The Shadow Sorceress (25 page)

“Remount! Now!” followed Delvor's commands.

Secca staggered toward the gray mare, using what felt like the last of her strength to mount. Richina, already mounted, eased her mount next to Secca's. The younger sorceress extended a water bottle.

“Lady, you must drink…and eat as you ride.”

With a nod, and a trembling hand, Secca took the water bottle. She drank as she rode at a fast trot back down the rise, glancing back over her shoulder. Behind her, Secca could hear the near frantic pounding of the thunder-drums, and feel the cold wind die away once more as she crossed the stretch of damp and brown-grassed meadow between the rise and the trees on the
south side of the ridge which she had ridden down such a short time before.

Once back amid the trees and riding up the trail, Secca could see patches of fog appearing, oozing upward out of the ground itself, near-instantly.

Richina offered some bread, and Secca wolfed that down. While the daystars did not vanish from her vision, they did diminish in frequency and intensity.

“What a dissonant mess…” murmured the redhead under her breath between bites of the bread. She glanced over her shoulder. All she could see through the trees were patches of fog and trees.

By the time she was halfway up the ridge trail, the drums had died into silence and the lowlands were again covered with fog.

Once back on the ridge, the sorceress reined up the gray mare, and surveyed the lowlands and the hills to the south. It was as though she had done nothing—except destroy a few of the enemy and lose who knew how many of Stepan's lancers.

She just kept looking at the swirling fog that had refilled the valley that separated her forces from those of the Sturinnese.

Stepan eased his mount up beside her.

Secca shook her head.

“It felt worse than it was,” offered the silver-haired arms commander. “We lost less than a company. They lost close to three companies, perhaps four.”

“They have twice our number, and they will have more soon,” Secca replied, “if I cannot find a way to stop this fog.”

Stepan looked down for a moment, not quite meeting her eyes, before he looked at her. “That is true. We cannot hold our position, not if we are attacked from the north.”

Secca nodded.

After a moment, she said, “I must think.” And eat…so she could think.

By just past noon, when she stepped out of the tent into the cold calm air under a sky that held but a trace of high haze, Secca thought she had a workable plan. She had best, she knew, for the mirror had revealed that the Sturinnese lancers from the north were no more than three days' ride away.

“Richina…I'll be back in a few moments. I need to talk to Elfens. Then we need to talk.”

“Yes, lady.” Richina's voice was polite, but abstracted, as she glanced toward the east end of the camp.

“He's all right. He's just worried.”

“Who?” Richina flushed, adding quickly, “His lancers weren't attacked, were they?”

“No. Like all of us, he's worried about the battle that will have to come,” Secca said, before walking toward the higher end of the camp area. Quietly, Achar followed her. Secca could only hope that Richina would see Haddev for what he was before the younger sorceress did something truly foolish.

Secca found the chief archer on the west side of the camp, working with a pot of glue, refletching some arrows on a flat stone.

“Lady…if you would wait but a moment…”

“Go ahead.” Secca smiled faintly. “We will need every shaft.”

After several moments, the chief archer set down the glue pot and the knife and stood. “Your wish, Lady Secca?”

“Elfens…you still have arrows with the large iron heads?”

“But, of course.”

“How many do you have?”

“Not many…perhaps three score,” admitted the chief archer.

“That will be enough…if you can get them all into the air while I do a spell.”

“That we can.”

“We will need them before dawn—well before dawn.” Secca's eyes fixed on the long-faced man. “Can you keep your archers together in darkness and a thick fog?”

“Ah…that I can do…but how will they know where to place their arrows?”

“That is my task.”

“We can get our shafts high, so that you can do the rest.”

“That is all I ask.”

“We will be ready.”

“I will let you know more later, after I have worked out the details with Wilten and Stepan.”

Elfens bowed, his long face somber.

Secca walked quickly back across the camp toward the single tent, her breath still a fog in the cold air, her boots crunching on the half-frozen ground. The ever-colder nights were yet another reason why she needed to act.

As she approached the tent, Richina stepped forward. “Palian…she and Delvor were here a few moments ago. So was Stepan. They looked most worried.”

“I am most certain that they are.” Secca offered an off-center smile. “I'll need your help, Richina. More than ever before.”

