The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (68 page)

Bassil nods, not meeting the older man’s eyes.

“That doesn’t even count the fact that she’s remaking the whole society by giving women power. Do you want every scheming lady in Mansuur thinking she can run lands better than her consort?” Konsstin coughs twice before continuing. “If the Sea-Priests can’t stop her in Dumar, the way they feel about women, they’ll send every vessel and armsman they have into Ebra or Neserea.”

“But she is their enemy.”

“That’s true enough, but they’ll want to flank her, and the Matriarch would invite the sorceress into Encora in a moment if the Maitre attacked Ranuak.”

“The SouthWomen wouldn’t like that.”

“They wouldn’t. That’s true. But given the choice between the sorceress and chains, just whom would they choose?”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. If the Maitre is thrown out of Dumar and he doesn’t or can’t attack Ranuak, exactly where will he attack?”

“Us?”

“That’s a possibility. We’re closer than Ebra, but we’re the third choice. More likely, next summer he could flood
the Bitter Sea with ships and take Esaria.” Konsstin offers a twisted smile. “That would solve my problem with Rabyn, but I’d probably have to ally Mansuur with the sorceress to stop Sturinn.”

“Maybe the Maitre will seek out Ebra?” Bassil bobs his head. “That might be better.”

“For a time . . . perhaps.” Konsstin pauses. “We will see. Now . . . hmmm . . . what else? Oh, I suppose, you can ship some of that extra iron plate or ingots that the foundries in Deleatur will have left over to Bertmynn. Some of it, anyway. The rest of it . . . well, we need more blades, and iron quarrels and crossbows.”

“Yes, sire.”

“That should keep you busy, Bassil.”

“Yes, sire.” The dark-haired lancer backs out of the study.

From the small patch of shade on the northern end of the palace balcony, Konsstin stares westward, beyond Mansuus, beyond the mighty Toksul, in the direction of the Western Sea.

T
he muted sound of harnesses and horses rose slowly as the light brightened outside the silken tent, now off-white from all the imbedded red dust and grit. Anna found the bucket of water and splashed her face and hands, washing slowly, then pulled on her clothes, and finally, her boots, listening to the low murmurs of the guards.

“. . . she up yet?” That was Fhurgen’s deep voice.

“. . . not about to look. You want to?” asked Rickel.

Fhurgen offered a muted laugh.

“You been with her longer than any of us. . . . Why are we here?”

“I could guess, Rickel. I won’t. I know that she does nothing without a reason, and most folks who wager against her lose. Them that don’t, die. Hard for mighty lords like Jecks it is.” Another low laugh followed. “A woman doing what they couldn’t.”

The words got even less distinct, and flashes of light flickered in front of Anna’s eyes. After deciding she’d better eat, she sat on the end of the cot under the silk canopy of her tent, slowly forcing her way through the strong yellow cheese wedges. She couldn’t afford a repetition of her performance the afternoon before.

The bread was so stale and hard that her trousers were covered with crumbs by the time she crunched through what was left. Still, she could stand without feeling as though she would topple over.

At the sound of Jecks’ voice, Anna washed down the last of the cheese, and the last crumbs of the hard dark bread, then stood and stretched before opening the thin flap of the tent and stepping into the half-gray, half-rose light of dawn.

“Good morning.” She smiled although she still felt logy.

“How do you feel this morning?” asked Jecks.

“Better than yesterday afternoon, if that’s what you mean. I ate more this morning, and that will help. Yesterday was a long day.” She grimaced. “So was the day before.” And the day before that, and that . . .

“I worry that you attempt too much, Lady Anna.”

Behind Jecks, by the tent, Anna caught the hint of a nod from Fhurgen. Or she thought she did.

“Sometimes, like now, I do too.” She paused. “I know that we have to keep the Sturinnese out of Dumar.”

“It is the weakest land in Liedwahr. Now.” He smiled, and the warm hazel eyes smiled as well.

Anna smiled back in spite of herself.
He tries . . . and he is intelligent and handsome . . . and he does look like . . . No, he is more handsome than Robert Mitchum. . . . If only he’d understand a little more . . .

