The Shadow Sorceress (18 page)

The snow drifts past the study windows, almost lazily, and so infrequently that none has collected on the railings without, nor on the meadows or bare fields across the gray waters of the Toksul River from the palace. Chill radiates from the glass panes, and heavy maroon hangings have been drawn across all of the windows, except for the two wide frames behind the Liedfuhr's desk.

Kestrin stands before the desk, and the papers on it, reading the scroll that Bassil has just placed in his hands.

“What does your sister write that no one else will?” asks Bassil after a time.

“How—because there would be no one else who would wish me to know the morass in Neserea?”

“Exactly, sire.” Bassil bows slightly.

When he finishes rereading the lines again, Kestrin shakes his head. “She suggests that this Belmar bribed the armsmen, and then he ambushed them, to prove the need for a strong Lord High Counselor…or, more likely, a return to a Prophet of Music. There are rumors that he knows sorcery, but no one is willing to say such.” He turns and looks out at the intermittent snow flakes. “Belmar himself cannot have the golds to bribe an entire company and two levels of officers…and that means the Sea-Priests. What a disaster…”

“And what of Captain Cyrn and Overcaptain Tein?”

“I can't believe that they thought I wouldn't find out.”

Bassil clears his throat.

“They knew that I would, and they still…?” Kestrin swallows. “They don't think I will punish them because they think it will look like I'm covering up my own incompetence?”

“Captain Cyrn is dead. You cannot punish him more,” Bassil points out. “And if you punish Tein…”

“All my officers will think that I'm making him the scapegoat. If I do nothing, then it will appear as though I am weak-willed.” Kestrin smiles coldly. “Better I be considered vicious and spiteful than weak. Continue with the plans for a public execution. Oh…and even if we have to plant the coins, make sure someone finds a hoard of golds somewhere in the overcaptain's possessions.”

“I think we can do that, sire, and it is probably the best that can be done at present.” Bassil bows and waits.

“So…” Kestrin draws out the word. “We have the Sea-Priests trying to weaken me, and to foment discord and rebellion in Neserea…and who knows what else in Liedwahr. The lord holders of Neserea are petitioning that Annayal consort to someone suitable—immediately. They fear that if she does not, the rule of Neserea will go to a scion of Dumar…or worse, that I will move armsmen into Neserea, and that, in time, I will annex
the land.” Kestrin snorts. “As if any of the three sorceresses would allow it.”

“Are they strong enough to stand against Mansuur?” asks Bassil.

“Who knows? That is not the question, and you know it, wise overcaptain Bassil. How many lords of Defalk have died of accidents, strange fluxes, or otherwise in their beds, who went to sleep in the flush of health?”

“You think they have stooped to such? Those most honorable ladies?” Bassil's eyes contain a grim glint.

“Honorable? That is such a noble-sounding word, and it conceals more violence and dishonesty than any other. As for them, I doubt there is little to which they would not stoop to save Defalk—and Liedwahr—from a bloody and prolonged war.” Kestrin smiles. “Just as you—or I—would find it difficult not to do the same were Mansuur so threatened.”

“And what will you do?”

“What I must. As will you.”

Bassil nods slowly.

Outside, the first flakes of snow that foreshadow winter drift by the glass.

The sound of a trumpet echoed through the thin silk panels of the small tent. Secca bolted upright, barely managing to keep from tipping over the narrow cot on which she had been sleeping, fitfully and far from easily.

She blinked, rubbing gummy eyes. Outside it was barely light, a good half-glass or more before dawn, she judged, as she fumbled for tunic and trousers and boots.

“Lady…that was the alarm.” Richina said.

“I know. Get dressed.” Secca finished throwing herself into her riding clothes and green leather jacket. After belting on her sabre, she scrambled from the tent, past the pair of lancer guards.

Wilten was half-running, half-scurrying through the grayish gloom toward her. “The Ebrans…those under Mynntar, that were under Mynntar…they're forming up and preparing for battle…” stammered the overcaptain.

Forming up? How could they, without officers? Secca's hand went to her mouth, recalling the exact words of the spell. She had killed the best of Mynntar's officers, not all of them. While she had wanted to spare as many as possible, the effect was likely to be the opposite.

“How did you find out?”

“Arms Commander Stepan's scouts.”

Richina staggered from the tent into the predawn gray, glancing at Wilten, then at Secca.

“Richina…find Palian and Delvor, and tell them we need to have the players ready to ride and play.”

“Yes, lady.”

“Don't forget your sabre!”

Richina nodded and turned.

“You intend to give battle?” asked Wilten.

