Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  “Were you one of the soldiers?”

  “No,” Cima said, only that single word, and he would say no more.

  Torness was an infinitely larger version of the ruined village they’d left. Though the Arruk used the buildings, they made little effort to repair them, seemingly satisfied with tumbledown walls and hastily erected thatch roofs braced with lumber from the rubble. Hands upon hands of naked Arruk, all of them with the circle brand on their hips, were hauling goods through the crowded streets or carrying the litters of the officers or serving as bearers. They passed a market square not far from the city gates. The gates to Torness were yawning open and unguarded, the iron-banded thick planks of oak blackened by fire, scored with blade marks and hanging askew from their hinges. In the square, Kurhv Ruka’s soldiers had assembled, more Arruk than Ennis could count, filling the square so that the stalls were islands in a sea of leather, fur, and scales. Ennis had learned from Cima that Kurhv Ruka’s troops had a blue chevron painted on the scales of their left forearm, blue being Kurhv Ruka’s color; above that, near the elbow, was painted a yellow circle, which was Lieve Mairki’s sigil. Other Ruka under Lieve Mairki’s control would also have the yellow circle, though each Ruka’s troops would have chevrons of different colors. Under the chevron were small multicolored squares which indicated the further subdivisions within the Ruka’s command: the twelve Ured of the Ruka and then sixteen Nista under each Ured. Ennis found the arrangement strangely logical for such savage creatures as the Arruk: the Kralj with four Mairki under him, and eight Ruka reporting to each Mairki, twelve Ured under the command of each Ruka, and sixteen Nista under each Ured—the Daoine, too, counted in hands, after all, though they had one less finger than the Arruk.

  The stench of them in the marketplace was incredible; the sight of them—fierce, battle-hardened, and ready—made Ennis shiver and want to hide. He found himself trying to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible at Kurhv Ruka’s side as the Arruk stepped up on a tumbled wall at one end of the square. “Seiv oder Tog!” he called to the troops, and they bellowed the words back at him, a roar that sent pigeons flapping from the broken rooftops around them. “Victory or Death,” Cima translated for Ennis, and he shivered again. Kurhv Ruka gestured dismissal, and the Ured gave their commands to the Nista, who dispersed the titleless troops.

  “Come with me,” Kurhv Ruka said to Ennis. “We go to see Lieve Mairki.” Ennis might have protested, but the blue ghost nodded its head and he had no choice.

  Kurhv Ruka climbed into his litter and gestured to Ennis to climb up with him. He sat with Kurhv Ruka as Cima walked alongside the bearers in case he was needed. They moved away from the market square toward a tower set on a hill just outside the town’s old walls. Through the open curtains of the litter, Ennis could see the Arruk everywhere, masses of them clogging the streets, and more in tent camps along the hillsides around Torness, all with the yellow circle of Lieve Mairki on their arm, and with chevrons of various colors underneath. Ennis remember how the soldiers had come to Dún Laoghaire before his da and Kayne had left for Céile Mhór, and how excited and awed he’d been by their presence: a thousand solders in their chain mail and with their weapons and horses. But that was a trickle against the flood of the Arruk army. Here there were Arruk beyond count, a plague horde that covered the land everywhere he looked. Kurhv Ruka must have noticed his gaze, for he leaned toward Ennis in their litter. “Your people cannot stop us,” he said, speaking slowly like his mam had when he was younger. “We go to Cudak Zvati, and they cannot hold us back.”

  “Cudak Zvati?”

  Kurhv Ruka glanced sidewise at Cima, and the smaller Arruk scurried over. “Cudak is the God who throws the net that covers the sky every night. He’s awakened from his long sleep, and now he sits in Zvati, his lair to the north, calling for us to come to him. And so we come.”

  Ennis frowned. He imagined a giant Arruk the size of the Keep at Dún Laoghaire, casting a glowing net over the night sky. “Why does he call you?” he asked.

  Cima glanced at Kurhv Ruka, who listened but said nothing. “Cudak has snared power and wrapped it up in his net,” Cima answered. “That’s what our Svarti are searching for—the gift that Cudak will give to us. We . . . I mean, the Svarti . . . they can feel the power that’s in the glowing web, and Cudak . . . Cudak will teach us to take that power into the spell-sticks. Once, I thought—”

  Kurhv Ruka grunted; Cima stopped, snapping his long jaw shut. He raised his head, as if looking at the sky.

