Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (17 page)

They moved eastward as well as they could given the difficult terrain and their injuries. They clung together in a group, each helping the other. Kayne found that his leg grew worse, not better, and he began to wonder if it hadn’t been fractured. His ribs gave him sharp, angry pains any time he tried to draw a deep breath. Bartel and Garvan each found a stout limb to use as a crutch, hobbling one-legged as best they could. Sean staggered along with them; he and Uilliam had been in the wagons, both previously wounded during the campaign, and now again. An Airgiallaian arrow had caught Sean in the belly. Uilliam had the most trouble, with a leg broken two weeks before during a battle with the Arruk and now his sword arm dangling useless and dead from a cut that gaped open to the bone in his shoulder. They’d bound Uilliam’s wound as well as they could, but the bandage was soaked with blood and Uilliam’s face, even in the fleeting moments of moonlight through the fast-moving rain clouds above, was pale and drawn. Kayne tried to keep them to a path that involved the least climbing, but the mountains flung jagged feet in front of them, forcing them to either trek north or south around them or drag themselves over sharp inclines slick with rain.

Less than a stripe into their retreat, the mage-lights came, illuminating the banks of clouds with multicolored light. Kayne could feel Blaze pulling at his mind with its yearning to be filled with them, and he couldn’t ignore it. “We’ll rest here,” he told the others, who sank down gratefully. Kayne pulled Blaze out from under his léine. It seemed to nearly leap into his hand with eagerness, and Kayne gasped—his ribs protesting—at the sensations as his fingers closed around the gem. It was like being with a lover, a needy lover who demanded your full presence and insisted on being the center of your world. Kayne had wondered whether he would know how to fill a cloch na thintrí with the power of the mage-lights; he knew now that the stone itself would show him the way. He could feel it guiding his clumsy mind, showing him the way to open the cloch to the lights. Above him, tendrils of orange fire and yellow flame circled, then leaped toward his upraised hand, wrapping around him. He gasped again, this time because of the fiery touch that was at once painful and wonderful.

The contact with the mage-lights seemed to take but a few minutes, though he knew from having watched his da that it might have been as long as a half a stripe. He could feel Blaze drinking in the power, and at the same time he felt the connection with all the other clochs na thintrí throughout Talamh an Ghlas. His da had told him that he could always feel the presence of Kayne’s gram and Lámh Shábhála, “like the sun through a thin haze of clouds” was the way he described it. But though Kayne could sense the other Clochs Mór—and especially the one called Winter all too near to him—he didn’t feel anything that could have been the overriding presence of his gram. He wondered at that even as the mage-lights reluctantly left him and faded from sight.

Blaze was full and seething under his touch. He wondered how he could handle that power. He had no idea how to actually use the cloch; his da had rarely spoken of it. He knew that there was indeed mental skill involved in the wielding of Clochs Mór, and that inexperienced mages inevitably lost the battle should they be pitted against a trained mage from the Order of Inishfeirm or the Order of Gabair.

He hoped he wouldn’t need to learn that lesson firsthand, and soon. Regretfully, he released Blaze and placed it back under his léine. “We need to move on,” he told the others. “They’ll be looking for us, and the mage that’s with them knows I’m here now. They’ll be moving this way, if they weren’t before.”

He limped over to them, feeling even more exhausted now than he had before and trying not to show it to them. He reached down to help Uilliam to his feet, but the man shook his head. “Leave me, Tiarna. I’m just slowing down the rest of you.”

Garvan, Bartel, and Sean said nothing. Kayne realized that if he nodded his acceptance of Uilliam’s sacrifice, they wouldn’t protest. He was the leader of their bedraggled troop; the guilt of any decision would be his to bear. Uilliam was right—if they left him behind, the four of them could travel somewhat faster, despite their own injuries.

Kayne found himself thinking about his da. He knew what Owaine would have done in the same circumstances. There was no question in his mind about that. Even a day ago, Kayne might not have believed that his da’s choice would be the right one. But now . . .

Kayne reached down with his hand again. “We’re slow enough on our own, Uillliam,” he said to the man. “I’m not leaving a companion behind to be killed, not when he can still walk and fight if he has to. We’re going to make it, and you’re going to be with us when we do. Now, take my hand . . .”

Uilliam, grimacing, clasped his finger around Kayne’s wrist and allowed himself to be helped up. “Put your arm around my shoulder,” Kayne told him. “I’ll take your weight for a bit. Once the sun starts to rise, we might be able to find shelter . . .”

In the light of false dawn, they came across a small river chattering white-watered and fast through a valley. The walls of two great hills pressed in on either side, green-covered, with hidden rivulets cascading down under ferns, bushes, and small trees. A meadow of tall grass spread out along one side of the stream and they heard the dull clanging of bells, the
baa
ing of sheep, and the barking of a dog. Someone was singing—a decent baritone, the song touched with the accent of the Fingerland—and as they came to a bend in the river, they saw a cottage in a copse of trees beyond. Peat smoke curled from the stone chimney to the rear, and the thatch roof looked old and in need of repair, the walls retaining only clinging fragments of the whitewash that had once brightened them. A fieldstone fence marked the outline of a tiny planted field, and sheep roamed in the grass near the water, with a black-and-white dog watching the herd from the top of the low wall. The dog noticed them at the same moment, barking loudly, and Kayne saw a gray-bearded man in a dirty clóca and furs rise from a stump in the yard, trailing tendrils of pipeweed. The man stared in their direction, then walked slowly toward them.

