She had checked the scrying mirror a little over a glass earlier. Then, the images in the glass had shown companies of Sturinnese lancers massed around the bridges, half on each side roughly, but without any columns or scouts riding farther northward. Wilten and Delcetta had sent out even more scouts to warn them of any possible attacks, and Secca had been watching the road carefully.
Almost with that thought, a rider in the crimson and blue of the SouthWomen appeared from behind the trees where the road curved and galloped northward toward the column, her speed indicating that all was not well.
Secca took a swallow from her water bottle and began a second vocalise, slowly, trying not to force anything. Riding beside her, Alcaren cleared his throat and also continued his warm-up.
Delcetta listened to the messenger but for a moment, and then the two SouthWomen rode along the shoulder of the narrow road toward Secca.
Before they reached her, Secca reined up Songfire, though the gesture took but the slightest pressure, and stood in the stirrups, signaling for the column to halt. “Chief player!”
“First players!” echoed Palian.
“Second players!” followed Delvor.
Delcetta and the messenger reined up, and the South-Woman overcaptain said, “Report to Lady Secca.”
“Lady Secca, there are two forces of Sea-Priests. There are at least fifteen companies in each force. One is riding from the southeast and the other from the southwest. They are about three deks away.”
“Over each of the bridges from Aroch,” Seeca said, not quite asking.
“Yes, lady.”
“We can ride up the hill to the west, lady,” offered Delcetta. “That will give us some advantage. The south side of the crest is mostly clear.
Secca glanced to her right, noting that the hillcrest rose less than twenty yards above the road. On the left, the meadows and the un-leafed orchard actually sloped downward from the road, if gently.
“That’s the best we can do,” she finally acknowledged. “Order it.” Her eyes went to Palian and Delvor, who had eased their mounts closer by circling beyond the shoulder of the road. “We’ll be setting up on the top of the hill, on the south side. We’ll have less than a half glass, if the scouts are correct.”
"We will quick-tune and be ready,” Palian promised.
Following the column, Secca turned Songfire to her right and urged the raider mare up the hill. Alcaren and Jolyn rode on each side of her, and the two younger sorceresses and Valya followed.
Alcaren eased his gelding almost shoulder to shoulder with Songfire. “I will do it. You must lead in the terrible spells tomorrow.”
“You cannot. You have not recovered from holding the wards so long. There are more than thirty companies coming.
“Then, at least let us do it together,” he replied. “If I can spare you some of the effort, it will make what you do on the morrow more effective."
“I can help,” Jolyn offered.
Secca turned in the saddle and took in the older sorceress’s still-tired visage and the dark circles around her eyes before responding. “If we need a second spell, you can support me. Alcaren will support me for the first.”
Jolyn nodded.
When Secca reached the southern side of the crest of the hill, already most of the lancers were forming in an arc by companies. Kinor’s companies were on the left flank---to the east while Tiersen’s were on the right---beside a company of SouthWomen. Secca turned Songfire and glanced out to the south. Were there white tunics in the woods to the south beyond the large and yet-leafless orchard? She could see none, but felt that they were there and nearing quickly.
Since there was little else she could do except ready herself to sing, Secca dismounted. She looked around, half-expecting Valya to take Songfire’s reins, but the Rider heir had stationed herself to the right of Richina and Anandra, effectively acting as another guard for the younger sorceresses. With a smile, Secca handed Songfire’s reins to Easlon and stepped forward into the center of the arc formed by the first players. Alcaren also handed the reins to his gelding to Easlon and followed Secca.
“Quick-tune! Now, Bretnay!” snapped Palian. The true tone issued forth from the violino of Kylara the lead violinist after Palian herself. Secca found herself standing on one foot and then the other as the players tuned. Her eyes flicked to check the slope below and beyond the bare-limbed trees of the orchard, as well as to the road to the left of the orchard.
"Warm-up tune. One time through, at my mark. Mark!” announced Palian.
As the players reached the midpoint of the warm-up tune, Secca saw a rider in white burst out of the forest and began riding uphill through the wider lanes between the trees of the orchard. Others followed.
“Sturinnese below!” called Wilten.
As Secca turned to the chief player to signal that they needed to begin the spellsong, the sorceress heard a low rumbling, like thunder. She swallowed as she recognized the sound of the Sturinnese drummers. So close were they from where she had last scried them that they must have quick-trotted all the way from the bridges—or even galloped some of the way.
She wanted to shake her head, but instead just signaled to Palian.
“The players stand ready, Lady Secca,” Palian announced. “On your mark,” Secca replied, raising her hand, and then lowering it.
“At my mark,” ordered Palian, “The third building song. Mark!”
Secca followed the beat, strong and even, and joined in at the first note of the third bar, gratified that Alcaren’s baritone came in exactly with her, and not trailing.
