"A lane to the left past the hill crest. Yes, ser." The armsman spurred his mount into an easy canter.

Hanfor shook his head. "I hope your gla.s.s is true, and none lurk in the orchards beside the lane."

"So do I," Anna said. "It's been right so far. How much time will we have?"

"They will not charge at first," said Jecks. "They will want you to attack. Even from the field below that orchard you will be too far from that infernal device. If they do charge, it will take a half gla.s.s for them to a.s.semble."

Anna wasn't so sure that Lord Sargol would be that slow, and it wasn't something she intended to leave to chance. She nodded to the two and walked back past her personal guards until she reached Liende and the players.

"Lady Anna."

"We're getting close. I'd guess about a gla.s.s. We may not have much time to prepare." Anna shrugged.

"Jecks thinks we will. I don't know. I'd like to start with the long flame spell."

"The long flame spell-the one against their weapons?" Liende leaned forward in her saddle, then had to brush a lock of white hair back off her forehead.

Anna nodded, wondering if Liende Were graying so quickly because of the magic, if all players and sorcerers-except her-died young in Liedwabr. She certainly hadn't run across any old sorcerers. She wanted to laugh. Liedwahr was a violent and primitive place, and she hadn't run across many old people of any occupation, except for handful of lords and ladies.

"What will be the second spell?" asked the head player.

"The first arrow song... I think." Anna didn't shrug, though she wanted to. How would matters go after the first spell? She had no idea.

"Players!" Liende's voice rose over the murmurs of the armsmen.

"Green company!" called Hanfor.

"Purple company!"

"Gray company!"

Anna coughed as she walked back to Farinelli and remounted in the dust that sifted around her as the light wind shifted. Once in the saddle, she groped for the third water bottle. Four bottles-they probably wouldn't be enough, and Jecks thought the weather was pleasant!

After riding a hundred yards, she was out of the worst of the dust and had managed to clear her throat.

Dusty horseback travel didn't always agree with spellsinging, but at times not much did.

With scouts moving over the rise and out of sight, they rode slowly eastward along the road that sloped gently upward. The tops of trees with pale green leaves appeared to the south, their trunks bidden by the crest of the hill that held another bean field.

"The first lane should be about five hundred yards ahead," suggested Hanfor, "on the left just over the rise and beyond the orchard."

Anna peered from the saddle, absently patting Farinelli.

Hanfor was right. A narrow lane, barely wide enough for two mounts, ran through the bean fields across from the orchard. Two of the scouts waited. The others had started down the lane, distant dark blots between the fields and scattered hedgerows.

"To the left. Down the lane. Take the shoulders. Four abreast!" ordered the arms commander. As the orders were repeated by Alvar, and the subofficers, he leaned toward Anna. "We don't want to be too strung out." He shrugged. "Some of the fields may suffer."

"Better the fields than us," Jecks concurred.

Anna merely nodded, her eyes on the dusty lane, her thoughts on the spells she would have to use, and the notes that held them.

For another dek or more, they followed the lane over and around the low hills, moving more and more southward. Though she strained, Anna could see nothing except fields, the few scattered orchards, the lane itself, and dust.

"That looks like the next turning point," Anna said, pointing down the lane past the end of the fields. Four hovels or small houses stood at varying distances from where the two lanes crossed. Around the houses were gardens, and pens made of rough-trimmed branches. The pens were empty.

A scout waited at the crossroads; the others had taken each of the roads.

"We should head due south again at that crossroads," said Hanfor, glancing from his rough map, then nodding at the messenger riding beside him.

"Tell them to scout the south road. ser?"

Hanfor nodded.

"Yes, ser." The messenger rode ahead of the column toward the tiny hamlet and the single waiting scout.

"Over the next rise is an orchard," Anna recalled, "and then a higher field that overlooks that mound."

"Ready arms," ordered Hanfor, and Alvar echoed him. The muted orders pa.s.sed back along the column.

"No one around," said Jecks as they neared the crossroads and the small houses.

Anna could feel and see that.

The thatched roof on the first house on the left sagged so much that one side held a small pool of rain water. A dusty black dog scurried down the side lane, to the north, as if the canine knew the riders were headed south. The rear door to the cottage swung in the hot breeze. On the woodpile by the door; in the narrow band of shade cast by the overhanging eaves, crouched a black and white cat.

"Boots in the dust," said Hanfor. "Less than a gla.s.s old. Work boots. No mounts."

"They were warned," said Jecks.

Anna didn't mind the people being warned. She did mind the stories that had caused people to flee their homes in fright, even terror.

At the small crossroads, if where two lanes intersected were indeed a crossroads, the column turned south.

Anna stood in the saddle and turned. "Liende... it won't be that long. Tell the players to get ready. We won't have much time when we get to where we can see Suhl."

"Yes. Lady Anna," said the head player, nodding her head as she did before turning to those who rode behind her. "Make ready. The long flame song will be the first spell."

Once the column pa.s.sed the houses, Fhurgen eased his mount up behind and closer to Anna. "Lady Anna?" The black-bearded armsman' s voice rose above the clamor. "Should we not lead?"

Anna supposed-no, she knew-that at least some of her guards should precede her "A few, Fhurgen, but I have to be able to see."

