The ShadowSinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “There will be little enough of that,” Clayre says darkly. “Lord Robero will not send his last full sorceress to succor us with the Sturinnese holding almost all of Dumar. His last scroll suggests that if we cannot soon defeat the usurper, I should consider returning to Defalk. That . . . that I would rather not, for we might well have to fight again, on our own lands.”

  The chief player frowns momentarily before speaking quickly. “What of the Liedfuhr? Would his aid assist us?"

  “He may well send his lancers—once the snows melt, but the passes to the west are higher and colder. He has too few ships to risk the Bitter Sea. He has no sorcerers to send, and against Belmar even scores of companies of lancers may not suffice.”

  “You risk much in attempting to destroy Belmar,” Diltyr says slowly. “Lord Robero fears such a risk.”

  “I risk more in not attempting it. He raises more lancers every week, even in winter. Were we to meet in direct battle, our two companies of lancers could not hold back his hordes long enough for me to sing a single spell.”

  “What will you now?" asks the brown-haired player.

  “Take a smaller group to attack his forces once we can ride, and before he thinks we can move. He will expect caution, and he will expect us to move toward Esaria to protect the Lady Counselor.”

  “How fares she?"

  “She still holds Esaria, but not much more. Aerfor and Eryhal have made their way to Nordwei—or so the glass shows.”

  “How...?"

  "They are both quite capable, it appears.” Clayre laughs. “They are among the few, it would seem.” After a moment, she sighs. ‘We will wait. That is all we can do. For now.”

  37

  In the early-afternoon light of a sun that looked warmer than it felt, Secca shifted her weight in the saddle, and the gray mare whuffed as she carried Secca southward on the road from the ford to the west of Hasjyl. The wind was lighter than It had been that morning, and carried the scent of thawing ground and winter-damp vegetation, but Secca still had her green riding jacket fastened snugly. She wore the green felt hat, pulled down over red hair that was always disheveled. Then, and ever since she had been a child, whether her hair had been long or cut short, somehow it had always ended up disarrayed.

  According to the glass, the Sea-Priests had taken over a hilltop hamlet some twenty deks to the east and were settling in. Secca had decided to ride eastward to a hamlet eight or nine deks away from the Sturinnese, before attempting an attack on the following day. With Fehern’s treachery, she had no longer had to worry about the Sturinnese circling behind her. All she had to do was defeat the Sturinnese. A rueful smile appeared on the redheaded sorceress’s face. All?

  On the flat and straight stretch of road ahead, Wilten, Delcetta, and Alcaren conferred with the scouts who had just returned. After the brief conference on horseback, Al­caren turned his mount and headed back toward Secca. As he neared, he turned his mount to ride alongside her.

  “We are about two deks from that ridge.” Secca’s consort pointed toward the low rise the road climbed before them. “The hamlet where we plan to overnight is in the swale below that rise.”

  “We should stop and use the scrying glass to see if there are any Sturinnese nearby, and what they may be doing. I’d rather not ride into an ambush.”

  “I’ll tell the overcaptains. The lancers and their mounts could use the rest, so long as they don’t get chilled.”

  “It won’t take long.” Secca smiled and turned to Richina. “Will it, Richina?”

  Richina smiled back. “Not at all.”

  Secca dismounted and unfastened the leather-wrapped glass from behind her saddle. Carrying the mirror with one hand, she walked the mare off the shoulder of the road and to a spot where the grass was thick and had been flattened. Belatedly, Achar rode after her, and took the mare’s reins. After loosening the leather thongs, Secca eased the mirror out of the wrapping, then spread the leather on the flattened grass and centered the mirror on the leather.

  Richina had followed. She dismounted. Achar took the younger sorceress’s mount as well. Richina then unstrapped her lutar and joined Secca.

  As Richina tuned her lutar, Wilten and Delcetta eased their mounts to a halt nearby, then dismounted. Handing the reins to a SouthWoman lancer, Delcetta walked toward Ri­china and Secca. Wilten looked at the lancer, who smiled and took the reins to his mount as well.

  The last one to arrive in the circle around the saying glass was Alcaren.

  After looking at Secca’s consort, Richina finished a sec­ond vocalise, then cleared her throat. She bent over the glass and sang.

  “Show us now and in afternoon light

  the Sturinnese we seek to fight. . .”

  The more distant hilltop hamlet appeared much as it had in earlier uses of the scrying glass, except that a patrol of riders—a good half squad---rode northward away from the lake.

  “They are sending out scouts,” Wilten said.

  “Wouldn’t you?" asked Alcaren.

  “This late in the day?” Delcetta’s tone was innocently open, but her eyebrows lifted with the question.

  “They’re watching us in a glass,” Secca said.

  “But the camp is quiet,” pointed out Wilten.

  That worried Secca. Then, whatever the Sturinnese did

  worried her. She looked at Richina. “Can you do one about the hamlet ahead?’

