S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"Find it!" Riata insisted, then his voice was gone again, drowned in the babble of the other Holders. Jenna forced them away from her, shoving them back down into the recesses of Lamh Shabhala.

"Are you all right?" She heard MacEagan's voice only faintly. Opening her eyes, Jenna realized that her hands were clasped over her ears as if the voices of the Holders had been physical and real.

She lowered them, shiv-ering as the cold reality of the mountains returned to her.

"I'm fine," she told him. Alby was standing just behind the tiarna, his soft hands around the hilt of a sword. "Is it time?"

"Nearly." MacEagan's gaze moved off to the ridge beyond which the Keep stood. "No matter how this ends, it will be remembered. The bards will be singing of it for the rest of time."

"I hope you have the chance to hear that song."

He didn't notice the stress on the "you." "So do I," MacEagan answered. "Win or lose, I've sent too many people to their graves today." He smiled wanly at her. "Of course, if we lose, I won't have to worry about the guilt, will I now? And if we win, why, I can console myself with the necessity of it all. I wonder if every leader feels that way."

"I doubt most of them think of it at all," Jenna answered.

He chuckled quietly; at the same time, the bass growl of thunder rolled loud from the south and west of them. A thunderhead appeared there, dark against the bright sky. "Moister Cleurach and Stormbringer," he said. "It’s begun." Already the soldiers were rushing all around them, and the banner of Inish Thuaidh waved at the head of the column. They began to move quickly, a bright swarm over the rocks and mosses of the hills.

Jenna heard the faint clamor of battle as they crested the rise. The tri-towered ramparts of the keep were black outlines drawn on the sky, the town unseen past the cliffs of the Croc a Scroilm, but the wind off the bay sent to them the ringing of iron and bronze and the cries of the combat Jenna opened Lamh Shabhala as they reached the summit: aye, the Clochs Mor were awake now and fighting. So far at least, MacEagan’s tactics had been successful-the clochs were all intent on the two arms already attacking the town, perhaps waiting for Lamh Shabhala to appear in one place or the other. There were Clochs Mor awake in the keep and not yet engaged-Mac Ard’s among them-but she could feel their attention focused outward.

That could not last long, she knew. She wondered how close they would get before someone on the walls looked behind and saw them.

It wasn’t long. There was no outcry that Jenna heard, but she felt the shift in attention within Mac Ard. "Now!" she cried aloud to MacEagan and Aithne. "They know we’re here."

Gouts of too-red fire spat from the window of the northernmost tower, rushing toward the front ranks of the troops. Jenna stretched Lamh Shabhala’s fingers toward them, touching each with the cloch’s power: they exploded in brilliant flame a hundred yards short of the target. A cheer went up from the Inishlanders and they began to run toward the keep. Jenna heard the first ululations of the caointeoireacht na cogadh, shrieking from their throats as they charged toward the castle. .

. . she ran with them, half blind with the overlay of the cloch-vision. The rush carried her along, and she glimpsed MacEagan and Aithne near her. The air was loud with the keening and the rattling of mail and the thudding of feet on the earth. .

. . even as the last glare of the fireballs faded, Jenna ripped at the tower with the cloch as if tearing the stones apart with her own hand- great blocks tumbled away from the window where Mac Ard had been. He was a raging, throbbing scarlet in the cloch-vision, like a volcano spewing lava. Jenna could feel the heat of him, and she countered with the cold of the void, wrapping him in blue-white ice, placing more and more of it around him as he melted away each layer desperately. The glow was beginning to dim as he poured more energy from his Cloch Mor to keep her away, and for a moment, she dared to believe that she could end it here. .

. . they were close to the keep now, and arrows filled the air in a deadly rain. She saw the man beside her suddenly drop, a feathered shaft sprouting from his neck as blood spurted, but then he was gone under the rush. The main gates to the keep loomed ahead, but they were still shut. .

. . something snarled, and a whip of arcing yellow slapped down across her shoulders. Jenna whirled and saw a dragon's face, jaws open with needled teeth as it clamped down on her shoulder and coiled the rest of its body around her. Jenna howled, the teeth digging deep into her, the writhing scales flaying the skin from her body everywhere it touched. "MacEagan!" Jenna shouted, but even as she called, she realized that both MacEagan and Aithne were each struggling with a rival Cloch Mor and couldn't come to her aid. Mac Ard was nearly free of his confinement. Jenna imagined herself growing larger, her skin hard as stone, and energy flowed from Lamh Shabhala into her. The yellow coils of the dragon's body snapped and broke, and she followed fading energy back to its source-a young man, his face pale and frightened as he realized who he faced-but she saw him only for an instant as Lamh Shabhala tore at his Cloch Mor, draining it. She thought she could hear the young man whim-per, and Jenna wondered if she had killed him. .

. . The charge faltered with the sight of the closed gates, the front ranks spreading out along the walls as the arrows continued to arc down on them. "The doors were supposed to be opened!" someone shouted. "We can't go forward… "

. . furious now, Jenna swept the cloch-vision about, searching for Mac Ard, but she was given no chance to find him. The mage-demon landed just outside the keep, towering above the onrushing

Inishlanders, and it roared as it plunged into their ranks, tearing and ripping with its clawed hands and feet. She saw it storm forward and pick up a man bodily, legs and arms flailing, and rip the body apart as if it were a rag doll, blood and entrails splattering as it tossed the broken corpse aside. The war-keening faltered; the advance slowed like a tide striking a rising seabed. The beast laughed, its wings spreading and blotting out the setting sun, and it bent to its terrible task once more. Jenna shouted and unleashed Lamh Shabhala again, reaching out with arms of energy to pluck the thing up and smash it down on the ground again before it could react to the attack. She sent thunderbolts raining down on it, striking it again and again and yet again. The creature bellowed as she tore at it, and she heard the mirroring cries from its Holder within the keep. In the cloch-vision, a coiling line of gold led from the mage-creature back to the Cloch Mor which spawned it, and Jenna sent of blade of energy down on it, severing the link. The mage-demon howled once more and vanished, and Jenna would have finished it then. .

… the arrows no longer fell, but something else did: several hands of round balls arced over the walls, rolling into the midst of the Inishlanders. Where the jell, great cries of anguish went up. One fell near Jenna and she saw that it was not a stone but a severed head, the eyes still wide open, long black hair matted with mud and caked blood. She recognized the gory features even through the distortion of the death rictus: it was Tiarna 0 Beolldin, and she knew then that those who had been sent to open the keep from the inside had failed. The last glow of sunlight was fading; darkness was falling, and when she looked up at the walls of the keep, she saw the first stars glitter in the dome of the sky

. . light blazed all around her, suddenly. A half-dozen flares of power multihued and dangerous, Mac Ard among them. Jenna reflexively threw up shields as they attacked as one, and she was suddenly contending with attacks from all sides, the snarl and blinding light of mage-energy pound-ing at her. Mac Ard sent his fire; she caught it with Lamh Shabhala and threw the flame toward the great glowing wolf that was leaping toward her. Spears of golden sunlight cascaded from the shield, but she couldn’t respond fast enough to the others.