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"What of his regent, the wily Nubara?"
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"We doubt that Nubara will prevail, but should he, then the sorceress would be
free to act at leisure in Ebra."
"Has she made no provisions for a possible attack from the west?" asks
Virtuul, his tone almost idle.
"She has called up some levies, and her arms commander is quietly mustering
forces to move to Denguic... we think. Rabyn can bring almost three hundred-
score armsmen and lancers, with the hundredscore from Mansuur. Defalk could
not muster half that, even were all levies called, and they have not been."
Ashtaar waits for the next question.
"Yet the sorceress is far from stupid," points out Tybra. "Far from that. Has
she not scried what is occurring?"
"It is difficult to ascertain what she has scried, but she has done much
scrying. That we know. And she left many indications with the Liedfuhr's envoy
that she would finally visit her own lands in Mencha. She took but tenscore
lancers there."
"So she grows cunning as well," remarks Virtuul. "No one would suspect she
would begin an attack into Ebra with but tenscore lancers."
"She took but fifteen when she headed south toward Dumar," notes Ashtaar.
"But she picked up additional forces from Lerona, Abenfel, and Stromwer,"
counters Virtuul.
"And she will use Hadrenn's forces as well," suggests Ashtaar. "What choice
has he, but to follow her?"
"She is not so much cunning as bold," declares Tybra. "She gambles that she
can defeat Bertmyrin quickly and then return to destroy Rabyn, if he should
attack."
"If she does..." comes the whisper from the left side of the table.
"If she does, the Liedfuhr will have to decide whether to reach terms with her
or hazard his forces against her."
"He has pledged not to act."
"Has that made any difference before?" asks Tybra dryly.
II
LIEDFINSTER
39
With the late-afternoon sun at their backs, Anna and Jecks rode eastward along
the narrow road, leading the players and the tenscore lancers. Each hoof that
struck the ground lifted dust out of the fine soil that had drifted across the
road from Mencha to the Sand Pass. Ahead, looming on the horizon, lay the
Ostfels.
Anna blotted her forehead before taking another long swallow from her water
bottle. "lt's hard to believe that it could have been hotter here."
"It was, my lady," replied Jecks dryly. "It was, as we both know."
"Maybe I didn't want to remember." Anna laughed and took another swallow from
the bottle before replacing it in the holder.
The ground on each side of the road was covered with intermittently spaced
brown grass. Almost level, it rose gradually for several deks to a low
hillcrest. As
Anna recalled, beyond that crest, the land dropped into the shallow bowl-like
valley below the Sand Pass, and in that valley, against the base of the
Ostfels and the beginning of the Sand Pass, lay the fort raised by the
sorcerer Brill for Lord Barjim-the fort and the now-drained defense reservoir.
The fort had been built to guard the Sand Pass-the gateway to southern and
eastern Ebra-and it had been the site of Anna's first battle in Defalk. Not
exactly a resounding victory, either.
The Regent could see tracks in the ground between the clumps of grass, tracks
left by fleeing armsmen and pursuing Ebrans a year earlier, tracks that would
not vanish anytime soon in the still-dry lands of eastern Defalk, lands dry
despite the return of seasonal rains.
"It will be years before these grasslands recover," said Jecks.
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"If ever," Anna replied.
"If the rains continue, they will. When I was a boy, the grass here was
shoulder-high on my mount. I would see that again."
"So would I." Anna blotted sweat out of her eyes once more.
"You sent that scroll to Lord Dannel?" asked Jecks, somewhat later.
"I did. I tried to be gentle, but.. ." Anna shrugged. "If I waited or stalled
him, he would be angry because I put him off, and if I don't change my mind,
he'll be angry."
"He will not be pleased."
"I know. No one's ever pleased around here. Save us, but don't upset anything,
and don't change anything, even if the reason why we got in trouble was
because we wouldn't change."
"Lady...you are hard on them. Change comes not easily to any man."
"I know." She took a deep breath. "But it's the same everywhere. I had to
dismiss the granary attendant because he wouldn't clean out the granary before
it was filled. I destroyed a family because I wouldn't submit to a man's
advances. Yet these people think it's my fault. I allow a young woman some
little choice in whom she will spend her life with, and you'd think I'd... I
don't know what..."
Jecks looked away, clearly uncomfortable, and Anna closed her mouth. The
handsome lord was still from Defalk, and nothing she said would change
matters.
For another three or four deks, they rode in comparative silence, Anna
shifting her weight in the saddle occasionally, and hoping that the Sand Pass
fort did lie beyond the hillcrest they approached, and not one even farther
along the road.
"How far does the Sand Pass stretch through the Ostfels?" Behind the
sorceress, Kinor's voice rose over the murmurs of the lancers and the muted
thumping of hoofs.
"If one can believe the maps, we will need to ride almost fifty deks from the
fort before we clear the eastern hills of the Ostfels," responded Himar, "and
then more than a hundred to reach Synek."
"A long journey with but tenscore lancers." added Jimbob.
Does he think lancers grow on trees? Anna tightened her lips, but forced
herself not to reply.
Jecks glanced at Anna, rolling his eyes.
They both laughed.
"... and the Regent took all of Dumar with but fifteenscore lancers," Himar
finished. "That was against more than a hundredscore."
Jimbob did not reply, not audibly.
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