The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  After a moment, Melcar spoke. "The liedgeld be not popular, and Mynntar told all that they would live better were it not for Defalk.”

  Secca nodded slowly. That meant Hadrenn was doubt­less saying something similar. it is not true, but it’s far too late to dispel that feeling. Thank you.”

  “Our pleasure, lady. If you would excuse us...?"

  Secca nodded, then turned in the saddle as the two over-captains eased their mounts away. “Chief players!”

  “Yes, lady?”

  “We will need to run through the first building spell when we reach Dolov. We will need you to play it several times before we sing the spell."

  The hint of a smile cmssed Palian’s face, but she nod­ded.

  Secca turned to look at the road ahead as it sloped gently toward the rise. She frowned as she took in the dark clouds that had appeared on the northwest horizon.

  “You think we will need that spell?” asked Richina."

  "What the scouts have discovered would say yes,” Secca replied.

  “Why... lady?”

  “I know, but I do not know.” After seeing Richina’s puzzled expression, Secca continued. “Bertmynn was fu­rious that the FreeWomen would not accept his rule. Even now, many would rather not speak of all that he did when he took the city. He used not only drums, but Darksong in opposing the Lady Anna. His son invited the Sturinnese into Ebra, and the Sturinnese, you know, chain their women. All that, and a closed keep, do not speak of a lord who will ever keep faith with Defalk.” Or who will respect women. As the words crossed her mind, she realized that Anna could have spoken them, and Secca was, again, con­scious of the emptiness within her.

  Richina’s eyes flicked toward the rear of the column, then back to Secca.

  The older sorceress did not remark upon the gesture. "We will see.” Secca shifted her weight in the saddle.

  It was nearly midday when Secca reined up on the rise a good two deks to the south of the keep of Dolov. Be­tween the rise and the bluff on which the stronghold stood was an expanse of low fields, bare brown ground dusted with snow from the night before. The clouds to the north seemed nearer, and perhaps darker.

  Secca studied the stronghold, the bluff, and the River Dol to the west. As the glass had shown, and the scouts confirmed, the gates were closed. As she surveyed the land, the four overcaptains gathered around on their mounts.

  “The peasants have left, or they are within the keep walls,” Wilten reported.

  Secca glanced at Melcar, who had just ridden up. The Ebran overcaptain was smiling.

  “Lady. . . we have a message. It is from the craftspeople from the town to the south, not Rielte, but the other one...the closer one.” Melcar paused. “Hanlis, that’s it. They pledge their allegiance to you and Lord Robero. They even sent a wagonload of provisions.”

  “We can use those.” Secca wondered how many wagon-loads had gone to Mynntar or his younger brother before she had marched up the river. She also realized that she had forgotten the name of Mynntar’s brother.

  Secca took another look at the keep, then looked at Mel­car. “Send a message. All within must surrender and walk out unarmed within the glass. Otherwise I will pull down the walls around their ears.”

  Melcar nodded, too agreeably for Secca. So did Haddev. Alcaren’s face revealed neither approval nor disapproval.

  Wilten looked at Secca.

  “Lady Anna gave Dolov back to Mynntar when his fa­ther revolted,” Secca answered the questioning expression. "These are the thanks Defalk gets for that generosity?"

  “It is harsh for those who must follow a lord.”

  “It is, but it is also harsh for the lancers who have died and need not have perished because a selfish lord was not satisfied with holding what his father held. It is harsh for the mothers and lovers and consorts of those who have died and will die. And for what? Because an arrogant lord wants to revenge an evil father?”

  The Defalkan over-captain turned away from Secca’s blazing amber eyes.

  “Send a messenger, Melcar,” Secca repeated. “We will ride to the lower ridge beyond bowshot of the keep walls.”

  Melcar half-bowed in the saddle before turning his mount.

  Less than half a glass later, Secca, Richina, and the play­ers were dismounting on a rise that was barely that, where they looked up to the gray stone walls of the keep.

  Richina glanced from the keep to Secca and then back to the players, who were beginning to tune their instruments.

  “The wind is not that strong,” Secca observed, walking forward on the rise. “But it will get stronger before long.” Her eyes flicked to the clouds that now covered all of the lower part of the sky to the northwest.

  “You think we will need to use your sorcery?” Richina’s fingers twisted around each other.

  Secca did not reply, instead watching as Melcar and Wilten rode toward her, followed by a squad of lancers in the green of Synek, a green darker than that of her own lancers.

  Melcar and Wilten reined up. Although the Ebran over-captain looked down on the diminutive sorceress, his eyes avoided hers.

  Secca waited.

  “Lady...?" Melcar’s voice was almost apologetic.

  "They refused.”

  “You do not seem surprised”

  “No one who has not seen sorcery seems to believe that it exists or that it can cause great damage. That was some thing Lady Anna told me years ago.” Secca laughed once, without mirth. “I did not believe her.”

