The Shadow Sorceress (15 page)

Hadrenn nodded. “It is true. You have said such. So did the great sorceress when she was regent, and she destroyed Bertmynn.” He shrugged. “I am not one to challenge success, and I am not an armsman. So I will leave the details to you two, saving I wish to know the how and reasons therefore.”

“We will be most certain to offer our plans.” Stepan's eyes twinkled for a moment.

“Do try the squab, dear,” suggested Belvera to Secca. “After all that sorcery and riding, you must be famished.”

“A bit,” acknowledged Secca, taking Belvera's suggestion and
slicing off a chunk of the bird. The pearlike glaze helped cover the slight dryness of the meat. Secca hadn't realized exactly how hungry she was until she found herself looking at a small pile of bones.

Belvera gestured, and before Secca could demur, a second squab and glaze appeared on her platter.

“Hungry these sorceress are.” Hadrenn nodded, and then bent toward his consort to murmur, “You were right about the honeycakes…”

Stepan leaned toward Secca. “Could you tell me how fare Markan and Fridric?”

“Markan remains as the arms master of Suhl, where he is greatly respected.” Secca nodded toward Richina. “Richina is the daughter of the lady of Suhl, but is better suited to sorcery. Her elder brother is the heir. She could tell you more, since she has seen Markan far more except in the last few years.”

“Fridric?”

“He was killed when his mount put a foot in a marmot hole, perhaps eight years ago. Many mourned his death. He was a good man.”

“I had not heard.” Stepan fingered his chin. “You have no consort, it is said. Is it true that sorceresses in Defalk may not consort?”

“There is no reason I could not. Were I to bear children, for a time, at least, I would not be so effective as a sorceress.”

“But…the Lady Anna.”

“She had children in the Mist Worlds, and she raised me, as well.”

Stepan nodded. “I had wondered.”

“What do you know about Mynntar?” Secca asked, cutting off another chunk of squab.

“Little save through the words and tales of others…”

Secca raised her eyebrows, but continued to dismember the second squab, listening.

“…said to be most generous to those he favors…accepts the Free City most grudgingly…has spent much of the golds from his lands in hiring and training armsmen…Like his sire, vengeful…but unlike him in that Bertmynn was calculating,
while Mynntar has been known to fly into black rages…will not ask any man to do what he will not do, and all his officers and lancers and armsmen know such…said that he and his brother be close…”

As Stepan talked, once again, Secca realized how little she knew. Still, Mynntar had not faced battle sorcery, and she could but hope that her spells and players would be enough.

Secca glanced at the road ahead, a road half-filled with puddles of icy water, then at the dark gray clouds that had rolled in out of the north in midmorning. For the last glass or so, the rain had come and gone in gusts, drizzle followed by sheets of water, but the darkness ahead and the steady downpour looked like it was not about to let up. Again, she wiped the water off her forehead and blotted it out of her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

“With this much rain, the players will be useless, even the lutars,” said Richina.

“Unhappily.” Secca urged the gray forward toward the two officers riding directly in front of her.

Wilten and Stepan eased their mounts apart.

“Traveling in this is foolhardy, and we certainly cannot do battle in this weather.” Secca looked at Stepan. “Is there someplace nearby that would afford us shelter, yet where we would not be surprised?”

Stepan shook his head. “There are just hills and fields and hedgerows. Not until Rysl, and that is another fifteen deks.”

Out of the rain came one of the scouts, his mount's hoofs spraying water and mud.

Secca didn't like the man's haste. In the rain, it augured for nothing good.

“Sers…Lady Secca…the lancers of Dolov are riding toward us. Mynntar's vanguard is less than five deks to the east—on this road.”

“They're in the rain?” asked Secca. “And riding toward us?”

“Yes, lady. Twenty companies, mayhap more.”

More than twenty companies against sixteen and some levies, and with no sorcery possible—or little, since she couldn't fit all the players into the single small tent. Even Elfens' archers would be useless for more than a shaft or two.

“We'll have to retreat,” Secca said, almost shouting to make herself heard over the wind and rain. “We can't do sorcery in this weather.”

Stepan nodded. “The rain cannot last forever, but men lost in a poorly chosen battle do not fight again.”

“I will tell our captains,” Wilten forced his voice over the rain and the wind.

