“I have but seen those favoring the new ways.” Alcaren shouldered his saddlebags.
“Most of those in the west favored Anna,” Secca pointed out, “save Ustal, and Falar is the warder of his heir.” She slipped on her riding jacket and tucked the green felt hat into her belt.
Alcaren shrugged helplessly.
Secca shook her head, realizing, belatedly, that Alcaren would not have known. He was so good at understanding that at times she forgot he was unfamiliar with much of the history of Defalk. “The demesne of Fussen. Falar was the younger son, and Ustal the older. Ustal nearly destroyed the demesne with his insistence on following the old traditions, but he died when a crossbow wire frayed and slashed out his throat. Falar is also the consort of Lady Herene of Pamr, but he has been acting as warder for the heir. I think young Uslyn reached his score while we were at sea. There was talk of that just before we left Defalk in the fall. In any case, the other western lords supported Lady Anna. Many of those in the center of Defalk, or in the south, did not, and still some of those favor the older traditions.”
“The ones who never had to shed their blood against invaders,” Alcaren observed dryly, “or who never had to worry about such.”
“Just so.” Secca lifted the saddlebags and lutar.
Alcaren opened the door, and they walked out past Dymen and Easlon, who fell in behind them. Richina was waiting by the guest stables and had already saddled her mount. Gorkon had saddled the gray and held the mare while Secca strapped on the saddlebags, then the scrying mirror and lutar.
Vyasal rode up on one of the huge raider beasts, a stallion with a coat of so deep and lustrous a blackish brown that it shimmered in the early-morning light almost like polished black stone. Riding beside him was Valya. Like Secca, and unlike the other women Secca had seen in the Kuyurt, her black hair was cut short. She wore the black leather shoulder harness of a rider, with the twin short blades across her back. A small circular shield rested in front of her right knee.
“Good morning, Valya,” Secca said. “I see you are prepared for the worst.”
“Or the best, Lady Sorceress.” Valya inclined her head. “Thank you.”
The Rider of Heinene studied the gray mare intently, then looked to Secca. “Are you ready, Lady Sorceress?”
Secca tightened the straps holding the lutar and mounted.
“The horses I want you to view are downhill and just to the west,” Vyasal said, easing his mount to Secca’s left.
Alcaren rode to the right, while Richina and Valya followed the three down the gentle slope. Easlon and Gorkon brought up the rear.
The ride was indeed short, less than a dek, Secca judged, when Vyasal reined up beside a stone wall little more than a yard high that formed a circle with a circumference of roughly a dek. There was a gate of sorts formed by two poles crossing an opening perhaps two yards wide in the stones. The area inside the wall was heavily grassed, and a narrow creek ran through it, with openings in the wall to accommodate the thin line of cold rushing water. There were five large horses—raider beasts—standing less than fifty yards from the wall.
“They could jump this if they wished. It pleases them to stay,” Vyasal said with a laugh. “I could whistle, and they would come, but I will not.” He turned in the saddle and faced Secca, the smile fading. “You must have a beast that matches your spirit.”
“How will you know that one of them does?” Secca asked, amused in spite of herself at the Rider’s assurance, amused and wondering whether to be offended.
“Your mother?—the great sorceress? She was fortunate to find her first beast because she had no Rider to aid her. I am the Rider. I can tell you will find a mount. You must walk up to them by yourself…you will find the one that suits you.”
Alcaren’s eyes widened.
Secca slowly nodded, understanding more than Vyasal would ever say. She dismounted and handed the gray’s reins to Gorkon, who took them solemnly. Then she walked to the gate and ducked between the two poles. There were some advantages to being small.
Secca wondered what she was doing—walking up to the largest horses in all Erde, beasts trained to kill enemies and any threat to their riders—if they accepted a rider. She smiled, ruefully. Perhaps she was so small that she would be seen as no threat, even if none liked her.
