Spellsong - The Spellsong War Part 48

"The keep has three layers of defense,'' observed Han-for. "None of the others in Defalk have such."

"Once it was needed," said Jecks. "The Suhlmorrans wanted Stromwer. So did the ancient Matriarchs, and so did Lord Ehara's ancestors."

"And none of them got it, I a.s.sume?" asked Anna. "No. Uhlan the elder lost an entire army trying to an- nex it to Suhlmorra."

"Why?" She turned from the window, her eyes on the rosewood antique high bed that had given her a headache to spell for vermin.

"Now, with the fast ships, it makes less difference. Still, Stromwer stands on the shortest land routes between Dumaria and Sylwa and Encora, and between all of southern Defalk and Dumar."

"What about Sudwei?" Anna pursued. "1 thought Geansor held the access to the South Pa.s.s.''

"He does, and that is an easier route from the east and middle of Defalk, but the easiest way to transport goods to Dumar was to use the Falche down to north of Abenfel, and then take the roads through Stromwer."

Anna tried to summon up her mental map of Liedwahr, concentrating. Finally, she nodded. Her eyes went to Hanfor. "Any ideas of how we can get close to the keep?"

"The road is the only entrance to the keep," Hanfor said tiredly. ''Unless one travels through Ranuak or Dumar."

"We cannot approach within deks of the walls," added Jecks. "Not unless we wish to be bathed in oil and buried under boulders."

Both men looked at Anna, as if she were supposed to find a solution. I'm not the military type. I'm a singer, for heaven's sake, Anna stepped past the low chest at the end of the bed, where the lutar rested, and looked down at the table, at the map Hanfor had sketched from session after session with the gla.s.s.

"I don't want to turn Stromwer into another flaming ma.s.s." Why not? You did that to Vult, and Suhl wasn't much better. "That's why," she muttered to herself. As she saw the puzzled expressions on the faces of Jecks and Hanfor, she added hurriedly. "Talking to myself...."

Her throat was dry, and she refilled the goblet with orderspelled water, taking a long swallow. "Would you like some?"

"No, thank you."

Jecks shook his head.

Anna glanced at the map on the table and then away. Two days of scrying, and sketching, and talking, and they still couldn't figure out how to get close enough to the keep to use sorcery to affect those within. She could bring the walls and town down, but she couldn't find a way .to take Stromwer without ma.s.sive force. The way the valley and keep were set up, any force ma.s.sive enough to destroy Dencer's outer defenses would flatten town and keep. At least, any force she knew how to use.

"We haven't heard any response to our request that he put down his arms, have we?"

"I doubt that we will," Hanfor answered. "The scroll was delivered. We know that."

The lack of response from Dencer brought the question back to force. Is there any other way in Defalk?

She cast in her mind for another approach, then frowned.

"I don't understand how Barjim managed to get Wendella as a hostage." Anna turned to Jecks. "He certainly couldn't have taken her by force."

"Alasia captured her on her way from her brother's."

Her brother? Anna tightened her lips. Remembering all the names was still hard for her. Mietchel! That was it; he was the Lord of Mona. The sorceress grinned. "Did she put on finery to do it?"

Jecks' brows knit in momentaly puzzlement. Then he laughed. "I wager she did, though she talked little of it. She said it needed to be done. Barjim was not wholly pleased."

Anna bet he hadn't been.

The moment of humor didn't solve the problem. In her mind, she almost saw two images, but not Dark- song images-that of the near-impregnable Stromwer, surrounded on three sides by step cliffs and canyons and the heavily fortified entrance and that of the ripped and sundered hills of Appalachia in her childhood, the results of strip and deep mining.

Why the two images? Was her subconscious trying to tell her something?

Mining? What did that have to do with it? Ditches, holes, tunnels..."Tunnels! That's it."

Now all she had to do was find somewhere that a short tunnel would reach a cliff or flat spot overlooking Stromwer. Or where she could create one.

All... ? Are you sure you want to do this?

She inhaled slowly, then let her breath out, as she realized both Jecks and Hanfor stood waiting for her to explain.

55.

