Sons of the Oak

The Leviathan sailed near Garion’s Port on a cool spring evening almost four months to the day from when it had left the Courts of Tide. The night was cool, marbled with gauzy clouds that shaded the moon, and the brisk wind snapped the sails and lashed the water to whitecaps.

Fallion was stunned at his first sight of stonewood trees. The ship had neared Landesfallen three days ago, but remained well out to sea as it inched north, and so though he saw the gray trees from the distance, rising like menacing cliffs, he had not been able to see them closely.

They grew thick at the base of two cliffs of stark sandstone: the Ends of the Earth, and as the ship eased near the port, Fallion peered up in wonder.

The stonewoods were aptly named. Their massive roots stretched out from gray trunks into the sea, gripping the sand and stone beneath. The roots were large enough so that a fair-sized cottage could rest comfortably in a crook between them. Then they joined in a massive trunk that rose from the water, soaring perhaps two hundred feet in the air.

“There are taller trees in the world,” Borenson told the children much in the same tone that Waggit used to lecture in, “but there are none so impressively wide.”

The roots of the trees soaked up seawater, he explained, which was rich in minerals. Eventually, the minerals clogged the waterways within the trunk of the tree, and over the years, the heart of the tree became petrified, even as it continued to grow. The starving tree then broadened at the base, in an attempt to get nutrients to the upper branches. The tree could even put down new taproots when the old ones became clogged, thus becoming ever wider, and becoming ever stronger, its heart turning to stone.

The result was a tree that went beyond being hoary. Each stonewood was tormented, like something from a child’s fearful dream of trees, magnificent, its limbs twisted as if in torture, draped with gray-green beards of lichen that hung in tattered glory.

Within the bay, the water was calm. Fish teemed at the base of the huge trees, leaping in the darkness, and Fallion could see some young sea serpents out on the satin water, perhaps only eight feet long, finning on the surface, seemingly bent on endlessly chasing their tails.

High above, in the branches of the trees, lights could be seen from a forest city.

“Are we going to live up there?” Talon asked her father, fear evident in her voice.

“No,” Borenson said. “We’re going inland, to the deserts.”

In the distance, near the city, Fallion saw a pair of graaks flying along the edge of the woods, enormous white ones large enough to carry even a man, sea graaks that were so rare they were almost never seen back in his homeland. Their ugly heads, full of teeth, contrasted sharply with the beauty of their sleek bodies and leathery wings.

The graaks were both males, and so had a ridge of leather, called a plume, that rose up on their foreheads. The plumes had been painted with blue eyes, staring wide, the ancient symbol of the Gwardeen. A pair of young men, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age, rode upon their backs.

They’re on patrol, Fallion realized. He longed to be up there, riding a graak himself. It was something that his mother had never allowed him to do.

Even if I fell, he thought, the worst that would happen is that I’d land in the water.

And end up a meal for the serpents, a niggling voice inside him whispered, though in truth he knew that a young sea serpent, like the ones he saw finning now, were no more dangerous than a reef shark.

The ship didn’t even bother to drop anchor. The captain just let it drift for a bit.

“I’ll let you folks row in from here,” Captain Stalker said. “No sense attracting any notice, if you can help it.”

That was the plan. They would row in during the night and follow the river inland for miles, hoping not to be seen for days perhaps, until they were far from the coast.

Meantime, Captain Stalker would rush home and get his wife, then sail north and scuttle the ship near some unnamed port.

Fallion was suddenly aware that he’d never see Captain Stalker again, and his heart seemed to catch at his throat.

“Thank you,” Myrrima said, and the family grabbed their meager possessions as the crew lowered the boat.

There were some heartfelt good-byes as Fallion and the children hugged the captain and some of their favorite crew members.

Stalker hugged Fallion long and hard, and whispered in his ear, “If you ever get a hankerin’ for life on the sea, and if I ever get another ship, you’ll always be welcome with me.”

Fallion peered into his eyes and saw nothing but kindness there.

I used to worry that he had a locus, Fallion thought, and now I love him as if he were my own father.

Fallion hugged him hard. “I’ll hold you to it.”

Then he climbed down a rope ladder to the away boat. Borenson, Myrrima, and the children were already there, each child clutching a tiny bundle that held all that he or she owned.

Myrrima was deeply aware of just how little they had brought with them: a few clothes that were quickly wearing down to rags, some small mementos, Fallion’s forcibles.

We must look like peasants, she thought. She took the oars and rowed out toward the city.

“Make north of the city, about two miles,” Stalker warned her, and she changed course just a little. The sound of waves surrounded them, and the boat splashed through the waters with each small tug of the oars. Droplets from the oars and spray from whitecaps spattered the passengers.

Fallion watched the Leviathan sail away, disappearing into the distance.

All too soon they neared shore, where small waves lapped among the roots of the stonewoods. The scent of the trees was strange, foreign. It was a metallic odor, tinged with something vaguely like cinnamon.

Two hundred feet up, peeking through the limbs, lanterns hung. Among the twisted limbs, huts had been built, small abodes made of sticks, with roofs of bearded lichens. Catwalks ran from house to house.

Fallion longed to climb up there, take a look around.

But he had to go farther inland, and sadly he realized that he might never set foot in Garion’s Port again.

“The Ends of the Earth are not far enough,” he recalled, feeling ill at ease. He scanned the horizon for black sails. There were none.

So the boat crept among the roots until it reached a wide river. The family rowed through the night until dawn, listening to the night calls of strange birds, the rasping sounds of frogs or insects-all calls so alien that Fallion might just as well been in a new world.

As dawn began to brighten the sky, they drew the boat into the shelter beneath the great trees, and found that it was a place of eternal shadows.

The murk of overhanging trees made it as dark as night in some places, and the ground was musty and covered with strange insects-enormous tarantulas, and various animals the likes of which Fallion had never seen- flying tree lizards and strange beetles with horns.

They found a barren patch of ground and met up with Landesfallen’s version of a shrew: a tenacious little creature that looked like a large mouse but which defended its territory as if it were a rabid she-bear. The bite of the shrew was mildly poisonous, Borenson was later warned, but not until after he discovered it through personal experience.

The shrew, disturbed by his approach, leapt up on his leg and sank its teeth into Borenson’s thigh. The shrew then squatted in the clearing, squeaking and leaping threateningly each time that he neared. Sir Borenson, who had battled reavers, Runelords, and flameweavers, was obliged to give way for the damned shrew.

As Fallion nursed a fire into being, using nothing but wet detritus, the others set up camp.

He marveled at the raucous cries of birds unlike any that he’d heard before, the weird twittering calls of frogs, and the croaks of lizards.

The earth smelled rich, the humus and dirt overpowering. He had been at sea for so long, he’d forgotten how healthy the earth could smell.

But they were safe. There was no sign of Shadoath’s pirates. They were alive, and tomorrow they could push farther inland.

For at least today, he thought, we are home.