Under a clear sky, a strong and warm breeze blew from the south. The air was almost springlike as Secca and Richina rode eastward, near the head of the column of lancer companies from Loiseau and Synek. The day smelled clean, fresh, and Secca could not help but compare the brightness of the sky and the sunlight to what she worried lay before them.
“How do you feel?” she asked Richina.
“Good, but uneasy.”
“You are just going to repair a road. That’s all. That’s one of the things you’ve been trained for. You will do well. I wouldn’t ask you if I did not think you would.” Secca kept her voice light and cheerful. “You’re ready for this.”
“Yes, lady.” Richina did not quite meet Secca’s eyes.
Stepan eased his mount up beside Secca’s, riding on the shoulder of the road, far narrower than any major roads remaining in Defalk. “The scouts say that Mynntar has not broken camp, but that the lancers are sharpening blades.” He smiled. “I know your glass showed that earlier, but I am an old armsman, and I prefer to confirm what I cannot see myself.”
“He had planned to move tomorrow, you think?”
“I would guess so, although, if he finds we are riding, that all could change. And most suddenly.”
“Best we repair the road and move more quickly,” Secca said.
“As you can, sorceresses,” Stepan replied, “there is no hurry until the road is replaced. Then, speed becomes most necessary.”
As if on cue, the sandy-haired assistant sorceress began a soft vocalise.
In between her own vocalises, Secca went over spells in her thoughts as they continued to ride through a morning that seemed too bright and too fresh for the battle that lay ahead. First, they needed to repair the road, then deal with Mynntar. She pushed back the thought that the battle with Mynntar might well be only the first of many, if indeed the Sturinnese had decided to attack and conquer Liedwahr. She could only fight one battle at a time.
In less than a glass, Secca and the column had reined up and looked eastward from the hilltop. Fifty yards downhill, the old track, now corraded with miniature gullies from the rain, ended in churned mud, and ten yards below that the brown water of the small lake began.
To the east, the hilltop where the road resumed was empty, showing not even a scout.
“They have no scouts near here,” Wilten said.
“That may be,” offered Stepan, “but if the sorcery works, then there will be no swamp to stop them, and we must be ready to ride quickly.”
“Our lancers are ready,” Wilten affirmed.
“As are those of Synek.” Stepan glanced to Secca. “Once your assistant is done…”
“The road can be used at once, but the players will have to pack their instruments and remount,” Secca pointed out.
Richina dismounted near the top of the road crest. She handed the chestnut’s reins to Albar, the young lancer Wilten had detailed to care for her mount and Secca’s while they were engaged in sorcery. Richina walked downhill several yards, studying the ground and the swampy lake below before turning and walking back to her mount, where she extracted a sketch from the top of her saddlebag.
While Richina studied the sketch, comparing it to the land, to the south of her, the players dismounted, and shortly the discordant sound of tuning began.
Secca kept studying the eastern side of the ravaged road cut, but could see no scouts. The wind remained steady from the southwest. Finally, she dismounted, also handing the reins of her mount to Albar, before walking forward, so that she stood perhaps three yards uphill from Richina.
As the tuning died away, Palian looked directly at the younger sorceress. “We stand ready, sorceress.”
Squaring her shoulders, Richina offered a faint smile, then cleared her throat. “You may begin, chief player.”
“On my mark…. Mark!”
Standing behind and to the south of her apprentice, Secca forced herself to take a slow deep breath as she watched Richina and listened to the younger woman’s spellsong.
“…replicate the earth and stones.
Place them in their proper zones…
Set all firm, and set all square,
weld them to their pattern there…”
While the last words of the spellsong faded, an intense bluish glow blossomed over the swampy lowland that had once held road and bridge, a glow so bright that Stepan and Wilten looked away, as did most of the players.
The glow faded, revealing a causeway, one with a single archway for the stream, and faced with stone riprap and paved with the even stones of Defalk. The newly created causeway barely dipped between the two hills, while a deeper gorge had appeared between the hills and the arch of the bridgelike causeway.
Secca blinked. The hilltops on each side were lower, and the roadway was definitely stone-paved. She turned to Richina.
