Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  “If asked, Keira will swear that I spent our wedding night here in this chamber,” MacEagan said. “But Alby has put together a room for me just across the hall. I thought . . .” He lifted the wine and gold-rimmed goblets. “We should at least share a drink together first. I would like that, if you’re willing. It’s been a long and tiring day for both of us.”

  That was certainly true enough. Banrion Aithne had given Jenna a clóca of finest white silk that had come all the way from Thall Mór-roinn. Jenna had let Keira and the other attendants dress her, feeling numb and somehow detached, as if she were watching this happen to someone else. The wedding had been in the Great Hall of Dún Kiil Keep; she entered the hall to find the Rí and Banrion, the entire Comhairle, Máister Cléurach and several of the Bráthairs of the Order, and many of the minor Riocha of the city in attendance. The dripping of the stones punctu ated the droning voice of the Draíodóir brought from the Mother-Creator’s temple to conduct the ceremony. Jenna stood next to MacEagan, not truly hearing the words, and when the Draíodóir handed her the traditional oaken branch to break, symbolizing her departure from her previous family, the dry crack of the stick had sounded impossibly loud and she had dropped the half she was to give to MacEagan, startled. The party afterward had been intermi nable. A singer had begun the Song of Máel Armagh, his baritone voice so much like Coelin’s that Jenna felt her breath go shallow for a moment. The food in front of her seemed to taste of ashes and paper. A seemingly eternal line of well-wishers passed their table. Jenna had wondered what they were thinking behind their carefully smiling faces, their choreographed movements, their polite and empty words. . . .

  MacEagan poured the wine and handed one of the goblets to Jenna. She took it, but stared down into the well of purple liquid without drinking. She felt as if she wanted to cry, but her eyes were almost painfully dry. “I don’t feel much like celebrating,” she said.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Jenna. Truthfully.” She glanced up; there was genuine empathy in his face, a distress that carved deeper the lines around his eyes. “I realize I can’t ever fill the void Ennis left in you; perhaps one day someone will. But I do promise that in the meantime I won’t make the emptiness larger.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He sat on the bed near her, leaving a hand’s width between them. When she moved away, he remained where he was. “It means that I’ll stand with you even if others won’t. The truth is, when the time comes to finally choose sides—and it’s coming sooner than anyone except perhaps Aithne, Kianna, and I believe—neither you nor I know where the final lines will be drawn and who will stand where. People do strange things when they think it’s to their advantage, or when it seems to be the only course they can take.”

  “Like marrying someone they barely know.”

  The corner of his lips twitched; it might have been a smile. “That’s one example, aye. You began a new age when you woke the clochs na thintrí, Jenna. We still don’t know the rules of it yet, or how it will change us. We only know that it will change us.” He lifted his goblet. “So would you drink with me? To the future beyond the Filleadh.”

  Jenna felt the infant stir within her, a fluttering deep in her stomach. She wondered what kind of world the child would be coming into. Not one I thought a child of mine would have a year ago, nor one I would have chosen . . .

  “To the future,” she said.

  The clink of the goblets touching gilded rims seemed as loud as the crash of a closing door.

  57

  The Battle of Dún Kiil

  “IM so scared,”she’dadmittedtoMacEaganthatmornIing. “I don’t know if we can stop them.” She didn’t mention Thraisha’s dream, which had haunted her more and more in the last few weeks: the images of death and loss. She hadn’t mentioned that to anyone, but she felt the certainty of it, more firmly each day. She felt as if she were walking a path that was already set for her, unable to turn aside or change it. Part of her, at least, was already reconciled to the inevitability of failure.

  The first signs of the coming battle were the white sails on the horizon beyond the arms of the Inner Harbor, well out in Dún Kiil Bay.

  They knew the armada was coming from Falcarragh—their own fast scout ships had come scurrying back as soon as the fleet had been sighted. The first battle of the war had already been fought and lost: the much smaller fleet of Inish Thuaidh had engaged the enemy as soon as it rounded Falcarragh Head and turned west toward the island. The tattered remnants of the Inish fleet—five ships of twelve oars, one of twenty: their rams broken, their single sails torn, the hulls dark with smoke and blood—had landed at the end of An Ceann Caol a week ago; an exhausted courier had staggered into the keep with the news two nights afterward.

