Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Jenna had remained silent, staring back as the rider’s eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. Then, with an arrogant sniff, he wheeled around and galloped away. The Banrion had unrolled the parchment. “He’ll meet us at Glenn Aill,” she said. Her eyebrows raised as she glanced at Jenna. “This is what you want, isn’t it, First Holder?”

  Jenna felt a flush rise in her cheeks. “I don’t know of any other way to get Ennis back.” Máister Cléurach came up to them, listening. Jenna couldn’t look at him, afraid of what Aithne might see if she did.

  The Banrion seemed mostly amused by Jenna’s statement. “Love is a phantom, Holder. It lives but a few years, then withers away and leaves you wondering how you could have ever thought you liked this sad person sharing your bed.” She paused, her head tilting slightly as she regarded Jenna. “I think we’re more alike than you want to believe, Jenna, and I certainly wouldn’t give up what you have for that.”

  “I suppose I don’t have your cynicism, Banrion.”

  Máister Cléurach, grunted but said nothing. Aithne smiled at Jenna. “I would call it realism, Holder. Besides, your sacrifice leaves my brother as the Holder of Lámh Shábhála.”

  “I would have thought that was something you might prefer.”

  “Love is a phantom,” Aithne repeated, “whether ’tis between lovers or between siblings. I hold no illusions as to whether Árón would allow any lingering affection for me to stand in the way of what he wants.”

  “And that is . . . ?”

  “He would like to see a true Rí sitting on the throne at Dún Kiil, one who wouldn’t need or want the Comhairle. With Lámh Shábhála, he could well have that.” Her gaze lingered on Jenna, and Aithne seemed to sigh. “I wish you trusted me more, Holder. I think we both actually want the same thing.” She kicked heels into her horse’s side.

  “Does she know?” Máister Cléurach asked softly as the Banrion moved up the trail. Jenna shook her head.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We may have made a mistake in not telling her.”

  “If so, it’s already made,” Jenna answered. “We’ve gone too far to take the chance now.”

  The Banrion stopped, looking back at the two of them. She waved her arm. “We go this way,” she said.

  They were in their second day of storm.

  “ ’Tis no worse than others I’ve seen,” Máister Cléurach said. “The sea is a fey mistress and we’re no more than a speck in her hand—there’s no escaping her whims, not in Inish Thuaidh.”

  Jenna huddled sullen and miserable on her horse. The reedcoat she wore flapped in the gale force winds that shredded the gray-black clouds above and pushed them firmly across the sky. The persistent and steady rain, blown nearly horizontal, had penetrated every fold and gap in the reedcoat and plastered her hair to her skull under the hood she held over her face. Her mount plodded through the deluge, great clumps of mud clinging to her hoofs and fetlocks, her mane dripping and the leather saddle and reins sodden. The clouds ran aground on the tops of the steep mountains to either side of them, a thousand dancing and splashing rills and streams plummeting down their sides toward the river whose banks they followed.

  It helped, a little, that the others in their small party were suffering with her. Máister Cléurach sniffled and coughed, the gardai and retainers grumbled and muttered. Only the Banrion Aithne seemed unaffected by the weather, sitting uncomplaining on her black mare as she peered around her.

  “Another few hours,” she said. “We’re nearly there.”

  Glenn Aill emerged from the storm and haze like an apparition: a curving half-moon rampart of native stone thirty or forty feet high, its horns facing outward toward them. Huddled high on a steep mountainside and adorned with draperies of vine and moss, the fortification could have been part of the landscape. Dour, small windows peered out from two towers at either end of the structure; a single massive oaken door at the center led out into a cramped, winding path through fifty yards of chevaux de frise: pointed, tall rocks set like thousands of teeth bristling in the gums of the earth, through which an army would have trouble advancing at any speed. The rocks gave way to a long, sloping meadow separated by stone fences into dozens of small fields planted with various crops or grazed by sheep, all running down to a narrow black lough that filled the valley in front of them. A stone-walled bridge with wooden planks arched over the water. No more than two riders could have ridden across it abreast. “Glenn Aill was built over two hundred years ago and has never been taken by force of arms, though there have been attempts,” the Banrion said. “Beyond the walls is the keep, also built of stone. Even if the outer wall and keep were overrun, there are corridors leading back into caverns in the mountain where you could hide forever, or come out far from here.”

