Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  “With three of us, we couldn’t outrun the others with one horse, so I turned him loose. Hopefully he’ll find his own way home. As for the others, they’re scouring the countryside now, looking for us. We’ve seen them twice while we were here; once a pair of riders, then four more who crossed the bridge and went up on Knobtop. Look . . .” He stopped, pulling brush aside so that Jenna could see the bog. They were on one of the grassy, overgrown hummocks that dotted the marsh. She could see the peat-stained open water of the Mill Creek a little bit away, and beyond the creek was the rise of the northern bank and the low hills that concealed their house. Beyond the hills, she could see a column of black smoke smeared across the sky. She knew what it was even as her mam spoke.

  “They burned the cottage,” Maeve said. Her voice was strangely calm. “Everything we had . . .”

  “The Rí Gabair will give you all and more, once we get to Lár Bhaile. I promise you that.”

  Maeve’s eyes flashed, and Jenna heard the mingled anger and sorrow in her voice. “Will the Rí give me back the scarf that Niall gave me the night he first came to me? Will he give me the cups and plates that Niall made with his own hands, or the pot with blue glaze I fired for him? Will I see the first linen shirt I made for Jenna, when she was just a babe? The Rí can give me money and build a new cottage, but he can’t give me a tithe of what’s been destroyed.”

  “I know that,” Mac Ard replied softly. “I wish it were different, Maeve—may I call you that?” Jenna’s mam nodded. “Good. And please call me Padraic. I wish I could undo my words to Rí Mallaghan and that I had come here with my own squad of gardai, as he wished. Maybe then none of this would have happened. But I can’t unsay the words, and I can’t ease your loss. All I can do now is try to keep us alive.”

  “How?” Maeve asked. She looked at Jenna. “You don’t want her to—”

  “No,” Mac Ard said quickly. “She doesn’t need more blood on her hands, nor do I think she knows how to control the stone or whether she could repeat what she did. I certainly don’t know the answer to that. The Connachtans will expect us to make for Lár Bhaile, so they’ll be watching the High Road and the River Duán. They can’t stay here long, however—they know word will eventually reach the Rí’s ears about this raid and he’ll send soldiers after them.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We find a place to hide for a few days.”

  Maeve shook her head, hugging Jenna. “Where? I don’t know of such a place. They would find us here, eventually.”

  “I agree,” Mac Ard answered. “So we’ll go into Doire Coill.”

  Jenna cried out at that and Maeve shook her head. “Have you gone mad, Tiarna Mac Ard? You take us from one death to another.”

  “I take us from sure death to a hope for life,” he answered. “They’ll be searching the bogs soon enough, Maeve. We can’t stay here. We need to go, and we need to go now while we can.”

  Maeve was still shaking her head, but Jenna felt her mam’s arms relax around her and knew that she’d made a decision, staring at the smoke rising from the ruin of their lives. Everything they’d known was gone; their only ally was Mac Ard. Jenna leaned toward Maeve. “We have to trust him, Mam,” she whispered. “We have to.”

  She could see the lines at the corners of her mam’s eyes relax as she made the decision. “All right,” she said finally. “We’ll follow you. Padraic.”

  Jenna knew that most of the tales were simply that—stories to frighten the children. The residents of Ballintubber had a thousand tales and legends and stories about the half-wild land that surrounded them. The Rí Mallaghan might proclaim himself king over Tuath Gabair, but in truth, his rule only extended to the small towns, the villages, and the occasional squares of farmed land: tamed patches of a landscape that had seen vast, misty centuries when legends walked alive.

  Legends still walked, if the stories were to be believed, in those hidden places where humankind came infrequently, or not at all. Doire Coill was one of those places, a lingering remnant of a greater oak forest that had once stretched from Lough Lár to the Westering Sea, and north and south for leagues, a wall of trees shading meandering bogs and hidden valleys, where giant elk and ferocious knifefangs had roamed. Most of the forest was gone now, eroded by axes, time, and changing climate. Yet portions of it yet existed, here and there through the peninsula of Talamh an Ghlas. Doire Coill was not the largest of these or the most well known, but it loomed large in the stories Jenna had heard. One Hand Bailey, in his cups at Tara’s, had often spoken of the time he’d lost his hand.

