"I'll tell Elfens to have his archers ready as well," Alcaren added.

"Good." Secca nodded and turned toward both Palian and Delvor. "Stand ready."

"We stand ready."

Then Secca turned to the two overcaptains, who had remained mounted behind the three who would do sorcery. "Have your lancers ride back north a dek, into the swale there. You can reach us if need be, but this sorcery is untested, and I would not subject the lancers and their mounts to the wild winds that may come."

"Are you certain, Lady Secca?" asked Wilten.

"I'm most certain."

"I would feel better if I left a squad . . ."

"One squad only, then," Secca conceded.

"First squad, green company," called out Wilten. "All others, fall back."

"Fall back to the swale below," echoed Delcetta.

As the lancers repositioned themselves, Secca walked through the cold and dry grass, the thin stalks whispering and breaking against her riding boots and lower trousers, toward Palian and Delvor, and their players.

"We are almost ready, Lady Secca."

"Riders! To the east!" One of the voices was Alcaren's, but a similar call came from a SouthWoman, and another from Achar.

Secca turned more eastward. The white-coated figures were hard to make out in the dimming light, especially against the tan of the grass, but there looked to be only one squad of archers and a handful of players. All had scrambled from their mounts, and some were stringing bows.

"Richina! Use the lutar and flame spell against the archers down there!" Secca turned back to Palian. "Have the players ready to play the moment she finishes. The third building spell."

"Stand ready for the third building spell." Palian's words to the first players were echoed by Delvor to the second players.

Then, in the sudden stillness, Richina's voice rang out strong, if not as open a sound as Secca would have liked, and certainly not as open as Anna would have required.

"Turn to fire, turn to flame all those below of Sturinn's name..."

Before the last lines of the spellsong, thin lines of orange fire erupted from the skies, arrowing out of the heavens toward the Sturinnese.

Less than half of those reached the archers and players before a shimmering pale white and gauzy dome appeared in the air above the Sturinnese---a clearly sorcerous creation through which Secca could make out the figures of archers.

Secca glanced toward Palian.

"We stand ready, Lady Secca."

"At your mark." Secca forced herself to relax, to loosen muscles that were tighter than they should have been, and to concentrate on the spellsong ahead--- just the spellsong.

"The third building song, at my mark . . . Mark!" Both the first and second players began the building song, with the usual two bars of melody before Secca joined them. She ignored whatever was occurring below, where the hazy white shield had been raised by a Sea-Priest, and concentrated on meshing her words and the players' accompaniment with the visualization of what she intended.

"Clouds to form and winds to rise like a caldron in darkening skies.

Build a storm with winds of ice and heat that scythes all Sturinn's men like ripened wheat..."

Secca slipped a quick breath between the stanzas, still visualizing the storm of all storms, one that would sweep everything before it, ripping and rending all the Sturinnese forces, both those in the lowlands before her, and those deks away in the Dumaran hamlet.

"Clouds to boil and storms to bubble crush to broken sticks of wind-strewn rubble all in Sturinn 's service or in Sea-Priest white and let none escape the whirlwind's might..."

After Secca finished the last words of the spell, she glanced downhill toward the archers. As she watched, the pale white shield vanished, and a dark cloud of arrows arched uphill. Yet, as they did, the skies darkened, and a rushing, wind swept from behind Secca, out of the north, with such force that she went to her knees in the winter-tan grass, as did most of the players.

Someone had stood against the wind, for Secca could hear Alcaren and his lumand, singing a spell, one to the tune of the flame song, but with slightly different words.

"Turn to fire, turn to flame, in ashes rend all sent 'gainst our name...

"Oh!" The single scream penetrated above the sound of spells, and wind, and a dull heavy roaring, so intense that the very volume of the roar seemed to press Secca farther into the grass.

Secca forced her eyes up, just in time to see a lancer transfixed by three yard-long arrows--- and to see intermittent blazes of fire--- spellfires that turned the incoming arrows to flame and dust, spellfires that blazed as points of light against the almost jet-black clouds that swirled overhead, clouds so dark that they bore a greenish hue.

