Mage of clouds the cloud.., p.28
Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2), page 28
The sun was already dipping low in the sky before they caught sight of Ballyrea. They moved in alternating dusk and sun as the road climbed the drumlins and then fell again into the marshland. At the top of one of the hills, they could see smoke wafting skyward from several chimneys and the gleam of whitewashed walls under thatch, just at the foot of the next drumlin.
And there was something else.
A black cloud swirled over the land. It was low, skimming the treetops at one side of the village, moving too fast and against the wind. The cloud broke apart and reformed, the edges breaking into distinct particles that wheeled and swayed. Faintly, Meriel could hear a noise from the cloud’s direction, a strident din as if a thousand voices were calling. The cloud was moving southwest to northeast across the road, but it seemed to sense them and sent a questing tendril in their direction. Then the entire cloud followed, the dark bulk of it sweeping in an impossibly wide turn.
The noise intensified and Meriel suddenly realized what she was seeing and hearing.
“Crows!” Meriel shouted.
“Aye,” Sevei said. “A larger flock than I’ve ever seen before . . .”
The cloud of birds, as it approached, grew more distinct and more ominous. The birds were enormous, with wingspans as wide as Meriel’s outstretched arms. The thunder of their wings boomed, a low accompaniment to their screeching, strident voices. Meriel could almost imagine them talking to each other, their calls more varied than the barren screeches she’d heard from normal birds. The flock flew overhead once, so low that the Taisteal could almost reach up and touch them as they hurtled past, blocking out the sun. The horde passed and then wheeled around once more.
This time they circled above the caravan, and some of the birds landed on the roofs and wheels, on the horses’ backs, on the ground around them. Two of the birds flapped down just above Meriel; as she turned around to bat at them, they hopped back, cawing with beaks open and black eyes glittering. One of the crows, she noticed, had a patch of white feathers above its left eye. The two creatures seemed to nod to each other, then flew heavily away again.
Sevei struck at another bird that landed momentarily on her shoulder. The horses reared in the harnesses, nickering in fright at the noise and commotion; around them, Meriel could hear the rest of the clan shouting and cursing as the crows landed around them. Their world was suddenly confined to the whirl of black bodies and their shrill calls, the landscape around them blotted out in the ebony storm.
In the chaos, a crow landed again next to Meriel. A flash of white told her that it was the same bird as before. But as Meriel lifted her hand to strike away the creature, she stopped. The crow held something in its beak: a twig with an oak leaf attached to one end. As Meriel stared, it placed the twig carefully at her side and cawed once. When Meriel didn’t respond, it bent its head down and—with its beak—nudged the twig closer to Meriel before taking flight again.
The flock swept over the wagons and disappeared northward.
Meriel picked up the twig. As she did so, she heard a voice in her head: a woman’s voice, the words touched with a strange guttural accent. I will meet you in Doire Coill. The branch will show you the way.
Then it was gone. The twig, a straight branch no longer than her hand, was trembling between her fingers as if it were alive, pulling her hand. When she relaxed slightly, the leafed end of the branch quivered as the notched leaf pointed south-southwest. When Meriel tried to move her hand away from that direction, the twig resisted, as if it were comfortable only when it lay in that direction.
“Cailin?” Meriel was suddenly aware that Sevei was talking to her, and she started. “I said, what’s that in your hand?”
“I don’t know,” Meriel answered honestly. “One of the birds dropped it.”
Sevei’s brow knotted. “Let me see . . .”
She held out her hand. Reluctantly, Meriel placed the twig in the woman’s palm. Sevei twirled it around, looking at it from all sides. If the branch spoke to her or moved in her hand, Sevei gave no indication. She handed it back to Meriel. “It’s oak,” she said. “There’s another old forest not far from here. Probably got it from there. Damned huge noisy things they were. I’ll bet the farmers hereabouts are in an uproar. A bloody big flock like that could strip a field in less than a stripe.”
Meriel nodded. The twig was trembling again, and she loosened her fingers slightly to let it move. It turned on its own in her upturned palm, the tip of the leaf pointing unerringly in the same direction.
