In addition to Sterren and the four Semmans, the Southern Wind carried the warlock, who had still not given a name; Annara, the journeyman wizard; three witches, named Shenna of Chatna, Ederd of Jiastwark, and Hamder Hamder’s son; and a wizard who called himself Emner of Lamum. All but the warlock were young, beginners who had not yet found places for themselves, though none of the others were quite so young as Annara and Sterren himself.
Sterren had turned down assorted frauds and charlatans, and given in to the royal fiat against sorcerers and demonologists; he had talked to several theurgists, only to be told that they could not help with anything to which the gods objected as strongly as they objected to war. No other warlocks had turned up once the amount of the pay was known. A few of the more obscure or minor sorts of magician had turned up, such as oneiromancers and herbalists, but after much discussion had not stayed.
Still, Sterren had half a dozen assorted magicians.
He hoped it would be enough.
He wished he knew more about magic.
He did know a little, of course. He had taken an interest in the arcane arts as a child.
It was only a little, though, not much more than a few characteristics of the major varieties.
He knew something more than a minimum about warlockry, of course, from his brief stay with old Bergan. He knew it used no spells or incantations, but only the warlock’s will, to guide and shape the Power it drew upon. The only differences between what one warlock could do, and what another could do, depended on the relative level of imagination and expertise in manipulating Power.
The other magics did not appear to operate that way at all. For example, theurgists and demonologists used rote formulae to summon superhuman beings, as Agor had explained to him, and those beings were specialized and individual.
To a warlock, Power was Power, at least until the nightmares began, and there were no formulae, or at least, so Bergan had told him, and Sterren had no reason to doubt his old master.
That meant that Sterren’s warlock would be able to do as much as any warlock in waging war; there were no special spells or formulae he had to know.
Wizards, on the other hand, carried formulae to bizarre extremes; where theurgists and demonologists just used words and songs and signs, wizards needed an incredible assortment of ingredients for their spells, dragon’s blood and virgin’s tears and so forth. Wizardry seemed to have no logic to it whatsoever. And Sterren, accordingly, had no idea at all what his two wizards were capable of. Annara had a small pouch of precious ingredients for her spells; Emner had a large traveling case jammed full of jars and boxes for his. Neither would specify what spells he or she could perform. A demonstration would be meaningless; spells that proved beyond doubt that their wizardry was authentic and powerful would not mean that they knew any spells that would stop Ophkar or Ksinallion.
Witches fell somewhere in between. Witches used rituals, chants, trances, and so forth, but could improvise them apparently at will and did not require the arcane substances that wizardry called for. Witches had individual spells, but seemed to be able to modify them far more readily than wizards could. They had specialties, but almost any witch could tackle almost any piece of witchcraft, though naturally, a specialist in a given field could outperform a novice.
Witchcraft was versatile and adaptable, but limited. It just didn’t do anything as impressive as the other magics. No witch ever moved a mountain or flattened a city, but wizards had reportedly done both. Warlocks could call up storms, shatter walls, strike foes dead with a glance, set the very ground ablaze; wizards seemed to be able to do absolutely anything if they could find the proper spell; but witches were far more limited. A witch could light a fire in an instant, but only in a proper fuel. A witch could open a locked door, but not shatter one. A witch could predict a storm, but not bring one.
What use his three witches would be in battle, Sterren was not quite sure, but he thought they would be far better than any ordinary warriors.
Sorcerers, with their prepared talismans that could be used instantly, seemed much like wizards, though perhaps a little less impressive. He wondered what Phenvel had against them.
Herbalists might be very useful if the war was lost, for treating the wounded, but unless one were to poison Ophkar’s water supply, Sterren could not see much use for an herbalist in battle. The various other specialties likewise seemed too narrow in scope. What good was an oneiromancer, for example, if nobody happened to have any dreams?
So he had his three witches, his two wizards, and his nameless warlock, and ninety-three fighting men. He hoped it would be enough.
After all, his life depended on it.
PART TWO
War
CHAPTER 18
Sterren stood shivering beside the right-hand draft horse and stared miserably through the rain and gloom at the distant glow of the campfires and the looming black shape of Semma Castle. The mare’s breath puffed up in clouds from her nostrils, and Sterren could smell her sweat. Raindrops pattered heavily on the old wagon that he had bought in Akalla, on the driver’s seat he had just abandoned, and on the hooded heads of the six magicians huddled in the back. The four Semmans, on their own mounts, were clustered nearby.
“I thought they’d wait until spring,” he said again.
Lady Kalira replied, “We all did. They always waited before.” Her tone was flat and dead. Sterren was grateful that she was not castigating him for refusing to buy a storm to speed their journey; it was bad enough that he was cursing himself for it.
“I guess one of their warlords must have as little respect for tradition as I do,” he said resignedly.
“Or maybe,” Alder suggested, “they heard you were gone and figured that it would be a good time to attack, when you weren’t there to lead us.”
“More likely they found out he was fetching these damned magicians and they wanted to take the castle before they could get here,” Dogal muttered.
Sterren ignored that and tried to think what to do.
A selfish part of him suggested turning around and heading back to Akalla. After all, through no fault of his own he had been cut off from the castle and its defenders. If he left, who could say he had failed in his duty? He glanced up at Lady Kalira, sitting astride her horse. She could, for one, and he could accuse himself, as well. He had gone and fetched magicians to fight his war; well, here he was, here were his magicians, and here was the war, a little sooner than he had expected, perhaps, but so what?
All he had to do was figure out how to use the magicians he had hired. He had to at least make the attempt after coming this far, he told himself.
If he tried and failed, if the castle fell anyway, then he could flee in good conscience, and even Lady Kalira could not fault him.
First, though, he had to try to defeat the enemy. But how was he supposed to do that with his six sorry magicians?
“What do we do now?” Annara called from the wagon in Ethsharitic, echoing his own thoughts. She glanced at the deserted farmhouse off to the party’s left, as if expecting monsters to leap from it at any minute.
“Are you sure it’s really the enemy besieging the castle and not just a festival of some sort?” one of the witches asked in the same tongue; Sterren did not see if it was Hamder or Ederd and could not yet distinguish them by voice.
