Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (35 page)

“We’ll speak freely here,” he said to them, though his gaze stayed mostly on Harik’s frown. “Not as commander to gardai, not as Riocha to céili giallnai or tuathánach, but as peers who have a common problem. You heard here that the clans will go to war against Tuath Airgialla—because that’s certainly what their declaration will mean. It may also mean that they will go to war against
all
the Tuatha, not just Tuath Airgialla. It means that those who stay here will be considered traitors and even if the clansfolk manage to win their independence, any of us who fight with them may well never be able to return to our homes. Back there, back home, everything has changed. I’m certain that the Banrion Ard, my mam, has fallen. The mage-lights tell me that my gram the First Holder no longer has Lámh Shábhála. Your Commander, my da, is now with Mam in the arms of the Mother-Creator. You’ve all seen how the Riocha will treat those who follow me. I brought you here to say this: you have a choice before you now. If you leave, on your own, I have a promise from Laird O’Blathmhaic and Rodhlann O Morchoe that you will be allowed safe passage from the Finger as long as you take an oath never to reveal any of what you know of the clans. I can’t be certain of what you’ll find awaiting you in the Tuatha, but if you say to them that you renounced me because of your loyalty to your own Rí, I suspect you’ll find forgiveness and mercy. If you stay, I can promise you nothing except more war and more battles and possibly exile here in the Finger for the rest of your life—
if
you survive. As for me . . . I’ll stay here and fight with the clansfolk—I’ve already made that decision. I’m staying because I need to gain vengeance for those who murdered my parents. I’m staying because I saw my da and the men who trusted and followed him cut down by those we thought were friends. I’m staying because I am no longer Riocha and no longer Tiarna and those back in the Tuatha wish the same fate on me that they gave to my da. But you . . .”

Kayne lifted his hand, grimacing a bit as healing muscles pulled. “Each of you needs to make his own decision: to stay or to go. You need to make it now. Here. Today.”

“I stay.” The voice came from the midst of the gardai: Garvan, with Bartel nodding vigorously next to him in agreement—even one-legged, Bartel had insisted on being lashed to a horse so he could fight in the battle. “Bartel, Sean, Uilliam, and me already talked about it. You pulled us out when we would’ve died, Tiarna Kayne, and then the clansfolk helped us. We’re staying.”

“Those are brave words, Garvan,” Harik said, and as the Hand rose, Garvan sat down abruptly. Harik glanced at Kayne, then to the others. “Since we’re talking as peers, I’ll be blunt,” he said. “Kayne Geraghty might say that he’s not Riocha, but that changes nothing. The blood of the First Holder and the Banrion Ard still flows in his veins, and he will always have that claim to the throne in Dún Laoghaire. If the clans should win—” the twist in his lips gave his opinion of that possibility, “—or if the political winds shift, who knows what that might mean? Tiarna Kayne also stays because he now has . . .
ties
with Laird O’Blathmhaic through his great-daughter—so he may become ‘Riocha’ here as well, for what that’s worth.” He scowled, and there was scorn in the glance he gave Kayne. “As to the Fingerlanders’ promise of safe passage . . .” Harik sniffed. “Those are just words, and who will know that their vow wasn’t kept if along the road those who leave all happen to die? I know that if
I
were laird here, I wouldn’t care to have those who know some of my secrets walking into my enemy’s camp, oath or not.”

Kayne started to protest angrily, but Harik raised his hand with a glower and a shout. “No, Tiarna! You said we could speak openly and as peers, and I
will
speak. You had your say, now let me have mine. Let me tell them what you won’t.”

Kayne had to clench his jaw to keep from shouting back at the man. He took two long breaths, then nodded to Harik. “Say it, then.”
And you will no longer be my Hand,
he thought.

