The ShadowSinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Richina had already left, and Alcaren had put on his jacket, but not fastened it, as he tuned his lumand. “How long do you want me to wait?"

  “Until we’re almost all ready to ride,” she said. “I’ll make sure your mount is waiting.”

  “I hope they don’t intend to ride out against us. I didn’t like seeing those patrols.”

  “Neither do I.” Yet, as she left the cottage, Secca won­dered. Would she feel better if the Sturinnese mounted an attack? Even if it meant that SouthWomen and Defalkan lancers would die? She frowned as she stepped into the chilly afternoon.

  Outside in the cold late afternoon, players were already saddling mounts and strapping their instruments in place. Gorkon rode up, leading Secca’s gray and Alcaren’s brown gelding. Richina joined Secca as the older sorceress was swinging up into the mare’s saddle.

  “You do not look pleased, Lady Secca,” observed Richina quietly.

  “I cannot say that I am, Richina.” A tight smile played around Secca’s face as she settled herself into the saddle. “If we are successful, there will be few deaths among our forces, but it will encourage. the Sea-Priests to try greater sorcery against us from farther away. And then . . .we will have to attempt such before they do . . .“ Secca sighed. “And yet, there is no help for it, if we wish to remain free, you and I, especially.”

  “And a few thousandscore other women,” added Palian as she reined up beside Secca. “The players are ready, Lady Secca.”

  “So are the lancers,” added Wilten from behind Palian.

  “The SouthWomen,” came Delcetta’ s clear voice.

  “Alcaren!” Secca called.

  “Not usually late . . . the overcaptain . . .” murmured a voice.

  “I asked him to check in the glass once we were mounted, Secca said. ‘To make sure that the Stunnnese will not surprise us.”

  It seemed scarcely a few moments before Alcaren hurried out of the cottage, carrying both his lumand and the leather-wrapped scrying glass. As he strapped his lumand and the glass behind his saddle, he told Secca, “There’s no sign of their assembling large numbers of archers, but it looks as if they may be sending out another patrol—one almost of a full squad of archers.”

  “If that patrol sees us, they may well assemble all they have,” suggested Richina.

  “Not in time," replied Secca. Seeing Alcaren mounted, she called to Wilten and Delcetta, “Overcaptains!”

  “Vanguard forward!” Wilten ordered.

  The column started forward along the road out of the hamlet, a road that was barely more than a trail, but with clay frozen almost as hard as the stone roads of Defalk or Ranuak. The mounts’ breath steamed in the cold clear air that foreshadowed twilight and a colder evening. One­handedly, Secca fastened her jacket around her more tightly.

  “Are you cold?" asked Alcaren, leaning toward her.

  “I’m fine.”

  With the slightest of nods, he straightened in the saddle and offered not another word, a silence and an understand­ing of which Secca was most glad.

  They had ridden less than half a glass when the road ahead turned due north along the side of a narrow creek that was a sliver of ice against the low bushes and grass. Wilten and Delcetta had halted the vanguard.

  Wilten rode back along the shoulder of the road and reined up before Secca. “Lady Secca, it is best to turn east and follow the long slope of the hill here.”

  “Is the footing firm in that meadow?” asked Secca.

  “The scouts say it is. They also see no sign of any riders.”

  “Good. Then we will proceed.”

  Wilten signaled, and Delcetta relayed the order. The van­guard turned off the road and began riding across the mea­dowlike field, through the browned grass that once might have been hock high on the mounts, but which now was half that, bent over as it was from the wind and winter.

  Secca began a series of vocalises, trying to warm up her voice slowly. Shortly, Richina followed her example. Even Alcaren hummed softly. Secca decided she needed to work on some proper vocalises for her consort--- she might well need his voice ready in the weeks ahead.

  Although the climb up the hill was gentle, it was slower than the road, and the sun hung barely above the Westfels when Secca reined up at the ridge crest that overlooked a series of lower rolling hills to the south and east.

  “Chief players,” Secca called, “we’ll assemble on the flat there.” She pointed to an area of grass that was relatively level and sloped but slightly to the southeast. “Quickly, please.” She couldn’t say why she felt haste was necessary, but trusted the feeling.

  After a moment, she turned in the saddle. “Alcaren . . . if you would use the glass once more---"

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Richina, stand by with your lutar and the flame spell.”

  “Yes, Lady Secca,” replied the taller blonde sorceress.

  After Secca had dismounted, along with Alcaren and Ri­china, Achar took her mount, as well as those of Alcaren and Richina.

  Secca walked slowly downhill to the flat where the players were setting up. She glanced to the southeast. That was the direction in which the glass and the maps indicated the hamlet where the Sturinnese had settled in was, roughly three deks away. Was there a faint line of smoke rising above the horizon, above the brown-grassed hills? Secca wasn’t sure.

