Sons of the Oak

15

Military commanders all know the value of training soldiers while they are still young. After all, twist a child enough, and he shall remain twisted as an adult.

— Shadoath

Out on the open ocean, the Pirate Lord Shadoath rode on rough seas, her ship rising and falling beneath mountains of waves. Her crew was panicking, but she feared nothing, for she had laid heavy spells upon the ship. The masts would hold and the hull remain intact. They would find their way through the storm.

So she stood, lashed to the mast, grinning like a skull, enjoying the ride. Her crew was as frightened by her apparent madness as they were of the storm.

It was then that Asgaroth appeared to her in a dream.

“The torch-bearer has faced me,” Asgaroth said, “and slain me.” He was dispassionate about his death. He had taken countless bodies over the millennia and would take an endless array in the future. “In doing so, he drew upon his powers.”

He showed her a brief vision of Fallion thrusting a torch into the face of a strengi-saat, the flames bursting like a flower in bloom; and then he showed her Fallion drawing back storm clouds, so that Asgaroth was limned in light, revealed to his mother’s sight.

Shadoath smiled. Fear and rage. Fear and rage were the key to unleashing the child’s powers, drawing him into her web.

“Does his every defeat taste like victory?” Shadoath asked.

“Of course,” Asgaroth assured her. “And now he is fleeing-right into your hands.”

Fear and rage. Fear and rage.

“Excellent,” Shadoath said. “I will greet him with open arms.”