  “Oh, I’d heard the tales, aye,” Jenna could remember his drunken voice saying, low and slurred with alcohol. “Rubbish, I thinks, because I was young an’ stupid. So I takes me old horse and cart down the High Road past Knobtop, thinking that Doire Coill weren’t likely to miss one of those nasty old black oaks, and wouldn’t that make a great pile of lumber for the selling. That’s what I thought, and every day of my life since I’ve regretted it. Me an’ Daragh O’Rheallagh started a’sawing at the closest trunk to the road with a two-man blade, and at first it went fine, though I thought I heard the trees rustling angrily at the sight of the metal, and a cold wind came out from underneath the trees like the forest was breathin’, a foul breath of dead and molderin’ leaves. Didn’t see any animals, which was strange: not a squirrel, not a bird, not a deer; like they’d all gone, knowing what we were doing and afraid of it. We kept at our sawin’, wantin’ to get out of there as quick as we could—the noise dead in the stillness, the tree sittin’ there hating us, the sawdust piling at our feet. Then, all a’ sudden, it fell, before it had any right to do so, like it chose to fall. Crushed poor Daragh under it before he could move, and the saw blade snapped with an awful noise an’ whipped out, an’ it sliced me hand right off me arm. I thought I’d die there meself, but I managed to tie a scrap a’ cloth around me arm quick to stop the bleedin’. Wasn’t no such luck for Daragh; he was already dead, his head smashed and his brains dashed out on the ground. I came back here quick as I could, and six men and the new Widow O’Rheallagh went back to get Daragh’s body out from under the tree. When they got there, it was gone. Not a trace of ’im was left. I swear it—ask Widow O’Rheallagh herself, or Tom Mullin over there, who went with ’em. Doire Coill’s an evil place, I say. I already gave it me hand, and that’s all a’ me it’s to get. I won’t go in there again, and them that do are nothin’ but fools.”

  Bailey’s words resonated in Jenna’s head as they left the hummock in the bog and started heading south, moving parallel to the rough line of the High Road and taking care to stay hidden from possible watchers on the rising flanks of Knobtop. It was getting near dark, with all of them tired and soggy nearly to the waist, when Jenna noticed that the ground underneath their feet was firmer, and that the trees around them were twisted, thick-trunked oaks hung with parasitic mistletoe, huddled together in a dark mass.

  They were within the indistinct edges of Doire Coill, west and south of Ballintubber. Somewhere to their left, the High Road to Lár Bhaile (and beyond to Dún Laoghaire) passed within a stone’s throw of the forest’s leaves before turning sharply east to meet and cross River Duán at the village of Áth Iseal, a good full day’s journey from Ballintubber on horseback. Between Áth Iseal and Ballintubber, there were few human habitations—and in the empty space between no one gave allegiance to Rí Gabair or any king.

  “How long do we need to stay here?” Maeve asked. Jenna looked at the deep green shadows under the trees. She let the pack she carried fall to the ground. Contrary to what One Hand Bailey had said, she saw life enough: black squirrels bounding through the tangled limbs above them, starlings and finches flitting from branch to branch. The trees here were ancient: they had seen the first movement of humankind through this land, and Jenna sensed that they remembered and were not pleased. Mac Ard’s boots crunched on a thick carpet of old leaves and acorn caps.

  “Two days, maybe a few more,” he said. “The
Connachtans can’t stay longer without risking open war, and I don’t think they want that. Two days, and we can chance the High Road again.”

  “Two days,” Jenna repeated. “Here in Doire Coill.”

  “It’s a forest, that’s all,” Mac Ard told her. “Don’t worry yourself over silly tales. I’ve been out here before, at the edge of the Doire, and slept under its branches. I had strange dreams that night, but that’s all.”

  “We’ll need a fire,” Maeve said. “So we don’t freeze during the night.”

  “There’s a tinderbox in one of the packs. A fire will be safe enough after the sun goes down and they can’t see the smoke, I suppose,” Mac Ard said. “We’re far enough off the High Road. If we go a bit farther in, the trees will shield the light . . .” Maeve looked at Jenna as Mac Ard started to rummage in the packs.

  “He knows what he’s doing, Mam. And if he hadn’t come to help us, we might be dead.”

