Darksong Rising (85 page)

think?”

“I already sent out scouts, and they will watch through the night,” Hanfor said. “Their lancers are

tired, and many were asleep. If they attack, it will be early, but I doubt they will wake their

lancers tonight. If they do, we will be warned.”

“I have made sure the players slept close together, and close to their instruments,” Liende said.

“Thank you.”

Anna turned to Hanfor. “If they do not attack, I'll send another scroll, asking that they support

you.”

“They will not.” Hanfor nodded slowly. “They will all die before they would surrender Neserea.”

“They don’t have Neserea,” Anna pointed out. “And they certainly won’t if I have to kill off all

their lancers.”

“They will not accept that, for all they have seen, until It is too late.”

“Why? Because they’re more afraid of the Liedfuhr than me.”

“He is a man, and you are a woman. This is Liedwahr.” Hanfor shrugged.

“So I have to be twice as ruthless?” Again; she wanted to scream, but refrained. “And then,

because they won’t listen, I’m the bitch of the east, or the evil sorceress of Defalk?”

“You ask of me what I see, not what I wish,” Hanfor said reasonably.

“I know.” Anna took a deep breath. “We’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.”

After the other three left, Anna sat on the middle of the cot, holding her head in her hands. No

matter how or what you try... it always comes back to force. Machiavelli was right.

She took a deep breath, then bent farther forward and pulled off one boot, then the other.

94

With the cold sunlight striking her tent, Anna woke with a start. What time is it? Are the

Mansuurans coming? Why didn’t someone wake me? Her eyes were gummy’ her mouth dry, and

her head was pounding.

Dehydration—you didn’t drink enough water last night. She forced open her eyes and groped for

the water bottle she kept near the cot. With her lurch, the cot began to tilt, and she had to

scramble upto keep from being tipped onto the dirt.

“Lady Anna?” The voice was that of Blaz.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just clumsy. Has Arms Commander Hanfor been up here yet?”

“He came up a while ago. He said to tell you when you woke up that nothing had happened yet.”

“Thank you.” She paused. “Would you have someone tell him that I’ll be ready in a while?”

“Yes, Lady Anna.”

Anna drank all that was left in the water bottle that had been by the cot—about two-thirds of it—

hoping that the headache would subside before long. She wolfed down the few fragments of

bread and cheese left in the pouch, not caring much that the cheese was hard and stale and the

bread even harder.

Then she retrieved the bucket of water one of the guards always set outside her tent, and splashed

off the worst of the dust and grime, and completed all the other necessities before pulling on her

clothes and boots. She brushed out her short hair as well as she could, trying to ignore the

headache and clogged sinuses that bedeviled her almost every morning.

“Lady Anna?”

“Yes...?”

“I have some breakfast,” ventured Kinor.

“Come in.. I’m decent.” She tried not to growl. It wasn’t Kinor’s fault that she wasn’t at her best

in the mornings, especially in the field on short sleep and continuing worries.

The redhead entered with a basket—with warmish bread and cheese wedges and a battered

apple. “After last night, lady, with sorcery needed this morning...”

Kinor looked so apologetic that Anna laughed before speaking. “I won’t take off your head. I’m

not at my best in the morning, and it’s worse when I’m tired. But it’s not your fault.” She paused,

then took a large chunk of bread from the basket. “You take some, too. Your eyes are pinkish,

and that means you haven’t had enough to eat.”

“Ah...”

“Take some,” Anna insisted.

Kinor broke off a small portion. He tried not to wolf it down, then looked up almost guiltily.

Anna grinned, but not widely or she would have had crumbs falling all over her shirt and purple

vest. She set the basket on the corner of the camp table and took out the wedge of cheese, slicing

it into thinner sections. She took two sections and motioned for Kinor to have some. “Go ahead.”

The redhead hesitated, but Anna gestured a second time. She didn’t have to insist a third time,

and they both ate. Anna and Kinor had almost finished both bread and cheese, and it hadn’t taken

long, when she heard someone nearing.

“Lady Anna?”

She recognized Hanfor’s voice. “Come on in. I’m trying to gulp down some food."

