Chapter 33: A Battle of Stones
THEY were three days out of Ballintubber, and it still seemed strange to both of them that they'd encountered very few people. Though the land at the northern borders of Tuath Gabair was sparsely populated and they were traveling overland rather than on the road, the area seemed oddly empty. Fields that should have been plowed by now were fallow, with weeds and grass growing up among the straggling clumps of wheat and barley. The day before, they'd passed near one village, and though they heard the sounds of children playing and saw several women work-ing the fields nearby, the only men they noticed were the old. O'Deoradhain turned grim at the sight.
"They’ve been sweeping the land, then, and pressing men into service. The Ris are strengthening their armies," he’d said, and Jenna hadn’t wanted to believe him.
Now the proof lay before her.
They were walking through a wooded valley between two tall ridge lines. The trees thinned, and they came out into an open field where the hills swept wide apart in great curving arms.
A mound of raw new earth cut across their path, and the banner of Tuath Gabair flapped on a pole planted in the dirt. Jenna glanced at O’Deoradhain; his face was grim, and he pulled on the reins of his horse to Pass to the left of the mound.
He quickly brought his horse to a stop. "By the Mother," he breathed. Jenna came up alongside him. "Gods," she said. Her stomach jumped, and she tasted bile in her mouth.
They were on a slight rise. The full expanse of the field lay spread out before them: trampled, torn, and bloodied. Black flocks of carrion crows fought and scrabbled over the bodies of soldiers; feral dogs lifted their heads from gory feasts to glare suspiciously at them. Flies buzzed and whined through the air. The bodies, Jenna noted, all wore the blue and gold of Tuath Connachta. There were two more mounds on the field, and on each Gabair’s banner flew.
A few heads had been mounted on broken lances as a warning. O’Deoradhain rode his horse up to one of the trophies, the horse shying away from the smell of rotting meat and the crow-emptied eye sockets, and a cloud of flies rising from the face as O’Deoradhain leaned over from his saddle to peer at it. The jaw hung upon, the head gaping in eternal amaze-ment. "A boy," he said. "No more than fifteen, I’ll wager, and a pressman in his Ri’s army. I’ll bet he told his mam he’d be back a hero."
Jenna’s stomach turned again, and she leaned over, vomiting quickly. She hung onto the horse.
The wind shifted slightly, and the smell came to them: rotting, ripe flesh. The sweet sickly smell of death.
"Victory," O’Deoradhain said mockingly. " Tis a wonderful sight, don’t you think?"
Jenna wiped her mouth and nudged her horse
carefully forward. The horse nickered, its eyes wide and nervous. She looked down at a body to her right. The soldier sprawled awkwardly on his back, a broken sword still clutched in his hand. The rings of bronze and iron sewn on his boiled leather vest were ripped and broken over his abdomen, and a horrible wound had nearly split him in two. Scavengers had been at the body-the eyes and tongue were gone, his entrails pulled out and scattered, the flesh gnawed upon. White maggots crawled in and around his open mouth, in the sockets of his eyes. Jenna's stomach lurched again, and she forced the gorge back down.
O'Deoradhain was riding slowly around the field, occasionally looking down at the earth. Jenna stayed where she was, not wanting to go out into the carnage. "What was left of the Connachtan force retreated west," he said when he returned. "They weren't pursued-from the looks of the mounds, the Gabairan troops lost a good many men also, and their com-mander decided to stay here and bury their dead. They moved off to the east, through that pass there." He glanced down at the body of the soldier by Jenna. "The battle took place no more than two days ago, from the signs." Jenna nodded; she was still staring at the body. "Jenna?"
She wondered how young he'd been, how he'd looked in life, whether he'd had a wife and family. She imagined the body alive again, as if she could turn back time.
"Jenna?"
She lifted her head to find O'Deoradhain staring at her. "There were lochs here, too," he said. "There are several places where the earth is scorched as if by lightning strikes. Boulders were flung about that had crushed men underneath, and trees ripped whole from the ground and tossed. Since the Clochs Mor, unlike Lamh Shabhala, have only one ability each, I would guess there were two or possibly three of the stones here."