“Clouds to form and winds to rise
like a caldron in darkening skies..."
Although she concentrated on the melody and the spellsong, Secca could not help but sense the waves of horsemen in white who had appeared at the base of the hill and had already begun to race up through the apple trees to close the last dek between them and Secca’s forces. She could also sense the heaviness and the interference of the drums, and had to force herself to keep up the tempo as she and Alcaren began the second stanza.
“Clouds to boil and storms to bubble...”
Before they could complete the second stanza, the rumbling roar of yet another fireball grew, and then a rush of hot air whipped around the hillcrest as the firebolt whipped overhead, clearing the lancers by less than twenty yards, and plunging into the meadow beside the road less than a half a dek to the southeast.
Despite the hot wind that pushed and pulled at them, Secca concentrated on the storm spell and on the images of the storm funnels sweeping across the front and sides of the hills, as close as she dared bring the storms.
Her forehead was pouring sweat by the time the last note faded, and once the discipline of the spellsong dropped away, she found herself breathing hard, with her head throbbing and daystars flashing before her eyes, but not with great intensity or frequency. The drumming rose in intensity, and another rumbling and rushing roar was building somewhere behind them.
Secca could only hope that Richina and Anandra could hold the wards yet again.
“Third company! To the fore!” At the command, a score of lancers in SouthWomen crimson rode out in front of the players.
At a muffled sound from beside her, Secca half-turned in time to see Alcaren sway, and then start to pitch forward as his knees buckled. She jumped toward him, but only managed to grab his tunic. That was enough to swing his limp figure enough so that he landed in the damp winter-tan grass gently on his side, rather than pitching forward and landing far harder on his face.
The skies darkened, turning the sickly dark grayish green that Secca hated, and the winds rose. Then, for a moment, there was an instant of silence, and the firebolt plowed into the hillside less than fifty yards in front of Kinor’s forces on the left flank. Fragments of trees flew like spears and quarrels.
Secca shivered as four or five men and mounts in the forwardmost line went down. She hoped Kinor had been far
ther back.
The roaring of a funnel cloud sweeping through the orchard below followed the explosion of the firebolt. The yells of men and the screams of mounts rose with the wind and the darkness that swept before Secca, pulling and tugging at her.
She went to her knees with the force of the wind, barely avoiding her unconscious consort. She rolled Alcaren on his back, then staggered erect and ran toward Easlon and Songfire. She took the mare’s reins and scrambled up into the saddle, ignoring the daystars as well as she could.
The roaring of the winds was stronger than before, even as the funnel clouds swept away from the hillcrest, but the spell should have been that strong with the support of two voices.
A glance downhill showed Secca that at least a score or two of the Sturinnese had escaped the funnel and had been met by the SouthWomen and part of the gold company of Loiseau. There were also gaps in the defenders’ line, gaps that had been there before the attackers had reached them, Secca feared.
“To the sorceress! The sorceress!” With the yell from massed voices, a wedge of white-clad lancers burst out of the low brush and trees to the west, spurring their mounts toward the slight gap between the SouthWomen and Tiersen’s lancers, clearly sprinting their mounts toward Secca and players.
“To the right, charge!”
“Left, charge!”
At the command, Delcetta’s companies wheeled and met the charge, as did Tiersen’s lancers, but the angle and the ferocity of the charge allowed three of the Sturinnese lancers to break through the gap, leaving two or three bodies in their wake. Secca turned Songfire and unsheathed her sabre.
From Secca’s right, Valya charged the Sea-Priests. Behind her were Richina and four of the lancers acting as Secca’s guards.
The first lancer went down under Valya’s shortswords, and a second doubled over his mount’s neck with a thrown blade through his chest.
When the melee cleared, moments later, the last Sturinnese lancer was dead. From what Secca could see, neither Valya nor Richina appeared injured. Nor did Gorkon or the other guards appear wounded.
Secca turned Songfire, her sabre still at the ready, but all she could see were her own players and lancers--- and a wall of black rain that was advancing up the hill in waves.
“Case your instruments! Case your instruments!” Both Delvor and Palian were shouting the command.
Amid the still-roaring and -rushing winds that had faded somewhat as they swept southward, Secca turned Songfire back toward Alcaren. Jolyn had helped him into a sitting position. He was drinking from a water bottle, if pale as winter ice. Beside him, on the ground, was Anandra, equally pale and drawn.
At least a score of lancers and mounts in blue and crimson and in green lay across the area just below the hillcrest, and those Secca could see all too well, even through the intermittent daystar flashes. Mixed with the Defalkan and Ranuan dead were the bodies of more than a score of Sturinnese lancers.
Secca turned away, slightly. Her head ached, and her eyes burned, as much from frustration and anger as from exhaustion.