Meriel said nothing to Sevei.
They saw the flock once more less than half a stripe later as the sun was going down, moving past them just off to the west, this time streaming by as if trying to beat the last rays of the sun and paying no attention to the caravan at all as they approached Ballyrea.
They flew, Meriel noticed, along the path of the twig.
26
Unexpected Movements
AFTER the night encounter with the dragon, Owaine thought that nothing worse could happen. For the next several days, that appeared to be the case. He continued to chase the Taisteal. Whenever the road reached a turning or intersected another road, Léimard would leap unbidden from its perch on the horse and flit quickly around the ground, finally scampering several strides up one path or the other until Owaine nudged the horse forward toward the squirrel, who would leap back up again. In each village they passed, or when they came across other travelers on the road, Owaine would inquire about the Taisteal; he kept the story he’d told those in the inn of Ballycraigh—that he was chasing the Taisteal because his love was ill and needed the True Healer who rode with them. From the reports he garnered, they seemed to gain somewhat on the Taisteal with each day; Owaine grew increasingly convinced, despite the lack of any hard evidence, that Meriel was the healer with them. In the village of Elphin, with the sun—finally emerging from the clouds—at the zenith, he was informed that the Taisteal had left just that morning, still moving south into Tuath Gabair. With a hard ride, the villagers said, he might even catch them by evening.
Owaine rode on with an optimism that was quickly dampened. First, not long after he crossed into Tuath Gabair, Léimard suddenly chattered and leaped away 376 from the horse. Not ten breaths later, several gardai riders in the colors of Gabair accosted him on the road and interrogated him endlessly, stretching Owaine’s ability to lie and seemingly jabbing at every inconsistency in his story. From their questions, it was obvious that it was Meriel that they were searching for, and they had ridden up from the direction Owaine was headed; that worried Owaine. If the riders hadn’t found her with the Taisteal on the road ahead, was he also chasing a chimera?
There was little choice but to continue, though. There was nowhere else to go in this place—his choice had been made. Owaine plodded on—Léimard returning as soon as the gardai had departed—as his mood soured.
Then the crows came, more of the nasty, loud things than Owaine believed anyone could count. They swarmed around him like monstrous black gnats, cawing and screeching, and then hurrying off back the way they’d come.
Worse, the sun was falling far too quickly in the sky and the cursed drumlins lay mockingly across his path as if the gods had set them there deliberately to slow him down, and he’d neither caught up with the Taisteal nor found the village the riders had told him was just ahead: Bally-something-or-other, though half the villages and towns in Talamh an Ghlas seemed to start with that. There was nothing around him but marsh, a copse of trees just ahead, and the bare heads of the drumlins front, back, and sides. He’d have to spend another night out in the weather. After the encounter with the dragon, Owaine had no intention of riding in the dark.
He flicked the reins and the horse moved into the shelter of the trees. Léimard chattered at him scoldingly. Owaine ignored the creature.
“All right then, Máister Cléurach,” he said to the horse, “we’ll stay here for the night. It looks like good enough grazing here for you.” Owaine doubted that the old Máister would appreciate Owaine’s naming of the horse (especially since the beast was a gelding), and it really wasn’t fair to the horse, either, who wasn’t nearly as ancient, cantankerous, or decrepit as the Máister had been during Owaine’s first two years at the Order. Owaine was certain he wasn’t the only one who failed to mourn when Máister Cléurach suddenly died one morning and Bráthair Kirwan became Máister.
He hobbled Máister Cléurach, then gathered wood for a fire and set about making a camp. Léimard ran up the nearest tree trunk and vanished. When Owaine had a small fire going and a bit of stirabout sizzling in the pan, he leaned back against his bedroll and ate, staring at the veiled landscape around him, which could have hidden untold thousands of crows or several dragons. “I hope we’re going the right way,” he said to the horse, who lifted its tail and deposited a steaming pile on the ground. Owaine decided not to take that as a sign, but he wondered. “We’ll catch up with the Taisteal tomorrow, maybe even before they leave the village,” he told the horse. The horse was a worse conversationalist than Léimard, who at least looked at Owaine when he was talking. “We’ll find out whether it’s really Meriel we’ve been chasing.” He touched his clochmion for reassurance; there was no sense of Meriel’s presence, but he told himself that he still was confident in his choice. Yet . . . a few times, especially during the rainy, dreary and empty days, he’d doubted.
