The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (75 page)

“Does the enchantment hold on the small shield?” Jecks asked.

“It’s still there.” Anna could sense the slight drain on her strength, but that was a small cost. Jecks’ idea had already saved her life once. She wondered if the shield, and the additional spells she’d developed, at his insistence, would be enough.
Nothing’s ever enough
.

“Thank you, chief player . . . all of you,” Anna said, with a nod of acknowledgement before turning and walking back to where Rickel held Farinelli’s reins. She remounted the big gelding quickly.

“We stop for provisions here?” asked Hanfor.

“It’s small, but there might be something,” Anna
agreed, reaching for her water bottle to moisten her throat before she had to sing again.

Rain, humidity, heat, dust, rain, humidity, with seeking spells every few glasses, and never a sight of the fleeing Ehara—the pattern seemed unending, yet she’d only been doing it for a few weeks. At the same time, she couldn’t help worrying about what might be occurring in Defalk—even though she could do nothing at all about it.

No . . . she wasn’t cut out to be a horse-warrior and a conqueror. Definitely not.

She took a long swallow from the water bottle as the Defalkan forces resumed their advance on small Jusuul.

B
y midmorning of the fourth day on the road out of Dumaria, Anna was sweating profusely, her shirt glued to her back, the band of her floppy felt hat sodden with perspiration, and driblets of sweat running down the back of her neck.

The afternoon and evening rains had done little more than damp the road dust and raise the humidity, so that the sorceress felt she were riding through a steambath. Farinelli swished his tail almost constantly, trying to hold off the continual swarms of small white flies that buzzed around all the horses—and stung.

Because of the profusion of towns, and the delays involved in using spells to seek out any recalcitrant armsmen—and they’d discovered but a handful, Envaryl remained at least another two days away. What bothered Anna even more than the effort involved was the realization that she was reaching but a fraction of the people, just enough to ensure the safety of her forces, and that
only so long as Ehara remained on the run. And, of course, it delayed her return to Defalk and multiplied the problems arising there that she’d have to resolve. Still, she was instilling the idea in the Dumarans that it was hard to hide from the sorceress.
Great. . . . More fear. . . . Machiavelli would have loved it
.

She shook her head and glanced to her left. The Envar River had shrunk to little more than a stream not more than ten yards wide and only a few yards deep. Beyond the river to the south stretched deks of fields filled with knee-high plants, beans, wheat, or corn, as it was called in Liedwahr, and oilseeds of some sort.

Anna’s stomach tightened, and she found herself gripping the leather of the reins so hard that her hands had begun to ache. Finally, she spoke. “I need to use the glass.”

Riding on her right, Jecks nodded.

“Hanfor,” Anna continued, “I need to stop and see what Ehara’s doing.”

As Alvar and Hanfor brought the force to an orderly and now well-rehearsed stop, Liende rode up beside the sorceress. “Have you need of us, Lady?”

“No . . . actually, yes, thank you.” Anna forced a smile she definitely didn’t feel. “I’m just looking, but it would help—if it won’t tire you too much. I’ll need you all when we catch up with Lord Ehara.”

“We could do a spell now and still stand ready.”

“Thank you.” Anna dismounted, unwrapped the traveling scrying glass and took a deep breath as she waited for the players to tune, afraid of what the glass might show. Jecks and Hanfor had also dismounted and stood only slightly back of her as she prepared to sing the spell. Anna’s guards held the reins of the three mounts.

She glanced at the mirror where it lay on the lush grass that seemed to grow everywhere in western Dumar, then cleared her throat. When the players began, so did she.

“Mirror, mirror on the ground,

show me where Ehara’s forces may be found . . .”

The image in the glass was clear. The Dumaran forces neared a small town.

“That must be Hasjyl . . . if the maps are correct,” murmured Hanfor.

Anna squinted as she tried to recall the maps she had pored over. Hasjyl—less than a day’s ride from Envaryl, the last sizable town in the west of Dumar before the southern rim of the Westfels, or was it the western end of the Mittfels? The two ranges intersected north of Envaryl, and geography, Anna was discovering, was even less precise in Liedwahr than it had been in Iowa where to her, one cornfield, one low hill, had pretty much resembled another.

