“That is better news than I’d have hoped.”
“Once we deal with Stura,” Secca said slowly, “we need to get as close to Neserea as we can. Esaria, if possible.”
“Let us get you to Stura first.” Denyst offered a wintry smile. “You still have the same numbers as when you came to Dumar?”
“Almost,” Secca said. “Almost.”
“And the Sturinnese?”
“More than half their forces destroyed,” Alcaren said. “The others fled northward into Neserea and blocked the passes with sorcery.”
“Mayhap you can do the impossible, lady.” Denyst drew out a set of papers and laid them on the stateroom table. “Here be the loading plans…”
“You are the expert, Captain,” Secca said. “I will need all the players and their instruments on the Silberwelle with me. Otherwise, we accept your plans.”
“After the battle off Encora, I’d thought as much, about your needing your players,” Denyst said musingly. “I’d calculated as much, but we’ll be taking but a few of your mounts on the Silberwelle. Instead, we’ll be carrying more stores.” She offered a crooked smile. “For later, should we need them.” She cleared her throat and went on. “You two will have my cabin here.”
“For such a longer voyage,” Secca protested, “we couldn’t…Besides, the last time you promised you wouldn’t give up your cabin…”
“Nonsense, lady. My life and that of the Matriarch’s are worth more than a few weeks’ comfort. You will need rest—that even I can see. I can see the strain of sorcery and battles.” Denyst grinned. “You can’t always trust a captain to be selfish all the time. Mayhap, I should be saying that you can trust me to be selfish in a way that be wiser.”
Alcaren laughed.
Secca looked at her consort.
“You will not win this argument, my lady,” he said.
Secca shook her head ruefully, finally admitting, “It has been a long season, and we have not even reached the middle of spring here.”
“Even if the worst occurs, you have bought Ranuak time, perhaps years, but already the cost on you has been high.” Denyst looked from Secca to Richina, and then to Alcaren. “I can see that it has been high for all of you.”
And it will rise even higher. But Secca only nodded and offered a lopsided smile.
74
Under a midday sky that was mostly blue, save for scattered puffy clouds, the Silberwelle sliced through the low swells of the Southern Ocean’s dark blue water. With the wind in her face, Secca stood at the railing just aft of the bow of the Silberwelle, her riding jacket fastened against the chill damp air. Beside her was Alcaren.
“You slept till late morning,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“I am still tired, but not so tired as before. What of you?” He shrugged. “I was so tired my body did not even protest that I was aboard a ship.” He laughed.
“You’re still tired,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Another few nights of rest, and I will be much better. A good bed helps.”
“That was kind of Denyst.”
“Both kind and practical. That is the way she is.” Alcaren turned and looked steadily at Secca. “Whatever you’re—or we’re—going to do, my lady, you cannot maintain the wards until just before you try to sing it.”
“Without the wards, we may not live to sing,” Secca said. “You know that.”
Alcaren waited, but Secca did not say more. Finally, he said, “Ships can only sail so fast. If there are no ships within two hundred deks of us, then none can reach us for a day or more.”
“Sorcery can strike from any distance. Did we not prove that?”
“You did. But what need is there for Richina to be ready to defend us against other ships?”
“You would have her carry the wards?”
“For a few days.”
Secca looked ahead, out across the dark waters to the west.
“We only need a few days to rest up enough for sorcery to defend us,” he pointed out. “Then I could spellsing the fire spell against any ship. If that worries you, I will sing the ward spells with Richina. But you must have rest without the drain of the ward spells. Do you not recall the storm spell you used against the Sturinnese fleet?”
Much as she disliked Alcaren’s words, Secca knew he was right.
“We have some time,” she finally said. Do you have as much as you need?
“The more rest you have before you must do great sorcery, the stronger will be your spells. Also, Richina cannot do the water-storm spells, and there may be yet another fleet that will come to test us when we reach the isles of Sturinn.” Alcaren smiled wryly. “I cannot believe that those of Sturinn will not have some defenses.”
“Nor I,” Secca agreed.
“So you will let Richina—or the two of us—carry the ward spells?”
Secca glanced away from Alcaren’s piercing gray-blue eyes, instead turning to watch the swells before the Silberwelle.
“My lady?” Alcaren asked softly.
“You are right. Yet it worries me. She is still so young.” Secca sighed.
“Will the Sturinnese let her live if we fail?”
“No. We both know that.” Why does it have to be this way? Why does it always come back to who can do what to whom? Secca shook her head.
Alcaren waited, and Secca could feel his eyes on her. At last, she replied, “Tomorrow or the next day. Or perhaps the day after. She will need rest, as well.”
Alcaren nodded.
You risk so much. Yet you risk more by doing nothing. Secca tried to push the thoughts from her mind. You can do nothing at this moment. Nothing.
Alcaren put his arm around her, silently, so lightly that she almost did not notice it at first, and they remained at the railing, looking westward. Toward Stura.
75
South of Worlan, Neserea
Two Sea-Priests stand before the Maitre’s camp table, erect, their uniforms spotless, waiting, their heads almost touching the overhead fabric of the traveling tent. Outside the tent, the day is gray and chill.
