Holder of Lightning (16 page)

Jenna, reluctantly, reached beneath her clothing and pulled out the stone. “Here,” she said to Eilís. “Here it is.”

Eilís stared at the cloch, a hand at her breast as if she were having difficulty breathing. “Aye,” she whispered.

“That is Lámh Shábhála. And you don’t know yet how to use it.”

Jenna shook her head. “No. Can you tell me?”

“I can’t,” she answered, but then her eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps I can. Let me hold it. Give it to me . . .” She stretched her arm out.

“No.” Jenna closed her fingers around the cloch, fisting it in her right hand.

“Give it to me . . .” Eilís said again. Her hand came closer, and Jenna took a final step backward.

Cold water hammered at Jenna’s head and shoulders, driving her backward. The falls tore her away from the ledge and bore her under even as she screamed. She felt herself flung downward with the water, and she knew she was dead.

In that instant, the cloch burned in her hand, and she felt it open to her, as if she became part of the stone itself, her mind whirling with the patterns on her hand, with the identical patterns of the cloch, with the energy locked within it borrowed from the mage-lights. This was different than when she had unleashed lightning on Knobtop or when she had killed the soldiers. Then, there had been no conscious thought involved. This time, she felt herself will the cloch to release its energy, and it answered. The water of the Duán still pounded at her, unrelenting and merciless, but she was no longer falling . . .

Now you know . . .
Eilís’ voice whispered in her head.

Now you know ...

Somehow, impossibly, Jenna was standing on the grass above the falls, in the sunlight. The cloch was no longer in her hand. There was no ring on her finger. She felt at the waist of her skirt: there it was, the familiar lump of cloch, and circular hardness alongside it: Eilís’ ring.

Someone was crying, weeping in pain, and she realized it was her.

“Jenna! There you are! We’ve been calling . . . By the Mother-Creator, girl, you’re soaked through! What’s the matter?” Maeve came running up to her. Jenna sank into her embrace.

“My arm . . .” she cried. “It hurts so much, Mam.” Sharp, red agony stabbed at her, radiating from her hand downward and into her chest. She shivered with cold, the wind biting at her drenched clothing. Her vision was colored with it, like a veil over her eyes. With Jenna leaning against her mother, they moved down away from the falls. As they turned, Jenna glanced down.

The falls flared white as the water cascaded over the edge of the ravine, and the mist touched her face like tears.

13

Smoke and Ruin

A
STRIPE later, new wrappings with Seancoim’s poul tice slathered on the cloth and a mug of the andúilleaf brew had dulled the pain enough so that Jenna could ride. The wan fall sun had dried her clothes somewhat. She told the others that she’d slipped and fallen on the arm—the story appeared to satisfy them, and if she seemed wetter than the mist alone could have managed, no one mentioned the fact.

It was nearing midafternoon when they returned to the High Road. “A long lunch,” Mac Ard said worriedly when they finally were riding north again. “It will be dark before we reach the ford at this rate. We still may not reach Áth Iseal tonight.”

Jenna was silent on the ride. Again Mac Ard and Maeve rode together, and O’Deoradhain remained behind with Jenna, but his attempts to draw her into conversation failed. In truth, she barely heard him or saw the landscape as they approached the ford of the Duán. She held the reins of the horse loosely in her left hand, trusting the mare to keep to the road, and stared down at her bandaged arm, letting the fingers stretch and close, stretch and close. She traced the patterns of the scars with her gaze, feeling them even though they were hidden under folds of cotton.

Her thoughts were on Lámh Shábhála. The other times she had tapped the stone’s power, she had felt no control of the process. But now . . . Even without holding the stone, she could touch it with her mind, as if she and the cloch were linked. She could place her thoughts there and imagine herself sinking into the unguessed depths of the cloch. She could see power flaring between the crystalline structures within the stone, and she could direct that force: she could send it flaring outward and control where it went, what it touched, what it did.

And she could see, at the center of the stone, a hidden well of another power, one that was as yet half-filled, and when she looked there with her mind, she could feel gossa mer, invisible threads running away from Lámh Shábhála into the world. At the end of those threads, she knew, lay the other clochs na thintrí, the stones of lightning, waiting for Lámh Shábhála to restore their power.

