Holder of Lightning tc-1

by S L Farrell Неизвестный Автор

  Jenna was deep into the reservoirs of Lamh Shabhala now. She forced herself to concentrate, to find the power to pull away the cloch-bonds around her. .

  . . she felt them loosen, and at the same time, aqua light blossomed near her. "I’m here, sister-kin, as I promised," a familiar voice boomed in her head, and she saw Thraisha lash out at the person holding Jenna while-through her eyes-she saw Thraisha clambering out of the water onto the broken pilings of the quay. In the cloch-vision, Thraisha was a darting, sleek blue presence, liquid and graceful, severing the threads surrounding Jenna and sending them recoiling backward. "There… "

  Freed, Jenna staggered backward. A sinister, double boom reverberated in her head and red flares came streaking toward her: Mac Ard. She reached into Lamh Shabhala, imagining a wall, but Thraisha’s presence interposed itself before she could use the energy. Blue inundated red each pushing against the other. Mental sparks flew, like a grinding wheel sharpening a blade, energy flowing from both of them toward the point of impact. Thraisha moaned, and Jenna heard pain and weariness in the call. The net-weaver had returned, and strands were coiling around Thraisha.

  Jenna sent her mind into Lamh Shabhala, and in her anger, she knew that this was the moment. She would smash Mac Ard now, overwhelm him and end this. End it forever. Thraisha’s vision had been false

  … a noise. . not heard with the senses of Lamh Shabhala, but with her own ears. .

  … a hammer blow between her shoulder blades, sending her crum-pling to the pavement. .

  . . the shock of the blow loosening her grip on the cloch, so that it rolled free of senseless, stiff fingers.

  . . scuffed boots in front of her face, and laughter. Jenna looked up to see the face of a Tuathian soldier

  . . the pain coursing through her as she groped for Lamh Shabhala, a loss as intense as the moment she saw Ennis fall. She cried aloud, moaning and trying to reach the cloch, knowing that Thraisha was now alone against Mac Ard and the others, that Thraisha couldn't stand against them all…

  . . The soldier's hand, grimy and broken-nailed, reaching for Lamh Shabhala as well. .

  ". . When you jell, the clochs turned to me, and I could not swim against that current…"

  Jenna saw Thraisha's glimmering blue-and-black body skewered by scarlet lightning. The bolts ripped through the seal, nearly tearing her body in half. Her dying eyes seemed to stare at Jenna as the force of the strike from Mac Ard's cloch toppled her back into the water. Blood spewed from the riven corpse and stained the waves, and a silvery form wriggled away from Thraisha's open, silent mouth.

  ". . Their magic drowned me, and Bradan an Chumhacht swam from my mouth. So if it's destiny, then it's not only your death…"

  Jenna wondered if death could hurt more than the pain of losing Lamh Shabhala.

  "SO you're the Mad Holder. . and this must be Lamh Shabhala."

  Jenna looked up from the ground to see the soldier holding the cloch, and the sight of it caused her mouth to open and release a wailing cry that sounded more animal than human. She shuddered, reaching use-lessly for the cloch, and the man kicked her scarred arm aside. He grinned down at her: a red-bearded face stained with black gore, a long cut down his left cheek and through one side of his mouth dripping blood. The deep gash through his lips widened sickeningly as he grinned at her. He was missing teeth, and his voice was slurred with his injuries. " Tis mine now, 'tis."

  Jenna blinked, peering up through the acrid smoke that wrapped the harbor. The man didn't see the movement behind him. There was a flash of steel and the Tuathian's head was suddenly separated from its shoul-ders, rolling away. The body stood for a moment, fountaining blood from the stump of the neck before it collapsed, nearly falling on top of Jenna.

  "Sometimes," she heard someone say, "it's just more satisfying to use a sword."

  A hand was reaching for her-"Let's go, Jenna. ."-but she slapped it away, scrambling over to the body, tearing at the fist holding Lamh Shabhala’s chain and ripping the cloch away from lifeless fingers. "Mine!" she proclaimed, closing her right fist around it.

  "Jenna!"