Secca glanced ahead, but could barely make out the road. Why was Mynntar riding through the muck and the rain? To try to surprise Hadrenn? Or because he knew that Secca's sorcery would be greatly limited by such weather? If so, how had he known she was on the road, unless he had seers or sorcerers himself?

As she turned her mount, Secca tightened her lips.

The rain had continued throughout the night, and remained cold and steady the next morning as Secca's force was gathering itself together on the south side of a hillside meadow below a woodlot where they had been able to find some shelter for men and mounts—little enough, but the best they had been able to do, given the rain and the exhaustion of men and mounts the day before.

Stepan, Wilten, Palian, and Delvor had joined Secca and Richina in the small tent—leaving almost no room for any of the six to move. Outside, the rain continued to fall through the grayness that had never broken.

“According to the scouts,” Stepan said slowly, “Lord Mynntar broke camp early and is riding west once more on the main road. They are doubtless less than five deks from us, perhaps closer to three.”

“They seem to be doing better in the rain. Do we know why?” asked Secca.

Both the Ebran and Defalkan officers shook their heads.

“His men are wearing oiled leathers,” Stepan mused, “not winter jackets. Perhaps he had hoped for rain. Or the Sturinnese drive the rain with their drums.”

Not liking the implications of that idea at all, Secca looked through the narrow opening in the tent flap at the still-falling chill rain, then at the road. After a moment, she asked, “Stepan…what would happen if we tried to leave the road?”

Even through he tried not to react, the wince of the older arms commander was obvious.

“Would that be true of Mynntar as well?”

“Yes…”

“Isn't there a dip in the road, and a small bridge another one or two deks back toward Synek?”

Wilten and Stepan exchanged glances.

“Well…if there were no road, and that were turned into a swamp?” asked the redheaded sorceress.

That got a slow nod from Wilten.

“We could not move eastward after the rain lifts,” pointed out Stepan.

“I've used sorcery to build many roads and bridges.” Secca laughed mirthlessly. “When we rebuild it, it will be better than before.”
If you get the chance
.

“You are the sorceress.” Stepan's tone was measured.

“We need to break camp and ride west, beyond the bridge. Then, we'll gather the best players under this tent…” Secca glanced at Palian. “We will have a single spell to do, and it must be done quickly. The short building spell.”

“If we are out of the rain, we can do it,” Palian affirmed.

“Delvor, you need to go back with the lead lancers. We'll need the second players later, and I don't want anyone hurt or getting left.”

“Yes, lady.” Delvor pushed back the overlong lock of damp and limp brown hair, using the same gesture as he had ever since Secca had known him.

As she mounted the gray mare, Secca was still trying to work out the last of the words for the spell. “…move the rocks and ground…turn to mud all around…” she murmured as she rode through the downpour.

The bridge Secca remembered seemed much farther than the one or two deks to the west she had recalled, but that might well have been because she was unused to riding wet and sloppy roads. Most of the major roads in Defalk were now stone-paved, even if it had taken Anna and the three sorceresses she had trained more than a score of years. The first road completed had been the route between Mencha and Falcor.

Riding through the mud and muck, Secca was getting a new appreciation of why Anna had insisted so much on paving roads in Defalk.

Already, the small creek that ran beneath the small timber bridge was almost to the base of the roadbed as Secca and the last of the column crossed and began to climb the gentle slope, a slope that had gotten slippery with churned mud. Secca concentrated on riding until she was almost to the top of the rise, when she guided the mare to the north side of the road.

“Up there…on the grass just above!” Secca motioned to the two lancers who were leading the pack horses with the tent.

“Keep moving!” called Wilten. “All but the purple company. The rest of you, keep heading back to Synek!”

On the slope just above where she wanted the tent, Secca turned the mare, squinting into the rain, then pointed. “Just the canopy and side walls. Leave the front open,” she told the two lancers struggling with the wet silk and canvas of the tent.

Because most of the force had been behind Secca when she had decided on the retreat, only the purple company and the players were left—and Wilten—waiting for the tent to go up.

Secca kept glancing eastward, but she could see nothing beyond about half a dek, and certainly she heard nothing.

Despite the thick green felt hat she wore, Secca felt soaked all the way through, but she watched…and hoped, and began to warm up, hoping the vocalises would work amid all the rain and chill. Anna hadn't mentioned doing sorcery in the rain, Secca reflected.

“Lady Secca! The tent is up!” called Wilten.

“Players, into the tent and quick tune!” ordered Palian.

