A Rising Moon
Page 14
Closing her fingers around Sorcha’s, Orla pulled the woman toward her.
13
Fire in the Sky
TWO DAYS LATER, Ceanndraoi Greum—with Orla, Magaidh, and most of the other draoi, the àrds, and their warriors—crossed the narrow strait between Onglse and the mainland of Albann Bràghad in a small fleet of Cateni vessels. They were met on the shore by several other warriors and àrds as well as many of the clan draoi, all of whom had come at the ceannàrd’s summons and the verification that Commander Savas and the Mundoan army were on their way northward.
Àrd Iosa approached Orla as they landed on the mainland, his chariot seeming to charge at her as she stepped down onto the shore with Sorcha just behind her and Onglse a fog-wrapped lump well out to sea. Eideard gestured to his chariot and his older driver, Tadgh, standing in the traces. The two horses, night black, blew white clouds from their flaring nostrils as they pawed impatiently at the pebbled beach. “Since Draoi Magaidh has started to train you as a war draoi, you should ride with me to get used to the feel of my chariot, Draoi Orla,” Eideard said. The man’s smile and the tone of his voice told her that he expected her to comply.
She lifted her chin, pulling up the hood of her red cloak. She felt for the twin oak leaves around her neck, under her torc. “Thank you, Àrd,” she said, “but Sorcha and I have made other arrangements.”
Eideard’s smile collapsed. For a moment Orla thought he was going to argue, but the man only said, “As you wish, then.” He tapped Tadgh on the shoulder; the driver pulled at the reins, calling to the horses, and the chariot’s wheels spun against the rocks as it rattled off. Eideard didn’t look back.
“Was that wise?” Sorcha asked.
Orla could only shrug. “Wise or not, it’s done. Come on, we need to find horses to ride.”
Orla and Sorcha rode alongside Magaidh in Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt’s contingent near the head of the line that seemed to grow with every passing stripe of the candle. Small bands of clan warriors emerged from the steep hills and the valleys to join the swelling ranks as they marched toward Muras. The north side of the River Meadham was marked by tall pine-studded hills with deep stream-cut valleys between them, descending from the higher, mountainous regions that dominated the central spine of Albann Bràghad. The roads wound like aimless sheep paths through the wrinkled landscape. A trip that a crow could take in but a few stripes of the candle by flying in a straight line might take a full day or more on the ground.
Magaidh was riding in Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt’s chariot; Orla and Sorcha had appropriated a pair of sure-footed brown-and-white Onglse ponies, with Orla’s anamacha drifting alongside her like a desultory shadow. By midday Orla wasn’t sure that had been the best choice; her rear end was sore and bruised despite the extra padding Sorcha had placed on the saddles.
From the amused expression on Magaidh’s face, she understood immediately. “You’ll get used to it,” she told Orla. “Though on the whole, for a draoi being in a chariot is the better choice.”
“You might have warned me,” Orla told her.
“People learn best from their mistakes,” Magaidh answered. Orla heard multiple laughter at that from Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt, from his son (and Magaidh’s stepson) Hùisdean, who was the chariot’s driver, as well as a loud snicker from Sorcha. Orla cast a glance over to Sorcha, who shrugged while still laughing.
“I used to ride Alim’s horse back in the women’s camp,” she said. “I’m used to the saddle.”
“I’m not sure I ever want to be.”
“Then ride with Àrd Iosa, and you won’t have to,” Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt told her. He rubbed at the gray stubble on his chin. “Your mam rode with his uncle. Àrd Iosa’s a good man, despite his arrogance and”—Mac Tsagairt glanced around before continuing—“despite Ceanndraoi Greum’s opinion. Àrd Iosa’s driver is Tadgh, who was once Maol Iosa’s driver as well, so he knows combat and the needs of a draoi at war better than any. During battle you’ll be put in one of the chariots anyway, so you might as well get used to it. Make your choice before the ceanndraoi makes it for you.”
Orla could see Magaidh watching Orla’s face for her response and nodding to her husband. Magaidh glanced pointedly farther down the line of the army, where Orla could see the Iosa clan’s banner—a green-and-blue tartan adorned with an eagle’s claw—fluttering in the breeze. The Iosa clan warriors rode horses or walked behind Eideard’s chariot. “It’d be good to get your footing in the chariot before your first battle,” she said. “Casting spells from a moving, bouncing chariot is far different from doing so while standing on solid ground, and I’ll help you practice that as we’re traveling. Otherwise the ceanndraoi might put you in the rearguard with all the minor draoi to bother the Mundoa with storms, and no doubt neither your mam nor the Moonshadow would be pleased with you playing such a minor role.”
Orla’s anamacha slid closer to her at Magaidh’s comment, and she could faintly hear their voices in the coldness along her side.
“You’ll help me learn this?” Orla asked Magaidh.
“I will, as your mother taught me. The skill comes quickly, especially when you know a battle is coming.”
“Listen to your own heart,” she heard Magaidh continue gently. “Do what it tells you. I’ll be here for you, as I was for your mam and she for me.”
