Holder of Lightning

got there, it was gone. Not a trace of ’im was left. I swear it-ask Widow O’Rheallagh herself, or Tom Mullin over there, who went with ’em. Doire Coill’s an evil place, I say. I already gave it me hand, and that’s all a’ me it’s to get. I won’t go in there again, and them that do are nothin’ but fools."

Bailey’s words resonated in Jenna’s head as they left the hummock in the bog and started heading south, moving parallel to the rough line of the High Road and taking care to stay hidden from possible watchers on the rising flanks of Knobtop. It was getting near dark, with all of them tired and soggy nearly to the waist, when Jenna noticed that the ground underneath their feet was firmer, and that the trees around them were twisted, thick-trunked oaks hung with parasitic mistletoe, huddled to-gether in a dark mass.

They were within the indistinct edges of Doire Coill, west and south of Ballintubber. Somewhere to their left, the High Road to Lar Bhaile (and beyond to Dun Laoghaire) passed within a stone’s throw of the forest’s leaves before turning sharply east to meet and cross River Duan at the village of Ath Iseal, a good full day’s journey from Ballintubber on horse-back. Between Ath Iseal and Ballintubber, there were few human habita-tions-and in the empty space between no one gave allegiance to R1 Gabair or any king.

"How long do we need to stay here?" Maeve asked. Jenna looked at the deep green shadows under the trees. She let the pack she carried fall to the ground. Contrary to what One Hand Bailey had said, she saw life enough: black squirrels bounding through the tangled limbs above them, starlings and finches flitting from branch to branch. The trees here were ancient: they had seen the first movement of humankind through this land, and Jenna sensed that they remembered and were not pleased. Mac Ard’s boots crunched on a thick carpet of old leaves and acorn caps.

"Two days, maybe a few more," he said. "The Connachtans can’t stay longer without risking open war, and I don’t think they want that. Two days, and we can chance the High Road again."

"Two days," Jenna repeated. "Here in Doire Coill."

"It’s a forest, that’s all," Mac Ard told her. "Don’t worry yourself over silly tales. I’ve been out here before, at the edge of the Doire, and slept under its

branches. I had strange dreams that night, but that’s all."

"We’ll need a fire," Maeve said. "So we don’t freeze during the night."

"There’s a tinderbox in one of the packs. A fire will be safe enough after the sun goes down and they can’t see the smoke, I suppose," Mac Ard said. "We’re far enough off the High Road. If we go a bit farther in, the trees will shield the light…" Maeve looked at Jenna as Mac Ard started to rummage in the packs.

"He knows what he’s doing, Mam. And if he hadn’t come to help us, we might be dead."

Maeve nodded. She went to Mac Ard and began helping him. An hour later, they were huddled in a tiny clearing with a small fire of dead wood that they’d gathered. The warmth of the fire was welcome, but to Jenna, the flickering light only seemed to intensify the darkness around them, encasing them in a globe of bright air while blackness pressed in around them. They’d eaten a loaf of hard bread and a few slivers of cheese from the pack, with water that still tasted of the bog from a nearby stream. Maeve and Mac Ard sat close to each other, closer than Jenna had ever seen her mam sit to another man. She was pleased at that, huddled in her cloak across the fire. She watched them through the flame, talking softly together, with a brief smile once touching her mam’s lips. Jenna smiled herself at that. Maeve had rebuffed the advances of every man in Ballin-tubber, from what Jenna had heard and seen, but this Mac Ard was differ-ent. Jenna wondered, for a moment, how her own da might have reacted to what happened, and that brought back to her the events of the day, and she wanted to cry, wanted to weep for Kesh and the soldiers she’d killed and the lives that she’d left destroyed behind her, but there were no tears inside her.

She was dry, cold, and simply exhausted.

Wings fluttered somewhere above and behind her, startling Jenna. The rustling came again, loud and closer, and a huge black crow swooped low across the fire and lifted to land in a branch near Mac Ard. It cawed once, a grotesque, hoarse cough of a sound. Its bright eyes regarded them, the glossy head turning in quick, abrupt moves. "Nasty thing," Maeve said, glaring at the bird. "They’re thieves,

those birds, and scavengers. Look at it staring at us, like it's waiting for us to die."

Mac Ard picked up the bow and nocked an arrow. "It won't stare long," he said. He drew the bowstring back, the braided leather creaking under the strain.

"Hold!"