“The clansfolk will be crushed like ants beneath a boot,” Harik continued. “That’s the reality. There are two Clochs Mór here, aye, but the Riocha have far more clochs and far more soldiers. They probably also have Lámh Shábhála, for they wouldn’t have moved against the Banrion Ard unless they’d also made certain that the First Holder couldn’t retaliate. The clansfolk have won a single, small battle against a tiny force, that’s all, and now they’re ready to piss in the face of a hurricane. What happens when the Riocha come in force? What happens when they bring a real army to crawl over the mountains in their thousands? What happens when a dozen Clochs Mór are arrayed against the Fingerlanders’ paltry two, or when Lámh Shábhála itself takes the field under its new Holder? What happens? I’ll tell you—the clansfolk will do as they’ve always done: several of them will be killed, but most of the rest will throw down their weapons and grovel, and the lairds and banlairds will take to their mountains and caves and hide like criminals for the rest of their lives. Those who are captured will be hung on gibbets as a warning to the others, the Clochs Mór will be back in the hands of the Riocha as they always have been, and in another generation this will all be just another failed, half-forgotten Fingerlander rebellion: the story of Kayne the Traitor and his all too brief time. Kayne, who looked to the west for his enemy when he should have been looking east.”

Kayne wanted to rage. He wanted to launch himself at Harik and the man’s undisguised scorn, wanted to vent the fury he felt with fists and blood.
Do as your da would have done. He was right—you can’t simply rush into decisions based on your emotions . . . .
His eyebrows lowered, lines carving themselves in his forehead and he forced the muscles of his face to relax. The calm part of him knew that if he showed anger toward Harik now, most of the gardai would go with the Hand. Many them would do so anyway, but those who were still uncertain or afraid of the reception they might find back home . . .

What he did next was nearly the hardest thing he’d ever done.

He inclined his head to Harik as he would to another Tiarna. “Then we know your decision, Harik MacCathaill,” Kayne said, amazed that his voice could be calm when the anger still seethed inside him. “If that’s the fate the Mother-Creator has for me, then fine. You served Da well as his Hand, but I never knew you were a seer as well.” He forced himself to smile to cushion the bite in the statement, and a few of the men laughed softly in response. “Everything you said was true, Hand Harik, but I think you underestimate the clansfolk. I think you discount them because they fight using tricks and deception and ambush as well as force of arms. I know that wasn’t the way we were taught to fight—but I think it’s a way we can and should learn. Had Séarlait not done as she did . . .” He shuddered:
Mac Baoill’s intense glare, the ice closing around him . . .
“As to our enemies in the Tuatha . . .” Kayne sniffed, the inhalation loud in the cavern. “They will be like crows squabbling over the remains of Mam’s legacy and too busy fighting themselves to worry about us for a time.” He gestured to Harik, who stared at him with the puzzled, uncertain look of a man who expected confrontation and found agreement.

“You served Da and me well and loyally, Harik. For that, I’ll always be grateful. I’ll sorely miss your counsel, your sword, and your honesty. But I’m staying here where I have allies with the clansfolk. I’ll stay here and I’ll fight and I
will
one day come out of the Finger to claim what is mine.”

Kayne lifted his head, turning from Harik to sweep his gaze across each of the men in the cavern. “If any of you are thinking of staying here because of loyalty to the oaths you gave to my da and the Banrion Ard back in Dún Laoghaire, I release you from those oaths now. You’re all free to stay or go, and no one,
no one
here will think less of you for following Harik back to your homes and your families. I’ll leave the decision to you. Stay or go—you should do what your heart tells you to do.”

With that, Kayne nodded again to Harik and turned abruptly, taking one of the torches from its sconce off the wall and striding toward the ragged arch that led into the hall and the long, twisting passageway that led down, and then up again to the outside. He heard the men begin to talk as he reached the arch. He hadn’t gone more than a few dozen strides down the passage before he heard Harik’s gruff voice. “Tiarna Geraghty!”

He stopped and half turned to look back over his shoulder. In the flickering, guttering light of the torch, Harik’s battle-scarred face was as hard-edged as the rocks. “The decision’s made,” he said.

Kayne let his breath out in a quick exhalation; he could see the cloud emerge from his mouth in the cool dampness. His shoulders sagged. He nodded. “I’ll tell Laird O’Blath mhaic that you’ll be leaving with the gardai this evening,” he said. “May the Mother-Creator be with you, Harik. I hope all of you find safety. Truly.”