Her eyes ran over the five horses, all of whom had lifted their heads from where they had been grazing. The one farthest to Secca’s left was a mare, her coat a shade that Secca could only have described as firegold. Beside her was another mare, with a darker coat, more the shade of the mount that Vyasal rode. On the right side was a palomino stallion, almost like Farinelli, the first beast that Anna had ridden. The stallion snorted once, and turned, neither moving closer, nor farther away, but just watching Secca. The other two horses, both mares, with more silvery tinges in their palomino coats, also looked at Secca, almost indifferently.
Secca took another few steps, looking at the two mares to her left. The firegold mare raised her head slightly, then lowered it, and her eyes seemed to meet Secca’s. The sorceress took another step toward her. The mare with the darker coat eased back, away from both Secca and the firegold.
Before she quite realized it, Secca stood by—or beneath, she felt—the firegold mare. Slowly, very slowly, she extended an open hand. The mare lowered her head just enough to sniff Secca’s hand. After a moment, Secca’s fingers gently touched the mare’s shoulder. The mare continued to look at Secca, almost impatiently, Secca felt.
Now what do I do? Secca glanced toward Vyasal.
“You walk toward us. She will follow. It must be her choice as well,” the Rider called.
Feeling foolish, Secca turned and walked slowly back toward the gate. She could feel the firegold’s breath on her neck, following her step for step. She stopped at the pole gate and turned.
The firegold mare snorted, gently, her muzzle just spans from Secca’s face.
“She is ready for you to saddle her,” Vyasal said.
“I…never have I seen mounts do that,” Richina murmured, if loudly enough for Secca to hear.
“Then never have you seen a well-trained raider beast,” replied Vyasal. “They know who will be their rider.”
Alcaren dismounted and began to unfasten the gear strapped behind Secca’s saddle.
“You will need a Rider bridle.” The Rider of Heinene grinned as he lifted one in his left hand. “I thought to bring one.”
Secca shook her head. “You knew.”
“You are a sorceress, Lady Secca. I am the Rider.”
Secca leaned across the gate and took the bridle, then studied it. The bridle had no bit, and appeared to be a modified hackamore. Somehow, that didn’t surprise Secca. A Rider-trained raider beast would obey because it valued its rider, not through pain or force. When Secca turned, bridle in hand, the mare had actually lowered her head to be bridled. With a smile, Secca slipped the bridle over the mare’s head and ears, and fastened it in place.
“Here.” Alcaren handed the saddle blanket across the gate to his consort.
Secca was still dazed. Here she was, saddling a beast whose shoulders she could barely reach, even stretching, and what was amazing was that the firegold mare was letting her, even seeming to encourage her. Secca wondered about the length of the girths from her own saddle, but they were long enough—if with little to spare.
Once she had finished, Secca mounted, and this time she definitely had to jump-mount, just to get her foot in the stirrup. The mare did not move, except once Secca was in the saddle, to toss her head slightly, as if to indicate that she would be glad to be moving on.
Vyasal had dismounted and removed the two poles to let Secca ride out of the stone corral. He remounted and did not replace them.
Secca looked down at the faithful gray mare, then turned to Vyasal, inquiringly.
“You worry about the little gray? Do not.” Vyasal smiled. “She has carried you far. She should be honored, and we will feed her and pamper
her so long as she lives. We do not mistreat or discard even the oldest and the smallest.”
At that moment, a low, evil-sounding note—a dissonant harmonic—shivered through Secca. Secca glanced toward Alcaren, who had paled. Richina shivered.
So cold…so deadly. Secca swallowed.
“You are troubled,” Vyasal said. “Do not be. We will take your little mare and we will give her the best of care and pasture, but she is tired…”
Secca shook her head. “I’m sorry. It is not that. Somewhere, someone has done some terrible sorcery, and I fear it is the Maitre.”
Vyasal nodded, if sadly. “You are like your mother in that as well—sensing what most could not and would not.”
“We need to see.” Secca feared what the glass would show.
Alcaren had already dismounted, once more, and laid the scrying glass in its leathers upon a flat area of ground, amid the tan winter-browned grass stalks of the previous season and the green shoots that were beginning to herald the spring.
