S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"Aye," she told them. "I agree with you. We can't wait."

Chapter 59: Death on the Field

THE mage-lights rippled and flowed, and Lamh Shabhala suckled at them like a ravenous infant, drawing down the power. Jenna sagged, her knees buckling with the sense of relief, the energy of the lights easing the aching of her muscles and the bitter chill along her right side. The world around her seemed saturated with color again, no longer so gray and dim. Her awareness seemed to swell out, encompassing the entire valley where the Clochs Mor of MacEagan, Aithne, Moister Cleurach, Galen, and the others were also renewing themselves; and at the outer edges of her senses she could feel the pinprick presence of the Tuathians’ clochs also feeding on the same energy-all of them linked to the sky, all of them tied together.

She could pluck them if she wanted, like the strings of Coelin’s giotar. She reached out with the cloch, found the blood-red strand of an ail-too familiar cloch, and followed it back. Faintly, she could feel the mind be-hind the energy-and that person sensed her at the same time.

"Jenna…" The voice was a dark husk, the tones familiar. "So you are still alive. 1 told them you were, but they still hoped…" "Aye, Tiarna, I’m alive. How is my mam? My brother?" She could feel the surprise in Mac Ard’s mind. "You know?"

"Lamh Shabhala told me." He didn’t respond. She felt him try to close his mind to her, and she pushed aside the curtains he drew over himself, enjoying the frustration and fear she felt in response. "You can’t hide from me, Mac Ard. I am your bane. You hold the Cloch Mor I gave to my lover, and I intend to take it back."

"It was mine first, as you know since it was you who stole it from me."

"Stole? Won it, perhaps, and only after you attacked me twice. If I’d been able to glimpse the future, I’d have killed you then. I left you alive only because of my mam. Tell me about her, Mac Ard."

Again, he threw up a shield; she broke it down as quickly. He tried to mask the flare of anger he felt, and that pleased her. Grudgingly, he an-swered. "Maeve’s well enough, and waiting in Falcarragh with my son."

The mention of the child, her half brother, made her think of the baby in her own womb, the child she would never see. "Your bastard, you mean."

"I love Maeve, Jenna, as I’ve told you before, and I treat her as well or better than any wife. I have acknowledged publicly that the child is mine; there’s no secret there. No matter what you want to believe, Jenna, I’m no monster. I never was your enemy. Never. You forced that upon yourself, like all the rest."

"Aye, none of this could possibly be your fault," Jenna taunted. "You’re so faultless and noble."

"Your mam misses you," Mac Ard said, ignoring

the comment, "and she is afraid for you. I think she may even be afraid of you after what you did in Lord Bhaile. And she hates this war."

"As do I."

"Then end it, Jenna. Surrender yourself and Lamh Shabhala and we can negotiate a peace. You can't win this, Jenna. Inish Thuaidh can't stand alone against all the Tuatha."

Jenna sent scorn hurtling through the mage-lights, not allowing him to see the doubts that his statement caused to stir within her. "Believe what you will. Tell Nevan that I remember his words at Lord Bhaile, how he said that everyone must know that the arm of Dun Laoghaire is long. Well, I know that now, but he will find that the arm of Inish Thuaidh may not reach as far, but it is stronger. Tell him that." Lamh Shabhala was full. She closed her eyes, reveling in the sense of completeness and power that the lights gave her. She released the cloch.

Mac Ard and the rest of the clochs na thintri vanished. The mage-lights began to dim in the sky.

The Ri MacBradaigh died that night.

The Comhairle met briefly in the Banrion's tent, deciding that the issue of a successor must wait, though they gave control of the Inish forces to Tiarna MacEagan. After a long conference, it was decided to strike Dun Kiil in three groups: the largest force taking the heights on which the keep sat, and two pincer arms coming in from the west and east alone the lower valley where the main roads ran. The west and east attacks would occur simultaneously, hopefully diverting the attention of the Rl Ard's forces and drawing them down toward the harbor so that the assault on the keep would have the advantage of surprise. They already knew that the Rl Ard, the Tanaise Rig, and most of the Tuathian Mages were in the keep, and it was there that the battle would be won or lost. There were secret passages into the keep that the Riocha had used for centuries to flee or enter in secret: the Banrion sent Tiarna O Beollain of Baile Nua along with several squads of soldiers along those hidden paths with the task of opening the gates and doors of the keep from the inside as the main force approached.

As for the cloudmages, two would go with each of

the initial waves both to protect them and so that they appeared to be legitimate attacks: Mundy and another Brathair were assigned to the eastern forces and Moister Cleurach and the new cloudmage with the west. MacEagan, Aithne, and Jenna would remain with the main force.

The encampment woke before the dawn and began to move, assem-bling in the narrow valley, then moving up toward the low pass to the south. Their faces grim and set, they left behind the tents of the camp followers and their families as well as those too seriously wounded to walk. Many of those who went with the army were limping or still bearing blood-stained bandages from the battle a few days before, Jenna no less than any of them.

She walked with the cloudmages in the midst of the column: Banrion Aithne, MacEagan, Galen, Moister Cleurach, Mundy, and two other Brathairs of the Order, one of them new to his Cloch Mor.

Jenna felt as if she were walking into the face of her own doom.

Not long after noon, they were within a few miles of the city. There, the forces divided, and the main group waited for a few candle stripes to allow the others to begin the encirclement. Finally, with the sun already lowering in the west, they rose and started to climb up the long slope to the plateau where Dun Kiil Keep stood brooding and weeping over its town.

Jenna plodded along with the others. There was very little talk, all of them lost in their own reveries, their own hopes and fears, wondering perhaps if they would still be alive after this day.

Jenna felt only a dull fatalism. The miles she’d trudged that day had been exhausting on their own, a challenge for the slowly healing cuts and scrapes of her body, for muscles torn and taken to their limits only a few days before. She shivered under her thick woolen cloca, and her right arm was a block of flesh-colored ice against her side.

If Jenna herself was quiet, the voices inside Lamh Shabhala were not.

". . this is too soon. The last time nearly killed you…"

". . you’ll be with us, one of the ghosts within Lamh Shabhala, yammering at the next Holder… "

"Be still!" The voice was a near-roar in the mental din: Riata's voice. "Leave her alone if you have nothing to say that will help her."

"Riata!" Jenna thought to him, closing her mind's ears to the rest of them. "I'm so scared."

"Those who are the bravest are those who know what they face and still go to meet it," Riata answered.

"I'm not brave," Jenna answered. "I just want this to be done and over, even though…" She couldn't say the words. But Riata knew or guessed her thoughts.

"If you want to live, then you must use what you've learned. Go deeper into the stone, Jenna. Remember where you went at Bethiochnead. Find that place again."

"I don't know if I can. I only glimpsed it once, in pain and desperation. Riata, I don't care if I live. Not anymore. It doesn't matter."