The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I’ll write a scroll tonight” Secca glanced at Alcaren. "Perhaps you should write one as well, for your lancers to carry.”

  “I am not so certain that they are exactly mine, but I will write one.” Alcaren laughed.

  Secca nodded.

  “Do you have any thoughts on what you will do once we reach Elahwa?" asked Wilten.

  “I’d like to talk to their counselors,” Secca temporized. “The glass shows that the Sea-Priests continue to fight in Dumar, and that they still blockade Encora.”

  “They could not take Encora,” Alcaren said.

  “Could they starve it into surrender?’ asked Richina.

  “Over several years, perhaps. Some folk might suffer by this coming summer, but the Matriarch has large granaries, and so does the Exchange. Once winter is over, food can flow from Defalk through the South Pass.” Alcaren’s lips twisted. “There is enough gold in Encora for that.”

  “It would seem that the blockade is more to keep anyone from coming to the aid of Dumar, then?” Secca took an­other cautious sip of the soapy ale.

  “Until they have turned the land into a garrison for Stu­rinn, I would guess,” Alcaren suggested. “After that, they will attack Ranuak.”

  “Why would they go after Ranuak?" asked Richina. "The best ports in Liedwahr are Wharsus, and Encora, and then Narial,” Alcaren explained. “The Sea-Priests al­ready hold Narial, and Mansuur has many, many lancers. They know that the Matriarch cannot use sorcery against them, and few will come to our defense, except the FreeWomen, and they have few lancers.”

  “Especially now,” suggested Wilten.

  Alcaren nodded.

  “We may just have to wait and rest in Elahwa,” Secca pointed out. ‘We can’t return to Mencha until the passes clear, and that will not be until spring.” She shrugged. “Then, too, we may be able to find a way to Dumar. I like not dealing with the Sea-Priests, but with each week that passes, they can make it that much harder for us to free Dumar”

  “Need we free Dumar?” asked Wilten. “It provides little for Defalk, and we have no orders from Lord Robero.”

  “You are right about Dumar giving little to Defalk,” Secca agreed, pausing for another sip of ale, and to gain a moment to think. “Yet, once the Sea-Priests have gained a firm foothold in any land, such as the Ostisles, none have been able to stop them. As Overcaptain Alcaren has said, once they hold Dumar, then they will take Ranuak. Could we then stop them from taking Ebra and Elahwa? After that..."

  “That would take many years. . . if it could be done...”

  Pahan snorted. "Three years at the outside, Wilten, if we do nothing. Then we would have to fight, and at a great disadvantage. They could attack through Stromwer from the east or the west, or they could use the South Pass from Ranwa, the Sand Pass from Ebra, the pass from Vult—or they could march north from Envaryl to take the south of Neserea. By then they will have enough lancers and thunder-drums to do all of those at once, and we have but three full sorceresses, and two strong assistants. We may not even have an ally in Neserea, and if we do, that land will be weak.”

  Wilten looked down at his ale.

  Secca could understand the overcaptain’s concerns; no matter what they did, the possibility of years of fighting stretched out before them—and she worried greatly that she had heard nothing from Robero. While she did not see that she could do other than she had, and did not wish to spend her energies on trying to discover what the Lord of Defalk intended, she worried. Either Robero did not understand the extent of the danger, or Clayre and Jolyn were so hard-pressed that neither could spare the energy to send a scroll. Neither of those possibilities was reassuring, not with two Sturinnese fleets and scores of lancers attacking all across the south of Liedwahr.

  She took another sip of the ale, waiting for the noodles.

  84

  In the bright gray just before sunrise, with the night stars washed out and Clearsong the only light in the sky,

  Secca stood in the courtyard behind the Black Kettle and strapped her lutar in place on top of the mirror and saddle­bags behind the saddle of the gray mare. The clear air was cold enough that her breath steamed, and the tip of her nose tingled with the chill. Once she finished, she also checked the sabre and scabbard, hoping as always that she would not need the blade, but making sure it would be ready. She adjusted the battered green felt hat once more.

  Farther toward the back of the courtyard, some of the players were beginning to mount. One—Britnay---seemed to be having trouble buckling the rear saddle girth. Secca shook her head. If it weren’t one thing with Britnay, it was another.

  Delvor dismounted to help the young violino player in her struggles with mount and saddle.

  Glad that she did not have to deal with Britnay, Secca mounted easily, aware that she was finally feeling less ex­hausted. As she turned the gray toward the front of the inn, and the street that would lead to the road south, Wilten reined up beside her.

  “Good morning, Wilten.”

  “Good morning, lady.” The overcaptain inclined his head. “Just be wanting you to know that the two squads left almost two glasses ago. Overcaptain Alcaren and I saw ‘em off.”

  “Thank you." Secca smiled.

  “Be hoping we’ll get a warm welcome.”

  “I’m sure we will.”

  “The lancers’ll be forming up in front. I’ll be joining you after I check here.”

