Darksong Rising (99 page)

Liende fixed Anna with intent eyes. “How will you use the spell?”

“To kill anyone who supports Tybel and who also believes that women should be slaves.”

“Not to kill them all?”

“Not unless they keep attacking. Then I’ll have to use the full flame spell.”

Liende exhaled slowly. “You are as fair as the harmonies allow. I will have the players make

ready once we reach the ridge.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They will be sorrier still, the hapless fools.” Liende’s eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Anna and her guards followed the player back toward their mounts, Blaz carrying the scrying

mirror.

1O7

The area overlooking the road that Anna had picked was more like a bench protruding from the

gentle eastern side of the hill than a true ridge. The lancers, each beside his mount, were arrayed

in an arc that flanked Anna and the players. Anna’s guards remained mounted.

The sorceress watched as the dust rose from the road leading from the keep beyond the town

toward their position. She had picked a slight knoll in the benchlike meadow, one not quite in the

center of the open space overlooking the road from Arien. Standing behind her were Liende and

the players.

The sound of tuning overrode the intermittent whispers of wind in the dry grass of the hillside

field.

“The first warm-up song!” ordered the chief player.

Anna launched into the third vocalise. “Muueeee... oooweee..." Her cords and throat were clear

for a change, perhaps because the night frosts had reduced the amount of pollen and molds in the

air, and perhaps because the winds had been light and carried little dust.

After the vocalise, the sorceress stepped forward to the edge of the knoll and looked eastward

again. Rickel and Blaz, shields out, rode forward to cover her.

The black-surcoated riders slowed almost a dek away and began to re-form from a column into a

broader formation, at least several riders deep, from what Anna could tell. Two outriders with

black banners bearing some sort of silver device took station before the formation.

At the sound of hoofs, Anna turned to watch as a scout rode up to Himar. Then she turned and

walked back toward Liende. The sorceress waited until the players finished the second warm-up

tune.

“Yes, Regent?”

“Lord Tybel’s armsmen are forming up. It won’t be long.”

“Stand ready!” Liende ordered.

Both women turned as Himar rode toward them.

“Regent... Chief Player. The scouts say that Lord Tybel has near-on thirtyscore armsmen.”

Himar looked eastward for a moment, then back to Anna.

‘Thirty? That’s more than any lord in Defalk.” Anna looked at the slowly advancing riders and

the dark lances with tips that glittered in the cool afternoon light. As she watched, the formation

halted once more, and a rider with a blue parley banner rode forward from the lines of black-

surcoated riders and up the gradual incline of the road.

“Birtol! Go hear what he has to say!” ordered Himar.

“Stand ready,” Anna said quietly to Liende. “I think Tybel will make some impossible demand,

and when we reject it, he’ll have everyone charge us and try to overwhelm us before I can sing

anything. So the players have to be ready to go as soon as their herald or messenger or whatever

he is turns." She paused. “Or if I signal sooner.”

“We are prepared.”

The herald with the parley banner guided his mount to a position a hundred yards below the

Defalkan lines. After reining up, Tybel’s herald declaimed. ‘These words are for the sorceress

and for all to hear. Lord Tybel would have naught said in secret. naught hidden." After a

moment, he continued, his voice ringing across the late afternoon. ‘The most honorable Lord

Tybel of Arien demands that the Regency be turned over to him to preserve the heritage and

honor of Defalk. He further demands that the false sorceress be stripped of her powers and

executed..."

Anna turned to Liende. “Have them play. Now!”

Liende pivoted on one foot, her face grim. “The flame song—on my mark. MARK!!”

The first introductory bars of the players drifted downhill, past the sorceress and toward the

herald and Tybel’s armsmen.

Anna began the spell, trying to maintain both her composure and her images while she projected

full concert volume across Tybel’s forces.

Turn to fire, turn to flame

all those under Tybel’s claim,

 
those who hold women as does he,

 
those who will not honor the Regency.

As she sang, she concentrated on an image of a curtain of fire, white-hot, descending from the

cold, clear sky.

“Charge the bitch!” came the order from below, even before the herald had finished his words of

challenge to the Regent-sorceress.

The drumbeat of hoofs began, as the black-clad lancers charged toward the knoll. Anna kept her

mind and voice on finishing the spell.

Turn to ashes, turn to dust,

all Tybel’s lancers we cannot trust...

The chords of harmony strummed once, heard but by Anna and the few of the more sensitive

players, then a second time. Those twin chords were clear, but unstrained, unlike other recent

efforts by the sorceress.

Whhhhsssttt! Instead of lines of fire, there was an intense sheet of white flame, brighter than the

sun that dropped like lightning.

The hillside was silent, deadly silent.

Anna blinked, her eyes watering profusely. White stars flashed before her eyes. the aftermath of

the strobelike white fire wall.

“Dissonance..."

“Mother of harmonies..."

“What happened...?"

The sorceress blotted her eyes, trying to clear her vision, hoping that the spell had been effective,

because she wasn’t seeing anything. Except for murmurs from her guards, the silence drew out.

When her eyes stopped tearing and she could finally see, Anna looked downhill. She shook her

head. There were five...
 
maybe six men on their mounts in black surcoats. There were no other

black-clad figures—or mounts. Beginning about fifty yards below the Defalkan lines, the ground

was black, and not a trace of vegetation remained—just a swath of charred ashes three hundred

yards deep and almost half a dek wide.

Anna looked at the devastation blankly. Never had one of her spells destroyed a foe so

completely and quickly. Your sense frustration and anger?

The sorceress turned.

Liende looked at her. "...I wanted that... so much... after what the herald said.... May... the

harmonies... forgive me.”

Anna touched her arm. “I guess... maybe I did, too."

Himar had turned his mount and rode slowly toward Anna across the browned grass, with the

faint hint of the orange redness of twilight falling across his face. Seated in his saddle looking

down at her, he appeared to be looking up. His voice was hoarse as he asked, “What would you

have us do?”

“I couldn’t do it any other way,” Anna said raggedly. "Look down there... how many are alive?

The spell would have spared anyone loyal to the Regency... anyone who thought women were

people... What was I supposed to do? Too many people have died because I tried to be forgiving

and understanding.”

Himar swallowed. “There are some few who live.”

“I'd... like to see... them.”

For a time. Anna leaned against Farinelli, not quite clinging, before she finally fumbled out the

water bottle and drank. She had just about finished when a squad of lancers escorted a man on

foot toward Anna. The man’s hands were loosely bound, and his scabbard was empty.

Rickel and Lejun stepped forward, shields on their arms, blades out, barring the way to the

sorceress. Beside Rickel were Bersan and Fielmir. Blaz flanked Lejun. All five focused on the

captive.

"This man remained among those still living,” Himar said.

The man before Anna wore a silver pin of some sort in his black collar, and he stared defiantly at

her.

“How many were there?” Anna asked.

“A half-score, all older lancers except this one.”

Anna studied the man with the slightly frizzy henna-colored hair. She should have recognized

him, but her mind wouldn’t come up with a name or from where she knew him.

“Will you slaughter me as well, lady?" he finally asked.

The voice was familiar as well. Yet she could not place him. “Why should there be any more

killing?”

“So that you can dispose of my uncle’s lands as you please.”

Zybar... the younger brother at Gatrune's.

“Did he fight?” Anna asked Himar.

“He rode and he had his blade. He was wise enough not to use it after the others fell.”

Anna shook her head at the irony.

Zybar flushed. “You mock me as well!”

“No…I’m not mocking you, Zybar. You didn’t think what your uncle and your father did was

right, did you? But you didn’t want to cross them? Or you feared them?”

“I stood with them."