“I would suggest that we only ride to Gewyrt today. That is a good ten deks short of the river hills.” His smile turned half-apologetic, half-worried.

“You’re saying that the sorceress needs rest before she attempts another battle?”

“So do your players.”

Jecks was probably right about that, too. When he was worried, he had good cause. It was what he didn’t worry about that caused problems between them.

“You’re right.” She offered another smile, and absently, couldn’t help smiling inside as the handsome and muscular lord who tried so hard smiled back.

J
erRestin stands, then walks around to the far side of the small cooking fire. He stares into the darkening east.

“I do not look forward to facing this sorceress,” muses Ehara, not looking at the taller man.

“You have few choices, Lord Ehara. Not a hamlet east of the Falche and north of Dumaria remains loyal to you. And no holder west of the Falche will support you if you do not confront her.”

“I did so poorly as lord?” Ehara snorts. “That I find hard to believe.”

“She has used sorcery to force loyalty.” The Sea-Marshal turns toward the Lord of Dumar. “There is a price to be paid for that, but unhappily for us, she has already paid much of that coin.”

“How has she paid? What has she given up?”

“Her life on the mist worlds. From what your spies say, her children. From what I know of youth spells, her ability to have more children. From what I know of power, any chance at friends in a strange land. And the ability to sleep with any ease at night.” JerRestin’s voice hardens. “True as it may be, all that is little consolation to you or to me.”

“No consolation at all,” agrees Ehara. “How do we defeat her and reclaim my land?”

“She cannot handle many sorceries. You must split your forces into groups—each larger than her total force.”

“She will destroy them one by one.”

“No. Before each large force, a dek forward, will be a smaller force, and that force will attack. All the small forces will attack at once. Because they will attack from separate positions, she must address each with a different spell.” JerRestin glances from the rose-lit clouds over the river hills to the west to Ehara. “Once she has committed her sorceries, the larger forces will rush forward, when she is exhausted.”

Ehara looks long at jerRestin. “Was that not your strategy at the Vale of Cuetayl?”

“It would have worked there, but none save I attacked the sorceress.”

“And what of you, Sea-Marshal? You escaped, but you did not slay the sorceress.”

“I had to ride too close, and I was seen. I will not be seen this time. I will not be seen.” JerRestin’s eyes burn.

Ehara looks away from those eyes, and his big hands knot around each other, but he does not speak.

T
he five figures stood on the shady side of the barn wall as Jecks unwrapped the leather from the mirror. He glanced up at the sorceress. “Have you thought—”

“About the ensorcelled weapons? Yes.” Anna felt almost cruel in the way she cut him off, but at times she felt, in subtle ways, everyone was asking something, somehow. “I might have something,” she added quickly to assuage her guilt.

“That would be good.” He handed her the mirror with the battered frame.

Anna hung the traveling mirror from an old iron bracket. In the midafternoon sun, the meadows to the north were empty of sheep, the fields empty of workers. The houses had all been abandoned, hurriedly, with tracks and animal prints in the road dust showing that even the animals had been driven away.

Anna smiled as she stepped back and caught sight of a tan chicken pecking at the side of the empty cot fifty yards westward. Not all animals had vanished.

Jecks followed her eyes. “A chicken supper, later.”

“If you can catch it,” said Hanfor.

Anna bent down and took the lutar from its case, beginning to tune it, as she ran through a vocalise.

The faint hum of summer insects rose again once she stopped, clearing her throat. On the south side of the road, Alvar directed the Defalkan forces as they lined up to water their mounts from a long stock-trough.

Anna cleared her throat a last time, then sang.

“Show from the west, danger to fear,
all the threats to us bright and clear . . .”

Surrounded by silver mist, the image was clear—a series of green fields, crossed by narrow lanes for horses and wagons, roughly a semicircle in shape, flanked on the north, south, and west by low and irregular hills.

“Ehara must have his forces on the back side of all of those hills, and all are mounted and well-rested,” said Hanfor.

Liende inclined her head, ever so slightly. “You can see armsmen before the hills, but a few.”

“He has foreguards or vanguards in front of each group,” confirmed Hanfor.

“Each company is more than a dek from each other company,” added Jecks with a glance at Anna. “And shielded by the hills.”

