Part 75 (1/2)
The sorceress wiped the sweat from her forehead, glad she didn't seem dizzy or light-headed. She glanced toward Hanfor, but the arms commander had his eyes on the carnage and the hills beyond the fields and the low hedge-rows.
Were they all so blind? Did Ehara have to spend every last man to prove he was lord? Anna gritted her teeth. Why were all the lords in Liedwahr like that? Or most of them? idiots!
Still seething, Anna glanced toward her chief player. ”Liende? Have them rest for a bit. They'll have to mount up and do that spell again. Can you and the players manage it?”
”We can. Regent. Especially with a moment to catch our breath.” Liende turned. ”Players! You heard the regent. Make ready to ride. Then drink and get something to eat.”
Before Anna turned, she saw the young Delvor nearly stagger toward his mount. Was she asking too much?
Hanfor rode to within a few yards of Anna. ”Regent, most of their forces remain behind the hills.”
Anna looked up. ”Can we ride into the center of the hills there?'' She pointed. ”And have the archers fire all their arrows at the same time?”
The graying veteran nodded. ”We can. Will that destroy all of them?”
”I'm strong enough for another spell after that if it doesn't.” And mad enough. if Ehara and the d.a.m.ned Sea-Priest want it this way, then they'll get it. Women barefoot and pregnant? Women in chains? Not while I'm regent.
”Will you...?” Hanfor laughed ruefully and broke off the question. ”We follow where you lead.”
They would, but did she have any right to lead them into such danger? The image of chains slipped through her thoughts, and her jaw tightened. Who else would take on the Sturinnese?
She forced herself to wait until the players had eaten before she flicked the reins, and Farinelli started forward.
Half the armsmen rode on each side of the players. Jecks, Anna, and her guards, down the road between the hills. The road was at least a haif-dek from the top of the hills that flanked it.
”Would that those hills were not so close,” murmured Hanfor. ”You chance much.”
”They won't attack,” Anna said, hoping she were correct, ”not until we're in the center. Can you have the archers ready to fire their arrows, some in the direction of each hill? Once I start the first spell?”
”I will ensure that.” Hanfor edged his mount away from Anna and toward Alvar. Shortly, commands flowed along the lines of armsmen as the Defalkan force neared the center of the low hills.
Anna licked her lips, s.h.i.+fting her weight in the saddle. Rickel and Fhurgen rode in front of the sorceress and regent, their eyes scanning the nearing hillsides. Jecks rode beside Anna, and Liende and the players close behind.
The wind had gotten stronger once the growing afternoon clouds had blocked the sun, and with the smell of earth came also the faint scent of burned meat, and occasionally the intermittent smell of smoke, gra.s.sy smoke.
Anna glanced around. ”Here.”
As the armsrnen circled to form almost a ring around the regent, the players dismounted and formed up on the road, facing westward. Anna dismounted, cleared her throat, and glanced at Liende. ”We need to hurry.”
”Half warm-up! Then the arrow song. The long one.”
The sorceress nodded to herself and waited.
”At my mark!” commanded Liende as the warm-up ended.
Anna turned to Hanfor. ”Have them shoot once I start singing.”
”Archers! Arrows! Now!”
”Mark!” ordered the chief player.
Anna sang.
”These arrows shot into the air, make each head strike one annsmen there...”
Even before Anna completed the spell, the archers had released a second volley of shafts, and hors.e.m.e.n began to appear on the slopes above, galloping out of formation but straight toward the Defalkan armsmen.
Anna swallowed, ignoring the light-headedness she felt. Perhaps half of the charging figures in crimson were cut down by the last of the Defalkan arrows, but more than a thousand armed lancers poured over the hills toward the Defalkan force. At least, it looked like that many to Anna.
She looked back at the players. Delvor lay sprawled on the ground. Liende stood panting, exhausted, almost unable to lift her horn.
Jecks had his blade out and his mount shadowing Anna.
The sorceress sprinted to Farinelli and yanked out the lutar. s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t! No matter how you plan, it doesn't quite work....
The only spell she had down cold enough to rattle off that quickly was the short flame song. She forced a quick and rough strum/tuning of the lutar, and tried to match the pitch she wanted before she sang.
”Armsmen wrong, armsmen strong turn to flame with this song...”
She forced the image of Dumaran figures into the spell, and she had to sing the entire spell twice before fires crackled out of the sky, before the awful whips of fire raked the hillside Then, fires flared in front of her own eyes, and she couldn't even see Farinelli or Jecks. She tried to sit down, tried to cradle the lutar... half hoping she had managed that before blackness and flames lapped over her like tides of ice, tides of fire.
...ice and fire, fire and ice, and will the world end twice...
Whips of fire flayed men, except they were boys, boys like Mario, boys like Birke and Skent... just boys...
Horses screamed as flames burst from the saddles on their backs... and a hot fire rain fell on ashen valleys and low hills, hills and valleys that had been green, oh so green...
...fire and ice... ice and fire...mist and flame...
Some time later, when the sky was dark, Anna found herself wrapped in a blanket, sweating, on her cot.
Jecks sat on a stool, as if he bad been waiting.
Her head ached, and her stomach twisted. She struggled into a sitting position. Large unseen hammers pounded at her skull, and knives slashed at her eyes. She closed them. That didn't help. She opened them.
They still hurt.
”How fare you, my lady?”
”Like s.h.i.+t,” she rasped. ”As usual, for this sort of thing.”
The white-haired lord extended a bottle.
She sipped the warm wine, once, and swallowed. Then she took another longer swallow. ”Maybe ... that will help.”
”Your players are exhausted. The armsmen do not look this way.” Jecks' voice was low and bleak.
''What happened?” Did they capture us? Where are the guards, then?
”Once again, you have utterly destroyed an enemy,” Jecks said quietly.