by S L Farrell
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Ennis told him. “We’ve come to a town.” The litter was already being set down, and he could hear Kurhv Kralj shouting orders to the Mairki. Ennis stepped out from his litter; immediately a space cleared around him, and the Arruk nearest him looked carefully away, their snouts conspicuously raised. The knitting wounds on Ennis’ body pulled and ached as he moved, and Cima hurried forward with his spell-stick, with the knob at the top now nearly gone. Still, it had held the spells that Ennis, with Cima’s aid, had carefully placed back within it. Ennis leaned on the stick, hobbling forward to stand at Kurhv Kralj’s side.
There were blue ghosts everywhere, and in all of the images, he saw fighting here. He wondered how that was possible in an empty town. Ennis wanted to move closer to the walls to look at it, but the blue ghost to which he had attached himself did not move, so he stayed where he was.
“They think walls made of sticks will stop us,” Kurhv Kralj said to Ennis, as Cima translated. “We’ll leave them burning under our feet. Look, the cowardly Perakli have already abandoned their town to us, too afraid to even stay here.” He roared toward the barren walls and the shut gates. “As they should be,” he shouted. “The Arruk come, and the Perakli tremble.” He gestured to the Mairki and their Svarti. “This travesty blocks our path. Take it out.”
The four Mairki roared and went scurrying to their respective positions. The Mairki bellowed their orders and the Arruk army surged forward, the front ranks carrying a massive tree trunk as a battering ram as they trotted up the road toward the gates to the beat of the war drums. The rush of battle fury caught all of them, and Ennis wanted to charge with them, but again the blue ghost would not move. He clenched the spell-stick in his hand and watched the other Svarti move toward the town with the Arruk soldiers.
They were a hundred paces from the walls when heads appeared at the ramparts, and the Daoine bows sent a shattering wave of death toward the Arruk. The front ranks crumpled and the ram bearers stumbled, the trunk falling to the ground and rolling as those crushed beneath it screamed. The barrage stopped a bare few strides from where Ennis stood. He saw an arrow lodge itself in the mud just ahead of him—where he might have been had he followed his inclinations. Another flurry of arrows came as Kurhv Kralj, standing with Ennis, screamed a challenge at the town’s defenders. “Come and fight!” he shouted. “Quit cowering behind the walls and meet your fate as warriors!” He looked at Ennis, flecks of foamy spittle at the corners of his mouth. “Your people are fearful mice and filthy grubs,” he said. “They hide, and throw their sticks at us from the shadows.”
The blue ghost said nothing. Ennis bit his lip to remain silent himself. He stared at the town, he clenched his spell stick, and his fingers prowled the facets of Treoraí’s Heart.
“Use the stone. Show them again the fate that awaits them. The Arruk are like dogs: they respect strength and will show their necks to someone who can dominate them. You can rule the Arruk; you can’t rule the Daoine—they won’t submit. Use the stone . . .” It was Gyl Svarti’s voice.
“Be quiet. I’ll have all of the dead in my head. Like you.”
It was Isibéal who answered. “My voice will be stronger than theirs, Ennis. You will be stronger. Use the stone . . .”
“Let Mam talk. Let me hear her.”
The other voices, the voices of those he’d killed, whimpered and wailed in the background, but if Mam spoke, she was drowned out by them. Now the blue ghost moved, and Ennis laced his finger around the Heart. As he opened the cloch, he felt the enchantments he’d woven into the spell stick, felt them swell and wriggle as the power touched them, as if they were live things aching to be released from the cage of their wood.
“You don’t have to do this, Ennis Svarti.” That was Cima’s voice, whispering so that only Ennis could hear, and he felt his Arruk companion’s hand on his arm. “The town will fall without your help. They can’t hold.”
Ennis looked down at Cima’s hand, and he felt the blue ghost narrow his eyes into an angry glare. Cima shivered and let his hand drop away. “Tell the Mairki to fall back from the gates,” Ennis said to Cima and Kurhv Kralj. Kurhv Kralj’s eyes sparkled at that, and his lips moved back from the long rows of his teeth. He waved to his drummers and they lifted their beaters, hammering out on the tanned skins of the Arruk dead a new pattern: doom, doom, datta-doom, datta-datta-doom. The Mairki howled at their soldiers, the Svarti stopped their chants. All the Arruk, silent now, moved back from their assault on the walls and gates of Ceangail. Though the arrows continued to hiss down from the skies, they looked back to Kurhv Kralj, and he gestured. The Arruk moved aside from the roadway, leaving it vacant and empty from the gates to the Kralj’s litter and Ennis.
