“This is most dangerous, Lady Clayre,” murmurs Diltyr.
“Indeed.” Clayre nods. “But one snowdrift looks like another, and even if he were to see us in his glass, he would not know exactly where we might be.”
“He might not come along this road.”
“He might not,” agrees Clayre. “If they do not, we are no worse off than before.”
“True,” grudges Diltyr.
“Who will stop this Belmar if we do not? Lord Robero has no more lancers to spare, and the Lady Secca fights her way across the south of Liedwahr. She will not soon reach Neserea, not against the Sturinnese and with the deep snows of the Mittfels blocking all the passes. So it must fall to us.”
Diltyr inclines his head in acknowledgment.
They fall silent as the lancer watching the road through the smallest of peepholes in the canvas gestures.
The scouts who ride the road before the column scarcely glance at the snowdrift as they scan the road for signs of hoofs and wagon tracks, and the road farther ahead for riders. The sound of hoofs on the frozen road fades as they pass.
Less than half a glass later comes the main body. Lancers in the ancient green of the Prophet of Music lead the column that follows the road westward. The hoofs of their mounts clop dully on the frozen clay.
Clayre motions the lancer aside and studies the advancing lancers through the peephole in the canvas. Finally, she steps away and nods to the players. “Once the canvas is clear, play on your mark, Diltyr.”
“On my mark…”
Clayre motions to the lancer. He quickly pulls the canvas away to expose the sorceress and players—and to allow their sound to carry toward the lancers and the figure who wears the colors of Belmar.
Even as the canvas is being cleared, Clayre nods to Diltyr, who brings his hand down, and then begins to play. The other three players join him, and the spellsong accompaniment swells, flowing out into the chill day, each note precise.
Clayre begins the spell on the third measure, lifting her voice into the cold morning air, air solid enough to carry the words and melody more than the half a dek length of the column. She has chosen the players wisely, and though they are few, their notes are firm and forceful, and both spell and accompaniment meld and soar.
“Turn to fire, turn to flame
Belmar and all those here in his name,
turn to ashes and scatter as dust
those who follow this prophet’s trust…”
With the spell comes a harmonic chord, reinforcing the words and music, for all its briefness in passing. Then, lightnings flash from the skies, not from the hazy clouds, but from somewhere below them, from where darker clouds begin to form and swirl into being.
From the column of riders come screams and curses, filling the chill morning air. Smoke begins to circle skyward as the lightnings fall like fire lances into the lancers, turning man after man into flaming torches, until the fires and smoke stretch nearly half a dek eastward.
The clouds thicken, and the morning darkens more, until the light resembles dawn or twilight.
As the last sounds of the spellsong die away, Clayre stands, breathing deeply, watching as the last of the lancers in green fall. A grim smile crosses her thin lips, then fades as she beholds the charred figures that once were men. She shakes her head, almost sadly.
“There was no dissonance,” offers Diltyr, glancing toward the carnage upon the road.
“No.” Claire frowns, and as she does, a deep rolling thunder fills the air, a rhythmic thunder that comes from somewhere behind her, drowning out the more distant rumbling from the roiling clouds overhead, clouds that continue to thicken and darken.
From the direction of the drumming thunder appear more riders—another line of of lancers in green who sweep from the south toward the unprotected players.
Clayre turns and sees the attackers in their cream and green. She bends and snatches the lutar from its case. Without a pause, or a word, she lifts the lutar, her fingers touching the strings precisely. Facing the grim-faced riders who charge across the meadow toward her and who ride through the small snowdrifts, the sorceress faces the riders and begins another spell. Her voice is clear and strong.
“Turn to fire, turn to flame,
all those against our name…”
Another line of flame lances drops from the heavens, but this line is far thinner, more like arrows than lances. Thin or not, it is sufficient to turn the entire company that had led the charge across the meadow into charred corpses, so that the colors of the meadow are the dirty white of old snow, the winter tan of last year’s grass, and the black of sorcerous death.
Clayre takes a deep and quick breath, then another, listening as she does.
“Lady…” begins Diltyr.
Clayre gestures him to silence.
Somewhere beyond the field of death, the rhythmic thunder continues.
She straightens, ignoring the burning in her eyes and chest, and begins another set of chords on the lutar, those that matched the first spell played against the column.
“Turn to fire, turn to flame
Belmar and all those here in his name…”
The storm above the sorceress and the small band of players crackles, and more flame lightnings flare to the south…but they do not strike the next wave of lancers, but bend aside near the rear of the attackers, as if they had struck an invisible shield. The lancers ride forward, deliberately.
Clayre staggers as she finishes, then forces herself erect, watching for but a moment, breathing heavily, as the lancers in green gallop toward her and her players.
She swallows, then coughs, and clears her throat.
The rhythmic drumming is louder, more intense, and the sorceress shakes her head, then takes a quick swig from the water bottle at her belt. She squints, as if she has trouble remembering the words to the spell, but her fingers are deft upon the strings of the lutar, and once more, her voice rises, well above the drums, and even above the thunder of the clouds above.