  “When I was Kurhv Mairki,” Kurhv Ruka growled, now speaking too fast for Ennis to understand; Cima whispered along with Kurhv Ruka, translating, “I once saw Cudak’s web come down to a hill where the bluntclaw army waited. The next morning, when they attacked, there was one with a great power among the bluntclaws, who threw fire and death from his hand, terrible flame that slew an entire front rank of our troops. The Svarti raised their spell-sticks and howled the release words, but Cudak’s bluntclaw threw back their lightning and broke their sticks. They drove us back that day when I had promised Meidi Kralj a victory, but Meidi Kralj died himself in that battle to a bluntclaw rider, and Grozan Mairki became Kralj. After that, I was no longer Kurhv Mairki.” Kurhv Ruka gave a wordless hiss, and seemed to glare at Cima. “That day, the bluntclaw pulled power down from Cudak’s web and wielded it the way that had been promised to us . . . and now I’ve seen you do the same.”

  Kurhv Ruka stretched out a clawed finger and prodded the stone around Ennis’ neck. His eyes glittered, and Ennis could smell the scent of decay in his breath. He lifted Treoraí’s Heart, as if he might rip the stone from around Ennis’ neck. The thought sent terror lancing through Ennis. Inside, he heard Isibéal laugh. “I know that pain. I know it . . .”

  Ennis was more frightened than he’d been since Isibéal had taken him from Dún Laoghaire. He was certain he knew who the man was who held a Cloch Mór in that battle. Da . . . Da had the Cloch Mór Blaze, and he said that none of the Thane’s people have clochs na thintrí . . .

  Ennis trembled, and he did the only thing he could do: he remained locked in the blue ghost’s shell even as Kurhv Ruka clutched at the chain of Treoraí’s Heart. “I can give you Cudak’s power,” the ghost said in poor, halting Arruk and Ennis echoed the words. “I know how it works, but if you take the stone from me now, it will be dead. Only bluntclaws can use the stones. But . . . I can be your Svarti.”

  Kurhv Ruka hissed his assent: the Arruk “Aye.” “You can, indeed,” he said to Ennis. “And I will be Kurhv Kralj, and you will sit at my right hand, and we will find Cudak Zvati and take what is there.”

  He let Treoraí’s Heart drop back to Ennis’ chest. He hissed again. “Oh, we will do that, you and I. We will do that now.”

  37

  Reunion

  KAYNE THOUGHT that Séarlait might tear the head from the next person who dared to poke it into the tent. She hissed audibly and scowled when Harik and the laird entered, waving her arms as she strode toward them under the canopy. “Séarlait,” he managed to husk out, not daring to move or speak too loudly because of the terrible pain that erupted in his left side when he moved. “Let them in, please . . .”

  Still glaring, Séarlait stepped aside to let her greada and Harik into the tent. The healer who had been lurking alongside Kayne ever since he woke up to find himself back in the Fingerlanders’ camp stepped back, busying himself with the pot over the cook fire, from which streamed the aroma of kala bark and other herbs. “How are you, Tiarna?” Harik asked, kneeling alongside the cot on which Kayne rested.

  Kayne coughed before he could answer, and Séarlait rushed forward to blot his lips with a cloth as Kayne shuddered under the racking explosions of breath and the stabbing in his lungs. They could all see the blood that flecked the cloth as she brought it away; none of them mentioned it. “I feel . . .” . . . like I was caught between a god’s hammer and an anvil, he wanted to continue, but had no breath. He lifted his hand instead, forcing h
imself to take a breath and ignoring the spear that jabbed his insides as he did so. “The Airgiallaians . . . ?”

  You’re dying. He knew it. You’re broken inside and there’s nothing they can do. He could feel it, had seen it in the face of the healer when he’d examined Kayne, could see it now in their faces and the soft, gentle way they spoke to him, could sense it because the edges of his vision were as dark and misty as if he were looking at the world through the narrow end of a broken drinking horn. Only Séarlait stubbornly refused to acknowledge it.

  He must have been unconscious for several stripes. He remembered nothing of the ride back from the confrontation with O Contratha. It was night outside; he glimpsed the moon, and the tent was dark and shadowed except for the flames of the cook fire.

