Sons of the Oak

Fallion worked breathlessly to finish packing in his bedchamber while Jaz did the same. It wasn’t that Fallion had much to pack; it was that he felt excited. He only recalled ever having one real adventure in his life: when he was four, his mother had taken the boys to Heredon. He remembered almost nothing of the trip, but recalled how one morning they had ridden along a lake whose waters were so calm and clear that you could see the fat brook trout swimming far out from shore. The lake seemed to be brimful of mist, and with the way that it escaped in whorls and eddies, Fallion almost imagined that the lake was exhaling. The vapors stole up along the shore and had hung in the air among some stately beech and oaks, their tender leaves a new-budded green.

Their expert driver kept the carriage going slowly and steadily so that Fallion and Jaz could sleep. As the horses plodded silently on a road made quiet by recent rains, Fallion suddenly found himself gaping out the window through the morning mist at a huge boar-a legendary “great boar” of the Dunwood. The creature was enormous; the hump on its shoulders rose almost level with the top of the carriage, and the long dark hair at its chest swept to the ground. It grunted and plowed the fields with its enormous tusks, eating worms and soil and last season’s acorns.

The driver slowed, hoping to pass the creature quietly, for a startled great boar was as likely to charge as to flee. Fallion heard the driver mutter a curse, and suddenly Fallion looked off out the other window and saw more of the beasts coming out of the fog and realized that they had inadvertently driven right into a sounder of the monsters.

The driver pulled the carriage to a halt. For long tense minutes the boars rooted and grunted nearby, until at last one beast came so close that it brushed against a wheel. Its casual touch devastated the carriage; suddenly the axle cracked and the vehicle tilted.

Fallion’s mother had been sitting quietly, but now she acted. The royal carriage had a warhorn in it, for giving calls of distress. The bull’s horn, lacquered in black and gilt with silver, hung on the wall behind Fallion’s head.

Quietly, his mother took the horn down, and cracked the door just a bit. She blew loudly, five short blasts, a sound that hunters made when chasing game.

Suddenly the great boars squealed and thundered away, each lunging in a different direction.

But one huge boar charged straight out of the fog, its snout lowered, and slammed into the carriage. Fallion flew against the far door, which sprung open on impact, and hit the soggy ground. Bits of paneling rained around him, and for a long minute he feared for his life.

He sprawled on the ground, heart pumping, fear choking him.

But in moments all that he could hear was the sound of the great boars thundering over the hard ground, and his heart thumping, and he realized despite his fear that he had never been in real danger: his father had not used his Earth Powers to whisper a warning. If Fallion had been in real danger, his father would have told him.

Now, outside his window, Fallion heard a strange howl. It started like distant thunder, turned into a long catlike yowl, and ended like some bizarre animal cry.

Jaz looked up to the window, worried.

Now, Fallion knew that he was going into real danger, and he had much to prepare. He put his clothes into a bag: a pair of green tunics heavy enough for traveling, a warm woolen robe the color of dark wet wood, boots of supple leather, a cape with a half hood to keep off rain. And that was it.

But as he worked, he had to put up with Humfrey, his pet ferrin. Humfrey was only six months old, and not much larger than a rat. His back was the color of pine needles on the forest floor, his tummy a lighter tan. He had a snout with dark black eyes set forward, like a civet cat’s.

As Fallion and Jaz worked, Humfrey hopped around them, “helping.” The small creature understood that they were going somewhere, so he made a game of packing, too.

Peeping and whistling, he shoved the mummified corpse of a dead mouse into Fallion’s pack, along with a couple of chestnuts that he trilled were “beautiful.” He added a shiny thimble, a silver coin, and a pair of cocoons that Fallion had been saving over the winter in hopes that he might get a butterfly in the spring.

Fallion reminded Jaz, “Don’t forget Mother’s birthday present,” and pulled out a small box of his own, checked to make sure that Humfrey hadn’t gotten into it. Inside was an oval cut from ivory, with his mother’s picture painted in it, from when she was young and gorgeous, filled with endowments of glamour from beautiful young maidens. Fallion had been working for months, carving a tiny, elegant frame out of rosewood to put the picture in. He was nearly finished. He made sure that his cutting tools were still inside the box. Humfrey liked to run off with them.

When he was sure that he had everything, Fallion pushed the box into his bag.

Humfrey hopped up onto the bed and whistled, “Food? Food?”