The roaring of the wind rose so much that Secca could hear nothing else, and the light of dusk darkened so quickly that it appeared as if night had fallen. Gusts of warm, almost summerlike air mixed with air that felt as cold as midwinter ice, flaying Secca with their extremes.

Amid the crashes of thunder, and the howling roar of the wind, Secca felt herself being pummeled, as if she were being poked with a wooden spear. She blinked through eyes that burned enough to blur her vision, to see a rain of hail so thick that she could barely make out the figures of the lancers in the single guard squad that had remained---uselessly---to guard her and the others doing sorcery.

Everywhere, the white globules bounced off everything--her own jacket and head, players and their instruments. In moments, there was a white carpet covering the ground, bending the grass flat. Then, a few more moments later, the hail had passed.

Secca started to climb to her feet, only to find Alcaren's arm lifting her.

"I'm fine, thank you." She softened her words with a quick smile, before her mouth opened involuntarily.

To the southeast, two enormous black funnel-like clouds swirled, visible despite the curtain of hail that trailed them. She watched as the clouds darkened yet more, then seemed to fade behind the curtain of hail. Then, the hail stopped falling, leaving a swath of white, almost like a massive carpet runner over the hills in the direction of the Sturinnese forces.

"Mighty sorcery," Alcaren murmured.

"Your last spell saved many of our lancers and players and probably both me, and Richina,"

Secca said, turning toward him.

Beyond Alcaren, for the first time, Secca saw the odd coloration on the white hail carpet on the lower hillside, and her eyes darted toward the lower ground from where the Sturinnese players and archers had launched their attack.

"Don't . . ." warned Alcaren.

Secca had to swallow hard as her eyes took in the small swath of devastation. Less than a dek away, where the squad attacking her forces had been, the hailstones were stained various shades of pink, from almost red to a pinkish froth. The sorceress forced herself. to keep looking, even as she swallowed to keep her stomach from turning itself inside out. It had been her sorcery . . . her words, her song, that had literally shredded archers and players.

She swallowed again.

Behind her, Secca could hear Richina retching.

"I didn't mean . . . not to be that cruel . . ." Secca said slowly.

"It looks . . . worse," Alcaren said. "It was faster than a blade or an arrow."

That might have, been, but Secca couldn't help but shudder.

19.

Itzel, Neserea Two men sit alone at the end of the long table nearest the hearth. A single candelabra bearing five candles illuminates their end of the table. The only other light in the dining area comes from the glowing bank of red coals in the hearth.

Belmar finishes a bite of mutton and follows it with a swallow of a dark red wine, he glances at the empty crystal pitcher on the table and lifts the small bell, ringing it twice, before speaking.

"The Shadow Sorceress raised the winds to scatter two companies of your best archers, and yet more of your players."

"You could do the same, were you so minded," points out the man who goes by the name of jerGlien. "It is merely a matter of the right melodies supporting the proper words. It is most tiring, and if it fails to destroy the enemy, then the sorcerer is left defenseless."

"She can afford to be defenseless for a short time. She has a sorceress with her. I do not have others."

"Do you wish others to share your powers?" asks jerGlien, looking up as the door to the private dining chamber opens and a slender brunette serving-woman steps inside and bows . . . deeply and silently.

"Another pitcher of the wine, the good red." Belmar turns to jerGlien as the woman bows again and departs.

After a moment, jerGlien continues, "In any case, the sorceress with the shadowsinger is not nearly so strong as she is. Also, she is not your problem. Not now. The Sorceress of Defalk is.

You should not be scrying what is happening in Dumar, but what the lady Clayre may be doing in Neserea."

"I have indeed been following the lady Clayre. She bides in that pile of ancient rock on the outskirts of Esaria, as if I could not see where she is. All the time Lord Nysl bows and scrapes, fearing her, yet fearing me more."

"He does her bidding," says jerGlien, his voice mild.