Ennis raised his staff, and they answered with an approving, mass howl.
Garvan could see the panic in their faces. “Hold!” he screamed to them: Tuathaian and Fingerlander alike. “Hold them as long as you can!”
He didn’t know if any of those arrayed along the walls of Ceangail heard him. The noise was tremendous: the shivering howls of the Arruk, the crash and boom as their ram battered at the main gates, the screams and shouts of their own men, the insistent beat of the war drums. Laird O’Blathmhaic was at the gates, rallying the Fingerlanders. Garvan ran along the walls until he stood above the gates. The Arruk were thick here, a surging mass of them, the scales colorful below him, the arrows of archers ricochet ing from them as often as they stuck. The Arruk didn’t seem to care: they trampled the fallen below their feet and more came to replace them. Garvan looked up the road to where the Kralj’s litter stood. He could see the Kralj; he could also see the small Daoine youth who stood beside him.
They would need the tunnels they burrowed under the walls, Garvan knew; the tunnels that led out far from the city and the road.
He shivered.
“Laird!” he called down. “How long?”
“The supports are already broken,” O’Blathmhaic shouted up to him. “We’re bracing as best we can. A few more well-placed strikes, though, and they’ll be through.”
“Then let’s get our people to the tunnels . . .” Garvan stopped: the Arruk war drums had changed their beating, a cadence that he had heard only once before, when Tiarna Geraghty and his cloch had swept the Arruk’s Svarti from the field and they’d broken through the Arruk ranks threatening to reach the Kralj. Fall back . . . the drums said. For a moment, Garvan’s heart lifted. He wondered if they’d somehow managed to break the spirit of the Arruk or if some army had impossibly come to their rescue . . .
But no . . . The Arruk went silent, dropping their ram in the middle of the road and melting back from the walls. The archers continued to fire down on them, but now the road was barren of everyone but the dead and wounded. Garvan followed the line of the open road up the slope. He saw Ennis—it had to be Ennis—lift the spell-stick he carried, and he also saw the glint of the cloch in his other hand.
He would not make the mistake of Bunús Wall and order his people to the gate. He already knew it was hopeless. The battle would end now. “Laird!” Garvan shouted, “Get everyone back!”
But it was already too late. Garvan was blinded by the light that arced out from Ennis, a jagged brilliance that traveled impossibly along the ground like slow, crawling lightning. The fury struck the gates of Ceangail; the thick oaken planks shattered into splinters. The walls on either side of the gate trembled and fell, and Garvan fell with them.
He found himself on the ground in a jumble of broken lumber. A jagged spear splinter of oak had impaled his once-broken arm, now broken again and worse. The rain dappled the blood as he grimaced and pulled his arm free of the wood. He knew he’d also cracked ribs on that side, that his skin would already be blackened with bruises. His knee screamed at the abuse, but he found that he could stand. “Retreat!” he screamed to anyone who could hear. “To the tunnels! Ceangail has fallen! Retreat!”
He pushed at those around him w
ith his good hand—as he heard the howls of the Arruk, as the afterimages of the mage-light purpled his vision. “Laird! Laird O’Blath mhaic!” he shouted, looking for the man.
He saw him. O’Blathmhaic was sprawled on the ground near the gate. His open eyes stared upward at the sky, and the rain fell on him and he did not blink. Garvan’s heart sank, and he turned his back to the gate.
“Retreat!” he shouted. “Ceangail is lost! Retreat!”
Too few of the defenders moved to follow his orders.
53
In Tory Coill
“TRÁTHNÓNA maith duit, Greada.”
Kyle MacEagan was standing with his longtime companion Alby near the fire, his arm around Alby’s thin waist. The torc of the Rí lay on the mantle, as if the old man found its burden too heavy around his neck. Sevei saw her great-da turn at her greeting; his hand dropped quickly away from Alby, who stepped back into the shadows near the hearth, as unobtrusive as a good servant should be. Kyle smiled quietly at Sevei, though his eyes remained sad and tired. “There haven’t been many good evenings about here lately,” he said to her. “You look like you’re in terrible pain, Sevei. Should I have Alby call the healer to prepare some kala bark for you?”
