Hadreun shook his head, then smiled ruefully. "I cannot but accept your terms, sorceress and Regent. Not all will be happy, and even though I order such for Elahwa, all will know whence came the idea."
"That may be," answered Anna, "but in time the credit, and the benefits, will be yours." Now . . . all you do is win battles and get back to Defalk before Rabyn decides to march through Denguic. She held back a yawn. It had been a long day, just one of many to come.
46
ELAHWA, EBRA
"You will answer my questions." Bertmynn smiles as he looks down at the figure tied and spread-eagled on the broad dark wooden table in what had recently been an inn. Slowly he draws the dagger and studies it.
The figure bound to the table is a woman, who wears a blue undertunic, her dirty sandy hair cut short as any armsman's of Bertmynn's. The pattern of sweat, dirt, and blood on the fabric indicates she had once worn some type of plastron. A narrow cut, scabbed over, runs from below the corner of her mouth to a point short of her left ear.
"Where did you bitches find archers?"
"...can't answer what... don't know..."
"Those archers... where did they come from?" Bertmynn fingers the knife suggestively.
"...don't know..."
Bertmynn bends over slightly, easing aside fabric with the sharpened tip of the short blade, pressing firmly, then twisting. Blood wells around the point "Where do you think they came from? Defalk?"
"... don't know... didn't know we had archers..."
"Come now... do not take me for a simpleton." Bertmynn's smile turns crooked, and he twists the blade.
The woman's body twitches, but she does not speak.
The Lord of Dolov lifts the dagger and wipes it on her tunic, before leaning forward once more to part the fabric. He stops and straightens at the rap on the door, watching as it swings open to reveal a gray-haired man in a stained burgundy tunic, who stands waiting in the half-open doorway.
"Yes, Ceorwyn?"
"I have discovered what you sought."
'Then tell me."
Ceorwyn glances at the bound woman.
"It does not matter. She thinks she will not talk. So I will turn her over to the First Foot for their pleasure. They lost the most men. They should enjoy themselves." Bertmynn sheaths the dagger. "Well?"
Behind him, the woman's eyes turn cold, then fill with hatred.
"Ser... your seers report that the Regent of Defalk is marching down the river road from Synek, and that lancers and armsmen loyal to Hadrenn accompany her." The gray-haired Ceorwyn bows slightly to Bertmynn.
"Are the drums ready?"
"Two are prepared. She is four days ride to the west... or five." Ceorwyn's eyes avoid the bound figure on the table.
"How many lancers and armsmen?"
"She has perhaps fifteenscore lancers, and another fifteen-score armsmen in green."
"Those are Hadrenn's." Bertmynn frowns. "Fifteenscore is less than half of what he has raised."
"It is said, ser, that she took but fifteenscore lancers into Dumar. She returned with fourteen score, and Ehara and the Sturinnese lost twenty times her force, and every city on the Falche River."
"Ebra is not Dumar. I am not that dunce Ehara." Bertmynn snorts. "No woman will prevail in Ebra." He turns and his eyes go to the bound woman. "As you will discover."
The faintest smile crosses the captive's lips.
"You will not mock me." Bertmynn's hand crashes against the woman's cheek. The captive remains silent, and her face becomes impassive, but rage pours from her eyes.
"Yes... rage if you will, but rage you will but against the dying of the light." Bertmynn laughs. "No sorceress will save you... or your frail deeds. Or your freewomen-those few that remain uncaptured."
The Lord of Synek strides out of the room and out onto the porch that overlooks the river quays of Elahwa. Ceorwyn follows silently.
"Twentyscore armsmen lost here... who would have thought it..." Bertmynn mutters. "Who possibly would have thought a gaggle of geese, of untrained women, of green archers... twentyscore?"
"The sorceress' forces are well trained, and all have seen battle," Ceorwyn says.
"No....they have seen her battle," corrects Bertmynn. "And how the lords of Defalk could let a woman..." He shakes his head. "They have betrayed their own heritage and will indeed suffer."
Ceorwyn does not respond, but remains in the shadow cast by the overhanging eaves.
