David Farland - Sons of the Oak

Draken peered hard at him. Fallion was sending him to safety, he knew, and Draken resented that. But Fallion was also sending him on a vital mission. He nodded his acceptance.

With that, Draken leapt onto his own reptile and gouged its sides. In a thunder of wings it jumped into the air, and several other riders followed.

Fallion rushed forward to the landing platform as some boys led two more graaks forward, the huge reptiles waddling clumsily, tipping their wings in the air.

Fallion peered about. Eight hundred years ago, Fallion’s forefathers had left the Gwardeen on vigil, commanding them to watch for the return of the toth.

Since that time, it seemed to Fallion, the famed Gwardeen had dwindled to little more than a club for youngsters who liked to ride graaks.

Most of the older Gwardeen were out making a living, marrying and having babies, planting gardens, growing old and dying together-the way that people should.

Few of them took their ancestors’ promise of eternal vigilance seriously.

The Ends of the Earth are not far enough, Fallion thought.

A young man of eleven brought a bridled graak forward, a large male, a powerful thing that smelled as strong as he looked. It glared down at Fallion, as if daring him to ride. His name was Banther.

Valya stood at the edge of the platform. She looked at Fallion, as if begging him to ride this monster, leave her to a tamer beast.

“You’ll need a large one,” Fallion told her, “and Banther is not as dangerous as he looks.”

The large sea graaks could carry an adult, and a small woman like Valya would not be hard in most cases, but they would be flying high into the mountains where the air was thin and the flight steep. She needed a sturdy mount.

“He’s yours,” the boy told her, “if you dare.”

Valya raced forward, as she’d seen other skyriders do, and planted her foot in a crook at the back of the graak’s knee, then leapt and pushed off. Her second step took her to the graak’s thigh, and she leapt from there onto its long neck.

Valya settled onto the beast’s neck and grabbed the reins.

“Go inland,” Fallion said, “to the Toth Queen’s Hideout. Know where that is?” Valya shook her head no. “Just follow Carralee and the others through the flyway.”

Valya nodded, gouged her mount lightly in the pectoral muscles at the joint of its wing. With an angry grunt, the graak lunged forward, took a pair of clumsy steps, leapt, and flapped its wings.

They say that if you’re going to die, it will most likely be on the landing, Valya assured herself.

The beast’s wings caught air, and it was suddenly flapping over the water and into the woods.

Fallion helped the last of the children onto their mounts, assigning some to fly to various forts and warn the Gwardeen, sending others into hiding, and then got upon his own huge graak.

Its name was Windkris, and he was the one of the largest and strongest graaks within a thousand miles.

It was only upon such a mount that a boy Fallion’s size could fly. Fallion ate little and kept his body fat down to nothing so that he could remain a Gwardeen. Even so, he was growing, putting on muscle, and by the year’s end he would be too heavy for a graak to carry far.

Fallion spurred the beast into the sky. Ahead he could see other graaks flitting through the trees, and his mount gave chase.

He looked back over his shoulder, hoping to see if the fight for Garion’s Port went well. Distantly, he heard the sounds of crashing blades, cries of pain. The battle was raging down there, but he could see little through the trees, only the smoke of raging fires.

Dozens of Shadoath’s warriors raced along the burning gangplank, helpless to catch him.

He peered back one last time, and then looked ahead as his graak soared into the trees.

That’s when he entered the flyway.

From the ground it was invisible, hidden by the limbs and leaves of ancient stonewood trees, concealed behind curtains of lichens and flowering vines.

But the Gwardeen children had cleared a path. It had been done over generations, at great cost and effort. The children had cut away limbs high up in the trees, a path sixty feet wide and forty feet high.

It led through the deep forest, inland.

Now that he was airborne, Fallion’s heart raced. He was in a precarious position, perched aback the enormous beast. He had no saddle, nothing holding him to safety.

Beneath him, he could feel the enormous lungs of the graak working for every breath, feel its iron muscles ripple and surge as it sought purchase in the air.

For long minutes the creature flew, and only once did Fallion hear any sound of pursuit. He was winging through the flyway, with the day-bats ahead flitting among shafts of sunlight, the air mellow crimson and sweetly scented by pollens, when he heard a whoop below, the gruff voice of a golath.

They’re trying to follow us, Fallion realized.

Borenson trudged along a muddy track beside Jackal Creek, a name that was something of a misnomer. There were no jackals in Landesfallen. The early inhabitants had probably named it after something else-the bushtiger. And there was no creek for most of the year. It was early afternoon, and he had been out hunting for wild burrow-bears for dinner. The creatures were gentle and easy enough to take, if you found one in the open. No luck there.

He had just vowed to himself to climb up into the far hills, where there was better hunting, when he saw a fish: a muddy brown fish eeling along the road, half submerged in a rut from wagons that had traveled this way during the winter.

It was a walking catfish, about four feet in length, as muddy brown as the water, and had four tiny vestigial feet. Its broad mouth was full of teeth, and beneath its mouth were whiskers.

He circled the thing, and it peered at him with dull brown eyes, hissing and baring its teeth.

He didn’t like the taste of walking catfish. It was about like eating mud, and he was wondering if he should kill it and take it home for dinner when a shadow fell over him.

He looked up to see a huge white graak winging just overhead.

“Father,” Draken shouted, leaning precariously to his right. The graak grunted angrily, but finally veered right. In moments, the graak landed gracelessly not a dozen yards away, smack in the middle of the road.

The walking catfish hissed and scurried off into some thick ferns.

“Father,” Draken shouted. “Shadoath has found us!”

Quickly he described the attack on Garion’s Port.

It took several moments for Borenson to gauge the situation. Shadoath had brought reinforcements-a worldship full of them. How many men that might be, Borenson couldn’t guess. It was said that Fallion the Bold had built strange rafts large enough to hold five thousand men each.

For now, the children seemed to have headed to safety at some place called the Toth Queen’s Hideout. But how long would they remain safe?

Borenson swallowed hard. It was a long way to Garion’s Port-eighty miles by air. But he was getting to be an old fat man, and he would have to travel a lot farther than eighty miles. There were no passes through the mountains for a hundred miles to the north.

And he couldn’t just charge toward the city blindly. There were ten thousand Gwardeen in Landesfallen, but they were spread all across the wastes. It would take weeks to warn them of the danger, form an army, and march on Garion’s Port.

“I’ll head to the fort at Stillwater. If I’m lucky, I’ll reach it in a couple of days. But first I have to go home and tell your mother where I’m going.