Holder of Lightning tc-1 Read online

  But it remained simply night outside. Nothing more.

  The next day broke with a heavy mist rolling in from the west, a gray wall that hid sun and sky and laid a sheen of moisture over the village. The mist beaded on the wool of the sheep as Jenna and Kesh herded them to the field behind the cottage. Kesh was acting strangely; he kept lifting his head and barking at something unseen, but finally they got the last straggler through. Jenna walked the field perimeter once, checking the stone fence her father had built, then calling Kesh-still barking at noth-ing-and closing the gate.

  She smelled it then in the air, over the distinctive tang of smoldering peat from their own fire and those in the village: the odor of wood smoke and burning thatch. Jenna frowned, surveying the landscape. There was a smear of darker gray beyond the trees lining the field, and under it, a tinge of glowing red. "Mam!" she called. "I think there’s a fire in the village."

  Maeve came from the cottage, wrapping a shawl over her head. "Look," Jenna said, pointing. Her mam squinted into the damp air, into the gray, dim distance.

  "Come on," she said. "They may need help. ."

  They didn’t get as far as the High Road. They heard the sound of a galloping horse racing toward them down the rutted dirt lane, and Tiarna Mac Ard came hurtling around the bend, his hair blowing and his cloca billowing behind him. He pulled Conhal to a mud-tossing halt in front of them, dismounting in a sudden leap.

  "Tiarna Mac Ard-" Maeve began, but then the man cut off her words with a slash of his arm. "No time," he said. "We need to get you and your daughter out of here. Into the bogs, maybe, or over-" He stopped, whirling around at the sound of pounding hooves, as Kesh ran barking and snarling toward the quartet of on-rushing horses.

  White fog blew from the nostrils of the steeds and the mouths of the riders.

  "Kesh, no!" Jenna shouted at the dog. Kesh stopped, looked back at Jenna.

  They could have gone around him. There was easily room.

  They ran the dog down. Jenna screamed as she saw the hooves of the lead horse strike Kesh. He yelped and rolled and tried to escape, but the horse's muscular rear legs struck his side and Kesh went down under the three behind, lost in the blur of motion and clods of flying dirt. "Kesh!" Jenna screamed again, starting to run toward the bloody, still form in the dirt, but Maeve's arms went around her as Mac Ard stepped between them and the horsemen. "Kesh!"

  The lead rider pulled his party to a stop before Mac Ard. The man threw his cloca back, and Jenna, sobbing for Kesh, saw a sword on his belt. "Where's your blue and gold, Fiacra De Derga?" Mac Ard called to the rider. "Or are those of Connachta too cowardly to show their colors when they go plundering in Gabair?"

  The rider smiled. His hair was flaming red-a deeper red than that of Ard, what a surprise. I haven't seen you since our cousin's wedding feast a year ago last summer." Pale eyes swept over Maeve and Jenna. Jenna wanted to leap at the man, but Maeve's arms held her tightly, and Jenna clutched at her skirts in frustration and anger. In the folds caught in her left fist, she felt a small, cold hardness beneath the wool. "And what inter-esting company you keep. Is this the Aoire family the village Ald told me about before she died, the Inishlander's wife and daughter?"

  "These people are formally under R1 Mallaghan of Tuath Gabair's pro-tection. That's all you need to know."

  De Derga smiled. He lifted himself in his saddle with a creak of leather and looked about ostentatiously. "And where is R1 Mallaghan? I don't

  seem to see him at the moment, or any royal decree in your hand." His gaze came back to Mac Ard. "I only see you, Padraic. If I’d known that, I’d have left my companions with the rest of my men." The three men behind De Derga laughed as he tsked. "One lone tiarna is all R1 Gabair sends when mage-lights fill the sky? I find that incredibly foolish. When word came to R1 Connachta that people on our eastern borders had seen mage-lights, he sent out over two dozen to follow them. And last night. . well, you saw them better than us, didn’t you, up on that hilltop?"

  Jenna let her hand slip into the pocket of her skirt. The stone pulsed against her fingertips, as frigid as glacial ice.

  "You would always rather talk a man to death than use your sword, Fiacra."

  De Derga spread his hands. "It’s my gift. Now, step aside, as I’ll be taking the women back to Thiar."

