With those first fatal lightning strokes, the white riders turned, all but the front-most ranks, and spurred their horses... seemingly in all directions away from the rise.
A faint and low cheer issued from somewhere on the rise,
“Enough! They’ll be back.” Stepan’s voice rode over the cheer.
Seeing Richina swaying on her feet, Secca stepped forward to be the one who tendered bread, cheese, and water.
The younger sorceress took a long swallow of water first, then smiled as she looked at Secca. “I didn’t over do it.”
“Good.” Secca offered a chunk of bread, Stepan rode toward the two sorceresses, then reined up, his eyes still looking out to the south. “They lost more than five companies, but they are reforming... and there will be another charge before long.”
Secca looked to Richina. “Can you do it again?’
“Yes, lady."
Stepan glanced at Secca, eyes questioning.
“If she says she can, she can.” Seeca turned to Richina. “You need more water.” Then she looked at Stepan. “We will wait this time until they are within a score of yards. That way fewer can flee.”
Stepan nodded. “We will lose some lancers, but it cannot be helped.”
“No...it can’t” Secca’s voice was both flat and firm.
When the second series of trumpet triplets wavered across the lowlands, it seemed as though no time had passed, although the unseen sun now offered the orangish light of the time just past dawn, but that light did not yet fall upon the trampled grasses of the meadow itself, and shadows covered but the eastern side of the lowland meadow. Immediately, the mass of lancers in white surged from the trees, and even from the east and west, as if they were determined to surround the Defalkan-led forces on the rise.
“Hold! Hold your line!” ordered Stepan.
Secca watched as the Sturinnese rode ever closer. Palian looked to Richina, then Secca, ‘A little longer . . . a little longer,” Secca called. Not until the first of the Sturinnese were less than fifty yards did she drop her hand.
“Mark!” snapped Palian.
Richina’s first note was tentative, but her voice was strong as she carried the spell out across the lowlands.
As Secca had known and Stepan predicted, the first white lancers had to be met by a short charge from Secca’s forces before the sky darkened and the lightnings flashed. One seared figure crashed into the brown grass less than ten yards from the players, to the west of the knoll.
The lightnings lasted longer, and left swathes of burned bodies—of both men and mounts—across the meadow and the slope, but there were still a large number that had turned their mounts. There were also lancers in green lying at the forward edge of the rise—not many, but a good score.
Richina and Secca watched, but the Sturinnese did not turn and reform immediately.
Then Richina sat down on the ground. . . abruptly.
Secca hurried forward, and offered her water and some bread. “Eat and drink. I will do the next one.”
“Next one?’ Richina’s voice wavered.
“I fear the Lady Sorceress is correct, young sorceress,” said Stepan.
Secca hadn’t seen the arms commander ride up, but she nodded
“They will reform and attack within less than a quarter-glass,” Stepan predicted. “They know that they must win or they cannot hold eastern Ebra. So they will attack and break, attack and break, until you can cast no more thunderbolts.”
“Richina cannot cast more for a time.” Secca gestured to Palian and Delvor. “Can you play the flame song again?”
“We must, must we not?” called back the chief player, with a rueful look upon her lips. “If we are to ride out, that is.”
“Yes,” Secca admitted.
“Then we will play."
"Stronger than before,” added Delvor, pushing a limp lock of hair off his forehead. “We must.”
Secca smiled, then let her voice run through a short vocalise, only enough to ensure her cords were clear.
She watched, her eyes on the trees to the south, where once again the Sturinnese reformed. Even as she did, she had trouble believing that they wanted Ebra so badly that they would charge a sorceress again and again, without even the support of their thunder-drums.
But the trumpet triplets, wavering more than before, echoed across the lowlands, now completely in morning sunlight, and. from the trees came the white-clad lancers, seemingly as many as in any of the earlier attacks.
“We stand ready,” called Palian.
“Not until they start to climb the rise,” Secca returned. She had a destroy them all on this attack, because she doubted either she or Richina could handle another spell—and probably the players couldn’t either.
“Hold your line! Hold till they reach midrise!” ordered Stepan.
The meadow was covered with white-coated lancers, and more appeared from under the trees, swarming to-ward the Defalkan and Ebran forces, and Secca realized that the first attacks had been as much to tire her and Richina as anything, with many of the Sturinnese forces held in reserve.
She wanted to shake her head, thinking about her lack of experience, but it was too late for regrets and might have-beens. So she watched, slowly raising her arm as the Sturinnese riders neared the base of the rise and started up.
Then she dropped her arm.
“Mark!” snapped Palian.
The players began, not as strongly as before, but true. The chorded harmony of Delvor's second players seemed stronger, but that might have been by comparison. Secca pushed that thought away and concentrated, not just on the spell, but on visualizing sweeps of lightnings—from the eastern side of the lowland, all across the southern hillside and the camp above, and to the sunlit western and lower end of the valley.
