Delcetta rode back from the vanguard. As she neared Secca, the SouthWoman overcaptain smiled. “Lady, the scouts report that the sorceress Jolyn and the lord Kinor are waiting at the crossroads ahead. They await you rather than double-track the road.”
“Do we know how far it may be to a place where we can find shelter---of sorts?”
“Lord Kinor’ s messenger says that a glass to the east on the crossroad is a hamlet that has some barns and outbuildings. He also said to tell you that while it belongs to Lord Dostal, Lord Dostal is now unable to protest.”
Secca winced. She feared she knew exactly what Kinor meant.
Delcetta turned her mount alongside Secca. “You are close to Lord Kinor and Lord Tiersen, are you not?"
“We spent several years together in Falcor when we were younger. They are almost a half-score of years older than I am, though. Why?”
“Lord Tiersen watches you as though you were a younger sister, and so does his consort. I would wager that Lord Kinor will do the same.”
Secca smiled, somewhat in rue. “That may be.”
“The Great Sorceress chose better than she knew,” suggested Delcetta.
“I don’t think she ever knew,” Secca replied. “She understood and felt how matters should be without having to think or know. At times, I wish I could trust what I felt as well as she did.”
“You trust yourself more than you know,” Delcetta replied, before heading back toward the vanguard and the head of the column.
The damp clay road ran, for once, straight through a set of fields still showing the stubble of the fall before, unfilled and unplanted. On the far side of the field, there was a hedgerow that doubtless marked the crossroad that led eastward.
Just to the north of the hedgerow was a line of mounted figures. As the vanguard, followed by Secca and those around her, drew closer, Secca could make out individuals. Kinor’s once-flaming red hair, like Lysara’s, was no longer red, except his was a thick thatch of brilliant white, almost as striking as red might have been.
Kinor caught sight of the column and turned his mount northward, riding ahead of his lancers and everyone else. He rode on the shoulder of the road, half in the fields, until he saw Secca. Then he grinned, rode forward, and eased his mount around, joining her. “You’re still small and red-haired, but you’re riding a raider beast.”
“A gift of Vyasal.” Secca gestured behind her. “Valya is riding with us. You might recall Richina.”
Kinor bowed in the saddle. “You have grown into a full sorceress, Richina, and we are most glad to see you. You, Valya, have changed little in a season, except for the battle gear.” He glanced at Alcaren.
“This is my consort, Alcaren. Alcaren, this is Kinor. He used to tease me, many long years ago.”
“I am happy to meet you.” Alcaren inclined his head. “Anyone she recalls fondly as teasing her must indeed be special.”
In answer to Kinor’s unspoken question, Secca continued, “Alcaren was one of the overcaptains sent by the Matriarch to aid Elahwa. He is also a sorcerer, and he saved my life, and almost lost his. The scars on his cheeks are a memory of that Oh . . . he is also a cousin of the Matriarch.”
Kinor shook his head, then smiled at Alcaren. “She would find the only lord in Liedwahr who is both a warrior and a sorcerer. She always did have high standards.”
Alcaren laughed softly. “She insists that I am more than I am.”
Kinor laughed in return, far more heartily. “Secca never made anyone into more than they are. Ask Lord Robero if you have the chance.”
Secca blushed, but was gratified to see that Alcaren was flushed as well.
Another rider eased up almost behind Kinor---Lysara. “Kinor?”
The white-haired lord of the Western Marches turned in the saddle. “Yes? Oh . . . Lysara, I didn’t see you.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m not as striking as Secca. I just wondered. Where is Asaro?”
“I insisted she take the children to Mossbach.”
“Good.”
“Kinor!” called Tiersen. “If you have a moment, I need a few words.”
Kinor inclined his head to Secca. “If you would not mind?"
“Go,” Secca replied with a smile. “We’ll all be together for some days yet”
As Kinor slowed his mount to fall back beside Tiersen, Lysara rode up to Secca. She leaned forward, and murmured, "Asaro is not well, and even Jolyn could do nothing. Since Kinor cannot fight that, he will fight the Sturinnese. Be most careful in what you ask of him."
“Thank you,” Secca murmured, still looking for Jolyn and Anandra.
Lysara let her mount fall back beside that of her consort.
They had almost reached the crossroads before Jolyn and Anandra rode forward to meet Secca. This time, as mounts and riders mingled, in exasperation, Secca suspected, Wilten raised a hand. “Column halt!”
Delcetta echoed the command, as did Palian.
In the mix of mounts and riders, Jolyn reined up opposite Secca, with the thin and gray-eyed Anandra slightly back of her.
“I am glad to see you.” Jolyn’s brown eyes swept across the column stretched behind Secca. “Those aren’t all yours?”
“They all serve her,” Alcaren offered.
