The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Mayhap . . . but Synfal was a keep before Cheor was much beyond mud hovels.” He grinned.

  Anna had to grin back. Some things you couldn’t explain. Her grin faded as she glanced back and saw the column of dust. Surely, someone from Suhl had seen them.

  Anna cleared her throat and tried a vocalise. “Holly-lolly, polly-pop . . .” Less than a half-dozen notes into the exercise, she half coughed, half choked on mucus. After clearing her throat, finding the water bottle, and taking a small swallow, she started again.

  Lord . . . is it going to be one of those times?

  One of those times it was. Her voice kept cracking, and she couldn’t seem to clear her cords. Anna rode and kept doing vocalises, half aware that they were passing through bean fields and fields with sprouts too low for her to identify. Every so often, she had to moisten her mouth and get rid of the dust.

  After a half-glass—or longer—she felt better, well enough to handle the spells she had planned.

  Another orchard appeared ahead, and the lane split the trees. On the right of the road, the trees sprawled to the west for a dek or more. On the left were only scattered handfuls of the old and gnarled apple trees. The ground beneath the orchard’s trees bore the trace of tattered white apple blossoms, and the faintest scent of the fallen flowers. The leaves were already cloaking the old and twisted branches.

  “Suhl’s beyond this,” Anna said.

  Hanfor nodded. “The scouts have seen it. No one is coming this way.”

  “Not yet.”

  The high field Anna had first seen in the glass spread out below the rise where she reined up, the main bulk of the orchard to her right, a few trees and mainly fields to her left. The wide meadow in the valley held a man-made mound that commanded the main road that split the valley. That main road ran perpendicular to the lane that Anna and her forces had taken.

  “No armsmen on the hills to either side, ser,” panted another messenger, drawing up beside Hanfor. “There’s a galloping lot of them coming up on the other side of the valley, where this lane would lead, if’n we’d taken it farther. They look to be a dek back, almost like they’re a’waitin’, ser. They’ve got a different banner.”

  “Another joins Sargol’s cause,” opined Jecks. “Gylaron, I would wager. He is shrewd.”

  “Fighting on someone else’s land?”

  Jecks nodded, checking his blade again.

  Beyond the mound, on the rise across the low valley, hulked Suhl, a thick-walled and square keep of dull red brick and gray stone. Below the keep was a welter of tents, and mounts tethered in long lines.

  A horn sounded, and dust began to rise as riders scrambled for their mounts.

  “They didn’t expect us to come this way,” said Jecks.

  Why not? Anna wondered. Or were back roads too dangerous, because they were narrow and forces could be trapped? She shook her head. She was too slow. Talking was wasting time. “Players!”

  “Yes, Lady Anna?” called Liende.

  “A quick warm-up, and then the long flame song.”

  “Way for the players! Way for the players!” shouted Fhurgen.

  “Green company to the fore!”

  The players spilled off their mounts and onto the ground, arrayed facing the valley and the mound.

  Anna dismounted, clearing her throat, and going through a last vocalise as the players straggled through a warm-up.

  “Together. We must play together, else we die separately.”

  Why does that sentiment come up so many places? Anna wondered absently even as she looked to Liende. “Ready?”

  “We stand ready.” Liende gestured, and the warm-up stopped. “The flame song. On my mark.”

  “Go!” Anna tried to ignore the sound of horses, of both her forces and those of Sargol and of Hanfor’s terse orders, concentrating instead on the notes and the spell she would sing.

  “Mark now!” called Liende.

  Anna waited for a moment, then began.

  “Fill with fire, fill with flame

  those weapons spelled against my name.

  Turn to ash all tools spelled against my face

  and those who seek by force the regency to replace.

  “Fill with fire, fill with flame . . .”

  The line of fire exploding across the south, across the valley, even across the walls of Suhl, seemed almost endless.

  Anna just stood, light-headed, dizzy, nauseated, as her words and the music ended.

  Even the mounts, Farinelli included, remained still as though stunned, but only for a moment.

  Fhurgen pressed her water bottle on her. “You must drink, Lady Anna.”