Anna coughed, then spat clear the mucus and inhaled dust. Farinelli whuffed, with the slightest hint of a head toss, as he carried her along the back trail that headed west away from the main road. Eventually the trail would circle back along the heights of the low mountains on the west side of Dencer's keep.

Eventually.

Farinelli whuffed again.

"I know. It's hot and dusty. There's a stream somewhere ahead." She felt guilty as she took a drink from her water bottle.

"How far?" asked Jecks.

"According to the gla.s.s, two or three deks, If I remember right."

"Horses could use the water, lady," Fhurgen said from behind her.

"I know," she repeated. "But I can't bring the water closer.''

Despite the rains she had brought to Defalk, there hadn't been any moisture in nearly a week. Several hundred horses were enough to churn up dust, especially with slow riding up steep and narrow roads. The light wind out of the north was just strong enough to carry the dust of the main body up and around Anna and those in the van.

The first two days out of Lerona hadn't been bad. An almost straight road south, flat, and they'd made good time through the bean fields and meadows. Then they'd reached the low hills that signified the beginning of Dencer's holding.

Of course, she'd received no reply to her scroll-one way or the other. He can't even conceive of dealing with a woman regent...or those lancers from Dumar aren't letting him... or... ? She didn't know. All that was certain was that she had a rebel lord on her hands who, for whatever reason, seemed inclined to respond only to force. So what else is new?

She also had a score of Gylaron's armsmen. She hadn't thought she would need any, but Jecks had pointed out that taking some armsmen would ease matters with Gylaron. His pride, mainly And she could always call for a fewscore more if she needed them.

Anna brushed more dust off her sleeves. The main road had gotten narrower, and even dustier. The trees had gotten shorter, with more low evergreens and less broadleafs, and consequently less shade.

"...wish she'd find a better way..."

"...we took three keeps now... lost maybe a score..."

"...wager 'gainst that if you want ... eat dust all summer...."

"...can't breathe..."

Red dust, and more sandy red dust, swirled up from the main body. Anna pushed back the battered brown felt hat and blotted her sweating forehead. The gray square of cloth was once again a muddy red. Beside her, Jecks rode silently, his silver hair marked with blotches of red where sweat and dust had combined.

"A penny. .. copper," she corrected, "for your thoughts." She shifted her weight in a saddle that had gotten progressively harder and less comfortable.

"You would have us travel a long way to avoid killing Dencer. Yet you dislike the man." Jecks' words were slow, thoughtful.

"I don't have any problem with killing Dencer, necessarily." she answered. "I don't want to turn another keep into something like Suhl." Anna shrugged. "We can't get close enough to Stromwer to use sorcery- the kind that won't kill everyone-unless we do this."

Jecks nodded, the kind of nod that told Anna he wasn't quite sure he believed her.

Did she believe herself-or was she overreacting to the disaster at Suhl? How much force is necessary in a place like Defalk? Is Jecks right? Would I be better off doing it the simpler way? Can I at least cast one more loyalty spell... to spare Defalk.

The sorceress took a deep breath. Or is this to ease your conscience? She winced at the thought.

As Farinelli carried Anna to the top of a low ridge, momentarily out of the dust, she could see the winding strip of green in the narrow valley ahead, green that showed the promised stream. On the other side of the stream, the trail wound back eastward, toward Stromwer.

Toward another set of gambles with spells, another effort to resolve violent feelings with as few deaths as possible. And for what? So you can ensure a marginally grateful twelve-year-old will inherit what his father wasn't strong enough to keep? So that you can't move without guards following every motion? So that everything you do is questioned?

Anna pushed away the thoughts and leaned forward to give Farinelli a solid thump on the neck. "We're getting there, fellow. It won't be long."

56.

Anna packed away the gla.s.s and strapped the leather bundle to the saddlebags once again. Then she re- mounted Farinelli, swaying slightly as she swung into the saddle.

"You must eat." Jecks eased his mount beside hers and extended a chunk of bread.

"Thank you." Anna nodded, took a bite of the bread, and chewed. "Another dek. I'd guess." She pointed.

"About halfway up that next section. By the clump of pines there."

"Junipers," Jecks corrected.