"Then I will lead, and Rickel will flank you." Fhurgen was counting on Jecks to cover her right. The guard swung his mount around and quicktrotted to the fore.

The strawberry-blond and broad-shouldered Rickel eased his sorrel up beside Anna. Jecks slipped his blade from its scabbard, examining it as they rode southward.

"Lord Jecks?" asked Anna.

Jecks nodded.

"Is there any reason why some keeps have their own names, and some have the name of the town?"

The white-haired lord c.o.c.ked his head for a moment, then smiled ruefully. "I do not know...save that Elheld was a keep long after Elhi was a town."

"So... you think that the older holdings have the town name because they grew together?"

"Mayhap... but Synfal was a keep before Cheor was much beyond mud hovels." He grinned.

Anna had to grin back. Some things you couldn't explain. Her grin faded as she glanced back and saw the column of dust. Surely, someone from Suhl had seen them.

Anna cleared her throat and tried a vocalise. "Hollylolly, polly-pop..." Less than a half-dozen notes into the exercise, she half coughed, half choked on mucus. After clearing her throat, finding the water bottle, and taking a small swallow, she started again.

Lord... is it going to be one of those times?

One of those times it was. Her voice kept cracking, and she couldn't seem to clear her cords. Anna rode and kept doing vocalises, half aware that they were pa.s.sing through bean fields and fields with sprouts too low for her to identify. Every so often, she had to moisten her mouth and get rid of the dust.

After a half-gla.s.s--or longer-she felt better, well enough to handle the spells she had planned.

Another orchard appeared ahead, and the lane split the trees. On the right of the road, the trees sprawled to the west for a dek or more. On the left were only scattered handfuls of the old and gnarled apple trees.

The ground beneath the orchard's trees bore the trace of tattered white apple blossoms, and the faintest scent of the fallen flowers. The leaves were already cloaking the old and twisted branches.

"Suhl's beyond this,' Anna said.

Hanfor nodded. "The scouts have seen it. No one is coming this way."

"Not yet."

The high field Anna had first seen in the gla.s.s spread out below the rise where she reined up. the main bulk of the orchard to her right, a few trees and mainly fields to her left. The wide meadow in the valley held a man-made mound that commanded the main road that split the valley. That main road ran perpendicular to the lane that Anna and her forces had taken.

"No armsmen on the hills to either side, ser," panted another messenger, drawing up beside Hanfor.

"There's a galloping lot of them coming up on the other side of the valley, where this lane would lead, if'n we'd taken it farther. They look to be a dek back, almost like they're a'waitin', ser. They've got a different banner."

"Another joins Sargol's cause," opined Jecks. "Gylaron, I would wager. He is shrewd."

"Fighting on someone else's land?"

Jecks nodded, checking his blade again.

Beyond the mound, on the rise across the low valley, hulked Suhl, a thick-walled and square keep of dull red brick and gray stone. Below the keep was a welter of tents, and mounts tethered in long lines.

A horn sounded, and dust began to rise as riders scrambled for their mounts.

"They didn't expect us to come this way," said Jecks. Why not? Anna wondered. Or were back roads too dangerous, because they were narrow and forces could be trapped? She shook her head. She was too slow.

Talking was wasting time. "Players!"

"Yes, Lady Anna?" called Liende.

"A quick warm-up, and then the long flame song."

"Way for the players! Way for the players" shouted Fhurgen.

"Green company to the fore!"

The players spilled off their mounts and onto the ground, arrayed facing the valley and the mound.

Anna dismounted, clearing her throat, and going through a last vocalise as the players straggled through a warm-up.

"Together. We must play together, else we die separately."

Why does that sentiment come up so many places? Anna wondered absently even as she looked to Liende. "Ready?"

"We stand ready." Liende gestured, and the warm-up stopped. "The flame song. On my mark."

"Go!" Anna tried to ignore the sound of horses, of both her forces and those of Sargol and of Hanfor' s terse orders, concentrating instead on the notes and the spell she would sing.

"Mark now!" called Liende.

Anna waited for a moment, then began.

"Fill with fire, fill with flame those weapons spelled against my name.

Turn to ash all tools spelled against my face and those who seek by force the regency to replace.

"Fill with fire, fill with flame..."

The line of fire exploding across the south, across the valley, even across the walls of Suhl, seemed almost endless.

Anna just stood, light-headed, dizzy. nauseated, as her words and the music ended.

Even the mounts, Farinelli included, remained still as though stunned, but only for a moment.

Fhurgen pressed her water bottle on her. "You must drink, Lady Anna."

She drank, mechanically, her eyes blurring, not sure she wanted to look out across the valley, where she could already hear cries and screams and moans.

"Sargol has yet hundreds of armsmen. His captains are rallying them," Hanfor noted, easing his mount up beside the sorceress.

"Where are our archers?"

"Our bowmen are ready, as ready as necessary. So is the trumpet."

Anna frowned. "Will the arrows carry to the tents or the keep?"

"We can take the hill the scoundrel raised. You have cleared the path to it, if we hasten," Jecks said. "Will that help?"

Anna nodded, then said, "Yes." The height would help carry her voice and the players' support. "Can we put the bowmen there, too?"