A broad smile crossed the sandy-haired young woman’s face. “I…did it.” Then, her face went blank and she began to crumple.
Secca rushed forward and grabbed Richina, managing to keep her from pitching forward despite the younger woman’s considerably greater height and weight.
Richina was breathing…but she was pale.
Stepan and Wilten had their mounts beside Secca almost immediately.
Secca glanced at Wilten. “She did more than was necessary. She will be all right, if she has rest. I’ll need someone to take care of her. She’ll need water and biscuits as soon as she wakes…”
Wilten opened his mouth as if to complain.
“She saved more men than will be needed to care for her!” Secca snapped.
“My personal guards will serve her, lady,” offered Stepan.
“Thank you.”
“My lady…I meant no ill,” Wilten pleaded.
“I’m sorry, Wilten,” Secca apologized. “I was worried about her. She did more than I wanted because she wanted to make sure it was right.” Secca hoped she hadn’t upset the overcaptain too much.
Even before Secca could turn, two armsmen in Ebran green had appeared, apparently in response to a gesture Stepan had made and Secca had not even seen.
“We needs must ride now, Lady Secca,” Stepan said.
As the two guards carried Richina to the side of the road and laid her on a cloak of some sort, Secca remounted, glancing back to see another pair of Stepan’s guards riding up behind the exhausted apprentice.
“They will keep her safe,” Stepan said to Secca.
“Thank you.” Secca turned to Wilten. “Are your lancers ready?”
“Most ready, lady.”
“We are almost ready to ride,” called Palian. “A moment only.” Her head turned. “Move, Bretnay!”
As the errant violino player scrambled into the saddle, Palian nodded in the direction of both Stepan and Secca.
“Where are the special archers?” asked Secca.
“Here, lady.” The lead archer, Elfens, raised a gray-gloved hand from his mount on the shoulder of the road behind the mounts of the players. “We are ready to let fly any and all shafts that you require.” The twinkling in his light brown eyes belied the somber tone of his words.
“We may require many shafts, Elfens. Stay close to the players.”
“Yes, lady.”
Even before Secca, Wilten, and Stepan reached the causeway, four scouts had quick-trotted out before the van and were riding swiftly eastward. One turned north and began to cross a brown-grassed meadow, while the others followed the road, drawing away from the main force.
The clop of hoofs on the stones of the causeway seemed almost reassuring.
“A solid road,” Stepan said. “Would that we had more.”
“You can see what it takes out of a sorceress,” Secca pointed out, glancing to Wilten. “Had you seen such before, Wilten?”
“No, Lady Secca.”
“Did she…Was that because she is not experienced?” asked Stepan.
“She lacks experience. That is true, but we all have to start somewhere.”
Stepan nodded. So did Wilten.
The standard bearers and then Wilten, Secca, and Stepan came to the end of the new causeway and continued eastward.
“Another half-dek,” Stepan called. “We take the lane past the apple orchards to the north, and along the ridge line.”
The lane was but wide enough for three riders abreast, and that with the shoulders of the outside riders brushing the bare twig-ends of the tree limbs.
Stepan glanced ahead. Wilten glanced back. Secca began a vocalise.
Outside of the breathing of mounts moving across damp ground, and low murmurs, the air was silent, and even the wind seemed fainter.
At the sound of hoofs on the damp ground, the two officers stiffened, and Secca broke off the second vocalise.
A scout rode toward the officers and the banner, reining up.
“They must have seen us, sers,” panted the bearded Ebran scout. “Like an anthill turned by a plow, everyone’s yelling and trying to mount. They’ll be riding out real short like.”
Secca turned in the saddle. “Palian! Delvor! We need the players ready to play when we reach that ridge ahead.”
Stepan motioned to a lancer. “Have the first company forward. To me.”
“Yes, ser.”
Secca and Stepan had not traveled more than a hundred yards farther when, from the the north, came the sound of mounts, and charging uphill were a good score of lancers in white, although they were still half a dek away, and barely visible because of the curve in the lane.
