Sons of the Oak

Stalker took the captain’s chair at the inn. It was a sloppy dive called the Merry Jig, one that he remembered well. It was famous for featuring sour ale to go with its overcooked fowl, all served by wenches so ugly that they threatened to give womanhood in general a bad name. But the inn did have one redeeming feature: it had kept musicians playing nightly now for over a hundred years.

Once a lively place, it had apparently fallen on hard times. The serving wenches were gone, replaced by a couple of lads with greasy hair and bad teeth. The other ships lying in the harbor apparently didn’t have crew ashore, for the establishment was empty of all but the most hardened of customers-a pair of the drunkards.

“Let’s have some ale, and some of your lousy bird for dinner!” Stalker shouted as soon as he took his seat, waving his hand in general so that the lads would know that he was buying for the whole crew. He waited sullenly.

His men were coming ashore in waves, a dozen at a time rowing across in the ship’s boats. It would take the better part of an hour to unload.

Just after the fourth shore boat had unloaded, bringing some of the guests from the ship-which included Myrrima, the babe in her arms and her brood of children clinging to her robe, Shadoath arrived.

Shadoath strode into the inn wearing no armor, for she needed none. She was a Runelord at the height of her power. Her speed and her grace served as her armor.

Shadoath was a petite woman of tremendous beauty. It was as if sunlight had entered the room, all somehow captured and subdued beneath a surface that glowed like a black pearl. She held her back straight, eyes high, a study in poise.

Her beauty contrasted greatly with the creatures that followed on her heals. They were not apes, at least not of any variety that Stalker had ever seen. They were hairless, with warty gray skin as thick as a warthog’s, and arms so long that they walked on their knuckles. They had no ears that he could see, just dark circles, tympanums behind their jaws. Their huge eyes had no whites to them at all, and they squinted as if the room was too bright for their liking. They wore no clothes, only belts that carried strange weapons-clubs with animal teeth for spikes, curved knives that fit around the hand like brass knuckles, and other things that were stranger still.

And there was no joy in their eyes, no emotion that he could discern. The deadness of them, that’s what made Stalker shiver.

Shadoath’s eyes were dark and sparkling, as if her pupils were black diamonds. Her ebon hair fell over one naked shoulder, curling in toward her cleavage.

Every curve of her-shoulders, breast, stomach, thighs-seemed to drive him mindless with reptilian desires, and Stalker had to struggle to restrain himself.

Stalker had often admired Myrrima when she walked the decks, but Shadoath-Myrrima was a pale shadow beside her. Shadoath had to have forty or fifty endowments of glamour at the least. No man could linger in her presence and not desire her. The smell of her alone ensured that.

She killed your children, Stalker reminded himself, hands shaking while his whole body quivered with desire.

Among the men, only Smoker seemed immune to her charms. The wizard stiffened as she passed, and his eyes glowed brighter, as if he struggled to keep from unleashing some hidden fire.

“Captain Stalker,” she said, her voice as sweet as any birdcall, “I’ve missed you.”

He forced a smile. Her voice was high, and though she tried to move casually, she did so with great speed. Four endowments of metabolism, at least, he imagined.

She stepped to his table, took a seat. Her body was all air and poise.

This woman is battle-ready, he realized. brawn and grace to the hilt. A hundred endowments brawn and grace and stamina she has at least, perhaps even hundreds.

He could see the scars left by forcibles there deep between her breasts. Her body, beneath the silks, was a mass of scars.

Where are the townsfolk? he’d wondered when he first peered out from the ship. Now he suspected that he knew. She’d put the forcibles to them, and now held them prisoner in her Dedicates’ Keep.

She sat beside him, leaned forward. Stalker’s eyes fastened on her cleavage, the mesmerizing sway of her breasts, the skin so rough down there, like rippling waves above a clear pool.

“So,” she said, “tell me, where are the boys?”

“What boys?” Stalker asked.

“The princes of Mystarria. The Sons of the Oak.” Shadoath said loudly enough so that all could hear. She smiled, but there was a predator’s hunger deep in her eyes.

“Not on my ship,” Stalker said evenly.

She looked at him as if she’d caught him in a lie. “Two boys, dark of skin, with raven hair, both of them nine or ten years of age.”