“Another building spell, lady?” Puzzlement colored the younger sorceress's words.

Secca shook her head. “The flame spell.”

Richina swallowed.

“You know the melody,” Secca said. “I'll write out the words for you. Best you study it a while this afternoon and tonight.”

“But…you are the stronger sorceress.”

“I doubt I will be by the time we join battle tomorrow.”

“The fog?”

“If I do what I must, there will be no fog, or little enough by morning. If there is, then I will disperse it, and you will use the flame spell against the Sturinnese.”

“Will they then attack?”

“It matters not. We must if they do not. We cannot survive a battle where we are attacked from both sides, and if we retreat and leave eastern Ebra in the hands of the Sea-Priests, we will see women in chains across the east for generations to come.”

“You do not think we could dislodge them?”

Secca raised her eyebrows. “Hadrenn is hard-pressed to raise twelve companies of lancers. Lord Robero would be hard-pressed to raise twice that in additional lancers. Few of the levies in Defalk could stand against the Sturinnese, and there are already more than fifty companies of Sturinnese in Ebra, counting those we destroyed near Synek. If they take Elahwa and hold Dolov, do you not think we will see more? And more thunder-drums?”

“We will,” Richina agreed.

“And with sorcery against sorcery, then what?”

“Many will die.”

“If we fail now…many more will die.” Secca shook her head. “I will write out the two spells you must use. Then we will see Palian, and you will go over the words in your mind while the players play…”

As Secca explained, Richina nodded.

The older sorceress could only hope that the younger understood…before she saw what would happen, were she successful.

Secca tried not to consider what would happen if they failed.

Belmar nods to the two guards as he steps into the white-walled private study, but the pair remains stationed on each side of the door, inside the study. Their eyes never leave him as he steps toward the man who awaits him.

In turn, Belmar bows politely to the holder with the iron-gray hair. “Cloftus, it is good to see you once more.” As he straightens the fingers of his right hand pass the empty scabbard at his belt. In his left hand, he carries a leather case five spans in length, large enough for a small instrument.

“I must say that I was most surprised at your appearance—not at the force which accompanied you, however.” Cloftus smiles, but does not return the bow. “You were wise to leave them well back of the walls. You know you cannot take Sperea—not without siege engines and far more armsmen than even you can afford.” The taller and older holder remains standing beside the desk. The sabre in the scabbard at his side threatens to bump the pedestal leg of the desk, a leg carved to resemble a climbing rose upon a circular trestle.

“I have no intention of wasting siege engines on Sperea—even if I had any to waste.” Belmar laughs easily. “Besides, I have a proposition. It might be of interest to you.”

“It might. I cannot imagine why, but if you are so convinced that I would be that you would walk in unarmed…I should at least listen.” A wintry smile accompanies the light tone of Cloftus' words. “Especially given…our history.”

“What do you think about the daughter of the late Lord High Counselor succeeding him? Does it appeal to you?”

“You obviously do not care for that, or you would not have asked,” points out Cloftus. “As for me…” He pauses and smiles. “Let us just say that we could do better and we could do worse. What have you in mind that would be better?”

“The restoration of the Prophet of Music in Neserea, the independence of our land from Defalkan domination.” Belmar shrugs. “I cannot imagine you enjoy being under the domination of foreign sorceresses.”

Cloftus frowns, fingers his chin. “I cannot say I have ever liked anyone trying to dominate me, Belmar. But little of that have I seen in the past score of years. Do you think we will see such in the years ahead?”

“When a land controls not its own destiny, that is bound to happen.”

“I see. What have you in mind? Your proposition?”

“I seek your support in becoming the successor to the last Prophet.” Belmar delivers the words easily.

Cloftus laughs, ruefully, but not mockingly. “As I recall, one sorceress destroyed the last Prophet, and there are three now.”

“And all three together have not her power or her wit. One foreign sorceress cannot stand against three-quarters of Neserea, not with but a mere girl as Counselor and her mother acting as a Mansuuran puppet.”

“I would not call Lady Aerlya a puppet, Belmar. Nor a tool. Strong-willed, even a bitch, but never a puppet.”

“What we call her need bear no relation to what is.” Belmar laughs gently. “Surely, you would not begin to quibble over words. I believe you called me…what was it…the legitimate offspring of an extended line of unconsorted minor holders?” Belmar shakes his head. “Your words were even less pleasant, I fear.”

