Sons of the Oak

As night fell, Queen Iome Sylvarresta clutched the ramparts of Castle Coorm beside her far-seers and watched breathlessly as Sir Borenson fled down the mountains, blowing his warhorn again and again.

Iome had as many endowments of sight and hearing as any far-seer. Each time her children rode over a hilltop, she could see their frightened faces, pale and round in the failing light.

But she could not discern what enemy chased them. Her tears at the loss of her husband kept welling up, and though she wiped them away savagely with the sleeve of her cloak, new ones kept filling their place.

“There’s something in the woods above them, keeping pace,” one far-seer said. Indeed, whole pine trees shook and swayed on the ridge above, and black shades floated among the branches. Iome could hear distant bell-like barks, animal calls. But no amount of squinting would reveal the enemy.

“The boys look well,” the far-seer said, trying to comfort Iome.

The words had little effect. Iome felt numb with grief at the loss of her husband. She’d always known that this day would come, but it felt far worse than she had expected.

I should not mourn him so, she thought. I lost him years ago when he became the Earth King, and his duties stripped him from me. I should not mourn him so.

But there was an ache deep inside her, an emptiness that she knew could never be filled. She almost felt as if she would collapse.

She mentally tried to shove the pain back.

The sun was falling, retreating to the far side of the world. Already the vale around the castle was shrouded in darkness, and all too soon the last rays of sunlight would fade from the hilltops in the east, and the world would plunge into blackest night.

Iome bit her lip. A dozen force knights were already galloping into the hills to the children’s aid.

I’ve done all that I can, Iome thought bitterly.

And it did not seem enough. Worry fogged her mind. Gaborn had not been dead for two minutes before the boys fell under attack.

It reeked of a plot, of enemies lying in wait. Iome looked back into the shadows behind her, where her Days stood quietly studying the scene. The Days was a rail of a woman, with long trestles of hair braided in cornrows, a doe’s brown eyes, and the sullen robes of a scholar.

If there was a plot, the Days would probably know of it. Every king and queen had her own Days whose sole purpose in life was to chronicle their lives. And each Days had given an endowment of Wit to another of his order, thus sharing a single mind, so that in some distant monastery, this woman’s other half scribed Iome’s life, while others scribed the lives of other lords. If any king or queen in the land had a hand in her husband’s death, the woman would know.

But she would not tell, not willingly. The Days were sworn to strict noninterference. The woman would not warn Iome if her life was in danger, wouldn’t give her a drink if she was dying of a fever.

Yet there were sometimes ways to gather information from them.

Iome glanced at the far-seer, pretended to rivet her attention upon him, and said, “Gaborn was not dead five minutes when the boys were attacked. Could it be a plot?”

Iome glanced back to her Days, to see her reaction. She showed none. Inwardly, Iome grinned. When the Days had first come to her, she had been young and immature. Iome had been able to read her as easily as if she had been a child. But she could not do that anymore.

Iome felt old and weak, full of pain.

Suddenly the boys topped a hill three miles off, and there met the knights that Iome had sent to their aid.

For the moment they are safe, Iome thought. Now I must take measures to ensure that they remain that way.

By the time that Rhianna reached Castle Coorm, she was sick with grief and fear, and felt certain that something was gnawing at her belly. A few dozen commoners had begun to gather outside the castle walls to pay their respects to the fallen Earth King.

They had lit torches, which now reflected from the waters of the moat, and guttered in the evening breeze, filling the vale with sweet-smelling pine smoke.

As their mount descended from the hills toward the castle, she could hear hundreds of peasants singing:

“Lost is my hope.

Lost is my light,

Though my heart keeps beating still.

Oh, remember me when we meet again, my king beneath the hill.”

Borenson shouted for people to clear the road, and Rhianna heard cries of “Make way for the prince!” followed by gasps of astonishment as people looked up at the boy who rode in the saddle before her.

Only then did she realize that she rode behind Fallion Orden, the Crown Prince of Mystarria.

Rhianna was weeping bitterly for each precious lost second spent behind the armored knights that guarded the way and the townsfolk that gawked at the prince.

Fallion squeezed her hand, which was wrapped around him from behind so that she was clutching his chest, and whispered, “Don’t be afraid. We have good healers at the castle. They’ll take care of you.”

He seemed to be a kind boy, quick to give comfort, and she remembered how he had been the first to offer her a ride.

He’s quick to help, as well, she decided.

And what seemed to be long wasted moments later, the horses finally thundered over the bridge into the castle.

Fallion shouted “Make way, make way!” and the horses cantered through the streets up to the keep. In minutes Rhianna dismounted and was whisked inside, where she gaped at the splendor of the Great Hall.

Servants had begun preparing a feast. Maidens had begun bringing bowls of fruit-local wood-pears and shining red apples, along with more exotic fare all the way from Indhopal-star fruits and tangerines to set upon the tables. Children were strewing pennyroyal flowers upon the stone floor, raising a sweet scent. Huge fires blazed in the hearth, where young boys turned the crank on a spit, cooking whole piglets that dripped fat and juice to sizzle in the flames. A pair of racing hounds barked at all of the excitement.

No sooner had the party entered than a knot of maids surrounded Fallion and Jaz, offering sympathy for the death of their father. Fallion tried to look stoic while wiping away the tears that came to his eyes, but Jaz seemed to be more sentimental, sobbing openly.

At the far end of the hall, Rhianna saw the queen herself hurry forward, an ancient woman with watery eyes and hair as white as ice, prematurely aged from having taken numerous endowments of metabolism. She stood tall and straight like a warrior, and moved with the grace of a dancer, but even Rhianna could see that her time was near. Even the most powerful Runelords died eventually.