  “After we killed Tiarna O Contratha and took Bluefire, they were in an uproar,” Harik answered. “There was no movement forward for stripes, and we saw the commanders meeting in a tent farther down the High Road. Our watchers tell us that message birds were sent both north to Dathúil and south, probably to Dún Laoghaire. But the Riocha gave orders to the troops to move; a stripe ago, they started up toward the Narrows again.”

  “They still don’t believe that mere Fingerlanders can beat them,” Laird O’Blathmhaic added. His normal roar was strangely subdued here. “They’ll find out differently when they reach the Narrows. They won’t even pass through to the Finger. Not this time.”

  Kayne grimaced, as much from disappointment as from pain. He’d hoped that the loss of the Cloch Mór would have upset the odds enough that whoever had taken command of the army would retreat, or at least wait for new orders. Shay O Blaca of the Order of Gabair held Quickship, the Cloch Mór that could send himself or another mage long distances: perhaps one of the Order’s mages had been sent as reinforcement. He wondered if O Blaca might not have transported Doyle Mac Ard himself.

  The thoughts chased themselves through his head but he didn’t have the strength to speak them. “Bluefire . . . ?”

  “I have the cloch, Tiarna,” Harik said. He held out his hand, the chain—broken—looped about his fingers but the sapphire glittering below. Kayne was certain that Harik had been careful not to touch the gem itself. Harik started to give Bluefire to Kayne, but Kayne reached out and took Harik’s hand, turning it over and placing the gem in the palm and folding his fingers around the facets. Harik gasped at the touch, his eyes widening.

  “Now you’ll keep it,” Kayne husked. “Fill it with the mage-lights and use it.”

  “Tiarna—” Harik started to protest, “I’m not . . .” Kayne tightened his fingers around Harik’s, trying to sit up.

  “Aye, Harik the Hand,” O’Blathmhaic muttered. Séarlait watched, a slow smile creasing her lips. “We’ll need the cloch.”

  “I have no training,” Harik insisted. “And I’m not Riocha.” Though his head didn’t move, Kayne saw his eyes flick toward the left where Séarlait stood.

  “Neither was Da,” Kayne managed to say. “Nor Séarlait. And training . . .” He ran out of breath then and shrugged.

  “No one else here has the training either,” Laird O’Blathmhaic told Harik. “And no Fingerlander is going to care whether you’re Riocha or not if you use that stone against our enemies.” He laughed at that, clapping Harik on the back. “You took it from that bastard of a tiarna,” he said, as loudly as ever. “Now use it against them.”

  Harik did not look convinced, but he nodded, staring at Bluefire in his hand.

  Kayne let himself fall back on the cot. “Good,” he said. He could feel another bout of coughing coming on and desperately held it back. Séarlait moved alongside him; she stroked his hair, leaning over to kiss his forehead once. Her lips and hand felt cold against the heat of his skin. Twin waves of blue and red chased themselves over the fabric of the tent’s canopy, and at the same moment Kayne felt the tug of the mage-lights. Séarlait felt it also, he noticed . . . and Harik. Kayne tried to sit up again. “The lights . . .”

  Séarlait shook her head desperately, pushing him back down.

  “I have to . . .” he insisted, though he didn’t have the strength to move against her hands. “Séarlait, I must . . .” The mage-lights would make him feel better, and if the Airgiallaians were coming, if they brought more cloudmages with them, then Blaze would need to be full even if in the end he was not the one who wielded it. He knew all that, but couldn’t say it. He gazed up at Séarlait with desperation. Finally, she nodded her head as if she understood his thoughts, and when she blinked, moisture ran from the corners of her eyes.

  She lifted a finger to him and left the tent, coming back with a quartet of his gardai. They picked up the cot and carried Kayne outside. Though they were careful and gentle, Kayne still felt as if he’d been dropped from the side of a mountain when they set him down again. Moving his hand to his cloch took nearly all the energy he had; opening Blaze in his mind to the mage-lights brought him to the edge of unconsciousness and nearly swept him under. He drifted there, feeling the energy of the lights pulsing in and around him, watching as a tendril undulated from the zenith to his hand, touching Blaze and wrapping about his arm. Kayne sighed. Around him, he knew, Séarlait and now Harik must be doing the same, but he couldn’t see them, lost in the growing darkness at the periphery of his vision. He could only see above, and inside where the ruddy facets of Blaze opened to him, filling themselves with the fire above.

