David Farland - Sons of the Oak

How many folk in far lands had met her husband, a stranger in green robes whose quick movements baffled the eye and left the visitant wondering if he’d really seen the Earth King or was only having a waking dream? Often Gaborn merely appeared to a peasant who was walking the highway or working in the fields, looked into his eyes for a moment, pierced his soul, and whispered the words, “I Choose you. I Choose you for the Earth. May the Earth hide you. May the Earth heal you. May the Earth make you its own.” Then Gaborn would depart in a blur as soundlessly as a leaf falling in the forest.

He lived at dozens of times the speed of a normal man, and had aged accordingly. For him, a winter’s night would feel like more than two months of solid darkness. For him, there was no such thing as a casual conversation. He had lost the patience for such things years ago. Even a few words spoken from his mouth were a thing to be treasured.

Iome had not seen him in three years. Ten months ago, Daymorra had met him on an island far to the south and east of Inkarra. Iome felt sure that he was working his way across the world.

But why? She suspected that it had to do with Fallion.

It was while Iome fretted that Sir Borenson stalked into her private quarters bearing a bowl, with Fallion in tow. The servants closed the door, and even her Days would not enter the sanctum of her private quarters, leaving them to talk in secret.

In the bowl were half a dozen eggs, black and leathery, floating in a thin soup of blood. Iome could see through the membranes of the eggs-eyes and teeth and claws. One egg had hatched, and a tiny creature thrashed about in the blood, clawing and kicking. It was as black as sin, with vicious teeth. Even as Iome watched, a second creature breached its egg, a gush of black fluid issuing forth.

“It looks almost like a squirrel,” Iome mused, “a flying squirrel.”

“It doesn’t have any ears,” Fallion said.

It was not like a squirrel at all, Iome knew. It was more like the egg of a fly, planted into the womb of its victim, then left to eat its way out and dine on the girl’s dead remains. Apparently the egg didn’t need the blood supply of a mature woman to hatch-perhaps only warmth and wet and darkness.

Sir Borenson cleared his throat. “We got all of the creatures out. Only one had hatched, and it only moments before.”

Iome had already heard some of the news of their adventure. Fallion and Jaz had given a wild account, nearly witless with terror. Daymorra and Hearthmaster Waggit had been more cogent.

And in the midst of the questioning, Fallion had gone to give the girl comfort as others cut her open. He’d seen the eggs torn from her stomach, and now he looked very wise and sad for a nine-year-old. Iome felt proud of him.

“Do you even have any idea what these creatures are?” Iome asked.

Borenson shook his head. “Rhianna told me that they were summoned from the netherworld. The summoner called them strengi-saats. But I’ve never heard of them.”

He went over to the hearth, hurled the bowl and its contents into the flames. The young monsters made mewling noises as they died, like kittens.

Rhianna, Iome thought. So the girl has a name. And so do the monsters that she held within her.

“I wish that Binnesman were here,” Fallion said. The Earth Warden Binnesman had made detailed studies of flora and fauna in the hills and mountains of Rofehavan, in the caverns of the Underworld, and had even collected lore from the netherworld. He would know what these creatures were, if anyone would. But he had gone back to Heredon, home to his gardens at the edge of the Dunnwood.

“Will the girl survive?” Iome asked.

“I think so,” Borenson said. “We found her womb easily enough, and I got all of the… eggs out.” Iome didn’t imagine that anyone had ever said the word eggs with more loathing. “The healers sewed her back up…but there was a lot of blood. And I worry about rot.”

“I’ll see that she’s well tended,” Iome said.

Borenson said. “I was hoping that you could spare a forcible…”

“An endowment of stamina?” Iome asked. “What do we know of her? Is she of royal blood?”

There was a time in her life when Iome would have allowed such a boon out of pity alone. But the blood-metal mines were barren. Without blood metal, her people could not make forcibles, and without forcibles they could not transfer attributes. So the forcibles had to be saved for warriors who could put them to good use.

“She has no parents,” Borenson said. “I’d like to take her as my daughter.”

Iome smiled sadly. “You were ever the one for picking up strays.”

“There’s something about her,” Borenson said. “She knows some rune casting. At least, she put a blessing on the knife before she would let it touch her. Not many children her age would know how to do that. And she didn’t do it out of hope. She did it with confidence.”

“Indeed,” Iome said. “Too few even of our surgeons know such lore. Did she say where she learned it?”

Borenson shook his head. “Fell asleep too soon.”

“We’ll have the healers watch her,” Iome said in a tone of finality.

Borenson bit his lip as if he wanted to argue, but seemed to think better of it.

Fallion cut in. “Mother? Won’t you give her one forcible?”

Iome softened. “If her situation begins to worsen, I will permit her a forcible.” She turned to Borenson. “Until then, perhaps you should ask your wife to wash the child. Myrrima has a healing touch.”

Borenson nodded in acquiescence.

Iome changed the subject. “Daymorra told me of bodies in the hills,” Iome said. “I’ve sent her to lead twenty men to burn the corpses. We can’t let these monsters continue to breed.”

“I agree,” Borenson said. “But there is something else. Rhianna did not see the face of the man who summoned the creatures. She only saw his ring: black iron, with a crow.”

Iome stared hard at Sir Borenson, unsure whether she should believe it. She looked at Fallion, hesitant to continue speaking in front of her son.

Fallion must have sensed something amiss, for he said, “An iron ring, with a crow. For Crowthen?”

“King Anders, you think?” Iome asked. “Back from the dead?” That drew Fallion’s attention. Fallion peered up at her with eyes gone wide, riveted.

“It couldn’t be. I saw his body myself,” Borenson said. “He was cold when they took him from the battlefield at Carris. No matter how much of a wizard he was, I doubt that he could have come back.”

Yet Iome gave him a hard look.

Fallion asked, “How can a man come back from the dead?”

“Anders was mad,” Iome answered, “wind-driven. He gave himself to the Powers of the Air. As such, he could let his breath leave him, feign death.”

Fallion looked to Borenson. “Can he really do that?”

“I’ve seen it,” Borenson said. “Such men are hard to kill.”

Iome dared not reveal more of what she suspected about Anders. Borenson put in, “Whoever he is, he isn’t working alone. He mentioned a superior: someone named Shadoath. Have you heard the name?”

Iome shook her head no. “It sounds… Inkarran?” she mused. It didn’t sound like any name that she had ever heard. “If Anders is back, that could explain much,” Iome said. She turned to Fallion. “You were attacked only moments after your father… passed. I doubt that anyone could have known that he was going to die-unless they had a hand in it.”

Fallion shook his head and objected, “No one could have killed him! His Earth Powers would have warned him.”

That was the kind of thing that the cooks and guards would have told Fallion. Gaborn was invincible. Iome half believed it herself. But she also knew that Anders was both more powerful and more evil than her son could know.