  Richina nodded, then cocked her head. Finally, she sang.

  “Show us now and as you will

  the hamlet ahead below the hill,

  and if enemies waiting that there be,

  show us clearly so that we may see...”

  The glass displayed a view from above of five dwellings. Two men pitched hay from an open cart into a pen contain­ing a handful of cattle. A girl carried two buckets on a yoke, moving from the stream toward one of the houses.

  “You wouldn’t see that if there were Sea-Priests around,” Alcaren observed.

  “We will still send scouts first,” Wilten declared, looking to Secca.

  She nodded. “In dealing with the Sturinnese, when we can, we should be cautious.” Despite her words, she had a strong sense that to defeat the Sturinnese she would have to be anything but cautious.

  “That we should,” affirmed Wilten.

  Alcaren caught Secca’s eye. They exchanged faint smiles, and Secca knew that her consort felt as she did.

  38

  In the grayness before dawn, Secca woke to the faint smell of smoke. She sat up abruptly in the bedroll she had laid on one side of the pallet bed in the cot that was little more than a neatly kept hovel.

  Beside her, Alcaren bolted up, shaking his head and look­ing at her. “What is it?”

  “Smoke. It’s not like a cookfire.” Secca swung her legs over the side of the rickety bed and bent to pull on her boots. Then came the belt and sabre, and then her riding jacket. Absently, she scratched her leg. Despite using her bedroll, she had a few bites from something. She shook her head and headed for the doorway to the one-room dwelling.

  Alcaren scrambled to follow her, his jacket half-on as he came through the door behind her and out into the cold morning.

  Secca stood in the open space before the cottage, glancing at the lancers who had stood guard before the cottage. “Overcaptain Wilten?"

  “He said he’d be back shortly, lady.” Gorkon pointed to the southeast. “That be him, I’d think.”

  Wilten was already riding back into the center of the ham­let, from wherever he had ridden, hurrying past the lancers stationed out as pickets.

  Secca sniffed the cold air again, but the odor of smoke remained strong and pungent, and the southeastern horizon was hazy from the smoke.

  Richina had joined Secca and Alcaren by the time Wilten reined up his mount.

  “The smoke comes from the south, lady,” Wilten said. “Overcaptain Delcetta and I have already sent out scouts, but they have not returned.”

  Secca nodded. She hadn
’t wanted to try an attack in dawn or darkness, but she feared she knew what the smoke sig­nified. “If you would find Delcetta and join us, we will see what the glass shows.”

  “She should be here momentarily,” replied Wilten.

  Secca looked to Richina. “If you would find the chief players . . .”

  “That I will.” Richina hurried toward the cottage to the west.

  While the others were gathering, Secca stepped back into the cottage, out of the chill, and, since there had been no table left in the dwelling, laid the scrying glass on the packed-dirt floor of the hovel, then took out her lutar and began to tune it.

  Alcaren tuned his lumand as well, and waited. Richina returned, with both Pallan and Delvor, and within moments of their arrival, Wilten and Delcetta stepped inside the single-room dwelling.

  Secca did not bother with explanations, but launched into the spellsong.

  “Show us now and in this day’s clear light

  from where the smoke has taken flight..."

  The mirror displayed the hilltop hamlet that the Sturin­nese had held the day before. Half the buildings were al­ready blackened stone or brick and fallen timbers, with mere wisps of smoke trailing upward. A few outbuildings still smoldered.

  “They burned it.” Wilten’s voice was flat. “So we could not re-provision there.”

  “They would have taken all the supplies, except hay or feed for mounts,” Alcaren said. “They burned it to deny us shelter.”

  Secca sang the release couplet before speaking. “There’s more here than shows in the glass.” She looked to Wilten. “I would hear what the scouts have discovered when they return.”

  Both overcaptains nodded.

  Secca looked to Palian and Delvor. “I fear we will have a long and a hard ride in the days ahead. I would that you make certan the players are ready for such.”

  “We can do that,” Palian said. “Might I ask . . .?"

  “The Sea-Priests wish to keep us in Dumar, and to make this a long and arduous campaign. We cannot afford such. I will be looking for a way to shorten that” If you can. After the others filed out of the cottage, except for Ri­china, Secca turned to Alcaren. “Am I wrong to worry about staying overlong in Dumar?”

  ‘When the Sea-Priests have always attacked swiftly and in force before? I think not.” Alcaren glanced toward the door. “I may ride out with one of Delcetta’s squads, if you do not mind.”

  “No. I do not” Secca smiled, if briefly. "We each must trust our feelings.”

  With a nod, her consort slipped out the door.

  As she waited for the scouts to return and report, Secca forced down chunks of the dry crackerlike bread that they had found in Hasjyl, and hard yellow cheese, accompanied. by cold water that she had used a songspell to purify the night before. Richina ate with her.