“Did you come all this way to insult me?” Cloftus smiles, his eyes going to the guards, his fingers dropping to the hilt of his blade.

“Dissonance, no.” Belmar smiles. “I brought something you
should see…” He gently and slowly opens the leather case to display the instrument within.

“A small lutar, it would appear…a lady's toy.”

Belmar adjusts the strings. “It's most similar to the one used by the Sorceress of the East. It has a beautiful tone.”

“What has this to do with your proposition?” Cloftus raises his eyebrows.

“Everything.” Belmar's fingers run across the strings. “Everything. You see…” He pauses and clears his throat, then smiles, before beginning to sing in a strong baritone.

Cloftus lurches forward, yanking his sabre from the scabbard so violently that it bangs back into the desk.

The two guards, after a momentary hesitation, draw their own blades and edge toward the younger holder.

Belmar, still smiling, finishes the double couplet and leaps back toward the closed windows to the corner balcony.

The looks of surprise on the faces of the three armed men are short-lived as their blades take on a life of their own, and then take their owners' lives as well. After a short time, the study is silent, and Belmar remains the only figure standing.

He walks to the balcony and opens the door, stepping outside into the chill air, where his breath comes out in white puffs. From within his tunic, he takes a yellow cylinder and unrolls it—a short yellow pennant attached to a polished wooden rod.

Below the steep wall stands a group dressed in brown drab, almost invisible to the eye.

Belmar waves the yellow pennant, and is answered by a crimson one. He pauses, holding the yellow pennant up, then drops it.

The players in brown begin to play. At the second bar, Belmar begins the spell.

A cough in the darkness preceded the words Secca dreaded. “Lady? It is two glasses before dawn.”

“Thank you,” Secca whispered back to the guard outside the tent. She slowly rolled into a sitting position on the narrow cot, took a deep breath, and began to fumble for her overshirt and tunic in the darkness.

With a sound half-moan, half-groan, Richina shifted her weight on the other cot, but her breathing returned to that of a sleeper.

Secca eased into her tunic, pulled on her boots, and then her riding jacket, slowly, for her fingers fumbled with the clothing in the darkness. The cramping in her lower abdomen didn't help, either, nor the faint nausea that came with it. She hardly needed the additional complications of the proof that she was a woman right before sorcery and a battle, but there was no help for it, none at all. She decided against wearing the hat, but stuffed it into the saddlebag in case she needed it later.

Finally, she stood, then bent to ease the leather-cased lutar and saddlebags from under the cot. She carried them outside the tent, then slipped back inside the silken panels to retrieve the water bottle and the provisions bag.

Back outside the tent, in the flickering light of the single torch, with Achar and Rukor standing back several paces, on guard, Secca began to eat, mainly the dry bread, with occasional bites of cheese. She tried to ignore the cramping and nausea, knowing that sorcery on an empty stomach would be a disaster, and also knowing that eating so early in the day in her present condition would make her even less comfortable.

When she had eaten all she could force down, she took a last swallow from the water bottle and corked it. She knelt and checked the small bottles in the saddlebag once again to make sure the stoppers were firmly in place. She was almost finished when she sensed someone coming, and glanced up as a figure walked toward her.

Stepan halted a yard away. Even in the uncertain light, Secca could see the circles under his eyes, and the haggardness in his face. She stood, wondering if she looked as tired as did the arms-commander.

“Lady, the lancers and archers are preparing to mount.”

“I'm almost ready.”

“Best I lead the archers with my first company,” said Stepan quietly.

“You don't have to,” Secca protested.

“And if aught happens to you, then how do I tell Lord Hadrenn or your lord?” asked Stepan.

“Your watch will wake the players and Richina in another glass?” Secca asked. “So they will be ready when I return.”

“That they will.”

“I'm ready.”

“I will have the men mount.” Stepan turned and slipped back into the darkness.

After another long swallow from the water bottle, the red-haired sorceress picked up her gear and walked toward the tieline fifty yards behind the tent. There, the gray mare waited, lifting her head as Secca neared. Achar followed Secca, carrying a pitch torch he had lit from the one burning outside the tent.