In all the villages, those who described the healer invariably said she was dark-haired and a few had given her name as Cailin, not Meriel. But there also were those who said her accent wasn’t quite that of a Taisteal and some who said without Owaine’s prompting that she might sound a bit Inish.
Hair could be dyed. Names could be changed. And Meriel may have been given a clochmion, and perhaps the stone could heal. . . .
He’d know for certain soon. His clochmion would tell him, as soon as he was close to the Taisteal he’d been chasing.
There was nothing he could do about it now. With a sigh, Owaine scraped the last few scraps of stirabout on the ground in front of Máister Cléurach and unrolled his blankets. He looked around again for Léimard, who remained hidden. He stared up at the blurry stars and the fuzzy rags of light clouds until he fell asleep.
He woke, suddenly, with the remembrance of a sound. It was still full night, and the fire had gone to glowing coals. Eyes open, Owaine lay still, listening—aye, there it was again; the crack of a dry limb, somewhere nearby. Máister Cléurach was snuffling with flaring nostrils, the horse’s hooves shuffling nervously, its ears standing straight up and eyes wide.
Owaine let his hand ease down to the hilt of his belt knife and slipped it from the scabbard. Carefully, he moved the blankets aside as he gazed around. He could see nothing and no one. The road lay empty under the stars a few paces away, but there were shadows enough around him, and the tree trunks were black as obsidian and numerous enough to conceal a dozen men. Robbers were common enough and single travelers were easy pickings—that was why Owaine had kept to the villages at night when he could. But he’d thought that with the gardai out riding, robbers would have decided to stay off the roads tonight.
A crow cawed once, overhead. Owaine glanced up. It was difficult to make out the bird in the darkness, but a patch of lighter color shone in the glow of the coals. The crow cawed again.
A low growl answered, just off in the trees . . .
Owaine scrambled to his feet as Máister Cléurach whinnied in fright and fought its hobbles. Owaine saw it then, a form sliding fluidly out into a patch of starlight and close enough that he had no difficulty seeing it: a wolf, but one as tall as Owaine at the shoulders. The beast was massive and huge, with muscular limbs as thick as Owaine’s leg and curved talons sprouting from the paws; yellow, angry eyes; twin rows of ivory spear-heads set in its open jaws; a blood-red tongue lolling out hungrily as the creature stared back at Owaine.
A dire wolf, a beast of legend . . .
The knife in Owaine’s hand looked ridiculous, suddenly: no more threatening than a knitting needle set against a sword. The dire wolf gave two barking exhalations, fog coming from its mouth with each explosion of breath—it sounded suspiciously like laughter. Owaine shivered. He imagined those jaws closing around him, tearing and ripping ... a shiver crawled his spine. He backed away toward Máister Cléurach, the wolf staring at him without moving, and stooped down. He envisioned cutting the hobbles and leaping onto the horse’s back in one swift motion, holding on for his life to Máister Cléurach’s neck and bare back and praying to the Mother-Creator that the gelding could outrun a dire wolf.
The wolf laughed again, as if it could hear his thoughts.
Owaine reached down and, sawing desperately, severed the rope around the horse’s front legs. Máister Cléurach reared away as Owaine straightened and tried to vault onto the horse’s back. He managed to get his leg up and his arms around the gelding’s neck as Máister Cléurach turned and started to gallop away in utter fear.
Owaine’s leg slipped off; Máister Cléurach’s flight tore his grip from the horse’s neck. He fell to the ground as the gelding pounded away through the trees. He pushed himself up. The knife was gone, lost somewhere, and the dire wolf glared at him. He knew, for a certainty, that he couldn’t outrun the creature.
He knew he was going to die here.
