Darksong Rising: The Third Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “The ride there will take two glasses, I think,” Hanfor said from where he rode on Anna’s left. “By then, most lancers will be sleeping.”

  “And it will take half a glass to get from where the road splits to where we’ll release the arrows?” Anna glanced back behind Kinor to see how close her guards were, but Rickel’s eyes were on the road.

  “Perhaps longer.”

  In the darkness Anna nodded and shifted her weight in the saddle, deciding that late evening was far better than dawn for a sorcerous raid. She reached back behind the saddle with her left hand and touched the lutar case to make sure that it was there. She had tuned it earlier, but whether the instrument would retain any semblance of tuning after the ride ahead was another question.

  For a time, the sole sounds were those of horses breathing and hoofs striking the packed clay of the road, with the only direct light coming from the torches held by every tenth lancer or so.

  “Lord Jimbob wished to come,” Kinor volunteered.

  “Did you suggest it would not be wise?” Anna asked Hanfor.

  “I told him that for both the heir and the Regent to be riding toward an enemy in the darkness was unwise.” Hanfor chuckled. “I also said that it was possibly unwise for you, but that I had no desire to be called to task for losing both of you. Especially by Lord Jecks.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Well enough. I let him accompany me as we prepared, and I explained all I could. I also asked for his trust in not revealing the plan to others.”

  “Good,” Anna replied. “That’s the sort of thing he won’t learn around Falcor or any lord’s hall.” She smiled to herself. “We could do with a hall ourselves, right now.”

  The column continued westward, the silence renewed.

  “Why do you not quarter yourself with one of the Thirty-three?” asked Kinor quietly, as if to break the silence. “Do they not owe you that?”

  “The three closest lords to where we are, if I can read the maps correctly, are Jearle, Ustal, and Klestayr,” replied Anna. “Jearle’s to the west of the Mansuurans, and Ustal’s too far south. Klestayr—it’s not that convenient … .”

  “And you trust him not?”

  Anna wanted to laugh. The number of lords she trusted could be counted on fewer than two hands. Still, that was up from less than one hand a year earlier. “Let’s say I’d rather not put my fate—or Defalk’s—in his hands.”

  “Menares says that such has always been the curse of Defalk,” ventured the lanky redhead.

  “Ambition has been more the downfall of realms than poor ruling. Leastwise, from what I have seen.” Hanfor eased his mount forward, as if to avoid the appearance of crowding Lejun, the guard riding back and to the left of Anna.

  “I’m not sure anyone has ever been able to rule Defalk,” Anna quipped in return. “Most of the lords I’ve met don’t want a ruler. They want a figurehead to let them do what they want.”

  “You are not like that, Regent,” said Kinor.

  “I’m also the least popular ruler in generations … least popular with the lords, anyway.” She frowned to herself. Was it just the lords? The rivermen hadn’t cared much for her decisions, nor had the chandlers in Pamr, nor the crafters of Falcor. Was there really anyone who liked what she’d tried to do?

  “A wise armsman trusts the most popular rulers not at all, lady,” offered Hanfor. “The mob and the lords are bought with armsmen’s blood, more oft than not.”

  “That’s true in other … lands as well.” Anna had almost said “worlds.” Hadn’t Kipling, that great British poetic exponent of imperialism, said something like that? She tried to remember. She’d heard Michael York give a reading of Kipling once, and it had been interesting, truthfully trite, and sometimes most depressing, especially “The Gods of the Copybook Headings.” Did it have to be true that people always forgot the hard lessons once the troubles were past? That they always went back to the leaders that beguiled them with warm fuzzies and comforting nothings?

  The silence dragged out once more, as Anna retreated into her own thoughts.

  “Lady … you have been silent …” Kinor ventured after they had ridden a good dek farther westward, toward the side road and the sorcery she hoped would avoid greater slaughter, and that she feared would not.

  “I’m just thinking.” That was true enough.