"Because she is a sorceress, and within his hold. Only for those reasons. Once we hold Neserea, he will fall on his knees and grovel. We will let him." Belmar laughs. "If he grovels especially well, we might let him keep his pile of stone."

"Lord Nysl is nothing. You must watch the sorceress."

"That I am. She can do nothing without my knowledge." The Neserean sorcerer takes the smallest of sips of the wine. "You had mentioned her lord, sometime back."

"Ah, yes. I believe I did. The esteemed Lord Robero. He has little love of being indebted to women, and especially women who are sorceresses. He is coming to realize that perhaps he might not be as constrained under other circumstances, and that would be good for both of you."

"Does the shadowsinger know this? If she does, she may well hasten to enter Neserea," Belmar points out. "That being a possibility, I would rather not be surprised if she does."

The door opens, and the slender serving-woman reenters, bowing, and carrying a second crystal pitcher. "Lord."

Belmar watches as the young woman crosses the polished wooden floor. A few droplets of wine spill from the pitcher onto the wood, either from the movements of the server or from the hand, which shakes as she sets the pitcher on the table.

"You should not spill good wine." His voice is cold.

"I am sorry, ser. Most sorry, Lord Belmar." The woman's bow is almost a grovel.

"Let it not happen again."

"No, ser. No lord. I will be most careful."

Belmar does not see the flash in jerGlien's eyes. Nor does the server.

Neither speaks until the door closes once more.

"Even you accept too much sloppiness in women, Lord Belmar," jerGlien observes.

"She is not my serving-woman," Belmar points out. "I would not wish to tell those who support me how to discipline their servants. Not yet. He smiles. "You were saying?"

"The shadowsinger cannot cross the Mittfels until the snows melt. That will be weeks from now, at the earliest. By then, you should have disposed of the lady Clayre and the ragtag remnants of the pretender's armsmen and lancers."

"There are still some who refer to her as the Lady High Counselor." A sardonic smile crosses Belmar's face. "You do not care for women in high places."

"No. I do not. No man of Sturinn does. Nor would you, if you but knew the damages wrought by the sorceresses of old. What happened in your petty Spell-Fire Wars is as nothing compared to the Pelaran Devastation."

"I cannot say I have heard of such," replies the younger man.

"Why should you have? Does not the world begin and end in Liedwahr?" The Sturinnese laughs, lightly, before lifting his own goblet. "You can worry about the lessons of days past once you have made your own future certain. What will you do to keep the Lady Clayre from striking at you?"

"Strike first, of course, and in a fashion she will not expect. How could I do otherwise?"

"She will attempt the same, I am certain," points out jerGlien.

"Many attempt; few succeed." Belmar smiles.

So does jerGlien.

20 The gray light that seeped through the warped shutters meant it was sometime around dawn . . . .

. or that the day happened to be cloudy again. Secca doubted it was near dawn as she struggled from under her blanket. She found herself so weak that even the effort to sit up and swing her legs over the side of the narrow double-width bed in the peasant's cottage left every limb trembling. Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed--- worse, it seemed, than when she had collapsed into a troubled sleep the night before, and, as she glanced around, daystars flashed intermittently across everything she saw.

Neither Richina nor Alcaren was in the small bedroom, although Secca could hear low voices in the larger common room.

As if he had been listening, Alcaren appeared with a cup of a steaming liquid. "I thought you might need this."

"More of the Matriarch's brew?" Each word felt as though it rasped from her throat and mouth.

Alcaren extended the chipped crockery mug. "I prevailed upon some that I know to provide us with a score of the brew packets. I could not have done so if the Matriarch did not approve, but I thought it best that I not approach her directly."

Secca did not reply, instead taking the mug and sipping slowly.

"Richina and I have checked the glass, but we can find no Sturinnese force headed toward us.

None from Dumar, either," Alcaren admitted.

"The weather?" Secca took another small sip of the brew.

"It's chill and windy. There's been some sleet at times this morning, but the clouds are thinning."