Holder of Lightning tc-1

by S L Farrell Неизвестный Автор

  "You lived here?" Jenna asked. Aithne nodded, her gaze on the fortifi-cations 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 Moister Cleurach 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 Aron 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. Aron 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."

  Aron 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 Aron’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," Aron 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 Lamh Shabhala is gone-or worse, since it's woven itself so deeply into me. .? She started to urge her horse forward, but Aron 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 around 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.

  Aron’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."

  Moister Cleurach, alongside Jenna, leaned toward her. "She knows," he whispered.

  "Maybe. It doesn't matter. Aron takes the stone, sends Ennis to us, and We g°>" 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, Aron," she said. "But I wonder. . how it would look on me?"

  "Aithne!" He shouted the name, a call of fury. Moister Cleurach hissed in irritation. Jenna glanced

  up to see Aron’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."

  4

  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, Aron, 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 Aron, she nodded her head to Ennis.

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

  "Give me Lamh Shabhala." He held his hand out, palm up.

  "Let O’Deoradhain go," Aithne repeated.

  "When I have Lamh Shabhala in my hand. Not before."

  Aithne glanced over her shoulder toward Jenna, then placed the neck-lace 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 suffi-cient 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 cloca. "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 Lamh Shabhala with her mind. Unthinking, she threw its power, wild and raw, toward Aron. 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 Aron, 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' clock, 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'.

  ". . Lamh Shabhala! Use it!"

  ". . she still has it!"

  Jenna was vaguely aware of what was happening around her. Moister Cleurach’s hand convulsed around the stone about his neck; immediately the storm howled a thousand fold with Stormbringer's energy. A hurricane wind tossed men from their saddles and pounded against the walls of Glenn Aill. She saw Aron’s fist close around the false Lamh Shabhala, then his face convulsed with a curse as he tossed it aside. Aithne had turned her horse, galloping back toward them as Aron 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 Dun 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 Mor that had attacked Jenna and Ennis in Dun Kii
l now opened.

  •. by the Mother-Creator!

  Jenna saw the figure holding Ennis’ cloch, standing at one of the win-dows of the towers on the wall.

  She saw his face and she nearly released Lamh Shabhala with the shock.

  She knew now why the cloch was handled so well and easily. She knew now who had helped O 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!" Moister Cleurach shouted. His face was grim and strained, his Nesh 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 light-ning erupted again from Aron’s hand. Jenna imagined a wall above the Banrion and she felt Lamh Shabhala shudder in her hand as the demon struck it, as the searing energy from Aron’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 Lamh Shabhala. The world snapped back into drab confusion, the power of the Clochs Mor 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 lightning that writhed like snakes in his hands. She hurled the whole force of Lamh Shabhala s energy at him. He sensed the attack and pushed back at it. Aron, too, felt it, and his Cloch Mor turned to aid Mac Ard. For a moment they both held, then, with a cry, she broke through. Aron 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 O 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 Mor pushed back Moister Cleurach 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 Mor close also, their Holders re-leasing the stones, though Moister Cleurach continued to hurl Storm-bringer's energy toward the walls and towers.

  "Moister, 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 O 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 leine 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.

  "He’s gone, Jenna." Moister Cleurach’s voice, at her shoulder. "Jenna, I’m so sorry…"

  He’s not gone! she wanted to rail at him. I won’t let him be gone. There has to be something, some way to change this. . But no words came out. She looked up at Moister Cleurach, stricken dumb, her mouth open as she shook her head.

  She took Lamh Shabhala in her hand. She held the cloch, opening the small store of energy still left within it. She held the energy, not knowing how to shape it or change it so that she could bring his soul back from where it had fled. The brilliance of the mage-lights shimmered around her, and it meant nothing. She let go of the cloch and fell over Ennis’ body, weeping.

  She lay there for long minutes until gentle hands pulled her away.

  Chapter 49: Leave-taking

  THE attendants, returning now that the battle was over, argued that with the rain it was impossible to cremate the body, but Jenna insisted that a pyre be built in the nearest field. Jenna watched as they sullenly constructed the pyre in the downpour, sitting by Ennis' body and refusing to move whenever Moister Cleurach or Aithne came to join her, though she didn't resist when they tended to her injuries. The tears came and went on some internal tidal rhythm; the grief filled her like a cold moon-less sea, heavy and deep. The sun sank below the mountains beyond Glenn Aill; the rain subsided to drizzle as mist and a few stars emerged between ragged clouds.

  "The pyre's ready," Aithne said. Jenna felt the Banrion's hand on her shoulder. The woman had said little since the battle. She crouched down alongside Jenna and took her hands, still clutching Ennis' stiffening body. "They need to take him now," she whispered, nodding to her attendants. They came forward silently and took the body as Aithne helped Jenna to her feet. She stood unsteadily, her legs weak with exhaustion and hours of sitting.

  They placed the body atop the framework of logs and branches, and placed the bodies of the gardai who had died to either side of him. One of the retainers came forward with a burning torch and touched it to the base of the pyre. A pale blue flame flickered then went out. "The wood is soaked, Banrion," he called. "We used what little oil we had, but.. There was a hint of pleasure in his words, the ghost of an unspoken reprimand.

  "I'll do it," Jenna said. She shrugged away the Banrion's hands, drawing a breath as she found Lamh Shabhala’s chain, recovered from where it had fallen and around her neck once more. She lifted the cloch, closing her eyes and coaxing the remaining essence from deep within the well of the stone.

  She imagined fire: a flame of elemental force, burning purer and hotter than a smelter's furnace. She placed the image under the pyre and released it. With an audible whump, the pyre burst into flame. White smoke bil-lowed as the m
oisture in the wood went immediately to steam and evapo-rated.

  The pyre hissed and grumbled, but it burned so aggressively that the attendants all moved well back. Shadows lurched and swayed behind them as the flames leaped up to envelop the bodies, the light from it touching even the walls of Glenn Aill. Jenna poured the last dregs from Lamh Shabhala into the pyre; the flames roared in response, sending a whirling column of furious sparks pinwheeling into the night sky.

  She watched as the flames devoured the corpses. She imagined Ennis’ soul soaring free, dancing in the glowing ash toward the sky and the Seed-Daughter’s welcome to the afterlife. She watched until the pyre collapsed in a tornado of sparks; until it was no more than glowing embers; until she saw above them the mage-lights snarling the sky and felt the yearning, seductive pull of Lamh Shabhala toward them.

  "I know you’re exhausted and hurting, Holder, but you need to renew your cloch," Aithne said softly, startling Jenna. "Aron and the others will be doing the same, and it’s a long and possibly dangerous ride home."

  Moister Cleurach, off to one side, had already opened his cloch to the lights. Aithne stood near Jenna, her face gentle and sympathetic. The Banrion looked battered and sore: a bruise discolored her cheek and puffed one side of her mouth. Her cloca and leine were scorched, torn, and filthy, and blood had soaked through along one arm where a long cut trailed down nearly to her wrist. She’d been burned on the other arm-Jenna could see the blisters that glistened on the woman’s left hand, running up beyond the sleeve of her leine.