Almost as if she had not seen the officer in the Ranuan uniform, Jolyn stared at Alcaren, taking in the pale blue of Ranuak.
Secca shook her head ruefully. “Jolyn, this is Alcaren. We were consorted by the Matriarch at the turn of spring.”
Jolyn’s mouth opened. “And you never told anyone?”
“I didn’t want Robero to know at first and then . . . well somehow, I never got around to it,” Secca confessed.
“What does he have that all the others didn’t?" Secca smiled at Jolyn’s all-too-customary bluntness.
“He’ s a sorcerer, and he almost died saving my life because he loves me,” Secca replied just as bluntly.
“A Ranuan sorcerer?" Jolyn laughed. “How. . .?"
“He was an overcaptain sent to relieve Elahwa, and he is a cousin of the Matriarch. She was pleased that she could consort us and send him off somewhere that people didn’t mind male sorcerers.”
Jolyn’s eyes ran over the younger sorceress, then turned to Alcaren. “She looks happier than in years. You must be treating her well. Just don’t let her order you around too much.”
"Like you do?” countered Secca.
“I treat men well. At least for a time,” Jolyn conceded with a smile.
As Secca studied the older and taller blonde sorceress more closely; she could see that Jolyn’s face was pale, ashen, and her eyes red and sunken in black circles. “As soon as we can find a suitable place to stop this afternoon, you need to sing the release spell for the wards,” she blurted.
“I look that bad?” Jolyn’s deep contralto voice carried an ironic twist and humor at odds with her exhausted appearance.
“Worse,” Secca replied. “Richina and Anandra can carry the wards together for the next few days. We need you to get some food and rest.”
“I could not rest easily,” Jolyn replied. “Kinor insisted that while he could not stop full companies of lancers, he needed to kill all stragglers and scouts. So I had to accompany him, as did Anandra.”
“But she was not carrying the wards.”
Jolyn offered a quizzical look.
“We’ve been singing some of the spellsongs together. It makes for a stronger spell.”
“Dissonance,” murmured the older blonde sorceress. “I could sense you were doing something different. Is it safe?”
“Anna thought so. She tried to get Brill to do it years ago. Don’t you remember her talking about that?”
Jolyn raised her eyebrows. “No. I don’t think she ever did.”
“Oh . . ."
“We have much to talk about, but it should wait for later,” suggested Jolyn.
Secca nodded. “We’d better sort out this mess and get riding so that we�
��re not caught in the middle of nowhere in the dark.”
“That might be wise.”
Secca stood in Songfire’s stirrups, conscious that now, when she did so, she could actually see above others. “Wilten! Delcetta! Form up to head east on the crossroad!”
“Form up! Vanguard! To the east road! To the left!”
Secca settled into the saddle.
“You’ve changed in other ways, too,” offered Jolyn. “We do need to talk.”
“We do,” agreed Secca.
Alcaren watched, saying nothing.
127
West of Aroch, Defalk
The Maitre looks up from behind the camp table at the officer who faces him. To his left and slightly behind him stands jerClayne.
“She is moving eastward along the back roads, toward Aroch,” offers the grizzled Sturinnese overcaptain. “Her forces are larger than before, and they are moving swiftly.”
"We will reach Aroch first, and we now hold it, do we not?"
“Aye, Maitre. We hold Aroch, but as for your forces holding it against an attack . . . Marshal jerLeng did have to breach the walls in two places, and it may be a day more afore they’re repaired, even with sorcery.”
“So . . . we must delay her. We have the better roads, and we can flank her and attack from the south,” declared the Maitre. “That should slow her, and we can slay some of those lancers with her.”
“Begging your pardon, Maitre, but how might you suggest that we do so against her sorcery?"
“You will do so. I will send one of the Sea-Priests and some players. Take . . . jerWyal . . . have him create a fire in her path . . .or a flood . . . or both. Or whatever he can do. A rainstorm to turn the back roads into mud. Then, while she deals with such, attack the outliers.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Fall back, and do it again, or something like it, each time. Don’t charge her directly. Kill those away from her protections, and that will slow her advance enough to give us time to prepare at Aroch.”
The overcaptain bows. “Yes, Maitre.”
After he departs, the Maitre looks to jerClayne. “Does she still hold the wards?”
“Someone does and the other sorceress has joined her.”
“Good. We will not have to chase them both, and we will finish this whole matter within a week, if not sooner.”
They both nod in agreement.
128
Twilight had turned into early evening by the time the players had recased their instruments, after the last sounds of the warding spell died away. Secca stood in the damp clay of the lanelike road that ran between the small cottages of the unnamed town. A light wind ruffled through her hair, a wind with a chill that signified that spring had yet to come fully.
Secca looked at Richina, then at Ananda “Remember. Eat well and rest as much as you can. Your strength allows us to do what we must.”
