The Shadow Sorceress (17 page)

Abruptly, or so it seemed, the thunder died away…and so did the wind…only to resume with gusts from the south, from behind Secca.

“The flame song! Strong as you can make it!” demanded Secca.

“The flame song!”

As the players began the fourth spell, another set of arrows whispered by Secca. She heard a dull thud, but concentrated on the spellsong, knowing that she must finish the spell strongly, above all else.

This time, lightnings flashed all across the lower land below the ridge, so many that, momentarily, Secca could not see.

Her legs were shivering, and dayflashes sparked all through her vision. She slowly sank to her knees, hoping she had done enough. She could see at least two players were down, but whether they were wounded or prostrated from their efforts she could not tell.

Someone was urging water on her, and she drank slowly. The figure in green was an Ebran from Synek, but it didn't matter as she took another swallow and then a mouthful of dry biscuit. After a time, she slowly stood, and surveyed the ridge area.

Numbly, she looked down, to see Albar, the young standard bearer, his eyes open, unmoving, a heavy war arrow through his chest. One of the Ebran guards was easing a shaft from the arm of a comrade.

Elfens was kneeling beside a fallen archer, and Secca tottered several steps, her sabre striking her leg, so unsteady was her gait. The chief archer looked up. “His leg. Won't be dancing soon, but with the alcohol elixir, he'll recover.”

“Thank you,” said Secca quietly. “For the reminder about the arrows.”

A brief smile flitted across the long face. “Be a poor archer who didn't know when he was needed, lady.”

“But a wise one to know when to speak.” Her smile was as fleeting as his.

Secca turned. Below, beyond the brush, the only moving figures were those in green.

“Lady?”

Secca glanced up as Wilten reined his mount to a halt.

“They are riding away, like the wind.”

“After all that…?”

“When the drums fell silent, all those in the rear of Mynntar's force turned and fled, as if hot irons had been applied to their mounts, especially those in white.”

“The Sturinnese.” Secca nodded.

“Your fires…they slaughtered more than five companies of the enemy,” Wilten said slowly. “And the thunder-drums are no more.”

“Have them burned—the drums—or what remains of them.” Secca paused. “How many did we lose?”

“More than a company's worth, Lady Secca.”

Secca winced. She wasn't supposed to lose one part in four of her own force in the first battle.

“Arms Commander Stepan…he turned them back…or
they would have overrun the ridge from the east before you could use your spells. Two companies came and circled behind us.” Wilten shook his head. “Fought like demons, they did, but we pushed them back.”

“Wilten…I appreciate deeply all you have done. Had you not held our rear, all would have been lost.” Secca hoped this would help against her earlier outburst. “I fear I still have much to learn, and I appreciate also your patience.”

“I could not have stood before all those shafts with naught but a song, lady. We each must do as we can.” Wilten nodded, both accepting and dismissing her words. “Still…without Commander Stepan…”

“It took all of us.” Secca paused as the older arms commander rode tiredly onto the ridge and toward Secca and Wilten.

Stepan slowed his mount and then halted before the sorceress. His trousers were smeared with mud, blood, and other stains. He wore a grim smile. “They have turned back, and they ride eastward, taking a lane back toward the main road. We should move to hold the road at the causeway.”

“So they don't get behind us and have an open course to Synek?” Secca began to trudge toward her mount.

“Aye. They have half again as many lancers as do we, and with half they could hold the causeway.”

“I understand.” Secca forced herself to climb into the saddle. “Players! Prepare to ride!”

“Prepare to ride!” echoed Palian, and then Delvor.

Secca watched for a moment, as several players had to be helped into their saddles. Elfens simply lifted his injured archer into the saddle of his mount. Then she eased her mount back along the trampled track her force had rutted into the damp ground, riding silently beside an equally silent Stepan.

Her first battle, and another like it would be her last.

How had Anna done it? It had sounded so easy. She had sung spells, and the enemy armsmen had died. Secca had known it wouldn't be that easy…but the sheer confusion and speed of what had occurred still had left her numb.

It was yet before midday, and close to fifteen score lancers
from both forces were dead. Richina was exhausted. Secca was exhausted, and few of the players would be able to play in even rough tune or rhythm before the morrow.

Then…she had no commanders who had ever fought a pitched battle. She had never been in one. Only Stepan had that experience, and without his calm, and that of Elfens, she doubted that they would have managed the victory they had, such as it was.

The silken walls of the tent billowed in a brisk morning breeze as Secca handed a soft apple, a wedge of cheese, and a chunk of stale bread to Richina, who sat, pale and shivering, on the small cot in the tent she shared with Secca. Secca took another apple and began to eat, alternating between fruit and bread, with an occasional bite of the cheese she disliked but knew she needed to keep up her strength.