"Dissonance... that I should be required to call upon Dark-song to hold my own lands." Bertmynn's lips tighten, and he looks northward at the calm and nearly still waters of the river. "But better Darksong than a woman ruling over Ebra. Better anything than that."
47
The River Syne wound through the sun-splashed rolling hills of mid-Ebra, and the road to Elahwa followed the slightly higher hills on the south side of the river, though there was a lane or dirt track on the north side that she could see occasionally across the river. The air was moist, and Anna had felt as though her tunic and trousers were perpetually soaked, half-steamed. She blotted her forehead, then reached for the water bottle, looking at the winding road before her. Riding ahead of the main body-if behind the scouts-were the two standard-bearers, one bearing the purple banner of Defalk, with the crossed spears with the crown and the R beneath, and the other bearing a green banner with gold blades crossed over a sheaf of grain.
Hadrenn rode to Anna's right, a large hand-and-a-half blade in a shoulder harness, and a short-sword in a scabbard. Rivulets of sweat streamed down his round face, and his tunic was splotchy with the dark stains of sweat.
Behind Hadrenn and Anna. crowded stirrup to stirrup, rode Jecks, Jimbob, and Kinor. Behind them rode Himar and Stepan.
"... problem with lances... one-time weapons... get under a lance, or knock it aside, and your lancer's chopped meat... can't carry that many lances anyway... what do you do once you break the first lance, or it lodges in some other armsman or lancer?" Jecks laughed, almost sardonically. "Lances and heavy armor work well against peasants or ill-equipped foot without a pike-if your heavy cavalry doesn't have to ride far... and if you can find enough peasants to carry all the baggage..."
Anna nodded, almost to herself, as she listened to Jecks' voice carrying forward. She'd often wondered about lances and knights, about what earthly use a lance was except in a joust or a pitched battle in a small area. She'd heard Avery give all the arguments, but most of those arguments were what she'd have called Eurocentric chauvinism. In Earth's history heavily armed knights had been an expensive and costly rarity useful only in limited circumstances, and mainly in European settings by barons and others able to amass large amounts of wealth. No empire of any great size or extent had ever been held through the armored knight... for all the romanticization about knights. And of course, neither Avery nor Mario had ever listened to your observations.
Anna snorted to herself. Some things didn't change across worlds. Lord Dannel and Avery would have gotten along fairly well. She shook her head. That's too cynical, even for you. Avery wasn't near that bad.
Hadrenn glanced toward the Regent. "You said that the usurper's forces were still in Elahwa?"
Anna blinked, reorienting her thoughts. "According to the mirror, that's where he was this morning." She took another long swallow of water. In some ways, the steamy fall heat of Ebra was as bad as the drought-created heat of Defalk had once been. "You think it will take another two days to reach where the rivers join?"
"Two, if it does not rain." The stocky brown-haired lord glanced to the east, and the intermittent thunderclouds forming there.
"Good."
"You feel that Bertmynn will meet us there, and that he will fight. What if Bertmynn retreats to Dolov?"
Anna thought. What if he does? Then she shrugged. "Then We will free Elahwa, and you will set up a free state ruled by the freewomen, but under your protection. Bertmynn will return. Quickly, I'd bet."
"That's a wager I'd not take." Jecks
laughed from where he rode behind Anna and beside Jimbob.
"I yield to your judgment, Lord High Counselor," Hadrenn responded, wiping his damp brow with the back of his forearm.
"Bertmynn, indeed all Liedwahr, knows that Lady Anna's sympathies lie with women who have been ill-treated. For that reason alone," Jecks continued, "I would doubt that he would allow you two to nde unmolested to Elahwa."
"You are certain that Bertmynn is near Elahwa?" asked Hadrenn.
"The mirror hasn't misled me that way yet," Anna answered. "Unless he can cover two days' ride in half a day, he can't be far from Elahwa or where the rivers meet north of there."
"He will wait for us," Jecks said. "We should take three days,if necessary."
Anna understood that, but she worried. Even though the mirror indicated that Rabyn and his forces had just left Esaria, the ride from Elahwa back to Denguic was farther than from Esaria to Denguic. Lord, every military strategist ever quoted by Avery or Sandy talked about not fighting wars on two fronts, and you've gotten into one? Was she acting out the old adage about fools rushing in?