Orla realized that Sorcha had already pulled her pony to the side of the road, stopping and allowing the line to move past her. Orla gave Magaidh a nod and did the same. They waited, watching the army slowly move past them, until Eideard’s chariot approached. The àrd gazed at the two of them, questioning. As his chariot came alongside—the driver Tadgh also eyeing them curiously—Orla kicked her pony to keep pace with the chariot, Sorcha slapping her own pony’s reins to follow behind.
“I’m surprised to see you again, Draoi Orla. I thought you’d be riding with Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt or Ceanndraoi Greum.” Orla couldn’t determine whether the smile that seemed to lurk on Eideard’s bearded lips was amusement or disdain.
“Àrd Iosa,” Orla told him, “I shouldn’t have turned down your offer to ride with you so abruptly. That was . . .” She hesitated, then pushed forward again. “. . . rude of me.”
“So you would have turned down the offer anyway, only not rudely?” he asked.
Orla blinked. “No. I’m only saying—”
She had no chance to say more. With the suddenness of a snake striking, he leaned over the rail of the chariot, plucked her from her saddle as easily as someone lifting a child, placing her on the wooden planks of the chariot before she could protest. She heard Tadgh chuckle as he held the reins of the chariot’s horses, balancing himself in the webbing of the traces.
Sorcha rode quickly forward to take Orla’s pony’s abandoned reins. The chariot lurched over the uneven ground as Tadgh growled at the horses, and Orla grabbed for the rail to steady herself. “There,” Eideard said
. There was a smug satisfaction on his face as he regarded her. “That’s where you should be, ready to ride into battle.” He grinned as the chariot lurched again; Orla gripped the rail harder, but Eideard only shifted his weight easily with the motion as Orla imagined a sailor might do on a ship. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to how the chariot moves—and it’s far better to do it now than when someone’s trying to kill you. I’m sure Draoi Magaidh will help you with that also.” He cocked his head toward her. “And sitting on a chariot’s bench is, well, gentler on tender body parts than a saddle.” His face split into a smile, and Orla found herself returning it. She saw Sorcha watching them and gave her a quick nod of reassurance.
“You assume too much, Àrd Iosa,” she told him, but her smile robbed the words of any true heat.
“Perhaps,” he answered, the amusement vanishing from his face. “Tadgh has told me how Ceanndraoi Voada fought from this very platform. Look there.” Eideard pointed to the planks below them, and Orla noticed brown stains caught in the grain of the wood. “That’s the traces of the blood my uncle and your mother shed in the Battle of Suras, where they both fell. When I took Tadgh as my driver, they expected me to keep my own chariot, but I wanted this one, that same chariot Tadgh drove from the field of battle. I wanted to honor my uncle and Ceanndraoi Voada when we meet Savas again, who killed them both. I wanted the commander to see this chariot and know that it holds his doom in the form of the nephew and the daughter of those he fought before. What do you say, Draoi Orla? Is that what you want also?”
Orla had moved her feet away from the stains as Eideard spoke. My mother’s blood? Is that true?
It was her anamacha that answered, as if a wall of ice were pressing against her left side.
Both Eideard and Tadgh were watching her—appraisingly, she thought—and Sorcha as well from alongside the chariot. Orla brought her head up, pressing her lips together but not caring that they could see the tears tracing the slope of her cheeks.
“Aye,” she told them. “This is what I want.”
Eideard nodded. Tadgh turned his attention back to the horses, and Sorcha looked carefully ahead.
“Then we’ll find Savas together,” Eideard said. “And we’ll have our revenge on him.”
* * *
A jagged ridgeline of wooded hills just north of the River Meadham’s floodplain shielded the Cateni army from being seen by anyone in Muras, which perched on the Meadham’s south banks. The town’s confines spread out to include a large island in the center of the river. A wide wooden bridge ran from the northern bank of the Meadham to the island, and another connected the island to the town proper on the southern bank.
This, Orla knew, had been the site of her mother’s and Maol Iosa’s first victory. Voada’s army had taken the town in the initial skirmish of her war against the Mundoa, and much of the town had burned to the ground in the wake of that battle.
But Muras had slowly risen from the ashes over the last few years, though scars were still visible. Orla could see the blackened, still-unhealed wounds of ruins as she stared at the town from the heights, only a ride of a few stripes away over a grassy flatland dotted with pastures and farms.
Greum Red-Hand directed the army to encamp well off the road leading north out of Muras, generally sparsely traveled in any case by Cateni going into Muras to purchase Mundoan goods or to sell their produce and livestock at the market there. Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt sent a few couples out in plain, ragged garb to scout Muras and report back. They said that several ships capable of ferrying troops were moored on the southern bank of the River Meadham and that the shipwrights’ crews were preparing two more—signaling that Commander Savas was definitely intending to invade Onglse, as the gossip around the town confirmed. Food and other supplies for the army were stockpiled in Muras’ warehouses. The garrison, most importantly, appeared to be ready and on alert, with more and better-trained Mundoan soldiers and sihirki than there had been when Orla’s mam had taken the town.