Delcetta walked her mount toward Secca. Secca turned in the saddle and waited.
“You have destroyed yet another army, Lady Sorceress.”
“This time we lost more,” Secca said.
“A company’s worth of SouthWomen and almost as many of yours. Close to half a company each from your lords, I would judge.
Secca nodded slowly. And we still have not reached Aroch . . . or the Maitre.
134
Aroch, Defalk
The Maitre is seated behind a wide desk of cherry that appears warm in the light from the lamps and the hearth. His eyes, unlike the wood of the desk, glitter like the ice of Pelara lit by the heatless sun of midwinter. His words are even colder as he beholds the two lancer officers in white who stand before the desk
“You are telling me that you fear your lancers will not obey? Lancers of Sturinn?”
“I do not fear that they will not obey. I am telling you that they will not make another fruitless suicide attack,” replies Marshal jerLeng. “That is exactly what I am telling you."
Standing behind the Maitre’s shoulder, jerClayne shakes his head, as if to warn the marshal against his words.
“We have lost more than fifty companies in less than a week, thirty of them this very afternoon. Every lancer and every officer out there knows that. They also know that no lancer has survived in going against the Sorceress Protector.” JerLeng smiles grimly. “My officers are not stupid, Maitre. You can do no worse to them than can the sorceress, and perhaps not so much as she has done. They will not attack again until you attack with sorcery.”
“And if I replace you?”
“Then you will have to replace me, as well,” offers the overcaptain who stands slightly behind jerLeng. “No officer will give such an order. If he did, no lancer would obey it.”
“No lancer?”
“No, ser,” replies the overcaptain.
“We have almost won, and you would back away?" snaps the Maitre.
“We have destroyed two weak lands, and we have lost our homeland, counters jerLeng. We have lost over four hundred companies of lancers in less than a year, and the enemy has lost twenty---if that. It may be that others cannot stand against our sorcery, but it is also clear that our lancers cannot stand against the sorcery of the Sorceress Protector. You have said you are her superior. It is time for you to make good on that claim.
“I am the Maitre. I decide when---"
“No.” JerLeng’s voice is chill, colder than the Maitre’s eyes and words, cold enough to freeze the chamber into silence. “You may well have the power to destroy me and every lancer in Aroch. If you do, then you will still have to face the sorceress. And if you should defeat her . . . then . . . without lancers, how can you rule? And what will you have to rule? Or for whom?"
I see.” The Maitre stands, slowly. “You make matters difficult. Then, I want your promise that, after we destroy the sorceress tomorrow, that you and your lancers will not question my orders.”
"If you destroy the sorceress, we will follow you as we always have.” The marshal does not bow as he finishes his sentence. He turns and walks from the chamber without another word, followed by the overcaptain.
“Fools!” The Maitre shakes his head, then looks at jerClayne. “It would have been so much easier with one more attack. So much easier. She lost three companies, and the two junior sorcerers almost broke their wards.”
“You cannot make them attack,” jerClayne points out.
“I cannot. Now. But they will pay for their insubordination. That they will.” A hard smile crosses his face. “For now, we must plan how we will break the sorceresses.”
He points to the map laid across the desk. “Here. You will direct the junior Sea-Priests to begin with an attack with firebolts—as many as they can muster against the sorceresses. Darksong will not be above the horizon until dawn. A glass later, you will begin. .
As the Maitre details his strategy, jerClayne nods, listening intently.
135
In the late evening, sitting on her bedroll, with Alcaren beside her, Secca looked into the embers in the hearth of the tiny cot. In one corner, Richina, Anandra, and Valya slept. In the corner closest to the hearth, so did Jolyn.
“You are worried about more than the battle to come,” offered Alcaren in a low voice. “Are you not?”
“If I do not worry about the battle, I will not be worrying about anything else,” Secca temporized, her voice barely above a whisper. “The glass shows that the Maitre still has something like forty companies of lancers. I have perhaps three in name and less than two in fact I have lost more than half the lancers I brought from Loiseau. The SouthWomen have lost more than half their numbers. Kinor and Tiersen have lost close to half their lancers. Fewer than ten companies against more than forty?”
“The Sturinnese have lost hundreds of ships and hundreds of companies of lancers,” Alc
aren pointed out.
“They have them to lose. We do not.”
“Kinor has the trenches and berms ready. The players have run through the sixth building song until they know it well. Richina knows the first building song, and even carrying the wards, she can do one spellsong . . ."
“That is asking much of her,” Secca said. Yet Alcaren and Jolyn can do but one as well. In everything she tried to do, they were stretched, asking too much of everyone.
“You will not let me do the first one,” Alcaren pointed out.
“You almost did not finish the storm spell,” Secca replied, “and I need you and Jolyn for the sixth building spellsong.”
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