Holder of Lightning

Inishlanders, and it roared as it plunged into their ranks, tearing and ripping with its clawed hands and feet. She saw it storm forward and pick up a man bodily, legs and arms flailing, and rip the body apart as if it were a rag doll, blood and entrails splattering as it tossed the broken corpse aside. The war-keening faltered; the advance slowed like a tide striking a rising seabed. The beast laughed, its wings spreading and blotting out the setting sun, and it bent to its terrible task once more. Jenna shouted and unleashed Lamh Shabhala again, reaching out with arms of energy to pluck the thing up and smash it down on the ground again before it could react to the attack. She sent thunderbolts raining down on it, striking it again and again and yet again. The creature bellowed as she tore at it, and she heard the mirroring cries from its Holder within the keep. In the cloch-vision, a coiling line of gold led from the mage-creature back to the Cloch Mor which spawned it, and Jenna sent of blade of energy down on it, severing the link. The mage-demon howled once more and vanished, and Jenna would have finished it then. .

… the arrows no longer fell, but something else did: several hands of round balls arced over the walls, rolling into the midst of the Inishlanders. Where the jell, great cries of anguish went up. One fell near Jenna and she saw that it was not a stone but a severed head, the eyes still wide open, long black hair matted with mud and caked blood. She recognized the gory features even through the distortion of the death rictus: it was Tiarna 0 Beolldin, and she knew then that those who had been sent to open the keep from the inside had failed. The last glow of sunlight was fading; darkness was falling, and when she looked up at the walls of the keep, she saw the first stars glitter in the dome of the sky

. . light blazed all around her, suddenly. A half-dozen flares of power multihued and dangerous, Mac Ard among them. Jenna reflexively threw up shields as they attacked as one, and she was suddenly contending with attacks from all sides, the snarl and blinding light of mage-energy pound-ing at her. Mac Ard sent his fire; she caught it with Lamh Shabhala and threw the flame toward the great glowing wolf that was leaping toward her. Spears of golden sunlight cascaded from the shield, but she couldn’t respond fast enough to the others.

A stream of rich azure slithered through, burning her while a funnel of utter black whirled above, its

mouth twisting ravenously. She could feel the power of Lamh Shabhala being leeched away by the tornado. .

. . the war-keening had died. Around her, the soldiers milled, confused and stymied. Rams were brought forward to break down the gates, but archers on the walls cut down half the men wielding them. The gates shuddered with the impact but held. MacEagan's lava-creature-bright in the growing darkness- came lumbering forward to smash open the iron-barred wood, but the mage-demon, returning to the battlefield, met him, the two struggling before the gates so that none could get past. The moving shadows of their contest played over the faces of the soldiers, and Jenna could see the despair and resignation there. Jenna knew that the gates must go down now or they must retreat. To stay would mean being decimated by the archers on the walls and the Clochs Mor. .

. . This was the end, Jenna realized, even as she fought the Clochs Mor arrayed against her, even as she tossed wild power around her and threw them all momentarily back. She was stronger, aye, but they would bear her down under sheer numbers. The Inish hope had been that the army could gain the keep, that sword and spear would cut down a few of the Mages or cause them to look elsewhere. Mac Ard's cloch attacked her again, and this time she could not push it aside. The force struck her, enveloping her in fire, and she screamed as the blow sent her reeling backward and her freshly healed wounds ripped open again. Unseen hands caught her and held her upright, but they, too, shouted in pain as they touched Mac Ard's blaze. Jenna held Lamh Shabhala aloft in futile defiance, gathering power in the fist of her mind and sending it smashing down to where she sensed Mac Ard standing-but the other clochs inter-posed themselves, shunting the energy aside or absorbing it themselves. She could feel their realization that victory was to be theirs, that they were enough to overwhelm Lamh Shabhala. Their colors circled her, like hun-gry wolves harrying an injured but still dangerous storm deer stag. They would come in for the final kill now, and Jenna found that the anger inside her, even toward Mac Ard, had dissolved into resignation. She hadn't wanted this fight in the first place, and people all around her were dying, all because of the cloch she held. .

the men around the mage-demon hacked at it,