  She drank, mechanically, her eyes blurring, not sure she wanted to look out across the valley, where she could already hear cries and screams and moans.

  “Sargol has yet hundreds of armsmen. His captains are rallying them,” Hanfor noted, easing his mount up beside the sorceress.

  “Where are our archers?”

  “Our bowmen are ready, as ready as necessary. So is the trumpet.”

  Anna frowned. “Will the arrows carry to the tents or the keep?”

  “We can take the hill the scoundrel raised. You have cleared the path to it, if we hasten,” Jecks said. “Will that help?”

  Anna nodded, then said, “Yes.” The height would help carry her voice and the players’ support. “Can we put the bowmen there, too?”

  “We can manage that. Only a handful of their armsmen remain there.” Hanfor turned. “Alvar! The Green Company—take the mound.”

  “Ser! Green Company . . . Green Company . . .”

  Anna turned to Liende. “We’ll have to remount, and ride to the mound.”

  “Mount and ride. Follow the regent.” Liende had already slipped her horn into its case. “Now. We must remount and play again.”

  Another ragged trumpet sounded. From across the valley to the west came the sound of riders, hoofs, harnesses.

  “Those are not Sargol’s,” Jecks said. “Leronese lancers.”

  “From Gylaron?” Anna struggled into the saddle and urged Farinelli downhill. Rickel eased his mount beside her, and Fhurgen led the way, following the three companies that swept down the low hill.

  Anna shrugged to herself. She’d thought all along that they’d have to defeat all three lords. She coughed and spat out more mucus, hoping her asthma wouldn’t act up too badly.

  A faint smell of burning flesh drifted with the dust into her nostrils, and she pushed aside the sensation. Beyond the mound were dark lumps across the low green grass, hundreds of dark lumps. Some moved. Most did not.

  Anna swallowed, and put the thoughts out of her mind. Sympathy, concern, those would have to wait. She concentrated on riding, on staying close to her charging armsmen, although it seemed less than a handful of mounted figures even remained of those that had been riding toward her forces. That handful turned back toward the tents.

  Reaching the mound took little time, and Anna reined up, finding she was panting slightly. Holding her breath? That wasn’t good. She forced herself to breathe easily and deeply, but not too deeply.

  “Dismount!” ordered Liende as the players rode up behind Anna. “Your pleasure, Lady Anna?”

  Anna frowned. What spell? What did she need? Then she looked west, at the oncoming lancers.

  “The arrow spell.” That shouldn’t take that much effort, and she needed to husband her strength, shaky as she was after the first spell.

  “Arrow spell. Warm-up.”

  Again, horns and strings tumbled out of cases, and Fhurgen’s men grabbed reins and gathered players’ mounts.

  Anna eased out of the saddle and toward the players, who stood in the middle of the mound. To the south of the mound where she stood were a handful of foot levies, forming up beside the tents below the keep of Suhl, and a scattering of Suhlan mounted armsmen. To the west, drawing up in ragged order, were the lines of Leronese lancers. They had also taken a less direct route to the battlefield, or that
might have been the shortest way from Lerona. Joining them were another group of lancers, nearly two score under a crimson banner.

  Anna shook her head. Again, someone else was paying for the games of the damned chauvinistic lords—but Sargol was nowhere in sight, not surprisingly.

  “Which forces, lady?” asked Hanfor.

  “The Leronese, I guess.” She looked at the arms commander. “What do you think?”

  “The Leronese are the threat. And the red lancers. They must be from Dumar. You have felled most of Sargol’s lancers in the valley. His levies gathered by the keep could not reach here soon. He may have others in the keep, but they are not a threat.”

  Not yet. “When I signal—I’ll drop my hand—can you have our archers loose their arrows toward the Leronese?”

  “That. That we can do.” Hanfor turned in the saddle. “Bowmen! To the west, to the lancers. Nock your arrows.”

  Anna cleared her throat, then gestured to Liende. “Once through—the first arrow song.”

  As the music rose, in tune, she began to sing.

  “These arrows shot .into the air,

  the head of each must strike one armsman there

  with force and speed to kill them all,

  all those who stand against our call!”

