The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (38 page)

Anna shrugged to herself. She’d thought all along that they’d have to defeat all three lords. She coughed and spat out more mucus, hoping her asthma wouldn’t act up too badly.

A faint smell of burning flesh drifted with the dust into her nostrils, and she pushed aside the sensation. Beyond the mound were dark lumps across the low green grass, hundreds of dark lumps. Some moved. Most did not.

Anna swallowed, and put the thoughts out of her mind. Sympathy, concern, those would have to wait. She concentrated on riding, on staying close to her charging armsmen, although it seemed less than a handful of mounted figures even remained of those that had been riding toward her forces. That handful turned back toward the tents.

Reaching the mound took little time, and Anna reined
up, finding she was panting slightly. Holding her breath? That wasn’t good. She forced herself to breathe easily and deeply, but not too deeply.

“Dismount!” ordered Liende as the players rode up behind Anna. “Your pleasure, Lady Anna?”

Anna frowned. What spell? What did she need? Then she looked west, at the oncoming lancers.

“The arrow spell.” That shouldn’t take that much effort, and she needed to husband her strength, shaky as she was after the first spell.

“Arrow spell. Warm-up.”

Again, horns and strings tumbled out of cases, and Fhurgen’s men grabbed reins and gathered players’ mounts.

Anna eased out of the saddle and toward the players, who stood in the middle of the mound. To the south of the mound where she stood were a handful of foot levies, forming up beside the tents below the keep of Suhl, and a scattering of Suhlan mounted armsmen. To the west, drawing up in ragged order, were the lines of Leronese lancers. They had also taken a less direct route to the battlefield, or that might have been the shortest way from Lerona. Joining them were another group of lancers, nearly two score under a crimson banner.

Anna shook her head. Again, someone else was paying for the games of the damned chauvinistic lords—but Sargol was nowhere in sight, not surprisingly.

“Which forces, lady?” asked Hanfor.

“The Leronese, I guess.” She looked at the arms commander. “What do you think?”

“The Leronese are the threat. And the red lancers. They must be from Dumar. You have felled most of Sargol’s lancers in the valley. His levies gathered by the keep could not reach here soon. He may have others in the keep, but they are not a threat.”

Not yet
. “When I signal—I’ll drop my hand—can you have our archers loose their arrows toward the Leronese?”

“That. That we can do.” Hanfor turned in the saddle. “Bowmen! To the west, to the lancers. Nock your arrows.”

Anna cleared her throat, then gestured to Liende. “Once through—the first arrow song.”

As the music rose, in tune, she began to sing.

“These arrows shot .into the air,

the head of each must strike one armsman there

with force and speed to kill them all,

all those who stand against our call!”

Anna dropped her hand, aware that a humming or thrumming sound vibrated somewhere before her.

“These arrows shot into the air . . .”

As the music and her words ended, she half smiled, pleased that she wasn’t dizzy or light-headed, then looked at Hanfor, consciously avoiding a glance toward the lancers.

“If you could do another,” he suggested, his eyes flicking toward the west.

Anna could hear hoofbeats. She glanced toward her chief player. “Liende? Can you and the players manage the arrow spell again?”

“We can, Regent.” Liende turned. “Players! The arrow spell again. At my mark.”

Anna nodded.

“Mark.”

With the second release of arrows, and the end of the spell, Anna felt a brief light-headedness. She glanced toward Hanfor.

He smiled grimly. “A handful remain, and they have turned back to the west, on their way back to Gylaron.”

That’s what we hope, anyway
. Anna slouched toward Farinelli, absently patting him before extracting the water bottle and drinking deeply.

“Do not forget to eat, lady,” suggested Fhurgen.

To eat—a good idea. She fumbled out another stale biscuit and slowly chewed, moistening her mouth. Then she glanced southward. The gates of Suhl stood ajar, and men and horses straggled through them, leaving tents on the flat empty.

Dozens of mounts walked riderless across the flat. Some grazed amid the dark lumps of death. Anna looked, blankly, and ate. After a time, she turned and looked at the squat timber framework that held a burned and broken crossbow, wondering who had broken it. Hanfor? Fhurgen? Someone else? Did it matter? She ate another biscuit, sipped more water.