Fallion didn’t know if the creature wanted food, or if was asking to pack food.

“No food,” Fallion whistled back.

The little ferrin seemed stricken by the statement. It began to tremble, its tiny paws, like dark little hands, clutching and unclutching-ferrin talk for “worry.”

Humfrey made a snarling sound. “Weapons?”

Fallion nodded, and Humfrey leapt under the bed where he kept his hoard of treasures-silk rags and dried apples, old bones to chew on and shiny bits of glass. Fallion rarely dared to look under his bed.

But Humfrey emerged triumphantly with his “weapon”-a steel knitting needle that he had filed to a point-probably using his teeth. He’d decorated it like a lance, tying a bit of bright red horsehair near the tip.

He jumped up on the bed, hissing, “Weapon. Weapon!” Then he leapt about as if he were stabbing imaginary rats.

Fallion reached down, scratched Humfrey on the chin until he calmed, and then went to the blades mounted on the wall above his bed to select a knife. There were many princely weapons there, but he chose a simple one, a long knife that his father had given him, one with a thick blade of steel and a solid handle wrapped with leather.

As he took it from the wall, he marveled at how right it felt in his hand. The blade was perfectly weighted and balanced. For a nine-year-old, it was almost as long as a sword. At the time that his father had given him the blade, a belated gift for his sixth birthday, Fallion had thought it a trivial thing.

It was a custom in many lands for lords to give young princes weapons with which to protect themselves, and Fallion had been gifted with many knives that had greater luster than this one. Even now some were mounted above the bed-fine curved daggers from Kuram with ornate golden scrollwork along the blades and gem-encrusted handles; long warrior’s dirks from Inkarra carved from reaver bone that glimmered like flame-colored ice; and a genuine assassin’s “scorpion” dagger, one whose handle was a scorpion’s body and the tail its blade-complete with a hidden button that would release poison onto the blade.

But for right now, his father’s simple knife felt right, and Fallion suspected that his father had given it to him for just this time in his life.

Did my father’s prescience extend this far? Fallion wondered. His mother had told him that his father sometimes sensed danger toward a person weeks or months in advance. But it only happened when his father looked long at that person, and then he would cock his head to the side, as if he were listening for something that no one else could hear.

Yes, Fallion decided, his father had recognized danger. And so Fallion claimed his knife now, believing that his father had known how right it would feel in his hand, perhaps even knowing that Fallion’s life might depend upon this blade.

Even as he drew the weapon from the wall, a strange compulsion overtook him, and Fallion found himself strapping the blade to his side.

Just to be safe, he told himself.

Indeed, everyone in the castle was trying extra hard to be safe tonight. Jaz had lit a dozen candles in the bedchamber, and the scent of precious oils filled the room along with the light. Every lamp had been lit in every hallway. It seemed that everyone was wary of what might be lurking in the shadows.

As Fallion considered whether he should hone his blade now or wait until morning, Jaz went to the window and opened it, looking out.

“Fallion,” Jaz said in wonder, “the hills are on fire!”

Fallion strode to the window, peered out. Humfrey scurried up Fallion’s pant leg and then leapt onto the windowsill. The window was too small to let a man climb through, and too small for both boys and a ferrin to all peer out of at once.

Fallion’s nostrils flared at the taste of fresh air.

There in the distance, high up in the hills above the fog-covered bottoms, an angry red star seemed to have fallen to the earth.

“They’ve set the forest on fire,” Fallion said. “Mother sent Daymorra to find the bodies of those girls-the ones that had the babies in them. But the strengi-saats must have carried them away first. So Daymorra probably set fire to the hills, to burn them out.”

“I’ll bet that the monsters carried them in their mouths,” Jaz said, “the way a mother cat will move her kittens once you’ve found them.”

“Maybe,” Fallion said.

One of the monsters snarled in the distance, across the river to the north of the castle. Jaz turned to Fallion, worried.

“Fallion, I think we’re surrounded. Do you think that Mum will have us fly out?”

In Mystarria, each castle had a few graaks, giant flying reptiles with leathery wings, to carry messages in times of distress. The graaks could not carry much weight for any distance, and so the graak riders were almost always children-orphans who had no one to mourn them if they were to take a fall. But if a castle went under siege, as a last resort the royal children would sometimes escape on the back of a graak.