Secca dismounted and handed the gray's reins to Richina. “Just listen and watch.”

“Yes, lady.” The apprentice wiped more water off her face.

Secca finished another vocalise before Palian tapped her on the shoulder.

“We are ready with the short building spell, lady.”

“So am I.” Secca moved slightly to the side, so that she could see, peripherally, the players.

“On my mark…Mark!”

Secca waited through the unused first bar, then launched the spell.

“
Move, move the rocks and ground…
.”

 

The wind began to pick up with each bar of the spell. Before Secca finished the last words, a bolt of lightning flashed through the falling water, followed by a hiss of steam. Deep slurping sounds came fast after the lightning, and the damp ground rolled under Secca's feet. One of the younger violino players—Bretnay—staggered and went to her knees, but kept her violino up and out of the rain, which now thundered down in sheets. White fog rose from where the small bridge had stood.

“Pack up and remount!” Secca ordered Palian.

Before Secca could reach the gray mare, the sheets of water and gusts of wind buffeted the tent, threatening to rip it out of the unsteady ground. Secca struggled back to help the lancers.

Wilten rode along the shoulder of the road, even closer to where Secca and the two lancers struggled to reroll the soggy tent sections. As the overcaptain reined up beside them, he called out, except he was yelling at the top of his voice to make himself heard over the wind and rain, “Lady Secca…you and your players need make haste, for the road is washing out even in the lower spots to the west of us.”

“Palian! Take the players and ride!” Secca snapped, still holding the end of the wet rolled cylinder as the taller lancer struggled with the damp hempen rope.

“We have it, lady,” the lancer said.

“Thank you.” Secca slogged through several yards of mud to where the gray mare waited, and pulled herself into the saddle, banging the sabre on her leg as she did, but ignoring the dayflashes before her eyes.

After she had turned the mare, she glanced back in the direction of the swampy lake that had begun to cover what had been a bridge and road, but she could not even see that quarter of a dek through the heavy downpour. Until the rain ended, neither force was going to charge into battle. At least, that was what she hoped.

She urged the mare closer to Wilten. “We might as well go all the way back to Hadrenn's hold. At least there, everyone can dry out.”

“Yes, lady,” Wilten replied.

What had she gotten herself into? Was this what war was all about? Riding back and forth, trying to find a place to fight where she might have some slight advantage? Where the land and weather could be enemies as well?

Secca kept the frown to herself.

Outside the windows of the first-floor study in Hadrenn's palace, fat and moist flakes of snow drifted out of a gray sky, flakes that melted the moment they struck the soaked and far warmer ground.

Inside, as Hadrenn, Stepan, and Wilten watched the scrying glass laid on the table, Secca fingered the chords on the lutar for the third spell of the morning.

The mirror on the broad table silvered, then showed four lancers riding along a lane beside bare-limbed trees.

Secca glanced at Stepan.

“They are scouting the lane they may use once the rain and snow stop,” Stepan observed.

“That won't be long,” suggested Hadrenn. “The sky is lightening with every glass.”

“The roads are still mud-clogged, and they must find a way around Lady Secca's swamp.”

“So must everyone,” retorted Hadrenn.

Secca ignored the bitterness in the Lord High Counselor's words. “Do we know where this lane he scouts may be?”

“Can…might you see if he scouts through peach orchards?” asked Stepan apologetically.

Secca released the image, and thought, finally coming up with a modified spell.

The image was almost identical to the first.

Stepan smiled. “I can show you where they are on my maps.”

Secca released the spell. Richina moved the glass, and both sorceresses waited while the silvering arms commander unrolled a cylindrical map and laid it out over the table.

“You see. Your glass showed his camp there, and his scouts here. He is looking for a way to avoid the swamp…”

Secca was far more worried about why Mynntar had pushed so far westward than about replacing the road through the swamp lake she had created. What was happening elsewhere that Mynntar felt confident enough to ride out of Dolov and into Synek?

“…and he will try to move his lancers swiftly back to the road.” Stepan looked up.

“There's one other matter we should look at,” Secca said quietly. She took the mirror—warm to the touch—and set it gently on the map, then picked up the lutar and offered another spellsong.

The mirror flickered, then settled on a harbor, empty except for a single trading vessel.