  “I’ll wait for you there.” Secca eased the gray past the side of the inn and out onto the street where the green company was already formed up and waiting. Behind her rode Rukor and Achar.

  No sooner had Secca reined up on the mud-rutted street before the Black Kettle than Richina guided her mount out of the courtyard to join her. Then came Wilten and Palian and the first players, followed by Delvor and the second players, and another company of lancers.

  While none of the inhabitants of Sudstrom poured out onto stoops or porches to watch the column of players and lancers leaving the river town, Secca felt as though many eyes studied her from behind window curtains and closed shutters. She felt a very definite relief--- if only from scru­tiny---when they were out of Sudstrom and traveling the river road beyond the town, a road of gentle curves flanked by a few fields set between larger stands of trees.

  The cold of the night before had left a light frost on the exposed upper side of the needles of the pines and the firs, and across the bare branches of those bushes that were not sheltered by taller conifers. Where the rising sun struck the frost, the thin coating puffed into a white mist that drifted upward, and then vanished. As the sun rose above the woods to the east, it played across the frosted trees, and light sparkled everywhere for a time. Secca smiled at the not-quite-sparkling light, but light and smile dimmed as the frost evaporated.

  “The sun feels good,” Richina offered.

  “It’s a good thing we’re out of the snow,” Secca said. “If it’s as warm there as it looks to be getting here, the mud will be hock deep there by afternoon.”

  ‘With these roads, we’d better hope we don’t get rain,” Richina said.

  “You see why Lady Anna worried about roads?” Secca asked. “We could cross Defalk in the time it takes to go a third as far in Ebra.” She wasn’t sure if that were the exact comparison, but that was the way it felt.

  “It would take years to pave the roads in Ebra.”

  “It has taken years in Defalk,” Secca said dryly. “More than a score."

  “How many deks of roads are paved in Defalk?” asked Alcaren, as he rode up beside the two sorceresses, his mount almost on the shoulder of the road.

  “I’m not sure anyone has totaled the number,” Secca replied. “Mostly the main roads north, south, east, and west from Falcor”

  “All the way to the borders?” asked the Ranuan.

  “Some places a bit beyond” Secca conceded. “The road from Mencha is paved all the way through the Sand Pass and about fifteen deks beyond.”

  “Th
at has to be more than a thousand deks,” Alcaren said slowly. “And that was done with sorcery?”

  “There wasn’t any other way. It’s taken four sorceresses a score of years,” Secca pointed out. “How are the roads in Ranuak?”

  “The older roads near Encora are paved, but most to the north and east are not” Alcaren smiled ruefully. “The first Ranuan lancer companies that went to Elahwa could have used such roads to get from Encora to Elahwa. The north­ern part wasn’t too bad. It’s always dry as you near the Sand Hills.”

  “How long did it take?” asked Richina.

  “For them, almost two weeks. For us, a week.”

  “You rode that much faster?" asked Secca.

  “Hardly.” Alcaren shook his head. “The Matriarch had sent more than ten companies when the Sturinnese first blockaded the Free City. The only way that many lancers could get there was overland, and winter had not yet fallen. For us, the Matriarch wagered against luck and weather. She used coastal schooners to send us to the north side of the Sand Hills. It was but a four-day ride from there.”

  Secca managed to keep a pleasant smile on her face as she considered the implications of Alcaren’s revelations. “She must have felt you would make a difference.”

  “She could send no more lancers, not without leaving Encora exposed, and she felt that Elahwa might fall before we could ride that way. She risked losing both ships and lancers, had either the weather turned or the captains left the shallows.” The overcaptain smiled. “She was right. We did blunt the last attacks, but the city would have fallen in days if you had not come to her aid.”

  “I am glad we arrived in time,” replied Secca. "I was not certain that we would.”

  "But you did,” Alcaren said.

  Secca nodded, still mulling over what Alcaren had re­vealed. The Matriarch had felt she could send no more lancers, and only the South Women, but she had gambled two ships of the type that could evade the deeper-drafted blockade ships to get Alcaren to Elahwa. Or had it been to get the overcaptain to Secca?

  Again, the more that the handsome overcaptain said, and the more that he revealed, the further Secca seemed to be from understanding him—and Ranuak Or was it that she had so much to learn?

  85

  The sun was low in the western sky, hanging just over the trees on the far side of the unseen river on the west side of Elahwa. Secca shifted her weight in the sad­dle, trying to present an impression of what a sorceress should be. Under the gray sky, a damp and cold breeze blew from the harbor to the south, carrying the faint scent of seaweed and salt air.

  Secca and Richina rode down the gray-brick main boulevard of Elahwa, behind Achar and the banner of the Sorceress-Protector. Behind them rode Wilten and Al­caren, followed by Palian and Delvor, the rest of the players, and then the lancers of Loiseau. The SouthWomen brought up the rear. At the head of the column, before the banner, was an honor guard in the scarlet tunics of the Free City.