“Lady Secca…best get your players in place.” Stepan turned his mount and rode to the side of the lane. “To me! First company!”
Ebran lancers formed and simultaneously charged downhill after Stepan. Mud flew into the air, striking mounts, grass, ground, and tree trunks.
“Players! Players after me!” Secca urged the gray mare toward the open ridge line that lay less than fifty yards ahead. “Players!”
Riding alongside Secca was young Albar, bearing her banner.
Secca reined up and turned in the saddle as the mounts of the players appeared behind her.
Palian was already out of the saddle, uncasing her violino with one hand and motioning players into place with the other.
Not far behind were Elfens and the archers, and they were scrambling to string bows and uncover the quivers that had shielded their shafts from the weather.
“Here!” snapped Secca. “Stand and play! The short flame song!”
The dissonance of tuning rose, and then fell.
Downhill to the north, and even to the sides, Secca could hear yells, the sound of metal on metal, horses crashing through underbrush. She cleared her throat, trying to call up the spell, facing toward the enemy camp a good two hundred yards below and to the north, her back to the wind—or to what had been the wind.
In the distance, thunder rolled. Secca glanced up, saw the sky was yet clear, and realized that the low rumbling was from the Sturinnese thunder-drums. The wind, which had been blowing out of the south, began to die away with the rising volume of the rhythmic drums.
A gust of wind whipped through Secca’s hair—cold but dry, and from the north—blowing hard and into Secca’s face. She turned. “Chief players?”
“Ready!” answered Palian.
Delvor merely nodded.
Secca waited for the second bar, and then began the spell-song.
“Turn to fire, turn to flame
all Ebrans who follow now Mynntar’s name.
Turn to ashes, turn to dust…
As the sounds of the players rose, so did the wind, whistling, and seeming to carry Secca’s words back at her.
A thin line of lightnings flashed out of the cloudless sky, but only at the base of the ridge, just beyond the underbrush, cutting through a score or so of the burgundy-clad lancers, but those behind, and those in white, kept fighting, moving toward the side approaches to the ridge, and to Secca and the players. More lancers from Loiseau surged in behind Stepan’s companies, but the enemy forces continued to push uphill, if more slowly.
The rolling thunder of the Sturinnese drums intensified, and a greenish haze began to creep across the sky.
“The arrows, lady! The arrows!” Elfens’ voice barely carried to Secca, so strong was the wind, for all that he was less than five yards behind her.
The arrows? What arrows? Secca blinked, trying to connect the words to what she was supposed to do, attempting to think as the thunder from the drums buffeted her and the players.
“The arrows. For the drums!” Elfens yelled.
For the drums?
Below and to the north, the groups of burgundy-clad lancers, untouched by either Defalkan blades or those of Stepan’s lancers, or by Secca’s spells, began to cut their way through Stepan’s first company.
Arrows whistled toward the hilltop.
Secca shook her head. Her thoughts were as congealed as molasses in midwinter, but she turned to Palian. “The arrow song. The arrow song.”
“The arrow song on my mark. On my mark…”
“Archers! To the sorceress! Nock and fire from right behind her!” Elfens voice was barely a whisper against gale that seemed to sweep out of the greenish northern sky.
The melody was ragged, but the pounding beat of the lutars of Delvor’s second players seemed to steady the strings and horns, enough so Secca could think and sing.
“Heads of arrows, shot into the air,
strike the drumskins, straight through there,
rend the drums and those who play…
for their spells and Darksong pay!”
Even before Secca finished the last syllable, Elfens’ voice burst forth from right behind Secca. “Again, lady! Again!”
“The arrow song once more!” Secca ordered.
“As many shafts as you can loose while she sings!” demanded Elfens.
The repetition of the arrow spell was stronger.
Abruptly, or so it seemed, the thunder died away…and so did the wind…only to resume with gusts from the south, from behind Secca.
“The flame song! Strong as you can make it!” demanded Secca.
“The flame song!”
As the players began the fourth spell, another set of arrows whispered by Secca. She heard a dull thud, but concentrated on the spellsong, knowing that she must finish the spell strongly, above all else.