  She whirled around at the shout, snarling. Lights flared wildly, confusingly, in the sudden cloch-vision. She started to tear Lamh Shabhala open, to send its power hurtling blindly at the person in front of her, but she could not hold the power; it burned her so that she screamed, her right arm in agony. Hands caught her as she fell.

  "Mother-Creator, you've been wounded! Didn't you hear the call for retreat? Come on. ."

  Jenna blinked away blood, trying to see the face.

  "Ennis?"

  "No, it’s MacEagan," came the soothing voice. "Lean on me, Jenna

  That’s it; let me support your weight. We have to leave now. ."

  . . there was the flickering of candles and the smell of wet stone, and a form moving in the twilight

  "Here, Holder. Please sip this… "

  She could smell the anduilleaf in the crude clay mug the old man was holding out to her. For a moment, disoriented, she thought it was Seancoim and her heart leaped inside her, but then her vision cleared and she recognized him as the Banrion’s healer. He held out the mug toward her; she pushed it away. "No, I won’t drink that."

  "It will take away the pain."

  "No!" She pushed at it again even though she could feel herself yearn-ing to drink it, to lose herself and the suffering in the leaf’s milky embrace. The healer grimaced and pouted, but he put the anduilleaf aside. Jenna was relieved; she didn’t know if she could have resisted if he’d insisted a third time. She tried to raise herself up, and the movement pulled at the stitched and healing wounds, making her cry out and bringing back all the anguish: in the wounded left arm, in the scarred right, her head, her stomach. .

  . . her stomach. She touched her abdomen, relieved to feel an answer-ing stir. The healer grunted. "The babe is fine," he said, and responded to Jenna’s shocked look with a faint, conspiratorial smile. "Aye. The Banrion told me since 1 was looking after you and she felt I needed to know. But no one else will know unless you tell them. At least not until it’s obvious. That’s another reason you need to rest, Holder."

  "I need to understand-"

  "Understand what?" a new voice intruded. Someone had thrust aside a woolen curtain Jenna hadn’t noticed before, letting in a stream of sunlight that made her eyes water and blink, revealing the stone walls of a small cavern. The curtain dropped

  down behind the silhouetted form and the room went dark again.

  "Ah, Tiarna MacEagan," the healer said. "Holder, I'll leave you with your husband, then. Maybe he can get you to drink the infusion."

  Husband. . Jenna found herself turning the strange word over in her head as the healer left the room. MacEagan walked over and sat at the edge of the blankets on which she lay. A long cut crossed his forehead, scabbed brown with the skin an irritated red along the edges, and one hand was wrapped in bandages. "Infusion?"

  She shook her head. "You're hurt."

  "Have you seen yourself?" he answered. "At least I'm walking. It's a rare person out there who isn't wounded, and there are far too many familiar faces missing." A sadness came over his own face.

  "Alby?"

  MacEagan smiled momentarily. "No, he's alive, though he took injuries like the rest. He wouldn't leave me, even though he's more a liability with the sword than an asset."

  "I'm glad to hear that. I know how you would have felt if you'd lost him."

  Again the smile came and vanished. "That's kind of you to say. Still, it was a terrible battle, and a terrible cost we paid."

  The sounds and memories flooded back to Jenna in disjointed, uncon-nected fragments: the initial assault, the confusion, the bitter victory of killing Aron, the struggle with Mac Ard, Thraisha's sacrifice, the stunning moment when she lost Lamh Shabhala. . She reached for the stone with a gasp. Aye, it was still there, but drained entirely of power. "I remember. . You came, I think, and helped me up. ." She shook her head. "I don't remember any
thing past that. It's all gone. And it was only yesterday."

  "It was two days ago," he told her. "You were badly hurt. I wasn't sure you were even going to live." He told her then: how the two of them together fended off another attack from Mac Ard and the Tuathian Hold-ers with Lamh Shabhala and his own cloch, falling back past the square and finally finding what was left of the Inishlander defenders near the base of the Croc a Scroilm; fighting their way through another wave of Tuathians; Kianna falling near the harbor and the Ri MacBradaigh severely wounded, but fighting his way to them; finally reaching the winding road to the keep, then making their way into the deep clefts beyond.