  Circled in an arc behind the players were the lancers, the SouthWomen to the north and Secca’s own lancers of Lo­iseau to the south. Immediately to her right, in front of the lancers in green, both first and second players were begin­ning to tune. Right behind her, she could hear Alcaren sing­ing a scrying spellsong, seeking the Sturinnese yet again, and she waited for his song to die away, and for him to report

  “There is a squad of archers, and they’re riding toward us,” her consort announced. “You’d best hasten. I’d guess they’re but beyond those nearer hills.”

  “They’ll have to dismount, but that won’t take long.”

  “I’ll tell Elfens to have his archers ready as well,” Alcaren added.

  “Good.” Secca nodded and turned toward both Palian and Delvor. “Stand ready.”

  “We stand ready.”

  Then Secca turned to the two overcaptains, who had re­mained mounted behind the three who would do sorcery. “Have your lancers ride back north a dek, into the swale there. You can reach us if need be, but this sorcery is un­tested, and I would not subject the lancers and their mounts to the wild winds that may come.”

  “Are you certain, Lady Secca?” asked Wilten.

  “I’m most certain.”

  “I would feel better if I left a squad . . .”

  “One squad only, then,” Secca conceded.

  “First squad, green company,” called out Wilten. “All others, fall back.”

  “Fall back to the swale below,” echoed Delcetta.

  As the lancers repositioned themselves, Secca walked through the cold and dry grass, the thin stalks whispering and breaking against her riding boots and lower trousers, toward Palian and Delvor, and their players.

  "We are almost ready, Lady Secca.”

  “Riders! To the east!” One of the voices was Alcaren’s, but a similar call came from a SouthWoman, and another from Achar.

  Secca turned more eastward. The white-coated figures were hard to make out in the dimming light, especially against the tan of the grass, but there looked to be only one squad of archers and a handful of players. All had scrambled from their mounts, and some were stringing bows.

  “Richina! Use the lutar and flame spell against the archers down there!” Secca turned back to Palian. “Have the players ready to play the moment she finishes. The third building spell.”

  “Stand ready for the third building spell.” Palian’s words to the first players were echoed by Delvor to the second players.

  Then, in the sudden stillness, Richina’s voice rang out strong, if not as open a sound as Secca would have liked, and certainly not a
s open as Anna would have required.

  “Turn to fire, turn to flame

  all those below of Sturinn‘s name...”

  Before the last lines of the spellsong, thin lines of orange fire erupted from the skies, arrowing out of the heavens toward the Sturinnese.

  Less than half of those reached the archers and players before a shimmering pale white and gauzy dome appeared in the air above the Sturinnese---a clearly sorcerous creation through which Secca could make out the figures of archers.

  Secca glanced toward Palian.

  “We stand ready, Lady Secca.”

  “At your mark.” Secca forced herself to relax, to loosen muscles that were tighter than they should have been, and to concentrate on the spellsong ahead--- just the spellsong.

  “The third building song, at my mark . . . Mark!” Both the first and second players began the building song, with the usual two bars of melody before Secca joined them. She ignored whatever was occurring below, where the hazy white shield had been raised by a Sea-Priest, and concen­trated on meshing her words and the players’ accompani­ment with the visualization of what she intended.

  “Clouds to form and winds to rise

  like a caldron in darkening skies.

  Build a storm with winds of ice and heat

  that scythes all Sturinn‘s men like ripened wheat...”

  Secca slipped a quick breath between the stanzas, still visualizing the storm of all storms, one that would sweep everything before it, ripping and rending all the Sturinnese forces, both those in the lowlands before her, and those deks away in the Dumaran hamlet.

  “Clouds to boil and storms to bubble

  crush to broken sticks of wind-strewn rubble

  all in Sturinn ‘s service or in Sea-Priest white

  and let none escape the whirlwind’s might...”

  After Secca finished the last words of the spell, she glanced downhill toward the archers. As she watched, the pale white shield vanished, and a dark cloud of arrows arched uphill. Yet, as they did, the skies darkened, and a rushing, wind swept from behind Secca, out of the north, with such force that she went to her knees in the winter-tan grass, as did most of the players.

  Someone had stood against the wind, for Secca could hear Alcaren and his lumand, singing a spell, one to the tune of the flame song, but with slightly different words.

  “Turn to fire, turn to flame,

  in ashes rend all sent ‘gainst our name...

  “Oh!” The single scream penetrated above the sound of spells, and wind, and a dull heavy roaring, so intense that the very volume of the roar seemed to press Secca farther into the grass. Secca forced her eyes up, just in time to see a lancer transfixed by three yard-long arrows--- and to see intermittent blazes of fire--- spellfires that turned the incom­ing arrows to flame and dust, spellfires that blazed as points of light against the almost jet-black clouds that swirled over­head, clouds so dark that they bore a greenish hue.

  The roaring of the wind rose so much that Secca could hear nothing else, and the light of dusk darkened so quickly that it appeared as if night had fallen. Gusts of warm, almost summerlike air mixed with air that felt as cold as midwinter ice, flaying Secca with their extremes.

