The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (67 page)

“If you destroy the Sea-Priest and Ehara, all will bow when you pass. And after?”

“I could build another dam,” Anna ventured. “Would Dumar want that?”

“Lady, you are terrible.”

“Terrible”?
“I suppose I would have to make sure that whoever stays in charge here knows that.”
You’re planning for something that might not even happen . . . You have to defeat Ehara and destroy most of his army. . . .
A chill settled over her. “That’s something to worry about later. First, we need to deal with Ehara.”

“And the Sea-Priests.”

Anna gestured to Liende. “Let’s try that new seeking spell, the one like the flame spell.” Anna coughed, found her second water bottle, and swallowed a little before replacing it, dismounting, and beginning a vocalise. “Polly, lolly, polly . . .”

“Warm-up tune,” announced Liende as the players started to tune.

On the road behind and before Anna and the players, the Purple Company formed a line, mounts and riders facing Finduma. While Jecks unfastened the mirror and laid it out, Anna forced her thoughts onto the seeking spell, concentrated on the words and humming the tune as the players became less ragged and the strains of the warm-up tune merged into an actual melody.

Finally, Anna looked at Liende.

“We are ready, lady.”

Anna nodded.

“On my mark . . . Mark!” Liende gestured. Then the clarinet-like woodwind joined with the other players’ instruments.

Anna sang.

“Find, find any Dumaran close to here,

an armsmen bearing his weapons hard and near . . .”

After she finished Anna watched the glass, but it remained blank silver, not reflecting, a sign that no armsmen—or none with arms—remained in Finduma.

“They can get ready to ride.” Anna nodded to Liende.

“Prepare to ride.”

Jecks helped Anna replace the glass in its leather padding and back on Farinelli.

“In some towns, you will have to use that spell often,” he observed.

“I know. Why do you think I want the players to do it? It’s simple enough for the lutar, but . . .”

They sat in the hot sun for a time longer. Anna took the gray cloth from her belt and blotted her forehead and neck, then readjusted the floppy brown hat that had definitely seen better days.

Alvar rode up to the pair. “The arms commander says that we may proceed.”

“Thank you.” Anna flicked Farinelli’s reins.

The road curved slowly to the left, toward the southwest. Fifty yards ahead on the right was a rutted lane, its center filled with dark green vinelike weeds, that led toward the hill overlooking Finduma.

As the column of riders passed onto the lane, Anna glanced down the road toward the first roofs of the town a dek or so away.
How did you end up invading another country? Because someone else invaded first . . . that’s why
.

She wasn’t sure that her answer was all that good, not sure at all.

Baaaa . . . aaahhh . . .
The sheep lined across the road slowly moved away under the not-too-gentle prodding of the vanguard.

A man with a long staff barreled out from behind the cot to the left of the road, then came to a halt as he saw the armsmen and the pale blue banner of Defalk. His eyes went from the armed men to the banner, and then to the scattered sheep on the slope.

“Ah . . . your pardon, sers. . . .”

“We won’t be long,” Anna said politely. “We’re just passing through.”

At the sound of the sorceress’s voice, his eyes went to
her, and the sheepman paled, backing slowly away until he was out of sight behind the cot.

“Your reputation precedes you, lady,” said Jecks.

“I’m not sure I like whatever that reputation is.”

“Better to be feared than disrespected.”

That was what Machiavelli had written, or words to that effect, but they’d just been words when she’d read them in college. Somehow, it was different when the words applied to her.

Anna twisted in the saddle to extract the lutar.

“You expect trouble? I doubt any here will stand against your spells. Not in such a small town.”

“I hope not.” Anna’s fingers went to the lutar she had wrestled from the case, almost absently tuning the instrument as they neared the first of the houses on the outskirts of the hamlet.

The road into Finduma remained empty—and dusty. The town was more like a hamlet, with less than fifty houses, half lining the road to Dumaria and the remainder scattered among sparse pastures and the few intermittent tilled patches of ground. A narrow stream ran along the south side of the main road, punctuated by scattered willows and something else—tamarisk trees?

As the column neared the first houses, a woman glanced up, saw the armsmen, and fled from her wooden washtub, scooping up a toddler tied to a line around her waist. The weathered door slammed as the first of the riders passed the first small umber-brick house with the straw roof.

