"He seemed pleased."

"And Nelmor?"

"The same. I asked that he hold the north flank so that it not be turned."

Hanfor smiled. "He would perish rather than let that so happen."

Anna returned the smile, but the expression faded. "I'd like Kinor with me- Jimbob should accompany Himar."

"Kinor has a head on his shoulder, and that would be best, if the chief player agrees. As for young Jimbob, should aught happen..."

"If... the worst should happen, Himar needs to get the heir back to Falcor."

"I will tell Himar-tomorrow."

That also was probably best, Anna reflected.

"You know, Lady Anna, that many of the lords of Defalk will look askance at your attacking in the night." Hanfor laughed- one short bark.

"If we succeed," Anna pointed out.

"You will succeed. No matter the cost, you will succeed."

That was what Anna was almost afraid of. She couldn't afford too many more losses like those she'd been taking. How about none? "Let's hope it isn't too costly this time."

"I would hope that also, but the lancers will be deployed so they can ride to us quickly, if they are needed." Hanfor fingered his beard. "We do as we must in these days."

After Hanfor left, Anna glanced at the camp table where she had already set out the water bottle, the late blackthorn apple, the bread, the wax-coated cheese, and the knife. Whether she wanted to or not, she'd need to eat it all if she were to do sorcery even before dawn.

Then she moved the mirror off the cot and next to the side panel of the tent before sitting on the cot and pulling off her boots. After a sigh, she leaned forward and blew out the candle. Then she slowly stretched out on the cot and pulled the woolen blanket around her. She hoped she could sleep.

87.

Anna turned slowly on the narrow cot and her eyes opened into the darkness. Was it just after she'd gone to bed? Or later? How many gla.s.ses? She could hear nothing but the rustling of leaves beginning to fall to the grasp of the coldwind that presaged winter. Even that rustling died away... and then returned...

and died away.

She turned over, carefully, because the light cot wasn't anch.o.r.ed that well, and a quick movement could upset the cot and dump her and her single blanket right onto the dirt. She'd discovered that before-several times. Then she closed her eyes and drifted once more into an uneasy sleep, waking up in the darkness again. . . and again...

It was almost a relief when she heard steps and voices outside her tent.

"Lady Anna?" Kinor's voice echoed through the darkness and into the Regent's tent. "Lady Anna? It is four gla.s.ses before dawn."

Anna groaned in spite of herself. Her throat was dry, and her head was pounding from allergies or asthma, and the memories of a dream she wasn't sure she'd even had-a girl she'd been unable to rescue from Rabyn, or someone like him.

"Regent?" Kinor's voice expressed concern. "Are you all nght?"

"I'm fine. It's the hour that isn't... the gla.s.s, I meant." She rolled into a sitting position. "I'll be out in a bit."

"Ah... do you want me to check back?"

"You can if you want." Anna smiled to herself, but even that effort left her feeling like her face would slide right off her skull. Then, waking anytime much before dawn had always left her feeling that way.

Her feet felt too large even for her well-worn riding boots, or maybe her hands were just numb, but it felt like it took forever to pull on both boots. She had to fumble with the bread and cheese she had set out the night before, almost cutting her fingers instead of the heavy wax on the cheese. At that, she stopped, and took a long swallow of water from the bottle, then sc.r.a.ped the striker together half a dozen times to light the candle.

In the dim candlelight, she cut the cheese and broke off a chunk of bread. The dry rye-like stuff was already stale, but making softer dark bread wasn't possible without mola.s.ses, and carrying barrels of mola.s.ses wasn't exactly the best use of wagons and horses in the kind of war she was waging.

After she ate, she began the vocalises. She had to be partly warmed up before they were anywhere close to Rabyn's encampment.

"Heeee seees theeee..." She doubled over coughing, straightening up slowly. The stomachache told her in no uncertain terms that the asthma was worse than normal. Stress... that always makes it worse.

It was still pitch-dark when she stepped outside the tent into a darkness and a near silence broken intermittently by shuffling boots, murmurs, and a very few hardy insects. The wind was colder than the night before, but lighter, barely a breeze. All her guards were mustered and waiting, from Rickel to the newest, Bersan.