The younger sorceress ate the bread and some of the cheese, slowly, followed by several swallows of water, before speaking. “I feel so weak. All I did was one little spell,” Richina murmured. “Just one little spell, and…”

“It wasn't such a little spell. You built a solid bridge and a causeway, and created and paved almost a half dek of roadway. Do you see why I wanted you to keep the visualization simple?” Secca asked.

“Yes, lady.” Richina massaged her forehead. “It still throbs so much. Does your head ache?”

“A little.” Secca lied. Her head was splitting, and everywhere she looked, she saw dayflashes, or, at times, nothing at all, or scenes with huge holes in them.

“You ought to eat more.”

Rather than admit she needed more sustenance, Secca broke off a chunk of bread and chewed it, ignoring the dryness and the lack of taste. By the time she had gone through several more chunks and a wedge of cheese, she could feel the worst of the headache subsiding, and the dayflashes were gone.

“You still need to eat more, lady,” said Richina.

“I was worrying about Mynntar, and it's hard to think about eating when I'm worrying.”

“You will have more to worry about if you cannot call upon your sorcery,” Richina pointed out with the practicality that recalled the younger sorceress's mother to Secca.

Secca smiled briefly. “There is that.” She extended another wedge of the dry white cheese to Richina. From outside the tent came low murmurs, and Secca repressed a sigh.

“It was a good bridge and causeway, wasn't it?” asked the sandy-haired young woman.

“It
is
very good, perhaps too good for Lord Hadrenn, and once he sees it, he will complain that he has none such.”

“Was that why—”

“No. You saw what it did to you. You still do not know how much energy a spell can take from you.”

Richina nodded slowly. “It felt good…until afterward.”

“As do many things unwise in life.” Secca stood. “Finish the bread and cheese. I hear a few voices.” She stepped from the small tent.

In the morning light, Palian, Delvor, Stepan, and Wilten were all standing outside the tent when Secca emerged.

“Mynntar remains bivouacked ten deks east of here,” Wilten said immediately, inclining his head to Stepan.

Secca felt guilty that she hadn't used the glass to find that out, but the way her head had felt the night before she wasn't sure she could have called up her own reflection in a mirror, much less discovered what the rebellious Ebran lord was doing. “He's probably waiting for another rainstorm.”

“The wind has shifted, and there are clouds forming in the northeast,” Wilten pointed out.

“How many lancers has he?” Secca asked warily.

“The scouts think seventeen companies—thirty-four score,” offered Stepan.

Nearly half again what Secca and Stepan had between them, and that was after losing perhaps four or five companies to Secca's flame spell.

“Still?” blurted Secca. “I had not realized so many had escaped.”

“He had far more lancers than the scouts saw,” Stepan replied calmly.

With seventeen companies, and if another rainstorm like the last arrived…Secca shook her head, then asked, “How are the players?”

Palian and Delvor exchanged glances.

“They could play one or two spells—if everything went perfectly?” the small sorceress pursued.

“Bretnay and Elset cannot play,” Palian said. “Tomorrow, perchance.”

“Woryl is unlikely to offer much,” Delvor added. “Nor Hyell.”

Secca nodded slowly. “I suppose the lancers are tired.”

“They will fight as they must,” Stepan said.

“Your lancers will support you with all they possess,” added Wilten.

Secca bestowed a crooked smile on the overcaptain and the commander. “What you say is that they will fight, but they cannot do their best, and we are outnumbered.”

“There is that,” admitted Wilten.

“I need to get close to Mynntar's camp,” Secca finally said. “There may be something that I can do.”

“He has scouts and pickets everywhere,” Wilten pointed out.

“Not that close—just within a half-dek, or even a dek.” Secca glanced to Stepan. “Your scouts know this land best. Can they get me within a half-dek of Mynntar's camp, perhaps on a hill or across a gully—sometime just before sunset? Being close is more important than being able to see.”

“You plan some sorcery?” Stepan frowned.

“Some small sorcery, with the lutar, not the players,” admitted Secca. “Perhaps it will give us some small advantage.”

“It
may
be possible. Best I talk to the older scouts. If you would excuse me, Lady Secca?” The Ebran arms commander stepped back, bowed, and turned.

“Would practice hurt or help the players?” asked Secca.

“Help, if we support no spells,” replied Palian.

“Unless we are attacked, I plan no spells for the players.”

Both Delvor and Palian nodded.

“It has been long since Defalk has sent armsmen to fight battles such as this,” Secca said. “Or players. But I do not think that this will be the last battle, nor will the next. Nor the one after that.”