“Regent.” The weathered warrior stepped into the tent and bowed. “The Mansuurans—all of

them—are riding toward us. They will be here in a glass. I have ordered the men onto the road

and ridge just to the west of here.

“You could have awakened me earlier,” Anna suggested, after taking another large mouthful of

bread and cheese.

“There was no need.” Hanfor bowed, apologetically. “The chief player and I wished you to be as

rested as you could be.”

“Thank you.” Do you look that bad? I'll be there in just a bit. I’ll warm up here, and then ride

over.” Anna paused. “Did you tell Lord Nelmor and Falar?”

“I informed them that the Mansuurans had rejected your terms and were attacking. Both stand

ready to hold with us. I thanked them for you.”

Anna sighed. That was something she should have done. “Thank you. I should have done that,

but I appreciate it.”

“You needed the rest, and even those two see such." Hanfor glanced at Kinor, bowed, and

slipped out of the tent.

Kinor straightened, brushing crumbs from his face, and looking even more guilty than before.

“Best I get the mounts ready.”

Alone in the tent for a few moments, Anna tried a vocalise. “Holly-lolly—” The coughing was

especially bad, and she doubled over, struggling to hold her bladder against the violence of the

spasms.

“Damned asthma...” Slowly she straightened up and tried to clear her throat without triggering

another coughing attack. She glanced around, but the water bottles were all empty. She’d been

too tired to do a spell to get herself clean water the night before, and too forgetful.

After another vocalise, she decided she could risk a small spell, the one to clean the water, and

picked up the lutar.

Cool clear water in this pail...

She managed to hold off the tickling in her throat and the gunk in her lungs long enough to

complete the spell. After more coughing, she drank some of the cool clean water, then refilled all

four water bottles. After one more vocalise, she pulled on her battered brown felt hat, swept up

the water bottles and the lutar, and stepped into the cool hazy sunlight outside the tent.

“Ah... Lady Anna, I could carry the bottles.” offered Blaz.

“Thank you.”

The walk to the tieline and Farinelli was less than fifty yards. The big gelding whuffed as Anna

neared.

“No, you won’t be left alone. And you will get ridden.” She saddled him with a deftness she

wouldn’t have believed possible for her two years earlier.

Kinor came running, bringing a bulging food pouch. “Here, Lady Anna.” He tendered it to Anna,

then mounted quickly.

Preceded by Rickel and Lejun, and followed by Kinor and Jmibob, and then all the rest of her

guards, Anna rode slowly to the slightly higher ground where Liende had already gathered the

players.

“We are ready, Regent.”

Anna nodded. “It will have to be the long flame songs.” To destroy more innocent armsmen for

higher goals...

The chief player, whose red hair had become mostly white in the few years since Anna had come

to Defalk, did not quite meet the Regent’s eyes.

“I’ve tried, Liende. But we can’t lose any more armsmen,” Anna said. And any spell that would

enchant them would be Darksong and probably kill you and the players with the backlash. She

wanted to shake her head—another example of ignorance. if she hadn’t used Darksong so often

and so unwittingly when she had first come to Liedwahr, then she might have been able to use it

now.

Anna dismounted slowly, then began another vocalise— carefully. “Heeee sees theeee. . . he

sees.. . thouuu..." She had to cough, but her reaction wasn’t as violent as before. Still, her eyes

teared slightly, and she blotted the dampness away, clearing her throat and looking westward.

She saw neither horsemen nor dust.

 
"...nothing easy in this world. . . even for sorceresses...”

 
"...looks so thin. . . high wind take her...”

 
"...might be.. . you want to face her?”

Anna pushed away the murmurs, not even sure whether they came from the newer guards or

some of the players, so low were the words. She concentrated on the words of the spell she

would use—it had to be the flame spell, much as she had come to dislike using it.

Kinor walked toward her, extending one of her water bottles. "Thank you." Anna took several

swallows. She glanced westward where a scout in purple rode toward the center of the Defalkan

lines of lancers, toward Hanfor. Behind the rider in the distance appeared a smudge of

something—dust. She nodded. The Mansuurans were coming, but they were two hills away.