S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

A few heads had been mounted on broken lances as a warning. O’Deoradhain rode his horse up to one of the trophies, the horse shying away from the smell of rotting meat and the crow-emptied eye sockets, and a cloud of flies rising from the face as O’Deoradhain leaned over from his saddle to peer at it. The jaw hung upon, the head gaping in eternal amaze-ment. "A boy," he said. "No more than fifteen, I’ll wager, and a pressman in his Ri’s army. I’ll bet he told his mam he’d be back a hero."

Jenna’s stomach turned again, and she leaned over, vomiting quickly. She hung onto the horse.

The wind shifted slightly, and the smell came to them: rotting, ripe flesh. The sweet sickly smell of death.

"Victory," O’Deoradhain said mockingly. " Tis a wonderful sight, don’t you think?"

Jenna wiped her mouth and nudged her horse

carefully forward. The horse nickered, its eyes wide and nervous. She looked down at a body to her right. The soldier sprawled awkwardly on his back, a broken sword still clutched in his hand. The rings of bronze and iron sewn on his boiled leather vest were ripped and broken over his abdomen, and a horrible wound had nearly split him in two. Scavengers had been at the body-the eyes and tongue were gone, his entrails pulled out and scattered, the flesh gnawed upon. White maggots crawled in and around his open mouth, in the sockets of his eyes. Jenna's stomach lurched again, and she forced the gorge back down.

O'Deoradhain was riding slowly around the field, occasionally looking down at the earth. Jenna stayed where she was, not wanting to go out into the carnage. "What was left of the Connachtan force retreated west," he said when he returned. "They weren't pursued-from the looks of the mounds, the Gabairan troops lost a good many men also, and their com-mander decided to stay here and bury their dead. They moved off to the east, through that pass there." He glanced down at the body of the soldier by Jenna. "The battle took place no more than two days ago, from the signs." Jenna nodded; she was still staring at the body. "Jenna?"

She wondered how young he'd been, how he'd looked in life, whether he'd had a wife and family. She imagined the body alive again, as if she could turn back time.

"Jenna?"

She lifted her head to find O'Deoradhain staring at her. "There were lochs here, too," he said. "There are several places where the earth is scorched as if by lightning strikes. Boulders were flung about that had crushed men underneath, and trees ripped whole from the ground and tossed. Since the Clochs Mor, unlike Lamh Shabhala, have only one ability each, I would guess there were two or possibly three of the stones here."

Jenna touched Lamh Shabhala. She could feel nothing here now, but a sense of dread hung over her that she had not felt since they'd left Doire Coill. For the first time, she realized just how much the Filleadh had changed the world. You caused this, she thought, her gaze on the field of destruction ahead of her. This is all because of the cloch you hold, and there will be more of it. Much more.

"It’s my fault," Jenna said.

O’Deoradhain nudged his horse alongside Jenna’s, though he didn’t touch her. "No," he said firmly, though quietly. "This isn’t your fault. This is the fault of greed and callousness and stupidity. You didn’t force any of the Rithe into conflict; they were just waiting for the opportunity, and Lamh Shabhala provided a convenient excuse."

The corpse leered up at her, a mockery in the bright spring grass. "All these people dead. ."

"Aye," O’Deoradhain said, "and yet more will die. That I can guarantee. But their souls won’t come wailing to you when they cry out for justice."

She still stared down, realizing that beyond this body another one lay, and another and another…

"I can hear them now," she told him. "They already call to me…" She was trembling, unable to stop the movement of her hands.

"Jenna, you’ve seen a dead body before." His mouth snapped shut, and she could imagine the rest of what he might have said: You were responsible for their deaths, too.

She looked at O’Deoradhain, her head shaking violently from side to side. "Not this many," she said. "Not like this, just. ." She had to stop ’or a moment, her breath gone. Her heart was pounding in her chest…. just scattered everywhere. Torn apart, half-eaten, discarded and unmourned " She tasted vomit at the back of her throat again, and swal-lowed hard. This is your legacy. This is your fate, too. Some day it will be you sprawled lifelessly there. . The land was starting to whirl around her, at the center the grotesque face of the dead soldier.

Jenna." O’Deoradhain brought her back as she was about to fall. Harsh and unsympathetic, his voice struck like a slap. She took a breath, and the world settled again. "This isn’t the last you’ll see of this. You’ll see more and worse, because you’ll be part of it. You don’t have a choice, not unless you want to give up Lamh Shabhala."

"Lamh Shabhala is mine," Jenna answered heatedly. Her hand went to the cloch, closing around it.

"Then look around you and get used to the sight, because you’ll need to have a clear head and mind

when a battle's raging around you, or someone will be taking Lamh Shabhala from your corpse." Then his voice softened; he started to reach for her, then let his hand drop back to his side. "The dead can't hurt you, Jenna. Only the living can do that. We can't stay here, and we can't go back. The war will follow us-my bet is that the Ri Ard is already stepping in to end these battles between the tuatha. They'll unite to find Lamh Shabhala; we can only hope to stay ahead of them, and maybe, maybe on Inish Thuaidh we can leave them behind. But we have to go now, before someone finds us. And before night falls, because this place will be haunted." He tilted his head toward her inquiringly. "Holder? Are you listening to me?"

"I thought you said that the dead couldn't hurt you." His grin was sheepish. "They can't. That doesn't mean they won't try." She said nothing to that. Instead, she flicked the reins of her horse and touched her heels to the mare's sides, urging the horse forward-not around the field of battle, but through it. She would not look down, but she saw the bodies as they passed, and each of them seemed to call to her accusingly.

O'Deoradhain slept under his blankets on the other side of the fire. The flickering yellow light illuminated the undersides of the leaves above them and plucked the white trunks of the sycamores from the night in a circle about them. She could hear him snoring softly, the loudest sound in the stillness.

Jenna reached into her pack and laid the relics out in front of her: the wooden seal her da had carved; the ring of Eilis MacGairbhith, the Lady of the Falls; the golden torc of Sinna Mac Ard. Of Riata she had nothing; the ghost of the ancient Holder had made it clear to her that he did not want to be awakened again unless she returned to Doire Coill and the valley of cairns.

She stared at them, a fingertip brushing each and feeling the spark within. Da? But he had never held the active Lamh Shabhala, and the times she had called him up, he had seemed more frightened and con-fused than she was, and she had ended by comforting him. Eilis? Jenna had called the Lady of the Falls only one other time after that day in her burial chamber behind the Doan’s waters, and the ghost had been as angry and fey as during their first encounter; though Jenna knew that the ghost couldn't touch or harm her, she would call that Holder forth only in great need.

Jenna picked up Sinna’s torc. She started to place it around her neck..

"You’ll just have to explain to her again who you are because she won’t remember you. She’s not your friend. She doesn’t care about you-to her, you’re as much a ghost as she is to you."