  “You were not surprised, Lady Secca,” ventured Richina.

  “I had hoped for better, but not expected it,” replied Secca.

  “What will you do?’

  “In a moment, we will use the glass to see how Clayre fares. The last time, she was in a hold somewhere in Nes­erea”

  Secca checked the lutar’s tuning, but it had held. Then she sang.

  “Show us now and in clear light

  Lady Clayre for our full sight...”

  The mirror displayed an image of the dark-haired sorcer­ess holding her lutar and looking into a glass set upon a bare wooden table in a dark room barely illuminated by a single twin-branched candelabra. Secca frowned.

  “What is the matter, lady?”

  “Something . . .” Secca shook her head. “She is in the same room as when we looked two days ago.” After a mo­ment, the older sorceress sang the release couplet. Then she repeated the spell.

  This time, Clayre appeared in the same room, but sitting at the table studying the glass. The lutar was nowhere in sight.

  “The lutar . . . it has vanished.”

  “So has Clayre. She has set a spell that shows these im­ages to any who seek her directly.” Secca again released the spell-image, frowning. “She must be trying something of great desperation.”

  ‘Will that mislead Belmar or whoever seeks her?" “It may,” conceded Secca, “if they do not seek her often in a glass.”

  “Is she all right?"

  “She has to be alive, for her energies power that spell.” Secca frowned again. “She will not have quite the strength that she would if she had not used that songspell.”

  “Should we try to see what she does?" Richina was the one to frown. “But how . . . ?"

  “That will not be difficult.” Secca pursed her lips and thought for a moment.

  “Show us now and as through Diltyr’s sight

  Lady Clayre in what is his full light . . .”

  Richina offered a low “oh” as the mirror displayed a very different scene. A small band of players, preceded by one company of lancers and followed by another rode along a narrow and winding lane covered with snow. The steam of the breath of the mounts was clear even through the mirror. After a moment, Secca sang a second release song and set down the lutar.

  “Could not Belmar do as you have?”

  “He could indeed---if he suspects all is not as it should be. Clayre’s hope is that he will not suspect.”

  “Should we warn her?” asked Richina.

  Secca sighed. “That would be my first inclination. But that will render one of us unable to do much sorcery for a day or longer. Clayre must know that Belmar will not be long deceived. But I cannot risk us losing because we are not strong.” She shook her head. “Save it is not that clear. We could avoid a battle with the Sea-Priests easily for a day or two, for that is what they wish. Yet I fear each day we avoid battle brings even greater danger.” Secca held up a hand to forestall any questions. “I do not know what that danger may be, only that the Sea-Priests are doing all in their power to keep us in Dumar.”

  “Could they be giving that appearance to force you into over hasty action?”

  Secca laughed, ruefully. “They could, and that makes the dilemma worse.” She took out her belt knife and cut off another slice of the hard yellow cheese, breaking off more of the crackerlike bread. The way matters were going, she knew she had to eat more than she wanted---much more.

  “Lady Secca?" called Gorkon from outside the hovel. “Overcaptain Wilten.”

  “Have him come in.”

  “Lady,” began Wilten, almost hesitantly as he closed the rough plank door behind him. He squinted in the dim light, trying to make out Secca more clearly.

  “They burned the hamlet, and . . .?” Secca asked. “What about the people?”

  “Most had fled,” Wilten said. “Some did not. They are dead.”

  Secca pursed her lips. “We will see where the Sturinnese are headed, but I would wager that they will retrace their route toward Dumaria, burning each town through which they pass.”

  “Burning?” asked Richina. “But why? Why not just take the provisions?”

  “If we triumph, they wish us great ill in restoring the land, and would lay the blame on Defalk for the devastation be­cause we could not protect them. If they triumph, they will declare that such will always be the fate of those who defy the Maitre of Sturinn.”

  “But they can retreat as fast as we can advance, can they not?” questioned Wilten.

  “Not if they must destroy a town---a larger town,” sug­gested Secca. “If we can circle to the south and move east­ward . . ."

  “Also, they may wait for the force in the north to join them," suggested Richina.

  “That may be. It may not be. That force may wait for us, and then create greater delays in whatever fashion they can.”

  Wilten nodded slowly and deliberately.

  Secca could feel her stomach tightening. Although she could not explain, even to herself, the feelings, she knew that she must find a way to defeat the Sturinnese in Dumar quickly. Yet she must do so in a way that would not sacrifice any more of her a
lready slender forces.

  39

  West of Itzel, Neserea

  In the dimness of the private study of the keep, Belmar studies the image of the woman in the glass that lies in the center of the dark oak desk. “She has been in the same room for near-on a week.”

  “Has there not been a snowstorm? And high winds?” asks jerGlien. “She has but two companies of lancers. She would not risk such against the weather.” His tone is close to that of idle speculation.