The angular Dencer peers down at the clouded image in the glass—an image that shows a woman standing on a road and singing at a rock face. Behind her are the even more shadowy figures of players.
“Where is she?” demands the Lord of Stromwer. “I know she works sorcery. She always works sorcery. But where works she this sorcery?”
“We will try, ser.” The sweaty-faced man in tan linens gestures to the three players and begins to sing.
“Now show in the shining light of song
where the sorceress may be found . . .”
The singer coughs and the images shiver back into silver mists.
“Show me! Now!” snaps Dencer.
The seer coughs again, then repeats the refrain, the violinos matching his thin voice.
This time the cloudy image shows horsemen along a narrow trail.
“Not much better. Thank the harmonies I know my lands.” Dencer glances at the seer. “Cannot you do better than that?”
“Ser . . . she is powerful.”
“What use are you all? Worthless! Why have I only the weak and worthless?” The lank-haired lord knocks aside the seer with his gauntleted left arm and strides from the room. “Gortin! Zerban! Form up the archers! Now!”
Dencer still yells commands as he rides from the stables and closes with the waiting Dumaran captain. “Are your men ready?” The Lord of Stromwer gestures toward the gate to the south. “Zerban! We ride!”
“I have followed your orders, Lord Dencer, but I see no sorceress.”
“Had we waited until we saw her, too late would it have been. Are all you Dumarans so stupid?” Dencer urges his mount toward the gate. “Archers! Ride to the west! After me!” The gates groan open, and the armsmen in tan leathers flank Dencer as he rides out through the gates and along the berm road to the west.
Gortin gestures to his own lancers and smaller number of mounted archers, then follows the gawky-looking Lord of Stromwer through the gates and across the flat grass of the high berm toward the cliffs to the west of the keep.
“Why here?” asks the Dumaran officer when he finally draws his mount alongside that of Dencer, more than halfway to the base of the cliff.
“The bitch uses sorcery, and if she succeeds, she will make her way through that low point in the cliffs.” Dencer draws his blade and gestures. “There. See you not the rock steaming?”
Gortin half ducks as the weapon swirls by him, then looks to the cliffs ahead and overhead. As Dencer has said, steam or mist—something boils off the rock nearly a hundred yards up from the base of the cliff.
“She will level that mountain, if it takes that, to get to us. She is already calling on dissonance to support her attack.” The tall lord reins up and half turns his mount. He stands in the saddle easily, despite his awkward appearance, and gestures with the long blade. “Form up the archers! Here! Now! Right before me!”
Gortin gestures, and the Dumaran archers begin to form to the south of the tan-clad forces of Stromwer. Dencer watches as the archers tumble off of mounts and form on the long grass before him.
Above them and to the west, a dull rumbling fills the midday air, and gray clouds of dust spurt from the cliff’s side.
“A tunnel. . . . The bitch has created a tunnel. . . . Proves she’s not all-powerful.” Dencer gestures with the long blade again—toward the gray-and-red layers of the cliff that lies less than a hundred yards from where his archers prepare.
The gray mist swirls away in the light breeze, revealing a rock-walled balcony jutting out of the cliff. Gortin’s jaw drops momentarily, but he closes his mouth quickly and glances toward Dencer.
“Your lord—did he not realize the danger this sorceress poses?” Dencer’s voice oozes with irony. “The great Lord Ehara . . . he did not realize?”
“I think not, Lord Dencer.”
Two shields appear above the wall on the cliff, and then a figure in greens—apparently blonde—peers over one of the shields.
“The bitch! She’s there already,” mutters Dencer. His voice rises as he sheathes the blade. “Zerban! Archers! Blanket that place with shafts! Now! Every shaft you have!”
To his left, Gortin echoes similar commands, and the half-score of crimson-clad Dumarans begin to loft shafts over the short expanse of wall. Some arrows bounce off the rock.
“More shafts!” insists Dencer, stringing his own great bow, and then loosing one shaft, then another.
The sounds of horns, then of strings, waft out over the valley—followed by a strong voice, a clear voice, a voice that makes that of Dencer’s seer seem as nothing.
The Lord of Stromwer glares, nocks another shaft, and releases it. “Bitch! Bitch! Get you if I can . . .” His voice is low and ragged.
The puffy white clouds to the south and west darken into gray, and the ground seems to rumble.
Dencer looses another shaft.
A lance of fire appears from somewhere in the sky and sizzles into the archers before Dencer.
“Ooooh . . .” The muted moan of the dying man mixes with the odor of burning flesh.
“Aeeeiiii . . . aeeiii . . .”
Fire lances begin to fall as fast as raindrops in a thunderstorm, and the screams of the dying rise with the flames that engulf them.
Dencer nocks yet another shaft and lofts it toward the stone wall above him. “Bitch! No sorceress . . . No woman . . . Bitch!”
He struggles to reach one more shaft as the fires enfold him, tries to lift it to the burning bow, while he clamps his lips shut. Then he raises one fist . . . slowly . . . before his charred figure is thrown from the back of the mount that rears to escape the flame, rears . . . and collapses under the rain of fire that appears to be everywhere there are armsmen.