The ShadowSinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Vyasal nodded. “That . . . that we can do, and my daugh­ter Valya, she will ride with you.” The Rider of Heinene laughed. “Always, she has said that she would do as the men do. Now, I can send her with a true battle sorceress.”

  Secca nodded, hoping she had not shown her concern inadvertently, for she had met Valya the evening before, and the girl---while tall, muscular, and wiry like her father was a good three years shy of her score.

  “She is the eldest, and since I have but daughters, best she learn from a woman who commands.”

  While the words were a statement, Secca understood the appeal as well. She smiled. “I will see that she is with me or Richina at all times.”

  Vyasal inclined his head ever so slightly. “Valya has made ready, in hopes that she would accompany you.

  “She will.” Secca forced herself to take another deep swallow of the warm cider as she finished a second section of the hot flatbread, onto which she had piled apple slices.

  “How long before the lancers are ready, do you think?" She glanced at Alcaren, who looked somewhat more rested than the night before, although there were still dark circles under his gray-blue eyes.

  “A glass or so.”

  “Before you go,” insisted Vyasal, “you must see our horses.” His dark eyes sparkled. “I must insist.”

  “I am not a rider,” Secca protested, even as she wondered if she could see the horses quickly enough so that they would not be delayed. It was still a good two days’ ride to Dubaria, and a day and a half beyond that to the ruins of Westfort and Denguic. Her lips tightened at the thought of the destruction the Sturinnese had already created and the concern about what else might be devastated before she could reach the Stu­rinnese. She tried not to think about her fears that what she knew might not be enough--- or that she might have to use even more terrible spells than those she had already em­ployed.

  Vyasal laughed. “Once, perhaps, that was true. I saw you ride into the Kuyurt. You are a rider. So you must see our horses.”

  Secca rose. “Best we do so now, then, for I fear to delay much will offer the Maitre more opportunities for destruc­tion.”

  Vyasal stood as well, saying in a low voice, “Would that others had such concerns.” He added more loudly, “I will meet you by the guest stables.”

  “We will be there as soon as we get our gear.” Secca turned to Palian. “You will have a bit more time to gather the players.”

  “I fear some will need it.” Palian’s voice was dry. ‘We will be ready when you return.”

  Delvor merely nodded.

  Secca, Alcaren, and Richina walked from the banquet hall.

  As they made their way along the stone-walled inside corridor, Richina spoke. “Lady Secca, might I accompany you to see the horses?”

  “Of course. So long as you are packed and ready to ride from there.”

  “I am already packed.”

  Alcaren said nothing until he had closed the door to the guest chamber, a room nearly as large as the one they had occupied in Nordfels, but whose white-plastered walls and arched ceiling were draped with dun silks, giving it the im­pression of an enormous tent. “Those words referred to Lord Robero.”

  “They did indeed, unhappily.” Secca set the lutar on the foot of the low bed, which was a circular affair in the middle of the room with no headboard or footboard, but with dun silk quilts and more than a half-score of pillows. “If what Jolyn wrote us earlier is correct, Defalk is splintering once more, into the factions of the old traditions and the new ways.”

  “I have but seen those favoring the new ways.” Alcaren shouldered his saddlebags.

  “Most of those in the west favored Anna,” Secca pointed out, “save Ustal, and Falar is the warder of his heir.” She slipped on her riding jacket and tucked the green felt hat into her belt.

  Alcaren shrugged helplessly.

  Secca shook her head, realizing, belatedly, that Alcaren would not have known. He was so good at understanding that at times she forgot he was unfamiliar with much of the history of Defalk. “The demesne of Fussen. Falar was the younger son, and Ustal the older. Ustal nearly destroyed the demesne with his insistence on following the old traditions, but he died when a crossbow wire frayed and slashed out his throat. Falar is also the consort of Lady Herene of Pamr, but he has been acting as warder for the heir. I think young Uslyn reached his score while we were at sea. There was talk of that just before we left Defalk in the fall. In any case, the other western lords supported Lady Anna. Many of those in the center of Defalk, or in the south, did not, and still some of those favor the older traditions.”

  “The ones who never had to shed their blood against in­vaders,” Alcaren observed dryly, “or who never had to worry about such.”

  “Just so.” Secca lifted the saddlebags and lutar.

  Alcaren opened the door, and they walked out past Dymen and Easlon, who fell in behind them. Richina was wait­ing by the guest stables and had already saddled her mount Gorkon had saddled the gray and held the mare while Secca strapped on the saddlebags, then the scrying mirror and lu­tar.

  Vyasal rode up on one of the huge raider beasts, a stallion with a coat of so deep and lustrous a blackish brown that it shimmered in the early-morning light almost like polished black stone. Riding beside him was Valya. Like Secca, and unlike the other women Secca had seen in the Kuyurt, her black hair was cut short She wore the black leather shoulder harness of a rider, with the twin short blades across her back. A small circular shield rested in front of her right knee.

  “Good morning, Valya,” Secca said. "I see you are pre­pared for the worst.”

