The Sword and the Song (29 page)

Aine took the stairs from the upper floor
as quickly as she could, her heart feeling as though it had permanently lodged into her throat. She burst breathlessly into the Ceannaire’s chamber, followed moments later by Iomhar. “What is it? Is it Conor?”

Eoghan gestured to the chair in front of him. “Sit down.”

She sat, a numbness creeping into her legs. “Is it Conor? Have you heard something?” She hadn’t been able to locate him since he redrew the rune, but she hadn’t felt anything from the other men that would indicate bad news. Had she just missed it? Was her own worry blocking her abilities?”

“No, nothing like that,” Eoghan said, and her breath whooshed out of her body. “Aine, you must believe me. If anything happened to Conor, I would not keep you in suspense. Please put that out of your mind.”

She nodded, too enthusiastically. Anything else she could manage. “What is it, then?”

“We received a dove today from Conor. Glas Na Baile has been destroyed.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“By Niall. As reprisal, we think, for the destruction of the runes at the fortress.”

Another wave of sickness washed over her. She’d sensed the presence of hundreds gathered around the safety of the ring fort. And now they were all dead? Because of our clan’s actions? “What do we do now? Is he coming back?”

“Aine,” Eoghan said gently. “This doesn’t change anything. He can’t stop. Those we lost at Glas Na Baile are minor compared to those who will die if Niall manages to collect the runes.”

“Why are you telling me this if there’s nothing we can do about it?”

“Because this was Conor’s decision. He’s determined to continue. But we both know he’s going to feel like their blood is on his hands.”

That was exactly how Conor would feel, and cut off from him as Aine was, she couldn’t even offer him comfort or assess his mindset. “What do you want me to do?”

“For one thing, have the men convince him to get rid of the rune so we can communicate with him.”

“He won’t. He’s doing it to protect me.” She knew that once Conor was convinced he was causing her harm, nothing would be able to persuade him otherwise. “Can’t we do something? Send men to protect the forts?”

“We don’t have the men to spare, Aine. If Conor’s successful, Niall has no choice but to turn his attention to Ard Dhaimhin. One way or another, we are going to have to fight. We need every man we can get.”

“What about evacuating them? If there aren’t any people there to kill
 
—”

“Where would they go?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere, anywhere!” She jumped from the chair, struck by the need to move, escape, but unable to get away
from the news. “You can’t tell me this and then say there’s nothing we can do. How can you just make these decisions with so much certainty when there are lives at stake?”

Part of her welcomed Eoghan’s anger, but he just regarded her with an expression of sympathy. “You know I don’t make them lightly, nor does Conor. I’m sorry if I upset you. I thought you would want to know.”

“I’m sorry. I do. It’s just . . . there’s been so much death already. I want it to be over.”

“No more than I do. Perhaps you should rest for a bit. I’ll let you know if there is any more news.”

Aine nodded, even though the last thing she wanted to do was rest. She couldn’t even hold the decision against them. Emotional as she might be, she knew Eoghan and Conor were making the choices that meant survival for the greatest number of people. They were looking at the big picture, even if she could think only of the men, women, and children who would be killed for no other reason than their location. The only thing she could do was wait for the next time Conor removed the rune and try to convince him that she would be fine without it.

It was nearly two weeks’ travel to the next fortress, a broken-down earth-and-stone ring fort named Fincashiel, located at the top of what seemed to be the only large hill in southern Faolán. Or it should have been two weeks; Conor nearly killed their horses to reach it in nine days, hoping to beat both the druid’s army and word about the fate of Glas Na Baile.

“What do you think?” Ailill asked. “Same approach as before?”

“Aye, I think we need to try. But take Ibor and Lommán with you, just in case.”

Ailill and the two other men bowed their obedience and
started off toward the fortress at a brisk clip. Blair situated his horse beside Conor. “What kind of reception do you think they’ll get?”

“I couldn’t begin to guess.” The smoke was still heavy on the horizon from the destruction of Glas Na Baile, a reminder of the danger they brought with their presence.

Less than a half hour later, three horsemen descended the switchbacks leading from the ring fort more quickly than they had approached. When they came within shouting distance, Conor’s heart sank. Their dampened, stained tunics spoke for the village’s answer more strongly than words.

Ailill reined his horse and pulled his sticky tunic away from his body. Remnants of rotten vegetables dropped to the earth. “I don’t know about you, but I would take this as a no.”

“At least you still have your sense of humor,” Conor muttered. “Go wash in the stream while I decide our next move.”

“We’re not just going to move on?” Lommán asked, surprised. He seemed to have taken the least of the brunt of their response, even though bits of rotten lettuce clung to his blond hair.

“Permission or not, there is still a rune stone inside that fortress, and we need to destroy it. Do you actually think they will be spared because we passed it by?”

The looks on the other men’s faces shifted when they realized that the very existence of this mission meant people would die. The only question was whether they would be successful before that happened. Much sobered, Ailill, Ibor, and Lommán dismounted and trudged to the nearby spring to wash the remnants of the filth from their clothing.

Conor considered for a moment, then dismounted and removed his harp case.