Fallion felt an unexpected thrill at the thought. He had never flown before and would soon be past the age where he could ride a graak.

Why not? he wondered. But he knew that his mother would never allow it. Graak riders were given endowments of brawn and stamina, so that they could hang on tightly and endure the cold and lonely trips. His mother wouldn’t let him ride a graak without endowments.

“She won’t let us fly,” Fallion said. “She’ll send us with an escort.”

“ Let us fly?” Jaz asked. “Let us fly? I wouldn’t get on a graak for anything.”

“You would,” Fallion said, “to save your life.”

Humfrey darted under the bed and came back up with a wilted carrot. He threw it up on Fallion’s pack, and snarled, “Weapon. Weapon, Jaz.”

Fallion smiled at the ferrin’s sense of humor.

Jaz picked up the limp carrot and swished it in the air like a sword, and the ferrin cried in glee and thrust with his spear, engaging the human in mock combat.

Fallion glanced back at the fire and wondered about the strengi-saats. He didn’t always think quickly, but he thought long about things, and deeply.

When Borenson had cut Rhianna open, all that Fallion had seen were eggs-ghastly eggs with thin membranes of yellow skin, cast off from a hideous monster.

But what would the monster have seen? Her babes. Her love. And a strengi-saat would want to protect her young.

How far would she go to do it?

Fallion remembered a heroic tabby cat that he’d seen last spring, fighting off a pair of vicious dogs in an alley while she tried to carry her kitten to safety.

With a dawning sense of apprehension, Fallion got up and ran out into the hallway. Humfrey squeaked and followed. As Fallion raced out the tower door, along a wall-walk, he grabbed a torch from a sconce.

Sir Borenson and Fallion had left Rhianna in her room, to sleep off the effects of the drugs she’d taken. The healers had said that she needed rest.

Perhaps she’ll need more than that, Fallion thought. Perhaps she’ll need protection.

As he ran, Fallion tried to recall their retreat from the hills. The strengisaats had given chase, but had not attacked. Like mothers protecting their young, he thought, just trying to drive us off.

And now he realized that once they had driven off the men, they’d gone back to their children. In fact, Fallion realized now that as they had run, he had heard bell-like calls in the woods far behind them. At least one of the strengi-saats had remained to guard the young.

With rising apprehension Fallion redoubled his pace.

But when we first went up there, he wondered, why hadn’t the strengisaats stayed at the tree to guard their young? Most animals would have stayed to protect their offspring.

Then he recalled the cracking sound in the woods when he’d first found the bodies. It had been loud. Too loud for a creature that moved as silently as a strengi-saat.

The monsters had been trying to draw us away from their young, Fallion realized, the way that a peeweet will fly up and give her call to draw you from her nest. breathlessly, he raced to the lower levels of the keep, burst down the short hallway, and threw open the door to Rhianna’s room.

He found her lying quietly in bed, her face unnaturally pale, almost white, drained of blood by the healers’ opium. Someone had brushed the twigs and leaves from her hair, and washed her face, and Fallion felt astonished that he hadn’t noticed before that she was pretty, with flawless skin and a thin, dainty mouth.

The room was dark. There should have been a candle or two burning by the bed, but either the candles had gone out, or the healers had blown them out so that Rhianna could sleep more easily.

Yet as Fallion held his torch aloft, it seemed that its light grew wan, unable to penetrate the gloom. He felt a faint breeze tickle his right cheek, and glanced toward the window. Shards of glass showed where it had been broken, and other shards lay on the floor. Something had hit the window from the outside.

Humfrey came creeping into the room, hissed a warning. “Dead. Smell dead.”

Fallion inhaled deeply, caught a whiff of putrefaction. He could not see beyond the bars of the windows. It seemed that the gloom grew deeper there, so deep that even the torchlight could not penetrate it.

Humfrey hissed in terror and bolted out the door.

Fallion’s heart raced, and he held the torch aloft. He drew his dagger and held it before him. “I know you’re there,” he said weakly.

There came an answering growl, so soft, like the whisper of distant thunder rolling down from the hills. The torch sputtered and began to die.

Fallion saw the flames suddenly diminishing in size, fighting to stay lit. There was no wind to blow them out.

The strengi-saat is doing it, Fallion realized, sucking away light, the way that it had in the forest.