“She does not seem overly joyed,” said Liende, riding on Anna’s right.

“Would you be?” answered Anna.

“Aye, and it would be an incautious woman to remain out with strange armsmen passing,” observed Jecks.

A brown-and-white dog ambled out across the dirt of the main street, then scurried behind a wooden shed at the sound of hoofs.

A rail-thin and bearded man stood on a wooden porch in the shade of a signboard so faded that Anna couldn’t
make out the letters. The narrow building itself was of the umber brick and had a cracked and faded red-tile roof. The man looked like he wanted to spit in the street as the sorceress rode past, but his face twisted, and he took a deep breath.

“Peace to you,” Anna said, wondering what other phrase she could have used.

The bearded man nodded, reluctantly.

The center of the town was an enlarged crossroads without a central square or a statue. A handful of two-storied brick buildings sprawled along the main road. Anna spotted the faded crossed candles of a chandlery, and the three wagons lined up before it. Around the square were stationed armsmen with bared blades. Another ten or twelve formed a line into the chandlery.

Hanfor gestured, and Anna turned her mount toward the weathered veteran.

“Do we have enough golds to pay for this?” asked Anna as she reined up.

In turn, Hanfor glanced at Jecks.

“We have some . . .”

“But we really shouldn’t use them?” she asked. “All right. Promise to pay. We’ll have to send them later.” Her eyes fixed on Jecks. “We need to keep our word on this.” Then she turned to Hanfor. “Keep a record of what we take and what it is worth.”

“Yes, Lady Anna.”

“I mean it.” Her words were firm, almost cold. In the end, all she had was her word. She’d learned that a long time ago, and that was one thing that hadn’t changed. And it wouldn’t.

T
he late-afternoon sun cast long shadows, and Anna pulled down the brim of the floppy hat. Her shirt was soaked, as was the inside band of the hat, and her hair felt gummy and sticky.

The air was still, without even a hint of a breeze. The road bore the traces of the still-retreating Dumaran armsmen. Anna’s last scrying with the mirror showed Ehara and his forces nearly at the Falche, another day and a half from where the Defalkan forces slowly rode westward.

Anna chewed the bread slowly as Farinelli carried her toward the low sun. She glanced back over her shoulder as the column passed the dek-stone. Her eyes blurred as she tried to focus on the words.

Hrissar—2 d
.

Hrissar was a large town with five squares, lots of granaries, and no hills. She’d blanketed the place with so many armsmen-seeking spells that she felt her eyes were swimming, but she’d found nothing. Even the local armsmen had been conscripted and dragged off by Ehara, and the shutters and doors to the town were closed.

After four days of riding, and using enemy-seeking spells, in every town near or along the main road, she was tired. So were the players.

“You cannot keep casting spells such,” said Jecks quietly. “Not if you must cast a large spell when we meet Lord Ehara.”

“I know. I know,” said Anna tiredly, wiping stale dark crumbs from around her mouth before she reached for the water bottle. “I’ll have to get some rest tonight and take
it easy tomorrow, but there aren’t that many towns between us and the river.”

“They are small enough that you need not spell them now. Hrissar was the only town worthy of the name.”

“I know that, too.” The sorceress not only knew it, but felt it. She was so tired she could also feel the drain of the enchanted shield, a spell Jecks had practically demanded she renew as soon as they had camped the second time outside the Vale of Cuetayl.

“You are the sole force of Defalk,” Hanfor said mildly.

“Now,” she answered. “Now.” Somehow, some way, she had to build an army worthy of the name. She couldn’t keep riding from border to border and beyond. Had conquerors like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan felt that way?
Oh . . . more delusions of grandeur? You’re a great conqueror now?

The sorceress pushed away the nagging thoughts, reaching instead for the remaining water bottle.

“Have you considered the spell against ensorcelled weapons?” pressed the white-haired lord.

“Lord Jecks,” Anna said wearily, “in the last year I have had to develop and learn dozens—scores—of spells. Today, we scoured a small city. Right now, my brain is frazzled, and I couldn’t come up with another if Ehara or the Evult appeared on the road in front of us.”

“. . . ‘frazzled’ . . . betimes, she speaks strangely. . . .” The murmur from a guard somewhere behind Anna, a guard whose voice she didn’t recognize, filled the comparative stillness.