Jenna touched Lamh Shabhala. She could feel nothing here now, but a sense of dread hung over her that she had not felt since they'd left Doire Coill. For the first time, she realized just how much the Filleadh had changed the world. You caused this, she thought, her gaze on the field of destruction ahead of her. This is all because of the cloch you hold, and there will be more of it. Much more.
"It’s my fault," Jenna said.
O’Deoradhain nudged his horse alongside Jenna’s, though he didn’t touch her. "No," he said firmly, though quietly. "This isn’t your fault. This is the fault of greed and callousness and stupidity. You didn’t force any of the Rithe into conflict; they were just waiting for the opportunity, and Lamh Shabhala provided a convenient excuse."
The corpse leered up at her, a mockery in the bright spring grass. "All these people dead. ."
"Aye," O’Deoradhain said, "and yet more will die. That I can guarantee. But their souls won’t come wailing to you when they cry out for justice."
She still stared down, realizing that beyond this body another one lay, and another and another…
"I can hear them now," she told him. "They already call to me…" She was trembling, unable to stop the movement of her hands.
"Jenna, you’ve seen a dead body before." His mouth snapped shut, and she could imagine the rest of what he might have said: You were responsible for their deaths, too.
She looked at O’Deoradhain, her head shaking violently from side to side. "Not this many," she said. "Not like this, just. ." She had to stop ’or a moment, her breath gone. Her heart was pounding in her chest…. just scattered everywhere. Torn apart, half-eaten, discarded and unmourned " She tasted vomit at the back of her throat again, and swal-lowed hard. This is your legacy. This is your fate, too. Some day it will be you sprawled lifelessly there. . The land was starting to whirl around her, at the center the grotesque face of the dead soldier.
Jenna." O’Deoradhain brought her back as she was about to fall. Harsh and unsympathetic, his voice struck like a slap. She took a breath, and the world settled again. "This isn’t the last you’ll see of this. You’ll see more and worse, because you’ll be part of it. You don’t have a choice, not unless you want to give up Lamh Shabhala."
"Lamh Shabhala is mine," Jenna answered heatedly. Her hand went to the cloch, closing around it.
"Then look around you and get used to the sight, because you’ll need to have a clear head and mind
when a battle's raging around you, or someone will be taking Lamh Shabhala from your corpse." Then his voice softened; he started to reach for her, then let his hand drop back to his side. "The dead can't hurt you, Jenna. Only the living can do that. We can't stay here, and we can't go back. The war will follow us-my bet is that the Ri Ard is already stepping in to end these battles between the tuatha. They'll unite to find Lamh Shabhala; we can only hope to stay ahead of them, and maybe, maybe on Inish Thuaidh we can leave them behind. But we have to go now, before someone finds us. And before night falls, because this place will be haunted." He tilted his head toward her inquiringly. "Holder? Are you listening to me?"
"I thought you said that the dead couldn't hurt you." His grin was sheepish. "They can't. That doesn't mean they won't try." She said nothing to that. Instead, she flicked the reins of her horse and touched her heels to the mare's sides, urging the horse forward-not around the field of battle, but through it. She would not look down, but she saw the bodies as they passed, and each of them seemed to call to her accusingly.
O'Deoradhain slept under his blankets on the othe
r side of the fire. The flickering yellow light illuminated the undersides of the leaves above them and plucked the white trunks of the sycamores from the night in a circle about them. She could hear him snoring softly, the loudest sound in the stillness.
Jenna reached into her pack and laid the relics out in front of her: the wooden seal her da had carved; the ring of Eilis MacGairbhith, the Lady of the Falls; the golden torc of Sinna Mac Ard. Of Riata she had nothing; the ghost of the ancient Holder had made it clear to her that he did not want to be awakened again unless she returned to Doire Coill and the valley of cairns.
She stared at them, a fingertip brushing each and feeling the spark within. Da? But he had never held the active Lamh Shabhala, and the times she had called him up, he had seemed more frightened and con-fused than she was, and she had ended by comforting him. Eilis? Jenna had called the Lady of the Falls only one other time after that day in her burial chamber behind the Doan’s waters, and the ghost had been as angry and fey as during their first encounter; though Jenna knew that the ghost couldn't touch or harm her, she would call that Holder forth only in great need.