He started to gesture to Alby, but Sevei shook her head. Her skin was tingling painfully with the cold of the passage from Dún Laoghaire to Inishfeirm, then from Inishfeirm to Dún Kiil, and her mind was still reeling with the news that Edana had given her. She sniffed the air, and it seemed full of the scent of doom. The voices in her head whispered agreement.
“. . . death. It’s always war and death . . .”
“. . . that’s all the power of Lámh Shábhála has ever brought . . .”
“. . . .you can do more. You can do more . . .” That last was Carrohkai Treemaster, and Sevei clung to the ancient Bunús woman’s voice as if it were a plank of wood in a storm-torn sea.
“I’m afraid not, Greada. The news isn’t good . . .” She told him then, and as she spoke, the words drove him to his chair and pushed him, hunched and weary, into the cushions. Midway through her tale, Alby quietly left the room. Kyle seemed diminished and far older when she finished.
“Our Ennis, with the Arruk . . .” he husked. He would not look at her.
“Aye,” she told him. “Greada, how many gardai can Inish Thuaidh bring to the Narrows in a hand and one of days?”
“A hand and one?” he grunted. “In good weather, it would be nearly a hand of days around the Tuatha and through the Airgialla passage. We would have only a day to muster the troops and supply the ships . . .” He shook his head. “A few hundred,” he said. “We’d have no time to take more than those in this township and maybe that of Be an Mhuilinn and Na Clocha Dubha. Maybe a hand or so of ships, and the gods would have to give us good winds.”
“The winds you’ll have,” Sevei told him. “I went first to Inishfeirm, and I’ve spoken to Maestra Caomhánach of the Order. Stormbringer will go with you, and so will many Bráthairs and Siúrs of the Order.”
“The Order, going out to battle once more.” Kyle sighed. “That’s a sight many always wished to see . . .” The door to his chamber opened with a soft groan of hinges and Alby reentered, carrying a tray with two steaming mugs on it. He gave one to Kyle and brought the other to Sevei. She could smell the kala bark in the steam. She smiled gratefully at Alby as she took the mug, enjoying the warmth it lent her hands. Her greada’s voice brought her attention back.
“But there won’t be any troops at all, and no ships for the Order,” he said. “The Comhairle might have named me Rí, but this . . . this expedition would require the Comhairle’s approval and cooperation, and it would take days just to get the clan-heads here so the Comhairle can meet. Even if they were here, the Comhairle still would never allow it. They would tell us that the Arruk have never crossed water, even when they could, and Inish Thuaidh is an island. Why should we come to the aid of our old enemies when the Arruk are no threat to us?” He held his own mug in his hands, forgotten.
It was the answer she’d expected, but hoped she wouldn’t hear. “Is that what you believe also, Greada?” she asked. “Answer me honestly.”
“. . . he was a good husband to me, but he should never have been Rí . . .” Gram’s voice. Sevei shoved her back down: “He’s more capable than you believe, Gram. I’m sure of that.”
She thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard her. He was staring at the curls of steam rising from his tea. Alby stood behind Kyle’s chair. The servant’s wrinkled hand touched the old man’s shoulder and Kyle lifted his head. “No,” he said finally. “It does us little good to survive here if our cousins and kin in the Tuatha are destroyed, even if the Arruk never come here at all.” He sighed. “The Comhairle will howl and scream and demand their title back, but I never wanted to be Rí in the first place.”
The voices of the Inish Holders within her shrieked their fury, though Gram’s was not among them.
“. . . No! Let the fools die! . . .”
“. . . The Tuatha would never have come to our aid. Never . . .”
“. . . Let them bathe their precious kingdoms in their own blood ...”
“Shut up! Be quiet!”
“What?” her greada said, and Sevei started, realizing she’d spoken aloud. Kyle set the mug down, rising. He went to Sevei, standing before her. He lifted his arms as if to hug her and Sevei stepped back and brought up her hands. “Ah,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry for you, Sevei.” His right hand fingered the Cloch Mór on his chest. “I’ll gather as many gardai and soldiers as I can,” he told her. “By the Rí of Dún Kiil’s order. By the time the Comhairle realizes what’s happened, the Order’s mages will have arrived and the ships will be gone.” He paused. “I’ll sail with them.”