As he stood there, waiting, he heard another sound behind him. Before he could turn, something struck him in the back, like the stabbing of an arrow. He reached for it, spinning, but as he did so the world dimmed around him. A darker night closed in from the edges of his sight, growing until it seemed he was staring through a pinprick at the stars, realizing that he’d fallen and was staring up helpless. He tried to rise, but his body wouldn’t obey and the nothingness closed over him like a storm wave and he was lost.
“You’re certain you can do this, my friend?” Doyle asked Shay O Blaca. “We’ve talked about this so long, and I agree with you: I’ll need three other cloudmages with Clochs Mór with me for us to be certain we can overcome Lámh Shábhála; if we can’t be four against the One, then none of this will work.”
Shay nodded grimly, touching the irregularly-shaped, clear crystal around his neck. In many ways, O Blaca had been the da Doyle had never had, taking the much-younger Doyle under his tutelage at the request of Doyle’s uncle. Shay had become adviser, mentor, guide, and friend; as Doyle had come into prominence in the Rí Ard’s court, he had also become co-conspirator.
O Blaca glanced over to Edana, who was listening to the two of them while staring out the window at the inner courtyard of the Rí Ard’s keep, then his gaze returned to Doyle. “I’ve never been to Inishduán, so I had one of the Infochla fisherfolk take me over to the island so I could see well enough to use Quickship. I think I can send all four of you there with the cloch, Doyle, but I won’t be able to bring anyone back and I won’t be able to go myself. It will take everything Quickship has to do just that one task.”
Doyle waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ve already sent word to Falcarragh to have a ship waiting for us off Inishduán.” He gave O Blaca a quick grin. “Getting back won’t be the issue, Shay—we’ll either have Lámh Shábhála or we’ll be dead.”
Shay chuckled darkly at that. “You’ll have Lámh Shábhala. I know you.”
Doyle grinned back at him. “Aye, I will. But just in case . . . You remember that bantiarna in Falcarragh with a clochmion called Messenger?—a useful little stone. I know she’s not of the Order or even Riocha, but she wants to study with us, and I told her that if she’d help in this I’d make sure she had a personal invi tation from you to come to Lár Bhaile. She’s agreed to be aboard the ship and will send word back immediately as to the outcome.”
“I’m worried about the number of people involved in this, Doyle. Too many people know too much.”
“I know,” he told the man, clapping him on the shoulder. “I am, too. But the cloudmages of the Order will work together. Think of how prominent we’ll be when the Order of Gabair holds Lámh Shábhála.”
Edana stirred. She lifted the Cloch Mór around her own neck. “I’ll be one of the four, Shay,” she said. “Demon-Caller has already met Lámh Shábhála and nearly won.” She stood up and went to Doyle before he could protest. She hugged him, placing her index finger on his lips. “No, love,” she told him. “I know what you’ll say, and no. I will be with you. Consider that an order from your Banrion Ard.”
Doyle kissed her finger. “You’re not the Banrion yet. And you’ve not used Demon-Caller yourself.”
“I was trained at the Order, too.” She inclined her head to Shay. “I had the same excellent teacher.”
“I know, but . . .”
She lifted her finger again. “I have a few days still to learn the cloch. And I will be Banrion. When we return with Lámh Shábhála.”
He wanted to simultaneously smile and sigh. He realized, more and more, the cost of love. Even his love for his mam had been tempered by pity for her broken soul and mind; in truth, there had been a sense of relief in him when she’d finally died. But he looked at the vital, comely woman before him, and he knew he was where he wanted to be. Aye, he was ambitious. Aye, he wanted to share the power she would have and that was why he had first courted her, but they had both been snared—unlooked-for—by the fickle bonds of tenderness. He knew now that love imposed its own burdens, for when he thought of Edana in danger or hurt, he ached inside. He was more frightened for her than for himself. “Edana, the training and your desire don’t matter. You’ve had no experience fighting with another Cloch Mór. This would be an empty, useless victory if we win Lámh Shábhála but lose each other.”
She leaned forward. She kissed him deeply and long, uncaring that O Blaca watched. When she pulled back, she put her forehead on his, her hand curled around the back of his neck. “And what kind of leader would I be if I stayed and let the other Riocha whisper that I was too afraid to risk myself?” she asked him softly. “What kind of lover would I be if I didn’t do all I could do to protect the person I care most about? I have to do this, Doyle. I will do this.”