  “They tried to kill the messenger with crossbow bolts, and dared you to do your worst,” Melcar replied slowly.

  “They have lost more than ten score lancers, and the Sturinnese have departed. Yet they would defy you?” Wilten shook his head.

  "They did not see their lancers destroyed,” Secca pointed out. “Nor the Sturinnese defeated. At best, they have heard stories that they did not wish to believe.” She laughed harshly. “Were I more cruel, I would leave maimed and broken bodies so all could see and hear what sorcery can do.”

  “I cannot believe that they would dare a sorceress…” Melcar swallowed, “... to do your worst.”

  Richina’s eyes flicked from Secca to Melcar and back again.

  “We will do our worst. We cannot risk lancers when we need not.” Secca looked to the younger sorceress. “Best we act before they attempt something, and before the weather turns upon us.” She had no idea what those in the keep might try, but she saw no point in allowing them the time. She turned toward Palian and Delvor. “Players. The first building spell . . .run through it so Richina and I can mark it together.”

  Both chief players nodded.

  Richina swallowed, then shook her shoulders to relax.

  Secca returned to her study of the keep—gray and cold and silent.

  “The first building spell,” Palian called out. “On my mark . . . Mark!”

  Secca sang with the players, not the words, but just the single syllable “la.”

  After several bars Richina joined her.

  When the last note died away, the red-haired sorceress looked once more at the taller and younger one. “You sound ready.”

  “Yes, lady.”

  A dull and distant rumbling echoed from the dark clouds to the north.

  Secca gestured to Palian. ‘When you are ready, Chief Players.”

  Palian responded with a curt nod, then lifted her bow.

  “The first building-spell . . .on my mark . . . Mark!”

  The sounds of both first and second players melded into the opening of the spellsong.

  Both Secca and Richina faced the keep. Secca concen­trated not just on the words, but on the images of the keep crumbling into rubble.

  Richina’s voice was true, if tentative, but by the third measure, both voices meshed and hurled forth from the low rise toward the silent and hulking keep.

  “Break the brick and rend the stone

  leave not a single course alone

  break to rubble and to du
st

  all the walls in which they trust…”

  The sky overhead began to darken from the first words that the two sorceresses sang, and more dull rum­blings drifted out of the approaching clouds.

  A triplet of chimes cascaded across the lowlands, chimes Secca knew were unheard except by the two sorceresses and the chief players, and the darkening sky left the sun dimmer and ever dimmer, until it was lost behind featureless gray clouds.

  With the darkness came lightnings, yellowish bolts flashing toward the keep, bright against a purpled horizon. Then a deep rumbling groan issued from some­where deep beneath the ground. The land rippled, the waves of soil and earth beginning at the base of the rise and heading northward. With each ripple, the rise be­neath Secca’s feet shivered, and she had to spread her feet to keep her balance.

  Secca felt as though a dull knife had cleft through her skull. She struggled to see the keep of Dolov, but unseen needles stabbed at her eyes, and tears that burned like vinegar streamed down her cheeks.

  Richina’s knees seemed to buckle, and the younger and taller sorceress sat down on the winter-browned and snow —dusted grass.

  Behind her, several players also sat down, involun­tarily, but one— Britnay—simply pitched forward. Somehow, Palian managed to break her fall and save the violino.

  Still squinting through the stabbing pains in her eyes, Secca struggled to watch the results of the twin-voiced spell.

  To the north, the walls of the keep began to tremble, and puffs of dust spurted forth from between the ancient stones. The walls began to shake with each set of ground waves that rippled up the bluff to the base of the keep,

  Another set of lightning bolts imprisoned the struc­ture in a momentary cage of yellow-white, then slowly, the walls buckled, stones cascading outward, seemingly in a motion as slow as winter-congealed molasses, yet as inexorable as the fall of an axed tall pine.

  The impact of the stones raining down away from the bluff shook the rise where Secca watched. Another set of lightning forks flared, so brightly that Secca blinked, and dayflashes blurred her vision.

  When she could once more see, only heaps of small stones and gray dust remained on and around the bluff that had held a keep but a fraction of a glass before.

  “...Harmonies save us...” said someone behind Secca, but she did not turn, as she still looked almost blankly at the gray devastation. While a few words had not been sung as strongly as Secca might have liked, the effect had certainly been powerful enough. More than powerful enough.

  Thuruummmm...

  At the long roll of thunder, Secca blinked and glanced upward. The clouds that had been creeping out of the north were suddenly almost overhead, and gusts of wind far colder than the breeze that had chilled all the riders earlier blasted across the rise.

  With the wind came fine flakes of snows

  Seeca turned toward Melcar and Wilten. “We need to ride to that town…the one...sent provisions... need shelter.”

  “It is ten deks, lady.”

  Secca gestured toward the steaming rubble and the curtain of white that had begun to fall just to the north of what had been the proud keep of Dolov. “Is there shelter here?”