  “Or the best, Lady Sorceress.” Valya inclined her head. ‘Thank you.”

  The Rider of Heinene studied the gray mare intently, then looked to Secca. “Are you ready, Lady Sorceress?”

  Secca tightened the straps holding the lutar and mounted. “The horses I want you to view are downhill and just to the west,” Vyasal said, easing his mount to Secca’s left.

  Alcaren rode to the right, while Richina and Valya fol­lowed the three down the gentle slope. Easlon and Gorkon brought up the rear.

  The ride was indeed short, less than a dek, Secca judged, when Vyasal reined up beside a stone wall little more than a yard high that formed a circle with a circumference of roughly a dek. There was a gate of sorts formed by two poles crossing an opening perhaps two yards wide in the stones. The area inside the wall was heavily grassed, and a narrow creek ran through it, with openings in the wall to accommodate the thin line of cold rushing water. There were five large horses---raider beasts---standing less than fifty yards from the wall.

  “They could jump this if they wished. It pleases them to stay,” Vyasal said with a laugh. “I could whistle, and they would come, but I will not.” He turned, in the saddle and faced Secca, the smile fading. “You must have a beast that matches your spirit.”

  “How will you know that one of them does?" Secca asked, amused in spite of herself at the Rider’s assurance, amused and wondering whether to be offended.

  “Your mother? The great sorceress? She was fortunate to find her first beast because she had no Rider to aid her. I am the Rider. I can tell you will find a mount. You must walk up to them by yourself . . . you will find the one that suits you.

  Alcaren’s eyes widened.

  Secca slowly nodded, understanding more than Vyasal would ever say. She dismounted and handed the gray’s reins to Gorkon, who took them solemnly. Then she walked to the gate and ducked between the two poles. There were some advantages to being small.

  Secca wondered what she was doing---walking up to the largest horses in all Erde, beasts trained to kill enemies and any threat to their riders---if they accepted a rider. She smiled, ruefully. Perhaps she was so small that she would be seen as no threat, even if none liked her.

  Her eyes ran over the five horses, all of whom had lifted their heads from where they had been grazing. The one far­thest to Secca’s left was a mare, her co
at a shade that Secca could only have described as firegold. Beside her was an­other mare, with a darker coat, more the shade of the mount that Vyasal rode. On the right side was a palomino stallion, almost like Farinelli, the first beast that Anna had ridden. The stallion snorted once, and turned, neither moving closer, nor farther away, but just watching Secca. The other two horses, both mares, with more silvery tinges in their palo­mino coats, also looked at Secca, almost indifferently.

  Secca took another few steps, looking at the two mares to her left. The firegold mare raised her head slightly, then lowered it, and her eyes seemed to meet Secca’s. The sor­ceress took another step toward her. The mare with the darker coat eased back, away from both Secca and the fire­gold.

  Before she quite realized it, Secca stood by—or beneath, she felt---the firegold mare. Slowly, very slowly, she ex­tended an open hand. The mare lowered her head just enough to sniff Secca’ s hand. After a moment, Secca’s fin­gers gently touched the mare’s shoulder. The mare contin­ued to look at Secca, almost impatiently, Secca felt.

  Now what do I do? Secca glanced toward Vyasal.

  “You walk toward us. She will follow. It must be her choice as well," the Rider called.

  Feeling foolish, Secca turned and walked slowly back to­ward the gate. She could feel the firegold’s breath on her neck, following her step for, step. She stopped at the pole gate and turned.

  The firegold mare snorted, gently, her muzzle just spans from Secca’s face.

  “She is ready for you to saddle her,” Vyasal said.

  “I . . . never have I seen mounts do that,” Richina mur­mured, if loudly enough for Secca to hear.

  “Then never have you seen a well-trained raider beast,” replied Vyasal. “They know who will be their rider.”

  Alcaren dismounted and began to unfasten the gear strapped behind Secca’s saddle.

  “You will need a Rider bridle.” The Rider of Heinene grinned as he lifted one in his left hand. “I thought to bring one.”

  Secca shook her head. “You knew.”

  “You are a sorceress, Lady Secca. I am the Rider.”

  Secca leaned across the gate and took the bridle, then studied it. The bridle had no bit, and appeared to be a mod­ified hackamore. Somehow, that didn’t surprise Secca. A Rider-trained raider beast would obey because it valued its rider, not through pain or force. When Secca turned, bridle in hand, the mare had actually lowered her head to be bri­dled. With a smile, Secca slipped the bridle over the mare’s head and ears, and fastened it in place.

  “Here.” Alcaren handed the saddle blanket across the gate to his consort.

  Secca was still dazed. Here she was, saddling a beast whose shoulders she could barely reach, even stretching, and what was amazing was that the firegold mare was letting her, even seeming to encourage her. Secca wondered about the length of the girths from her own saddle, but they were long enough---if with little to spare.

  Once she had finished, Secca mounted, and this time she definitely had to jump-mount, just to get her foot in the stirrup. The mare did not move, except once Secca was in the saddle, to toss her head slightly, as if to indicate that she would be glad to be moving on.