  It was like a tale to Jenna, unreal. There was no memory of it in her at all. He might as well have been speaking of a battle fought a century ago with other people.

  "Where are we now?" she asked after he’d finished.

  "In the mountains north of the city." His lips twisted. "In the same caverns that Severii O’Coulghan used when he retreated after Mael Armagh’s attack. We can only hope that this will turn out the same. The Tuathians hold Dun Kiil for now. Scouts have told us that more ships are coming from Falcarragh, and that the banner of the Ri Ard flies above the keep."

  Jenna sat up, grimacing as her body protested the movement. For a moment, the cavern whirled around her and she thought she might lose consciousness, but she closed her eyes until the spinning passed. She started to raise her left hand to MacEagan, then realized it was bound to her side. Instead, she reached out with the stiff lump of her right. She could see the scars of the mage-lights beyond the stained sleeve of her leine. "Help me up again," she told him.

  "You should rest," he told her.

  "There’s not time for that, and I’m not the only one hurt. I need to talk to the Banrion and I want to see those who fought with us." She reached out again. "Help me." She paused. "My husband."

  He responded with a quiet smile. Then he stood, crouched down again, and took her hand and arm. "Let’s walk together, then, wife."

  Jenna found that they were encamped in a narrow valley nestled between tall, steep slopes covered with purple heather and thickets. Bright rills capered down the sides to a small river curling through the valley bottom before vanishing into the misty distance, where the indistinct backs of more mountains loomed. The hillsides were studded with

  hollows and shallow caves eroded from the soft limestone that protruded from under the thin skin of earth, and crude tents and lean-tos littered the ground. Campfires lifted columns of white smoke into the fog. The remnants of the Inishlander army had rejoined their families, but Jenna saw many tents where solemn-faced women hugged silent children to them. They would nod silently toward her as she passed. Jenna expected to see anger and blame in their faces, but there was none; there was only the aching loss. She wished she had words of comfort for the widows, for the father-less children. She could only gaze back at them, echoing their pain. One of them clutched at Jenna's cloca as they passed, and Jenna stopped. The woman could have been no more than a year or two older than Jenna, with a child nuzzling at her breast under the red-dyed leine of mourning, and a boy that might have been three years old at her side. "Holder, she said, "My son… he wanted to see you. ."

  Jenna knelt down in front of the woman. The boy peered out at her from under his mam's arms; she pushed him forward. He held back for a moment and seemed to gather his courage, lifting his face and frowning sternly. He took a step toward Jenna.

  "What is your name?" she asked.

  "Mahon." The boy's voice was serious and quiet. "My da died."

  "I know," Jenna answered softly, with a glance at his mam. "He was a brave man."

  "Did you know him? His name was Deelan. Deelan MacBreen."

  "No," Jenna told him. "I'm afraid I didn't. But I wish I had."

  "When I'm older, I'm going to be a soldier like my da. Mam said she would give me his sword, and I'll come fight with you."

  "I hope, Mahon, that won't be necessary." Jenna looked again at Mahon's mam. She was smiling, sadly, all her attention on the boy. She felt the pressure of Jenna's gaze and looked at her with eyes the color of the sea at night. "I'm so sorry for your loss," Jenna told her. "There aren't any words I can say that can give you comfort, I know."

  The woman settled her baby at her breast, stroking the infant's head. "It was the choice he

  made, Holder, the choice of any Inishlander." The woman’s face went grim and almost angry. "Drive them back out, Holder," she said. "Make sure his death wasn’t wasted. That would give me com-fort."

  Jenna didn’t know what to say. She nodded without knowing why, she brushed the boy’s disheveled hair, and stood up again, grimacing with the effort that movement required. "We should go," MacEagan said. Numb and hurting, she let him lead her away.