She pursed her lips and shifted her weight in the saddle.
48
Anna's tent was set up without the sidewalls, more as an awning to offer some shade for the group that gathered in the late afternoon. She glanced at Jecks, then let her eyes travel across Hadrenn, Stepan, Jimbob, Kinor, and Liende. Liende brushed back hair that showed less and less red and more white, but offered an amused smile to Anna.
Himar stood before the group, and his voice was raspy as he talked. "...likely that we will meet with Bertmynn's forces on the morrow. He brings near-on eighty score, though some are foot levies from Dolov... with little experience or training. His own lancers are well seasoned, and they will be at the fore..."
The faintest of breezes carried a hint of coolness from the river to the north then faded, leaving the group sweating in the unseasonably sultry heat.
"Lady Anna has studied Bertmynn's forces with her glass, and they are here." Using a whittled length of pencil wood, Himar pointed to a spot on the crude map just south and east of where the River Syne and the River Dol joined. "Where he now waits is perhaps a ride of three glasses."
Hadrenn looked at the maps and then toward Anna before speaking. "We could circle south of him, cross at one of the lower fords, and then go downriver and take Elahwa from behind. We would not have to face Bertmynn..."
Anna shook her head, without even thinking about getting opinions from Jecks or Himar. "That's not the reason I'm here. I want it set up so that all of Bertmynn's armsmen are in one battle."
"You risk all of your armsmen as well," countered Hadrenn, "and much of my forces."
"Yours are at risk in any eventuality; Lord Hadrenn," suggested Jecks. "You cannot raise the numbers he has, nor can you count on assistance from the Liedfuhr or the Sturinnese."
"Well we know that," answered the brown-haired lord of Synek. "Well we do."
Himar cleared his throat, and the others looked at the mustached overcaptain. "Ah. . . also, if we circled south, Bertmynn could well be between us and either Synek or Defalk, and then we would have to fight more in a place of his choosing." Himar addressed Hadrenn. "Also, should aught go amiss, you can return to Synek more easily if we fight more to the north."
Jecks nodded. After a moment, so did Hadrenn.
"We'll have to move slowly in the morning," Anna said. "We can't afford to attack from lower grounds-"
"Or be attacked from higher ground," added Jecks.
"And we'll need time to set up the players." Anna glanced toward Liende, who nodded. Then she inclined her head to Himar.
"The Regent and Lord Hadrenn have explained our aims," Himar said. "It is now time for you to tell your subofficers and those men who will carry them out. Remember that the task of all the lancers is to protect the sorceress and the players first. If we succeed in that, Bertmynn will fall."
As the others hurried away, in the burnt orange of twilight, Jecks and Anna remained under the awning tent, with Kerhor and Blaz a dozen paces away.
"You do not wish Ebra to be like Dumar," Jecks offered in a low voice.
"That's partly it."
"You could take Ebra, and none would gainsay that." The white-haired lord's eyes flicked in the direction where, a hundred paces away, Hadrenn was speaking with Stepan. "You would likely rule better than young Hadrenn, even from Falcor."
"I can't rule Defalk very well," Anna said. "The last thing I need... anyone needs. . . is another set of lords to argue with. This way, the women of Ebra who don't like the old ways have somewhere to go. Those who like the old ways can keep them, and outside of complaining about the free state, and me..." She shrugged. "Whatever."
"You do not wish to leave a trail of fire and spells," Jocks suggested.
"No. In Dumar, I ended up destroying a whole city of innocents-or mostly innocents. That was because I let myself get backed into a corner."
"You backed Ehara into a corner, most would says."
"No. In losing, he forced my hand. Or I let him, because I worried about spending too much time in Dumar with the Thirty-three machinating in Defalk. And...I was trying to be merciful, and it didn't turn out that way. This time..."
"Is that why Gestatr remains in Synek?" Jecks' eyes twinkled.
"Yes. He's more valuable to Ebra than Hadrenn."