Secca frowned, partly because her head was beginning to throb and partly because she'd never seen the city or the harbor. From what she could tell, it faced south—but most did. Still, it
wasn't Narial or Encora. She'd scried them enough before. “Do you think that might be Elahwa?”

Stepan pursed his lips. “It is not Encora, nor Sylwa.”

Secca released the image.

“Why matters this?” asked Hadrenn.

Secca was beginning to understand why Anna had been less than praiseful of the Lord High Counselor. “He has at least five companies of Sturinnese lancers. He is riding fairly far from Dolov, and he has decided to ride against me—and you—in the rain. I'd like to know why.”

“And a harbor shows that?”

“If the Sturinnese are about to attack Elahwa, the FreeWomen aren't about to come to your aid, even to hold off Mynntar,” Secca pointed out.

“They have little love of me,” Hadrenn said.

“They have far less love of Sturinn or Mynntar. They would at least defend their borders against Mynntar and perhaps raid his lands to help you.”

Hadrenn nodded slowly, as if not totally convinced of Secca's logic. Then, he glanced at the red-haired sorceress. “All you have used your sorcery for is to destroy a road?”

“Yes,” Secca admitted. “If I had not, they would have overrun us, and whether we had won or not, we would have lost too many lancers.”

“But had you won…”

“It would have been a victory worse than many defeats,” Stepan interjected. “Mynntar has fifteen companies of his own and five companies or more of Sturinnese lancers. If we cannot use sorcery to destroy Mynntar's forces and preserve most of our own, then who will stop the Sea-Priests?”

“Best it be that way, then.” After a last nod, Hadrenn turned.

Secca watched as the Lord High Counselor walked from the study.

Wilten glared at the departing Lord High Counselor, then at Stepan.

“He is most worried,” said Stepan.

“I'm sure he is,” Secca said. “But he'd be in much worse shape if we weren't here.”

“I fear, Lady Secca,” Stepan pointed out gently, “that such is of little consolation to rulers…as you may well know.”

Secca could not help but smile at the gentle and ironic reminder. “We will have to ensure he has less to worry about.” She looked at Richina. “You'll have your part to do.”

“Yes, Lady Secca?” A puzzled look crossed the younger woman's face.

Secca smiled. “Who do you think is going to rebuild the road and bridge?”

“But…”

“You know the spells; you've watched me do it. It's a simple bridge. And…you need to do it because the lancers will need me fresh to deal with Mynntar's forces.”

Stepan nodded.

“You will need to spend a little time with the players to make sure they don't play anything too high. Your voice is lower than mine.”

“Lady…” Richina's voice was tentative.

“Bring your lutar and come up to my room. We'll go over it there.” Secca inclined her head to Wilten and to Stepan. “If you will excuse us…best we be ready on the morrow of the day after.”

Both officers nodded.

Secca reclaimed her own lutar before leaving the lower level study. A glance out the window showed that the light snow had stopped.

Once upstairs, Secca sat on the footchest beneath the canopied bed and looked at Richina. “You'll need a sketch…so that you know exactly what you want to visualize. This is a simple bridge—one arch, and make it small—and the road above can just be packed gravel and dirt and rock. Don't worry about the swamp. If you do the spell and concentrate on a solid rock base for the arch, the road and bridge will hold.”

“Why did you decide I could do this now?” asked Richina.

“When I realized that Anna had done me no favors by not taking me into battles.” Secca shook her head. “That's not fair. There were no battles by the time I was your age and that far along in my training.” She cleared her throat. Despite its opulence, and
the dampness outside, the room was dusty. “We need the road replaced. That way, we can strike Mynntar with some advantage because he will not expect us there. I will need everything I have for dealing with Mynntar's forces. That is because, just like you, I am not experienced in full battles.” Secca looked directly at Richina. “Do you understand?”

Richina nodded gravely.

“I am asking much of you, earlier than I would like, but if I ask too much of myself…”

“Then all could be lost,” Richina said.

“All would not be lost for Defalk. There are other sorceresses, but I would rather not prove that Lord Robero could survive without us.” Secca offered a wry smile. “Now…go write the spell you wish—but use a building spell, and then let me see it. Then you will seek out Palian. After you practice…just the notes, not the words, you should start your sketch.”

Richina nodded and stood. “By your leave, lady?”

“By my leave.”

Once Richina closed the door, Secca walked to the window closest to the bed and looked out across the wet grounds. She stood there, thinking, hoping, planning…and worrying.