David Farland - Sons of the Oak

Borenson put his finger to her lips. “Shhh…the man with soldiers-do you know his name?”

Rhianna considered how to answer, shook her head no. “The others called him ‘milord.’ ”

“He was probably a wolf lord, an outlaw,” Fallion said. “I heard that a few of them are still hiding in the hills. Did you get a good look at him?”

Rhianna nodded. “He was tall and handsome in the way that powerful lords are when they’ve taken too much glamour. You looked into his eyes, and you wanted to love him. Even if he was strangling you, you wanted to love him, and even as he killed me, I felt that he had the right. His eyes sparkled, like moonlight on snow…and when he put the bag over my head, he had a ring! Like the ones that lords wear, to put their stamp on wax.”

“A signet ring?” Fallion asked. “What did it look like?”

There was a bustle at the door as a pair of healers entered. One was a tall haggard man with dark circles under his eyes. The other was an Inkarran, a woman with impossibly white skin, eyes as pale green as agates, and hair the color of spun silver.

“Iron,” Rhianna said. “The ring was of black iron, with the head of a crow.”

Borenson stood up and stared hard at her, almost as if he did not believe her. Fallion squeezed Rhianna’s hand, just held it tight. “A king’s ring?”

“He wasn’t a king, I’m thinking,” Rhianna objected. “He seemed to be taking orders from someone named Shadoath. He was telling the men, ‘Shadoath demands that we do our part.’ ”

“Did you see this man, Shadoath?”

“No. He wasn’t near. They just spoke of him. They said that he’s coming, and they were worried that everything be ‘put in order’ before he gets here.”

Borenson frowned at this news. “Shadoath? That’s not a name that I’ve heard before. So your captor, once he had you, where did he take you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “When they took off my hood, it was dark again. There was a town, a burned-out village in the woods. I saw black chimneys rising up like the bones of houses. But the fire there had been so hot, even the stones had melted. And we were sitting in the dark, on the ground, while around us there were ghost flames, green ghost flames.”

The opium was working quickly. Rhianna could no longer feel the clenching in her stomach. In fact, her whole body felt as if it were floating just a little, as if it would rise up off of the cot and just float like a leaf on a pond.

“Ghost flames?” Borenson asked.

“They burned, but there was nothing for them to burn,” Rhianna explained. “They just floated above the ground, like, as cold as fog.

“The soldiers set us there, and invited the darkness. Then the shadows came. We screamed, but the men didn’t care. They just…they just fed us, gave us… to them.”

Fear was rising in Rhianna’s throat, threatening to strangle her again.

“Twynhaven,” Borenson said. “You were at the village of Twynhaven. I know the place. Raj Ahten’s flameweavers burned it down, years back. What more can you tell me about the beasts that attacked you?”

Rhianna closed her eyes and shook her head. The creatures had carried her so tenderly in their mouths, as if she were a kitten.

“They licked me,” she said. “But I never even got a good look at them. But they washed me with their tongues, before… And I heard the leader talking. He called them strengi-saats. ”

“ ‘Strong seeds,’ ” Borenson said, translating the word from its ancient Alnycian roots.

Rhianna looked up at him, worried. “Do you know what they are?”

“No,” Borenson said. “I’ve never heard of them. But I’ll soon find out all that I can.”

By now, the healers were examining Rhianna; the man set some herbs on the table, along with a small cloth with some surgeon’s tools-three sharp knives, a bone cleaver, and some curved needles and black thread for sewing.

Fallion must have seen her looking at the knives, for he whispered, “Don’t worry. We have the best healers here.”

The male healer began to ask questions. He prodded her stomach and asked if it hurt, but Rhianna’s mind was so muzzy that she could hardly understand him. It seemed like minutes had passed before she managed to shake her head no.

Fallion began to tell her of the huge feast that they would be having downstairs in a couple of hours. Eels baked in butter; roast swans with orange sauce; pies filled with sausage, mushrooms, and cheese. He offered to let her sit by him, but Rhianna knew that he was just trying to distract her.

Sir Borenson had pulled the Inkarran woman into a corner and now he whispered fervently. Rhianna blocked out Fallion’s droning voice, and listened to Borenson. The woman kept shaking her head, but Borenson insisted fiercely, “You have to cut it out-now! It’s the only way to save her. If you don’t, I’ll do it myself.”

“You not healer,” the woman insisted in her thick accent. “You not know how. Even I never do thing like this.”

“I’ve sewed up my share of wounds,” Borenson argued. “They say that you cut children out of wombs in Inkarra.”

“Sometimes, yes,” the woman said. “But only after woman dead, and only to save child. I not know how do this. Maybe this kill her. Maybe ruin her, so she no have babies.”

Rhianna looked at the big guard, and for some reason that she could not understand, she trusted him. His inner toughness reminded her of her mother.

Rhianna reached over to the table beside her cot and grabbed a knife. Not the big one, a smaller one, for making small cuts. Fallion grabbed at her wrist, as if he were afraid that she’d stab herself.

“Sir,” Rhianna said, her vision darkening in a drug-induced haze. “Cut me, please.”

Borenson turned and stared at her, mouth open.

“I’m not a healer,” he apologized. “I’m not a surgeon.”

“You know how to make a cut that kills,” Rhianna said. Her thoughts came muzzy. “You know how to hit a kidney or a heart. This time, make one that heals.”

He strode to her and took the knife. Rhianna touched its blade, tracing a simple rune called harm-me-not.

The Inkarran woman came up beside him, and whispered, “I show where to cut.” Just then, the healer who had been preparing the tools put one large hand over her eyes, so that Rhianna would not be able to see what was done to her.

Rhianna surrendered.

Night descended upon Castle Coorm. The clouds above were worn rags, sealing out the light. The air in the surrounding meadows grew heavy and wet, and in the hills, bell-like barks rang out, eerie and unsettling.

The peasants who had come to mourn the passing of the Earth King issued through the gates like nervous sheep, and the atmosphere soon changed from one of mourning to uncertainty and anticipation. The inhabitants of Castle Coorm bore themselves as if in a siege.

It was more than an hour after Fallion had made his way home, and now his mother waited, pacing in her quarters, often going out onto the veranda to gaze at the hills, where every cottage was as empty and lifeless as a pile of stones. She ignored the local dignitaries that arrived, hoping for news of Gaborn’s death. How had he died? Where? She had no answers for them yet, none for herself.

Iome hoped that messengers would come. But she could not know for certain that anyone would bring news. She might never learn the truth.

In the past few years, Gaborn had taken to wandering afar. With his dozens of endowments of metabolism, he had become something of a loner.