Holder of Lightning

"I know that," Mac Ard replied softly. "I wish it were different, Maeve- may I call you that?"

Jenna’s mam nodded. "Good. And please call me Padraic. I wish I could undo my words to R1 Mallaghan and that I had come here with my own squad of gardai, as he wished. Maybe then none of this would have happened. But I can’t unsay the words, and I can’t ease your loss. All I can do now is try to keep us alive."

"How?" Maeve asked. She looked at Jenna. "You don't want her to-"

"No," Mac Ard said quickly. "She doesn't need more blood on her hands, nor do I think she knows how to control the stone or whether she could repeat what she did. I certainly don't know the answer to that. The Connachtans will expect us to make for Lar Bhaile, so they'll be watching the High Road and the River Duan. They can't stay here long, however- they know word will eventually reach the Rl's ears about this raid and he'll send soldiers after them."

"So what do we do?"

"We find a place to hide for a few days."

Maeve shook her head, hugging Jenna. "Where? I don't know of such a place. They would find us here, eventually."

"I agree," Mac Ard answered. "So we'll go into Doire Coill."

Jenna cried out at that and Maeve shook her head. "Have you gone mad, Tiarna Mac Ard? You take us from one death to another."

"I take us from sure death to a hope for life," he answered. "They'll be searching the bogs soon enough, Maeve. We can't stay here. We need to go, and we need to go now while we can."

Maeve was still shaking her head, but Jenna felt her mam's arms relax around her and knew that she'd made a decision, staring at the smoke rising from the ruin of their lives. Everything they'd known was gone; their only ally was Mac Ard. Jenna leaned toward Maeve. "We have to trust him,

Mam," she whispered. "We have to."

She could see the lines at the corners of her mam's eyes relax as she made the decision. "All right," she said finally. "We'll follow you. Padraic."

Jenna knew that most of the tales were simply that-stories to frighten the children. The residents of Ballintubber had a thousand tales and leg-ends and stories about the half-wild land that surrounded them. The R1 Mallaghan might proclaim himself king over Tuath Gabair, but in truth, his rule only extended to the small towns, the villages, and the occasional squares of farmed land: tamed patches of a landscape that had seen vast, misty centuries when legends walked alive.

Legends still walked, if the stories were to be believed, in those hidden places where humankind came infrequently, or not at all. Doire Coill was one of those places, a lingering remnant of a greater oak forest that had once stretched from Lough Lar to the Westering Sea, and north and south for leagues, a wall of trees shading meandering bogs and hidden valleys, where giant elk and ferocious knifefangs had roamed. Most of the forest was gone now, eroded by axes, time, and changing climate. Yet portions of it yet existed, here and there through the peninsula of Talamh an Ghlas. Doire Coill was not the largest of these or the most well known, but it loomed large in the stories Jenna had heard. One Hand Bailey, in his cups at Tara's, had often spoken of the time he'd lost his hand.

"Oh, I'd heard the tales, aye," Jenna could remember his drunken voice saying, low and slurred with alcohol. "Rubbish, I thinks, because I was young an' stupid. So I takes me old horse and cart down the High Road past Knobtop, thinking that Doire Coill weren't likely to miss one of those nasty old black oaks, and wouldn't that make a great pile of lumber for the selling. That's what I thought, and every day of my life since I've regretted it. Me an' Daragh O'Rheallagh started a'sawing at the closest trunk to the road with a two man blade, and at first it went fine, though I thought I heard the trees rustling angrily at the sight of the metal, and a cold wind came out from underneath the trees like the forest was breathin', a foul breath of dead and molderin' leaves. Didn't see any ani-mals, which was strange: not a squirrel, not a bird, not a deer; like they'd all gone, knowing what we were doing and afraid of it. We kept at our sawin', wantin' to get out of there as quick as we could-the noise dead in the stillness, the tree sittin' there hating us, the sawdust piling at our feet. Then, all a' sudden, it fell, before it had any right to do so, like it chose to fall. Crushed poor Daragh under it before he could move, and the saw blade snapped with an awful noise an' whipped out, an' it sliced me hand right off me arm. I thought I'd die there meself, but I managed to tie a scrap a' cloth around me arm quick to stop the bleedin'. Wasn't no such luck for Daragh; he was already dead, his head smashed and his brains dashed out on the ground. I came back here quick as I could, and six men and the new Widow O'Rheallagh went back to get Daragh's body out from under the tree. When they