And there was something else.
A black cloud swirled over the land. It was low, skimming the treetops at one side of the village, moving too fast and against the wind. The cloud broke apart and reformed, the edges breaking into distinct particles that wheeled and swayed. Faintly, Meriel could hear a noise from the cloud’s direction, a strident din as if a thousand voices were calling. The cloud was moving southwest to northeast across the road, but it seemed to sense them and sent a questing tendril in their direction. Then the entire cloud followed, the dark bulk of it sweeping in an impossibly wide turn.
The noise intensified and Meriel suddenly realized what she was seeing and hearing.
“Crows!” Meriel shouted.
“Aye,” Sevei said. “A larger flock than I’ve ever seen before . . .”
The cloud of birds, as it approached, grew more distinct and more ominous. The birds were enormous, with wingspans as wide as Meriel’s outstretched arms. The thunder of their wings boomed, a low accompaniment to their screeching, strident voices. Meriel could almost imagine them talking to each other, their calls more varied than the barren screeches she’d heard from normal birds. The flock flew overhead once, so low that the Taisteal could almost reach up and touch them as they hurtled past, blocking out the sun. The horde passed and then wheeled around once more.
This time they circled above the caravan, and some of the birds landed on the roofs and wheels, on the horses’ backs, on the ground around them. Two of the birds flapped down just above Meriel; as she turned around to bat at them, they hopped back, cawing with beaks open and black eyes glittering. One of the crows, she noticed, had a patch of white feathers above its left eye. The two creatures seemed to nod to each other, then flew heavily away again.
Sevei struck at another bird that landed momentarily on her shoulder. The horses reared in the harnesses, nickering in fright at the noise and commotion; around them, Meriel could hear the rest of the clan shouting and cursing as the crows landed around them. Their world was suddenly confined to the whirl of black bodies and their shrill calls, the landscape around them blotted out in the ebony storm.
In the chaos, a crow landed again next to Meriel. A flash of white told her that it was the same bird as before. But as Meriel lifted her hand to strike away the creature, she stopped. The crow held something in its beak: a twig with an oak leaf attached to one end. As Meriel stared, it placed the twig carefully at her side and cawed once. When Meriel didn’t respond, it bent its head down and—with its beak—nudged the twig closer to Meriel before taking flight again.
The flock swept over the wagons and disappeared northward.
Meriel picked up the twig. As she did so, she heard a voice in her head: a woman’s voice, the words touched with a strange guttural accent. I will meet you in Doire Coill. The branch will show you the way.
Then it was gone. The twig, a straight branch no longer than her hand, was trembling between her fingers as if it were alive, pulling her hand. When she relaxed slightly, the leafed end of the branch quivered as the notched leaf pointed south-southwest. When Meriel tried to move her hand away from that direction, the twig resisted, as if it were comfortable only when it lay in that direction.
“Cailin?” Meriel was suddenly aware that Sevei was talking to her, and she started. “I said, what’s that in your hand?”
“I don’t know,” Meriel answered honestly. “One of the birds dropped it.”
Sevei’s brow knotted. “Let me see . . .”
She held out her hand. Reluctantly, Meriel placed the twig in the woman’s palm. Sevei twirled it around, looking at it from all sides. If the branch spoke to her or moved in her hand, Sevei gave no indication. She handed it back to Meriel. “It’s oak,” she said. “There’s another old forest not far from here. Probably got it from there. Damned huge noisy things they were. I’ll bet the farmers hereabouts are in an uproar. A bloody big flock like that could strip a field in less than a stripe.”
Meriel nodded. The twig was trembling again, and she loosened her fingers slightly to let it move. It turned on its own in her upturned palm, the tip of the leaf pointing unerringly in the same direction.
Meriel said nothing to Sevei.
They saw the flock once more less than half a stripe later as the sun was going down, moving past them just off to the west, this time streaming by as if trying to beat the last rays of the sun and paying no attention to the caravan at all as they approached Ballyrea.