As Secca saddled the gray in the flickering torchlight, she glanced to the east, but all she could see was the purpled blackness of night, and the brightest stars shining through a thin haze. To the west, Darksong hung just above the horizon. Secca shivered.

Once more, there was little wind, although the night was chill. She made sure both saddlebags were fastened tightly before strapping the lutar in place.

She mounted and rode southward toward the open section of the ridge, Achar following on his mount with the torch. They
reined up at the head of the column, where Stepan waited with a vanguard of a half-score of guards. Behind Stepan and the van were the archers, and behind them a company of lancers.

In the dim light, Secca nodded to the older man.

“Douse the torches!” ordered Stepan. “Down the trail. No talking. Words carry in the fog.”

Slowly, the mounts of the vanguard began to move, over the ridge and onto the narrow trail. Once into the trees the fog thickened, so much that Secca could scarcely see more than a pair of yards before her, cutting off the small amount of light from the stars.

“I'll have to send scouts out once we reach the bottom,” murmured Stepan, as he leaned in the saddle toward Secca.

“I know. But the closer to the trees on their hill the better.”

“Not too close. A hundred yards.”

“That's fine.”

In the clammy heavy grayness, the ride down the narrow trail was slow, far slower than the last time, and that had seemed to take forever. Secca listened, but all she heard was the breathing of mounts and the impact of hoofs on hard ground.

Stepan said nothing, but Secca felt she knew what he was thinking, that she risked much with such a predawn effort in fog where no one could truly see. Yet the risks of not acting were so much greater. She took a slow breath and resettled herself in the saddle, trying to ignore the dull cramps and nausea that persisted, and attempting to warm up with a series of softer vocalises she hoped would not carry, or not too far.

In time—how much later, she was not certain—the trail flattened, and then opened onto the browned and flattened grasses of the lowlands.

Stepan hissed, and eight lancers eased forward from the van and out into the deep gray that swallowed them before they were three yards away.

“Four will scout the trees, and four will form a line where we should halt. With luck we will find one of them.” Stepan's soft laugh was rueful. “One hopes, at least.”

So did Secca.

The meadow grasses were coated with a silvery frost, yet
another sign that winter was upon Ebra, and one that told Secca that she had little enough time to defeat the Sea-Priests' forces, if indeed she could. She cocked her head, but the valley was silent except for the
whuffing
of the mounts and the occasional crackling of the more frozen and stiffer stalks of meadow grass.

Before long, Secca could make out the figure of a single lancer, shadowy, appearing out of the mist. He did not speak until Stepan and Secca reined up. “I am the third, ser. The others are at the trees. They will call if the Sturinnese near.”

As Stepan quietly reordered the lancers, Secca dismounted and handed the gray's reins to Achar, then unstrapped the lutar and set it on the ground before opening the left saddlebag and extracting more than half the small bottles. She paused. She could hear nothing but the occasional
whuff
of a mount, or the creak of a lancer shifting his weight in his saddle. After unstoppering each bottle, she took the lutar from its case, and quickly ran through the tuning.

Then she began to play and started the first spell—the poison for the officers and thunder-drummers.

When the last sounds of the spell and accompaniment died away, Secca paused, straining to see if she could hear something…anything.

There was not a sound beyond that of the mounts of her force, nothing, not from the encampment up the hillside, nor from the scouts.

After a moment, she cleared her throat, then called softly, “Elfens?”

The archer appeared out of the misty gray. “Yes, lady?”

“When I begin the next spell, have your archers loose as many shafts as they can, in a high arc toward the trees to the south—that's the way I'm facing. Keep lofting them up until I stop singing.”

“That we can do. Give me a moment to have them ready.”

“Call when you are ready.”

“Yes, lady.”

Secca squared her shoulders, her fingers touching the strings of the lutar, her eyes looking into the featureless gray before her, trying to visualize what she wanted the arrowheads to do.

“Archers ready!” came the soft call.

Secca's fingers touched the strings, and she sang forth the second spell, the one for the drums and drummers.

She ran through the same spell twice before lowering the lutar and taking several deep breaths. Then she quickly recased the lutar and strapped it behind her saddle before remounting the gray.

“Are you finished?” asked Stepan.

“For now. From here.”

“Lancers…return to the ridge. Pass the order,” the older officer called softly. “Bring in the scouts.”