  “You lived here?” Jenna asked. Aithne nodded, her gaze on the fortifications looming above.

  “Now and again, when there was need,” she answered. “Normally, there are only a few families of attendants here to keep the place ready. Our parents retreated here once, when the chieftain of Carraig an Ghaill attacked us over a dispute about grazing lands. I remember watching the battle—they never got farther than the bridge before they turned and retreated again. And my family would come here every so often, just to visit.”

  Jenna glanced at the forbidding scene, and Máister Cléurach shifted in his saddle. “Such a lovely holiday spot,” he muttered, droplets falling from his white beard as he spoke. The Banrion only smiled.

  “I think that right now Árón feels it’s quite lovely,” she said.

  They rode over the bridge. The workers in the field stopped to look at them, and up on the mountainside, the great door in the wall opened. Several riders emerged, making their way through the chevaux de frise. “We should wait here,” the Banrion said. “Out of any archer’s range.”

  They pulled up their horses. The rain pummeled them as the riders made their way down the long slope. “This is your last chance, Holder,” Aithne said to Jenna. “We could still turn and leave.” Jenna only shook her head.

  The riders stopped a few hundred yards from them. Árón was at their head. He reined in his horse and lifted a hand. “I expected no one but my sister,” he said, his voice sounding distant and muffled in the storm.

  “I need to see Ennis,” Jenna called back to him. “I need to know that he’s still alive.”

  Árón made a gesture, and two horsemen from the rear came forward. On one steed was Ennis, his hands bound together in front of him. The other was one of Árón’s men, with one hand on Ennis’ arm and a long dagger placed firmly against his throat.

  “Ennis . . .” Jenna nearly sobbed the word. He sagged in his saddle as if desperately weary, and his green eyes were clouded with pain. His hair was disheveled and plastered to his skull with the rain; his skin was pallid and drawn. He stared at Jenna, pleadingly, and shook his head, water splattering on his face so that he blinked. He looked beaten. Defeated. Jenna nearly despaired, seeing him.

  “Jenna,” he husked. “Don’t—” He stopped with a gasping intake of breath as the man holding him jabbed the blade against his throat.

  “Be quiet,” Árón warned him. “You are to say nothing.”

  She wanted desperately to go to Ennis, to rip the bonds from his hands and kiss him, to hold him in her arms again. And yet . . . he gazed at her like a lost thing, with no hope or joy in his eyes at all. Is this the way Mac Ard was after I took the cloch from him? Is this what I would look like once Lámh Shábhála is gone—or worse, since it’s woven itself so deeply into me . . . ? She started to urge her horse forward, but Árón lifted his hand and the man holding Ennis pressed the dagger tight. “Move this way, Holder, and he dies. You know what I want. Give it to my sister. Now!”

  Jenna let her hood fall back, uncaring of the rain. She brought her hands up and touched the chain around her neck. Muscles jumped in her face; she tightened her mouth, closing her eyes.

  She lifted the chain from a
round her neck, the stone swinging in its silver cage, and handed it into Aithne’s waiting hands. She bowed her head, clutching herself around the waist and cradling her right arm to herself as she gave a sobbing cry. Aithne glanced at the stone in her hand. Her lips lifted slightly, and Jenna quickly dropped her gaze away from the Banrion’s face.

  Árón’s laughter came from up the hill. “Well, you are stronger than I thought possible, Holder. You should have heard your lover scream when I plucked the cloch from his hands,” he called down to them. “Aithne, you may come forward now.”

  Máister Cléurach, alongside Jenna, leaned toward her. “She knows,” he whispered.

  “Maybe. It doesn’t matter. Árón takes the stone, sends Ennis to us, and we go,” Jenna replied.

  “And after that?”

  “We ride hard and fight if we must.”

  Jenna heard the Banrion slap her horse’s neck with the reins, heard the animal take a few steps forward through the mud. Then she stopped, halfway between the two groups. “It’s not much of a jewel, Árón,” she said. “But I wonder . . . how it would look on me?”

  “Aithne!” He shouted the name, a call of fury. Máister Cléurach hissed in irritation. Jenna glanced up to see Árón’s horse rear in alarm, and nocked crossbows appeared from under the cloaks of his companions. “Don’t be a fool, Sister. You’ll wear that cloch for no longer than a breath. The moment you take it in your hand and try to claim it will be your last.”