  Maeve nodded. She went to Mac Ard and began helping him. An hour later, they were huddled in a tiny clearing with a small fire of dead wood that they’d gathered. The warmth of the fire was welcome, but to Jenna, the flickering light only seemed to intensify the darkness around them, encasing them in a globe of bright air while blackness pressed in around them. They’d eaten a loaf of hard bread and a few slivers of cheese from the pack, with water that still tasted of the bog from a nearby stream. Maeve and Mac Ard sat close to each other, closer than Jenna had ever seen her mam sit to another man. She was pleased at that, huddled in her cloak across the fire. She watched them through the flame, talking softly together, with a brief smile once touching her mam’s lips. Jenna smiled herself at that. Maeve had rebuffed the advances of every man in Ballintubber, from what Jenna had heard and seen, but this Mac Ard was different. Jenna wondered, for a moment, how her own da might have reacted to what happened, and that brought back to her the events of the day, and she wanted to cry, wanted to weep for Kesh and the soldiers she’d killed and the lives that she’d left destroyed behind her, but there were no tears inside her.

  She was dry, cold, and simply exhausted.

  Wings fluttered somewhere above and behind her, startling Jenna. The rustling came again, loud and closer, and a huge black crow swooped low across the fire and lifted to land in a branch near Mac Ard. It cawed once, a grotesque, hoarse cough of a sound. Its bright eyes regarded them, the glossy head turning in quick, abrupt moves. “Nasty thing,” Maeve said, glaring at the bird. “They’re thieves, those birds, and scavengers. Look at it staring at us, like it’s waiting for us to die.”

  Mac Ard picked up the bow and nocked an arrow. “It won’t stare long,” he said. He drew the bowstring back, the braided leather creaking under the strain.

  “Hold!”

  The voice came from the darkness, and a form stepped from the night shadows into the light of the fire: a man, old and hunched over, attired in ragged leather and fur and supporting himself with a gnarled oaken staff. The crow cawed again, flapped its wings, and flew to the man, perching itself on his left shoulder. “Who are you?” Mac Ard asked, the bow still drawn and the arrow now pointed at the chest of the stranger.

  “No one worth killing,” the man answered. His words were understandable, but thick with an odd accent. He seemed to be staring somewhere slightly to the side and above Mac Ard, and in the gleam of the firelight, Jenna saw the man’s eyes: unbroken, milky white pupils.

  “He’s blind, Tiarna,” she said.

  The man laughed at that, and at the same time the crow lifted its head and cackled with him, the two sounds eerily similar. “This body’s blind, aye,” he said, “but I can see.” The man lifted his right hand and stroked the crow’s belly. “Dúnmharú here is my eyes. What he sees, I see. And what I see now is two village folk and a tiarna, who know so little they would light fires under these trees.”

  “This is not your land,” Mac Ard answered. “This forest is within Tuath Gabair, and belongs to the Rí. And you’ve still not given us your name.”

  The old man’s amusement was loud, echoed by the crow. “My name? Call me Seancoim,” he answered. “And Rí Gabair can claim whatever he likes: his cities and villages, his bogs and fields. But the old places like this forest belongs to themselves, and even Rí Gabair knows that.” He grinned at them, gap-toothed, and gestured. “Now, follow me. I’ll take you where you’ll be safe.”

  “We’re safe enough here,” Mac Ard said.

  “Are you?” Seancoim asked. “Do you think your young woman’s sky-magic can protect you here?” He glanced up with his dead eyes. A strong wind stirred the tops of the trees, and Jenna could hear their limbs groaning and stirring. At the edges of the firelight, branches writhed and stretched like wooden, grasping arms, and the sound of the wind through the trees was like a sobbing voice, mournful. The hair raised on Jenna’s forearms and the light of the fire shuddered, making the shadows move all around them. “Mam?” Jenna called out.

  “Stop!” Mac Ard commanded Seancoim, and he brought his bow back to full draw. The crow stirred, wings fluttering, and at the same moment the arrow snapped in half like a twig even as Mac Ard released the bowstring. The crow settled again on Seancoim’s shoulder; the wind in the trees died to a breeze, the leaves rustling. “Put out your fire and follow me,” Seancoim repeated. “The tiarna can keep his sword in his hand, if it makes him feel better. But it won’t do him any good here, and the trees hate the smell of iron.”

  With that, the old man turned, shuffling slowly into the darkness, his staff tapping the ground before him.