As the last words and notes faded, a crystalline chord chimed through the air, a chord few heard except Secca and Richina, and perhaps Palian. Then lightnings exploded around them, across the front of the rise, across the browned grasses before the rise, across the hillside, across the top of the hillside.
The sky darkened, and the cold wind whipped across Secca and Richina.
From the corner of her eye, Secca could see several players collapsing, and even Palian staggering, barely hanging on to her violino. Secca just stood there, trying to see through the flashes of light that put holes in her vision.
“To the rear!” Stepan’s voice boomed out over the wind.
“To the north!” called Wilten.
To the north? Secca shook her head, trying to see past the dayflashes that seemed to mix with the last of the lightnings. To the north? She turned, shakily . . . to see riders in green swirling past to meet a wedge of riders in white.
“Mount!” snapped Seeca. “Into the saddle!” It seemed to take every bit of her strength to get up onto the gray.
Richina seemed faster than Secca, but both women mounted quickly and turned their horses toward the north and the lines of white-coated lancers who charged toward the back of the rise.
Her eyes still flashing with daystars, Secca did what she could, knowing she could use no more sorcery. She drew the sabre as a Sturinnese slashed down a Defalkan lancer in green and charged toward her.
Somehow Secca parried the first slash, and used the moment of surprise on the Sturinnese officer’s face
as he realized he was facing a sorceress with a blade— to half-slash, half-thrust, at the left side of his neck.
More figures in white charged past the thin green line.
Secca ducked as another slashed at her, her arm numb from the off-center parry.
Her attacker fell, cut down from behind by Richina.
Another Sturinnese appeared, glancing from Secca to Richina. Secca thrust, awkwardly, but it was enough to make the lancer defend himself, enough that Richina’s sabre cut deeply enough across his upper arm to disarm him. Secca cut his throat as he opened his mouth.
Secca urged the gray forward,
but Richina had needed no aid to dispatch a third Sturinnese.
A wave of black lancers appeared, but there were no figures in white left mounted.
Haddev reined up. “Ladies?’ Worry filled his voice.
Despite the intermittent daystars and the cramping in her abdomen, Secca forced a smile. “We’re fine.” She glanced at Richina.
The sandy-haired sorceress nodded, if tiredly.
Haddev glanced at Secca, and the blood sprayed across her trousers and vest, and at the still-bloody sabre in her hand. Then he looked at Richina, who was even more blood-splattered.
“Your guards...?” asked the heir.
“They were busy,” Richina said. “We did all right. Lady Secca killed their captain.”
“Richina was better with her blade. I think she killed three of them,” Secca said, letting the flat tiredness in her voice show.
Haddev glanced at the heavy sabre carried by the tall younger sorceress, then back at Secca. He started to speak, then stopped as Wilten rode up.
“Lady Secca?" Wilten’ s voice was low.
“Yes, Wilten?” Secca looked at the overcaptain.
“It’s Stepan. He and his company... they broke most of the assault from the rear, and killed many... but...”
“But?” asked Richina.
Wilten glanced down. “He ended up fighting four of ‘em. He got three.”
Secca nodded slowly, sadly, feeling another kind of numbness. It had been that kind of campaign, and probably mostly her fault, or her inexperience. "There was no other like him. He will be missed. Sorely missed.” More than anyone would know, she suspected. Far more. “More than any would know.”
She straightened in the saddle. “Make sure that the Sturinnese are not re-forming.”
Wilten shook his head. “They rode out. There were but five companies or so remaining. The scouts said not a one has turned.”
For the moment, thought Seeca. For the moment.
She glanced toward the north where a group of Ebran lancers had gathered, doubtless around the fallen Stepan, and urged the gray forward, squinting through the intermittent dayflashes to make her way toward the arms commander.
68
By midafternoon, Secca could see clearly most of the time, with only occasional dayflashes, but her head still throbbed. She sat on the edge of the cot in her tent, drinking yet more water and trying to eat more bread and cheese, not knowing when she might have to do more sorcery.
Richina sat on the other cot, doing the same.
Secca also thought about Stepan, both as the handsome young man she had looked up to as a child, and as the haggard arms commander who had done his best, perhaps doomed by the inexperience of the sorceress he had served. She shook her head. She should have thought about the Sturinnese attacking from the rear. She could have visualized that, had she just thought. Had she just thought!
Was that also warfare, she wondered, realizing that she had not done all she should have, and that others had died because of her mistakes?
The scouts Secca had sent out had reported back. The Sturinnese camp was empty, and there were no signs of the Sturinnese lancers anywhere. A rough count had shown that between Richina’s and Secca’s sorcery and the lancers’ blades, they had slain close to eighty score Sturinnese. Stepan had been right---more than forty companies.
