Holder of Lightning

"I was there," she said to the mug. "The lights, they were so… bright and the colors were so deep, all around me. ." She lifted her head, looking from Mac Ard to her mam, shimmering in the salt water that suddenly filled her eyes. "I don’t understand why this is happening," she said, sniffing and trying to keep back the tears. "I don’t know why it keeps happening to me. I don’t want it, didn’t ask for it. I don’t know anything." The stone burned cold against her thigh through the woolen fabric. "I. ." She started to tell them the rest, how the mage-lights had glowed in the stone, how the power had arced from it, how the pebble had seemed to draw the mage-lights tonight, all of it. But she saw the eagerness in Mac Ard’s face, the way he leaned forward intently as she spoke of the lights, and she stopped herself. You don’t know him, not really. The stone was your gift, not his. The voice in her head almost seemed to be someone else’s.

"There isn't anything else to tell you, Tiarna," she said, sniffing. "I'm sorry."

Disappointment etched itself in the set of his mouth, and she realized that the man was genuinely puzzled. He shook his head. "Then we wait, and we watch," he said. He turned to Maeve. "I'll stay at Tara's for another day, at least, and we'll see. The mage-lights may come again tomorrow night. If they do, if they call Jenna, I'll go up there with her. If that's acceptable to you, Widow Aoire."

Maeve lifted her chin. "She's my daughter. I'll be with her, too, Tiarna Mac Ard."

He might have smiled. Maeve might have smiled back.

Mac Ard brushed at his cloca, adjusting the silver brooch at the right shoulder. "Good night to you both, then," he said. He gave a swift bow to Maeve, and left.

Chapter 5: Attack on the Village

THE night sky stayed dark the next night. Tiarna Mac Ard remained at Tara’s, coming to Jenna’s house that evening and escorting the two of them back to the tavern, where they listened to Coelin with an eye on the window that showed Knobtop above the trees.

But it remained simply night outside. Nothing more.

The next day broke with a heavy mist rolling in from the west, a gray wall that hid sun and sky and laid a sheen of moisture over the village. The mist beaded on the wool of the sheep as Jenna and Kesh herded them to the field behind the cottage. Kesh was acting strangely; he kept lifting his head and barking at something unseen, but finally they got the last straggler through. Jenna walked the field perimeter once, checking the stone fence her father had built, then calling Kesh-still barking at noth-ing-and closing the gate.

She smelled it then in the air, over the distinctive tang of smoldering peat from their own fire and those in the village: the odor of wood smoke and burning thatch. Jenna frowned, surveying the landscape. There was a smear of darker gray beyond the trees lining the field, and under it, a tinge of glowing red. "Mam!" she called. "I think there’s a fire in the village."

Maeve came from the cottage, wrapping a shawl over her head. "Look," Jenna said, pointing. Her mam squinted into the damp air, into the gray, dim distance.

"Come on," she said. "They may need help. ."

They didn’t get as far as the High Road. They heard the sound of a galloping horse racing toward them down the rutted dirt lane, and Tiarna Mac Ard came hurtling around the bend, his hair blowing and his cloca billowing behind him. He pulled Conhal to a mud-tossing halt in front of them, dismounting in a sudden leap.

"Tiarna Mac Ard-" Maeve began, but then the man cut off her words with a slash of his arm. "No time," he said. "We need to get you and your daughter out of here. Into the bogs, maybe, or over-" He stopped, whirling around at the sound of pounding hooves, as Kesh ran barking and snarling toward the quartet of on-rushing horses.

White fog blew from the nostrils of the steeds and the mouths of the riders.

"Kesh, no!" Jenna shouted at the dog. Kesh stopped, looked back at Jenna.

They could have gone around him. There was easily room.

They ran the dog down. Jenna screamed as she saw the hooves of the lead horse strike Kesh. He yelped and rolled and tried to escape, but the horse's muscular rear legs struck his side and Kesh went down under the three behind, lost in the blur of motion and clods of flying dirt. "Kesh!" Jenna screamed again, starting to run toward the bloody, still form in the dirt, but Maeve's arms went around her as Mac Ard stepped between them and the horsemen. "Kesh!"

The lead rider pulled his party to a stop before Mac Ard. The man threw his cloca back, and Jenna, sobbing for Kesh, saw a sword on his belt. "Where's your blue and gold, Fiacra De Derga?" Mac Ard called to the rider. "Or are those of Connachta too cowardly to show their colors when they go plundering in Gabair?"