S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"I was here, and I heard Old Stubborn making a commotion and went outside to check and… I thought I saw something. So I went. Then, after I was there, they came." She stopped. Mac Ard let the silence linger, and Jenna forced herself to stay quiet, though she could see him waiting for her to elaborate. "Did you see them, Tiarna?" she asked finally.

"From the tavern, aye, and as I was riding toward the hill. They went out by the time I reached the road and started up Knobtop. I saw the flash and heard the thunder when the lights vanished." He held his right arm straight out, and ran his left hand over it. "I could feel my hair standing on end: here, and on the back of my neck. I rode up to where the flash seemed to have come from. That's where I saw the marks of your boots." He let his hand drop. His cloca rustled. His voice was as soft and warm as the blanket on her bed. "Tell me the truth, Jenna. I swear I mean you and your mam no harm. I swear

He waited, looking at Jenna, and she could feel her hand trembling around the wooden mug. She set it down on the table, staring down at the steaming brew without really seeing it. She was trembling, her hands shaking as they rested on the rough oaken table top.

"I was there," she said to the mug. "The lights, they were so… bright and the colors were so deep, all around me. ." She lifted her head, looking from Mac Ard to her mam, shimmering in the salt water that suddenly filled her eyes. "I don’t understand why this is happening," she said, sniffing and trying to keep back the tears. "I don’t know why it keeps happening to me. I don’t want it, didn’t ask for it. I don’t know anything." The stone burned cold against her thigh through the woolen fabric. "I. ." She started to tell them the rest, how the mage-lights had glowed in the stone, how the power had arced from it, how the pebble had seemed to draw the mage-lights tonight, all of it. But she saw the eagerness in Mac Ard’s face, the way he leaned forward intently as she spoke of the lights, and she stopped herself. You don’t know him, not really. The stone was your gift, not his. The voice in her head almost seemed to be someone else’s.

"There isn't anything else to tell you, Tiarna," she said, sniffing. "I'm sorry."

Disappointment etched itself in the set of his mouth, and she realized that the man was genuinely puzzled. He shook his head. "Then we wait, and we watch," he said. He turned to Maeve. "I'll stay at Tara's for another day, at least, and we'll see. The mage-lights may come again tomorrow night. If they do, if they call Jenna, I'll go up there with her. If that's acceptable to you, Widow Aoire."

Maeve lifted her chin. "She's my daughter. I'll be with her, too, Tiarna Mac Ard."

He might have smiled. Maeve might have smiled back.

Mac Ard brushed at his cloca, adjusting the silver brooch at the right shoulder. "Good night to you both, then," he said. He gave a swift bow to Maeve, and left.

Chapter 5: Attack on the Village

THE night sky stayed dark the next night. Tiarna Mac Ard remained at Tara’s, coming to Jenna’s house that evening and escorting the two of them back to the tavern, where they listened to Coelin with an eye on the window that showed Knobtop above the trees.

But it remained simply night outside. Nothing more.

The next day broke with a heavy mist rolling in from the west, a gray wall that hid sun and sky and laid a sheen of moisture over the village. The mist beaded on the wool of the sheep as Jenna and Kesh herded them to the field behind the cottage. Kesh was acting strangely; he kept lifting his head and barking at something unseen, but finally they got the last straggler through. Jenna walked the field perimeter once, checking the stone fence her father had built, then calling Kesh-still barking at noth-ing-and closing the gate.

She smelled it then in the air, over the distinctive tang of smoldering peat from their own fire and those in the village: the odor of wood smoke and burning thatch. Jenna frowned, surveying the landscape. There was a smear of darker gray beyond the trees lining the field, and under it, a tinge of glowing red. "Mam!" she called. "I think there’s a fire in the village."

Maeve came from the cottage, wrapping a shawl over her head. "Look," Jenna said, pointing. Her mam squinted into the damp air, into the gray, dim distance.

"Come on," she said. "They may need help. ."

They didn’t get as far as the High Road. They heard the sound of a galloping horse racing toward them down the rutted dirt lane, and Tiarna Mac Ard came hurtling around the bend, his hair blowing and his cloca billowing behind him. He pulled Conhal to a mud-tossing halt in front of them, dismounting in a sudden leap.

"Tiarna Mac Ard-" Maeve began, but then the man cut off her words with a slash of his arm. "No time," he said. "We need to get you and your daughter out of here. Into the bogs, maybe, or over-" He stopped, whirling around at the sound of pounding hooves, as Kesh ran barking and snarling toward the quartet of on-rushing horses.

White fog blew from the nostrils of the steeds and the mouths of the riders.

"Kesh, no!" Jenna shouted at the dog. Kesh stopped, looked back at Jenna.

They could have gone around him. There was easily room.

They ran the dog down. Jenna screamed as she saw the hooves of the lead horse strike Kesh. He yelped and rolled and tried to escape, but the horse's muscular rear legs struck his side and Kesh went down under the three behind, lost in the blur of motion and clods of flying dirt. "Kesh!" Jenna screamed again, starting to run toward the bloody, still form in the dirt, but Maeve's arms went around her as Mac Ard stepped between them and the horsemen. "Kesh!"

The lead rider pulled his party to a stop before Mac Ard. The man threw his cloca back, and Jenna, sobbing for Kesh, saw a sword on his belt. "Where's your blue and gold, Fiacra De Derga?" Mac Ard called to the rider. "Or are those of Connachta too cowardly to show their colors when they go plundering in Gabair?"

The rider smiled. His hair was flaming red-a deeper red than that of Ard, what a surprise. I haven't seen you since our cousin's wedding feast a year ago last summer." Pale eyes swept over Maeve and Jenna. Jenna wanted to leap at the man, but Maeve's arms held her tightly, and Jenna clutched at her skirts in frustration and anger. In the folds caught in her left fist, she felt a small, cold hardness beneath the wool. "And what inter-esting company you keep. Is this the Aoire family the village Ald told me about before she died, the Inishlander's wife and daughter?"

"These people are formally under R1 Mallaghan of Tuath Gabair's pro-tection. That's all you need to know."

De Derga smiled. He lifted himself in his saddle with a creak of leather and looked about ostentatiously. "And where is R1 Mallaghan? I don't

seem to see him at the moment, or any royal decree in your hand." His gaze came back to Mac Ard. "I only see you, Padraic. If I’d known that, I’d have left my companions with the rest of my men." The three men behind De Derga laughed as he tsked. "One lone tiarna is all R1 Gabair sends when mage-lights fill the sky? I find that incredibly foolish. When word came to R1 Connachta that people on our eastern borders had seen mage-lights, he sent out over two dozen to follow them. And last night. . well, you saw them better than us, didn’t you, up on that hilltop?"

Jenna let her hand slip into the pocket of her skirt. The stone pulsed against her fingertips, as frigid as glacial ice.

"You would always rather talk a man to death than use your sword, Fiacra."

De Derga spread his hands. "It’s my gift. Now, step aside, as I’ll be taking the women back to Thiar."

Mac Ard unsheathed his sword, the iron ringing. Jenna heard her mam’s intake of breath. "Be careful, Tiarna," she said, one hand extended to Mac Ard, the other still around Jenna’s shoulders. Jenna slipped from her mam’s grasp, a step away; she took her hand from her pocket, her hand fisted. De Derga laughed.