“Turn to fire, turn to flame
all Ebrans who follow now Mynntar’s name…”
This time, lightnings flashed all across the lower land below the ridge, so many that, momentarily, Secca could not see.
Her legs were shivering, and dayflashes sparked all through her vision. She slowly sank to her knees, hoping she had done enough. She could see at least two players were down, but whether they were wounded or prostrated from their efforts she could not tell.
Someone was urging water on her, and she drank slowly. The figure in green was an Ebran from Synek, but it didn’t matter as she took another swallow and then a mouthful of dry biscuit. After a time, she slowly stood, and surveyed the ridge area.
Numbly, she looked down, to see Albar, the young standard bearer, his eyes open, unmoving, a heavy war arrow through his chest. One of the Ebran guards was easing a shaft from the arm of a comrade.
Elfens was kneeling beside a fallen archer, and Secca tottered several steps, her sabre striking her leg, so unsteady was her gait. The chief archer looked up. “His leg. Won’t be dancing soon, but with the alcohol elixir, he’ll recover.”
“Thank you,” said Secca quietly. “For the reminder about the arrows.”
A brief smile flitted across the long face. “Be a poor archer who didn’t know when he was needed, lady.”
“But a wise one to know when to speak.” Her smile was as fleeting as his.
Secca turned. Below, beyond the brush, the only moving figures were those in green.
“Lady?”
Secca glanced up as Wilten reined his mount to a halt.
“They are riding away, like the wind.”
“After all that…?”
“When the drums fell silent, all those in the rear of Mynntar’s force turned and fled, as if hot irons had been applied to their mounts, especially those in white.”
“The Sturinnese.” Secca nodded.
“Your fires…they slaughtered more than five companies of the enemy,” Wilten said slowly. “And the thunder-drums are no more.”
“Have them burned—the drums—or what remains of them.” Secca paused. “How many did we lose?”
“More than a company’s worth, Lady Secca.”
Secca winced. She wasn’t supposed to lose one part in four of her own force in the first battle.
“Arms Commander Stepan…he turned them back…or they would have overrun the ridge from the east before you could use your spells. Two companies came and circled behind us.” Wilten shook his head. “Fought like demons, they did, but we pushed them back.”
“Wilten…I appreciate deeply all you have done. Had you not held our rear, all would have been lost.” Secca hoped this would help against her earlier outburst. “I fear I still have much to learn, and I appreciate also your patience.”
“I could not have stood before all those shafts with naught but a song, lady. We each must do as we can.” Wilten nodded, both accepting and dismissing her words. “Still…without Commander Stepan…”
“It took all of us.” Secca paused as the older arms commander rode tiredly onto the ridge and toward Secca and Wilten.
Stepan slowed his mount and then halted before the sorceress. His trousers were smeared with mud, blood, and other stains. He wore a grim smile. “They have turned back, and they ride eastward, taking a lane back toward the main road. We should move to hold the road at the causeway.”
“So they don’t get behind us and have an open course to Synek?” Secca began to trudge toward her mount.
“Aye. They have half again as many lancers as do we, and with half they could hold the causeway.”
“I understand.” Secca forced herself to climb into the saddle. “Players! Prepare to ride!”
“Prepare to ride!” echoed Palian, and then Delvor.
Secca watched for a moment, as several players had to be helped into their saddles. Elfens simply lifted his injured archer into the saddle of his mount. Then she eased her mount back along the trampled track her force had rutted into the damp ground, riding silently beside an equally silent Stepan.
Her first battle, and another like it would be her last.
How had Anna done it? It had sounded so easy. She had sung spells, and the enemy armsmen had died. Secca had known it wouldn’t be that easy…but the sheer confusion and speed of what had occurred still had left her numb.
It was yet before midday, and close to fifteen score lancers from both forces were dead. Richina was exhausted. Secca was exhausted, and few of the players would be able to play in even rough tune or rhythm before the morrow.
Then…she had no commanders who had ever fought a pitched battle. She had never been in one. Only Stepan had that experience, and without his calm, and that of Elfens, she doubted that they would have managed the victory they had, such as it was.