Beneath the Forsaken City (15 page)

After days of confinement to Carraigmór,
Eoghan wondered if perhaps his flogging had only been an excuse for his real punishment. It wasn’t that he minded scrubbing floors and fetching water and beating the dust from tapestries. He had been raised taking his turn in service at Carraigmór. It was being banned from the practice yard that rankled, not being allowed to take anything more dangerous than a mop in hand.

Eoghan lifted four buckets on a wooden yoke. Today’s task was changing the soiled water in the guest chambers’ tubs and replacing it with fresh. Normally this would have been an easy task, but the war had sent an influx of young boys and men into the forest. Two more had arrived this morning, their eyes filled with knowledge far too heavy for such a tender age. Personally, he couldn’t blame them for seeking refuge at Ard Dhaimhin. If these young men would be called upon to fight, wasn’t it better to send them to the Fíréin, where they would be properly trained and cared for and raised in the ways of Comdiu?

Eoghan might have hinted to Conor that he wished for a different sort of life, but the brotherhood was all he knew
 
—the
grueling training, the strict obedience. That obedience was being tested with each new task Master Liam and the Conclave found for him at the fortress. To a man who’d had a sword in hand since childhood, the restrictions on his practice felt like having a limb amputated.

Eoghan rolled his shoulders experimentally, feeling the tug of healing skin on his back as his muscles flexed. At least the enforced “rest” combined with the healer’s effective poultices had reduced the weals to faint marks, even if he would bear them for the rest of his life. That hardly bothered him. It was an honor to be punished for doing Comdiu’s will, and the scars were a reminder of how much trouble he could get himself into when he didn’t act in faith.

So you’re willing to endure a lashing for My will, but you’re not willing to endure some scrubbing?

Eoghan could swear he felt a hint of amusement in Comdiu’s words.

He nudged open the chamber door with his foot and headed down the corridor to the garderobe sewer. “It’s not the scrubbing that I mind; it’s the time away from my training.”

Comdiu didn’t need to say anything for him to know He was less than impressed by the excuse.

And that was another reason Eoghan did not tell anyone of his gift. More often than not, Comdiu spoke to him like a doting father to a beloved child, with no small measure of amusement. To some, portraying their great and powerful God in such a way would be blasphemy. This was the Creator of the heavens and earth, the judge of the wicked and defender of the righteous. Why would He bother Himself with the activities of one insignificant man scrubbing tubs and stone floors in the far corner of the known world? And why would He bother to speak directly to such a man?

It sounded, even to Eoghan, like madness.

“Then what do You wish me to do, if it’s not to wield a sword?” Talking aloud made him feel less insane, though it probably looked the opposite.

Obey.

Very well. He would obey, even if Comdiu didn’t give any more direction on
whom
he was meant to obey.

He was heading back to the other empty chamber to perform the same service when Brother Daigh approached in his usual measured stride. The elder brother’s expression did not reflect that he had recently delivered an extreme punishment to the Ceannaire’s successor.

“You’re wanted in the hall, Brother Eoghan. The Conclave has been called.”

Eoghan’s stomach did an acrobatic twist. He had never been included in a meeting of the Conclave. Either it was a sign his punishment was going to be lifted, or it was a sign of changing things to come. He left the buckets and yoke in the chamber
 
—no doubt he’d have to go straight back to this task
 
—and followed the stern brother through the winding corridors into the great hall.

Rather than the semicircular arrangement of chairs used when a brother or apprentice requested an audience, today they were placed down both sides of a long table in the center of the hall. An extra chair had been pulled up on the end.

“Brother Riordan! You’re back!” The words escaped before he could restrain them.

Riordan didn’t smile. The layer of dust upon his cloak said he had not even spared the time to bathe and change before he convened a meeting of Ard Dhaimhin’s leadership. What could be so urgent?

The other Conclave members filed in and took their seats.
Eoghan folded his hands atop the table so he wouldn’t fidget. He was a grown man, but this gathering of elders still made him feel like a young boy waiting for chastisement. At last, Liam appeared from the direction of his private chamber and took a seat on the far end, facing the Rune Throne.

“Brother Riordan has brought us some disturbing news,” Liam said. “You all must hear it. We have decisions to make.”

Riordan cleared his throat and launched into an account of what he had seen in Faolán. Eoghan just stared. Fergus dead, the druid gone, and Mac Eirhinin claiming the throne? He would have been less surprised to find that the sorcerer had sprouted wings.

When he finished, no one spoke. Finally Eoghan asked the question that filled the room like a silent specter. “Where is the druid?”

Riordan looked at him. “He’s there. I can feel him.”

“In hiding?”

“In a sense.”