  Aithne laughed. “Such glorious threats. What will you do with it, Brother? Use it to promote yourself? Such a banal and selfish purpose.”

  “Aithne, I warn you. The blood we share won’t stop me from giving the order.”

  “Oh, I know it won’t.” Jenna watched Aithne heft the stone in her palm, as if in thought. “In truth, I gave this almost no thought until just now, when I took it into my hand . . .” She lifted her head up. “The truth is, Árón, that I trust the Holder Jenna more than I trust you. But . . .” She clucked at the horse, urging it forward again. As she came alongside Árón, she nodded her head to Ennis.

  “Let him go now,” Jenna heard her say. “That was the agreement.”

  “Give me Lámh Shábhála.” He held his hand out, palm up.

  “Let O’Deoradháin go,” Aithne repeated.

  “When I have Lámh Shábhála in my hand. Not before.”

  Aithne glanced over her shoulder toward Jenna, then placed the necklace in his hand. He stared at it, then his eyes lifted to find Jenna’s gaze and he raised his voice to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is still not sufficient payment for my poor Cianna.” He nodded to the man holding Ennis.

  The knife moved, slashing deep, and blood fountained even as Jenna’s hand belatedly closed around the true cloch, hidden in a small pocket in her clóca. “Ennis!” she screamed. “Ennis!”

  He was already falling, his eyes open and unseeing, a froth of red foam on his lips.

  Jenna was sobbing as she ripped open Lámh Shábhála with her mind. Unthinking, she threw its power, wild and raw, toward Árón. He was still holding the necklace in his hand, not yet realizing that it was a false stone. He was defenseless, his own cloch still resting untouched at his breast. She wanted to see him crushed and smashed, wanted the lightnings of the cloch to snap and burn around his screaming, broken body. She saw the lightning flash and crackle, arcing toward him, then . . .

  Just before the fury struck Árón, Jenna saw another lightning strike her own, and the two exploded in a white fireball and thunder. Another bolt followed, and Jenna was forced to shove it aside.

  That is Ennis’ cloch, she realized. They’ve given it to someone.

  Chaos erupted. Her senses lost in the cloch’s, Jenna was vaguely aware of shouts and curses. She tried to follow the cloch’s energy back, to see who possessed it, to kill him because he had what should have been Ennis’.

  “. . . Lámh Shábhála! Use it!”

  “. . . she still has it!”

  Jenna was vaguely aware of what was happening around her. Máister Cléurach’s hand convulsed around the stone about his neck; immediately the storm howled a thousandfold with Stormbringer’s energy. A hurricane wind tossed men from their saddles and pounded against the walls of Glenn Aill. She saw Árón’s fist close around the false Lámh Shábhála, then his face convulsed with a curse as he tossed it aside. Aithne had turned her horse, galloping back toward them as Árón lifted his own cloch.

  Jenna, though, kept her attention on the person using Ennis’ cloch. You bastard . . . I’m almost there . . . I can feel you . . .

  A stream of energy—sapphire and white streams hissed and snarled, reminding Jenna all too well of the ambush in Dún Kiil—flared from the Keep and struck Aithne, hurling the woman backward from her horse.

  . . . there! I can almost see your face . . . The winged demon appeared in the air above them, shouting rage; the lava-creature spewed orange flame as the other two Clochs Mór that had attacked Jenna and Ennis in Dun Kiil now opened.

  . . . by the Mother-Creator!

  Jenna saw the figure holding Ennis’ cloch, standing at one of the windows of the towers on the wall. She saw his face and she nearly released Lámh Shábhála with the shock.

  She knew now why the cloch was handled so well and easily. She knew now who had helped Ó Dochartaigh plan the ambush. She knew now that there was another reason Ennis had been taken.

  The new Holder was also its old one: Padraic Mac Ard.

  In the cloch-vision, it was as if they faced one another in the same room though a quarter mile or more separated them. His mouth moved, his eyes almost sad. “Jenna . . .” The word was loud in her hearing, even through the clamor. She recoiled backward, the vision of Mac Ard receding as if she were falling away from him impossibly fast. She found herself back in her body, the roar of the battle around her.