  Mac Ard unsheathed his sword, the iron ringing. Jenna heard her mam’s intake of breath. "Be careful, Tiarna," she said, one hand extended to Mac Ard, the other still around Jenna’s shoulders. Jenna slipped from her mam’s grasp, a step away; she took her hand from her pocket, her hand fisted. De Derga laughed.

  ’"Be careful,’" he repeated, mocking Maeve’s tone. He shook his head at Mac Ard. "Your taste was always common, Padraic."

  "Get off your horse, Fiacra, so I can separate your babbling head from your shoulders."

  De Derga sat easily as his mount stamped a foot and shook its head at the smell of the weapon. "No.

  I think not."

  "You have no honor, De Derga. And I’m shamed that you’d let your men see that."

  (Throbbing against her skin. . Searing cold rising up her arm, filling her. .)

  "My men have seen me fight often enough, cousin, and they know that I could take you as easily as this woman you’re shielding. They also know that I won’t be goaded into doing something foolish when the battle’s already won." De Derga waved a hand, and Jenna noticed that the trio behind had drawn

  bows. "So, Padraic, the choice is yours: sheathe that weapon and return to Lar Bhaile, or we'll simply cut you down where you stand."

  This time it was Mac Ard who laughed. "Let's not lie to each other, Fiacra. You can't let me go back and tell my R1 that you were here in his land."

  A muscle twitched in De Derga's mouth. "No," he said. "I suppose I can t." He waved a hand to his men as Mac Ard let out a scream of rage and charged toward De Derga, his sword swinging in a great arc. Bow-strings sang death.

  "No!" Jenna screamed, and the fury seemed to burst through her skin, ripping and tearing through her soul, spilling from her open mouth.

  She lifted her hand.

  In one blinding instant, arrows flared and went to ash in mid-flight. The horses screamed and reared, and four jagged bolts of pure white erupted from Jenna's hand, the lightnings snapping and crackling as they impaled the riders, striking them from their saddles and arcing as they slammed the bodies to the ground. The discharge from the stone was blinding, overloading Jenna's eyes even as she saw the riders fall; the sound deafened her, a sinister crackling like the snapping of dry bones. Someone screamed in agony and terror, and Jenna screamed in sympathy, her voice lost in the chaos, her mind awhirl with the cold power until, swirling, it bore her down into oblivion and silence.

  Chapter 6: Bog And Forest

  SHE awoke with a start and a cry, and Maeve’s hand brushed her fore-head soothingly. "Hush, darling," she said, but her eyes were full of worry.

  "Where are we?" Jenna asked. She sat up-they were sitting in the midst of bracken, and Tiarna Mac Ard was crouched a few feet away, his back to them. Jenna could smell the earthy, wet musk of bog, and water trickled brightly somewhere nearby. Two saddle packs were on the ground near them, and a bow with arrows fletched like those of the men who had attacked them. The memory came back to her then, awful and fierce: Kesh lying dead on the ground, the men from Connachta threaten-ing them, the cold, terrible lightning from the stone. "The riders. ." she breathed with a sob. "The man you called De Derga, your cousin. ."

  "Dead." Mac Ard said the word gruffly, his voice low. "All dead. And by now their companions know it as well, and are hunting us." He glanced back at Jenna, and his expression was guarded. "They’ll also know that it wasn’t a sword that cut them down."

  "I…"Jenna gulped. Her stomach lurched and she bent over, vomiting acid bile on the ground. She could feel her mam stroking her back as the spasms shook her, as her stomach heaved. When the sickness had passed, Jenna wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her coat. "
I’m sorry," she said. They’re-" She couldn’t say the word. Mac Ard nodded, watching her as she leaned into the comforting arms of Maeve, as if she were a little child again.

  "Jenna, the first time someone fell to my sword, I did the same thing you just did," he said. "I’ve seen men hacked to death during a battle, or crushed under their horses. Eventually, it bothers you less." He leaned over, as if he were going to stroke her hair as Maeve did, but pulled his hand back. He pursed his lips under the dark beard. "I’d be more worried about you if it didn’t bother you. But I have to tell you that what you did. . I’ve never seen the like."

  The stone, cold in her hand… Jenna felt in her

  skirt pocket, then glanced frantically around her on the damp ground.

  "Would you be looking for this?" The stone glistened between Mac Ard's forefinger and thumb. He turned it carefully in front of them. "Not much to look at it, is it? Something you might miss entirely, if it was just lying there."

  "That's mine," Jenna said loudly. "I found it."

  "Jenna-" Maeve began, but Mac Ard snorted as if amused.