“Nor I,” observed Palian. “We stand ready to do what we must.”

Secca only hoped she was as ready as Palian and her players.

The late afternoon sun hung barely above the hills on the southern side of the River Syne, its light diffusing through the silken walls of the tent, when Secca glanced at Richina. “Could you get me some bread and some cheese? I'll need to eat before I go.”

“Of course, lady.” The sandy-haired young woman, who was learning to be more than an apprentice, with so much more to learn before she would be a full sorceress, slipped from the small tent.

Secca's wry smile was for herself. She was discovering that there was much yet that she had to learn about applying sorcery to battles. She could but hope she understood how much and what before it was too late.

She lifted the second saddlebag—the one without clothes, but
which contained a score or more of small bottles, and other items taken from the sealed storeroom. After unfastening the bag and laying out almost twenty bottles, she studied them, then reordered them, leaving five bottles filled with yellow-green tinted crystals on the top where she would be able to reach them easily. Then she refastened the saddlebags and laid them on the foot of the narrow cot.

Next came the lutar. She checked the strings and the tuning, strumming several chords before replacing it in its case.

The tent flap opened, and with it came Richina and a gust of dry and cold air that reminded Secca that winter was fast approaching. Through the momentarily open flap, Secca had seen that the sun had set.

“Here you are, lady.” Richina extended an entire loaf of bread, and a large wedge of white cheese.

“Thank you.” Using her belt knife, Secca sliced off the layer of green mold on what had been the outside of the cheese wheel.

“You plan sorcery tonight, do you not?”

“I do. I wish it were not necessary, but I cannot risk any more losses in open battles. There is a Sturinnese fleet sailing northward to create more mischief—probably at Elahwa, but possibly at Narial or even Encora. The glass does not show where those vessels go. Neserea may be on the brink of a civil war. If that fleet goes to Narial, Jolyn must go to Dumar. That means that we will see no lancers coming to reinforce us, nor other sorceresses.” Secca broke off a chunk of cheese and took a bite from it.

“What will you do?” asked Richina.

Secca finished the mouthful of cheese and some bread, washing it down with a swallow of water before she replied. “What I can. What I must.”

“Might I help?”

“Study your spells, the battle spells. You may have to use them before we are done. Sooner, if I cannot do what I plan.”

Richina frowned.

Secca smiled faintly. “What I plan is easier than battle spells, but one never knows.” She continued to eat, although she had to force the last of both bread and cheese down. Yet, if what she
tried tonight failed, she would need all the strength she possessed on the morrow. Even if her planned sorcery worked, she might be called upon.

After she finished eating, Secca began a vocalise. She couldn't very well warm up her voice anywhere close to Mynntar's camp.

Her throat and cords felt slightly raw, and she coughed up mucus on the second vocalise, something that usually didn't happen to her.

“Should you do this…tonight?” asked Richina when Secca took a long swallow of spelled clean water to clear her throat.

“If I do not act tonight, then more will die tomorrow.” Secca took another swallow, then corked the bottle and began another vocalise.

After a time, the rawness seemed to subside. Secca fastened the green leather riding jacket and picked up saddlebags and then the lutar.

Richina followed Secca from the tent.

Outside in the deepening dusk, alerted by Secca's warming up, Wilten and Stepan stood waiting. Farther away—to the east—a score or so of Stepan's lancers were mounted and waiting, their green tunics appearing almost gray in the twilight that was fast nearing full darkness.

Wilten stepped forward. “I would feel better if we accompanied you, lady.”

“As I told Richina, it is best that we do not hazard all when we need not. Stepan and his men will do their best.” A wry expression crossed Secca's face. “They have far more to lose than do we, and he has more lancers than do we.”

Wilten nodded. “Still…”

“I know, and I appreciate your concern for me. There will be much left, much left, for you and your men. This is just the beginning. I am most grateful for your care.” With as warm a smile as she could manage, Secca turned and walked toward the gray. She fastened the saddlebags in place, then the lutar, and mounted.

“Like this not…” Wilten's words to Richina carried as she turned the gray mare toward the waiting lancers.

“Your overcaptain is not pleased,” offered Stepan as he eased his mount beside Secca.

“I know. But I would not hazard both senior commanders and both sorceresses. And you and your men know the land far better than do Wilten's.”

“That is true.” Stepan laughed softly. “But he knows not me, and all officers distrust that which they do not know.”

“You guarded me once, and did so well,” Secca pointed out. She paused. “Did you counsel father to send me to Falcor?”

“No. That was his decision. I agreed with it, but then I was only a lead armsman in a small holding, and no one asked me. And you were a girl child to be married off to some old lord when the time came. Now, you are a powerful lady and a sorceress, and I am an old arms commander.”

