a Runelord. No one aboard the ship is even close to being my equal in battle.”

“Captain Stalker will send men out,” Borenson assured her. “Stay with your children.”

Myrrima searched inside herself, and could feel no peace. “It’s not just that I lost three children,” she said. “It’s who I lost. Gaborn told us that Fallion could be a greater king than he, that he could do greater good, but also greater evil. Asgaroth knew what Fallion was before he was even born. He wanted Fallion even then. And now, Fallion is in their hands…”

Borenson was too weak to care for his own children. Erin needed her mother’s breast, and when her mother left for the day, Erin whined and cried. Talon would bounce her on her knee, try to keep her satisfied until nightfall. Draken, at five, would wander around the little room making messes, bored out of his skull, while Sage would beg to know, “When is Mommy coming home?”

The time that Borenson spent without Myrrima was pure torture, but it was a torture he would have to endure.

“Go find him then,” Borenson said, “and be quick about it.”

He sighed, and considered for the thousandth time how hard it was to raise a king.

On her fourth day of scouting, Myrrima found the fortress where Fallion was held, and she despaired.

She peered out over a valley filled with dark tents where at least a quarter of a million soldiers camped, while a vast fortress crouched on a hill above them like a bloated spider, its various outbuildings spilling down the hillside like appendages.

“What can we do?” she wondered.

Smoker stood at her back, a small pipe in his mouth. He looked down, but his eyes did not focus.

“We get boys.”

She looked up at him in disbelief, studied his pale, expressionless face.

“We’ll be discovered,” she objected.

He closed his eyes, in agreement. “I be discovered. You, though, have endowment-look like Bright One.”

He was right. The army was made up mainly of the gray creatures, which the locals called golaths. But the Bright Ones seemed to serve as their masters.

A commoner would never make it past the guards.

But with her endowments of glamour, Myrrima might well be able to pass for a Bright One.

Do I dare risk it? she wondered. If I’m caught, I’ll leave my own children motherless.

There was no right choice. She didn’t dare risk it. But she would never be able to live with herself if she left the boys alone.