'Junipers, whatever." She chewed another mouthful. Why didn't he understand that she hated being corrected over little things. What difference did it make whether it was a pine or a juniper? She'd just pointed out a clump of trees as a reference point. Were men everywhere like that? Avery had been worse, she had to admit, correcting everything. Then, he'd been king of the comprimarios, able to get any secondary role anywhere, but never the big roles.

Anna laughed to herself. She had the biggest role ever-sorceress and regent-and, fortunately and unfor- tunately, it was for real. She unstoppered the water bottle, her third for the day, and took another long swallow.

The dust puffed from under the horses' hoofs. The wind raised it around them and coated them all with fine red powder. Anna took another swallow of water and finished the bread. Without speaking. Jecks extended another chunk.

"Thank you." Anna took it. She was being b.i.t.c.hy, in a way, but he wasn't the one who had to stand out there and wonder if the spell would be right, if fire would turn and kill them all or whatever. Or if she would fail. Sorcerers did fail. She'd seen Brill die from failing, and she'd overmastered the Evult. Who was to say that another sorcerer wouldn't show up with greater power? Like the Sea-Priest or the young man in brown with hate in his eyes. She'd tried to find out more from the gla.s.s, but all she could see was that he lived in a small town and worked in some sort of store, a chandlery, it looked like in the silver- mist visions.

Without thinking, Anna discovered she had eaten all the bread.

"You were hungry," Jecks observed, as if that explained everything.

"Thank you. I was." Anna let him think that she had only been hungry. She wasn't in the mood for explaining, and now wasn't the time. Instead, she studied the steep hillside to her left as Farinelli carried her closer to the pines-the junipers. she reminded herself-on the downhill side of the trail. Beyond the dry gorge to her right, the hills climbed into even higher peaks, with barren but not snow-covered summits, mountains almost like plateaus tilted slightly sideways.

Opposite the junipers, Anna reined up, then dismounted and handed Farinelli's reins to Rickel. She took out the gla.s.s, and unwrapped it again. Then she took out the lutar, and re-tuned it, not that it needed much work in traveling less than a dek.

Words drifted uphill as she touched a tuning peg.

"...hope we're wherever we're going..."

"Don't hope too much. You might have to fight, then."

"...avoids fights when she can..."

"...lucky we are, there... not like Barjim or Donjim..."

Then, reflected Anna, clearing her throat for a vocalise, Barjim and Donjim hadn't been able to call on sorcery. Would her voice last? She pushed that thought back as well. Not the time for that.

Finally, her fingers touched the strings.

"Show me now and show me clear, where I stand to make a tunnel near...

In the gla.s.s, Anna stood perhaps a yard uphill of where the gla.s.s lay on the dust of the trail. The image in the mirror was crystal-clear, and the spell took nearly no energy at all, a confirmation of her closeness.

After quickly clearing the image from the mirror, the sorceress glanced at Hanfor and Jecks. "This is the place." She almost laughed, thinking of someone else's words in another canyon a world away and years past.

Careful. . . don't get punchy. You haven't even started. Worry? Fear?

"Best you hurry." Jecks suggested. "Their shafts could reach the ledge."

"They can lift arrows that far?"

As if to answer her question, an arrow arched over the wall and clattered on the stone.

Rickel and Fhurgen lifted the shields, and Anna turned and called down the tunnel. "Players!"

"Players!" Jecks' heavier voice boomed against the stones.

Anna dropped to her knees, letting the wall shield her, and took another look at the armsmen below. Two blocks of archers-one in tan, one in crimson-were loosing shafts rapidly. Was the tall figure on horseback beside the archers in tan Dencer himself? The Lord of Stromwer had to have had some warning, some scrying ability, to have gotten his men formed up so quickly. Anna could see Dencer had sheathed his blade and was drawing a bow from horseback. She ducked behind the shield.

Another arrow clattered against the smoothed rock that reinforced the tunnel mouth, then dropped onto the stone of the ledge.

"Players!" Jecks boomed again, his fingers tightening on the hilt of a blade all too useless from where he viewed the valley.

A figure paused at the tunnel mouth.

"Stay there!" Anna didn't need to lose another chief player. "Line up everyone right there inside the tunnel. They've got dozens of archers. I'll need the flame song for them."