  "A clock na thintri, it's called," he said. "A lightning stone. And you had it all along. When I asked you about the mage-lights, you must have forgotten to tell me about the cloch you found." He could have sounded angry. He didn't; he seemed more disappointed.

  Jenna looked at the ground rather than at him.

  "Your da would have known the term," Mac Ard continued. "I'll wager he brought the stone here himself, or knew that this one lay there on Knobtop, waiting for the mage-lights to return. And, aye, Jenna, now it's yours." He stretched out his hand, and dropped it in Jenna's palm. It was warm, an ordinary stone. "Keep it," he said. "It gave itself to you, not to me."

  Jenna put it back in her skirt, feeling Mac Ard's eyes on her. "How. .?" she started to say, but Mac Ard lifted a finger to his lips. "Later, you'll know all you want to know, and more."

  Jenna stared at the tiarna, trying to see past his dark gaze. He seemed calm enough, and not angry with her. After a few breaths, she looked away. "Mam, where are we?" she asked once more.

  "In the bog on the other side of the bridge,"

  Maeve said. "Tiarna Mac Ard carried you here when you collapsed, after-" Her mam stopped.

  "Mam, what's happened? Why did those men come here?"

  It was Mac Ard who answered. "They came for the same reason I came-because they saw the mage-lights. I didn't think R1 Connachta would be so foolhardy as to send his people here. I was the one who told R1 Mallaghan of Gabair that we didn't need to concern ourselves with the other Tuatha." He

  scoffed angrily. "I was a damned fool, and damned lucky to be alive. Tara’s son Eliath came running into the tavern this morning, said that the Ald’s cottage was afire and that there were a dozen men on horseback there. I left the tavern then, and rode for your home. De Darga saw me as I brought Conhal out of the stable, and followed. The rest you know."

  "Where’s Conhal?"

  "With three of us, we couldn’t outrun the others with one horse, so I turned him loose. Hopefully he’ll find his own way home. As for the others, they’re scouring the countryside now, looking for us. We’ve seen them twice while we were here; once a pair of riders, then four more who crossed the bridge and went up on Knobtop. Look. ." He stopped, pulling brush aside so that Jenna could see the bog. They were on one of the grassy, overgrown hummocks that dotted the marsh. She could see the peat-stained open water of the Mill Creek a little bit away, and beyond the creek was the rise of the northern bank and the low hills that con-cealed their house. Beyond the hills, she could see a column of black smoke smeared across the sky. She knew what it was even as her mam spoke.

  "They burned the cottage," Maeve said. Her voice was strangely calm. "Everything we had…"

  "The R1 Gabair will give you all and more, once we get to Lar Bhaile. I promise you that."

  Maeve’s eyes flashed, and Jenna heard the mingled anger and sorrow in her voice. "Will the R1 give me back the scarf that Niall gave me the night he first came to me? Will he give me the cups and plates that Niall made with his own hands, or the pot with blue glaze I fired for him? Will I see the first linen shirt I made for Jenna, when she was just a babe? The R1 can give me money and build a new cottage, but he can’t give me a tithe of what’s been destroyed."

  "I know that," Mac Ard replied softly. "I wish it were different, Maeve- may I call you that?"

  Jenna’s mam nodded. "Good. And please call me Padraic. I wish I could undo my words to R1 Mallaghan and that I had come here with my own squad of gardai, as he wished. Maybe then none of this would have happened. But I can’t unsay the words, and I can’t ease your loss. All I can do now is try to keep us alive."

  "How?" Maeve asked. She looked at Jenna. "You don't want her to-"

  "No," Mac Ard said quickly. "She doesn't need more blood on her hands, nor do I think she knows how to control the stone or whether she could repeat what she did. I certainly don't know the answer to that. The Connachtans will expect us to make for Lar Bhaile, so they'll be watching the High Road and the River Duan. They can't stay here long, however- they know word will eventually reach the Rl's ears about this raid and he'll send soldiers after them."

  "So what do we do?"

  "We find a place to hide for a few days."

  Maeve shook her head, hugging Jenna. "Where? I don't know of such a place. They would find us here, eventually."

  "I agree," Mac Ard answered. "So we'll go into Doire Coill."

  Jenna cried out at that and Maeve shook her head. "Have you gone mad, Tiarna Mac Ard? You take us from one death to another."