"And so, to Defalk," Jecks affirmed.
Anna nodded. Except nothing works out the way you plan it, not the details or the costs, anyway.
49
NORTHWEST OF ELAHWA, EBRA
Bertmynn runs a hand through his thick blond hair, then glances at the scroll on the folding camp table. He picks up the scroll once more, squinting to read it by the light of the candle. "She travels the Syne River road... she is camped less than a half day's ride from here." He drops the scroll and stands, stretching, before he looks at the older man, who is the only otherone in the tent with him.
"We could swing northward, through Nuvann, and then strike at Synek..." Ceorwyn lines a general path on the map pinned to the battered board set on a makeshift easel of lashed branches beside the table.
Bertmynn picks up the scroll once more, studies it, and sets it back on the table. He shakes his head. "No...we have kept the drums hidden from her, and we cannot do that for long. Nor dare we use Darksong too often. We must ensure that her forces are concentrated in one place, where we hold the high ground. She must be destroyed all at once. Otherwise, we will fight and fight and fight, and neither the Liedfuhr nor the Sea-Marshal will send us golds week after week, season after season."
"The sorceress cannot linger long in Ebra, my lord," counters the gray-haired warrior. "Many of the lords of the Thirty-three are less than pleased with her, and should she stay in Ebra too long, she risks an attack from the mad young Prophet of Music. He, too, is building Darksong drums to use against her, and he can call upon near on a hundredscore Mansuuran lancers, and two hundred-score of his own lancers and armsmen. You have far more armsmen than does Hadrenn. You can afford to wait She will have to leave, and soon."
"No...I cannot afford to wait I cannot defeat the bitch without Darksong, and I cannot long use it and still see my way across a room, let alone to a mount. And I must use it while she suspects it has not yet been raised."
"Do not use it... wait. Harry Hadrenn's forces, and avoid the sorceress. She cannot linger," counsels Ceorwyn. "She cannot, and have a land to return to."
"Hadrenn can retreat back to the hills. He sent but half his forces down the river. The sorceress can send him golds. Then... what will I do when Elahwa rises again, or the SouthWomen send more golds and blades? Or when the Sturinnese send more than a mere three ships? Will I be forced to follow Lord Ehara of Dumar's example? Then, the Thirty-three might well unite behind her, and even the bitches of the south might send the sorceress golds. So I would then be fighting half of Liedwahr and Hadrenn.
"Hadrenn is an inexperienced young lord."
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"He is, but his force leaders are not, and he has the wit to listen to them, the dissonant young puppy." Bertmynn coughs and spits on the ground in the corner of the tent. "So I would be fighting Hadrenn, the freewomen and the SouthWomen, and the sorceress again. Or I would submit to being a counter for the Sea-Lords."
'Those may not happen."
Bertmynn looks hard at Ceorwyn. 'Think you not?" After a time, Ceorwyn's eyes drop.
50
Anna stepped into a patch of shade to get out of the already warm morning sun, then glanced around the group- Jecks, Himar, Hadrenn, and Liende, with Stepan, Jimbob, and Kinor standing farther back. Behind them were her guards, and a full score of lancers surrounding the shaded grove where she had laid out the traveling scrying mirror on a fallen tree trunk. To the west, along the Syne River road, the column was forming, preparing for the ride eastward, to meet Bertmynn's forces.
Finally, after a vocalise, she swallowed and cleared her throat, then lifted the lutar and sang:
Show me now and show me clear a road to Bertmynn with no armsmen near, Like a vision, like a map...
The mirror displayed an image, almost a topographical map with a light brown line that appeared to be the river road they traveled-until just short of the juncture of the two rivers, when the path veered south and around a line of hills.
Ulpp.
Anna suspected the gulp belonged to Hadrenn, but she continued to concentrate on the image. Himar was sketching rapidly on a sheet of crude brown paper, his eyes flicking from the mirror to the paper.
"If the glass is correct," Anna said, "that will bring us out on the higher south side of the valley."
"The last part of the way is narrow." Himar kept sketching. "There are trees on both sides. We would not see any lancers until they were upon us."
Darksong Rising Page 24