She released the image quickly. Jecks handed her a water bottle—her own orderspelled water—even that spell took effort. But everything in a military campaign cost, she’d discovered.

“He will try to fortify Envaryl—or plot some trap there,” predicted the white-haired lord. “Or before we reach there.”

Anna nodded, wondering why she bridled so much every time Jecks offered some totally obvious observation. She handed back the bottle and wearily lifted the lutar once more.

“Show from Dumar, danger to fear,

all the threats to me bright and clear . . .”

The mirror flickered through a series of images, but Anna could not discern a one because one image replaced another so quickly. She canceled that spell even more quickly.

“The same danger ahead . . . but I can’t tell what it is.” Anna pursed her lips.

“Can you call an image of the Sea-Priest?”

This time she used a variant of the mirror spell.

“Show from the Sea-Priest, danger to fear . . .”

The image of the Sea-Priest was clear enough, but it showed little beside the man’s face—and the burns across it, one almost festering, and the hatred in the dark eyes. Those—and the background of fields—or perhaps long grass.

“That one—he will kill you any way that he might,” said Jecks.

Anna could see that, but it didn’t help when she couldn’t formulate spells precisely enough to determine where the sorcerer was or what he had in mind.

She tried a last spell, the danger spell, using the town name of Hasjyl in place of Dumar. The mirror remained clear. The sorceress lowered the lutar and glanced along the flat road toward the roofs of the town ahead. “There’s no problem there, anyway.”

“I am not greatly cheered, my lady Anna,” Jecks said wryly.

Neither was Anna. Every time she had used the general danger spell, she’d gotten the flickering response, but it had shown no danger in any of the river towns through which they had passed. There was danger, but she couldn’t find it. Or didn’t know how. Or the Sea-Priest had a way of hiding it from her. Or . . .

Tiredly, she replaced the lutar in its case, while Jecks rewrapped the mirror.

“We continue, Lady Anna?” asked Hanfor.

“Until we find Ehara,” she answered. “Until we can end this mess.” She climbed into the saddle, then wiped away more sweat. She flicked the reins gently, and Farinelli started forward.

Once the column was moving, she reached for the water bottle. Another swallow of lukewarm water helped, but she still sweated in the midafternoon sun. To the west, the afternoon clouds were building for the storm that would ensure the next day would be another steambath.

A
nna rubbed her eyes. Although it was well after dawn, and she had munched through bread and cheese, the standard travel breakfast, she still felt groggy. Not enough sleep? Worrying too much? Coffee would have helped, but coffee, or anything drinkable with the same effect, wasn’t one of the plants known in Liedwahr. Brill had brewed a bitter evergreen tea, so bitter that one or two sips on those first hot days in Loiseau had convinced Anna that she was better off without it. Her stomach was dubious enough about the morning without the kind of jolt provided by Brill’s bitter yellow tea. Cider, hot or cold, wasn’t much better first thing in the morning.

She licked a stray bread crumb from her lips, tired of stale bread and cheese, and looked down at the mirror on its leather wrappings. Then she began her morning spellscrying.

Despite three different spells, the mirror showed nothing new. Ehara had almost reached Envaryl, from what she could tell, and the Sea-Priest was next to the Envar—somewhere—but the images of scenes that posed possible danger continued to shift so rapidly that she could tell nothing.

After rewrapping the traveling mirror and recasing the lutar, she slipped the heavy blanket onto Farinelli, and then the saddle.

Whuff . . .

“I know. It’s early. Tell me.”

Farinelli declined the opportunity, and Anna cinched the girths, then patted the gelding’s shoulder.

“Another long day.” She looked westward, along the river road, though the Envar was now more like a stream.

Clearsong hung just above the western horizon—the smallest dot of light as the pink haze of sunrise flooded into orange before the sky turned pale blue.

Anna looked at the disc of the small moon, searching for the smaller, redder point of light that would be Dark-song and not finding it. She’d never really even followed earth’s moon. How did she expect to follow the motions of the two moons of Erde?

As Hanfor rode up, signaling that the armsmen were ready, so did Liende. Jecks led his mount toward her and Farinelli.

“Players are mounted and ready, Lady Anna,” said the chief player.

“Thank you.” Anna mounted easily, but slowly, as did Jecks.