The Maitre shifts his weight on the padded stool and looks up. “Where is she?”
“We do not know, Maitre,” offers the shorter man. “As we have told you, when we try to scry her image, we see but our own. By scrying the ships, we can see that she is upon a Ranuan vessel, but it is on the open ocean. Its heading appears to be westward. That would follow if she intends to travel to Neserea by sea.”
“The ship is too far from land to say where she is?”
“Yes, Maitre.”
“How many vessels?”
“Ten, Maitre.” The time the taller Sturinnese sorcerer replies. “Six are vessels she captured from us with sorcery last winter. We think. They have white hulls and our lines.”
“So she has embarked her entire force upon Ranuan vessels, and they head westward?” The Maitre frowns. “What of the fleet of Nordwei?”
“It nears the Ostisles,” replies the taller man. “The home defense fleet is prepared to give chase.”
“Is there any sign that they work together?”
“None, Maitre. It is possible, but there are no signs.”
“And the Assistant Sorceress of Defalk?”
“She, too, is now warded. We do not know how long her wards have been there. We had not used the glass to find her in…some time. The wards, they are not like those we use.”
“There is much the bitch sorceresses do that is not as it should be,” the Maitre replies. “You may go. Keep watching, and let me know if you see such and when you can determine with certainty the destination of the Shadow Sorceress.” The dark-haired and sharp-featured Maitre gestures for the two to leave.
Once they have departed, his eyes fall to the maps spread across the camp table. “Wards that are not wards, or more than wards. Ships from all across Candar, and the support of the Matriarch. Between the Sorceress Protector and that bitch Ashtaar, we are spread too thin.” He shakes his head.
“The shadowsinger…that one is too malicious—and too clever by half. Tearing her tongue out would be too kind. Far too kind.”
The panels of the tent flutter ever so slightly in the light and chill wind.
76
Spacious as the captain’s cabin had seemed, it was cramped with eight people crowded into it. Cramped…and close. Secca, Alcaren, Richina, and Denyst sat around the table, with Palian, Delvor, Delcetta, and Wilten standing behind them. The sole light came through the green-tinted glass of the twin portholes and the prismlike skylenses set in the overhead, leaving the cabin dimly lit, even if far brighter than twilight.
On the circular table were maps—those Alcaren had found and those charts belonging to the Silberwelle.
Secca listened closely as Denyst continued to explain.
“…making near-on twelve deks per glass now, but we’ve had favoring winds, and they won’t hold as they have. Leastwise, can’t count on such…even if we could, be another three days afore we sighted the Ostisles, a bit less than a week after that before we’d see the fringe isles east of Stura.”
“In a few days, even if the winds don’t hold, we may be able to help there, as we have before,” Secca pointed out.
“I’d rather the winds held,” Alcaren said with a laugh. “So that we can save the sorcery for other matters.”
“So would I,” Denyst responded.
Richina nodded.
Secca looked from the maps to Alcaren and then to Denyst. “All the isles of Sturinn together are not that much larger than Defalk, and the isle of Stura is but half the size of Defalk. Yet they have built many fleets of fivescore vessels and lost hundreds of scores of lancers—with hundreds of scores remaining.”
“True enough,” the captain agreed.
“Most of the lancer rankers do not come from Sturinn,” Alcaren said. “They are from Pelara or the Ostisles. If they survive and are promoted through the ranks to become officers, after a number of years, they can take a stipend and live in great comfort in their homeland. The officers who survive live almost like lords.”
“So many do that?” asked Richina. “Enough that thousands upon thousands die willingly year upon year?”
“Stipended lancers and armsmen are free men, anywhere in the Sturinnese lands and isles, no matter from where they came,” Alcaren pointed out. “Even crafters and artisans are little better than slaves unless they are from the home isles of Sturinn.”
And all women are slaves. Secca kept the thought to herself, instead asking, “Can we avoid the Ostisles and make straight for Stura?”
“We can try,” Denyst replied. “If they do not send fleets after us. The Ostisles lie low against the ocean and have many reefs around them. That will work for us. That is less true of the isles of Sturinn.” Denyst glanced toward Secca. “Stura is a port city, but Inylt, where they say the palace of the Maitre stands, lies upland and inland.”
“We will do what we can,” Secca replied, trying to choose her words with great care. “I would rather do all possible by sorcery than try to land lancers in such an inhospitable place.” She smiled grimly.
“No offense to you, Lady Secca,” observed Wilten, “but we would rather not land there, if other means are possible.”
“If…if the sorcery works as we hope,” Secca said slowly, “then we still must return to Liedwahr and Neserea to defeat the forces of the Maitre that remain. No matter what we do to the isles of Sturinn, those forces will never surrender.”
“Never have, and never will,” added Denyst succinctly.
“Do you know what accompaniment you will use?” inquired Palian.
Secca had been planning to tell the chief player, but merely answered, “You had best keep them well practiced with the first building song. We may need that if the Sturinnese send warships after us. And for the spell against Stura…they will need to practice the fifth building spell. I know that they do not use it as much…” Secca could not recall when it had been last used, although Anna had insisted on the players knowing and practicing it.