So was Kinor. "Lady Anna?"

Who else? "Did you eat anything?" she asked Kinor.

"Ah. . . no.""There's some bread and cheese left on the table. Finish it. I'll need your eyes to be sharp."

"Yes, Lady Anna."

Anna thought she saw a guilty look as Kinor slipped into the tent, but in the dim light cast by the torch held by Fielmir, she wasn't sure. Maybe it had been hunger. She shook her head, realizing that she had left both lutar and mirror in the tent. Morning is not your time of day, not this early She ducked back into the tent, where Kinor was already finishing up the last wedge of the cheese.

"I forgot the lutar and mirror. And the pouch there."

Kinor swallowed hastily. "I'll take the mirror."

"Thank you." Once she had the lutar and the emergency food pouch with hard cracker-like bread and cheese, and the redhead had the mirror, Anna blew out the candle.

Hanfor and Himar had appeared by the time she and Kinor were back in the darkness outside the tent. She glanced heavenward. Clearsong had left the sky, but the small red disc that was Darksong was rising, just above the horizon.

Anna wasn't sure she liked that. Darksong rising? Where the moons are-that's just superst.i.tion.

"Lady Anna, the lancers stand ready," offered Hanfor.

"As do your players." Liende stood so close to the two officers that Anna had missed her slight form initially.

The sorceress nodded, then realized that nodding wasn't that clear in the flickering light of the single torch. "Let's go-as soon as I saddle Farinelli."

Once again, she was slowing things down, and she found herself walking quickly through the darkness toward the tieline that held the gelding. After a moment, there was a scuffle of feet and Bersan appeared beside Anna with a torch, leading the way.

Anna set down the lutar case and patted Farinelli on the neck. "I know it's early, but you don't mind it near as much as I do."

The big gelding didn't bother to answer, by whuffing or whickering or any other sound, just standing there almost stolidly as Anna saddled him and adjusted the girths, then fastened the lutar and mirror behind her saddle, and the food pouch and water bottles in their holders. She mounted quickly, and eased Farinelli toward the torch that illuminated Hanfor Bersan followed her, still bearing the torch in one hand. "As we planned, Regent, fivescore lancers will go all the way with us. The rest will be on the rise about two deks back to the east from the Prophet's camp."

Nelmor and Falar led their mounts toward Anna.

Politics again...at this time of night...She offered a smile, not sure either could see it, and reined up Farinelli. "Lord Nelmor... Falar... Hanfor has told me of your offers and your courage in facing the prophet of Darksong. I appreciate your being here, and your support for the Regency and Defalk. I will not forget it." And that is true.

"Lady and Regent," began Nelmor, "I am here because you have not stinted doing what must be done, and because you have faced the enemy as a warrior, first in the line of battle." The tall blond lord bowed his head."I, too, though no lord am I."

"Thank you both."

Kinor and Jimbob had quietly ridden up, but remained several yards back, almost lost in the darkness, especially Kinor on a dark mount.

Anna waited until Nelinor and Falar stepped back and mounted before she gestured. "kinor... you will accompany me. Jimbob, I'd like you to accompany Himar. If anything should happen to me, you are to order him to escort you back to Defalk.."

Surprisingly, Jimbob nodded. "I appreciate the honor of accompanying the overcaptain."

Was the heir finally beginning to understand? Anna hoped so. Jimbob inclined his head and turned his mount, disappearing into the darkness, while Kinor flicked his reins to ease his horse closer to Anna's left side.

Another rider neared.

"The players are mounted and ready, Regent," Liende reported.

"Good." Anna coughed and cleared her throat. Even after the early warm-ups. her cords didn't feel totally clear.

"Not a sound once we leave camp!" ordered Hanfor. "Not a one!"

The column moved slowly, deliberately, through the darkness, with only a bare handful of torches. The torches added little to the starlight, a starlight brighter than on earth, Anna thought, but perhaps augmented slightly by the reddish light of the moon Darksong.