What pleased Ceanndraoi Greum and Ceannàrd Comhnall the most was that the scouts reported no rumors of the Cateni force moving toward Muras. It seemed the clans were keeping that news to themselves and not sharing it with the Mundoans across the river—and the Mundoa had always been reluctant to venture across the river on their own.
“We’ll begin our attack before dawn tomorrow,” Greum Red-Hand said to the assembled àrds and trusted draoi. Orla had again pointedly not been invited to this strategy meeting, but Magaidh had brought her along despite that. Ceiteag was there too, standing next to the Red-Hand and staring out over the assembly. “We’ll have the minor draoi send a fog down to conceal our approach.”
“That’s exactly what Ceanndraoi Voada did,” Magaidh interjected. “I was there, if you remember, Ceanndraoi, and so was my husband. She sent a fog out ahead of our chariots and warriors to hide us, and we were among them before they knew we were there.” Greum Red-Hand’s face soured at Magaidh’s use of the ceanndraoi title for Voada. Orla could see that he liked what she said next even less. “Don’t you think, Ceanndraoi Greum, that given that history, if they see a strange fog coming toward them, they’ll understand what it means and respond accordingly?”
“Draoi Mac Tsagairt is right.” Eideard spoke up loudly before Greum could answer. “Savas isn’t a stupid man. If he knows that we’ve put together an army—and I don’t care what our scouts have said, Savas must know from spies in the north that we’ve left Onglse—then he also knows we’re expecting him to come to Muras. He’ll have warned his troops about what happened last time. Ceanndraoi Greum, Ceannàrd Mac Tsagairt: to simply repeat what Voada and my uncle did is—” Orla saw his lips start to form the word “foolish” before he stopped himself. “—unlikely to be successful,” he finished.
“And what would you have us do, Àrd Iosa? Simply ride up to the bridge and ask them nicely for permission to cross?”
Orla could feel her anamacha move closer to her.
Eideard’s face flushed under his beard. “I’m only saying—” he began when Orla interrupted, causing Eideard’s mouth to snap shut and everyone’s heads to turn to her.
“There’s no need for us to burn Muras to the ground again,” she said. “We only need to stop Savas from receiving the boats he needs to reach Onglse. We can accomplish that without attacking the town with our entire army.”
“Girl, you don’t need to lecture the—” Ceiteag started in a scolding, dismissive tone, her ancient face screwed up in anger. This time it was Comhnall who spoke up to interrupt.
“Let her speak, Draoi Ceiteag,” the ceannàrd said. “Ceanndraoi, Draoi Orla’s not wrong. Go on, Orla. What are you saying?”
“It depends on what you and the ceanndraoi want,” Orla said, turning from Ceiteag’s unrepentant stare. “We’ve reached Muras before Savas; he must be a day or more behind. What is it that you intend? If you only want to stop Savas’ army from reaching Onglse easily, then all we need do is destroy the ships they’ve built for him. As we leave, we can also take down the bridges across the River Meadham so he can’t cross his army here.”
“I would still set Muras afire once we did that,” Comhnall said. “We don’t want him to use the quays and shipwrights there to rebuild the ships. We want him to retreat all the way to Gediz, where he’d have to build new ships, while we go back to Onglse and prepare.”
“That’s cert
ainly a choice we could make,” Orla said. “As for the ships, you don’t need an army to destroy them; you only need a few draoi who could walk into Muras without being challenged and escape in the chaos afterward. I’m willing to be one of those. If I take off my torc and put on a bog dress, then I’m just a peasant girl come to town to buy goods. But whatever we do, we have to do it now, before Savas’ army arrives.”
That started an uproar as several people attempted to talk at once.
“She may be young yet, Ceanndraoi, but she has the wisdom and far sight of her mother and the Moonshadow in her,” Comhnall roared, his voice sending the others into temporary silence. “Draoi Orla’s talking sense, Ceanndraoi. Destroy the boats, and Onglse is safe for the time being.”
Greum’s face was a scowl. “Perhaps. But she also wants us to destroy the bridges,” Greum said. “I say that’s a mistake. Our army’s already here. Maybe Draoi Orla can stop Savas from reaching Onglse easily, but I for one still wish to engage him. I say this: let Draoi Orla take out the ships if she believes she can, but we’ll leave the bridges up so Savas has to use them to cross the river. Let the battle between us happen here rather than on Onglse. We have the river’s escarpments and hills as cover until we reach the floodplain, and the bridge will act as a funnel through which Savas’ forces will have to pass.”
There was a murmuring amongst those in the meeting at that. Comhnall nodded. “The bridge over the Meadham here at Muras could indeed be a trap for Savas. If we show him our army when he arrives, he either has to engage us here or move a double hand of days east along the river to find a decent ford, knowing we can shadow him all the way and still harry him at that crossing.”
Orla felt Greum’s stare on her. “You can do what you claim, girl? You can take out the ships in Muras?”
“I can,” she told him. “With a few draoi to help. No more than that—we don’t want to be seen as a threat to Muras, just as peasants entering the city on normal business, as I said.”