Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (78 page)

Jenna rode through the wreckage of North Gate with a feeling almost of exultation. The world seethed in her doubled vision: the glowing, brilliant colors of the cloch overlaying her own sight. She could hear the voices inside Lámh Shábhála calling to her, the old Holders. Real fire crackled around her—the walls of the gate had tumbled into some of the nearby houses, and a few were now aflame. People were running about, most of them fleeing, a few trying desperately to quench the fires before they spread.

“. . . do it! You have the power
—
use it! . . .”

And a voice she recognized as Riata, sad and forlorn in the babble.
“Jenna, they will take you down. There are too many of them . . .”

She ignored them all. It felt so
good
to be part of Lámh Shábhála once more, as if a part of her that had been amputated had been blessedly restored whole and intact. The mage-lights had cauterized the deep, oozing wounds in her soul and seared away the pain, and still their energy flowed in and around her. The sky was alive with the power this night, greeting and welcoming her. She could feel the pull of all the clochs na thintrí around her, so many of them—Clochs Mór and clochmions, more than she’d ever felt gathered in one place—and yet they all seemed so puny and insignificant compared to what she carried. She felt that she could defeat them all tonight as long as the mage-lights burned with her. She could gather that strength in the stone in her hand and nothing could stand before her.

She laughed as she entered the city.

“I am the First Holder!” she called out to Falcarragh, to its houses and stone buildings, to the crowded hillsides, to the fleet gathered in its harbor. “I’ve brought your war to you! This is what you wanted—come and take it!”

The first of the Clochs Mór struck back then, even as she stared up at the Old Wall on the slopes of Sliabh Gabhar and past its stone ramparts to the Rí’s Keep. The mage who wielded it was clumsy and alone: in her cloch-vision, a skeletal army appeared before her, arrayed in ringed mail and helm and holding swords in their bony hands. They flew at her, jaws wide and screaming in high-pitched voices. Jenna tossed them aside, shattering bone and steel alike and then following the line of force back to the mage who wielded the Cloch Mór. She sent a pulse of raw, unfocused energy from the mage-lights at him, and the tiarna who held the cloch—in the nearest tower of the Old Wall, up the hill from her—was crushed under the barrage. She didn’t know if he died or simply lost consciousness. She didn’t care; he was gone, smashed like an annoying fly. She saw, dimly, a squad of frightened gardai rushing toward her up the street. She almost sighed as she tossed the great stones of the broken gate tower at them: they scattered, retreating in undignified terror.

“Come on!” she raged at them. “You wanted me—your bane is here!”

Torin Mallaghan, Rí of Tuath Gabair, glanced around the courtyard of the keep as he lifted his Cloch Mór to the sky. With him were three other Ríthe: Brasil Mas Sithig of Tuath Infochla, whose keep and courtyard this was; Harkin O Seachnasaigh of Tuath Connachta, his face looking a bit less toadlike to Torin in the magical light; Mal Mac Baoill of Tuath Airgialla, who seemed sour and irritated even as he filled his cloch. Kerwin Taafe of Tuath Eoganacht and Siobaigh O Treasigh, the Banrion of Tuath Locha Léin, had remained in their own territories, both pleading ailments that would not allow them to travel, though both had sent commanders and armies. Torin wished that the Banrion had come, if only because he enjoyed her company and her support; on the other hand, he hoped Rí Taafe’s piles were horribly inflamed and bleeding.

There should have been two others there with them in the courtyard. But the Rí Ard and the Regent Guardian hadn’t returned. Torin was beginning to worry about their absence this late, especially with the fleet due to set sail for Inish Thuaidh with tomorrow’s evening tide. Neither Enean nor the increasingly insufferable O Riain would say why they had left Falcarragh, only that they’d return by nightfall today. Night had come, but they had not.

And the mage-lights felt strange this night. They were glittering madly all over the sky, brighter than he’d ever seen them, and yet the stream that had wrapped about his hand was strangely weak and diluted. He wondered how that could be. From the expressions on the other Ríthe’s faces, they were having the same experience.

“My Rí!”
The captain of Rí Mas Sithig’s personal gardai rushed into the courtyard. His sword was out, a terrible breach of etiquette with the other Ríthe present, and that alone told Torin how alarmed the man was. “There’s been an attack . . . The North Gate’s been destroyed . . . Houses afire . . .” Out of breath, the man could do no more than gasp the awful phrases.

“Who?” Rí Mas Sithig roared. “The Inish?”

The man shook his head. “The Mad Holder, my Rí,” he answered. “Alone. Banrion MacEagan. She has . . .” He took a gulp of air. His voice was tremulous and hoarse. “She has Lámh Shábhála.”

“By the Mother . . .” Torin could not help the exclamation. The implications struck him like
Ó
mailed fists.
If the MacEagan woman has the cloch, then O Riain is dead and probably Enean as well.

Torin had heard the tales of his da’s generation, of Jenna Aoire the Mad Holder who would become Banrion MacEagan. His own keep back in Lár Bhaile still bore the scars from the Mad Holder’s flight after she’d killed his mam. He’d heard the older Riocha talk of the Battle of Dun Kiil and the awful destruction the woman had wreaked there. Some of the tales were undoubtedly exaggerations, but some . . .