She has but reached the second line of the spellsong when the white-tipped flame lightnings arc from the still-lowering clouds, ripping into her and the players beside her.
The sole lancer’s mouth opens, but before he can yell or speak, he too is transfixed with flame. Behind him the white canvas flares into a bonfire, then turns black as the flames consume it.
A single dull harmonic chime sounds, dissonant, unheard except by those few who understand all too well what it means.
42
When Secca and her force stopped for the first break of the day, a good two glasses of travel after leaving their campsite, dawn had barely broken. Orangish light suffused itself across the grasses and low trees of the hills through which wound the narrow trail they had followed in an effort to reach the small unnamed town on the eastern end of the long and narrow bow in the Envar River. The stopping point had been the first wide and halfway-flat spot of ground in several deks, covered mainly with the winter-flattened tan grass of the higher meadows. To the south was a copse of cedar trees, wild and tangled, and twisted by years of neglect.
After chewing through a chunk of the cracker bread that was as hard and tough as ancient dried jerky, Secca took a long swallow of water that was so cold that she shivered, even though the morning was not that chill. She took another bite of the cracker bread, and crumbs sprayed everywhere as her teeth crunched through it.
Beside her, Alcaren smiled.
“…don’t see you eating it…” Secca mumbled.
“I am,” chimed in Richina from beside the older sorceress.
The three glanced up from where they stood beside their mounts as Wilten and Delcetta rode up.
“We’re making good time,” Wilten announced. “We could be on the hills overlooking the western end of the town by a bit past midday.”
“If the road holds,” added Delcetta.
“The glass showed that it will be much the same,” offered Alcaren.
A low d
ull and dissonant chord shook Secca, rattling through her frame so violently that she reached out and grasped Alcaren’s shoulder to steady herself. She swallowed, then glanced around.
Alcaren’s brows knit. “What was that?”
Richina glanced from Alcaren to Secca. “It was like the battle…at Encora.”
Secca glanced at the two mounted overcaptains.
“What?” asked Wilten.
“Something…happened…distant…dissonant…” Secca forced the words out, even as she turned toward the gray and began to unstrap her lutar.
Alcaren hurried over beside her and untied the leather-wrapped scrying glass.
Both Secca and Alcaren ignored the looks that passed between Wilten and Delcetta as Secca tuned the lutar. Richina laid the leather wrappings on the grass, and Alcaren set the glass on top of those wrappings on the grass. As Secca finished tuning, Palian and Delvor appeared, walking their mounts toward the group.
“Lady…” offered Palian.
“We heard,” Secca said tightly. “You may watch the glass.”
Secca glanced down at the glass, then touched the strings of the lutar.
“Show us now and bring to sight
what caused the dissonance to take flight…”
The spell was rough, Secca knew, as she watched the mirror blank into silver and then slowly bring forth an image…an image that showed a line of blackened figures within a square of snow. A square of canvas, barely attached to two rough branches, burned brightly.
Secca swallowed as her amber eyes traced out the rough outline of a charred lutar.
“I will sing the release,” Alcaren said.
Secca nodded, swallowing again. As Alcaren’s voice died away, she looked to her consort. “I must be sure.”
“I will—”
“I can, lady,” offered Richina.
“No. I must.” Secca lifted her lutar and sang.
“Show me now and in the mirror’s light
the lady Clayre well within my sight…”
The mirror blanked, and then showed almost the same scene, centering on one figure, but…even as all gathered around the glass watched, the surface silvered and turned blank.
“Clayre…she’s gone,” Secca confirmed, looking up from the glass. “She’s gone.”
“So are many of Belmar’s armsmen,” Alcaren said slowly.
“Would you…?”
Alcaren took the lutar and sang.
“Of Belmar’s lancers, show in clear light
all those struck down by sorcery’s blight…”
The mirror showed a road, in the same snow-studded landscape, along which were strewn the bodies of lancers and mounts, also blackened. The column stretched almost half a dek.
“Not all…but many,” opined Alcaren. He sang the release couplet, then lowered the lutar.
“What about Belmar?” asked Richina.
Alcaren looked to Secca, who nodded. At Secca’s nod, Alcaren handed the lutar to Richina. The younger sorceress ran her fingers over the strings, then cocked her head sideways in thought before singing the viewing spell for Belmar.
The mirror image was clear and sharp, showing Belmar—except that he wore not the garments of a lord, but the uniform of a captain. Beside him rode a man in gray, and behind him at least several players.
For a time, the seven looked at the glass, silently, before Richina sang the release couplet.
“Belmar and his players remain, with nothing between them and Esaria,” suggested Palian.
Secca shuddered, silently, numbly, thinking of Clayre, of the dark-haired sorceress who had gone to Neserea with few lancers and less support from the Nesereans. She could still recall first meeting Clayre, when Clayre had been sixteen, and Secca barely nine, and looking up to the tall young woman who had come to Falcor at Anna’s behest, to avoid an arranged consorting. Now…Clayre was dead, never having known consort or love.
Secca shivered again, then squared her shoulders.
Alcaren put his hand around hers, gently, and squeezed.