She had tried a single scrying with the mirror, and before she had almost collapsed, she and Wilten had determined that the Sturinnese were continuing to ride to the northeast. She shook her head, and wished she hadn’t as a sharp pain shot through her skull and her eyes watered. That intensified the cramping, and she just sat stiffly on the edge of the cot for a moment.
“Are you all right, lady?" asked Richina.
“I have felt better,” Secca admitted. It didn’t help that close to five companies, the survivors of those who had swept in from behind, had escaped. She had the feeling that they would join with those from Dolov, and once again, she would be facing a force more than twice the size of hers, and without an arms commander with the expertise of Stepan.
Still. . .there was little she could do at the moment. It would be a day before many of the players could even ride and longer before Secca could count on them for any intensive sorcerous accompaniment.
“Lady?’ called Achar. “Melcar is here.”
Secca slowly stood and stepped outside into the cold and clear air, into the chill of the north wind that had persisted long after her early morning sorcery.
Overcaptain Melcar was black-haired, perhaps five years older than Secca, with a blocky build and a square-jawed face. He bowed. “Sorceress-Protector.”
“Overcaptain.” Secca paused. “I would like to suggest that a half a squad be detached to accompany Stepan. back to Synek. Perhaps a few more if there are some who can ride but not fight.”
Melcar bowed. “They would be honored.” Secca smiled sadly. “He was a good man.” “Synek will miss him,” Melcar said slowly.
“We all will, yet... there is more before us."
“What plan you next, lady?”
“To ride north, to destroy the remainder of the Sturinnese, and then to ensure that Dolov remains loyal to Lord Hadrenn.” Secca looked squarely into Melcar’s brown eyes. ‘Would you suggest otherwise?"
‘The overcaptain shook his head. “From what I have seen of your sorcery, that is best for Ebra.” A faint smile followed before he added, “And for Defalk. It may not be best for any of us.”
Secea matched his smile with one also faint and ironic. Both turned at the sound of a lancer riding across the camp.
The ranker reined up. “Lady Secca, Overcaptain Wilten sent me. He is escorting a party riding to see you. It is led by one of the Counselors of Elahwa.”
“Thank you. We will be ready.”
“I will tell the overcaptain.”
As the lancer turned his mount, Seoca said, “Best you remain, Melcar.”
The overcaptain nodded.
Secca turned toward the tent “You should join us, Richina. We’re having some visitors from Elahwa.”
The younger sorceress both shivered inside her jacket and squinted as she stepped from the tent into the cold brilliance of the day. “They are quick to pay their respects.”
"They should be,” said Melcar. He inclined his head to Secca, almost embarrassed. “Excuse me, lady. I spoke---"
“In haste, and in truth.” Secca laughed, once. “I prefer that to obscurity”
Melcar’s brief smile was one of relief.
At the western edge of the encampment a line of riders appeared.
The three by the tent watched as the party neared, then reined up. Wilten dismounted, and was followed by two others— a tall woman and a lancer officer in pale blue.
Wilten bowed to Secca, then turned to the two. “This is Lady Secca, Sorceress-Protector of the East, and her assistant, Lady Richina. Overcaptain Melcar of Synek.”
Melcar bowed. Secca nodded. Richina offered a slight bow.
The counselor was tall, well—muscled. Her dark-brown hair was streaked with gray, and fine lines radiated from her eyes. Under a brown riding jacket, half-open, she wore a crimson tunic that bore faint splotches, possibly blood that had not been removed by washing. With her was a lancer overcaptain in the uniform of Ranuak, broad shouldered, narrow-waisted. and far too short for his breadth of chest to be handsome. His gray-blue eyes took in Richina, then fixed on Seeca for a long moment, before traveling back to the counselor he accompanied.
Secca repressed a shiver at his brief scrutiny, for it seemed as though he had seen to her core.
“I am Veria, Second Counselor of Elahwa. We appre ciate your efforts, lady, far more than words can convey. We must also apologize for not being able to assist you, but . . . we did not dare abandon our defense posts with so few lancers remaining to us.” Veria bowed. “A fleet and seventy companies of Sturinnese were more than we had ever expected. Nor had we expected that Lord Robero woul
d hazard lancers and sorceresses against such a large Sturinnese force.”
Secca hid a frown: Had there been seventy companies? How would she ever know? And if there had not been that many in the battle... where were the others? “We did what we thought best, Lady Veria---”
“Veria, please. When it is appropriate, please convey our thanks to your lord for your efforts, although we will certainly do so as well.”
“That I will.” In time, and only after she dealt with Dolov and the Sturinnese. Secca massaged her forehead, then, absently, tugged the sabre belt back into position.
The Shadow Sorceress Page 29