The Shadow Sorceress (23 page)

A fine cold mist drizzled out of formless gray clouds, clouds that made it seem still like dawn, though it was a good glass past that and time for the sun to have risen. There was only the slightest touch of a breeze, and that was out of the south. Secca studied the clouds, but could see no movement.

“Richina…I'll be back in a moment.” Hoping that the drizzle would lift, Secca walked away from the tent that Richina and the lancers were striking. The two younger lancers, Dyvan and Achar, followed her.

As Secca neared the archers, Elfens stepped forward and offered a deep bow. “Lady Secca.”

“Elfens. I just wanted to see how you and your archers were doing. There was one who took a shaft in the thigh…”

“Weald is riding, and can use his bow. Sore, that he is.” Elfens cocked his long face. “You will need us against the Sturinnese in Elahwa?”

“I would think so. They will have thunder-drums.” Secca flashed a wry smile. “I might even be able to remember the need for the arrow spell.”

“We will be ready, lady.” Elfens offered another of the sweeping bows that would have been a mockery from anyone but the long-faced archer.

Another thirty yards past the archers, close to a small copse of bare-limbed birches, Secca found Stepan talking to several of the Ebran captains.

The sandy-and-silver-haired arms commander stopped and turned toward Secca. “Lady. We are almost ready to ride.”

“Finish what you must, arms commander. I need but a moment.”

As she waited for Stepan, Secca's eyes traversed the camp, noting that Wilten had the lancers from Loiseau forming up, as did Haddev the company in motley black from Silberfels. The tall heir made a striking figure in the saddle, she had to admit.

“Lady?” Stepan stepped toward the red-haired sorceress.

“It may seem odd, for the moment, but I wanted your opinion.” When everyone else is so busy they aren't listening, she added to herself. “What is Verad like?”

“Verad?” The surprise was evident in the older man's voice.

“Isn't that Haddev's younger brother?”

The older arms master shook his head, almost as if still puzzled.

“You do not have good feelings?”

“It is not that.” Stepan smiled ruefully. “It is so seldom one asks about the younger son.”

“I need to know.”

“When a sorceress asks a question such as that…” He paused, then said, “Verad is sixteen, and he is diligent. He will never be so skilled at arms as Haddev, for he is a span shorter and more slight of build, but he rides well, and can hold his own with a blade. I am told he writes well, and is more skilled with
his calculations. He is the one who has come to assist his sire with the accounts.”

“Do people like him and trust him?”

“After they come to know him. He is less outgoing, and slow to warm to those he does not know.”

Secca nodded. She understood that.

“I will not ask why you inquire.”

“It's not that important.”
Yet
, Secca added to herself. “I have met Hadrenn and his consort. I have exchanged a scroll or two with his consort's brother, but about Verad I know nothing, and, as Sorceress-Protector of the East, I thought I should. Lady Anna greatly valued your judgment, and so do I.”

“Lord Hadrenn is fortunate to have two sons so able,” Stepan pointed out.

“Does he have any daughters? I didn't see one.”

“That you might not have. Seryla is but nine. She also is said to be favored by the Harmonies, but only have I seen her ride. She rides well for one so young.”

“And Haddev?” she finally asked.

Stepan shrugged. “You have seen him. He smiles easily, rides well, and is well trained in the blade and with a bow. He speaks with a fair tongue.”

Secca laughed softly. “I see.”

Stepan raised his eyebrows. “Perchance you do.”

“He may make an effective lord, but not precisely one like…say, my father or Lady Anna?”

“Well said, Lady Sorceress.”

“Let us hope this journey will offer him new insights.”

“I fear his eyes are on other conquests.”

“I have noticed that, too.”

Stepan laughed. “I have noted your notice. You missed little as a child, and you miss less now.”

“You're still a most charming man, Stepan.”

“Charm counts for little in battle or in planning for one.” Stepan glanced toward his lancers, who were mounting and forming into a column.

“Or many,” Secca added. “But we have one more day. That's what the glass shows.”

“Will they see us in their glasses?”

“They may,” Secca admitted, “but we have not turned south.”

“Until a glass from now.”

“I will watch what they do,” Secca promised. “I'd best leave you to your men and duties. Thank you.”

“Once we are in formation, I will join you.” Stepan bowed, then turned.

“Thank you.”

Secca walked quickly through the mist, a mist that seemed finer, and perhaps lifting, back toward where Richina waited with their mounts.

“The tent is on the pack horse, lady, and we are ready to ride,” said the sandy-haired younger sorceress.

“Thank you, Richina. I was checking with Elfens and Stepan.” Secca picked up her own saddlebags.