  "I take us from sure death to a hope for life," he answered. "They'll be searching the bogs soon enough, Maeve. We can't stay here. We need to go, and we need to go now while we can."

  Maeve was still shaking her head, but Jenna felt her mam's arms relax around her and knew that she'd made a decision, staring at the smoke rising from the ruin of their lives. Everything they'd known was gone; their only ally was Mac Ard. Jenna leaned toward Maeve. "We have to trust him,

  Mam," she whispered. "We have to."

  She could see the lines at the corners of her mam's eyes relax as she made the decision. "All right," she said finally. "We'll follow you. Padraic."

  Jenna knew that most of the tales were simply that-stories to frighten the children. The residents of Ballintubber had a thousand tales and leg-ends and stories about the half-wild land that surrounded them. The R1 Mallaghan might proclaim himself king over Tuath Gabair, but in truth, his rule only extended to the small towns, the villages, and the occasional squares of farmed land: tamed patches of a landscape that had seen vast, misty centuries when legends walked alive.

  Legends still walked, if the stories were to be believed, in those hidden places where humankind came infrequently, or not at all. Doire Coill was one of those places, a lingering remnant of a greater oak forest that had once stretched from Lough Lar to the Westering Sea, and north and south for leagues, a wall of trees shading meandering bogs and hidden valleys, where giant elk and ferocious knifefangs had roamed. Most of the forest was gone now, eroded by axes, time, and changing climate. Yet portions of it yet existed, here and there through the peninsula of Talamh an Ghlas. Doire Coill was not the largest of these or the most well known, but it loomed large in the stories Jenna had heard. One Hand Bailey, in his cups at Tara's, had often spoken of the time he'd lost his hand.

  "Oh, I'd heard the tales, aye," Jenna could remember his drunken voice saying, low and slurred with alcohol. "Rubbish, I thinks, because I was young an' stupid. So I takes me old horse and cart down the High Road past Knobtop, thinking that Doire Coill weren't likely to miss one of those nasty old black oaks, and wouldn't that make a great pile of lumber for the selling. That's what I thought, and every day of my life since I've regretted it. Me an' Daragh O'Rheallagh started a'sawing at the closest trunk to the road with a two man blade, and at first it went fine, though I thought I heard the t
rees rustling angrily at the sight of the metal, and a cold wind came out from underneath the trees like the forest was breathin', a foul breath of dead and molderin' leaves. Didn't see any ani-mals, which was strange: not a squirrel, not a bird, not a deer; like they'd all gone, knowing what we were doing and afraid of it. We kept at our sawin', wantin' to get out of there as quick as we could-the noise dead in the stillness, the tree sittin' there hating us, the sawdust piling at our feet. Then, all a' sudden, it fell, before it had any right to do so, like it chose to fall. Crushed poor Daragh under it before he could move, and the saw blade snapped with an awful noise an' whipped out, an' it sliced me hand right off me arm. I thought I'd die there meself, but I managed to tie a scrap a' cloth around me arm quick to stop the bleedin'. Wasn't no such luck for Daragh; he was already dead, his head smashed and his brains dashed out on the ground. I came back here quick as I could, and six men and the new Widow O'Rheallagh went back to get Daragh's body out from under the tree. When they

  got there, it was gone. Not a trace of ’im was left. I swear it-ask Widow O’Rheallagh herself, or Tom Mullin over there, who went with ’em. Doire Coill’s an evil place, I say. I already gave it me hand, and that’s all a’ me it’s to get. I won’t go in there again, and them that do are nothin’ but fools."

  Bailey’s words resonated in Jenna’s head as they left the hummock in the bog and started heading south, moving parallel to the rough line of the High Road and taking care to stay hidden from possible watchers on the rising flanks of Knobtop. It was getting near dark, with all of them tired and soggy nearly to the waist, when Jenna noticed that the ground underneath their feet was firmer, and that the trees around them were twisted, thick-trunked oaks hung with parasitic mistletoe, huddled to-gether in a dark mass.

  They were within the indistinct edges of Doire Coill, west and south of Ballintubber. Somewhere to their left, the High Road to Lar Bhaile (and beyond to Dun Laoghaire) passed within a stone’s throw of the forest’s leaves before turning sharply east to meet and cross River Duan at the village of Ath Iseal, a good full day’s journey from Ballintubber on horse-back. Between Ath Iseal and Ballintubber, there were few human habita-tions-and in the empty space between no one gave allegiance to R1 Gabair or any king.