Jecks eased his mount nearer, stopping next to where Fhurgen sat mounted, holding Farinelli’s reins. He looked down at the dusty sorceress. “They retreat behind their walls.”

The sorceress glanced south.

A lone individual hobbled toward the keep, behind the others, squeezing inside before the iron-banded timbered gates swung closed.

For a moment, Anna closed her eyes. Then she turned. Liende sat on the dirt, limp. Most of the other players slumped in similar positions. Kaseth lay stretched out, eyes closed, his white head on a folded blanket, his breathing ragged. Delvor looked whiter than snow, and seemed to sway as he looked at Anna, then glanced hurriedly away. Even Liende’s eyes were glazed.

Her players were more spent than she was. Then, after a fashion, she’d trained harder than they had. Still, she hadn’t even considered what all the playing of spellsongs would do to them. She just hadn’t worked with players for extended spells under stress, and her inexperience showed through. Again.

“Fhurgen! They need food, water.”

Anna wondered. This was the first time her players looked as exhausted as she felt. She snorted, almost to
herself. They’d never played so many spells so long and so close—nor ridden across a valley in between sets.

As her guards went to work, Anna turned back to survey the keep. After a time, she turned to Jecks. “Can we ask Sargol to surrender?”

“You cannot pardon him,” Jecks said. “He tried to kill you, and he has raised his banner against you. If you offer him a pardon, what will you do to Gylaron or Dencer?”

“And we just can’t sit here and beseige him, right?” She already knew the answer to that one. She had no siege engines, no wealth of supplies, and only a few hundred armsmen that she couldn’t afford to tie up all summer waiting around Sargol’s keep.

“I do not see how.”

“What if we offer mercy to his family and retainers?”

“That would not hurt.” Jecks’ smile was cold. “He will refuse, because he does not know your strength. Nor will any man of Defalk surrender to a sorceress.”

Not to a mere woman . . . is that it?
“Send someone to offer mercy to his family and retainers and the armsmen who remain—but not to Sargol.”

Jecks turned his mount toward Alvar and Hanfor. “We can but try.”

Anna watched as the three talked. Alvar gestured and Hanfor beckoned. Two armsmen, one bearing a battle trumpet, joined the three, then rode toward the silent walls of Suhl.

The trumpeter sounded a call, wavering across the afternoon. After a time, it was repeated.

Anna didn’t see anyone appear on the wall, but the armsman with the trumpeter called out a message Anna caught enough of the words.

“. . . offer mercy to all but Lord Sargol . . . ”

Even Anna didn’t miss the scattered arrows that were the response, or the hurried retreat of the de facto herald.

Jecks rode back to Anna.

She looked up. “I saw.”

“He does not believe that you can touch him within his walls.” Jecks paused. “You have not torched the fields or orchards. He would think that weakness.”

Weakness? Why would I set fire to—
“Oh . . .”

Jecks sat astride the warhorse, waiting.

Again, Anna had the feeling of being in a totally alien culture. Without cannon, without siege engines, a lord could remain within walls for weeks—or seasons. The only damage an invader could do would be to the crops and the followers outside the walls. What was common sense to Anna became weakness to a rebel lord.

Anna nodded slowly. “I need to think.” She patted Farinelli absently.

Jecks turned his mount back toward Hanfor, and Anna studied the walls of Suhl once more, her thoughts spinning.

She didn’t have the manpower or the time to put Suhl under siege—not with Dencer and Gylaron left to deal with—and Sargol knew that. She didn’t want to use the standard tactic of burning the fields and murdering all the productive peasants or serfs. Defalk had suffered enough, and her goal was to build—not to destroy.
Not to destroy the common people, you mean. You wouldn’t mind taking down a few chauvinistic lords
.

What else could she do? She hated relying on sorcery so heavily, but she didn’t have thousands of armsmen, nor cannon, nor siege engines, nor . . . What she didn’t have was far more than what she had.

A glass later, the gates of Suhl remained closed, iron-banded and dark, without word or signal. Anna glanced toward Liende and the players. They looked tired, but all appeared well.

“What will you?” asked Jecks. “Sargol lies behind the walls, and he has refused your offer.”