Jenna picked up Sinna’s torc. She started to place it around her neck..
"You’ll just have to explain to her again who you are because she won’t remember you. She’s not your friend. She doesn’t care about you-to her, you’re as much a ghost as she is to you."
Across the fire, O’Deoradhain was watching from his blankets, up on one elbow. "Her time wasn’t like our time, and she isn’t like you. At all. You need to find your own path, not tread along someone else’s," he finished.
"Which is the path you want me to take, no doubt." She hated the disdain in her voice. She thought of offering an apology-He’s done noth-ing but help you, and yet you keep pushing him away-but then it seemed that she’d waited too long. The muscles along his jaw clenched, and he blinked. She pretended to look away from him, to be absorbed in the torc.
"I’m not forcing you to go anywhere, Holder," he said. "Remember when I said earlier today that the dead can’t hurt you? Well, they also can’t help you."
’"Only the living can do that.’ Is that how that ends? Meaning I’m supposed to trust you?"
O’Deoradhain took a long breath. His eyes held hers, and she saw the hurt in them. "You do what you think you need to do, Holder, and believe what you must." He lay back down and snapped the blankets around him, turning his back to the fire and her.
Jenna held the torc in her hands for several minutes, watching the fire shimmering in its burnished surface. Finally, she placed it back in her pack. "I’m sorry," she whispered to the night, not sure to whom she was speaking.
The spring sun beat down on the bright carpet of silverweed, primrose, and heather in which Lough Crithlaigh rested; the sky was cloudless and deep. Yellow siskins, song thrushes, and warblers darted among the wild-flowers. Mountains lifted gorse-feathered heads to the west beyond the hills, and they could see deer grazing near a foaming rill winding toward the lough. The day was pastoral; even their horses seemed affected, neigh-ing and lowering their heads as if they wanted to linger here forever.
"Those are storm deer, not the normal red," O'Deoradhain commented then glanced back at Jenna. "You're frowning."
Jenna turned in her saddle. She tried to give the man a smile and failed. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just. ." She stopped; he lifted an eyebrow."… a feeling."
O'Deoradhain pulled back the reins of his mount, his gaze searching the terrain.
They'd debated whether they should go through this expansive but open valley, or take the much longer and difficult path through the hills. She wondered now if they'd made a mistake. She touched the cloch, let-ting tendrils of energy spread outward. In that invisible cloud, there was a twin disturbance. She could sense it in the pattern of Lamh Shabhala’s sphere, like a wave disturbed by the presence of unseen rocks just below the surface. "There are two other clochs na thintri close By," Jenna said. She could feel a cold apprehension spreading out from her stomach. "Powerful ones: Clochs Mor. I can feel them."
O'Deoradhain rose up in his saddle again.
"Where?" he asked. "In what direction?"
"I'm not certain," Jenna said. "To the south, I think. They're trying to keep themselves hidden, but one of the Holders isn't particularly good at keeping his wall up and so I can sense them both."
"By the Mother-Creator," O'Deoradhain cursed. His hands clenched into fists around the reins, the knuckles going white with pressure. "I was afraid this would happen. Well, we don't have a choice. All we can do is ride on, and see if they show themselves."
"O'Deoradhain, what should I do? What happens if they attack with the clochs, or if they're part of the army the Ri has raised. .?" Jenna remembered the battlefield and saw herself as one of the corpses. Her breath was coming fast, and panic roared in her ears.
"You'll do what you can," O'Deoradhain told her.
"I will do what I can, also, but if the clochs enter the battle, you must deal with them." Then his voice gentled, and his eyes held hers. "You're the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, and it's stronger than the other clochs na thintri. Remember that."
She did. She also remembered the words of the Lady of the Falls: ". . even the strongest can be overpowered by numbers, or make a fatal mistake…" "I don’t know what to do."
"You will, if it comes to that," O’Deoradhain told her. "And if we’re lucky, they won’t see us. If we can reach the hills beyond the lough. .’
They moved through the field toward the lough, the land sloping gently downhill to the water. There were beeches and sycamores lining the banks, and without speaking both of them urged their horses into a gallop to head for their cover. The storm deer glanced up; the dominant tag of the herd lifted an antlered head and gave a ululating cry, and the herd moved off at a canter to the east, their hooves trembling the ground with a low rumble. Jenna and O’Deoradhain reached the line of trees and moved just inside, then pulled up their mounts and turned. "Can you still feel them?" O’Deoradhain asked.
