Part 73 (1/2)
103.
THE EASTERN RIVER HILLS, DUMAR.
JerRestin stands, then walks around to the far side of the small cooking fire. He stares into the darkening east.
”I do not look forward to facing this sorceress,” muses Ehara, not looking at the taller man.
”You have few choices, Lord Ehara. Not a hamlet east of the Falche and north of Dumaria remains loyal to you. And no holder west of the Falche will support you if you do not confront her.”
”I did so poorly as lord?” Ehara snorts. ”That I find hard to believe.”
”She has used sorcery to force loyalty.” The Sea-Marshal turns toward the Lord of Dumar. ”There is a price to be paid for that, but unhappily for us, she has already paid much of that coin.
”How has she paid? What has she given up?”
”Her life on the mist worlds. From what your spies say, her children. From what I know of youth spells, her ability to have more children. From what I know of power, any chance at friends in a strange land.
And the ability to sleep with any ease at night” JerRestin's voice hardens. ”True as it may be, all that is little consolation to you or to me.
”No consolation at all,” agrees Ehara. ”How do we defeat her and reclaim my land?”
”She cannot handle many sorceries. You must split your forces into groups-each larger than her total force.”
”She will destroy them one by one.”
”No. Before each large force, a dek forward, will be a smaller force, and that force will attack. All the small forces will attack at once. Because they will attack from separate positions, she must address each with a different spell.” JerRestin glances from the rose-lit clouds over the river hills to the west to Ehara.
”Once she has committed her sorceries, the larger forces will rush forward, when she is exhausted.”
Ehara looks long at jerRestin. ”Was that not your strategy at the Vale of Cuetayl?”
”It would have worked there, but none save I attacked the sorceress.”
”And what of you, Sea-Marshal? You escaped, but you did not slay the sorceress.”
”I had to ride too close, and I was seen. I will not be seen this time. I will not be seen.” JerRestin's eyes burn.
Ehara looks away from those eyes, and his big hands knot around each other, but he does not speak.
104.
The five figures stood on the shady side of the barn wall as Jecks unwrapped the leather from the mirror.
He glanced up at the sorceress. ”Have you thought-”
”About the ensorcelled weapons? Yes.” Anna felt almost cruel in the way she cut him off, but at times she felt, in subtle ways, everyone was asking something, somehow. ”I might have something,” she added quickly to a.s.suage her guilt.
”That would be good.” He handed her the mirror with the battered frame.
Anna hung the traveling mirror from an old iron bracket In the mid-afternoon sun, the meadows to the north were empty of sheep, the fields empty of workers. The houses had all been abandoned, hurriedly, with tracks and animal prints in the road dust showing that even the animals had been driven away.
Anna smiled as she stepped back and caught sight of a tan chicken pecking at the side of the empty cot fifty yards westward. Not all animals had vanished.
Jecks followed her eyes. ”A chicken supper, later.”
”If you can catch it,” said Hanfor.
Anna bent down and took the lutar from its case, beginning to tune it, as she ran through a vocalise.
The faint hum of summer insects rose again once she stopped, clearing her throat On the south side of the road, Alvar directed the Defalkan forces as they lined up to water their mounts from a long stock-trough.
Anna cleared her throat a last time, then sang.
”Show from the west, danger to fear, all the threats to us bright and clear...”
Surrounded by silver mist, the image was clear-a series of green fields, crossed by narrow lanes for horses and wagons, roughly a semicircle in shape, flanked on the north, south, and west by low and irregular hills.
”Ehara must have his forces on the back side of all of those hills, and all are mounted and well-rested,”
said. Hanfor.
Liende inclined her bead, ever so slightly. ''You can see armsmen before the hills, but a few.”
”He has foreguards or vanguards in front of each group,” confirmed Hanfor.
”Each company is more than a dek from each other company,” added Jecks with a glance at Anna. ”And s.h.i.+elded by the hills.”
”Can you use sorcery on them all at once?” asked Hanfor.
”Not as long as they're on the back sides of the hill,” Anna admitted. ”Not unless we could take the heights to the west.”
”We could circle to the north,” ventured Jecks, ”and take them from the side, one by one. Or take the first two companies and seize the higher ground to the west.”
”We would still face half his forces, almost a hundredscore.” Hanfor touched his trimmed and gray beard.
”They hold the higher ground. To defeat them would cost us armsmen, or require much sorcery from the lady Anna.”
That was clearly what Ehara and his Sea-Priest advisor or sorcerer, or whatever, had in mind, and Anna didn't like that option, not if there were a better one.
”We're what?-ten deks from the nearest of those hills?” she asked.
”Mayhap twelve,” said Liende.
”What if we stop here for today?”
Jecks smiled, and Anna could tell he'd hoped she'd come to that conclusion.
”That would rest mounts and men,” Hanfor acknowledged. ”And on the morrow?”
”We move slowly.”