Both younger sorceresses bowed slightly. “Yes, Lady Secca.”
Secca looked to Alcaren, then Jolyn. “Is there anything else I should tell them?"
“Not to talk all night,” suggested Jolyn. “There are three of them now, with Valya.”
A guilty look passed from Richina to Anandra. Behind them stood the Rider heir, and a smile crossed her lips.
“You can talk for a while,” Secca said. “I need a few words with Jolyn.”
Alcaren nodded. “I should talk to Wilten and Delcetta about our order of march tomorrow, and as we near Aroch.” With a smile, he bowed slightly and turned away.
The hamlet was larger than Sedak, in that there were almost twoscore dwellings, but none of them were much more than one- or two-room cottages, rudely built of dried mud bricks. Secca and Jolyn walked toward one of the larger ones, the one that would hold the sorceresses, Alcaren, and Valya. The two-room cottage had not even a table, but just a plank wedged between a course of bricks and supported by two bricks protruding from the rough mud brick wall.
Secca pulled one of the two stools to a corner of the plank. Jolyn took the other. Before sitting down, Secca found a striker and lit the stub of a candle set in a crudely carved wooden holder, then slid the holder to a more level spot on the plank, not quite against the grease-splattered mud brick wall.
“You have much to say, from your eyes and carriage,” Secca offered gently, easing herself onto the stool, far less comfortable than her saddle. Although Jolyn was less than a head taller than Secca, she was far more muscular, and Secca had always thought of her as taller than she was.
“You know I enjoy using a blade or both blade and board, don’t you?’ Jolyn asked quietly.
Secca laughed gently. “You’ve always enjoyed it, and there are more than a few men who wished you did not.” She frowned. “Now it bothers you?"
“No,” answered the older sorceress. “I’d rather use a blade. I can’t say I like using sorcery to destroy people. Even Sea-Priests.”
“After what they’ve done?”
“I don’t like what they’ve done, and I’d cheerfully lop off their maleness myself and then slit their throats. It’s doing it with sorcery that bothers me. It’s like they’re bricks in a wall, or stones in a road.” Jolyn shook her head. "Death is too final, too important, for people to be cut down as if they were grain before a scythe."
“The Sea-Priests started this war by using the ocean as a scythe against Narial.” Secca pointed out. “And in all battles, they have used or tried to use sorcery to allow their blades to control the field. That isn’t much different from using sorcery directly. In a way,” Secca reflected, “it’s even more dishonest. They use sorcery to weaken or disable their opponents, and then overwhelm them with lancers and blades.”
“You would, see it that way. So did Lady Anna.”
Secca thought. What can you say against feelings?
“You don’t agree with what I feel. I can tell that,” Jolyn said.
“I can see why you feel the way you do,” Secca replied, her words slow and careful. “Sorcery is terrible, and I have used the most terrible spells, If we are to defeat the Maitre, there will be others. As Alcaren keeps telling me, we are not the ones who keep invading others’ lands. We are not the ones who insist that women—or men---be chained as slaves. Or that women who essay sorcery have their tongues cut out. We should be able to live as we choose, so long as we do not harm others, or harm them as little as possible. And we should not lose that freedom simply because we do not have scores upon scores of half-captive lancers with sharp blades.”
Jolyn sighed. “I know. You’re right. I tell myself that time after time. And I do what spells I must. But it does not feel right to kill so with sorcery."
Secca’s laugh was hard and brittle. “You believe I enjoy such spells?”
“No. They will tear at you until you bleed inside.” Jolyn paused. “But you will do what you must, and you will use whatever spell may be needed. In that, you are no different from Lady Anna. You know, she thought herself a small woman?”
“I know. She always felt she was small. She said that was because she was small in the Mist Worlds.” Secca raised her eyebrows. “Because we believe ourselves small, you think we have less aversion to using terrible spells?”
“I had wondered.”
Secca pursed her lips, thinking. Finally, she spoke. “I may have less aversion to such spells, but I cannot say that it is because I am small. I have slain men with sorcery and with a blade. Those slain one way are as dead as those slain another. And I cannot see much difference between a ruler who slays scores upon scores with thousands of lancers and one who slays the same number with sorcery."
“But at least in combat, a better lancer has a chance.”
“Does he?’ asked Secca. “I have seen many slain from behind where their skill mattered little. I wonder if you value the illusion of such chance more than its worth merits.”
This time Jolyn was the one to pause before speaking. “That could be, but is not most of what we value in life at least pa
rt illusion? You will strip that illusion from us, Secca, and while you may weep bitterly, you will not hesitate.” Jolyn held up her hand. “I will sing whatever you wish, and I will sing it as well as I can. For, as you have said, there is no choice now. Perhaps there never was. But I will regret, as long as I live, that sorcery must be used such, and it will feel wrong that long, if not longer.”
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