  7

  Seancoim’s Cavern

  JENNA wrinkled her nose at the smell: musty earth, and a strange, spicy odor that could only be Seancoim himself. A draft wafted from the entrance of the cavern, the mouth of which was a narrow slit in a rocky, bare rise another stripe’s walk deeper into the forest. Yellow light beckoned beyond, outlining the stone arch, and she smelled burning peat as the wind changed.

  “It’s warm inside,” Seancoim said, gesturing to them as he ducked into the passage. Dúnmharú cawed and leaped from his shoulder, disappearing into the cave. “And light. There’s food as well, enough for all. Come.” He vanished inside, and Jenna saw her mam glance at Mac Ard. “We’ve followed him this far,” she said.

  “I’ll go first,” Mac Ard answered. He drew his sword and, turning sideways, followed the old man. Maeve waited a moment, then went into the opening with Jenna close behind.

  Beyond the narrow passage, the cavern widened significantly, the roof rising to follow the slope of the hill, the sides opening up quickly left and right. The passage led slightly downward a dozen strides, and Jenna found herself in a large room. A central fireplace ringed with stones sent smoke curling upward toward the roof, lost in darkness above. The low flames from the peat sent wan light to the stone walls, and Jenna could dimly see another passageway leading deeper into the hill. Along the wall were several querns, small stone mills used for grinding corn and other grains. Hung everywhere around the cavern were racks with drying herbs and various plants laid over the wooden rods. Some of them Jenna recognized: parsley, thyme, lemon grass, mint; others were entirely unfamiliar. The smell of the herbs was almost overpowering, a barrage of odors.

  Dúnmharú had roosted on a rocky shelf nearby. Beyond the drying racks and querns, there was almost no furniture in the room. If it was a home, it was a bare one. Jenna could see a straw pallet laid out near the fire, a bucket of water, and a long wooden box that Seancoim eased himself down on. He leaned his staff against the box, but it fell to the stones and the sound echoed harshly.

  “It’s not pretty,” he said. He leaned down and placed the staff within reach. “But it’s dry, and warm enough, and not susceptible to enemies burning it down.” He glanced at Maeve as he said that, and Jenna heard her mam’s intake of breath. Mac Ard scowled, walking around the perimeter of the cavern, his sword sheathed now but his hand on the hilt.

  “This is where you live?” Jenna asked, and Se
ancoim laughed.

  “Here, and other places,” he answered. “I have a dozen homes in the forest, and a dozen more I’ve forgotten about over the decades.”

  Jenna nodded. “You live alone?”

  Seancoim shook his head. “No. There are others like me here, a few, and I see them from time to time. And there are more of my people, though not many, in the old forests that are left, or in the high mountains, or the deepest bogs. We were the first ones to find Talamh an Ghlas.”

  “You’re Bunús Muintir,” Jenna said. The word was like breathing a legend. The oldest poems and songs spoke of the Bunús Muintir, of the battles that had raged between the Bunús and Jenna’s people, the Daoine. In the poems, the Bunús were always evil and horrific, fierce and cruel warriors who had allied with spirits, wights, and demonic creatures.

  “Aye, I am the blood of Bunús Muintir, and I know your Daoine songs.” Seancoim said. “I’ve heard them, and like all history, they’re half true. We were here when your ancestors came into this place, and we fought them and sometimes even bred with them, but Daoine blood and Daoine swords proved stronger, until finally those of the pure lineage sought the hidden places. There were no final battles, no decisive victory or defeat, despite what the songs tell you. True endings come slowly. Sometimes they come not at all, or just fade into the new tales.” Groaning, Seancoim stood again. “There’s bread there, on the ledge near Dún mharú, baked two days ago now, I’m afraid. There’s still some of the last blackberries of the season, and smoked meat. That’s all I have to offer and it’s not fancy, but it will fill your bellies. Go on and help yourselves.”

  The bread was hard, the berries mushy with age and the meat tough, but Jenna thought it strangely delicious after the day’s exertions. She finished her portion quickly, then broke off a hunk of bread and went outside. The clouds had parted, and a crescent moon turned the clouds to silver white. She was above the trees, looking down on their swaying crowns. She could see Knobtop, rising up against the stars to the north, farther away than she’d ever seen it before.