She dismounted and offered the firegold’s reins to Vyasal. “If you would…”
The Rider just smiled as Secca took the lutar from behind the saddle, where she had just refastened it. Secca checked the tuning, and then thought for several moments. Finally, she sang.
“Show us now what sorcery has shivered through the land…”
The mirror in the heat-darkened frame silvered, then centered on a panoramic view.
Secca looked down into the glass. Smoke swirled from the town where some structure smoldered and others still burned. The keep on the hillside was little more than scattered stones, licked by the intermittent flames of those items that flared in fire from the heat.
Vyasal licked his lips nervously. “I had heard…but to see an image from so far away…”
“It looks like Esaria,” Richina said.
“It felt worse,” Secca mused.
“What about the people?” asked Alcaren.
Secca looked at him, inquiringly.
“That kind of chord…it wasn’t pure Clearsong,” he said.
Vyasal’s eyes flicked from the mirror to Secca, and then to Alcaren.
Secca tried another spellsong.
“Show us now from Fussen, Uslyn, Falar and their best,
and of those who fought or fled the fate of the rest…”
The silver of the mirror twisted, and for the briefest of moments filled with hundreds of separate images, all blackened corpses. Then, with a splintering crackkk!, silvered glass sprayed across the grass.
Secca looked blankly at the shattered and scattered glass, the fragments glinting in the early-morning sunlight. Scores of scores had died…scores of scores…Falar, Lady Herene’s consort, who always had a ready smile, and Uslyn, who had barely become lord of his demesne. Lady Herene and her family had always supported Anna, and now Secca, and once again it seemed as though they had been punished for that support.
Vyasal looked from the shards of glass and then to Secca. “You must do what you must.” A concerned smile appeared. “The mare, she will help.”
“Might you have a mirror such as this one was?” asked Alcaren. “We have a smaller one, but going into battle against the Maitre…”
“A mirror—that is little to supply. There is a sturdy one in the corridor off my chamber.” Vyasal laughed. “I will send for it.” He turned in the saddle and looked at his dark-haired daughter.
“The one with the plain dark wood border?” asked the young woman.
“That is the one.”
As Valya turned her mount and urged the silver-gold stallion into a trot up the hill, Secca glanced at the firegold mare, who had not moved. “Songfire. You’re Songfire.” She had never named a mount before, but the mare was not just a mare. That she knew.
Then, she recased the lutar and strapped it behind the saddle. Pointing to the steaming wood frame that had once held a mirror used for scrying, she asked, “Would you mind if we left that…?”
Vyasal laughed. “Ha! Unlike so many, you ask, and for that courtesy alone I would bring every rider in the grasslands behind you, Lady Secca. We will take care of it once you are on your way.”
“Thank you.” Secca remounted Songfire, leaning forward in the saddle and patting the mare’s shoulder and getting a slight whuff in return.
As she settled herself in the saddle, Secca was suddenly conscious that she seemed to tower over Alcaren and Richina, or so it seemed, although her head was probably only a few spans higher than theirs. But after years of being the smallest on smaller mounts, the change seemed enormous.
“You see,” Vyasal proclaimed, “now you have an advantage none can match. You are small, and your Songfire can carry you more swiftly and for longer than any. Even I could not catch you if you had the slightest of starts.” The Rider grinned, clearly pleased with himself as the group rode back uphill.
Secca was more than conscious of Richina’s eyes on her back as they neared the stone walls of the Kuyurt. There, by the guest stables, the lancers and players were already formed up. Across a space of fifty yards from them was a line of men and woman in the battle garb of the Riders, with the twin blades in shoulder harnesses.
Secca glanced toward Vyasal.
“Only an honor guard,” The Rider replied. “We could not send you off without showing our support for you.” The emphasis on the pronoun was slight, but it was clear.
Secca felt a chill at Vyasal’s words, but turned as Palian rode toward them.
The chief player reined up, and declared, “The players stand ready, Lady Secca.” A knowing smile crossed her face. “Your mount…she is beautiful.”