  And now the sails could be seen in the morning light.

  Jenna stood in the golden dawn with MacEagan, Aithne, Kianna Cíomhsóg, and Rí MacBrádaigh. They gathered on the south tower, gazing out over the town, the bay, and the sea. The wind was laden with the scent of salt and fish. Soon, Jenna suspected, the primary smell would be the coppery odor of death.

  The sails . . . Jenna could count at least twenty of them; more seemed to appear every few minutes. “Forty oars, at least two hundred troops on each,” MacEagan said, answering the unasked question. “Perhaps a few less than they started out with, if our ships were at all successful in ramming and sinking theirs. But I imagine that we’re looking at a force of up to ten thousand men.”

  Ten thousand . . . It seemed an inconceivable number. It seemed even more inconceivable to imagine such a horde in battle.

  Everyone glanced down from the ramparts to Dún Kiil itself. The town bristled with troops and weapons. Officers shouted orders to trained gardai as well as conscripts from the surrounding lands. The town steamed with the smokes of the forges, the smithies hammering out weapons even as the invaders approached. Catapults sat on the harbor front and out on the headlands, ready to hurl fiery boulders at the Rí Ard’s ships as they approached.

  But there were not ten thousand here. There was less than half that.

  “How many Clochs Mór do they have?” Kianna Cíom hsóg asked. The bantiarna’s sword was already unsheathed, clenched in a muscular hand. Her bright red hair hung braided and long, shimmering against the dull leather armor around her torso. Aithne shrugged.

  “The runner said that the captains claimed there were at least three single hands of them used during the sea battle. But that could be an exaggeration.”

  Or an undercount . . . None of them would say it. Jenna remembered the night of the Filleadh and the power she had unleashed. Three double hands of Cloch Mórs were opened then . . . MacEagan had one, as did Aithne, Máister Cléurach, Ennis’ friend Mundy and one other Bráthair of the Order. One single hand. The Rí Ard could have two double hands and more.

  One of them, she was certain, would be Árón Ó Dochartaigh. He would be out there, as would Mac Ard and the Tanaise Ríg, Nevan O Liathain . . . Ironic, isn’t it, how firmly you turned the little bastard down when he offered you marriage. Won’t he be amused to find you married here, when you could have been the Tanaise Banrion, to one day be Banrion Ard . . .

  So much would have been different, if she’d accepted. She might never have met Ennis again, but he would be alive. She would never have gone to Thall Coill, and Sean coim would still be walking in Doire Coill with Dúnmharú on his shoulder. Maybe that would be better.

  You can’t go back and change any of it. That’s not within even Lámh Shábhála’s power.

  “We should retreat now,” Rí MacBrádaigh muttered, staring down at his troops. The Rí’s eyes were wide as he turned to look back at the others gathered with him, and his dry white hair was wild in the wind. “We could leave a small force here to hold them back and give us time to rejoin the families we’ve already sent back to the mountains.” He looked from one to another of them, as if searching their faces for some agreement. Jenna turned away so she didn’t have to s
ee him. “Doesn’t that make sense?” he asked. “We could harry them from the mountains, cut them down bit by bit when it was safe, maybe find a better place to make a stand, maybe even Sliabh Míchinniúint again . . .”

  “Which we’ll do if it becomes necessary,” Aithne told him, speaking to him like a stern parent to a misbehaving child. “Not all of them will land here. And none of their Holders are trained cloudmages, nor do they have Lámh Shábhála.” Jenna felt everyone look to her with that pronouncement. She could think of nothing to say. I’m not your salvation, she wanted to say. Don’t look at me as if I were. She felt ill, nauseous. She placed her hand on her stomach, pressing it tightly.

  “We’ll meet them as they land,” Kianna said. “I need to go speak with those who will be fighting with steel. Banrion, I leave the strategies for the cloudmages to you. Rí MacBrádaigh, will you go with me? Our people would like to see their leader.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what to tell them,” the Rí stammered, looking frightened, and Kianna exchanged glances with Aithne.