  Elahwa had no walls or gates. Not that the lack of either was surprising in itself, since the actual towns and cities in Defalk had neither walls nor gates. But from what Secca could see, and from what the mirror had shown earlier, Elahwa also had no walled keeps or fortresses.

  Most of the buildings were of the same gray brick as paved the boulevard, and the roofs were of dark split slate. Secca took in the weaver’s shop, with its bright blue shut­ters, and a white sign trimmed in the same blue, a sign showing the outline of a foot-treadle loom. Next to the weaver’s shop was a cabinet-maker’s, and there the shut­ters were a light brown. The only touches of color were those doors and shutters—bright green, crimson, sky blue. On each house or structure, shutters and doors matched, but the colors varied from one to the next, often dramati­cally.

  A thin scattering of people stood everywhere—on the porch of the weaver’s, under the broad eaves of the coo­per’s across the boulevard, under the leafless trees at the edge of the green that the column approached. Some smiled, but most just watched as the column rode south ward. While a handful of men were among the bystanders, most were women, many gray-haired, but many young, and some only girls. Occasionally, there were murmurs.

  “Another of the great sorceresses...”

  "... looks so small..."

  "...with that small a company... .. has to be powerful..."

  “...two of them...though.. .“

  “Better her than the Maitre..."

  “...don’t tell that to the shadow ladies ...”

  Secca wanted to shake her head. They talked as though she were the Lord of Defalk or the regent. She was just a sorceress-protector who still was trying to figure out how to do her duty. She couldn’t have explained why she was in Elahwa, except that she felt she should be—and there was nowhere else she could take her lancers with the depth of winter yet to come.

  On the far side of the green--- a parklike expanse of bushes and browned grass surrounded by a stone wall less than a yard high - was the Council building, a structure of a blue-tinged marble. The entire three-level structure was less than forty yards across the front, and perhaps only sixty deep.

  As Secca guided the gray mare around the green, she could see that five women waited beneath and before the square stone columns at the top of the stone steps of the Council building. Over tunic and trousers, each wore a long armless scarlet vest that ran from shoulder to knee. A single black braided cord at waist level provided the only cincture.

  As requested by the Elahwan captain who now led the honor guard, Secca turned the gray mare when she reached a point in the street opposite the middle of steps to the Council building. Then she rode forward and reined up five yards short of the bottom step.

  The woman in the center stepped forward. Secca thought the counselor was the one who had been with Al­caren after the main battle with the Sturinnese north of Elahwa.

  “All Elahwa is indebted to you, to you and the great one who came before you.” The counselor bowed her head. “Although you have the right to ask for whatever we can offer, beyond that, you are welcome to stay, sor­ceress and protector.”

  “I appreciate your welcome.” Secca bowed her head in return. “I will ask as little as possible in these troubled times.”

  A second counselor eased forward and walked down the steps carrying a basket—one gilded and wrapped partly in crimson ribbons. In it, Secca could see a clear glass bottle, along loaf of bread, and a small cloth pouch.

  “For your efforts, we welcome you. May the bread of Harmony sustain you. May the water you drink always be pure, and may you always be the salt of your people.”

  Secca wasn’t sure how to respond, but the ceremony called for something. She bowed her head and spoke. “Thank you for your welcome, and for the bread, water, and salt. For your welcome and your ways, may the Har monies watch over you and keep you.”

  Smiles appeared across the faces of the counselors, and murmurs cascaded across the bystanders around the green.

  "...only a sorceress dare to call on the Harmonies..."

  "...be why she’s a sorceress~protector..." .

  “... still Sea-Priest ships on the Southern Ocean..."

  The first counselor raised her voice. “We would like to meet with you in the morning4 in the meantime, Overcaptain Alcaren and the honor guard will escort you, your assistant, your players, and your forces to the guest quarters and barracks.” The counselor turned toward Alcaren, who had reined up several yards to Secca’s right. “Does that meet your satisfaction, overcaptain?"

  “I would be pleased, Counselor Veria.”

  The hint of a frown passed over the woman’s face, fol lowed by a rueful smile. “The overcaptain remains under your command, Sorceress-Protector, until you discharge him or until his return is requested by the Matriarch of Ranuak”

  Alcaren nodded as if he had expected no less, but Secca had the feeling that Counselor Veria’s words were as much a surprise to Alcaren as they had been to Secca, and that they had been deliberately uttered loudly in a
public place to ensure all knew. Secca wanted to think about what those reasons might be.

  “Until tomorrow, sorceress,” offered Veria with yet another bow.

  “Until tomorrow, and our thanks for your hospitality after a long journey." Secca inclined her head in return, then eased the gray mare around to follow the honor guard as Alcaren urged his mount up beside Secca’s.

  “We will turn right at the end of the next block,” Al-caren said from behind Secca.

  "Thank you.” After a pause, Secca leaned back toward the Ranuan and murmured, “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

  “I was surprised, but I cannot say it was totally unexpected.”

  “Because it keeps you under the command of a woman?” Secca’s tone was light.