  Dumbly, Wilten shook his head

  “Players. . . prepare to ride.”

  Secca winced at the tiredness and bleakness in Palian’s voice. In front of the players, Palian blinked, her face tight with lines of pain. Then Secca stepped for­ward to help Richina stand.

  Both sorceresses looked for a long moment through the line white flakes that fell around them, then back at the lifeless gray dust and rubble that had been Dolov.

  77

  The snow fell in large fat flakes, just damp enough to cling to leathers, jackets, tunics, and to the skin and manes of mounts, but not wet enough to turn into slush on the damp clay of the river road. The daystars that flashed across Secca’s eyes showed no signs of becoming less frequent, despite the morsels of bread she had choked down, and her headache was, if anything, worse than when she had climbed into the saddle deks back at the ruins of Dolov. Beside her, Richina rode silently, one hand on the left side of the low front pommel of her saddle.

  Within less than a glass from the time they had left Dolov, everything had become covered with white. Silence swathed the entire line of riders, the snow muffling even the sound of mounts breathing and hoofs striking the fro­zen ground. Cold water from the snow that had clung to her hair and neck began to trickle down Secca’s back, and she wished she had brought a scarf like the one Richina was wearing. The worn green felt hat she had, nearly a copy of Anna’s except for the color, was not enough protection in a heavy snow. Then, she hadn’t exactly expected to be traveling in a snowstorm.

  Melear and Wilten rode up beside Secca.

  “The lancers can ride for a time, but the wind is rising, and before long, we will need shelter...”

  “How far is Hanlis? That is the nearest town, is it not?’ asked Secca.

  “Another five deks. That is what the scouts say?’

  “We will need to take shelter there,” Secca didn’t like the idea of commandeering a town, but better that in an area whose lord had rebelled than having lancers die from the cold. At the same time, she knew that most of the townspeople probably had little to do with the rebellion. “They are not to harm any of the townspeople, not unless they are attacked. We are taking only shelter. Any food we take, we should keep accounts.” She wasn’t about to promise recompense, not when what had started as a rebellion was looking more like a war that might involve all of Liedwahr.

  “That we can do,” said Wilten. “Will you offer pay­ment?”

  “Say I will if we can once I return to Defalk.” Secca just hoped she could.

  Perhaps she should have tried to craft a spell to extract any coins from the rubble of Dolov. Except how could she have done so? Half the players had collapsed, and neither she nor Richina had been in shape to sing a second spell. No matter what outsiders thought, sorcery had its limits. The sheeting snow concealed her bitter smile as the col­umn continued on through the storm.

  How long it was before they reached the town, Secca couldn’t have said, but neither the headache nor the daystars had subsided in the slightest by the time that she reined up outside the stable of the Copper Pot in Hanlis. Nor had the snow diminished. It continued to fall in heavy curtains so thick that Secca could barely make out the half­-open stable door and the stable boy who stood there, his mouth open at the figures of horses and men looming out of the snow.

  “How many stalls, boy?’ asked Wilten.

  “A half-score. That’s all, ser.” The boy’s voice trem­bled.

  “Wilten, Melcar . . .“ Secca’s voice cut out, as if she had strained her cords, and she had to swallow before she con­tinued. “Take care of the rest of the lancers. We have our guards.”

  “I will offer any aid the sorceresses require.” Alcaren eased his mount forward. “My SouthWomen rode ahead, and they secured a barn.” He shrugged as he dismounted. ‘They have their captains. Under such conditions, they would prefer I be here.”

  “Go ahead, Wilten, Melcar,” Secca said. "Look to your men.”

  “I will leave another four guards so that they may take turns in guarding and resting,” Wilten said.

  “Thank you.” Secca nodded.

  “Dyvan! Easlon, Gorkon..."

  As the guards rode up and listened to Wilten’s charge to them, Secca tried to ease herself out of the saddle, but, in dismounting, she staggered. She had to grasp the lower part of the saddle cantle to catch her balance, and just stood for a long moment, hanging on to the saddle.

  She slowly straightened and looked up to see Alcaren studying her intently. “Are you all right, Lady Secca?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  Alcaren said nothing. While his face—even seen through the daystar flashes that blocked her vision inter­niittently—showed nothing but a polite smile, she could sense his disbelief.

  �
��Sorcery like that is sometimes hard.” she added. “With food and rest, I’ll be fine.”

  “That will help.” The Ranuan overcaptain bowed.

  Secca didn’t mind even that Alcaren walked before her into the foyer of the inn, or that two of the guards carried her saddlebags, lutar, and mirror. She just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Behind her, Richina seemed to be doing the same thing.

  The foyer was dark, lit but by a pair of oil lamps on each side of the archway that led into an empty public room to the right To the left was a short counter desk, no more than a yard wide and less than half that in depth. Behind it stood a graying thin man in a sheepskin vest.