Aine swiped the tear away. “I’m sorry. The baby makes me terribly emotional. I’m told it gets worse before it gets better.”
“I wish I could stay. I wish it were safe for you to be with me. But the sooner I leave, the sooner I’ll be back. And by that time, perhaps you will have learned how the sword and the runes and the kingship all fit together.”
“With Comdiu’s provision, I will have. To think I believed we wouldn’t be parted again.”
Conor flinched, and she knew he was remembering his promise not to leave her side again. It was cruel to act as if he were letting her down when he was merely doing his duty.
“Enough of this talk,” she said. “Let’s go to bed. It’s an early day tomorrow.”
The next morning, she rose early to help Conor prepare for departure, even though he didn’t need assistance. The actions—adjusting the buckles on his sword baldric, handing him the blades that went into sheaths on various parts of his person, draping him in the furs that were part of the traveler disguise—all felt like a mystical barrier against the dangers to come. She knew it was pure superstition, yet the accompanying prayers in her heart were anything but. Comdiu protect him. Let him prevail against his enemies. Let him come back to me safely.
Let my child have the chance to know his father.
Only when she removed the rune charm, the ivory one he had given her before he left to join the Fíréin brotherhood years ago, did her composure break. She chewed her bottom lip to keep her tears from flowing and draped it over his head, then tucked it beneath his tunic.
“None of this, now.” Conor brushed away the single escaped teardrop on its descent down her face. He kissed her deeply, a reassurance, a promise. “We will be successful. And I will be back in plenty of time to see the birth of our child.”
Aine smiled as he caught her around the waist and gave her a little spin, the playfulness of the gesture at odds with her dark thoughts. She trusted Comdiu to watch over Conor, to protect this endeavor, but the little nagging fears still nibbled away at her faith. Each time they parted, she wondered if they’d used up all their allotted reunions.
“I can’t delay any longer,” he said finally, regret heavy in his voice. “Contact me each night, and I’ll update you on our position. You can have Eoghan mark it on the map so the leadership knows our progress.”
“Of course.” She put on a cheerful attitude and let him take her hand as they proceeded to the clearing below Carraigmór. The party had staged themselves at the bottom of the steps beside four pack ponies loaded with food, supplies, and wicker cages containing gray and white rock doves to be housed in Ard Bealach’s dovecotes.
Warriors milled around the horses, dressed similarly to Conor and fully armed with sling staves, swords, and bows. Some Aine recognized as being from the ranks of older and more experienced brothers. Others looked barely old enough to shave. They all, however, shared the confident quality of men born and reared in Ard Dhaimhin, at once fearless and cautious. Aine felt a twinge of appreciation in her chest and realized that somewhere over the course of the past two months, living and working alongside Ard Dhaimhin’s brothers, she’d come to care about them.
“You ready?”
Eoghan’s deep voice behind them startled her, but he was directing his question to Conor, who simply nodded. “As ready as we can be. I will be contacting Aine regularly as we go, and we’ll send back a dove as soon as we’ve taken the fortress.”
Conor’s certainty that they would be successful unknotted the tension in her stomach by a degree. He wasn’t given to bravado. If he thought they would succeed, she believed him.
“You’ve the coin that we set aside for you?” Eoghan asked.
“Aye, though I don’t expect to need it.”
Eoghan had insisted that Conor take a good amount of gold from Ard Dhaimhin’s coffers for bribes and quiet purchases. Aine had been horrified at the hoard of gold and silver, considering the city’s dire struggles, until Conor reminded her that the true problem was the scarcity of supplies.
Conor drew Eoghan off a few paces, and from the speculative glance that Eoghan cast in her direction, she knew she was the topic of conversation. She barely resisted the urge to pick out the details from Conor’s mind.
“You asked him to watch over me, didn’t you?” she murmured when he came back.
He slipped his arms around her and pressed his lips to the top of her head, heedless of their audience. “Of course I did. No matter how I feel toward him at the moment, he will see that you’re safe. Promise me you won’t work yourself too hard. Not just for you, but for the baby.”