  Amid the crashes of thunder, and the howling roar of the wind, Secca felt herself being pummeled, as if she were being poked with a wooden spear. She blinked through eyes that burned enough to blur her vision, to see a rain of hail so thick that she could barely make out the figures of the lancers in the single guard squad that had remained---use­lessly---to guard her and the others doing sorcery.

  Everywhere, the white globules bounced off everything--­her own jacket and head, players and their instruments. In moments, there was a white carpet covering the ground, bending the grass flat. Then, a few more moments later, the hail had passed.

  Secca started to climb to her feet, only to find Alcaren’s arm lifting her.

  “I’m fine, thank you.” She softened her words with a quick smile, before her mouth opened involuntarily.

  To the southeast, two enormous black funnel-like clouds swirled, visible despite the curtain of hail that trailed them. She watched as the clouds darkened yet more, then seemed to fade behind the curtain of hail. Then, the hail stopped falling, leaving a swath of white, almost like a massive car­pet runner over the hills in the direction of the Sturinnese forces.

  “Mighty sorcery,” Alcaren murmured.

  “Your last spell saved many of our lancers and players and probably both me, and Richina,” Secca said, turning to­ward him.

  Beyond Alcaren, for the first time, Secca saw the odd coloration on the white hail carpet on the lower hillside, and her eyes darted toward the lower ground from where the Sturinnese players and archers had launched their attack.

  “Don’t . . .“ warned Alcaren.

  Secca had to swallow hard as her eyes took in the small swath of devastation. Less than a dek away, where the squad attacking her forces had been, the hailstones were stained various shades of pink, from almost red to a pinkish froth. The sorceress forced herself. to keep looking, even as she swallowed to keep her stomach from turning itself inside out. It had been her sorcery . . . her words, her song, that had literally shredded archers and players.

  She swallowed again.

  Behind her, Secca could hear Richina retching.

  “I didn’t mean . . . not to be that cruel . . .” Secca said slowly.

  “It looks . . . worse,” Alcaren said. “It was faster than a blade or an arrow.”

  That might have, been, but Secca couldn’t help but shud­der.

  19

  Itzel, Neserea

  Two men sit alone at the end of the long table nearest the hearth. A single candelabra bearing five candles illuminates their end of the table. The only other light in the dining area comes from the glowing bank of red coals in the hearth.

  Belmar finishes a bite of mutton and follows it with a swallow of a dark red wine, he glances at the empty crystal pitcher on the table and lifts the small bell, ringing it twice, before speaking. “The Shadow Sorceress raised the winds to scatter two companies of your best archers, and yet more of your players.”

  “You could do the same, were you so minded,” points out the man who goes by the name of jerGlien. “It is merely a matter of the right melodies supporting the proper words. It is most tiring, and if it fails to destroy the enemy, then the sorcerer is left defenseless.”

  “She can afford to be defenseless for a short time. She has a sorceress with her. I do not have others.”

  “Do you wish others to share your powers?” asks jer­Glien, looking up as the door to the private dining chamber opens and a slender brunette serving-woman steps inside and bows . . . deeply and silently.

  “Another pitcher of the wine, the good red.” Belmar turns to jerGlien as the woman bows again and departs.

  After a moment, jerGlien continues, “In any case, the sor­ceress with the shadowsinger is not nearly so strong as she is. Also, she is not your problem. Not now. The Sorceress of Defalk is. You should not be scrying what is happening in Dumar, but what the lady Clayre may be doing in Neserea.”

  "I have indeed been following the lady Clayre. She bides in that pile of ancient rock on the outskirts of Esaria, as if I could not see where she is. All the time Lord Nysl bows and scrapes, fearing her, yet fearing me more.”

  “He does her bidding,” says jerGlien, his voice mild.

  “Because she is a sorceress, and within his hold. Only for those reasons. Once we hold Neserea, he will fall on his knees and grovel. We will let him.” Belmar laughs. “If he grovels especially well, we might let him keep his pile of stone.”

  “Lord Nysl is nothing. You must watch the sorceress.”

  “That I am. She can do nothing without my knowledge.” The Neserean sorcerer takes the smallest of sips of the wine. “You had mentioned her lord, sometime back.”

  “Ah, yes. I believe I did. The esteemed Lord Robero. He has little lov
e of being indebted to women, and especially women who are sorceresses. He is coming to realize that perhaps he might not be as constrained under other circum­stances, and that would be good for both of you.”

  “Does the shadowsinger know this? If she does, she may well hasten to enter Neserea,” Belmar points out. “That be­ing a possibility, I would rather not be surprised if she does.”

  The door opens, and the slender serving-woman reenters, bowing, and carrying a second crystal pitcher. “Lord.”

  Belmar watches as the young woman crosses the polished wooden floor. A few droplets of wine spill from the pitcher onto the wood, either from the movements of the server or from the hand, which shakes as she sets the pitcher on the table.