Fhurgen and Rickel slipped their mounts in front of the sorceress. Jecks rode on her right. To the left, the Envar glittered silver in the postdawn light.

Anna rode silently for nearly a glass, trying not to yawn overmuch, as the column continued on the damp clay of the road. The humidity already had her sweating, but the rains had kept the dust down—one advantage. She didn’t itch from the red grit of eastern Dumar and the Sudbergs. The disadvantage was that by midmorning she’d itch from the salt of her own sweat.

“We should reach Hasjyl by noon,” Jecks said, breaking the long silence. “Perhaps we should rest there.”

“Before getting too close to Envaryl?” Anna yawned. Lord, she was tired. The way she felt, she’d need some sort of rest.

“I would not wish that we face Lord Ehara and his Sea-Priest sorcerer with a tired sorceress and players,” answered Jecks. “A day or two more spent in Dumar will not changes matters overly. You will have done the impossible.”

“Impossible?” Anna had to laugh at the thought. She
was no horse-warrior, no Genghis Khan or Napoleon—just a very tired woman trying to keep a country of religious chauvinists from getting a foothold in Liedwahr. The Sea-Priests reminded her of Islamic fundamentalists, in a roundabout way, and she’d never been that fond of Islamic men after the year studying in London. “I doubt that anything I’ve done is impossible.”

“We left Stromwer in late spring. It is not yet late summer, and Dumar lies in your grasp. None would have deemed that possible, not even for the Liedfuhr of Mansuur or the Traders of Wei.”

“It may not be possible for us. We haven’t done it yet.”

“And how would anyone undo it?” Jecks laughed. “If you vanished this moment, Ehara would find it impossible to avoid allying himself with Defalk.”

“That might be, but the Sturinnese would be back.”
With their damned chains . . . .
Anna couldn’t help it. She still saw red when she thought of women in chains—even the so-called chains of adornment.

Her eyes flicked ahead and to the left, down toward the river. Less than a hundred yards away, a section of the knee-high grass bordering the river seemed to shimmer. Anna rubbed her eyes, then blinked. The whole area seemed out of focus. Dissonance! Was she that tired?

Her stomach tightened and she twisted in the saddle, fumbling for the lutar, even as she yelled, “The Sea-Priest! By the river!”

A low screaming, thrumming sound shivered the ground, like drums being beaten so fast that the individual impacts and their resonance blended into a seamless percussive texture, a strange form of homophony.
But you can’t do that with drums . . . Brill said. . . .
Yet Brill had died. Drum homophony? What else would she find out too late?

Anna yanked the lutar from the case, her fingers curling over the strings as her other hand positioned itself on the instrument’s neck.

Streaks of gray light flashed from the flickering silver and green, angling straight toward Anna.

The sorceress found her mouth open, trying to find a spell, as the small round shield flew from its holder up toward the first screaming streak of gray. Javelin and shield crashed into the clay of the road.

Anna jerked her head left toward the second streak, just in time to see Jecks half throw himself into the vibrating line of fire—or steel. Lord and javelin smashed toward the road with a dull thudding sound.

The third streak ended in another thud and rattling as Fhurgen seemed to wrestle the third javelin away from Anna, buried as it was through his ribs and breastplate.

Anna coughed, looking down as the heavy iron-headed weapon buried in her defensive shield inched across the clay, still creeping toward her.

From out of the tall grass sprang a tall figure in soiled white, climbing onto a mount once concealed by some manner of sorcery. The horse scrambled up the riverbank and onto the road, headed westward.

Alvar raised a blade, and spurred his mount into a charge, followed by a full squad of Defalkan armsmen.

Trying to ignore the fleeing sorcerer, Anna forced herself to concentrate . . . to concentrate on the spell she had worked out because Jecks had insisted. Her fingers touched the strings of the lutar.

“Weapons of sorcery, weapons of night, hidden by spells and away from Clearsong . . . your powers rebound to your speller so strong with double the power and double the might . . . Burn into dust and sear unto ashes and light . . .”

The interlocked half-couplet scheme was supposed to make it stronger . . . would it? Anna wondered as she sang, but forced her voice into the spell, forced herself to finish it, slamming home the last note with all the power she had.