Jenna closed her eyes, touching the cloch with stiff and cold fingers. "Aye," she said. She looked at him, worried. "Closer now. There." She pointed up the slope they’d just traveled to the low ridge lined with trees.
A few breaths later, a half dozen riders appeared, emerging slowly from under the trees, perhaps half a mile away. All were dressed in green and brown, mail glinting under their colors. One of the group, even from that distance, seemed familiar to Jenna.
Jenna’s heart jumped. "The man in front-with no helm. That’s Mac Ard, I think."
O’Deoradhain cursed again. "Aye. You could be right." As they watched, a rider dismounted and walked carefully along the ridge. He stopped and pointed-it seemed to Jenna that his finger was aimed di-rectly at her. "Damn, they’ve seen our trail," O’Deoradhain spat. "There’s nothing for it, Jenna. They’ll track us now, and once we leave the cover of the trees, they’ll see us." Jenna only stared at him, as if by her gaze she could change his words. "There are six of them, Jenna. I can’t deal with that many, even without the clochs na thintri they have."
She knew what he was saying, though her head was shaking in denial. "I can’t… "
It was eventually going to come to this, Jenna, no
matter what. We both knew it. You can either use the cloch now, while they're not certain now close they are to us, or later when they know who we are and where. Strike first, and you have the advantage."
"I don't know how to fight cloch against cloch."
And probably neither do they, yet," O'Deoradhain persisted. "I suspect Lamh Shabhala will show you the way."
He was right; she knew it, could feel it in the very marrow of her bones and yet she resisted. The riders gathered again as the scout remounted, and they started down the slope toward where they were hidden, following the unmistakable path their horses had made through the tall grass.
She watched the tall rider with the dark hair, certain that it was Mac Ard even thoug
h she couldn't see his face clearly. He will have one of the clochs, It will be him you strike against, your mam's lover. .
She brought her right hand up, looking at the mottled skin. She opened her fingers with an effort, then closed them again around Lamh Shabhala
She opened her mind fully to the cloch.
Lamh Shabhala was full with the power of the mage-lights, its crystal-line interstices crackling and surging with the energy. The vision of it seemed to expand and spread out before her, rushing like a tidal wave over the land; when it struck the riders, the force broke and shattered on twin rocks, shimmering white. Jenna saw the world in doubled vision now: through her eyes and through Lamh Shabhala. With her eyes, she saw Mac Ard and one of the other riders suddenly pull up and stop while the other four continued on; through the cloch, two presences suddenly appeared, one as ruddy as heated coals, the other more the color of a cold sea, both throbbing and pulsing inside the horizon of Lamh Shabhala.
She knew what she had to do and yet she hesitated-in that hesitation, she could feel the other two clochs searching for her in the landscape of Lamh Shabhala. There was no doubt as to their intentions; she could feel the hostility, especially from the sea-colored stone. For the moment, though, she ignored them. She looked instead for the four riders and she released more of the stored energy within her cloch, gathering it in her mind and shaping it, then releasing it with a savage mental thrust.
With her eyes, she saw lightnings arc from her scarred right arm, flash-ing outward in jagged white-hot streaks toward the riders. Two of the riders were torn from their saddles and their mounts killed as bolts shot through them: shredding flesh, shattering bones, and boiling their blood. Thunder boomed and crackled. Jenna heard the screams of both men and horses, short and cut off as the force of the cloch ripped the life from them. She felt them die.
But in that same instant, the remaining two bolts were turned aside before they struck their targets: one meeting a similar bolt from the red cloch; the other shoved aside as if by an invisible hand from the other stone. The two colliding bolts exploded in a ball of blinding fireworks between the two groups; the one shoved aside gouged a crater from the earth just to the left of its intended target, whose horse reared and bucked. She saw O'Deoradhain break from cover with a cry, kicking his horse into a gallop and charging back up the slope toward the remaining riders. The one who had nearly been struck broke and fled; the other pulled his sword from its sheath and came for O'Deoradhain.
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