Fallion’s heart pounded, and he suddenly wished for light, wished for all of the light in the world. He leapt toward the window, hoping that like a bear or a wolf the monster would fear his fire. He thrust the torch through the bars, and suddenly it blazed, impossibly bright, like the flames in an ironmonger’s hearth.

The fire almost seemed to wrap around his arm.

And then he saw the strengi-saat-its enormous head and black eye right outside the window, so much larger than he’d expected.

Many creatures do not look like their young. Fallion had expected from the young that the monster would have soft black fur like a sable or a cat. But the thing that he saw was practically hairless. Its skin was dark and scabby, and though it had no ears, a large tympanum-black skin as tight as a drum-covered much of the head, right behind its eye. The eye itself was completely black, and Fallion saw no hint of a pupil in it. Instead, it looked dull and lifeless and reflected no light, not even the fire of his flaming torch.

If evil could come to life, Fallion thought, this is what it would look like.

“Yaaah!” Fallion shouted as he shoved the torch into the monster’s face.

The torch blazed as if it had just been dipped in oil, and the strengi-saat gave out a harsh cry-not the bell-like tolling that it had given on the hunt, but a shriek of terror. It opened its mouth wide as it did so, revealing long sharp teeth like yellowed ivory, and Fallion let go of the torch, sent it plunging into the monster’s jaws.

The torch blazed brighter and brighter, as if the beast’s breath had caught fire, and giddily Fallion realized that this creature feared fire for good reason: it seemed to catch fire almost at the very smell of smoke.

The strengi-saat leapt from the wall and Fallion saw it now in full as it dropped toward the road. The light shining through the membrane in its wings revealed ghastly veins.

Outside, a guardsman upon the walls gave a shout of alarm. Fallion saw the gleam of burnished armor as the man rushed along the wall, drawing a great bow to the full.

The monster glided from the window and hit the road, perhaps thirty yards out, and crouched for a moment, like a panther looking for a place to spring. It shook its mouth and the torch flew out, went rolling across the ground, growing dim as an ember.

To Fallion’s surprise, it seemed that the torch was almost gone, burnt to a stub, though a moment ago it had been as long as his arm.

Fallion feared that the beast would escape in the darkness.

But at that moment an arrow flashed past the torch and Fallion heard a resounding thwock as it struck the beast’s ribs. The wounded strengi-saat appeared only as a shadow now, a blackness against the night, as it leapt into the air. But Fallion heard the twang of arrows from three or four directions, and some shafts shattered against stone walls while others hit the beast.

He drew his head back from the window, wary of stray arrows, and heard triumphant shouts. “We got it!” “Damn it’s big!”

Fallion peered out. The ground was only two stories below and the monster had not gotten more than two hundred feet from him. The guards rushed to it with torches in hand. These were force soldiers, rich with endowments, and they ran with superhuman speed, converging on the beast as soon as it hit the ground, plunging swords into it.

It lay on the cobblestones, a looming shadow, and gave one final cry, a sound that began as a snarl as loud as thunder, and ended with a wail. The noise made Fallion’s heart quaver, and hairs rose on the back of his neck.

Then it succumbed, dropping as if its life had fled in that horrible cry.

Fallion peered out the window and drew a breath of astonishment. He had only seen the strengi-saats from a distance, shadows against the trees, and had thought them to be a little longer than his horse. But now he saw that the beast was four times the length of a tall man, and that it dwarfed him.

The guards were talking, babbling almost giddily, like young hunters after their first kill. Fallion couldn’t make out all of their words.

“How did it get over the walls?” someone asked, and another added, “Without being seen?”

There were mumbled responses. No one seemed to know, but one guard, the one who had first raised the cry, said distinctly, “It came from there,” nodding toward the keep. “It’s all shadows there. I would not have seen it if someone hadn’t launched a torch at it.”

The guards stared up at the window: at Fallion. Even though the room was not lit, Fallion had no doubt that they saw him, for these were force soldiers, gifted with endowments of sight.

They peered at him in breathless silence, and someone said softly, “Fallion.”

He saw fear in the men’s faces. They were imagining the punishment they’d get for letting such a monster near the royal heir.

“I’m all right,” he said weakly, reassuring them.

But from the far-seer’s tower came the long plaintive bellow of a warhorn, and suddenly the warriors were bounding off, running up to defend the castle walls.

Fallion’s heart raced as he imagined strengi-saats attacking in force.