“No one like that on my ship,” Stalker said. “See for yourself.”

She peered as if her eyes alone could pierce him, shatter his wall of lies, tumble down a fortress of deceit. All around them, sailors muttered, “That’s right,” “That’s the truth, ma’am.”

Without turning, still peering into his eyes, she said softly, “Is that the truth, Deever Blythe?”

Blythe stepped away from the bar and stammered, “In a manner of speakin’. We dropped ’em off, up the north shore, ’bout an hour ago.”

There were gasps from the crowd and soft little cries. Stalker tried not to let Shadoath see the rage boiling up in him. Smoker gave Blythe a fierce look.

You’re a dead man, Blythe, Stalker told himself.

Blythe smiled broadly at Stalker, downed his beer, and hurried out the door. Smoker made as if to follow, but one of the crew grabbed his arms, restrained him.

“Go and get the boys,” Shadoath ordered the ugly creatures at her back.

The pair whirled and headed toward the door, walking on their knuckles.

There was a ring of metal, a swirl of robes. Myrrima plunged a dagger into the neck of one of the imps.

The blade should have driven between the monster’s top vertebrae and its skull, but the steel was no match for that ugly gray skin. The blade snapped and the creature fell forward, flailing to the floor, knocking over stools.

Before Stalker had a chance to rise to his feet, Shadoath was up from the table.

What happened next was a blur. Myrrima whirled toward Shadoath to do battle, and there was a hiss as fog came pouring in under the door, rushing through cracks in the window. The whole inn suddenly filled with mist so thick that Stalker could hardly see from one wall to the next.

But Shadoath was faster still, too expert for Myrrima. She became a blur. She leapt in the air, kicked Myrrima in the face, somersaulted, and landed lightly on her feet. Somewhere in that time, there may have been a roundhouse kick to the legs. Myrrima went flailing backward with a groan, her flesh smacking to the floor.

The other imp caught Myrrima and held her firmly.

Blood flowed freely from Myrrima’s face, running from her nose, from a split lip, from a scrape above her eye. Stalker wondered what had stopped the fight, and then stared in horror as he saw that Shadoath had grabbed baby Erin from the counter.

Myrrima struggled lamely, the little imp gripping her, grunting with delight, his face pressed against hers.

The babe shrieked in terror as Shadoath held it by the feet, a dagger laid to its throat.

Shadoath whispered, “You have a choice: you can die while your children watch, or I shall kill your children as you watch-starting with this babe…”

At the end of the bar, Smoker exhaled a breath of smoke while fire blazed in his eyes. He was ready to go incendiary.

“No!” Stalker shouted, throwing the table aside. But he didn’t dare attack. Shadoath, with her endowments, couldn’t be beaten by the likes of him.

And he knew that she would gut the baby quicker than another man would gut a rabbit.

“They’re under my protection,” Stalker shouted. “ ‘Safe passage.’ That’s what I pay for. Safe passage for me and mine. These folks is cargo, bought and paid for.”

Shadoath smiled for an instant. Stalker knew that she was thinking about killing them all. There was nothing that any of them could do to stop her.

All he could do was to appeal to whatever vestiges of humanity remained in her.

At last she tossed the babe to Myrrima.

“These you can have,” Shadoath said, “but not the princes. The princes are mine.”

Myrrima caught the babe, fumbled to get her upright. Little Sage was screaming, fighting to get to her mother, but one of the crew had grabbed the child to keep her safe. Draken and Talon both were weeping bitterly, but had the good sense to keep their distance.

One little imp surged out the door, eager to do his master’s bidding.

Outside the inn, there was a strange snarling, a roar like thunder, and Myrrima’s eyes went wide with terror.

Shadoath peered at Myrrima and whispered, “Relax. By now, I’m sure that the boys will be eager to be captured.”

Shadoath smiled at her secretively and strode from the inn. It was as if the sunlight went with her, the glory departing, leaving the room to look dull and dingy. Without her, the room was a cave full of cobwebs and shadows. It almost surprised Captain Stalker when Smoker moved, went to the door to watch her depart. Compared to Shadoath, they were all dead things.