“He’s taken another body,” Liam said.

All attention shifted to the Ceannaire, and Liam sighed. “Thus far, I have not shared all I know. This druid is neither young nor a stranger. You know that part of the reason the wards were established was to limit the activities of the sorcerers, particularly the ones known as the Red Druids. Ceannaires relied upon the wards for centuries. But what the brotherhood did not anticipate was the potential for corruption from within.”

Eoghan’s heart beat harder. This information was something no one, outside of the Ceannaire himself, had likely ever known.

“One of my predecessors was a man by the name of Niall. At least, that’s the name recorded in the rolls of the brotherhood, though we have no way of knowing whether that was the name to which he was born. He was extraordinarily gifted. He could
sense magic in others and instantly identify the type. He could fade in front of someone looking directly at him. But he was not satisfied with the power Comdiu gave him, nor with the small realm he led at Ard Dhaimhin. He called on the darker arts of our forefathers, communed with the sidhe, and gained unimaginable power. When his Conclave suspected he was dabbling in forbidden magic, they attempted to remove him. Instead, through dark magic, he killed his old body and took a new one, that of a young apprentice. Through the years, he has cheated death, changing bodies at will when the old one no longer serves him.”

“And you believe Keondric is simply Diarmuid or Niall or whatever you wish to call him, in a new body,” Eoghan said.

Liam glanced at Riordan. “I do. There is no other explanation of how Keondric commands Fergus’s and Diarmuid’s loyal men.”

“That explains why Conor thought they had killed the druid but Beagan still sensed a sorcerer at Glenmallaig.” Eoghan should have known it. Keondric was the man who had kidnapped Aine and taken her to Glenmallaig as bait for Conor. If he’d already been under the druid’s control, it would have been that much easier to take his body.

“What happened to the real Keondric, then?”

“Gone, most likely,” Liam said. “Two souls cannot reside in one body. The druid, through magic, would have forced his soul to flee and then taken over the space it left behind.”

“I would not have thought it possible,” Gradaigh said quietly. One of the younger members of the Conclave, he’d only recently become a dominant voice on the council. “This is the work of faerie stories, not reality.”

“Where do you think faerie stories come from?” Liam asked. “The world is an ancient place, and there is evil beyond these walls that you cannot even imagine. What Niall
 
—or Keondric
 
—controls
is only the smallest fraction of the dark power the Adversary has at his disposal.”

A chill raced over Eoghan’s skin. “How does this affect us?”

“He wants to eliminate all who might stand against him,” Riordan said. “First the Balians in the kingdoms. Next will be Ard Dhaimhin. We must prepare to defend Carraigmór.”

Dal let out a scornful laugh, drawing attention to where he sat at the end of the table. He was another Conclave member emboldened by the changes in Ard Dhaimhin, and if Eoghan were completely honest, he didn’t care for him. “No army can defeat the brotherhood. Even with sorcery, those men are no match for the Fíréin. He will never take the Rune Throne.”

“He does not come to rule,” Liam said. “And it is not the throne that he desires.”

A sick, sinking feeling crept into Eoghan’s middle. Somewhere deep down, he knew what Liam would say before he said it.

“He wants to wipe every last trace of Comdiu’s gifts from the earth.”

“You’re moving better.
”

Talfryn lowered himself to the ground beside Conor, where he ate his morning porridge. This time the extras were a few mushy bits of stone fruit, probably too overripe to be eaten by the settlement. Conor didn’t care. It was food
 
—extra energy
 
—and at least it gave flavor to the otherwise tasteless gruel.

Conor ran his fingers over his healing ribs. His short altercation with Dyllan had reminded him how far he had to go before he was fully healed, but at least it no longer hurt to breathe or walk.

“A few more weeks,” he said as he shoved the last of his breakfast into his mouth with his fingers.

“You may not have a few weeks. I don’t like the way the guards look at you. They know the last messages asking after your wife have come back, and now they know you’re well enough to fight. They’re waiting for you to make your move.”

“Then they will continue waiting. My work is not done here yet.”

Talfryn looked at their guard to see if their conversation had
been noticed. “You owe them nothing. You owe Haldor nothing. Are you prepared to die here as a matter of honor?”

Talfryn was right, but Conor couldn’t bring himself to betray Haldor’s trust. He had asked a few more questions about Conor’s beliefs
 
—not anything significant
 
—but it was obvious the Sofarende leader was trying to reconcile Conor’s actions with his own expectations. He seemed to think, like Talfryn, that Conor was going to make his move any minute.

And if you’re smart, you will. Aine could still be out there somewhere. If she’s alive, she could be alone. Or she could be waiting for you in Aron. Are you going to languish in a Sofarende prison until Haldor tires of you?