They flew, Meriel noticed, along the path of the twig.
26
Unexpected Movements
AFTER the night encounter with the dragon, Owaine thought that nothing worse could happen. For the next several days, that appeared to be the case. He continued to chase the Taisteal. Whenever the road reached a turning or intersected another road, Léimard would leap unbidden from its perch on the horse and flit quickly around the ground, finally scampering several strides up one path or the other until Owaine nudged the horse forward toward the squirrel, who would leap back up again. In each village they passed, or when they came across other travelers on the road, Owaine would inquire about the Taisteal; he kept the story he’d told those in the inn of Ballycraigh—that he was chasing the Taisteal because his love was ill and needed the True Healer who rode with them. From the reports he garnered, they seemed to gain somewhat on the Taisteal with each day; Owaine grew increasingly convinced, despite the lack of any hard evidence, that Meriel was the healer with them. In the village of Elphin, with the sun—finally emerging from the clouds—at the zenith, he was informed that the Taisteal had left just that morning, still moving south into Tuath Gabair. With a hard ride, the villagers said, he might even catch them by evening.
Owaine rode on with an optimism that was quickly dampened. First, not long after he crossed into Tuath Gabair, Léimard suddenly chattered and leaped away 376 from the horse. Not ten breaths later, several gardai riders in the colors of Gabair accosted him on the road and interrogated him endlessly, stretching Owaine’s ability to lie and seemingly jabbing at every inconsistency in his story. From their questions, it was obvious that it was Meriel that they were searching for, and they had ridden up from the direction Owaine was headed; that worried Owaine. If the riders hadn’t found her with the Taisteal on the road ahead, was he also chasing a chimera?
There was little choice but to continue, though. There was nowhere else to go in this place—his choice had been made. Owaine plodded on—Léimard returning as soon as the gardai had departed—as his mood soured.
Then the crows came, more of the nasty, loud things than Owaine believed anyone could count. They swarmed around him like monstrous black gnats, cawing and screeching, and then hurrying off back the way they’d come.
Worse, the sun was falling far too quickly in the sky and the cursed drumlins lay mockingly across his path as if the gods had set them there deliberately to slow him down, and he’d neither caught up with the Taisteal nor found the village the riders had told him was just ahead: Bally-something-or-other, though half the villages and towns in Talamh an Ghlas seemed to start with that. There was nothing around him but marsh, a copse of trees just ahead, and the bare heads of the drumlins front, back, and sides. He’d have to spend another night out in the weather. After the encounter with the dragon, Owaine had no intention of riding in the dark.
He flicked the reins and the horse moved into the shelter of the trees. Léimard chattered at him scoldingly. Owaine ignored the creature.
“All right then, Máister Cléurach,” he said to the horse, “we’ll stay here for the night. It looks like good enough grazing here for you.” Owaine doubted that the old Máister would appreciate Owaine’s naming of the horse (especially since the beast was a gelding), and it really wasn’t fair to the horse, either, who wasn’t nearly as ancient, cantankerous, or decrepit as the Máister had been during Owaine’s first two years at the Order. Owaine was certain he wasn’t the only one who failed to mourn when Máister Cléurach suddenly died one morning and Bráthair Kirwan became Máister.
He hobbled Máister Cléurach, then gathered wood for a fire and set about making a camp. Léimard ran up the nearest tree trunk and vanished. When Owaine had a small fire going and a bit of stirabout sizzling in the pan, he leaned back against his bedroll and ate, staring at the veiled landscape around him, which could have hidden untold thousands of crows or several dragons. “I hope we’re going the right way,” he said to the horse, who lifted its tail and deposited a steaming pile on the ground. Owaine decided not to take that as a sign, but he wondered. “We’ll catch up with the Taisteal tomorrow, maybe even before they leave the village,” he told the horse. The horse was a worse conversationalist than Léimard, who at least looked at Owaine when he was talking. “We’ll find out whether it’s really Meriel we’ve been chasing.” He touched his clochmion for reassurance; there was no sense of Meriel’s presence, but he told himself that he still was confident in his choice. Yet . . . a few times, especially during the rainy, dreary and empty days, he’d doubted.
