Orla didn’t answer. She listened to Sorcha’s footsteps as she left and the rustling of the tent flaps. She opened her eyes; the multiple faces of her anamacha watched her from the far corner of the tent. “Why?” she asked them, but of course there was no answer.
She lay there and wondered if she could still cry.
* * *
“Here’s your stew. You need to eat.”
Sorcha held out the bowl to Orla. She kept her gaze on Orla’s face, her chin lifted slightly as if in defiance. “I’ll feed you if you don’t feel you can do it yourself.”
“Give it to me,” Orla told her. She sat up in the bedding and took the bowl and spoon, grimacing both at having to support the weight and the way the movement pulled on the burned skin of her arms. She placed the bowl in her lap. Sorcha was still watching her, so she dipped the spoon into the broth and managed to bring it to her mouth. Opening her mouth wide enough to sip the broth hurt, and the heat of the stew was painful against her lips; she struggled not to show it. “Good,” she said.
Sorcha nodded. “Magaidh, Ceiteag, and Ceannàrd Iosa are outside. They’re waiting to see you.”
“What do they want?”
“What they always want. Magaidh is afraid she may have failed you the way she fears she failed your mam. Ceiteag wants to scold you for not listening to her warnings. And Eideard wants to see if you might yet be the ceanndraoi so that he doesn’t have to deal with Greum.”
Orla could hear bitterness and perhaps jealousy in Sorcha’s voice. “And what do you want?” Orla asked her.
“I want to be with you and help you, however I can. Nothing more.” Her chin lifted farther. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, ever since—” She stopped. “Eat your stew. What do you want me to tell them?”
You have to face them eventually . . . “Tell them they can come in. Briefly.”
“Finish your stew. I’ll fetch them, and I’ll make sure they don’t stay long.”
Sorcha left, and Orla could hear muffled voices outside, Sorcha’s raised against the others. Orla ate a few more bites of the stew, but her stomach was rebelling, and she set the bowl on the ground. The voices subsided, and she heard footsteps. The tent flap opened, letting in sunlight; she saw figures against the glare, then the flap dropped again, with Sorcha staying outside the now-crowded tent. Orla drew in a long breath and faced the trio, steeling herself as she felt everyone staring at her face.
It was Magaidh who spoke first. “Oh, Orla. My poor dear . . .” she husked out, dropping to her knees alongside Orla. Magaidh’s anamacha remained well behind as if not wanting to approach. Magaidh started to reach for Orla’s hands, then stopped before touching the cracked, savaged skin there. “Who did this to you?” she asked.
“I did this to myself,” Orla told her. “I called Leagsaidh Mac Cába, and I met the Moonshadow.”
“They did this to you? Why?”
Orla didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. She glanced at her own anamacha, silent and impassive.
“It’s because she awoke what she should have kept asleep,” Ceiteag interjected. She was standing near the tent entrance, her anamacha close by her. “I told your mam, as I told you: the Moonshadow is terribly dangerous. Greum warned her too. Trying to control the Moonshadow warped and eventually killed your mam, and now . . .” Her voice trailed off. The old woman half turned, no longer looking at Orla.
“None of that matters,” Eideard said loudly. He’d moved to the other side of Orla. He looked at her face unflinchingly. A finger traced the line of one of the battle scars on his own face. “Those who fight always bear the marks of their battles. They are marks of honor and bravery, and we all have them. No warrior will care if the ceanndraoi carries hers too.”
“I’m not ceanndraoi,” Orla protested.
“You will be if you’ve brought out the Moonshadow and survived. The Red-Hand and Draoi Ceiteag both know it. Every draoi fears the Moonshadow, but our enemies fear her even more. Ask Magaidh if that’s not true.”
I don’t want to be ceanndraoi only because of fear, Orla thought, but she was too tired to argue. She looked over to Magaidh, whose regard was now on Eideard.
“Aye, our enemies fear the Moonshadow,” Magaidh agreed. Her gaze returned to Orla. “And so do some of our own draoi and warriors as well,” she added. Then, more softly, “But I was never afraid of your mam. Never. I was afraid for her because of the pain I knew she was enduring. But afraid of her?” She shook her head. “No. I put the same trust in you, Orla. I always will. I hope you know that.”
Ceiteag sniffed in the twilight of the tent. “You’re fools,” she muttered. “All of you.”
Eideard grunted. “Fool or not, I want no one other than Draoi Orla in my chariot when we go into battle.”
“Because you imagine it’s the ceannàrd and ceanndraoi riding as one, the way Voada and your uncle did,” Ceiteag scoffed. “Is that the glory you’re imagining in that head of yours, Eideard Iosa? Then you should think about what happened to them. Only fools find glory in defeat. I was Voada’s friend, and I wanted only for her to succeed and be happy, but she chose a different path. I wish only the same for Orla, but I see her walking her mother’s path.”
“A true friend would have followed Voada, not the Red-Hand,” Eideard snapped back at her. “Only a frightened old draoi would have hidden away in Onglse while the real ceanndraoi was fighting the Mundoa in the south.”