Anna tried another set of vocalises, ones that weren't too loud. Her throat and cords were a little better, but she still worried. Hanfor's idea of a night attack directed at the Nesereans made more sense to Anna than another sorcery- based pitched day battle when Rabyn would have the drums waiting. Still, they'd have to be ready for the drums.

"Hanfor," she called.

After a few moments, the arms commander seemed to appear on his mount to Anna's right.

"If things don't work as we planned, I could need archers... bowmen... at any time. We talked about that, but..."

There was a soft chuckle. "Matters in battle never work as planned. Those lancers with bows ride directly behind the players, and I have told them to be ready to nock and lift shafts at my command-or at yours."

"Good. I hope we don't need them." But you probably will.

The sounds of mounts and hoofs seemed preternaturally loud to Anna, loud enough to tell the entire world that lancers were riding toward the Nesereans and Mansuuran lancers. She knew that the sounds didn't carry that far, and the wind was neutral, light and coming out of the north, rather than from the east behind them, so that it was unlikely to carry sound or the scent of horses toward the Prophet's camp.Anna tried another soft vocalise, then coughed some.

Kinor leaned toward her, reaching across and lifting out her water bottle. She took it and swallowed. She started to put the bottle back, then reminded herself of the need to avoid dehydration, took another long swallow before replacing it.

'Thank you."

A rider appeared out of the darkness, making his way toward Hanfor, then sliding his horse alongside the arms commander's mount. "The Prophet's camp remains silent We are about one dek from the first rise. Birtol remains there, as you ordered."

"Himar will be by the other torch halfway to the rear. Tell the overcaptain that, and then return here."

"Yes, ser' The messenger disappeared into the darkness with the sound of hoofs on the road clay dying away quickly.

Anna peered into the darkness as the column rode slowly westward. While the shadows shifted, and the shapes rising out of the dark changed, she still felt as though she were riding nowhere.

After something less than a gla.s.s, another scout and his mount slipped out of the darkness and rode toward Hanfor. "Ser... the ridge is along the left of the road."

"Column halt." Hanfor murmured to the torchbearer, who dipped the flame twice.

Hanfor seemed to stand in his stirrups, as if studying the night-or very early morning. He turned to Anna. "I will be back in a moment."

As the arms commander rode eastward along the barely defined shoulder of the road, Anna could see but faint blurs of darkness beyond the vague forms of horses and their riders. The air smelled of fall, damp leaves, somewhat moldy, even if most were still on the trees.

Several mounts whuffed, others whuffled, and low murmurs rose in the darkness.

Anna guided Farinelli back toward Liende. "How are you and the players doing?"

"We will be ready when summoned, lady."

'Thank you." Anna eased the gelding back up beside Kinor. Shortly, Hanfor reappeared. "All is set. We go forward." He stood in the stirrups. "Douse the torches. Now."

In the darkness. Anna felt even more alone as she and Hanfor led the smaller group of lancers away from the supporting troops-along the road to the east.

Were there fires or lights ahead to her left?

"We have but a half-dek before you begin," Hanfor whimpered. "His sentries are four hundred yards to the east of the picket posts."

"So... it's more than a dek from here to his camp?"

"I would guess so."

Anna turned in her saddle. "Liende, we'll need to do the short flame song here, and then the players will have to remount and ride about a half dek before we do the main spells. The sentries are too far out for us to use the long spells effectively on the Prophet.""We stand ready."

Anna wanted to sigh. She could understand Liende's reluctance, but without large armies and trained armsmen and lancers, what was a regent supposed to do?

"The short flame song, as soon as you can," she told the chief player. Then she dismounted gingerly in the bare illumination afforded by the bright stars-and Darksong-and handed Farinelli's reins to Kinor.

"Players into position," whispered Liende from behind Anna. Standing on the road, on a clay that felt damp and a little slick, the sorceress squared her shoulders and took several deep breaths as the players arranged themselves.

Anna c.o.c.ked her head. Were those voices?

"...hear something out there?"

"...swear there was a torch out there.. . gone..."

"...who'd be out this time of night..."

"Now!" hissed Anna.

"The short flame song. On my mark. Mark!" ordered Liende.