  “Jenna!” Máister Cléurach shouted. His face was grim and strained, his flesh pale as he lashed out with Stormbringer against the other clochs. He pointed at Aithne, but even the gesture allowed an opening, and the lava-beast threw globules of fire that the winds of Stormbringer hurled aside only barely in time. The field workers were running away in panic; the rows of wheat nearest Jenna and the others were now ablaze. The Dun Kiil gardai had gone to Aithne, swords drawn uselessly. One went down with a crossbow quarrel in his breast.

  The mage-demon flapped its dragon wings above Aithne, claws out as it stooped like a hawk and plummeted. At the same moment, blue lightning erupted again from Árón’s hand. Jenna imagined a wall above the Banrion and she felt Lámh Shábhála shudder in her hand as the demon struck it, as the searing energy from Árón’s cloch battered at the shielding force. The demon, growling in frustration, tore at the shield; Jenna could feel it as if the claws were gouging at her own flesh. Aithne rose groggily, and she touched her own cloch.

  A new demon appeared, the twin of the first. It hurled itself at the other and they came together with a roar.

  Mac Ard sent lightning that tore at the earth directly in front of Jenna. Her horse reared, sending her falling to the ground. Her right elbow struck a rock in the mud, and her arm went numb. She was no longer holding Lámh Sháb hála. The world snapped back into drab confusion, the power of the Clochs Mór now just half-glimpsed whirlings in the air, the shrill howling of wind, and the flickering of pale light. One of the stone fences exploded, shards of rock flying everywhere. A fragment sliced across Jenna’s left arm, leaving a long cut that gaped white for an instant before blood welled up. Jenna cried in pain and frustration. Her right arm throbbed with the pain of wielding the cloch as she scrabbled in the mud. There—she saw the cloch, an arm’s length away, and flung herself at it. Her hand closed about it . . .

  . . . and the fury rose again: around her. Inside her.

  “Mac Ard!” She screamed his name. She reached deep into the well of energy within her cloch, grasping it all, holding the power with her mind and shaping it. She could see him, could feel the ligh
tning that writhed like snakes in his hands. She hurled the whole force of Lámh Shábhála’s energy at him. He sensed the attack and pushed back at it. Árón, too, felt it, and his Cloch Mór turned to aid Mac Ard. For a moment they both held, then, with a cry, she broke through. Árón swayed in his saddle, senseless. Mac Ard, in his tower room, crumpled.

  Jenna herself sagged, suddenly weary. She took a breath, ready now to finish it, to kill them . . .

  There were cries and shouts around her—she saw one of Ó Dochartaigh’s riders pluck the tiarna’s unconscious body from his horse and turn to gallop back up the hill. The others followed, retreating as the other two Clochs Mór pushed back Máister Cléurach and the Banrion’s renewed attacks. Jenna flung the cloch’s rage at them, and one of the Mages gave a cry and fell as the lava-beast wailed and vanished. The door to Glenn Aill opened to let the remaining riders in, then shut.

  She could feel the remaining Clochs Mór close also, their Holders releasing the stones, though Máister Cléurach continued to hurl Stormbringer’s energy toward the walls and towers.

  “Máister, it’s over,” Jenna heard Aithne say wearily. “They’ve gone. They’ll be in the caverns and gone before we can get to them.”

  The old man lifted his hand. With a curse, he released the cloch. The storm was simply a cold, soaking rain once more. All but one of their gardai were dead; the Banrion’s attendants seemed to have fled. Three of the Ó Dochartaigh retinue lay on the ground, and . . .

  “Ennis!” Jenna ran to him, ignoring the pain and fatigue of her body. “By the Mother . . .” She sank into the mud beside him, pulling him into her lap. His eyes were open, and the long gaping wound across the side of his neck no longer pulsed, but seeped thick and red. The ground below him and his léine were soaked with it, and the blood covered Jenna’s rain-slick hands as she cradled him.

  “Ennis . . . Oh, Mother-Creator, no . . .” His name was a wail, a keening of grief. The rain splattered on his still face, on his unseeing eyes, and she rocked back and forth in the muck and grass, willing him to stir, to take a gasping breath, to speak, to live. She cried, praying to the Mother-Creator, to the Seed-Daughter from whom the Miondia, the lesser gods, had sprung, to Darkness in His own realm, to any god that might bring him back. She touched Ennis’ face, still warm in the cold rain, and stroked his hair.