“Ah…lady?”

“Yes?”

“Haddev would ask your leave to accompany us for a short time, before he returns to his lancers.”

“He may, for a bit.” Secca nodded. “You may tell him.”

“Thank you, lady.”

Secca watched as Richina swung into the saddle of her mount with a long-legged grace. Secca's legs were far too short for such grace, except on a very small mount, and Secca envied those who possessed it, as she had once envied Anna's grace, for all of Anna's protestations that she was not graceful.

For but a moment, Secca's eyes burned, and she felt empty inside.

Then, she shook her head and straightened. She watched Richina ride toward the lancers in black motley, and a faint smile crossed the lips of the older sorceress, a smile of amusement tempered with concern…and regret. Then she began to strap her own gear in place behind the saddle of the gray mare.

In the late afternoon, Secca and her unofficial council clustered in a circle on a low hillside in the center of the camp. The smoke of cookfires drifted across the group, along with the smell of mutton roasting, sheep purchased all too dearly. Secca was thankful she'd recalled Anna's observation that wars required coins. Yet she wondered if those she had brought, seemingly enough for a liedburg treasury, would even last another three weeks.

She forced her attention back to the mirror on the ground and the spell that held the image that shimmered on the silvered surface.

“Those are picket lines, and they have cut limbs and woven them into fences.” Stepan pointed.

The image that Secca had called up in the glass also showed earthworks, spaced at intervals along the woven fir-limb fences, behind which were tents and mounts on tielines, and cookfires. Secca studied the image, as did Stepan, Wilten, Palian, and, not quite indifferently, Haddev. Richina studied Haddev, if covertly, but obviously enough that Secca could feel it.

“Those are to the north, are they not?” asked Haddev.

Stepan nodded.

“The city is on the east side of the river…to the south,” Secca pointed out. “They have circled it.”

“They don't have any forces on the other side?” asked Haddev.

“There's little point to that,” replied the arms master. “They want the port. Once they take the city, they care not if the
FreeWomen flee. There is but a single narrow bridge, and if the Sea-Priests destroy it, then they cannot be easily attacked. Their ships hold the Gulf.”

“They do not fear reinforcements coming across the bridge?”

“Who would come?” asked Stepan. “The Ranuans have sent what they can. We cannot reach there easily, not from the north with the river cliffs there.”

“Oh…so that is why the bridge stands yet?” asked Haddev. “Because it is difficult for the Sturinnese to reach, and affords little more aid for the defenders?”

Secca decided she wanted to reprimand Haddev like an apprentice who tried to show off. She didn't, but sang the release spell gently, then looked up, first at Wilten, then at Stepan.

“What do you suggest?”

“The Sturinnese have the hills to the north and east of the port,” Wilten said slowly, “but there are low rises that surround the city itself.”

“So to get to the defenders, they have to ride down and then up?” asked Secca. “That's why they haven't broken through yet?”

“I would judge so,” replied Stepan.

Wilten nodded.

“The glass shows that there are rocky hills farther to the east,” Secca offered.

“It would be hard to circle the barriers and to attack from the east or the south,” Stepan pointed out.

“Coming from the north, we could get close enough for sorcery, though,” Secca said. “If we had the wind behind us, and their fences would make it almost as hard for them to attack us.”

“Perhaps…” Stepan fingered his chin.

“How far are we from their camp?”

“Twelve to fifteen deks, I would say.” Stepan frowned. “A half-day's ride to a camp from which we could attack.”

“I'll check what they're doing in the morning,” Secca said. “We should meet again then.”

“That would be best.” Stepan paused. “They do not look as
though they had been fighting today, or even yesterday. Yet they had no scouts sent to the north.”

“They do have mirror glasses similar to ours, I think,” Secca said.

“We must do what we can, but I like that not.”

Neither did Secca. As the days went by and winter approached, there was more and more she disliked. Yet…if the Sturinnese had an entire winter to fortify Elahwa—and Dolov—the problems she faced now would be insignificant compared to those of the next spring and summer.

Five figures stand on the low tower of logs, hastily constructed on the northeasternmost corner of the equally hurriedly created defense works. They all look out into the early morning haze that clings to the edge of the hills, and is dark gray and thick farther north, filling the lowlands to the north like a dark ocean.

“Why do they not attack?” asks the square-faced overcaptain, a stocky woman in a crimson tunic splattered with mud and blood. “Surely, they would not halt their assaults because we received another two companies of lancers, SouthWomen or not.”

The taller councilwoman, whose black hair is streaked with silver and cut short, laughs, then nods toward Alcaren. “No. While the good overcaptain is more than welcome, his arrival is not what has given the white pigs pause. The Sorceress-Protector of Defalk is riding south with close to fifteen companies.”