  “I’ll tell you what to say,” she told the man. “All you’ll need to do is keep a brave face on.” She gestured toward the keep; the Rí, with a final look back at the sails on the horizon, shuffled slowly toward the archway to the balcony, with Kianna following.

  Banrion Aithne sighed. “We shouldn’t stay here, that’s for certain,” she said. “The keep will be an obvious target for the clochs. Better that they not know where we are. Jenna, where do you want to make a stand?”

  “Down at the harbor,” Jenna answered. “We’ll need to be close as they come in so they’re within range of our clochs; if we must, we can retreat back up toward the keep and the mountains with the rest of the troops.”

  Aithne, Jenna knew, could have blamed her for this. Maybe she was right, all along. Perhaps if I’d listened to her, if we’d made the attack on Falcarragh first before the Rí Ard was ready as she and the Comhairle wanted . . . She could say that it’s my fault, that the Rí Ard wouldn’t come here at all except for me . . . But there was no accusation in Aithne’s voice or face, only a solemn acceptance of their task. “Then that’s where I’ll stand as well. I’ll tell Máister Cléurach to meet us there.” With that, she swept away toward the keep, leaving Jenna and MacEagan alone.

  “We’ll get through this,” MacEagan told her. “The tuatha have never been able to conquer Inish Thuaidh. The Rí Ard will suffer the same fate as the rest, and fifty years from now, the bards will be singing the Song of Kiernan O Liathain the way they sing of Máel Armagh now, and laughing at the man’s foolishness.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am. We might lose this battle, but we’ll prevail. Inish Thuaidh is a hard land, and the Tuathians are soft. They will break here, as they always have.” He stopped. His hand lifted as if he were about to touch her shoulder, then dropped back to his side. “You’ll live, Jenna,” he said. “And so will your child.”

  Jenna nodded. On a pole on the keep’s tower, the blue-and-white flag of Inish Thuaidh snapped in the wind. Far out to sea, she could see the banners fluttering above the sails: the colors of the Tuatha: green and brown, blue and gold, green and gold. She could see the oars churning the water as the sun glinted on mail and steel.

  “They’ll be here soon,” she said. “Then we’ll know.”

  The battle for Dún Kiil began with a single sound: the k-thunk as the arm of a catapult was released out on Harbor Head and a flaming ball went hurtling across the late afternoon sky. It splashed into the water in an eruption of water and steam a dozen yards short of the lead boat just entering between the inner bay’s arms. Four more fireballs followed; two of them struck the ship and burning oil and grease splattered over the deck. Faint screams could be heard from the crew, and the oars splintered and fell as those on the ship leaped into the water, some of them aflame. Jenna, standing next to MacEagan near the end of the dock, heard a ragged cheer go up from the troops assembled close by.

  The cheer nearly immediately went silent. The catapult nearest the fleet erupted in a gout of black smoke, pieces of shattered timber flying through the air. There were more screams, but this time it came from the Inishlanders man ning the catapult.

  The Clochs Mór had entered the battle.

  The sky near the entrance to the inner bay darkened and swirled with storm clouds as a gale force wind blew out to sea, howling and shrieking and laden with blinding curtains of rain: Stormbringer awakened. Jenna could see the ships gathered near the harbor entrance and already trying to avoid the flaming hulk of the lead craft, suddenly heel over. Sails went down—cut or torn, she didn’t know—and oars lashed the water, pushing the boats forward against the tempest. Two more catapults fired, and another ship was bathed in a gushing inferno; a moment later, fireballs hissed away from the incoming ship, and both catapults exploded. The ships pushed on.

  The Inner Harbor had been closed off with chains and nets hung just under the water between Little Head and Harbor Head. The first few ships hit the barriers and were stopped, but only for minutes before they were cleared. The first ships moved into the Inner Harbor.

  Smoke was beginning to drift over Dún Kiil, laden with the scent of charred wood and the burning oil; curtains of driving rain obscured the bay. A constant roar dinned in her ears, the wordless cry of the massed thousands. Kianna Cíomhsóg raised her sword a hundred yards away, her mouth opened as she shouted something to the troops; Rí MacBrádaigh was with her, a sword clutched in his hand also, though its point dragged the ground at his side.