  Anna dropped her hand, aware that a humming or thrumming sound vibrated somewhere before her.

  “These arrows shot into the air . . .”

  As the music and her words ended, she half smiled, pleased that she wasn’t dizzy or light-headed, then looked at Hanfor, consciously avoiding a glance toward the lancers.

  “If you could do another,” he suggested, his eyes flicking toward the west.

  Anna could hear hoofbeats. She glanced toward her chief player. “Liende? Can you and the players manage the arrow spell again?”

  “We can, Regent.” Liende turned. “Players! The arrow spell again. At my mark.”

  Anna nodded.

  “Mark.”

  With the second release of arrows, and the end of the spell, Anna felt a brief light-headedness. She glanced toward Hanfor.

  He smiled grimly. “A handful remain, and they have turned back to the west, on their way back to Gylaron.”

  That’s what we hope, anyway. Anna slouched toward Farinelli, absently patting him before extracting the water bottle and drinking deeply.

  “Do not forget to eat, lady,” suggested Fhurgen.

  To eat—a good idea. She fumbled out another stale biscuit and slowly chewed, moistening her mouth. Then she glanced southward. The gates of Suhl stood ajar, and men and horses straggled through them, leaving tents on the flat empty.

  Dozens of mounts walked riderless across the flat. Some grazed amid the dark lumps of death. Anna looked, blankly, and ate. After a time, she turned and looked at the squat timber framework that held a burned and broken crossbow, wondering who had broken it. Hanfor? Fhurgen? Someone else? Did it matter? She ate another biscuit, sipped more water.

  Jecks eased his mount nearer, stopping next to where Fhurgen sat mounted, holding Farinelli’s reins. He looked down at the dusty sorceress. “They retreat behind their walls.”

  The sorceress glanced south.

  A lone individual hobbled toward the keep, behind the others, squeezing inside before the iron-banded timbered gates swung closed.

  For a moment, Anna closed her eyes. Then she turned. Liende sat on the dirt, limp. Most of the other players slumped in similar positions. Kaseth lay stretched out, eyes closed, his white head on a folded blanket, his breathing ragged. Delvor looked whiter than snow, and seemed to sway as he looked at Anna, then glanced hurriedly away. Even Liende’s eyes were glazed.

  Her players were more spent than she was. Then, after a fashion, she’d trained harder than they had. Still, she hadn’t even considered what all the playing of spellsongs would do to them. She just hadn’t worked with players for extended spells under stress, and her inexperience showed through. Again.

  “Fhurgen! They need food, water.”

  Anna wondered. This was the first time her players looked as exhausted as she felt. She snorted, almost to herself. They’d never played so many spells so long and so close—nor ridden across a valley in between sets.

  As her guards went to work, Anna turned back to survey the keep. After a time, she turned to Jecks. “Can we ask Sargol to surrender?”

  “You cannot pardon him,” Jecks said. “He tried to kill you, and he has raised his banner against you. If you offer him a pardon, what will you do to Gylaron or Dencer?”

  “And we just can’t sit here and beseige him, right?” She already knew the answer to that one. She had no siege engines, no wealth of supplies, and only a few hundred armsmen that she couldn’t afford to tie up all summer waiting around Sargol’s keep.

  “I do not see how.”

  “What if we offer mercy to his family and retainers?”

  “That would not hurt.” Jecks’ smile was cold. “He will refuse, because he does not know your strength. Nor will any man of Defalk surrender to a sorceress.”

  Not to a mere woman . . . is that it? “Send someone to offer mercy to his family and retainers and the armsmen who remain—but not to Sargol.”

  Jecks turned his mount toward Alvar and Hanfor. “We can but try.”

  Anna watched as the three talked. Alvar gestured and Hanfor beckoned. Two armsmen, one bearing a battle trumpet, joined the three, then rode toward the silent walls of Suhl.

  The trumpeter sounded a call, wavering across the afternoon. After a time, it was repeated.

  Anna didn’t see anyone appear on the wall, but the armsman with the trumpeter called out a message Anna caught enough of the words.