“What are you doing?” Blair asked, moving to his side while he settled himself on the turf.

“An experiment.” He took out the harp and spent a couple of minutes tuning the strings, which loosened from the constant jostling of the horse day after day. He scrubbed the inked shield rune from his chest and prepared to play.

Conor, thank Comdiu. I need to talk to you.

Conor sighed, even though part of him thrilled to hear his wife’s voice in his head. Had she just been waiting for him?
Aine, love, I’m busy right now.

Conor, I know what happened at Glas Na Baile. Please don’t shut me out.

Why? The last thing you need are my thoughts inside your head.

I know you feel guilty
 
—

I feel pained. Distressed. Not guilty. Guilty implies that I’ve done something wrong, and I haven’t.

Pushing everyone away isn’t going to help matters.

I’m not pushing everyone away. I’m just pushing
you
away.
The minute he thought the unkind words, he regretted them. Aine didn’t deserve his cruelty.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. But you have to understand that what we are doing is critical. And I can’t have any distractions right now. I am attempting to do things differently at Fincashiel.

She said nothing in return. Maybe he’d offended her, or maybe she was just honoring his wishes, but she hadn’t completely pulled away from him. He was still aware of her in the back of his mind, waiting. It would have to be good enough for his concentration. He settled the harp on the turf between his legs and began to play.

Once again, the tune that came to mind was only remotely related to the other ones. He didn’t bother to weave a shield around the fortress and spread out as he usually did, though. In his mind’s eye, it was simply a sheet of golden light: simple, direct, blanketing the area for as far as he could see. He stretched
himself, hoping to meet the border of one of his other wards, but ten days’ ride was too far from even his imagination. Instead, he pushed it to the west into the tree line of Seanrós, linking up once more to the wards who protected the entire central section of Seare. This time, the pulse of power beneath the wards was stronger, as if it were strengthened by the connection to Ard Dhaimhin. Was that why the wards had originally emanated from the High City? Had it been a point of connection through which all the wards shared power?

He set the harp back in his case, gradually becoming aware of the puzzled expressions of the men in his party.

“Isn’t that just a beacon, telling Lord Keondric that we’ve been here?” Ferus asked.

“He’ll know we’ve been here one way or another. But this will tell us whether the men he’s using are ensorcelled or not. If they are, they won’t be able to come within fifty miles of the fortress.”

“And the rune stones?”

“We’ll make entry after dark without their knowledge.”

“How do you intend to do that?” Ailill asked.

“The same way we got into Ard Bealach. Through solid stone.”

They waited until nightfall to implement the second phase of his plan. Conor led Ailill, Blair, and Muiris from their makeshift camp. They faded into the shadows and made stealthy progress across the meadow to the hill.

The mount upon which Fincashiel was built was made to repel armies, but no one had thought about the possibility of being taken by a handful. While it was impossible to bring horses and siege engines up its rocky face, the craggy surface provided the perfect handholds for a small group of climbers to slip in completely unnoticed.

Still, the going was slow in the dark, and they had to stop
frequently to rest their aching muscles. The rock scraped their fingertips until they bled, and the toes of their soft leather shoes shredded from constant contact with sharp edges. When they finally reached the top hours later, the moon was beginning to sink over the horizon, leaving only the faintest glow overhead. All the better for their plan.

Conor dug a charcoal stub wrapped in oilcloth from his pocket and approached the bit of the wall they’d chosen for their entry. It opened onto the back part of the courtyard behind an outbuilding, which should be deserted at this time of night. Once inside, the Fíréin would be in their element, moving soundlessly through the shadows. Conor selected a spot several feet off the ground, where the wall’s thick base had begun to narrow somewhat, and sent a pleading prayer upward.
Dear Comdiu, be with us. Please let it work.

He began with the outer circle of the softening rune and then began to slowly draw the intersecting lines and squiggly marks that made up the rest of it. It was slow work in the dark, and the rough stone exterior of the wall meant he had to draw each line multiple times. When he was finished, he uttered one more silent prayer, then dug his battered fingertips into the wall. It crumbled in his hand like sand.

A relieved breath escaped him. Conor stepped aside and gestured to Blair, who immediately brought out the hand ax he had slung across his back. One swift stroke, and part of the wall vanished in a crumble of dust.

“It’s working!” Ailill whispered, his eyes wide and glowing in the little light that remained.

“Aye. Keep at it.”

Even so, it took several minutes for Blair to break completely through the wall, several more to widen it to the width of a man. Ailill stepped up, gestured for them to wait, and climbed
through. A moment later, his face appeared in the opening and he waved them through.

Conor immediately saw he had misjudged the location. Instead of coming out behind a cookhouse or a storeroom, the hole opened onto an animal pen that held a single goat. It lifted its head from where it lay on a straggly patch of straw but seemed otherwise unconcerned by the emergence of four men into its home.

“I don’t suppose you know where the stone is,” he muttered to the goat, taking a moment to make sure he was still concealed in the shadows.

Unlike Glas Na Baile, these walls were stone, which meant that the rune stone easily could have been used as a pillar or the lintel of the front gates or . . . the front step of the elevated clochán that dominated the majority of the inner courtyard.