“Why not? It will take them a glass or more to reach us, and we can take the hill to the east long before that. The wind will be at our back.”

“Then why do they attack now?” questioned Wilten.

“To catch us by surprise, I'm sure. It isn't even dawn.”

Palian and Delvor walked swiftly toward Secca and Wilten. Trailing them was Richina.

“They are attacking, lady?” asked Palian.

“It looks as such,” Secca admits. “Are your players able to play a strong flame song?”

“Once, perchance twice.”

“That may suffice.” Secca turned to Wilten. “If you would form up our lancers. Leave the camp. Just form up.”

“Yes, lady.”

Secca ignored his dubious tone, turning to retrieve her lutar in case more was needed than the players could provide. Then she hurried to the tieline behind the tent where she began to saddle the gray. When she had finished, and as she was mounting, Richina scurried up with cheese and bread.

“You must eat as you ride, or you will not have the strength you need.”

“Thank you.” Secca looked down. “Get some for yourself and then join me. But eat.”

Richina grinned and held up another loaf. “Yes, lady.”

Secca smiled, then glanced to the south where the players scurried to and fro, almost like ants.

“Just your instruments!” snapped Palian. “Now!” The chief player glanced up. “Lady?”

“Join us at the banner when you are ready.”

Palian nodded, then turned to her players. “Lances and shafts don't wait until you're ready! Mount up now.”

Secca eased the gray forward toward the column where Stepan's lancers seemed to be forming. Behind them, in less ordered array, were the lancers of Loiseau. Secca frowned, but said nothing as she rode along the column toward the standard bearer, another young lancer. This one she knew, although it took her a moment to come up with the lancer's name. “Good morning, Achar.”

“Good morning, lady.” Achar bowed his head.

“Greetings,” offered Stepan. “I see your players are preparing to follow you.”

“And you,” said Secca as she reined in the gray, who promptly side-stepped before halting. “Thank you for the warning.”

Stepan nodded. “I set scouts last night.”

“You thought this would happen, didn't you?”

“I had fears.” Stepan looked through the gray light. “Those armsmen who have no qualms about striking a man down from behind in battle muster great anger when they see their officers and comrades struck down by what they cannot see.”

Secca paused, not sure what to say for a moment, before
replying, “Each side says its cause is just, and that justifies any weapon and tactic, but it is unfair for the other side to use such tactics and weapons?”

“Of course,” Stepan said dryly. He glanced back at the lancers forming up. “You think this is wise?”

“No battle is wise, I'm learning.” Secca shifted her weight in the saddle. “Some are less unwise than others. Whoever is leading their forces is doing it to try to take command of the forces or for revenge. He's also not going to be their best commander.” At least, Secca hoped that had been the result of her spellsong of the previous night. “It's dry, and the wind will be behind us, and we can take the high ground.”

“If they do not attack?”

“Then we wait and see.”

Stepan nodded slowly, then turned and stood in his stirrups. “First company forward!” He reseated himself. “Best there be a van.”

“You have more experience than do we, and I defer to you.”

Stepan laughed. “Most of it is more than a score of years behind me.”

“Better than none,” Secca suggested.

“You will have more than you wish before this is over, I fear.”

“So do I.”

Stepan glanced over his shoulder. “Your players are riding this way.”

“Palian has experience. She was with Anna through all the early wars.”

“She sounded like a most irate officer.”

“Players do have a feeling that they are…not common,” Secca ventured.

“In battle, all are common.” Stepan gestured. “Hold for the players, then follow!” He turned back and eased his mount, a gelding that was neither smooth-coated nor shaggy like a raider beast, forward toward the road.

Secca looked back, but Palian and Delvor led the players behind Secca and her four guards. As the entire column began to move, a single figure cantered along the shoulder of the road.
Richina slowed her mount and eased into the column behind Secca and Stepan.

The combined forces of the players, Secca's lancers, and those of Stepan were formed up in an arc on the rise to the south of the main road in less than half a glass from the trumpet alert. In the center of the arc were Secca, Richina, and the players.

Palian and Delvor had the players running through warm-up melodies, while Secca and Richina worked on vocalises. After finishing a vocalise, Secca paused and cleared her throat, then took a swallow from her water bottle.

Stepan rode across the low crest of the hill and reined up. “They are less than a quarter of a dek to the east, just beyond the curve in the road.”

“Will they attack immediately?”

The older arms commander shrugged. “I would not. What this officer will do, I could not say.”

“I will try to use the spells before your men must use their blades…”

“I understand, lady, but they cannot stand and wait, not against a full charge.”

“How far…?”

“No less than a hundred yards.”

“I will do what I can,” Secca promised. She turned. “Chief players!”