Yet something in his spirit told him to stay.

“You must make a decision, Conor. Time is growing short.”

“Time for what?”

Talfryn just shook his head. “Be ready. Soon.”

Conor rose and took his bowl to the trough, where he rinsed it under close supervision and placed it in the bucket beside it, his mind spinning. Did Talfryn plan on making his escape and taking Conor with him? What could he possibly be planning? His chances alone were no better than Conor’s. Even if they overcame their guards, they’d be captured before they could ever breach the wall. The defenses the Sofarende had built against the Gwynn just as effectively kept the prisoners in.

Except Conor knew from his sleepless nights that there was a point when the guard changed and only one man stood watch over their hut. The walls were wicker and clay. It would be easy enough to break out, kill the single guard, and take his weapon before fading into the compound’s shadows. They would have perhaps ten minutes before the body was discovered
 
—ten minutes to find a way out through the heavily guarded gate.

Conor shook his head, drawing a suspicious glance from the
guard. It would never work. He was hardly at his best. He had no weapons. If he were caught, he would certainly be killed. What would Haldor make of an escape attempt after all the talk about honor and oaths before Comdiu?

Did you really mean it? Or were you just buying time?

The bonds seemed to chafe more than usual as a different guard walked him to Haldor’s longhouse and let him inside. Conor prepared the tablets distractedly, etching several verses without thinking about what he was writing.

Hear me, O Lord, defender of the meek.

I am beset by my enemies.

Raise Your sword in my defense,

And protect Your sons who are defenseless.

Conor stared at the verse he had just written. It was barely familiar, as if he had read it long ago but forgotten it until this minute. Why had he chosen those lines? Was he trying to justify his own conflicted thoughts? Or was this a direct message from Comdiu?

“It is hard, doing nothing, is it not?”

Haldor startled him from his thoughts. Conor set the tablet aside and tried to make his expression blank. “Pardon me?”

“You are accustomed to being useful, not hobbled like a horse in a pasture.” Haldor jerked his head toward Conor’s bonds. He hadn’t even noticed that the guard had forgotten to take them off, he’d become so accustomed to them. He shuddered at the significance.

“Men are not allowed to be idle at Ard Dhaimhin, no matter their role in the brotherhood. Our elders scrub floors and carry water, the same as the novices. Since Comdiu sees men as equals, so does the brotherhood.”

“These thoughts of yours are very strange. You say all men are equals, yet you have kings.”

Conor thought back to what Riordan had said to him when he first came to Ard Dhaimhin. “Leadership is a privilege and a responsibility, not a right. Those who are trusted with much are expected to do much.”

“As I said, strange.” But Haldor smiled. “I do not wish to practice your language today. Tell me about your brotherhood.”

So now they came down to it. “What do you wish to know?”

“You are warriors, aye?”

Conor nodded his head once.

“But you do not make war.”

“Not unless the war comes to us.”

“Who would be foolish enough to bring war against men who do nothing but learn to fight and use magic?”

“Men who fight with darker magic.”

Haldor’s eyes burned suddenly bright. “Tell me about this magic.”

Conor considered. The northerner could be trying to learn about the one thing the Fíréin feared, but Haldor’s tension, his intense interest, told Conor it was much more personal. But where to begin?

At the beginning, he supposed. “Balians believe in one God above all, who created both men and the beings we call the Companions. At the beginning of time, one of the Companions named Arkiel rebelled against Comdiu. He lost and was cast out of heaven with those who stood with him. Arkiel and the fallen, those our people call the sidhe, are allowed to influence the earth. Yet when Balus came to die for mankind, He gave the gifts of magic to help counteract the sidhe’s influence. To bind their power. Many of our brothers possess these gifts.”

Haldor nodded thoughtfully, and Conor could see him fitting together all the pieces Conor had given him in the last several weeks. “It is the sidhe that your brotherhood fights against.”

“In a sense. There are druids, like priests, who serve the Adversary and commune with the sidhe. Even if we don’t understand the full extent of their powers, what might they do if the gifts of Balus did not hold them back?”

Haldor just stared through him, unseeing.

A possibility surfaced in Conor’s mind. “Haldor, why did your people leave your homeland?”

The Sofarende leader turned to him, and Conor knew. These incidents were not just limited to Seare. Perhaps the situation was different, but there was none of the surprise or disbelief he had expected to see in Haldor’s face. He had seen such things himself.

“You may go now, Conor.”

On the way back to his prison, Conor realized it was the first time Haldor had ever used his given name.