  Neither Kinor nor Hanfor spoke again for a time.

  Anna listened, but winter was definitely approaching, and the insect twitters and night birdcalls of the summer and early fall had died away to nearly nothing. The only consistent sounds were those of the mounts that carried her lancers westward.

  Hanfor cleared his throat, easing his mount closer to Farinelli and Anna. “Regent Anna, here is the turn … where the backup lancers will wait.” Hanfor had insisted on bringing two backup companies of lancers, to leave them where the side lane split off from the main road, just in case.

  He was probably right, reflected Anna, but it was getting as though she had to have a small army to go anywhere. Then, she probably did. “All right. Then we stop for a moment?”

  “Yes.” Hanfor nodded, then called, “Lancers halt!”

  The command was relayed through the darkness.

  “Weylar!” ordered the arms commander.

  “Ser.” A blond-bearded captain rode out of the dimness toward Hanfor and reined up, offering a half bow from the saddle.

  “You hold the fork here. If the Mansuurans should come with all their forces, ride after us. If a small force should come, make sure none return. Otherwise, wait for us. We may be as long as three glasses, and as brief as one.”

  “Ser. As you command.”

  “As the Regent commands,” Hanfor added.

  “Yes, ser. Yes, Regent.”

  “Thank you, Weylar,” Anna added. “I appreciate it, and we’ll try to be quick.”

  “We’ll be here, Regent.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said again.

  “Green company, forward!”

  The sorceress felt even more alone as the smaller group pressed on. Alone? Would you ever have considered being with twenty men alone? Then, would you ever have thought that you would be riding along a dark lane to rely on your voice alone to protect you against more than two thousand men armed with lances and sharp blades?

  “Lady … we should burn no torches from here on.”

  “I agree.”

  “If you will escort the Regent for a few moments.” Hanfor addressed the request to Kinor, and his words were more order than question.

  “Yes, Arms Commander.”

  Anna glanced back, and could almost see Hanfor’s progress as torch after torch winked out. Rickel and Lejun eased their mounts forward until they rode before Anna and Kinor. Both guards had unstrapped the protective shields and now carried them on their forearms, but partly supported by their lanceholders.

  “Dark it is without torches or stars,” observed Kinor.

  “It’s not too bad,” Anna replied. “At least, if we don’t run into anyone.”

  Hanfor returned, easing his mount back into place on Anna’s left. “It will be slower this way, but safer.”

  Safer from attack, but let’s hope there are no huge potholes in this lane.

  Anna began a series of soft vocalises, trying not to be too loud, but knowing she wouldn’t be able to sing a spell, even a single one, without at least some warm-up. Even so, it was a good thing it was evening and not morning.

  The riding was slower along the side lane that wound away from and yet paralleled the main road, and Anna found herself straining her eyes to look past her guards and into the dimness ahead.

  “They do not know that this lane winds within a quarter dek of their camp, because of the wood,” Hanfor said quietly. “Still, once you have done what you must, we need to ride quickly. They will be most angry.”

  Anna suspected that was an understatement. Still … she had to try to get the message across that she was willin
g to be reasonable—and that those who wouldn’t see reason would see force.

  “Regent.” Hanfor’s voice was low.

  “Yes.”

  “To the right, just above the trees.”

  Anna followed Hanfor’s directions, looking uphill. They hadn’t been able to tell elevations from the mirror scrying, but it was clear that the side road was a good twenty yards or more lower than the low rise on which the Mansuurans had camped. There were several widely spaced points of lights, fires, and other smudges of light wavering in the darkness. “That looks like their camp. It’s a good thing we put out the torches.”

  “Very good.” The hint of an ironic laugh colored Hanfor’s words. “Green company, halt.” His words were low, but intense.

  Anna dismounted and handed Farinelli’s reins to Kinor, then took the lutar from its case and checked the tuning, fumbling more than she would have liked in the darkness. Rickel and Lejun remained mounted, flanking her on each side, but leaving her a clear path toward the Mansuuran camp.