She could not imagine how she would handle that huge reservoir, if the energy that already ran through Lámh Shábhála hurt her so much already. At the same time, she knew that she could not throw the stone away or give it to someone else. Lámh Shábhála wouldn’t allow that. She would not allow it. Even contemplating that action made her arm throb through the veil of andúilleaf. She had opened the stone, but Lámh Shábhála had also opened her.

She could no more easily abandon the cloch now than she could discard her heart.

“I don’t know how Tiarna Mac Ard feels,” she heard O’Deoradháin saying though her musings, “but I don’t like this. There’s been no one on the road with us all day. The west isn’t as well traveled as the east side of the lough, but still we should have seen a few others by now. Actually, I was surprised no other travelers stopped at the falls in all the time we were there.”

Jenna nodded. She might have glanced at him, but Lámh Shábhála overlaid the sight. He may have continued to talk, but she was lost inside the stone, peering at its secrets.

By evening, with the sun sending long shadows eastward as it touched the treetops, they approached a crossroads where the lough road met with the High Road traveling up to Ballintubber and crossing over to the Duán. On either side of the road, oak trees overhung the stone fences; to the west, the outskirts of Doire Coill huddled close by across an overgrown field. Mac Ard suddenly pulled back on his reins to bring his horse to a halt, standing up in the stirrups and peering around them. “Can you smell that?” he asked.

The question brought Jenna out of her reverie. She sniffed, and the smell brought with it unpleasant memories. “Woodsmoke,” she said, then frowned. “And something more.”

“Too much woodsmoke,” Mac Ard commented. “And an awful reek within it. I was past here a dozen days ago, on my way to Ballintubber. Where the roads meet there was a tiny village: a tavern and three or four houses.” His face was touched with worry as he looked back over his shoulder. “And I share your concern about the quiet on the road, O’Deoradháin. I think we should ride carefully and slowly, and keep an eye about us. Jenna—”

Jenna started at the sound of her name. “Aye, Tiarna?”

“You should be most careful of all.” His dark gaze held her, moving from her face to her arm. “I think you understand my meaning.”

She closed her fingers around the hidden cloch. “I do, Tiarna.”

A nod. “O’Deoradháin, you and I should ride ahead, I think.”

They rode on, Mac Ard and O’Deoradháin several feet ahead of them. Jenna noticed that the tiarna swept his clóca back away from the hilt of his sword and that she could also see the leather-wrapped hilt of O’Deoradháin’s knife. Alert now, they approached the crossing. The aroma of smoke hung in the air, and the odd scent underlying it grew stronger. The walls on either side of the road spread out suddenly, and in the clear space ahead of them, she could see a cluster of buildings. In the twilight, they seemed wrapped in a strange, dark fog, then she realized that the structures were roofless, the windows and doors gaping open like dead mouths, and that the fog was tendrils of smoke from still-smoldering timbers.

The scene was eerily deserted. No people moved in the midst of the rubble, no birds, no dogs. Nothing.

She also knew, then, what the other odor must be, and she swallowed hard. “The fires were set a day ago or more, by the look,” Mac Ard said, almost whispering. His face was grim. None of them wanted to speak loudly here; it seemed disrespectful. “That worries me—I didn’t think the Connachtans would stay this long, or be so bold as to strike this close to Áth Iseal with its garrison. Those who lived here no doubt fled, the ones who weren’t killed, but why they haven’t returned by now is what worries me more.”

“Tuath Connachta, was it?” O’Deoradháin asked. “You speak as if you’ve met them, Tiarna. Are the Tuatha at war?”

Mac Ard glanced back at O’Deoradháin but didn’t answer. “Let’s see what we can learn here. Carefully . . .”

They moved closer to the ruins. Jenna could see now that all that was left of the houses were the tumbled-down stone walls, blacked with smoke. A few fire-blistered timbers leaned forlornly, with wisps of gray smoke lifting from them. The ground was littered with broken crockery and scraps of cloth, as if the village had been torn apart before the fires were set. As if, Jenna realized, the attackers had been looking for someone or something. There were no signs of the residents of this place, though Jenna saw dark shapes within walls of the houses that made her look away.

Mac Ard reined up his horse before the ruins of the largest building—the inn, Jenna decided. He walked carefully over the stones and timbers, his boots crunching through the wreckage and sending plumes of ash up with each step. Once, he stopped and bent down, then came back out.

