Sons of the Oak

At eight weeks, the coasts could not be spotted and Fallion was informed by the far-seer in the crow’s nest that they were in the realm “Beyond Inkarra.”

Inkarra had always been the edge of the world to Fallion. It was a loose conglomeration of kingdoms all inhabited by folks with white skin, who worked and hunted by night. It was a forbidden realm, and no one who ventured beyond its borders came back alive.

Fallion and Jaz were ecstatic. They were sailing into the realms of legend, through the Atolls, following a string of volcanic islands to the Mariners, and then on to the far side of the world.

Stalker bent over his charts one morning, considering his course, when Fallion saw the worry in his face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“This is our course,” Stalker said, “right here through the Mariners. We’re supposed to stop at Talamok. I’ve got goods to unload.”

“Is there some danger?”

Stalker was slow to answer. He’d been trying to reach a decision. He looked at Fallion evenly. “Pirates,” Stalker said. “I think I’ll sail around it, strike for open sea. We’ve got enough food and water to get us ’ere, I think, if the wind ’olds.” He pointed at a small island on the charts, a place called Byteen. “It’s an unin’abited island. The crew can scurry out and gather fruit, maybe even ’unt pigs. How would you like that, eh? ’Unt some wild pigs?”

Ever since his childhood incident with the boar, Fallion had been terrified of pigs. But these island pigs wouldn’t be near as large as the ones in Heredon.

Stalker muttered, “Course, we might ’ave to fight some sea apes for the food.”

Sea apes often lived among the Mariners, swimming from island to island to gather fish and fruit. Sometimes, whole rafts of them would swim together, hundreds of them with locked arms, forming floating islands.

“Why not go to one of the other islands?” Fallion asked. There were dozens to choose from, maybe even hundreds, including at least one called Syndyllian that was two hundred miles across and showed three ports.

“Shadoath controls them islands.”

Fallion stood for a moment, unnerved. He’d heard that name before. “Shadoath is a pirate?” Fallion probed.

“You ’eard of ’er?” Stalker asked.

“I heard her name, once or twice,” Fallion admitted. “Who is she?”

Stalker wondered. The boy didn’t even seem to know that she had put a price on his head, much less that Stalker had just been worrying about whether he should accept her price. To do anything else was foolish.

“She’s a pirate lord,” Stalker said. “A bad one, a powerful Runelord. A man that’s taken endowments out ’ere is rarer than a two-’eaded goat. Blood metal is ’ard to come by, and we got this saying: ‘ ’Im what’s got a handful of endowments can rule the sea.’ She’s got more than a ’andful, she ’as.

“She came out of nowhere just a few years back, ’bout the time you were born, and built a fortress down ’ere in Derrabee.” He pointed to a large island. “It wasn’t long a’fore she got a few ships, took control of the Mariners.” He waved, indicating the entire chain of islands.

“Can’t anyone stop her?” Fallion asked.

“The only folks that care is them that lives in Landesfallen, and there aren’t many of us. Maybe a dozen traders ply the waters these days. Landes-fallen ’asn’t got a real navy.”

There was a look of such hurt on Stalker’s face that Fallion dared not ask about the battles he’d fought. Fallion could see that Shadoath had beaten him.

“I pay protection money to ’er now. She lets the Leviathan pass. But sometimes she boards us. That black ship that’s been followin’ us? That’s one of ’ers.”

For the first time in weeks Fallion felt truly unnerved. Shadoath was Asgaroth’s master. They hunted together. Like wolves, his mother had said. Like wolves.

Shadoath is ahead of us, Fallion realized. And Asgaroth came out of the west, chasing me toward the edge of the world-into Shadoath’s path.

Stalker was right to mistrust the course ahead. His plan sounded good- sail around the islands, keep as much distance as he could.

For his part, Stalker looked at Fallion and realized that he could not turn the boy over, no matter what the reward. Stalker had grown too close to Fallion in the past few weeks. He was a good lad-smart, capable. He had become like one of the sons that he should have had.

I’ll die before I let her have him, Stalker told himself. Besides, the crew sees him as one of us, now. They’d probably mutiny if I sold him off.

Fallion peered at the map, eyeing it distrustfully. Stalker’s plan gave him some comfort. Yet Fallion felt a strange certainty in his gut. It was his destiny to meet Shadoath.

The ends of the Earth are not far enough.

Fallion went to his cabin and spent the morning honing his blade.