  “. . . offer mercy to all but Lord Sargol . . . ”

  Even Anna didn’t miss the scattered arrows that were the response, or the hurried retreat of the de facto herald.

  Jecks rode back to Anna.

  She looked up. “I saw.”

  “He does not believe that you can touch him within his walls.” Jecks paused. “You have not torched the fields or orchards. He would think that weakness.”

  Weakness? Why would I set fire to— “Oh . . .”

  Jecks sat astride the warhorse, waiting.

  Again, Anna had the feeling of being in a totally alien culture. Without cannon, without siege engines, a lord could remain within walls for weeks—or seasons. The only damage an invader could do would be to the crops and the followers outside the walls. What was common sense to Anna became weakness to a rebel lord.

  Anna nodded slowly. “I need to think.” She patted Farinelli absently.

  Jecks turned his mount back toward Hanfor, and Anna studied the walls of Suhl once more, her thoughts spinning.

  She didn’t have the manpower or the time to put Suhl under siege—not with Dencer and Gylaron left to deal with—and Sargol knew that. She didn’t want to use the standard tactic of burning the fields and murdering all the productive peasants or serfs. Defalk had suffered enough, and her goal was to build—not to destroy. Not to destroy the common people, you mean. You wouldn’t mind taking down a few chauvinistic lords.

  What else could she do? She hated relying on sorcery so heavily, but she didn’t have thousands of armsmen, nor cannon, nor siege engines, nor . . . What she didn’t have was far more than what she had.

  A glass later, the gates of Suhl remained closed, iron-banded and dark, without word or signal. Anna glanced toward Liende and the players. They looked tired, but all appeared well.

  “What will you?” asked Jecks. “Sargol lies behind the walls, and he has refused your offer.”

  The sorceress just looked at the older lord. Jecks had been right, but it didn’t make matters any better.

  Jecks looked away, and for the moment, Anna didn’t care. She might later, and then again, she might not. For some reason, she recalled his reaction to the ballroom in Cheor. Dancing, so innocent, even with the harmonies of Liedwahr, yet Jecks had found it blasphemous, or
dissonant. So had Alvar, though the younger officer had been more temperate in his words.

  Her eyes went to Hanfor. “Can we leave Suhl behind us?”

  “After this?” he asked ironically, gesturing down the mound at the heaps of dead armsmen and mounts, and the handfuls of still-wandering mounts.

  Anna understood. In for a copper, in for a silver, or some such. Better to get it over with, better to do it before she thought, before she felt. With a long and slow deep breath, she began to walk toward Liende.

  “I’m going to try to reach Lord Sargol with an arrow spell. Would you get the players ready?”

  “We will ready ourselves.”

  Next, she needed Hanfor, but he was already riding toward her, as if he had guessed something from seeing her talk to Liende.

  “Yes, Regent?”

  “I’ll need a score of bowmen, ones who can loft arrows over the keep walls.”

  “I will gather them.” He turned his mount.

  She walked toward Farinelli, slowly. As if he sensed her thoughts, the gelding sidestepped.

  “Even you’re worried, old fellow.”

  The regent and sorceress took her time readying herself.

  Finally, she finished a last vocalise, then cleared her throat, and looked at Jecks and Hanfor, then at Liende. “We’ll need to get closer. How close to the walls could I safely go?”

  “No farther than the tents,” offered Hanfor.

  “If that,” added Jecks.

  “My lady? Must you?” growled Fhurgen.

  “Yes. Unhappily.” She swung herself into the saddle and urged Farinelli down the slope and toward the tents, toward the closed keep.

  Rickel rode on her left, Jecks on her right, Fhurgen and two other guards before her, and the players, and a good two score armsmen around and behind them.

  Anna stopped short of the tents, empty canvas that had once held men, men who had died or fled or both. She forced her thoughts to the spell in her mind, the last one for now. The last one, she reminded herself, as she climbed from the saddle, her boots hitting the dusty ground heavily. For a moment, she just held to the saddle before swallowing and stepping away from Farinelli.

  She glanced back at the players, dismounted and tuning, and she waited. After what seemed an interminable, Liende called, “We stand ready, Regent.”