Secca shook her head. “Not so old.”

“Then why do I feel old?” asked the silver-haired man.

“Because you remember me as a child, but that does not make you old.”

Stepan was the one to shake his head.

Secca smiled faintly.

“Yusar, lead on,” Stepan ordered as he and Secca neared the front of the line of lancers. “No words, no torches.”

“Yes, ser.”

Secca glanced over her shoulder, back at the camp that seemed so small for an effort to stop a revolt and whatever else might be brewing. Clearly, she wasn't the battle sorceress that Anna had been. Just as obviously, she had to stop Mynntar. With the players in the shape they were in, they couldn't take another battle like the last—not soon.

Spell-singing and battle-spell-singing were definitely different.

Yusar led the column along the main road for less than a dek before turning northward on a trail so narrow that there was barely room for a single mount in the space between an ancient hedgerow and an empty ditch, partly filled in places with a few patches of slush and dark and stagnant water.

They followed the hedgerow for only about half a dek, before turning eastward again, across a sodden meadow where each hoof seemed to
squush
, but the meadow was narrow. On the far
side, there was a wagon path beside a rail fence that led up a long and gradual incline. A dek farther on, and Secca could see a dark mass looming to the east.

Overhead, high in the sky by itself, hung the tiny disk of Darksong, surrounded by starpoints of white that almost seemed redder with Darksong nearby. Superstition or not, Secca didn't care for doing the kind of sorcery she had in mind under the red moon. Then, perhaps the red moon was chastising her. She shook her head.

Stepan eased his mount back toward Secca and said in a low voice, “Their camp is on the far side of the woods, only about half a dek. On all other sides are open fields, and their sentries look down.”

Yusar reined up where the path turned back south beside the woods, and the lancers reined up as well.

“This is as close as we dare go…” Stepan said quietly.

Secca dismounted.

The arms commander eased his mount toward Secca and silently took the gray's reins.

Secca unfastened the lutar and set the case on the damp grass beside the narrow path, in front of the gray, before turning back to her mount. She opened the top of the right saddlebag and took out the five bottles, setting them in a row on the clay and opening each in turn. Then she removed the lutar from its case and checked the tuning, as quickly and as quietly as possible.

Finally, she took a silent deep breath and faced eastward, toward the camp that she knew was on the far side of the small forest—or overly ample woodlot.

Two chords to get the feel, and then she sang the spell, trying to visualize what she needed to happen.

As the words and chords died away, Secca swallowed, then quickly recased the lutar in the darkness. She could hear nothing, nor had she felt either harmony or dissonance. She bent down and glanced at the bottles, lifting one in her gloved hand. It felt lighter. Leaving the bottles, she remounted.

“We can go,” she whispered to Stepan.

“Good…hear voices coming,” he hissed back.

Secca wasn't sure that she did, but was more than happy to ride back down the path, and then along the hedgerow until they were on the main road, headed westward toward their encampment.

A good half-glass passed on the return ride before some murmurings of the lancers who escorted her were loud enough for Secca to discern.

“What she do…?”

“Doesn't seem happy…”

“Mayhap…didn't work…”

“Mayhap it did…and tomorrow we'll be paying for it…”

Neither Secca nor Stepan spoke until the lights of the cookfires of the camp were again visible.

“Might I ask…?” ventured Stepan.

“I used sorcery to try to slay Mynntar and his captains. The spells took far less effort than calling forth flames or lightnings or directing arrows against thunder-drums.”

“If it works…then his lancers might retreat.” Stepan sounded dubious. “Or they might attack from anger.”

“One way or another, it should help, if only to remove good leaders.” Secca hoped for more than that, knowing the players would not be at their best on the morrow.

“His brother might follow the same course, a season hence.”

“We'll have to go to Dolov, one way or another,” Secca pointed out.

“You would slay both?”

“If need be,” Secca admitted. “If I can.”

“You seem displeased, Lady Sorceress.”

“I am. Not at you, but because of what I must do.”

“Ever always was war such,” Stepan replied. “And failing to act soon has always meant more who die and more who suffer.”

“So it is said.” Secca wondered, but did those who began wars, like Mynntar, or his father before him, rationalize their actions in the same way?

Was war always like this? Where each side used what it could, Mynntar pressing and slaughtering under weather that inhibited sorcery, and she, using sorcery and poison under the cloak of night?

Did it have to be? In Anna's later years it had not, but had that been because she had used such overwhelming force in the early years that none wanted to displease her and provoke her to call forth such again?

Secca took a deep breath.

Stepan glanced at her, but did not comment.