“Yes, lady?”

“Have your players stand ready. The flame song.”

“The flame song,” Palian acknowledged, her voice strong but flat.

Secca watched as the burgundy-clad lancers appeared, then rode forward and wheeled off the road, smartly moving into three masses—one opposite the right side of the rise where waited Secca's forces, one mass for the center, directly downhill from Secca and the players, and one for the left.

“Stand ready!” Secca called.

“Stand ready!” echoed Stepan and Wilten, Stepan on the left, Wilten and Secca's lancers on the right.

“A direct assault—up the hill and against the wind,” murmured Richina. “Stupid…against sorcery.”

Only if such an attack failed, thought Secca. “The flame spell!”

Palian swallowed, then repeated the command. So did Delvor.

“At my mark!” Secca watched, then, as a trumpet call bugled across the orange-lit dawn, the burgundy lancers charged, three masses moving together. Secca dropped her arm and waited for the notes to rise through the cool crisp air, air that would carry her words over the advancing lancers.

“Mark!” echoed Palian.

Compared to the efforts in the rain and of the night before, the flame song seemed almost effortless, the wind at her back, the rising sun to her right.

Even halfway through the words, lightnings began to flare across Secca's vision, line after line of flame and fire. Thin streaks of black greasy smoke stretched northwest, almost in straight angled lines.

As the music of the players and Secca's words died away, the hillside ground rumbled once, then again, and Secca had to shift her weight to keep her balance. A single chime, harmonic but harsh, reverberated through her, a chorded chime that only she and Richina and perhaps a handful of players might have heard.

Not a figure stirred on the browned and blackened grass and damp clay below the rise. The thin lines of black smoke continued to rise from the heaped and blackened figures that lay strewn everywhere Secca's eyes looked. Her stomach twisted upon itself with just the hint of the stench of burned flesh—only a hint because the wind remained at her back, the wind that had carried her words and the accompaniment of both first and second players.

Then…why did she smell anything? She swallowed again.

The dark cloud that had momentarily shrouded the sky above
the battle already had begun to dissipate, torn apart by the brisk dry wind out of the southwest.

Secca turned toward the players. “You may stand down.” Her voice was suddenly hoarse, suddenly rough, but not because of overuse. This…this was not like the first battle, where the deaths had fallen on both sides, and been concealed by rain and thunder-drums and brush and trees. Nor like her stealthy efforts of the night before, where she had seen naught of what she had wrought.

Her eyes went back to the blackened corpses of men and mounts. A few moments ago, all had been alive, and vital. Now…they were dead. Yet, two days previous, they and their Sea-Priest drummers had attempted to do the same to her and her forces.

She shook her head, swallowing back bile.

After a last look at the sudden carnage, Secca walked slowly back toward her mount. Richina, pale and almost green-looking, handed back the reins to the older sorceress wordlessly. Just as silently, Secca took them and slowly mounted the gray.

Both Stepan and Wilten rode from the flanks of the lancers who had never even needed to charge.

“None survived, lady,” Wilten said slowly.

Stepan rode up, nearing and reining up to the left of Secca somewhat later than Wilten. “I must also ask…what spell did you use, Lady Secca?”

“A spell that flamed all disloyal to Lord Hadrenn and Defalk,” Secca admitted.

Stepan took a deep breath. “Your spell flamed a score of my lancers, lady.”

Secca bowed her head. “For that I am sorry, arms commander, but last night, I tried to spare those who were not to blame. This morning, I could not risk sparing any who might prove disloyal.”

“More than sixteen score lancers and officers lie dead on the hillside,” Wilten said. “Surely…some…might have…”

“That would have been Darksong. What would you have me do?” she replied tiredly. “Have the rest of our lancers slaughtered
in the next rain or snowstorm? Or lose more lancers when we must still take Dolov?”

“Dolov?” Stepan's eyebrows rose.

So did Wilten's.

“He has a younger brother, has he not? If we do not finish this business, what is to keep the Sturinnese from doing the same a season or a year from now?” Secca laughed, without mirth. “We can spend a day or two making ready for the trip, but we cannot tarry longer.” She looked at Stepan. “Lord Hadrenn always wanted to be uncontested lord of Ebra. If we take Dolov, that he will be.”

“He did not wish that so much as he wished no other to be lord above him,” Stepan suggested.

“What of Haddev?”

“He will be a stronger lord.”

Secca wasn't certain whether that would be good or bad. Then, there was little about which she was certain, save that any sorcery that would allow her to prevail would create more deaths—or that any Sturinnese foothold in Liedwahr boded great ill and dissonance.