That night, Conor tossed and turned on his mat, the glare of the moon through the gaps in the hut’s mortared walls interrupting his sleep. As if he could have slept anyway. Haldor understood the oppression of which Conor spoke; he was sure of it. Was that why he was meant to be here? To show Haldor the weapon
 
—belief in the one true God
 
—that could combat the evil that had overrun his northern home as it now swept over Seare?

Shouts rang out in the compound outside the hut. Conor jerked straight up on his mat. Talfryn crouched beside him, his teeth gleaming in the dim light. “Are you ready?”

The sounds of horses, men’s shouts, and clashes of steel grew louder, shuddering through Conor with sickening familiarity. The village was under attack. Talfryn crept to the door, but rather than try to open it, he threw his shoulder against a cracked section of the wall again and again. The plaster crumbled, the wicker frame splintering under the impact. Finally, with one last thrust, a section of the wall collapsed completely, spilling torchlight and moonlight inside.

At once, the prisoners rushed for the hole, stumbling over each other in their haste. Talfryn and Conor pressed back out of the way, waiting. A cry pierced the air as one of the prisoners was taken by the guard, followed by a Norin curse as the other men fell upon him. Talfryn tapped Conor’s arm and gestured toward the now-quieter exterior of the hut.

Men on powerful stallions rampaged through the village with swords and spears, killing all in their path. Across the planked thoroughfare, Conor glimpsed Haldor in his elaborately decorated helmet, ivory-hilted sword in hand. He cut down one of the horses and fell upon its rider before turning to face another warrior.

“Go!” Talfryn shouted. “What are you waiting for?”

Conor’s feet remained rooted in place.

“Your freedom awaits you! Run!”

Stay.

Conor’s blood thrummed in his ears, dulling the sound of battle. This could be his one and only chance for escape. After this attack, vigilance would be doubled. He would never get another opportunity.

Stay.

In front of him, a Norin warrior fought a man on foot, their swords clashing for a second. Conor realized in shock that it was Ulaf. The other man, whom Conor assumed to be Gwynn, fought with a smaller, lighter sword than the Sofarende’s heavy broad weapon, and he wielded it with a facility that most Fíréin would envy. One quick feint, which Ulaf was slow to parry, and the sword slid into the northerner’s middle.

Ulaf collapsed. Conor rushed to the warrior’s side and pressed his hands to the gushing wound.

“Go,” Conor gritted out to Talfryn. His insides twisted at the thought of what he was giving up. “Escape while you can.”

“Conor, don’t be stupid! He’s the enemy. You can’t save him.”

Conor looked at the blood seeping through his fingers and knew the words to be true. But something, that quiet hand on his spirit, would not let him stand up and walk away.

“It’s Comdiu’s will that I stay. Now go, quickly, before your chance is lost too.”

Talfryn looked stricken, but he turned and ran, taking up a sword from a fallen Gwynn warrior as he went.

Ulaf choked on a breath, blood bubbling from his lips and splattering his bleached beard. Conor cast around desperately until his eyes fell on a woman, brandishing a club as fearlessly as the men.

“You! Here! Your apron!”

The woman gawked at Conor, and he realized he had shouted in his own language. He repeated the command in Norin, and after a hesitation, she came to his side, pulling her apron from the front of her dress.

“Press here,” he told her, bunching up the linen to staunch the wound. Almost immediately, it turned crimson. “More pressure.”

“He’s already dead.”

He looked at the warrior’s face. Ulaf’s eyes stared sightlessly to the sky. Conor sat back in the dirt, unable to understand the sudden flood of despair. This man was his enemy. He had spewed the vilest imaginings, detailed terrible acts, yet Conor was struck by a pang of grief at the knowledge that Ulaf’s spirit was gone.

He sent the Lord of heaven as sacrifice, so that none need be lost.

Conor bowed his head beneath the weight of sudden understanding. He had said it himself only hours ago: Comdiu saw men as equals. Not as enemies fighting over land and resources, but as sinners who were lost. To Him, Ulaf was no different than Conor except that Conor had accepted the sacrifice made for him.

“You’re still here.”

Conor looked up. Haldor stood over him, holding a dripping
battle-ax, his face, hands, and clothing spattered with blood. He looked like a Norin god, bent on vengeance.

“I made an oath before Comdiu to you. I will not go back on it.”

Haldor stared at him while the fighting dwindled around them. He looked at Ulaf and then the blood on Conor’s hands and arms. He shook his head. “I do not know you, stranger. Leave this place.”

He said it in the common tongue.

Conor watched him walk away, almost too shocked to react. The woman looked between him and Haldor, just as surprised. Conor reached down and eased Ulaf’s broadsword from his limp fingers, cast one last look at Haldor’s departing back, and melted effortlessly into the darkness.