“A Sorceress Protector who must defend her land against the Sea-Priests must have a mount that declares who she is,” Vyasal said.
Valya reappeared on her mount, carrying an oblong object, wrapped in a brown blanket of some sort, and rode toward Secca and her father. Alcaren intercepted her and took the replacement mirror, further wrapping it in the leathers, before he eased his gelding beside the raider mare Secca rode. There he leaned over and fastened the new scrying mirror behind Secca’s saddle.
“Lancers ready!” called out Wilten.
“SouthWomen ready!” came from Delcetta.
Secca nodded and eased Songfire toward the front of what would be a column. Vyasal rode beside her on the left, with Alcaren on the right, and Valya and Secca riding directly behind them. Secca had barely to touch the reins to signal the firegold mare to stop.
Vyasal eased his mount closer beside Secca, and leaned toward her. “I trust you with my daughter and my heir. I would trust you with my life. All those in Defalk who think beyond their petty appetites would trust you, for you will not fail us, Sorceress-Protector.” He straightened, and proclaimed loudly, “Go in victory!”
The riders mounted as an honor guard repeated the cry. “Go in victory.”
Secca swallowed, thought for a moment, then replied, “With your support and your faith, we will bring victory and peace to Defalk once more.” You hope you can. Even with the doubts inside her, she smiled as she touched the reins, and Songfire carried her toward the road that led southward—toward Dubaria and Fussen and the Maitre. And toward all those who had already died…and those who would.
121
East of Fussen, Defalk
The Maitre, jerClayne, and Marshal jerLeng sit on stools around the camp table under the silk canopy of the Maitre’s tent. A single oil lamp offers dim but adequate illumination, casting shadows across the faces of all three.
“The Shadow Sorceress is traveling south. She has passed the grasslands and enters the hills to the south of Heinene. She has added no lancers from either Nordfels or from the raider chief.” JerClayne pauses. “Not in any numbers that we can see.”
“That would show that even the western lords are less than fond of a woman with power,” points out the Maitre. “Or that they do not trust her not to lose their lancers in battle.”
“I would that your s
crying could show more,” says the marshal.
“Her wards keep us from seeing her directly, or those close to her,” replies the younger Sea-Priest, “just as ours keep her from seeing the Maitre or us when we are close to him.”
“Doubtless she heads for Dubaria,” the Maitre observes. “She can have Dubaria.”
The younger Sea-Priest and the marshal wait.
“We have an invitation of sorts, do we not? From Lord Dostal of Aroch?” A hard smile curls across the lips of the Maitre.
“You would leave Dubaria?” asks jerLeng.
“Only for now. Only for now. If we ride directly to Aroch, we are closer to Falcor, and she must come to us to save the liedstadt. So we will go there and let her come to us. Then we will see.”
“See what?” questions jerLeng.
“Aroch controls the access to Falcor. It is time to draw Lord Robero into this. Holding Aroch will let us do so. From there we will send emissaries to Falcor. We will threaten to destroy Falcor unless Lord Robero orders the Shadow Sorceress to allow us to return to Neserea unmolested.”
“Why would he do such when Stura is in ruins and we have no fleet?”
The Maitre smiles crookedly. “Does he know such? Neither sorceress is near him, and your scrying has shown that he paces and frets. There are no message tubes upon his desk. We do have sorcery and close to one hundred companies of lancers. He can muster less than a score, if that.”
“So he thinks that he is likely to lose all unless he treats with us…”
“We can hope that he sees matters in that light. From what we have seen, it is most likely.”
“Still…will she not come after us?”
“If she obeys one order, she will obey another. If she obeys neither, then we will level Aroch and move on Falcor. Either way, she will get no support from Lord Robero, and he will get none from her. We will destroy them each in turn.” The Maitre leans forward. “You, jerLeng, will take thirty companies and leave early in the morning to take advantage of the good Lord Dostal’s invitation. I will send a younger sorcerer with you, should it be necessary to destroy a section of the wall or the gates.”
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