“I promise I will not do anything to harm our child,” Aine said. From the look on his face, it wasn’t the assurance he wanted. She sighed. “Conor, the needs of the city are great. I can’t simply lock myself inside Carraigmór until you return. But I promise I will not do anything foolish. That will have to be enough.”
“It will have to be,” he said with a hint of humor. “Let it never be said you don’t have a mind of your own.” He kissed her then, sweetly and much too briefly for her liking, and then shouldered his staff. “Contact me tonight. Don’t forget.”
“How could I?” she shot back, plastering on a teasing smile that she didn’t feel. “Go with Comdiu, my love.”
He bowed his head as if to receive the blessing and then clasped forearms with Riordan and Eoghan one more time before taking his place at the front of the group. He raised his voice loud enough to be heard through the clearing and raised a hand. “Forward.”
Aine’s heart rose into her throat as she watched her husband walk away, her eyes locked onto his familiar figure until he disappeared into the small sea of warriors. The crowd around her began to dissipate, but she didn’t turn away until the last man was merely a speck on the edge of her vision, swallowed by the trees and structures of the village.
Only Eoghan remained by the time she turned back to Carraigmór’s steps. Except he wasn’t watching the departing party; he was watching her. And the equal measures of determination and darkness on his face started her anxiety all over again.
Conor had never ventured south of the city into the farthest fields, so over the next week, he found himself surprised by the expanse of the Fíréin domain. Farmland and pastureland stretched as far as he could see to the near peaks of the Sliebhanaigh mountains. It would have been beautiful if not for the char that scarred the patchwork of arable land, almost as if the damage had been random, indiscriminate. But nothing the druid did was random. He’d targeted the crops they depended on to get them through the winter—the grains, the alfalfa fields where the beehives were located, the hay used to feed the animals. Somehow the destruction only brought home the urgency of their mission.
Daigh found his way up to his side, which surprised Conor. The man had never sought him out unless he absolutely had to. He simply walked alongside him without speaking, until Conor finally said, “It’s bad, but not as bad as I expected.”
“It gets worse,” Daigh said grimly. “Some areas aren’t touched. Others are wiped out for acres.”
“Have you seen it yourself?”
“Aye. Went out after the attack to evaluate the situation for myself. Someone from the Conclave needed to have firsthand knowledge of the damage.”
As bad as the destruction was, Conor thought they were lucky it hadn’t been worse. He changed his mind when they entered into the pasturelands, which had once been wide green swaths of grazing land, and found only charred and blackened earth.
“There were animals here,” Conor said to Daigh, hoping he was wrong.
Daigh just gave him a tense nod. “We lost over half of our herds, which you already know. Looks like the druid reserved a group of men to circle around south and do as much damage as they could before they retreated. Even if we were able to rebuild the herds, there’s no grazing left. Regrowth should have begun months ago.”
“Unnatural fire.” Cold dismay started in Conor’s che
st and crept through his body. “This could affect Ard Dhaimhin for generations.”
“Unless we find a way to reverse it, aye.”
Over that first week, Conor’s estimation of his fellow leader rose. Regardless of his attitude or his feelings about Conor, Daigh was committed to Ard Dhaimhin. And it seemed as though Conor’s willingness to undertake leadership of what was a potentially dangerous mission had endeared him to Daigh in return. As Conor began to learn exactly how badly his stamina had suffered from both imprisonment and inactivity at Carraigmór, he appreciated when Daigh took on the job of camp marshal. It allowed him to rest, study maps, and pretend that he had better things to do than reveal the truth: he was just too tired to do anything besides sit by the fire.
His nightly check-in with Aine was the single bright spot of his day, particularly as their time within the protective circle of Ard Dhaimhin’s wards drew to a close.
Things are as they always are, Aine reassured him, an oddly disembodied voice in his mind. Eoghan is in command of the men and presides over the Conclave as if he were born to it. Riordan has stepped into your place as Ceannaire without a hitch. You needn’t worry how things are going in your absence.