“We’re staying, Tiarna. Every man.”

Kayne blinked. He could hear the crackling of the torch in the silence. He wanted to stutter his confusion, wanted to ask why. But he knew that wasn’t what his da would have done. Owaine would have expected the obedience and accepted it. So Kayne nodded, though he was unable to keep a smile from his lips. “Then that’s what I’ll tell the laird,” he said. More silence. The torch hissed and spat. “Thank you, Harik Hand.”

Harik’s face remained stonelike and solemn. “You’ve nothing to thank me for,” he answered. “Today, for the first time, I saw the man and not the child. I don’t follow children, nor all men. But Tiarna Geraghty . . .”

His chin lifted, his eyes glittered under dark eyebrows. “I would follow him wherever he asked.”

THE BODIES OF UNNISHA and Clannhra Ata swung gently back and forth in their tight iron cages, the chains that suspended the cages from a wooden beam creaking and protesting as the wind pushed them. The gibbets had been set where the lane from Dúnwick met the High Road. The corpses appeared to be clothed in writhing black cloaks: the crows were at the bodies, pecking at them and tearing off bits of flesh, squabbling with each other as they fought over the choicest bits.

Ennis stared up at the cages, his eyes wide.

“ ’Tain’t a pretty sight, young Tiarna, an’ I can understand your being upset by it,” said the tall, red-haired garda, whose name Ennis had learned was Daighi. “But ’twill serve as a warning to others of what will happen if they try to hurt you.”

Ennis nodded blandly. He stared at the crows, watching as one stabbed its beak into Unnisha’s gaping mouth and ripped out a piece of gray flesh. He cocked his head to one side, wondering what it must be like to be a crow, wondering what they might be thinking as they ravaged the corpses. The sun peered momentarily from between the massed gray clouds and struck the gibbets, and the crows flapped their wings as if enjoying the sudden warmth. Ennis could barely recognize Unnisha or the Clannhra now, blood-streaked bone starting to show through the patches of skin on their faces.

There’d been a scuffle when Daighi tried to arrest the two women. Two of the Clannhra’s sons and a few of her great-sons had resisted, and both gardai had been slightly wounded. But when the villagers realized that the gardai were accusing these Taisteal of being among the conspirators who had killed the Healer Ard, when they realized that the boy was none other than the beloved Ard’s son, the inhabitants of Dúnwick had come to the gardai’s aid. The Clannhra’s wagon had been torched and the residents had been allowed to plunder the remainder of the Taisteal wagons of whatever they wanted before the surviving Taisteal were ordered to take their now-empty wagons and leave. But before they departed, the Taisteal had been brought here to watch as Unnisha and Clannhra Ata were stuffed screaming into the cages quickly prepared for them by the local smithy, hung on the beams, and then dispatched with quick stabs from Daighi’s spear. Ennis hadn’t witnessed the executions himself, but he’d heard them described by the Aldwoman of Dúnwick, in whose house he’d slept that night, in a bed with a thick, soft blanket bearing the colors and patterns of the Taisteal.

Now, Daighi and his companion—Brett—were to take Ennis back to Dún Laoghaire. “The Banrion Mac Ard will be most pleased to see you,” Daighi said “It was she who sent gardai out everywhere to find you. Come now, Tiarna Geraghty; a boy your age shouldn’t dwell on a sight like this. You’ll be back in Dún Laoghaire in two days.”

Ennis forced his gaze away from the fascinating swarm of crows. His face was solemn; his eyes were dry. “I’m ready, Daighi,” he said.

He walked over to where Daighi sat on his horse, his shield arm bound and the bandages stained with blood; Ennis’ movement sent the crows into the air, cawing raucously. Brett, wearing a wrapping of cloth over a long, ugly cut on his forehead, helped Ennis up onto the pony they’d taken from the Taisteal, then climbed onto his own horse. They started northward along the High Road. As he followed along just behind the two gardai, Ennis glanced backward at the gibbet where the crows had now settled once more around the cages like a shroud. He touched the Heart, and inside he heard Isibéal chuckling.

He smiled.