The winds didn’t hold. Stalker sailed north, trying to bypass the Mariners, but for the next two weeks the sails were slack, and it would take a good storm to drive the ship past the islands.

It was late in the hurricane season, and Stalker had dared hope that he’d not see one this year.

But the sails went slack altogether one morning, and the sea ape Unkannunk began to roar and slam his huge club against the deck, pounding and pounding in a fit of madness. Stalker came out of his cabin and found himself staring at a sunrise that struck fear into his belly.

The sky on the horizon was the blue-green of a bruise, and the air was as heavy as a wet blanket. You could feel the lightning in the air, little pinpricks crawling over the back of your neck.

“Drop the sails,” Stalker ordered. “Batten the ’atches, and strap yourselves down.”

There was no port to make for. They were fifty miles north of the nearest island, at the very least. Navigating on the open water like this was always part guesswork, and Stalker only had a general idea of where he was.

Myrrima felt it, too. She woke in the morning in solemn terror and didn’t take time to eat or clothe her children. She spent the morning on a rope ladder, drawing runes of protection on the ship, runes of strength to hold it together, runes of way-finding to guide the steersman’s course.

Then it came. The clouds gathered over the heavens, sealing off the sunlight, and the thunder could be heard in the distance. Then the explosive bursts of light came, high in the clouds.

The seas began to pitch and the storm rolled in lightly, the wind singing through the rigging. When the first patters of rain started, Myrrima brought the children down into the hold, into the dark, where only a single lantern swaying on a hook gave any light.

Captain Stalker stayed above decks and watched the hurricane come in, three men lashed to the wheel, trying to guide the ship.

There are no words that can describe the terror of a storm at sea, winds of ninety miles an hour shrieking through the masts, waves crashing down over the bow so that the boat shudders under your feet as if it will tear apart, that moment when the boat climbs and climbs and climbs up an eighty-foot wave, only to reach the top, and then come crashing down into the wallow with a bone-crushing jar.

Down in the hold, the children wept and moaned. Seasoned crewmen who never got seasick grew ill and lay in their own vomit, wishing for death, wishing with each moment that on the next wave, the ship would tear asunder and yet also fearing to the core of their being that on the next wave the ship would founder.

Lightning took the mainmast. A bolt of it struck the masthead and sent a line of fire running down the beam, almost to the deck.

Stalker didn’t worry about the fire. The rain was driving so hard that you couldn’t open your mouth without getting a drink, and mountains of water crashed over the railing.

The fire would sputter for a few minutes, then die.

Amid the high winds, the weakened mast gave a tattletale cracking sound, and the ropes in the rigging began to snap.

Before Stalker could shout a warning, it toppled, falling backward into the mizzenmast, snapping spars, so that both masts fell in a tangle of rope.

The ship twisted beneath their feet, listing to starboard.

The heavy masts tangled in the rigging. As the masts fell, the ship lost balance and canted precariously.

If the men didn’t cut the masts free, a wave would take them broadside and capsize the ship.

Suddenly a dozen sailors rushed up from below decks, swords and axes in hands, chopping at the tie lines and rigging, trying to cut the fallen masts free. Stalker and the steersmen grabbed the wheel, tried to aim the ship’s prow into the waves, but it felt as if the rudder were gripped by a giant hand, and three men together could not budge it. The fallen mast gave too much drag.

Stalker abandoned the wheel and rushed to help cut the damned masts free.

The waves caught the ship broadside, and he lost his footing, went down beneath a wall of water that came cascading over the railing.

Three crewmen went flying overboard, into the white surf, their mouths working uselessly, their cries for help stolen in the roar of the wind, the pounding of the sea.

And then there was a crack, and a line snapped, the rope slapping Stalker’s face like a bullwhip, and the mainmast went sliding into the sea.

He himself followed, gravity pulling him downward. He tried to catch himself with his feet, bracing them to take all of his weight as he slid down the slick decks toward the railing.

It didn’t work. He hit the rail and his legs gave way beneath him. He found himself toppling overboard. Only years at sea kept his mind steady enough so that he twisted in the air and grabbed onto the railing with both hands, clinging for dear life.

The ship rolled over a smaller wave, and now suddenly the boat lifted and turned. Stalker clung to the railing as the ship seemed to rise beneath him like a mountain. He was suddenly plastered against the outside of the hull, his weight sustained by it, and peering down across the deck to the trough of the next wave.

Inwardly, he prayed that the ship would hold together.