I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. Couldn’t you at least pretend that things have fallen apart in my absence?
Then you would be fretting about how the brotherhood should have been better trained than that and how you’re not living up to your role as Liam’s successor. I know you, Conor. Concentrate on your mission.
She did know him, and she was right, at least about his expectations for the brotherhood. His smile quickly faded. We’ve reached the furthest edge of the Fíréin’s domain now. We should clear our border and the shield by mid-morning tomorrow.
We will be petitioning Comdiu on your behalf. Be careful. I love you.
And I love you.
When he looked up, he saw that Daigh had come near enough to speak to him.
“News?”
“The same. Letting her know we’ll be entering the pass tomorrow.”
Daigh looked past him to the shadow of the mountains. Conor knew what he was thinking. Considering the dizzying drop to the plains of Sliebhan below, one would expect the road to rise steeply. But Ard Dhaimhin was located on a high plain, and the pass was actually a dark corridor, little more than a crevasse that sloped downward. Somehow that was even more disconcerting than a climb.
“We’ll separate at the first fork in Little Neck?” Daigh verified, referring to the point where the road bottlenecked and then split into two passes, one that moved around the north side of the fortress and the other to the south.
“Aye. Our cover will work better that way.”
“Assuming they haven’t seen us and made us for Fíréin already.”
“Which is why we stick to the story.” Conor patted the pouch of coins at his belt. If they were questioned about why they were returning from Ard Dhaimhin, he planned on saying they’d traded meat for coin to the brotherhood, who were in desperate need of supplies. In the event they were questioned why they would trade away such precious commodity for something that couldn’t warm them or fill their bellies, Conor had ordered the men to say they were planning on hopping a ship to Gwydden as soon as they could secure passage. The Clanless should have little enough experience with travel outside Seare that they wouldn’t question the feasibility of the plan.
Daigh fell silent again, and Conor could almost see the orderly march of thought through the other man’s head. “You realize that once we set foot outside of Ard Dhaimhin’s domain, we also step outside the protection of our wards.”
Conor nodded. He’d thought of little else for the past day or two, trying to devise some way to safeguard his men against the influence of the sidhe. “If I play a ward through the pass, we will lose the element of surprise. Plus, our fiction about being Clanless will be less than convincing. If you can think of a way to do it with subtlety, I am all ears.”
“The sidhe tend to be subtle and target just a few men at a time,” Daigh said slowly. “Before we leave the city’s wardings, we should arrange the men into groups of twos and threes. Make them responsible for monitoring each other’s behavior. The likelihood of all three men in a group being corrupted or misled at once is small.”
“That’s a good idea,” Conor said. “Do it.”
Inwardly, though, he wondered if it would be enough. When discussing the matter back at Ard Dhaimhin, they had determined that the Sliebhanaigh mountains were unpopulated enough that the sidhe’s influence would be light. Unlike the cities and villages, there were not enough souls to lead astray, not enough misery from which to feed. But Conor knew all too well the havoc that one spirit alone could wreak when it had a mission and a plan.
The uneasiness dogged him through the night and lingered when he woke in the cool gray morning. As if in defiance of their hope for good weather, a fine mist settled over them, dampening their clothes and supplies. Still, it was a natural kind of mist, not an unearthly cold that indicated the presence of the sidhe.
“Fifteen minutes to break camp,” Conor called, and the men sprang into action. Fires were doused, bedrolls tied and stowed on the packhorses, weapons checked and double-checked. The men possessed an extra measure of gravity today, and once more, Conor was grateful for Ard Dhaimhin’s unceasing training and discipline. Not a word was uttered that hinted an unwillingness to face what might lie ahead of them. Not a movement of a hand toward a weapon betrayed the nervousness that they must feel.
“Delay your party an hour,” Conor told Daigh. “It will look less conspicuous when we divide at the Neck.”