The sorceress just looked at the older lord. Jecks had been right, but it didn’t make matters any better.

Jecks looked away, and for the moment, Anna didn’t
care. She might later, and then again, she might not. For some reason, she recalled his reaction to the ballroom in Cheor. Dancing, so innocent, even with the harmonies of Liedwahr, yet Jecks had found it blasphemous, or dissonant. So had Alvar, though the younger officer had been more temperate in his words.

Her eyes went to Hanfor. “Can we leave Suhl behind us?”

“After this?” he asked ironically, gesturing down the mound at the heaps of dead armsmen and mounts, and the handfuls of still-wandering mounts.

Anna understood. In for a copper, in for a silver, or some such. Better to get it over with, better to do it before she thought, before she felt. With a long and slow deep breath, she began to walk toward Liende.

“I’m going to try to reach Lord Sargol with an arrow spell. Would you get the players ready?”

“We will ready ourselves.”

Next, she needed Hanfor, but he was already riding toward her, as if he had guessed something from seeing her talk to Liende.

“Yes, Regent?”

“I’ll need a score of bowmen, ones who can loft arrows over the keep walls.”

“I will gather them.” He turned his mount.

She walked toward Farinelli, slowly. As if he sensed her thoughts, the gelding sidestepped.

“Even you’re worried, old fellow.”

The regent and sorceress took her time readying herself.

Finally, she finished a last vocalise, then cleared her throat, and looked at Jecks and Hanfor, then at Liende. “We’ll need to get closer. How close to the walls could I safely go?”

“No farther than the tents,” offered Hanfor.

“If that,” added Jecks.

“My lady? Must you?” growled Fhurgen.

“Yes. Unhappily.” She swung herself into the saddle
and urged Farinelli down the slope and toward the tents, toward the closed keep.

Rickel rode on her left, Jecks on her right, Fhurgen and two other guards before her, and the players, and a good two score armsmen around and behind them.

Anna stopped short of the tents, empty canvas that had once held men, men who had died or fled or both. She forced her thoughts to the spell in her mind, the last one for now.
The last one
, she reminded herself, as she climbed from the saddle, her boots hitting the dusty ground heavily. For a moment, she just held to the saddle before swallowing and stepping away from Farinelli.

She glanced back at the players, dismounted and tuning, and she waited. After what seemed an interminable, Liende called, “We stand ready, Regent.”

“Then start the spellsong.”

Anna timed the music and lifted her voice toward the silent keep.

“These arrows shot into the air,

the head of each must strike Lord Sargol there—”

Anna dropped her hand, and sensed the release of the arrows.

“—with force and speed to kill him dead,

for all the treachery he’s done and led.”

Slightly light-headed, she watched as perhaps two dozen arrows flew over the walls of Suhl. Had she heard a slight clatter?

The walls remained as silent as before.

Anna turned toward Farinelli, and laboriously got out the lutar and the mirror. After tuning the instrument, she cleared her throat.

“Show me now and show me near

Lord Sargol bright and clear . . .”

The glass was explicit enough. Sargol was clad in gray inside a stone-walled room, one with iron shutters—iron doubtless because he thought it proof against sorcery or some such. And it had been proof against the arrows. Sargol’s eyes glittered, but he was very much alive.

Anna took a deep breath, feeling Jecks beside her, also studying the glass before she cleared the image.
Now what?

Her eyes flashed toward the hulking brick and stone keep of Suhl, its gates barred, its lord raging. She shook her head and turned to Jecks.

“Now what do I do?”

“I do not know.”

Why? Why . . . because it’s the perversity of the universe
. She turned and walked back to Liende.

The chief player watched as the regent approached.

“Liende, I’ll need the flame spell—again.”

“Lord Sargol still lives?” The chief player looked down.

“Unfortunately.”

Anna waited as the players reorganized. Neither Jecks nor Hanfor said a word, though they exchanged glances—and kept exchanging them.

Finally, in the late afternoon silence, with the brick and stone keep brazed in golden flat light of a sun that hung over the low hills to the west, Anna gestured to Liende and the players, then let her voice rise.

“Those who will not be

loyal to the regency,

let them die, let them lie,

struck by fire, struck by flame . . .”