In all the villages, those who described the healer invariably said she was dark-haired and a few had given her name as Cailin, not Meriel. But there also were those who said her accent wasn’t quite that of a Taisteal and some who said without Owaine’s prompting that she might sound a bit Inish.
Hair could be dyed. Names could be changed. And Meriel may have been given a clochmion, and perhaps the stone could heal. . . .
He’d know for certain soon. His clochmion would tell him, as soon as he was close to the Taisteal he’d been chasing.
There was nothing he could do about it now. With a sigh, Owaine scraped the last few scraps of stirabout on the ground in front of Máister Cléurach and unrolled his blankets. He looked around again for Léimard, who remained hidden. He stared up at the blurry stars and the fuzzy rags of light clouds until he fell asleep.
He woke, suddenly, with the remembrance of a sound. It was still full night, and the fire had gone to glowing coals. Eyes open, Owaine lay still, listening—aye, there it was again; the crack of a dry limb, somewhere nearby. Máister Cléurach was snuffling with flaring nostrils, the horse’s hooves shuffling nervously, its ears standing straight up and eyes wide.
Owaine let his hand ease down to the hilt of his belt knife and slipped it from the scabbard. Carefully, he moved the blankets aside as he gazed around. He could see nothing and no one. The road lay empty under the stars a few paces away, but there were shadows enough around him, and the tree trunks were black as obsidian and numerous enough to conceal a dozen men. Robbers were common enough and single travelers were easy pickings—that was why Owaine had kept to the villages at night when he could. But he’d thought that with the gardai out riding, robbers would have decided to stay off the roads tonight.
A crow cawed once, overhead. Owaine glanced up. It was difficult to make out the bird in the darkness, but a patch of lighter color shone in the glow of the coals. The crow cawed again.
A low growl answered, just off in the trees . . .
Owaine scrambled to his feet as Máister Cléurach whinnied in fright and fought its hobbles. Owaine saw it then, a form sliding fluidly out into a patch of starlight and close enough that he had no difficulty seeing it: a wolf, but one as tall as Owaine at the shoulders. The beast was massive and huge, with muscular limbs as thick as Owaine’s leg and curved talons sprouting from the paws; yellow, angry eyes; twin rows of ivory spear-heads set in its open jaws; a blood-red tongue lolling out hungrily as the creature stared back at Owaine.
A dire wolf, a beast of legend . . .
The knife in Owaine’s hand looked ridiculous, suddenly: no more threatening than a knitting needle set against a sword. The dire wolf gave two barking exhalations, fog coming from its mouth with each explosion of breath—it sounded suspiciously like laughter. Owaine shivered. He imagined those jaws closing around him, tearing and ripping ... a shiver crawled his spine. He backed away toward Máister Cléurach, the wolf staring at him without moving, and stooped down. He envisioned cutting the hobbles and leaping onto the horse’s back in one swift motion, holding on for his life to Máister Cléurach’s neck and bare back and praying to the Mother-Creator that the gelding could outrun a dire wolf.
The wolf laughed again, as if it could hear his thoughts.
Owaine reached down and, sawing desperately, severed the rope around the horse’s front legs. Máister Cléurach reared away as Owaine straightened and tried to vault onto the horse’s back. He managed to get his leg up and his arms around the gelding’s neck as Máister Cléurach turned and started to gallop away in utter fear.
Owaine’s leg slipped off; Máister Cléurach’s flight tore his grip from the horse’s neck. He fell to the ground as the gelding pounded away through the trees. He pushed himself up. The knife was gone, lost somewhere, and the dire wolf glared at him. He knew, for a certainty, that he couldn’t outrun the creature.
He knew he was going to die here.
As he stood there, waiting, he heard another sound behind him. Before he could turn, something struck him in the back, like the stabbing of an arrow. He reached for it, spinning, but as he did so the world dimmed around him. A darker night closed in from the edges of his sight, growing until it seemed he was staring through a pinprick at the stars, realizing that he’d fallen and was staring up helpless. He tried to rise, but his body wouldn’t obey and the nothingness closed over him like a storm wave and he was lost.