“The sorceress died half a season ago,” points out the other and more junior Elahwan overcaptain.

“This is the shadow sorceress, the one she trained.” Veria continues to study the hills to the north and east.

“How will she help?” asks the overcaptain of the Ranuan companies. “She is young.”

“She has already destroyed more than fifty score—thirty of the eastern lord's men and twenty score Sturinnese.” Veria pauses. “She looks yet a child but holds more than a score and a half of years.”

“Another unaging one?” asks Alcaren.

“No. She will age.” A quick smile flits across Veria's lips. “As will we all before this is done.”

“She does not come with the eager blessing of Lord Robero, I would wager,” suggests the Ranuan overcaptain.

“It matters not, so long as she comes and attacks. They fear her.” Veria gestures toward the heavy ground fog. “Or respect her power. That fog is not natural.”

“They did not fear an entire city…yet an untried sorceress with half their numbers?” The senior FreeWoman overcaptain's voice carries a touch of disbelief.

“You might recall that her mentor was untried, too,” replies Veria evenly. “I raised the same questions you now do. I was wrong. I survived because I was.”

The muscular overcaptain's eyes elude Veria's. So do those of the other women overcaptains.

Alcaren nods. “Do you wish us to hold and wait?”

“Yes. This sorceress is strong, but she is inexperienced and untried in such a large battle. The Sturinnese have prepared and learned. They are wily. They will try to force her to exhaust herself so that she cannot attack them. They will attempt to keep her from giving any support to her lancers—and then they will attack. Perhaps then, we can also attack, with Overcaptain Alcaren's companies leading the way.” Veria inclines her head to the younger overcaptain.

“When?” asks Alcaren.

“Not today,” replies Veria. “They cannot attack through their own fog. They seek time to prepare spells, and perhaps to
wait until the white companies at Dolov can ride to attack the sorceress from behind.”

Alcaren glances to the north, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

Secca held the gray mare reined in on the edge of the rocky ridge that overlooked a valley more than two deks wide—a valley filled with fog. The hills were mainly forested, mostly with white birches and firs. To the far southwest, she could see the glint of sunlight on water, on the arm of the Gulf of Discord that formed the shallow harbor serving Elahwa. The city itself was but a blur of light and dark splotches, and the river bridge was out of sight, presumably on the western side of the hilly part of the city that Secca could barely make out.

Even in the midafternoon, under a sun that gave little warmth, Secca's breath was a white fog, and the same white fog issued from the nostrils of the mounts, blown gently southward over the valley.

Stepan pointed at a nearer hillside, close to three deks to the south. “You see…their encampment lies on the hills above the fog. The white banners…”

From her earlier looks at the Sturinnese encampment, Secca didn't recall any fog, or lakes that would create such fog. “How would we best attain a position high enough to use sorcery?” She paused and added, “If the fog lifts.”

“There is a wind out of the north. It will get stronger at night,” Wilten said. “That should blow out the fog by morning.”

Stepan studied the valley, then drew out the maps he had drawn from Secca's scrying of the area. Finally, he pointed. “The
higher ground leads to that ridge to our left. If we follow it west…there…we will be on the rise to the north of their encampment…there…where the trees show out of the mist.”

“If the wind holds,” Secca mused aloud, “then our spells will carry to them. Even so, with their drums, we'll have to use the arrow spell first.” She glanced back at Palian, reined up several yards to the north.

The chief player nodded.

“We can hold a charge, perhaps two, Lady Secca, but they have many more lancers than do we,” pointed out Wilten.

“I know.”
Everyone has more lancers than does Defalk
, thought Secca.
All Defalk has is three sorceresses and a few assistants…and far too many stubborn lords even yet. More lancers would have been better
. Secca still wasn't certain she agreed with Anna's insistence that the liedgeld not be raised too much at any one time, or Anna's concerns about what she had called infrastructures, rather than arms and armsmen. “We will have to sing the spells quickly.”

“I will have the players warm up before we ride,” Palian said. “That will help them be ready sooner.”

For a moment longer Secca looked out across the foggy valley and the hills before looking back at the older arm commander. “You'll post scouts here?” Secca asked Stepan. “We can't keep using the glass if either Richina or I have to use sorcery tomorrow.”

“I will have many scouts,” Stepan said with a smile that faded as he added, “And so will they, I would wager.”

Secca nodded, then eased the gray around, to start back to the adjoining high meadow where her forces had set up camp. She ignored, for the moment, the looks passing between Richina and Haddev, though she would talk to the girl before evening.
Well before evening
.