  And there . . . there was Treoraí’s Heart, with its hidden Holder . . . and there . . .

  . . . there was the Presence: the Bán Cailleach. Sevei. Her horribly scarred face peered down at him with gentle sympathy in the unbroken blackness of her eyes. “Oh, Kayne. I didn’t realize it was so bad . . .”

  “Aye, it’s that bad,” he said. He wanted to laugh and dared not, knowing how it would hurt. “I’m dying, Sevei.”

  “You can’t die,” she said. “I need you too much.” He wanted to believe her. The power of the mage-lights sang in her voice, an undertone like the roar of a wild sea, crashing and thundering. Her skin was so bright that it hurt his eyes to look at her. He closed them against the pain.

  “Kayne, look at me,” she said. “Stay with me,” and it sounded as if her voice spoke in his ear. He opened his eyes, slowly, and saw her not floating in mage-light, but seemingly there beside him. She was naked, her white hair wild around her shoulders, her pale skin carved with the lines of power. He could feel the touch of her hand on his face. He wondered if he was already dead and this was a last vision granted to him by the Mother-Creator. He wondered when the pain would end, and he looked away from her to see if the Black Haunts had come.

  “Mam could have saved me,” he whispered to her. “With Treoraí’s Heart.”

  “I have Lámh Shábhála,” Sevei told him. “And I have my love for you. It will have to do.” The mage-lights were still flowing, and it seemed to Kayne that she reached up and snatched a coil of them from the sky, bringing it down to him. She pressed the wild, snarling power against his chest: it burned and hissed and throbbed, pounding at his chest. Kayne cried out with the renewed pain and Sevei wailed with him as if she felt the pain herself, but she continued to press the mage-lights down against his body. He felt them break the skin and enter, the heat spreading through him, running through his blood and his sinews. The fury of it made him gasp . . . and he realized with the intake of breath that he could breathe, that the knives which seemed to have been inserted in his lungs had vanished.

  He took a long, shuddering breath. “Sevei?”

  “I’m here, Kayne.”

  And she was there. The face he remembered was terribly changed and altered, but it was Sevei, and it was the Bán Cailleach at the same time. He could feel the power of Lámh Shábhála radiating from her, the mage-lights still pouring energy into the Great Cloch. He could see the others also, staring at her: Séarlait and Harik, their hands still entangled in bright threads; Laird O’Blathmhaic, the nearby gardai and the Fingerlanders. Sevei smiled at Kayn
e, and in response he lifted himself from his cot with a groan, his arms extended as if to enfold her in an embrace.

  Sevei stepped back from him, her lips turning to a frown. “No,” she said loudly, shaking her head. “The scars . . . they hurt too much. I can’t bear to be touched, not even to wear clothing . . .”

  Kayne could see the pain and discomfort in her face and the way she held her body, then. There was nothing sexual in her nudity; the intricate webbing of scars that covered her body glowed as if they were a silken coat reflecting the sun. He expected to see her holding Lámh Shábhála or to have the cloch dangling from a necklace around her neck, but it was not. The mage-light danced around her but rather than gathering around her hand, they seemed to lance directly into her chest. Through the radiance of the lights, he could see a pulsing emerald green buried within her, shimmering through her flesh and tinting her face, throat, and breasts with the hue of summer grass. Sevei sighed as the mage-lights continued to pour into the cloch, a twisting funnel of energy that coiled upward from her to the sky. She touched her hand to where Lámh Shábhála was trapped inside her, and the mage-lights curled reluctantly away like the touch of a jilted lover. The mage-lights began to fade, and he could hear the whispers all around them:

  “The Bán Cailleach . . . The Pale Witch has come here. . . . The new Holder . . .”

  Séarlait had watched as she fed her own cloch. Now she released Winter and came running to him. She hugged Kayne fiercely, then nodded to Sevei, her eyes filled with tears. Harik and the laird watched from where they stood.

  Sevei’s mouth lifted in a brief smile. She nodded to Séarlait. “So she’s the one,” she said to Kayne. “You need to introduce me, brother.”

  38

  The Eyes of the Storm

  THERE WAS A SOLITARY figure seated alone in the dust of the High Road as the vanguard of the army entered the Narrows.