“You’re certain you can do this, my friend?” Doyle asked Shay O Blaca. “We’ve talked about this so long, and I agree with you: I’ll need three other cloudmages with Clochs Mór with me for us to be certain we can overcome Lámh Shábhála; if we can’t be four against the One, then none of this will work.”
Shay nodded grimly, touching the irregularly-shaped, clear crystal around his neck. In many ways, O Blaca had been the da Doyle had never had, taking the much-younger Doyle under his tutelage at the request of Doyle’s uncle. Shay had become adviser, mentor, guide, and friend; as Doyle had come into prominence in the Rí Ard’s court, he had also become co-conspirator.
O Blaca glanced over to Edana, who was listening to the two of them while staring out the window at the inner courtyard of the Rí Ard’s keep, then his gaze returned to Doyle. “I’ve never been to Inishduán, so I had one of the Infochla fisherfolk take me over to the island so I could see well enough to use Quickship. I think I can send all four of you there with the cloch, Doyle, but I won’t be able to bring anyone back and I won’t be able to go myself. It will take everything Quickship has to do just that one task.”
Doyle waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ve already sent word to Falcarragh to have a ship waiting for us off Inishduán.” He gave O Blaca a quick grin. “Getting back won’t be the issue, Shay—we’ll either have Lámh Shábhála or we’ll be dead.”
Shay chuckled darkly at that. “You’ll have Lámh Shábhala. I know you.”
Doyle grinned back at him. “Aye, I will. But just in case . . . You remember that bantiarna in Falcarragh with a clochmion called Messenger?—a useful little stone. I know she’s not of the Order or even Riocha, but she wants to study with us, and I told her that if she’d help in this I’d make sure she had a personal invi tation from you to come to Lár Bhaile. She’s agreed to be aboard the ship and will send word back immediately as to the outcome.”
“I’m worried about the number of people involved in this, Doyle. Too many people know too much.”
“I know,” he told the man, clapping him on the shoulder. “I am, too. But the cloudmages of the Order will work together. Think of how prominent we’ll be when the Order of Gabair holds Lámh Shábhála.”
Edana stirred. She lifted the Cloch Mór around her own neck. “I’ll be one of the four, Shay,” she said. “Demon-Caller has already met Lámh Shábhála and nearly won.” She stood up and went to Doyle before he could protest. She hugged him, placing her index finger on his lips. “No, love,” she told him. “I know what you’ll say, and no. I will be with you. Consider that an order from your Banrion Ard.”
Doyle kissed her finger. “You’re not the Banrion yet. And you’ve not used Demon-Caller yourself.”
“I was trained at the Order, too.” She inclined her head to Shay. “I had the same excellent teacher.”
“I know, but . . .”
She lifted her finger again. “I have a few days still to learn the cloch. And I will be Banrion. When we return with Lámh Shábhála.”
He wanted to simultaneously smile and sigh. He realized, more and more, the cost of love. Even his love for his mam had been tempered by pity for her broken soul and mind; in truth, there had been a sense of relief in him when she’d finally died. But he looked at the vital, comely woman before him, and he knew he was where he wanted to be. Aye, he was ambitious. Aye, he wanted to share the power she would have and that was why he had first courted her, but they had both been snared—unlooked-for—by the fickle bonds of tenderness. He knew now that love imposed its own burdens, for when he thought of Edana in danger or hurt, he ached inside. He was more frightened for her than for himself. “Edana, the training and your desire don’t matter. You’ve had no experience fighting with another Cloch Mór. This would be an empty, useless victory if we win Lámh Shábhála but lose each other.”
She leaned forward. She kissed him deeply and long, uncaring that O Blaca watched. When she pulled back, she put her forehead on his, her hand curled around the back of his neck. “And what kind of leader would I be if I stayed and let the other Riocha whisper that I was too afraid to risk myself?” she asked him softly. “What kind of lover would I be if I didn’t do all I could do to protect the person I care most about? I have to do this, Doyle. I will do this.”
