Fussen, Defalk
The wind blows out of the north, across the granite-studded ridgeline and toward the town of Fussen in the shallow valley below. To the southwest, above the town, looms the keep. Not a single wisp of smoke rises from the silent town, for all that it is chilly, even in the sunlight. Not a body or a mount is visible in the town. Nor is there any sign of life from the keep. The faint high haze that weakens the sun lends an additional sense of chill to the morning.
The players and drummers have formed in an almost-perfect arc on the ridge, facing the town below. Behind them are twenty-five companies of lancers, mounted and ready to attack or defend, should either be necessary. Another sixty-five companies are stationed along the stone-paved highway from Denguic. Standing before the players and drummers are a half-score of Sea-Priest sorcerers, headed by the Maitre, and Marshal jerLeng. Their white uniforms are spotless and shimmer under the cold morning sun.
“They have abandoned the town and keep, Maitre,” jerClayne reports.
“Are there men with arms nearby?” questions the Maitre. “Those of Defalk or Fussen itself?”
“The glass shows small groups of armed men. Some are lancers, and some wear livery of a lord. They have avoided our sweeps. They are not near the town, but many would be within several deks, we would judge.”
“Good. They will not escape the way the last ones did.” The Maitre’s voice is cold. “We may not get all of them, but enough will suffer.”
JerClayne looks to Marshal jerLeng, but jerLeng neither acknowledges the glance nor speaks.
The Maitre steps forward and gestures to the players and drummers. “The firebolt song! On my signal.”
“We stand ready, Maitre,” comes back the response.
The Maitre raises his left hand, then drops it. The drumming rises from a rhythmic backdrop into a pulsing roar, then softens to fall beneath the Maitre’s baritone as he begins the spellsong.
“Blast with fire, blast with flame,
all men in Fussen not of Sturinn’s name,
sear with whips of sound, and fire’s lash,
turning all against us into ash…”
Lines of flame sear through the high overcast, narrow needles of color seemingly jabbing at the ground randomly. As the lines of fire subside, the Maitre sits down heavily on the camp stool that awaits him.
He watches, his head moving from side to side, until no more flame needles flash down from above the overcast. Only then does he turn and look to jerClayne and the two younger Sea-Priests. “That will leave their women for suitable use. You will handle the spells to turn the keep and town into rubble.”
“Yes, Maitre.” JerClayne bows, then steps forward. “The hammer song.”
“The hammer song. We stand ready,” replies the head player, the only one with gold rings on the sleeves of his white tunic.
Squaring his shoulders, jerClayne lifts his left hand, then drops it. He waits, then joins the players and drums with his voice and words.
“Smash all brick and break all stone,
so no building, wall, or hall shall stand alone.
Then with flame and fire’s heat…”
As the words and accompaniment fade, the ground, and even the hard granite underlying the ridge shivers underfoot to the rhythm of blows, as if delivered by an unseen hammer that flattens everything in the town, and all structures of the keep to the west against the anvil of the very earth. Dust rises dozens of yards into the sky, creating veils that shroud the land and the rubble beneath those shrouds.
Within moments of the last words of the spellsong lifting into the air, jerClayne pitches forward, his fall barely stopped by the taller of the young sorcerers.
“Make sure he gets food and rest,” the Maitre says. “We have much more to do. Much more.” He turns and walks toward his tent.
To the southwest reddish dust swirls around the crushed and crumbled stone that had been the keep of Fussen. In the valley below the keep, where the town had been, tongues of fire roar into the sky, creating a wall of flame and smoke that obscures even the outlines of the shattered hilltop keep.
To the south and the east, lines of thin black smoke rise everywhere, out of woodlots and from behind hills high and low.