The tent flap opened, letting in light that hurt Orla’s eyes. “That’s enough!” Sorcha snapped, her figure a silhouette against the glare. “Stop this. All of you.”
“Sorcha’s right,” Magaidh said. “This bickering isn’t helpful. Orla, what do you need from us?”
The Moonshadow’s anamacha moved with the question, gliding toward Orla until she could feel its icy touch along her side. Orla saw Magaidh and Ceiteag watching the movement while Eideard’s gaze remained on her.
“I need to get up. I need to walk,” she said simply. She held out her hands to Sorcha. “Help me.”
* * *
Her legs were unsteady, and the bog dress felt like a rasp being run over her flesh, though she didn’t lift the hem to see if they had been burned like her arms. Her feet looked normal enough in the sandals she’d put on. She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. Magaidh walked on her left, Sorcha on her right, both ready to catch her should she fall, while Ceiteag and Eideard walked a pace behind.
The wind was cold on her face, which at least eased the burning.
As they walked through the lane between the tents, those in the camp stopped to stare at her. Orla kept her head up, her chin lifted, her mouth set in a line as if she didn’t care what they were thinking. She could hear whispered conversations around them, none of them loud enough to understand what people were saying.
The voices of the anamacha gave her little consolation.
Ahead there was a man in draoi robes and torc standing in the lane, watching their approach. The sun was behind him so that Orla had to shade her eyes, but she knew who it was by the cane the man grasped in his left hand, leaning heavily on it: Greum Red-Hand, his expression stern.
“Draoi Orla,” he said in his low voice as they came within a few paces. She saw his eyes widen as he took in her appearance. “I heard the news of what happened to you. Is it true that the Moonshadow did this to you?”
She nodded silently, and he echoed the gesture.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He lifted his right hand, the one that shone red-orange in the light. “Do yo
u know how I came by this?” he asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “A few of the old draoi know the story, but most of them are gone now, and I haven’t told the tale in a long time. The truth is that we both have anamacha with great potential, Draoi Orla. There’s a reason that the ceanndraoi is most often someone who is bonded to one of the earliest anamacha, and I’ll admit the Moonshadow is the First and thus the most powerful. But mine . . . mine was the next to emerge from the blackstones after Leagsaidh opened them, when she brought other Cateni to Bàn Cill to see if they, like her, could merge with those who were caught in the blackstones. For my anamacha, it was Iseabail of Clan Buccleugh. She became one with the demigod who slipped from the second of the blackstones, and it . . . it is nearly as powerful and difficult to control as the Moonshadow.”
Greum took a long, deep breath, staring at his own hand. “When the anamacha claimed me,” he continued, “I was like most young and foolish draoi, and my teacher, like most, tried to convince me that I should use only the least of the draoi caught in the anamacha at first. I thought I could delve far deeper than that, so I called up Iseabail, and with her came the creature at the heart of the anamacha, whom she called Dòrn, the Fist.” Greum fisted his hand and let it fall back to his side. “The Fist marked me for my arrogance, and I was forever after ‘Greum Red-Hand,’ a symbol to my fellow new draoi not to search all the way to the cores of their anamacha. It seems we have a new symbol now. I wonder what they’ll name you: Orla the Burned, perhaps?”
There was no mockery in his voice, only a resigned sadness.
“Tell me, Ceanndraoi,” Orla said. “Afterward, were you able to reach all the way to the anamacha’s heart and use Iseabail Dòrn?”
“It was too dangerous,” he answered. “I never tried again.”
“I will,” she told him. “I have no fear of the Moonshadow now. It has done the worst it could do to me, and I’ve survived it.”
“You still believe you can control the Moonshadow and not succumb?” Greum scoffed. “Then you’re as much a fool as your mam.”
“The Moonshadow itself wouldn’t agree with you, nor would Leagsaidh,” Orla told him. “And truthfully, I don’t care what you believe.”
“Is that a challenge, Draoi Orla? Does Orla the Burned think she should be ceanndraoi?”
“I leave that in Elia’s hands and yours,” Orla said to them all. And with that she nodded again to Greum. “Enjoy your day, Ceanndraoi. Sorcha, I’d like to return to my tent now and rest some more.”
19
Deceptions and Departures
THE NEWS TRAVELED RAPIDLY through the Cateni camp, spreading from tent to tent. It was Magaidh who brought it to Orla, entering her tent without calling out first. “You must come to the escarpment,” the draoi said breathlessly. Her gaze went from Orla to Sorcha, sharing her bedding, though she said nothing. Orla noticed that Magaidh’s gaze kept slipping aside from her savaged face and coming back, as if constantly expecting to see it somehow restored to what it had once been. “The ceannàrd is asking for you, as is the ceanndraoi.”
Orla sat up with a groan and a grimace as muscles and burned skin protested. Sorcha yawned and blinked, pulling the blanket up over her body as she realized someone else was in the tent.
“What’s happening?” Orla asked.
“It’s best that you come see for yourself,” Magaidh answered. “Hurry and get dressed. I’ll wait outside for you.”