Amid the bustle, Sir Borenson grabbed Rhianna and picked her up, hugging her to his chest as he shouted, “Call the surgeon, hoy!”

For his part, Borenson planned to leave the boys in the care of the cooks and maids and their mother. The boys were well liked by the help. As toddlers, Iome had sent them to the kitchens to work, as if they were the get of common scullions. She did it, as she said, “To teach the boys humility and respect for authority, and to let them know that their every request was purchased at the price of another’s sweat.” And so they had toiled- scrubbing pots and stirring stews, plucking geese and sweeping floors, fetching herbs from the garden and serving tables-duties common to children. In the process of learning to work, they had gained the love and respect of the common folk.

So the maids cooed at the boys, offering sympathy at the death of their father, a blow that one heavyset old matron thought could somehow only be softened by pastries.

Borenson told Waggit, “I need to get this girl to a surgeon, and learn what I can from her. Her Highness will be eager for news. Give her a full accounting.”

Then he carried Rhianna through a maze of corridors and steps, and soon was panting and sweating from exertion. As he carried her, he asked, “Where can I find your mother or father?”

Rhianna was almost numb with fear. She didn’t know how much she could trust this man, and she dared not tell him the truth. Her stomach hurt terribly. “I don’t have a da.” And what could she say about her mother? Those who knew her at all thought that she was daft, a madwoman. At the very best she was a secretive vagabond who traveled from fair to fair to sell trinkets, staying only a day or a few hours at each before she crept off into the night. “And my mother…I think she’s dead.”

Wherever Mum is, Rhianna thought, even if she’s alive, she’ll want people to think that she’s dead.

“Brothers? Sisters? Grandparents?” he asked as they bustled up some stairs, brushing past a maid who was hurrying down with a bundle of dirty bedding.

Rhianna just shook her head.

Borenson stopped for a second, peered deep into her eyes, as if thinking. “Well, when this is all over, maybe you can come live with me.”

If I live, she thought. Rhianna could feel the mail beneath his robe, hard and cold. The epaulets on his shoulders dug into her chin. She wondered if he was a hard man, like his armor.

“I think you’d like it at our house,” he continued. “There’s plenty of room. I have a daughter a little younger than you. Of course, you’d have to put up with some little brothers and sisters.”

Rhianna bit her lip, said nothing. He seemed to take her nonanswer as an acceptance of the offer.

They reached a tower chamber, a simple room with a soft cot. The room was dark but surprisingly warm, since one wall was formed by the chimney from a hearth. Borenson laid her on a cot, then ducked into the hallway with a candle to borrow light from another flame. In a moment he was back. The ceiling was low, and bundles of dried flowers and roots hung from the rafters. A single small window had heavy iron bars upon it to keep out the night. Rhianna found her eyes riveted to it.

“The creatures were following hot after us, weren’t they?” she asked. She’d heard the bell-like calls all down the mountain, had seen dark shapes, larger than horses, gliding among the pines.

“They followed us,” Borenson said. “But they didn’t dare come into the open. They stayed in the woods.”

“It’s the shadows they love,” Rhianna said. “I think they were mad that I left. They want their babies back.”

She tried to sound tough, but her courage was failing. Dark fluid had begun to dribble out from between her legs.

They’re eating me, she realized.

She looked up at Sir Borenson. “I think I would have liked to have lived with you.”

Borenson paced across the room peering at the bundles of herbs, as if wondering if one of them might be of some help. He went to a small drawer and opened it, pulled out a tiny gold tin. It held some dark ointment.

He took a pinch and rolled it into a ball.

“Are you in pain?” he asked.

“A bit,” she said, trembling. But to be honest, she wasn’t sure of the source. Her stomach was cramped part in fear, part in hunger. She hadn’t eaten in two days. She felt weak from hunger and constant terror. She hadn’t slept much, and now she felt as if she were in a dream and dared not hope for a happy ending.

“Take this,” he said, offering her the dark ball. “It’s opium, to get rid of the pain.” He took a small pipe from the drawer-a pretty thing shaped like a silver frog upon a stick. The bowl was in the frog’s mouth, while the stick served as a stem. Borenson lit it with the candle.

She took the end in her mouth and inhaled. The smoke tasted bitter. She took several puffs, then Borenson uncorked a wine bottle that was sitting on a stand by the bed and offered her a drink. The wine tasted sweet and potent, and in a moment the bitter taste faded.

There was a soft tap at the door, and Fallion entered. The boy looked very frightened, but when he saw that she was awake, he smiled just a bit.

“Can I stay?” he asked. He did not ask Borenson. He asked her.

Rhianna nodded, and he came and sat beside her, taking Borenson’s spot.

Rhianna leaned back upon the bed, and Fallion just sat beside her, holding her hand. He was trying to offer comfort, but kept looking to the door, and Rhianna knew that he was worried that the healer would not come in time.

At last, Borenson asked the question that she knew that he must. “The creatures in the wood… where were you when they took you?”

Rhianna didn’t quite know what to answer. Once again, he was prying, and she knew that, as the old saying went, A man’s own tongue will betray him more often than will an enemy’s. “We were camping near the margin of the old King’s Road, near Hayworth. My mum had gone to Cow’s Cross to sell goods at Hostenfest. We were shanking it home when a man caught us, a powerful man. He had soldiers. They knocked Mum in the head. It was a terrible sound, like an ax handle hitting a plank. I saw her fall by the fire, practically in the fire, and bleeding she was. She didn’t move. And then he took me, and wrestled a bag over my head. After, he went to town and nabbed other girls, and he hauled us far away, up into the hills-” The words were all coming out in a rush.

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.