  “Jenna, it’s time.” MacEagan’s hand closed around his Cloch Mór. He nodded to her. “I’ll be with you.”

  Jenna took Lámh Shábhála in her right hand.

  She sent her mind into the cloch.

  The world faded about her for a moment, then the doubled vision of the cloch-world came to her, brilliant and saturated. Jenna gasped in wonder and terror—so many clochs, so many points of brilliance set like burning suns about her: at least twenty of the Clochs Mór, and dozen upon dozens of the clochmion as well, faint pinpricks against the glory of their powerful cousins.

  Some of them she knew, their colors and shapes familiar: Ennis’ cloch wielded by Mac Ard; Árón Ó Dochartaigh, the nameless tiarna with the Cloch of the mage-demon. Nevan O Liathain was out there, and other tiarna she had met at Lár Bhaile. They were out there, and they were aware of her as well—she could feel their minds turn as the greater sun of Lámh Shábhála rose.

  They saw her. The first attack came before she could draw breath.

  A wave seemed to tower in front of her, a surging surf of green whose crest glowed white. It loomed high, ready to fall like an immense tower down on her. She could feel the inexperience of the Holder behind the cloch’s attack—there were holes in the wall of energy before her. With near contempt, Jenna shaped Lámh Shábhála’s power, gathered up the wave, and threw it back to its source. The emerald wave crashed over one of the ships just entering the Inner Harbor; a thin, single scream cut through the noise of the rising battle. The Mage had squandered all the energy in the cloch in one flurry, and Lámh Shábhála greedily sucked it out, emptying the cloch utterly and spitting it back over the ship. More screams came, this time from the people around the Holder; the luminescence that had marked the cloch’s position vanished like a snuffed candle.

  One ...

  The Clochs Mór of Inish Thuaidh were alive now, attacking on their own, and Jenna realized that no matter how much she might have disliked Máister Cléurach’s tutelage, the quality of the Order’s teaching showed. The Inishlander cloudmages were superior to any of the Tuathian Mages—she saw Mundy Kirwan’s cloch open and tendrils of blue-green death streak outward across the water, thrust ing aside the defenses of two Clochs Mór and smashing into one of the ships, its touch setting the hull afire as the boat capsized. Most of the Tuathian Mages were inexperienced, their handling of the mage-light’s power awkward and tentative. For the first time, Jenna
began to have some hope.

  Sudden flights of arrows arced from the bay, a thousand barbs streaking down through the smoke, surprising Jenna with their suddenness, and Jenna barely managed to throw a shadow of Lámh Shábhála’s power toward them. The arrows closest to her burst into flame and went to drifting ash, but those to either side did not and soldiers fell, screaming in pain or silent in death. The assault brought back to Jenna the realization that it would not be the clochs only that won this battle. Even Lámh Shábhála couldn’t stand alone against an army.

  And not all the clochs had entered the fray.

  A shout went up from the western end of the harbor—the first of the Tuathian ships had landed, the soldiers on it swarming out to be met by Kianna Cíomhsóg and her vanguard. The caointeoireacht na cogadh—the war-keening—burst from their throats as they charged. Jenna heard the first clash of steel on steel as men rushed past her, moving toward the battle. Another ship landed; a second mass of arrows was launched hissing through the air; again, Jenna spent a tithe of Lámh Shábhála’s energy to destroy those raining down toward her.

  “Jenna!” she heard MacEagan call. “Fall back! Keep yourself behind our troops.” She felt MacEagan’s arm on hers, and she allowed him to pull her back through the press of soldiers until they stood in the shadow of the tavern. His face was drawn, his hand white around the cloch. His eyes closed and he groaned, staggering, and in her cloch-vision, Jenna saw the fire-creature recoil as a thicket of glowing spears thrust into its torso.

  Through the smoke at the edge of the harbor front, Jenna saw a banner of green and brown appear, waving above a troop of mailed knights not thirty yards away. Then the smoke obscured them as a squadron of Inishlander troops rushed past Jenna toward them.

  The mage-demon appeared in the air over the harbor front, tendrils of smoke writhing about it like a mad cloak. It shrieked, its head seeming to search the city, then it folded its wings and fell toward Jenna.