She looked at him: the leathery, wrinkled, and sagging skin of his face; the spotted scalp his hair had long ago deserted; the belly rounding under his clóca; the legs whose thinness even several wrappings of linen couldn’t hide; the hands that shook slightly as they touched Firerock in its cage of silver wire. “Greada, you’re needed here . . .”
“Don’t lie to me, great-daughter,” he said. “I’m too old for lies and half-truths. We both know that once I do this, I’ll no longer be Rí. And you’ll need all the Clochs Mór you can muster. Firerock served at the Battle of Dún Kiil. It’s time it served again.”
“Greada ...”
“Hush, child,” he told her, as if she were simply his great-daughter and not the Bán Cailleach at all. “Drink the kala bark, and let me make ready. Drink. Go on.”
He waited until she lifted the mug to her lips, then turned to Alby.
The Saimhóir changelings had returned to the water, the dire wolves had vanished into the darkness of the forest. Only the two Bunús Muintir were left: Beryn, the Protector of Thall Coill; and Keira, the Protector of Doire Coill.
On the hill where they sat, a cairn of rocks had been erected, newly piled. Their pale gray stones seemed white in the moonlight. Kayne was still wearing the clóca and léine he’d worn when they’d been attacked, dyed rusty brown by Séarlait’s lifeblood. Beryn had offered fresh clothing, but he’d only shaken his head, not caring. He’d cleaned her body, had laid it down and gathered the dirt and rocks to place over her without acknowledging Beryn’s and Keira’s silent help. He felt numb and distant, as if he were outside his body and watching himself work. He’d labored without rest until it was done.
Kayne stared at the cairn, Winter dangling on its chain in his hand. He’d been staring at the cloch and the grave since the sun was high in the sky without seeing either one of them. The grave was unreal. It was a dream. It was impossible.
“I’m sorry, Kayne,” Keira said at his side. Doire Coill’s guardian had been old when Kayne had last seen her a double-hand or more of years ago. Even then she’d relied on her staff to support her: a gnarled and twisted oaken branch as tall as herself. Now her ancient eyes looked him up and down as if appraising him as she sat
next to the crackling branches. “I know there’s no comfort in this, but she would be glad that you lived. That’s what she wanted.”
“I don’t live,” Kayne told her. “Not anymore. I’m as dead as she is—my body just hasn’t realized it.”
The old woman grunted. Her hand stroked his arm in mute empathy.
Beryn stood a little aside from them, his gaze more on the shadowed wood than on the other two. He’d built a tiny fire on the hilltop, little more than a hand’s span in size, though still the trees seemed to groan in response, or perhaps that was only the wind through winter-bare branches. Kayne’s world had shrunk to the bare globe of the fire, ending in darkness beyond Séarlait’s cairn. “She should have had a pyre,” Kayne said. “That’s what her people do with their dead.”
“The Seanóir, the old trees, wouldn’t have liked that. This is their land, after all. But she will rest here, and the Greatness will take Séarlait up to Her and comfort her.”
Across the fire, Beryn lifted his head to the sky. Keira knotted arthritic fingers around the use-stained wood of her staff and stumped over to stand before Kayne, groaning as she moved. “The mage-lights are coming,” she said. “And so is your sister with them. Open your cloch to the lights and she’ll find you.”
“She’s about a day and a half too late,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
The old woman shrugged. “The Bán Cailleach goes where she must.” The mage-lights, brightening, lent their cool hues to her face, the illumination shifting over her features. Kayne could feel the pull of Blaze, yearning to be filled again with the power. The cloch’s insistence pulled his attention away from the cairn despite his grief. Beryn was chanting in the Bunús tongue, and the lights swirled above him. Even Keira looked away, lifting her staff toward the sky.
Kayne took Blaze in his hand.
The mage-lights were cold fire, and the energy within them radiated through his entire body, spreading out from his right hand to the rest of him. In his mage-sight, Blaze was a cavern of scarlet glass, and the power flowed through it like a subterranean river, rising higher to fill the rooms within it. He could feel the other Clochs Mór as well: the hateful cluster of the Ríthe not far away and the fierce, powerful tidal pull of the Bán Cailleach. His sister’s black eyes and scarred face drifted there in the lights. Her harsh gaze found him and for a moment he was caught in those eyes, snared, and they seemed to rush toward him . . .