S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

Jenna sent her mind into Lamh Shabhala, and in her anger, she knew that this was the moment. She would smash Mac Ard now, overwhelm him and end this. End it forever. Thraisha’s vision had been false

… a noise. . not heard with the senses of Lamh Shabhala, but with her own ears. .

… a hammer blow between her shoulder blades, sending her crum-pling to the pavement. .

. . the shock of the blow loosening her grip on the cloch, so that it rolled free of senseless, stiff fingers.

. . scuffed boots in front of her face, and laughter. Jenna looked up to see the face of a Tuathian soldier

. . the pain coursing through her as she groped for Lamh Shabhala, a loss as intense as the moment she saw Ennis fall. She cried aloud, moaning and trying to reach the cloch, knowing that Thraisha was now alone against Mac Ard and the others, that Thraisha couldn't stand against them all…

. . The soldier's hand, grimy and broken-nailed, reaching for Lamh Shabhala as well. .

". . When you jell, the clochs turned to me, and I could not swim against that current…"

Jenna saw Thraisha's glimmering blue-and-black body skewered by scarlet lightning. The bolts ripped through the seal, nearly tearing her body in half. Her dying eyes seemed to stare at Jenna as the force of the strike from Mac Ard's cloch toppled her back into the water. Blood spewed from the riven corpse and stained the waves, and a silvery form wriggled away from Thraisha's open, silent mouth.

". . Their magic drowned me, and Bradan an Chumhacht swam from my mouth. So if it's destiny, then it's not only your death…"

Jenna wondered if death could hurt more than the pain of losing Lamh Shabhala.

"SO you're the Mad Holder. . and this must be Lamh Shabhala."

Jenna looked up from the ground to see the soldier holding the cloch, and the sight of it caused her mouth to open and release a wailing cry that sounded more animal than human. She shuddered, reaching use-lessly for the cloch, and the man kicked her scarred arm aside. He grinned down at her: a red-bearded face stained with black gore, a long cut down his left cheek and through one side of his mouth dripping blood. The deep gash through his lips widened sickeningly as he grinned at her. He was missing teeth, and his voice was slurred with his injuries. " Tis mine now, 'tis."

Jenna blinked, peering up through the acrid smoke that wrapped the harbor. The man didn't see the movement behind him. There was a flash of steel and the Tuathian's head was suddenly separated from its shoul-ders, rolling away. The body stood for a moment, fountaining blood from the stump of the neck before it collapsed, nearly falling on top of Jenna.

"Sometimes," she heard someone say, "it's just more satisfying to use a sword."

A hand was reaching for her-"Let's go, Jenna. ."-but she slapped it away, scrambling over to the body, tearing at the fist holding Lamh Shabhala’s chain and ripping the cloch away from lifeless fingers. "Mine!" she proclaimed, closing her right fist around it.

"Jenna!"

She whirled around at the shout, snarling. Lights flared wildly, confusingly, in the sudden cloch-vision. She started to tear Lamh Shabhala open, to send its power hurtling blindly at the person in front of her, but she could not hold the power; it burned her so that she screamed, her right arm in agony. Hands caught her as she fell.

"Mother-Creator, you've been wounded! Didn't you hear the call for retreat? Come on. ."

Jenna blinked away blood, trying to see the face.

"Ennis?"

"No, it’s MacEagan," came the soothing voice. "Lean on me, Jenna

That’s it; let me support your weight. We have to leave now. ."

. . there was the flickering of candles and the smell of wet stone, and a form moving in the twilight

"Here, Holder. Please sip this… "

She could smell the anduilleaf in the crude clay mug the old man was holding out to her. For a moment, disoriented, she thought it was Seancoim and her heart leaped inside her, but then her vision cleared and she recognized him as the Banrion’s healer. He held out the mug toward her; she pushed it away. "No, I won’t drink that."

"It will take away the pain."

"No!" She pushed at it again even though she could feel herself yearn-ing to drink it, to lose herself and the suffering in the leaf’s milky embrace. The healer grimaced and pouted, but he put the anduilleaf aside. Jenna was relieved; she didn’t know if she could have resisted if he’d insisted a third time. She tried to raise herself up, and the movement pulled at the stitched and healing wounds, making her cry out and bringing back all the anguish: in the wounded left arm, in the scarred right, her head, her stomach. .

. . her stomach. She touched her abdomen, relieved to feel an answer-ing stir. The healer grunted. "The babe is fine," he said, and responded to Jenna’s shocked look with a faint, conspiratorial smile. "Aye. The Banrion told me since 1 was looking after you and she felt I needed to know. But no one else will know unless you tell them. At least not until it’s obvious. That’s another reason you need to rest, Holder."

"I need to understand-"

"Understand what?" a new voice intruded. Someone had thrust aside a woolen curtain Jenna hadn’t noticed before, letting in a stream of sunlight that made her eyes water and blink, revealing the stone walls of a small cavern. The curtain dropped

down behind the silhouetted form and the room went dark again.

"Ah, Tiarna MacEagan," the healer said. "Holder, I'll leave you with your husband, then. Maybe he can get you to drink the infusion."

Husband. . Jenna found herself turning the strange word over in her head as the healer left the room. MacEagan walked over and sat at the edge of the blankets on which she lay. A long cut crossed his forehead, scabbed brown with the skin an irritated red along the edges, and one hand was wrapped in bandages. "Infusion?"

She shook her head. "You're hurt."

"Have you seen yourself?" he answered. "At least I'm walking. It's a rare person out there who isn't wounded, and there are far too many familiar faces missing." A sadness came over his own face.

"Alby?"

MacEagan smiled momentarily. "No, he's alive, though he took injuries like the rest. He wouldn't leave me, even though he's more a liability with the sword than an asset."

"I'm glad to hear that. I know how you would have felt if you'd lost him."

Again the smile came and vanished. "That's kind of you to say. Still, it was a terrible battle, and a terrible cost we paid."

The sounds and memories flooded back to Jenna in disjointed, uncon-nected fragments: the initial assault, the confusion, the bitter victory of killing Aron, the struggle with Mac Ard, Thraisha's sacrifice, the stunning moment when she lost Lamh Shabhala. . She reached for the stone with a gasp. Aye, it was still there, but drained entirely of power. "I remember. . You came, I think, and helped me up. ." She shook her head. "I don't remember anything past that. It's all gone. And it was only yesterday."

"It was two days ago," he told her. "You were badly hurt. I wasn't sure you were even going to live." He told her then: how the two of them together fended off another attack from Mac Ard and the Tuathian Hold-ers with Lamh Shabhala and his own cloch, falling back past the square and finally finding what was left of the Inishlander defenders near the base of the Croc a Scroilm; fighting their way through another wave of Tuathians; Kianna falling near the harbor and the Ri MacBradaigh severely wounded, but fighting his way to them; finally reaching the winding road to the keep, then making their way into the deep clefts beyond.

It was like a tale to Jenna, unreal. There was no memory of it in her at all. He might as well have been speaking of a battle fought a century ago with other people.