  Vyasal had dismounted and removed the two poles to let Secca ride out of the stone corral. He remounted and did not replace them.

  Secca looked down at the faithful gray mare, then turned to Vyasal, inquiringly.

  “You worry about the little gray? Do not” Vyasal smiled. “She has carried you far. She should be honored, and we will feed her and pamper her so long as she lives. We do not mistreat or discard even the oldest and the smallest.”

  At that moment, a low, evil-sounding note—a dissonant harmonic shivered through Secca. Secca glanced toward Alcaren, who had paled. Richina shivered.

  So cold . . . so deadly. Secca swallowed.

  “You are troubled,” Vyasal said. “Do not be. We will take your little mare and we will give her the best of care and pasture, but she is tired.

  Secca shook her head. “I’m sorry. It is not that . . . Some­where, someone has done some terrible sorcery, and I fear it is the Maitre.”

  Vyasal nodded, if sadly. “You are like your mother in that as well--- sensing what most could not and would not.”

  "We need to see.” Secca feared what the glass would show.

  Alcaren had already dismounted, once more, and laid the scrying glass in its leathers upon a flat area of ground, amid the tan winter-browned grass stalks of the previous season and the green shoots that were beginning to herald the spring.

  She dismounted and offered the firegold’s reins to Vyasal. “If you would . . .“

  The Rider just smiled as Secca took the lutar from behind the saddle, where she had just refastened it. Secca checked the tuning, and then thought for several moments. Finally, she sang. .

  “Show us now what sorcery has shivered through the

  land . . .”

  The mirror in the heat-darkened frame silvered, then cen­tered on a panoramic view.

  Secca looked down into the glass. Smoke swirled from the town where some structure smoldered and others still burned. The keep on the hillside was little more than scat­tered stones, licked by the intermittent flames of those items that flared in fire from the heat.

  Vyasal licked his lips nervously. “I had heard . . . but to see an image from so far away . . .”

  “It looks like Esaria,” Richina said.

  “It felt worse,” Secca mused.

  “What about the people?” asked Alcaren.

  Secca looked at him, inquiringly.

  “That kind of chord . . . it wasn’t pure Clearsong,” he said.

  Vyasal’s eyes flicked from the mirror to Secca and then to Alcaren.

  Secca tried another spellsong.

  “Show us now from Fussen, Uslyn, Falar and their.

  best,

  and of those who fought or fled the fate of the rest...

  The silver of the mirror twisted, and for the briefest of moments filled with hundreds of separate images, all black­ened corpses. Then, with a splintering crackkkk!, silvered glass sprayed across the grass.

  Secca looked blankly at the shattered and scattered glass, the fragments glinting in the early-morning sunlight. Scores of scores had died. . . scores of scores. . . Falar, Lady Herene’s consort, who always had a ready smile, and Uslyn, who had barely become lord of his demesne. Lady Herene and her family had always supported Anna, and now Secca, and once again it seemed as though they had, been punished for that support.

  Vyasal looked from the shards of glass and then to Secca. “You must do what you must.” A concerned smile appeared. “The mare, she will help.”

  “Might you have a mirror such as this one was?” asked Alcaren. “We have a smaller one, but going into battle against the Mtaitre . . ."

  “A mirror---that is little to supply. There is a sturdy one in the corridor off my chamber.” Vyasal laughed. “I will send for it.” He turned in the saddle and looked at his dark-haired daughter.

  “The one with the plain dark wood border?" asked the young woman.

  “That is the one.”

  As Valya turned her mount and urged the silver-gold stal­lion into a trot up the bill, Secca glanced at the firegold mare, who had not moved. “Songfire. You’re Songfire.” She had never named a mount before, but the mare was not just a mare. That she knew.

  Then, she recased the lutar and strapped it behind the saddle. Pointing to the steaming wood frame that had once held a mirror used for scrying, she asked, “Would you mind if we left that . . .?"

  Vyasal laughed. “Ha! Unlike so many, you ask, and for that courtesy alone I would bring every rider in the grass­lands behind you. Lady Secca. We will take care of it once you are on your way.”

  “Thank you.” Secca remounted Songfire, leaning forward in the saddle and patting the mare’s shoulder and getting a slight whuff in return.

  As she settled herself in the saddle, Secca was suddenl
y conscious that she seemed to tower over Alcaren and Richina, or so it seemed, although her head was probably only a few spans higher than theirs. But after years of being the smallest on smaller mounts, the change seemed enormous.

  “You see,” Vyasal proclaimed, “now you have an advan­tage none can match. You are small, and your Songfire can carry you more swiftly and for longer than any. Even I could not catch you if you had the slightest of starts.” The Rider grinned, clearly pleased with him self as the group rode back uphill.

  Secca was more than conscious of Richina’s eyes on her back as they neared the stone walls of the Kuyurt. There, by the guest stables, the lancers and players were already formed up. Across a space of fifty yards from them was a line of men and woman in the battle garb of the Riders, with the twin blades in shoulder harnesses.