Holder of Lightning

In the cloch-vision, it was as if they faced one another in the same room though a quarter mile or more separated them. His mouth moved, his eyes almost sad. "Jenna. ." The word was loud in her hearing, even through the clamor. She recoiled backward, the vision of Mac Ard receding as if she were falling away from him impossibly fast. She found herself back in her body, the roar of the battle around her.

"Jenna!" Moister Cleurach shouted. His face was grim and strained, his Nesh pale as he lashed out with Stormbringer against the other clochs. He pointed at Aithne, but even the gesture allowed an opening, and the lava beast threw globules of fire that the winds of Stormbringer hurled aside only barely in time. The field workers were running away in panic; the rows of wheat nearest Jenna and the others were now ablaze. The Dun Kiil gardai had gone to Aithne, swords drawn uselessly. One went down

with a crossbow quarrel in his breast.

The mage-demon flapped its dragon wings above Aithne, claws out as it stooped like a hawk and plummeted. At the same moment, blue light-ning erupted again from Aron’s hand. Jenna imagined a wall above the Banrion and she felt Lamh Shabhala shudder in her hand as the demon struck it, as the searing energy from Aron’s cloch battered at-the shielding force. The demon, growling in frustration, tore at the shield; Jenna could feel it as if the claws were gouging at her own flesh. Aithne rose groggily, and she touched her own cloch.

A new demon appeared, the twin of the first. It hurled itself at the other and they came together with a roar.

Mac Ard sent lightning that tore at the earth directly in front of Jenna. Her horse reared, sending

her falling to the ground. Her right elbow struck a rock in the mud, and her arm went numb. She was no longer holding Lamh Shabhala. The world snapped back into drab confusion, the power of the Clochs Mor now just half-glimpsed whirlings in the air, the shrill howling of wind, and the flickering of pale light. One of the stone fences exploded, shards of rock flying everywhere. A fragment sliced across Jenna's left arm, leaving a long cut that gaped white for an instant before blood welled up. Jenna cried in pain and frustration. Her right arm throbbed with the pain of wielding the cloch as she scrabbled in the mud. There-she saw the cloch, an arm's length away, and flung herself at it. Her hand closed about it…

. . and the fury rose again: around her. Inside her.

"Mac Ard!" She screamed his name. She reached deep into the well of energy within her cloch, grasping it all, holding the power with her mind and shaping it. She could see him, could feel the lightning that writhed like snakes in his hands. She hurled the whole force of Lamh Shabhala s energy at him. He sensed the attack and pushed back at it. Aron, too, felt it, and his Cloch Mor turned to aid Mac Ard. For a moment they both held, then, with a cry, she broke through. Aron swayed in his saddle' senseless. Mac Ard, in his tower room, crumpled.

Jenna herself sagged, suddenly weary. She took a breath, ready now to finish it, to kill them. .

There were cries and shouts around her-she saw one of O Dochartaigh's riders pluck the tiarna's unconscious body from his horse and turn to gallop back up the hill. The others followed, retreating as the other two Clochs Mor pushed back Moister Cleurach and the Banrion's renewed attacks. Jenna flung the cloch's rage at them, and one of the Mages gave a cry and fell as the lava-beast wailed and vanished. The door to Glenn Aill opened to let the remaining riders in, then shut.

She could feel the remaining Clochs Mor close also, their Holders re-leasing the stones, though Moister Cleurach continued to hurl Storm-bringer's energy toward the walls and towers.

"Moister, it's over," Jenna heard Aithne say wearily. "They've gone. They'll be in the caverns and gone before we can get to them."

The old man lifted his hand. With a curse, he released the cloch. The storm was simply a cold, soaking rain once more. All but one of their gardai were dead; the Banrion’s attendants seemed to have fled. Three of the O Dochartaigh retinue lay on the ground, and. .

"Ennis!" Jenna ran to him, ignoring the pain and fatigue of her body. "By the Mother…" She sank into the mud beside him, pulling him into her lap. His eyes were open, and the long gaping wound across the side of his neck no longer pulsed, but seeped thick and red. The ground below him and his leine were soaked with it, and the blood covered Jenna’s rain-slick hands as she cradled him.