“Can you do nothing, my lady?” asked Wilten.
Secca hesitated, then shook her head. “Not beyond what we plan. I dare not. Not until we have dealt with the Sturinnese here in Dumar. We could not reach Esaria within weeks, and if we tried, we would turn Dumar over to those Sturinnese here.”
“We could lose both lands, then,” suggested Alcaren.
No one mentioned that they could anyway.
Secca took her lutar back from Richina and slipped it into its case, while Alcaren and the younger sorceress rewrapped the all-too-warm scrying mirror and fastened it in place behind the saddle of Secca’s gray mare. Then Secca tied the lutar in place. She looked at Wilten. “We had best be riding. I do not intend that the Sturinnese succeed in Dumar.” Although she had not intended it, her words fell like ice into the silence—infinitely cold and yet as edged as a freshly sharpened sabre.
Wilten lowered his eyes. “We stand ready, Lady Secca.”
Secca forced a smile. “I am not angry with any here, Overcaptains. I am angry, and those with whom I am angry will know it. In time, and in my own way.”
Wilten swallowed. Mounted beside him, Delcetta showed a cold and grim smile that bore a hint of satisfaction.
Secca smiled, a hard smile that was becoming too familiar. “Our scouts have said that the ride is less than six deks across the hills. We can make it by midday, and rest for several glasses before the Sturinnese appear.”
“If they don’t see us coming in their glasses,” Wilten said worriedly.
“If they do, how are we worse off? They can hurry, or they can retreat westward. Either way we’re in a better position.” Secca smiled again. “Besides, I think that their lancers and overcaptains will want to fight. This will give them an excuse.”
Alcaren frowned. So did the overcaptains.
Secca looked at her consort. “You said that days ago. That the Sturinnese always liked to attack. How must they feel about retreating from a mere woman with but nine understrength companies of lancers?”
“They will not want to do that again,” suggested Delcetta.
“So they will at least approach more closely to see what we might do,” Secca replied. “And if it is close enough, we will strike.” Her eyes traveled across each of those around her. “We should be riding once more.”
“Yes, Lady Secca.” Wilten inclined his head.
After a moment, so did Delcetta. Then the two overcaptains turned their mounts eastward and rode back along the trail to where the vanguard had gathered.
Palian mounted, then Delvor, followed by Richina. Alcaren waited until his consort was astride the gray, then mounted last.
Secca’s thoughts kept flitting between the Sturinnese ahead, and Clayre and Neserea. How had Belmar destroyed her? Had she relied too much on her deceptive spell? Or was the Neserean even more cunning? And what about the man in gray who resembled all too clearly the man who had advised Fehern? Was he another Sea-Priest? Were they everywhere?
As they rode slowly along the winding trail, following the vanguard, Alcaren turned to his consort. “Whatever you had thought about—for later, after you deal with the Dumarans…whatever it be…it frightens you.”
“You have read Anna’s spells and notes. Are you not frightened at what we may unleash?”
Alcaren nodded. “They are fearsome spells. Yet…against the fleets and endless forces of Sturinn…what else can we do?”
“I think the first Matriarchs asked that same question when they faced the Mynyans,” Secca said wryly. “The Mynyans were defeated. Most of the Matriarchs died, and much of the northern and eastern lands of Ranuak remain poisoned to this day. The Ladies of the Shadows may indeed be right about sorcery. And so are you. If I do nothing, the land may survive, but not us and not a way of living I would wish. Yet, if I do something, there is no certainty that our ways of living will survive—or that we can live through the aftermath.”
Alcaren laughed, r
oughly and ruefully. “It is too bad we cannot fight the Sturinnese in the isles of Sturinn, instead of in Liedwahr. Then we would not need to fret about the devastation so greatly.”
“It is too bad. The Sturinnese deserve that—or worse.” Secca eased the gray forward, frowning as she considered Alcaren’s words for a time. Then she returned to thinking about what spellsong to use when the three of them faced the Sturinnese…and how she would need to change the underlying melody for each singer to strengthen the harmonic effect.
As she considered what she was about to attempt, she wondered, not for the first time. Was she becoming as ruthless as the Sturinnese? Was there any other way to deal with a land who wanted to put all women in chains—and cut out the tongues of any women who practiced sorcery?
Secca had found no other answers, besides force in some form. It did not comfort her that Anna before her had failed to find an alternative to force backed by sorcery. There might be an answer, but what it might be eluded Secca. The Ladies of the Shadows had no answers, nor had the Matriarch—and they had considered the problem for scores of generations, if not longer. Greater force seemed to be necessary in dealing with a land that had invaded Liedwahr time and time again without provocation.
But still…that thought saddened her.
43
West of Itzel, Neserea
Still wearing the uniform and insignia of a junior captain, Belmar rides slowly along the road, eastward toward Esaria. His eyes traverse the charred figures strewn beside the roadside, and the smaller number scattered across the snow-dotted meadow, and he swallows, almost convulsively, whenever there is a lull in the chill northwest wind that numbs his sense of smell.
Shadowsinger Page 19