He stopped several strides away, his bushy eyebrows raised, one hand brushing back the straggling long locks of white on the sides of his bald skull, the other still holding the smoldering pipe. “We need help,” Kayne, still holding Uilliam, called to him. “Come here, and help me get this man to your cottage.”

“Aye, I would say you need help,” the man answered thoughtfully, without moving. “The question is whether I should be giving it or not.”

“Do you know to whom you’re talking?” Garvan snapped at the old man. “This is Kayne Geraghty, the son of the Banríon Ard herself, and we’ve been attacked.”

The eyebrows climbed a little higher, but the man still didn’t move. “That may be. Or maybe not—people can say they’re whoever they want and the Mother won’t stop them, will She? One name’s no more impressive than another, anyway—out here in the Finger, we don’t much care for the doings of the Riocha.” Kayne felt anger starting to build in him as the man slowly looked from one to another of them without moving. He thought of drawing his sword and striking the man down where he stood for his insolence—let him complain to the Mother directly if he wanted.

But the man shrugged even as Kayne’s hand started to move. “But you’re hurt and soaked through, and the Mother helps those who helps others. Come along—there’s a fire, food, and tea enough for all.” With that, he came up to Kayne and took Uilliam’s arm under his own shoulder. “You have the hospitality of my poor house,” he said to Kayne, “especially if you are truly the son of the Healer Ard.”

A half-stripe later, they were sitting in the warm single room of the farmer’s house, munching on hard bread, cheese, and cold sliced mutton and drinking lukewarm tea. Caolán O Leathlobhair (“The family name means ‘half leper,’ ” the man told them. “My great-da had the affliction, and the name stuck to my own da”) bustled about the room, tearing sheets of old fabric for bandages, bringing water from the well, and talking incessantly. Kayne wondered if the old man talked this much when no one was there.

“. . . I lost three sons, two daughters, and a wife,” O Leathlobhair was saying. He poured a half-glass of clear poteen into the seeping arrow wound in Sean’s belly, ignoring the man’s moaning as the liquid seared the tissue, then packed the wound and bound it up with the firm hands of someone used to the work. “The Bloody Cough took a son and daughter before they were even old even to be named; lost my last son and wife both while she was trying to birth him. My first son, Kyeil, reached two hands and two of age before he went climbing Tundaer Cliff with a friend and they both fell. Then Aighna, my last daughter and my pride, who looked so much like her mam that it hurt me sometimes to look at her, got caught in the eyes of a Taisteal boy who passed by here a hand of years ago and I haven’t seen her since.”

Kayne thought that if the Taisteal happened to be a mute it might explain the daughter’s choice, but he said nothing. He stood by the door, staring out through the cracks between the planks at the meadow.

O Leathlobhair didn’t seem to care whether anyone seemed to be listening or not. “Those were Airgiallaian arrows we took from your friends, Tiarna. I could be wondering how it is that the Banrion Ard’s son was attacked by the Rí Mac Baoill’s troops, and why he’s watching as if they were still chasing him.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Aye. We agree on that. As I said, those here in the Fingerlands don’t much care for the Rí who sits in Dathúil. Morven Mac Baoill is no better than his da Mal—the Mac Baoills are all lowlanders and lake people, and they don’t know the Finger or the clans here at all. All we’re good for is the paltry bóruma we pay him every year and for the young men he presses into service because he knows Fingerlanders make fierce fighters. We don’t like Riocha business. We have our own ways here in the mountains and our own laws, whether the Rí of Airgialla likes it or not.” O Leathlobhair lifted his head as if hearing something, and a moment later the dog began barking and Kayne heard the low pounding of horses on wet earth. “It seems, though, that the Rí wants to know what happened to the Banrion Ard’s son.”

Kayne put his hand to the stone under his léine as the riders—two hands or more of them—came into view near the river. One of them pointed to the cottage and they turned to approach. O Leathlobhair put his hand on Kayne’s shoulder. “Not yet, young Tiarna,” he said quietly. “Only at need. Stay here with your men.”

With that, O Leathlobhair opened the door and slid out, walking toward the riders with a loud greeting. Kayne watched him through the cracks in the door. The rider stopped near the fence, the dog barking at them and the sheep looking nervous with the commotion. O Leathlobhair spoke to the leader, a Riocha with brown hair and a scarred face, the old man grinning and babbling as volubly as he had inside. The tiarna seemed as annoyed as Kayne had been with the man. O Leathlobhair gestured toward the house a few times, as if inviting the riders to look inside, and actually started to the door once. “. . . come in and let me show you some of the hospitality of the Fingerlands,” Kayne heard him say. “It’s been so long since I’ve had people here. Oh, there’s so much I could tell you about the Finger and the people here . . .”

“That won’t be necessary,” the tiarna replied with a visible eye roll. “You’ve seen no strangers about?”

“No, Tiarna. But the dog was barking early at something across the river, just before the sun rose. There’s a ford, just east of here, where someone could cross . . .”

The tiarna nodded, waved at O Leathlobhair, and the group rode off, the dog growling and running after them for a bit. O Leathlobhair came back into the cottage. “Now,” he said to Kayne, “don’t you think that was easier than fighting them?”

Kayne, despite himself, chuckled. “Aye, that it was.”

O Leathlobhair grinned. “Good. Now, take some rest here for the morning, sleep a bit, and this evening when the shadows are long, I’ll take you to Liam O’Blathmhaic—he’s the clan-laird hereabouts. If you’re to survive here, you’ll need his protection and his help.”