  “Bowmen … string your bows and stand ready,” Hanfor ordered. “Aim your shafts high and toward the fires beyond the trees. Nock your shafts when the Regent begins to sing, and then release them after you count to ten in a whisper. Remember, nock when she sings. Count to ten and release.”

  Anna faced the fires that suddenly looked all too close, despite the trees, the gully, and the hill. Then, she took a deep breath and released it, lifted the lutar, began the chording, and then the spell itself.

  These arrows shot into the air,

  the head of each must strike proud Relour there—

  As the sorceress heard the thrum of bowstrings, she concentrated on the images and the last words of the spell.

  … and turn to fire, turn to flame

  Overcaptain Relour, for all his fame.

  The chords of the lutar and Anna’s voice died away. She slipped the lutar into its case, fastened it in place, and climbed into the saddle.

  Was there a flash of light to the northwest? Anna wasn’t certain, but there was no reason to try to find out until they were back with her own forces, and with the players. Either they would face the Mansuurans on the next day—or they wouldn’t.

  “Are you ready, Regent?” asked Hanfor.

  “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  “Green company, forward!” Hanfor’s voice carried tension, tension Anna could well understand.

  She kept glancing back over her shoulder at the fires of the Mansuuran camp, but so far as she could tell, nothing changed. If it did, she could not see it. As she rode, she groped for the food pouch, stuffing some squares of cheese into her mouth, and then some of the hard cracker-bread, which she had to moisten with swigs from the water bottle in order to soften the stuff enough for her to chew and swallow it.

  But she had looked back often enough that, by the time they rejoined the other lancers at the main road, her neck and shoulder were stiff.

  “Weylar?” Hanfor called.

  “Ready here, ser.” The subofficer rode forward into the light cast by the torch carried by the lancer accompanying Hanfor and Anna. “Not a soul came down the road. Didn’t see a torch. Not one.”

  “Good. Have your companies fall in behind. Send a messenger up to me if you see any torches or hear any riders.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Rickel and Lejun had dropped back behind Anna and Kinor. They had strapped the big shields behind their saddles. Anna wasn’t sure how they managed to hold the shields for so long as they did, but none of the guards had ever voiced a complaint.

  “Do you know … if … ?” Kinor finally asked.

  “I think so. I don’t know. We’ll have to check in the mirror when we get back.” Anna yawned. Youth spell or not, she was tired, and she probably wasn’t going to get much sleep. Not if Hanfor happened to be right.

  The ten-dek ride back to her own camp had taken forever, or so it seemed, and Anna kept wondering when the sun would rise.

  She slowly dismounted from Farinelli, removing the lutar and food pouch, and the water bottles. Then she unsaddled the gelding, rubbed him down too briefly, and picked up the lutar and pouch. She walked slowly back toward her tent, between Kinor and Hanfor, with Lejun and Rickel following.

  “We need to see what we’ll face in the morning.”

  “That would be best,” Hanfor agreed.

  “All went well?” asked Liende as she approached the three, but with her eyes upon Kinor.

  “So far as we know.” Anna had no doubts that the chief player was at least as concerned about her son as about the results. “Join us. We’re going to find out.”

  Fielmir and Bersan were on guard, waiting.

  Anna nodded to the two, then stepped past them, into the small tent. “Let’s see.” She lit the candle on the camp table, then opened the case and removed the traveling mirror, setting it on the table. Next came the lutar, which she had to tune once more, slowly because she was tired.

  She glanced around at the three other faces, each as fatigued as she felt, before she started the scrying spell.

  Show us now, in place and frame,

  he who bore Relour’s rank and name … .

  The mirror silvered and then reflected the candle beside it on the camp table, before darkening and revealing another scene. A single man-shaped length of black lay stretched on the ground beside a tent. Four guards formed a square around the corpse. Flickering shadows crossed the area lit by a half-score of lancers bearing torches.