The squeaking of a provisions wagon drifted from the east on a sudden puff of wind that cooled the sweating sorceress momentarily, then stilled.

“More than betimes I speak strangely,” Anna said hoarsely. “More than betimes. Dissonance, I’m strange all the time. Who else would be riding through Dumar in this heat? Mad dogs and Englishwomen?” She laughed.

“I think you need rest,” said Jecks. “And soon.”

“The regent is losing it?” The sorceress shook her head. “Not yet. Not until we put an end to the Sea-Priests in Liedwahr. Chains. . . . Who do they think they are?”

Jecks extended a chunk of stale bread.

Anna took it, and began to eat slowly. Low blood sugar? Emotional overextension? Fatigue? She kept her thoughts to herself as she forced herself to keep eating.

Her eyes caught a pinpoint of light, with a reddish glint, in the western sky—Darksong, the moon of dark sorcery, of power that led to the need for using yet more power. Was that what she faced? Was she becoming the Clearsong sorceress of evil for the best of motives?

. . .A
nd her forces are approaching the Falche north of Dumaria.” Bassil clears his throat and waits.

“She has destroyed two fleets of the Maitre of Sturinn and is pushing Lord Ehara back to the Falche? With how many armsmen?” Konsstin unfastens the blue cloak and walks to the open door. His forehead is beaded with sweat, and he stands in the doorway between the study and the balcony, letting the slight western breeze blow around him.

“Less than thirtyscore, sire,” answers Bassil. “Perhaps less than twenty-five. She cast a spell on the Sturinnese lancers, and they burst into flame. Ehara and his men retreated.”

“Have the Sea-Priests sent no sorcerers themselves? Dissonance knows, they’ve spent years training them.”

“They sent three, or more, according to your seers. All but the strongest died in the flood she sent down the Falche.”

“I’d wager the Maitre loved that.” Konsstin chuckles, but the sound fades as his eyes darken. “The harmonies help us if she can build a true force of armsmen, and that’s where she’s headed.” The Liedfuhr’s eyes drift eastward and to the city below, beyond the port and the triangle where the Ansul and the Latok join to form the mighty Toksul. The angular sail of a river trader billows as a gust of wind crosses the river. “We need not assist her in that.” He shakes his head. “Take notes.”

“Yes, sire.” Bassil bobs his head.

“And listen! Try to understand why I’m ordering these things.” His fingers touch his brown-and-silver beard. “Double the bonus for reentered contracts for armsmen. Have recruiters from anywhere else exiled or imprisoned. Announce the formation of new companies of lancers. Give them honorable-sounding names, and find the best officers from the existing companies. I don’t care about names. Put the officers we have to placate in charge of things they cannot damage too greatly and keep track of them until they make a mistake for which they can be exiled or executed.” Konsstin walks onto the balcony to the north end which retains a modicum of shade.

Bassil follows, marker and paper in hand.

“Also, make sure that no one ships
any
iron from the Deleatur mines eastward—to Ranuak or anywhere else.”

Bassil lifts his dark and bushy eyebrows.

“Buy it, if you have to. Use the procurator’s funds. That’s what they’re for. And horses—draft a dispatch—two dispatches—one to my darling grandson and one to the lizard Nubara. Tell them that any of the High Grassland nomads that trade horses to Defalk are to be executed in whatever is the most unfavored fashion.”

“The conquest of Dumar . . . if she manages it . . . is that such a threat?”

“Let us see, Bassil. There was the Evult, reputedly the greatest sorcerer of a generation. She buried him in hot lava, and a volcano named after her still grows in the northern Ostfels. In less than a year, she has managed to
unify a country no one has been able to govern in generations. Half of Ebra already acknowledges her as sovereign. By the way, send more coins to Hadrenn. Not many, but enough to make him grateful.” Konsstin pauses. “She’s killed the ruler of Neserea and stolen some of the best officers from his forces. That ruined the morale of those left. She’s on the verge of adding Dumar to her empire.” Konsstin turns on the dark-haired lancer officer. “She’s done all of this in less than two years and with fewer armsmen than we have as a casual guard in Hafen, where no one’s threatened in hundreds of years. Are you going to tell me I shouldn’t be worried? Oh, and don’t forget, she just killed off another handful of some of the stronger sorcerers in Liedwahr without even realizing she had.”