As the hissed orders passed through the fog, Secca and Stepan led the way back through the fog and across the brown-grassed meadow, following the traces of their earlier passage.

“You used different spells, but both were directed at the drummers.” Stepan's words were not quite a question.

“Without the drummers, our sorcery should work.”

“It has before,” Stepan agreed in a low voice. “It must now, for I fear they have more lancers than we have counted.”

“How many?”

“That…your glass does not show, but the smoke from the
cookfires and the expanse of their encampment…perhaps as many as forty companies.”

In spite of herself, Secca winced. “Why did you not tell me this earlier?”

Stepan shrugged. “Would it have made any difference?”

“You were afraid I would leave?” Secca could feel the anger building.

“No. I feared that too many lancers would vanish. I had seen what sorcery can do before you came. None of the lancers have.”

Secca wasn't sure she believed Stepan, but, at the moment, as he had said, it made no difference, except that she would probably have to be ready to perform more sorcery later in the day. Ignoring, once more, the cramping, she forced herself to eat a few more mouthfuls of dry bread, interspersed with the cheese.

After a long silence, Stepan asked, “You have said nothing. Are you angry that I did not tell you?”

“Some,” Secca admitted, “but you were right. It only means we must fight now.”

In the silence that followed, Secca kept listening, but could hear nothing from the south, and that worried her more than if she had heard sounds of pursuit or trumpets of alarm. She continued to nibble at the bread and cheese she had brought while she rode upward on the narrow trail. So far, she was not seeing flashes, but she still had much to do, even more, she feared, from what Stepan had said.

The climb was slower, back up the trail, and with each yard that they covered in near-silence, Secca felt her stomach tightening more. In her condition, she needed that tension not at all. By the time the rocky edges of the ridge were visible, there was a slight graying of the sky above the trees to the east.

Perhaps a quarter of a glass later, the mare carried her onto the ridge, where in the faint gray light, the players were lined up, tuning gently. In columns behind them were the bulk of the lancers, headed by Wilten.

Richina sat in the saddle of her mount—stiffly—in front of the players. As she saw Secca, a faint smile crossed the younger sorceress's face, and Secca could see a certain relief. The older
sorceress offered a smile in return. When she reined up beside Richina, Secca inclined her head to the south. “Have you seen anything?”

“Just the lights of cookfires, lady. There have been no trumpets, and no signals.”

“None at all,” added Wilten, glancing from Secca to Stepan. “The quiet worries me.”

“It worries us all, I think,” replied Secca. “Best I disperse the fog.” She dismounted, handing the gray's reins to Achar, and stepped toward Palian.

“Still the second building spell, Lady Secca?” asked the chief player.

“The second building spell,” Secca affirmed. “After I do a vocalise.”

Her voice only cracked once, and after the second time through, her cords felt clear. She nodded to Palian, and then to Delvor. “I am ready.”

“The second building song. On my mark…Mark!”

Secca tried to let the song come, flow out with full but unforced volume, riding both the melody and the deeper chords of the heavy lutars of the second players.

As with the last time she had dispersed the fog, an almost inaudible low rumbling issued up from the ground beneath her feet, then passed well before Secca finished. The sky, whose dark purpled gray had begun to lighten yet more, immediately darkened, seemingly turning back the time toward night. The wind moaned, building behind Secca's back, quickly, ripping at her hair and jacket. Secca thought it was far colder than the one she had raised three days earlier—far, far colder. Colder—and stronger. Within moments, the upper layers of the ground fog were shredding like rotten cloth.

She shook herself, trying to forget the intensification of the cramps, and turned to Palian. “Best we mount up and ride down.”

She and Richina and the players were ready even as Stepan rode toward them.

Riding back down to the site of the battle three days previous, Secca was still feeling slightly nauseated, but forced herself to eat slowly, mouthful after mouthful of dry bread washed down with water. Every so often, she added a bite of cheese or cold mutton taken from the provisions bag hanging from her saddle.

With each step that her mount took downhill, the dayflashes that sparkled before her eyes were subsiding, but not totally vanishing.

She could hear Richina warming up, but the notes of the vocalise sounded distant, so distant, even though the younger sorceress was but three yards behind her, riding beside Wilten, and in front of the players.