“In a week, they will know it as well as the others,” Palian promised. “That they will.”
“And the second players as well,” Delvor added.
“We still might need the flame spell,” Secca said. “And in another day, we will need to reset the ward spells.”
Palian raised her eyebrows.
“Richina will take over the wards,” Secca explained.
Both players nodded.
“I had wondered, but did not wish to ask…” ventured the gray-haired Palian.
“We are upon the sea, and that makes spellsinging from a distance less effective,” Alcaren said. “We will see, but we think that for a few days, Richina will be able to hold the wards if she does little else.”
“I can do it,” Richina said, her chin stiffening almost imperceptibly.
“You will. You have done everything else needed,” Alcaren said warmly.
Secca wished she had been so quick, but she was still tired and not thinking so well as she should be.
Palian and Delvor both smiled briefly.
“Is there aught else that I should know?” asked Secca, taking in each face around and behind the table. After a long moment of silence, she concluded with a smile, “Then we will meet tomorrow.”
The overcaptains slipped out of the cabin first, followed by Delvor.
Palian stopped and leaned toward Secca. “They will play them well, and even if the deck throws them from side to side.”
Secca smiled warmly at the older woman, murmuring, “I’ve always been able to count on you, even back when I wasn’t the best pupil with the lutar or the violino.”
“You have learned, my lady, and for that we are all grateful.” With a smile and a nod, Palian turned and eased out through the doorlike hatch.
Denyst nodded brusquely. “Don’t know what you plan, but don’t go easy on the Sea-Pigs.”
“I don’t plan to. We have but one chance.”
“Good. Need to check topside.”
Then the captain was gone, leaving Secca, Alcaren, and Richina.
“You need some more rest, Richina,” Secca said. “Are your quarters…?”
“They’re small, but the bed is good, and it is good to be with Palian.” Richina smiles. “Sometimes, she even tells me stories about when you were young.”
Secca winced. “There are such stories, I am sure.”
“She said that you sang a spell that lit a fire when you were but nine. Is that so?”
The redheaded sorceress laughed. “It is. I’d memorized part of a spell Lady Anna had used. Lady Anna made me promise not to sing another one until she taught me much more.”
“It’s good to know you weren’t perfect.”
“I never was.”
“But everyone thinks you are.”
Secca just shook her head as Richina stood.
Alcaren closed the hatch door after Richina left, then turned to the table, where he began to reroll the maps that had been spread there.
Secca looked down at the map of Stura for a moment, before Alcaren lifted it and began to roll it.
“You hide much,” Alcaren said slowly, after replacing the maps in their cases. He sat back down at the table, waiting for Secca to sit.
Secca remained standing.
“Do you not wish to let them know what you plan?” he asked.
“I have not hidden that we will use terrible spells.” Secca shook her head sadly. “It is just that they cannot understand how terrible.” She looked across the table at her consort. “Had you not read them, would you know?”
“No,” Alcaren admitted. “You fear that some would make the voyage more difficult did they know?”
“I think not, but I would worry that some of the players would not play so well did they know. You recall how Bretnay is, and Rowal would not speak for days after the worst of the storm spells.”
Alcaren nodded slowly. “You know which spell, then. Perhaps, yo
u should let me study it, if it must be done. I should know the words and melody as well as you.”
Secca eased around the table to the covered bin by the oversize bunk. From there she took a leather folder, opening it and taking out what Anna had called a manila envelope. On the outside was written “Armageddon” in Anna’s graceful but angular hand. The sheet Secca wanted was the second one, and she eased it out, then replaced the envelope in the leather folder before handing the single sheet to Alcaren.
He read slowly, swallowing. “You showed me this one before. Why this one?”
“Because of your map,” she explained. “The north of the isle is like the Ring of Fire, and the mountains overlook both Inylt and the port city of Stura itself.”
Alcaren frowned, as if he did not understand, but did not wish to say so.
“The lady Anna told me, long years ago, that it is easier to use what is than to create all the elements of a spell from nothing. The sea is there, but it cannot reach beyond the towns and cities on the coast, no matter how mighty the spell.”
“Whereas this…”
“It might reach most of the isle and all the places where those who might seek revenge live and work,” Secca finished.
“It is a terrible spell,” he murmured.
“It is.” Secca sighed. “It is also pure Clearsong.”
“But terrible,” he repeated.
“Will anything less suffice?” she asked meeting his gray-blue eyes with her amber orbs.
After a moment, he shook his head.
77
Wei, Nordwei
Because the day is gray, the shutters and hangings in Ashtaar’s study and receiving room are drawn back. Outside, dark clouds hang over the city, and occasional fat flakes of spring snow drift past the ancient glass of the windowpanes. Inside, the Council Leader sits behind her ebony table desk, the hand in her lap holding a freshly laundered green cloth, the other resting on the polished surface of the table, her fingers less than a span from the polished dark agate oval.
The seer Escadra settles herself into the chair across from Ashtaar.
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