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

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 scroll-work 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.

    â€œFallion,” 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.
    â€œThey’ve set the forest on fire,” Fallion said. “Mother sent Daymorra