  And where they passed the soldiers who had been there at Dun Kiil- with arms bound or heads bandaged, limping or curled on their pallets, huddled with their families-she heard them whisper her name; saw them nudge one another as she approached. They looked at Jenna and they straightened, bowing. They lifted their sheathed weapons in quick salute. They smiled. They held out their hands to her as she passed. "Holder. ." they said. "So good to see you. , A good morn, ’tis it not?. . Pleased to see that you’re up and about. . We were praying to the Mother-Creator for you. ."

  She nodded back, and tried to smile in return. She touched their outstretched hands and watched the tentative smiles widen.

  "They saw the Holder of Lamh Shabhala fighting for them," MacEagan whispered to her, sensing her bewilderment. "They saw the power of the cloch, and they know that some of their own lives were spared because the Clochs Mor of the Tuathians had to contend with you and couldn’t be used against them. They saw you wounded and yet continuing to battle and that gave them strength to do the same. They watched you cover their retreat with Lamh Shabhala until both it and you were exhausted." He lifted his chin toward the valley littered with tents. "You’re quite the hero Jenna, whether you believe it or not. Some of the rumors. . well, you’d be amused."

  "I’m not a hero," Jenna said. "I’m not. . anything."

  "But you are. You’re the First Holder, and you brought Lamh Shabhala back to Inish Thuaidh, defying the Ri Ard and defeating the mages he sent to stop you. You restored the Order of Inishfeirm to its glory. You routed the traitor of Glenn Aill, who conspired against the Comhairle and the Ri MacBradaigh. You went to Thall Coill to undergo the Scrudu and returned again triumphant. You’re the

  Changeling who can be seal or eagle or dragon at will. You woke the Ri MacBradaigh from the slumber of his rule and gave his sword the strength of twenty men. You stood against the massed Clochs Mor of the Ri Ard and very nearly defeated them all."

  Jenna had begun shaking her head long before MacEagan finished the litany. "But that's all wrong.

  I didn't do those things. They're exaggera-tions, half-truths, or outright lies."

  "It doesn't matter whether it's the truth or not. Not anymore. The point is that they believe it, and more. You give them hope and strength and courage." MacEagan frowned then, his face grim. "And right now, that's what we need most."

  "I don't want this," Jenna insisted. "I never did."

  "Want it or not, it's been given to you. Come, the Banrion's anxious to see you."

  The Ri's tent was set near the river, its bright panoply of banners seem-ing to mock the weariness, loss, and pain around it. The gardai stood back as Jenna and MacEagan approached, and she heard a moan emerge from the flap held aside for them.

  Inside, in the warm light of candles, was a bed holding the Ri, the Banrion sitting in a chair alongside. Jenna could smell the strong aroma of anduilleaf. She cradled her cold right arm to her waist.

  "Any change with him?" MacEagan asked as they entered, and Aithne shook her head in answer.

  "None. The healer says that it's a matter of time, that's all." Aithne chuckled, mirthless and short.

  "It's strange. I had no respect for the man unti
l now. From what I was told, he fought like a man possessed, scream-ing the caointeoireacht na cogadh and rallying everyone after Kianna fell-'There was a pile of bodies at his feet,' one of his gardai told me, 'so high that the Ri could not even step over them. He wouldn't leave until we had Bantiarna Ciomhsog's body, and even then he stayed at the rear protecting the wounded as we fled.' He was a poor husband and a weak ruler. But he found his strength in the end. I wish I'd seen it." She sighed, reaching over to brush away a strand of white hair curling over the Ri's forehead. Her eyes

  found Jenna’s. "I’m glad to see you walking and somewhat recov-ered, Holder. We’ll need you now, more than ever."

  Jenna must have shown confusion at that, as Aithne stood and came over to her in a rustle of her cloca. "We lost this battle," she said to Jenna, "but it cost them far more than they anticipated. They thought they would crush us completely with one, swift blow and never have to wage a cam-paign. They thought they had enough Clochs Mor to guarantee the fall of Lamh Shabhala, and enough troops to smash all resistance. They were wrong and they know that now. I suspect the RI Ard isn’t altogether pleased with his son’s generalship."

  "Nevan O Liathain planned this?" She could well believe it-the glory of leading the combined forces of the Tuatha would have attracted the man as a guttering candle calls to a moth.