“Can you use sorcery on them all at once?” asked Hanfor.

“Not as long as they’re on the back sides of the hill,” Anna admitted. “Not unless we could take the heights to the west.”

“We could circle to the north,” ventured Jecks, “and take them from the side, one by one. Or take the first two companies and seize the higher ground to the west.”

“We would still face half his forces, almost a hundred-score.” Hanfor touched his trimmed and gray beard. “They hold the higher ground. To defeat them would cost us armsmen, or require much sorcery from the lady Anna.”

That was clearly what Ehara and his Sea-Priest advisor or sorcerer, or whatever, had in mind, and Anna didn’t like that option, not if there were a better one.

“We’re what?—ten deks from the nearest of those hills?” she asked.

“Mayhap twelve,” said Liende.

“What if we stop here for today?”

Jecks smiled, and Anna could tell he’d hoped she’d come to that conclusion.

“That would rest mounts and men,” Hanfor acknowledged. “And on the morrow?”

“We move slowly.”

“To place them on blade edge? That would help,” Hanfor said, following her unspoken logic.

“Do we have enough arrows?” Anna asked.

“How much is enough?” asked Hanfor. “What have you in mind?”

“At least one for every enemy armsman,” said the regent and sorceress. “I think we let them attack,” Anna said, “but I’d like to be able to prod them if necessary.”

With more destruction?
She held in the wince at her own self-question, forcing a bland smile that had to appear cold and cruel.

I
don’t see what you’re doing, Farsenn.” The drummer in the stained and sleeveless brown tunic rubs his forehead. “Your spells . . . they make a fellow’s head ache. My eyes cross, and you don’t spell that long.”

“Mine do, too.” Farsenn smiles. “Darksong isn’t like Clearsong. It’s more like poison. Use a little here . . . a little there.” A laugh follows. “You’ll see.”

“The sorceress . . . she’s still high and mighty.” The drummer turns and gestures at the rough clay figure that is perhaps three-quarters human size on the crude wooden pedestal. “Not like that. No matter what you make them see, it’s still just clay.” He massages his forehead again, blinking rapidly.

“For now, Giersan, my brother, for now. Darksong must be used slowly, bit by bit . . . but the time will come when every man not on the estates of that bitch Lady Gatrune will rise, and we will hold Pamr.”

“And then the sorceress will come and destroy us.” The drummer’s words are flat.

“No. She will come, and I will destroy her.”

“How?”

“Never before has an entire town risen, with every man bearing arms. The sorceress has but a fewscore armsmen, and she cannot use levies against the people within Defalk. And while she struggles with the people, I will strike her with Darksong, pierce her soul.”

“She will use her fires from the heaven.”

“Against who? Every soul in Pamr?”

“She might.”

“When she rests upon the support of the people themselves?” Farsenn smiles cruelly. “We will be Lord of Pamr, and she will be dead, and that little boy she has propped up as heir will treat with us. He will.”

R
ickel and Fhurgen, shields resting on the lanceholders, rode before Anna as the Defalkan forces advanced to the crest of the low rise. Beyond the lush grass of the hill spread out a series of fields, bordered by hedgerows not even as tall as Farinelli’s ears. Farther to the west and north and south of the fields, the meadows resumed, merging into the low hills.

The road traveled due west, vanishing into a gap between two of the larger hills.

“This is the highest point on this side of the valley.” Jecks rode on Anna’s right.

“It is hard to believe that the river is only a dozen deks beyond the hills,” added Liende from Anna’s left.

Anna’s eyes ranged over the flat fields ahead, and then
studied the hills. The entire area was empty of people or animals—just fields filled with green plants of differing shades, narrow lanes splitting fields, the hedgerows, and grass. The low wind blew out of the west, into Anna’s face, bearing the faint scent of damp earth and grass.

“I’d like to stop here, Hanfor,” Anna called to the arms commander. “I need to see where the Dumarans are.”

The arms commander nodded. “That might be best.”

The sorceress dismounted, giving Farinelli a pat on the shoulder. “You’re a good fellow.” She blotted her forehead, damp as much from the more humid climate as from the late-morning sunlight.