“There are two dead in there,” he said. “Maybe a few more that I can’t see. Some, perhaps most, I hope, ran before the fire and are still alive.” He looked around. “There’s nothing we can do here. I’ll feel safer once we reach Áth Iseal.”

“If it hasn’t been attacked as well,” O’Deoradháin replied but Mac Ard shook his head.

“There weren’t that many here, by the signs. A dozen, perhaps a few more. This is the work of marauders, not an army.”

As Mac Ard spoke, Jenna closed her eyes for a moment. The cloch burned in the darkness behind her eyes, and she could see the webs of connection to the other clochs na thintrí. One of those connections, she suddenly realized, snaked over to Mac Ard, and another . . .

She opened her eyes. Against the ruddy western sky, on a bare knife-edged ridge half a mile away, she could see a rider. “Tiarna,” she said, pointing, and as Mac Ard turned to look, the rider turned his horse and vanished. A faint voice called in the distance, and others answered. Mac Ard muttered a curse and mounted.

“Ride!” he cried. “And let’s hope that the crossing is still open.”

They urged their horses into a gallop in the growing dark, moving quickly while they could still somewhat see the road ahead of them. At the juncture of the roads, they turned east toward the river, a few miles ahead. Jenna kept looking back over her shoulder at the road behind, expecting to see riders coming hard after them, but for the moment the lane remained empty. As they left the village, the walls closed in again to border the road, and they moved into a wooded area. There, night already lurked under the trees, and they had to slow the horses to a trot or risk being thrown by an unseen root or hole. By the time they’d emerged from the trees, the sun had failed entirely, the first stars emerging in the east. The waxing moon—now nearly at a quarter—lifted high above the west and painted the road as it swept down in a great curve over low, flat lands. Far ahead, a row of trees ran nearly north to south across their way, marking the line of the river, which sparkled just beyond. Across the Duán, the road lifted again; on the banks of the hills beyond, yellow light gleamed in the windows at Áth Iseal.

And between the four of them and the river stood three horsemen, moonlight glinting from ring mail leathers laced over their tunics. They didn’t appear to see Jenna and the others yet, against the cover of the trees. Behind, from the direction of the village, Jenna could hear hooves pounding and men calling.

Mac Ard pulled his horse up “Trapped,” he said, “and it’s no good cutting across the field when the ford is ahead. Jenna?” Mac Ard looked back at her. “Can you . . . ?” He didn’t finish the question, but Jenna understood. Wanly, she shook her head. Her arm already hung cold and heavy; she could not imagine what it would feel like to use the cloch again so soon. “These are the same people who killed the people in your village, who killed people you know, who burned your house and ran down your dog,” Mac Ard reminded her, and Jenna lifted her head.

“If I must,” she said wearily. She reached for the cloch, but Mac Ard stopped her hand.

“Not yet. If we can cut the odds down somewhat, we may not need to reveal what we have. O’Deoradháin, it’s time to see how useful that knife of yours is. Maeve, Jenna, as soon as we have them engaged, ride on past. Go off the road around them if you need to. We’ll follow as soon as we can. Now, let’s see what we can do before they realize we’re here.”

He reached back and pulled the bow from the pack slung behind his saddle. Hooking a leg over one end of the weapon, he bent the bow and strung it, then nocked an arrow in the string. “I’m not much of a bowman but a rider’s a large target.”

He drew the bowstring back and let the arrow fly. Jenna tried to follow its flight but lost it in the darkness. But there was a cry from the riders, though no one fell. She could see them looking around, then one of them pointed toward the group and they came charging up the road toward them. Mac Ard nocked another arrow, letting them approach as he held the bow at full tension. Jenna could see muscles trembling in his arm. Then he let it fly, and one of the horses screamed and went down, the rider tumbling to the ground as the other two rushed past. “Now!” Mac Ard shouted, tossing the bow aside and drawing his sword. He kicked his horse into a gallop. “Ride for the ford!”

Maeve and Jenna both urged their horses to follow, but as Jenna kicked the mare’s sides, O’Deoradháin’s hand reached out and grabbed her reins. Mac Ard was already flying down the road with sword raised and a loud cry that they must have heard in Áth Iseal. Maeve’s horse was close behind. “Let me go!” Jenna cried. Her horse reared, but O’Deoradháin held fast. Jenna tried to wrench the reins away from him, and reached for the stone, a fury rising in her.