If even half were true, she would be a formidable opponent, even with the Clochs Mór of the Tuatha arrayed against her. A cold foreboding slithered down his spine.

“She is mad if she believes she can stand alone against us all,” Mas Sithig said. He brought his hand down, the mage-lights trailing away reluctantly. “She’s brought herself to her death, none too soon.” His gaze flicked over Torin, and he saw that despite the Rí’s brave words, the man was as uncertain as Torin.
Aye, she’ll fall, almost certainly, but how many of us will she take to the Mother with her? How many of us will she kill before the Black Haunts come for her?

But there was nothing any of them could do. The battle had been brought to them, all unexpected, and they had no choice. “Sound the keep bells,” Mas Sithig told the garda. “Send runners to Overlook Park and alert the troop captains—have the soldiers arm themselves and come here.”

“It’s already done, my Rí,” the garda said. “And I’ve placed a squadron of twenty men outside the courtyard who will remain with you.”

“Then send a runner to Tiarna O Blaca,” Torin told the man. “Tell him to gather the mages of the Order of Gabair and meet us at the Old Wall.”

The garda nodded and rushed off.

“No Holder has ever stood against so many Clochs Mór,” Rí O Seachnasaigh said. His plump face looked almost eager. If he was shocked or upset by the apparent death of Ó Riain, the man he’d championed, the emotion didn’t show. “One of us will hold Lámh Shábhála tonight.”

Those of us who are still alive,
Torin thought. “I hope you’re right, Rí O Seachnasaigh. Let’s go, then, and may the Mother go with us,” he said.

He placed the chain of his Cloch Mór around his neck, wondering if he would see the dawn.

They rode into the teeth of a hurricane. They rode into chaos.

Owaine saw the lightning of the clochs and the leaping flames under the swirling mage-lights. He heard the walls tumble and the gardai wail.

By the time Owaine and the others reached North Gate, Jenna had moved deeper into the city. They could heard the sounds of battle; they could feel the tingle of enormous mage-power unleashed; they saw the flashes and forms of the Clochs Mór in battle. Owaine pulled Blaze from under his clóca. Dread sat in his stomach, and worry about Meriel and where she might be tore at him. He gaped at the ruined walls, lit fitfully by the spreading fires in the nearby dwellings and the mage-lights above. The smell of smoke choked him. The scope of the destruction awed him and terrified him at the same time.

The choice before him seemed clear. Jenna may have gone mad, but she was still the Banrion, and the armies that filled this city had come here to take Inish Thuaidh. He was an Inishlander; he knew what he had to do, as did Máister Kirwan.

“We have to help the Banrion,” Mundy said, speaking Owaine’s thoughts. “She can’t hold off all the clochs alone—they’ll kill her. Come on!” He started to ride off, Owaine and Mahon following, but Edana and Doyle sat unmoving on their horses in the midst of the rubble.

“We part ways here,” Edana told them. Ó Her horse stamped nervously. “We were allies against Ó Riain and in recovering Lámh Shábhála. That’s over now, and I won’t save Enean’s killer.” Her face was grim and set.

“You’ll fight with the Tuatha, then?” Mundy asked her. She shrugged. Doyle glared at Owaine silently. Mundy’s face tightened and Owaine thought that the Máister might open his own cloch and attack Edana rather than let her leave. Edana must have felt the same, for her hand went to her breast and she frowned. Doyle, too, reacted, and Owaine put himself between the two.

“Meriel would understand your choice, Bantiarna,” he said. “Go the way you feel you need to go, and I thank you both for the help you’ve given Meriel and me. I only hope we don’t meet again tonight, Edana. We don’t need to be enemies.”

“We don’t get that choice, Inishlander,” Doyle spat back. “Your interests are no longer mine or Edana’s. Not if you intend to help my sister survive her murderous folly.”

Owaine heard the creak of leather and Mahon reached for his sword at the insult to the Banrion, and from the side of his vision he saw the Máister’s hand close about his cloch. “Then we’ll end this here and now,” Mundy said warningly, but Owaine shook his head desperately.

“No, Máister. Please,” he said, but it was already too late. Demon-Caller was open and the mage-creature howled, stamping its feet and shaking the ground. Horses reared, Owaine falling from his mount to land in a bruised heap in the rubble. Arms of light wrapped around the demon from Mundy’s cloch, but the demon laughed and vanished. When Owaine looked, Edana and Doyle had fled into the darkness. Gone. Mundy cursed.

“We can still catch them,” Mahon shouted, his sword out, but Mundy shook his head and pointed to the west and the hills where the Old Wall sheltered the keep. Owaine could see the mage-lights curling there like a brilliant tornado, and as he touched Blaze with his mind, he could feel other Clochs Mór gathering against it. “The Banrion is in battle,” he said. “We can’t wait.”

Mundy nodded. “Then we’ll go to her, and we’ll fight and die like Inishlanders,” he said.

Edana and Doyle hurried their horses up the street to the gate that led through the Old Wall. They moved against a seething flood of Falcarragh’s citizens, all of them rushing away from the center of the battle. On the nearest tower of the Old Wall, Doyle could see Riocha gathered, outlined in the flickering of mage-light. Rí Torin, and Rí Mas Sithig, and . . .