When they’d put on clothing, Magaidh led them to the escarpment through a camp that was chaotic, with warriors, draoi, servants, and camp followers all bustling about and talking excitedly amongst themselves. The walk itself nearly exhausted Orla; more than once she felt Sorcha’s hand at her arm to help her, but she ignored the pain and forced herself to keep moving.
At the escarpment were the ceannàrd and ceanndraoi along with Ceiteag, many of the senior draoi, as well as most of the àrds. As Orla approached the lip of the steep bluffs, she saw immediately what had caused the uproar.
The Mundoan army had filled the floodplain below just the day before, but there was no army there now. It was gone, vanished. All that remained were a few tents and scorched circles where fires had burned. “The sentries said that the campfires were burning all night, so they didn’t suspect anything,” Magaidh said to Orla. “The night was moonless and clouded, and they could see nothing but the fires and a few people feeding them; they didn’t see or hear the troops leaving. It wasn’t until dawn that they realized the camps had all been abandoned.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Eideard added. “The two ships you saw, that you thought nearly rebuilt? They’re gone too, and we can’t see anyone working on the others at the docks. I sent scouts down onto the plain; they tell me that there’s still a cohort of Mundoan troops holding the bridge, but otherwise Savas has abandoned Muras.”
Orla shivered, feeling the Moonshadow’s anamacha pressing close to her.
“He’s going to Onglse,” Orla said. “He wants the island and Bàn Cill.”
“No, he’s not,” Greum insisted. Orla drew her head back.
“He is,” she insisted. “I know it.”
“You can’t be certain of that.” Greum turned from the view to glare at Orla. He studied her face intently. “We don’t know where they’ve gone yet, and two ships of troops are hardly enough to allow Savas to mount an invasion of Onglse.”
“I know what he said to me,” Orla insisted. “His orders are to take Onglse, and he obeys orders. Send scouts westward along the river and you’ll find his army.”
“I’ve already done that,” Eideard said. “Savas may be on one of the ships, but the great bulk of his army has to be traveling on foot. Even at a forced march, they can’t be that far away. If they’re following the Meadham, our rider I’ve sent out will see them.”
“Your scouts won’t find them, Ceannàrd Iosa,” Greum said. “I believe Savas has gone back to his Great-Voice to crow about his victory here at Muras and spin a tale of how he singlehandedly stopped the Cateni army. We’ve already won here. The war is over for now, and we can hope it will remain so for another year or more.”
“But assuming you’re right and Savas still intends to attack Onglse,” Greum continued, “that means Savas is taking the army to Gediz—as you’ve suggested, Ceannàrd—expecting to build the ships there that he needs to transport his army. And that would take moons.”
Eideard shrugged. “Either way, Muras is standing open before us,” Eideard said. “We could take it in a hand of days, maybe less. We should do exactly that—sack Muras for the wealth it can give us, free the Cateni in the town for a second time, then burn the town to the ground so the Mundoans can’t ever use it again to threaten us.”
There was a rumbling of agreement from those around them, but Greum was shaking his head. Orla’s anamacha continued to scoff.
“Muras is a baited hook being dangled in front of a hungry fish,” Orla shouted against them all, though the effort seemed to tear at her throat. She could feel her burned skin pulling around her mou
th and neck, and the pain made her want to moan.
Greum laughed derisively. “Ah, Burned Orla is now an expert on Mundoan strategy? Has the Moonshadow gifted her with knowledge beyond her own? Or don’t you think Savas capable of making a mistake, or that I could be right and he’s gone back to the Great-Voice to convince him that we Cateni are no longer a threat?”
Orla pushed the pain to the back of her mind so she could speak. “As I’ve already said, Altan Savas is a soldier who obeys orders, and his orders are to take Onglse. That’s what he’ll try to do. I don’t know how he intends to do that, but I know he’ll try. Ceanndraoi, Ceannàrd—at a fast march, how many days are we from Onglse?”
Eideard shrugged. “We’re a hand and four days to the coast. Maybe a day less if Elia blesses us with good weather and we leave the camp train behind. What of it? Savas’ army can’t travel any faster than ours, and from this side of the river we can cut overland directly to the coast. They can’t—even if they had remained on this side of the Meadham, they don’t know the land as we do. They have to follow the river.”
“Perhaps, but once we’re at the coast, we still have to arrange for Cateni ships to take us across the strait. That will take several more days, assuming, as you say, Elia blesses us with good weather for the crossing. So it’s likely two hands of days or more for us to be back on Onglse, and you’re considering having us dawdle here for another hand of days in order to take Muras.” Orla didn’t try to disguise the scorn in her voice. “Meanwhile, the ceanndraoi seems to want us to declare victory and simply disband the army. Savas has two ships crowded with as many soldiers as he can cram into them. Those ships and the soldiers on them could be at Onglse in a hand of days, then return to the mouth of the Meadham to pick up more men. Who defends Onglse and Bàn Cill? A few minor draoi? A smattering of warriors? A ring of half-empty forts? Savas doesn’t need his entire army to begin the invasion of Onglse. Ceannàrd, Ceanndraoi, we should head back to Onglse now.”
A Rising Moon Page 22