  Anna sang the release couplet and sighed. “You were right. We’d better be ready early, you think?”

  “I already sent out scouts, and they will watch through the night,” Hanfor said. “Their lancers are tired, and many were asleep. If they attack, it will be early, but I doubt they will wake their lancers tonight. If they do, we will be warned.”

  “I have made sure the players slept close together, and close to their instruments,” Liende said.

  “Thank you.”

  Anna turned to Hanfor. “If they do not attack, I’ll send another scroll, asking that they support you.”

  “They will not Hanfor nodded slowly. “They will all die before they would surrender Neserea.”

  “They don’t have Neserea,” Anna pointed out. “And they certainly won’t if I have to kill off all their lancers.”

  “They will not accept that, for all they have seen, until it is too late.”

  “Why? Because they’re more afraid of the Liedfuhr than me.”

  “He is a man, and you are a woman. This is Liedwahr.” Hanfor shrugged.

  “So I have to be twice as ruthless?” Again, she wanted to scream, but refrained. “And then, because they won’t listen, I’m the bitch of the east, or the evil sorceress of Defalk?”

  “You ask of me what I see, not what I wish,” Hanfor said reasonably.

  “I know.” Anna took a deep breath. “We’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.”

  After the other three left, Anna sat on the middle of the cot, holding her head in her hands. No matter how or what you try … it always comes back to force. Machiavelli was right.

  She took a deep breath, then bent farther forward and pulled off one boot, then the other.

  94

  With the cold sunlight striking her tent, Anna woke with a start. What time is it? Are the Mansuurans coming? Why didn’t someone wake me? Her eyes were gummy, her mouth dry, and her head was pounding.

  Dehydration—you didn’t drink enough water last night. She forced open her eyes and groped for the water bottle she kept near the cot. With her lurch, the cot began to tilt, and she had to scramble up to keep from being tipped onto the dirt.

  “Lady Anna?” The voice was that of Blaz.

  “I’m fine,” she lied. “Just clumsy. Has Arms Commander Hanfor been up here yet?”

  “He came up a while ago. He said to tell you when you woke up that nothing had happened yet.”

  “Thank you.” She paused. “Would you hav
e someone tell him that I’ll be ready in a while?”

  “Yes, Lady Anna.”

  Anna drank all that was left in the water bottle that had been by the cot—about two-thirds of it—hoping that the headache would subside before long. She wolfed down the few fragments of bread and cheese left in the pouch, not caring much that the cheese was hard and stale and the bread even harder.

  Then she retrieved the bucket of water one of the guards always set outside her tent, and splashed off the worst of the dust and grime, and completed all the other necessities before pulling on her clothes and boots. She brushed out her short hair as well as she could, trying to ignore the headache and clogged sinuses that bedeviled her almost every morning.

  “Lady Anna?”

  “Yes … ?”

  “I have some breakfast,” ventured Kinor.

  “Come in. I’m decent.” She tried not to growl. It wasn’t Kinor’s fault that she wasn’t at her best in the mornings, especially in the field on short sleep and continuing worries.

  The redhead entered with a basket—with warmish bread and cheese wedges and a battered apple. “After last night, lady, with sorcery needed this morning …”

  Kinor looked so apologetic that Anna laughed before speaking. “I won’t take off your head. I’m not at my best in the morning, and it’s worse when I’m tired. But it’s not your fault.” She paused, then took a large chunk of bread from the basket. “You take some, too. Your eyes are pinkish, and that means you haven’t had enough to eat.”

  “Ah …”

  “Take some,” Anna insisted.

  Kinor broke off a small portion. He tried not to wolf it down, then looked up almost guiltily.

  Anna grinned, but not widely or she would have had crumbs falling all over her shirt and purple vest. She set the basket on the corner of the camp table and took out the wedge of cheese, slicing it into thinner sections. She took two sections and motioned for Kinor to have some. “Go ahead.”