“Aye, I will.” He held out a hand to Conor, who clasped his arm without hesitation. “Go with Comdiu. And use caution. Ard Dhaimhin needs you.”
Surprised, Conor nodded for a second. “Aye. And you. We enter on the first night of the full moon. I’ll see you inside.”
Daigh clapped Conor on the shoulder. “See you inside.”
“All right,” Conor called. “My group, forward. Daigh’s group, stay put.”
A dozen men fell into the rough jumble that ran contrary to their training but would help them sell the impression that they were Clanless traders. Conor signaled to the man directly behind him to move forward. “Tomey.”
“Aye, sir?”
Conor leveled a reproving look at him. No one but warriors responded so respectfully or with such alacrity. The man grinned at him. “Whatcher want?”
Conor repressed a laugh. “Better.”
“My people were lowborn Faolanaigh. Early memories don’t easily leave.” But neither did the precise, educated way of speaking that he had acquired from a life mostly lived in Ard Dhaimhin.
“Good. I’m counting on that. Do you know any of the old folk prayers?”
“Aye, of course I do. Why?”
“I want you to see which the men know and teach those who have never heard them. I remember my wife saying they had banished the sidhe through their prayers.”
“Wouldn’t any prayer do? Does it have to be by rote?”
“No, but it will make it easier when the men are scared shiftless. If you’ve never been in the sidhe’s presence, you don’t know the kind of fear they can incite.”
“Aye, sir. Er, yeah, I’ll do that, Conor.”
“Good lad.” Conor clapped Tomey on the shoulder much as Daigh had done to him. It was all they could do.
Aine sped down the corridor after the young boy who had been sent to retrieve her from her chamber, twisting her messy hair into a knot as she went. Considering that it was barely past dawn, only something dire could cause Riordan to call her to the Ceannaire’s office before she was even dressed.
When she burst into the office, both Riordan and Eoghan waited for her, a steaming pot of tea and a plate of oatcakes on the table between them. She blinked at the scene, taking in their calm demeanors and the three place settings.
“Lady Aine. Tea?” Riordan lif
ted the pot questioningly and hovered over an empty cup.
“Aye, please, but . . . I don’t understand. You called me here for tea?”
“No, of course not.” Eoghan’s voice was calm, but his dark eyes held something sorrowful that unnerved her more than the early-morning summons. “Given the early hour and your . . . condition . . . I ordered it be brought so you could eat while we talked.”
“Oh. Thank you. I think.” She took the chair Eoghan indicated and accepted the cup of tea from Riordan, still confused. “What’s happened that requires my attendance so urgently?”
Riordan and Eoghan exchanged another look, and Riordan nodded, a show of deference toward his leader. Eoghan drummed his fingertips on the table. “We’ve word from Faolán. Niall has taken a small fortress not far from Lisdara.”
Aine’s heart rose into her throat. It was bad news that the druid was on the move, especially if he were stirring from his stronghold and turning his eye to other conquests. “But there’s more, isn’t there? You wouldn’t have called me here if there weren’t.”
“Aine,” Eoghan said gently, “the lord of the fortress was already dead. The crofters had holed up there for more protection. They stood no chance against Niall’s men. The ones who did survive the initial battle, if you can even call it that, were given the choice to renounce their Balian beliefs or die.”
“And did they renounce?” She feared the answer even as she asked the question.
“No. They were slaughtered. Every last man, woman, and child.”
Aine pressed her hands to her mouth and wrestled down her emotions. She could not afford to think of those individuals as people—as fathers, sons, mothers, daughters. Could not think of what kind of evil could justify killing innocent children. This was war, and the event had significance beyond the human cost. “Do we know his objective? Is this a strategic holding?”
“We don’t know,” Riordan said. “The location is puzzling, near the coast without any nearby cities, towns, or targets. It’s an old stronghold from Daimhin’s time that has been seized and abandoned numerous times over the centuries as newer and more comfortable structures were built along trade routes. It makes no sense that he would have targeted such an unstrategic location.”
The Sword and the Song Page 9
