Read Online Sons of the Oak by David Farland - Free Book Online Page A

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.
    â€œNo food,” Fallion whistled back.
    The little ferrin seemed stricken by the statement. It