Ailill reined his horse and pulled his sticky tunic away from his body. Remnants of rotten vegetables dropped to the earth. “I don’t know about you, but I would take this as a no.”
“At least you still have your sense of humor,” Conor muttered. “Go wash in the stream while I decide our next move.”
“We’re not just going to move on?” Lommán asked, surprised. He seemed to have taken the least of the brunt of their response, even though bits of rotten lettuce clung to his blond hair.
“Permission or not, there is still a rune stone inside that fortress, and we need to destroy it. Do you actually think they will be spared because we passed it by?”
The looks on the other men’s faces shifted when they realized that the very existence of this mission meant people would die. The only question was whether they would be successful before that happened. Much sobered, Ailill, Ibor, and Lommán dismounted and trudged to the nearby spring to wash the remnants of the filth from their clothing.
Conor considered for a moment, then dismounted and removed his harp case.
“What are you doing?” Blair asked, moving to his side while he settled himself on the turf.
“An experiment.” He took out the harp and spent a couple of minutes tuning the strings, which loosened from the constant jostling of the horse day after day. He scrubbed the inked shield rune from his chest and prepared to play.
Conor, thank Comdiu. I need to talk to you.
Conor sighed, even though part of him thrilled to hear his wife’s voice in his head. Had she just been waiting for him? Aine, love, I’m busy right now.
Conor, I know what happened at Glas Na Baile. Please don’t shut me out.
Why? The last thing you need are my thoughts inside your head.
I know you feel guilty—
I feel pained. Distressed. Not guilty. Guilty implies that I’ve done something wrong, and I haven’t.
Pushing everyone away isn’t going to help matters.
I’m not pushing everyone away. I’m just pushing you away. The minute he thought the unkind words, he regretted them. Aine didn’t deserve his cruelty. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. But you have to understand that what we are doing is critical. And I can’t have any distractions right now. I am attempting to do things differently at Fincashiel.
She said nothing in return. Maybe he’d offended her, or maybe she was just honoring his wishes, but she hadn’t completely pulled away from him. He was still aware of her in the back of his mind, waiting. It would have to be good enough for his concentration. He settled the harp on the turf between his legs and began to play.
Once again, the tune that came to mind was only remotely related to the other ones. He didn’t bother to weave a shield around the fortress and spread out as he usually did, though. In his mind’s eye, it was simply a sheet of golden light: simple, direct, blanketing the area for as far as he could see. He stretched himself, hoping to meet the border of one of his other wards, but ten days’ ride was too far from even his imagination. Instead, he pushed it to the west into the tree line of Seanrós, linking up once more to the wards who protected the entire central section of Seare. This time, the pulse of power beneath the wards was stronger, as if it were strengthened by the connection to Ard Dhaimhin. Was that why the wards had originally emanated from the High City? Had it been a point of connection through which all the wards shared power?
He set the harp back in his case, gradually becoming aware of the puzzled expressions of the men in his party.
“Isn’t that just a beacon, telling Lord Keondric that we’ve been here?” Ferus asked.
“He’ll know we’ve been here one way or another. But this will tell us whether the men he’s using are ensorcelled or not. If they are, they won’t be able to come within fifty miles of the fortress.”
“And the rune stones?”
“We’ll make entry after dark without their knowledge.”
“How do you intend to do that?” Ailill asked.
“The same way we got into Ard Bealach. Through solid stone.”
They waited until nightfall to implement the second phase of his plan. Conor led Ailill, Blair, and Muiris from their makeshift camp. They faded into the shadows and made stealthy progress across the meadow to the hill.
The mount upon which Fincashiel was built was made to repel armies, but no one had thought about the possibility of being taken by a handful. While it was impossible to bring horses and siege engines up its rocky face, the craggy surface provided the perfect handholds for a small group of climbers to slip in completely unnoticed.
Still, the going was slow in the dark, and they had to stop frequently to rest their aching muscles. The rock scraped their fingertips until they bled, and the toes of their soft leather shoes shredded from constant contact with sharp edges. When they finally reached the top hours later, the moon was beginning to sink over the horizon, leaving only the faintest glow overhead. All the better for their plan.
Conor dug a charcoal stub wrapped in oilcloth from his pocket and approached the bit of the wall they’d chosen for their entry. It opened onto the back part of the courtyard behind an outbuilding, which should be deserted at this time of night. Once inside, the Fíréin would be in their element, moving soundlessly through the shadows. Conor selected a spot several feet off the ground, where the wall’s thick base had begun to narrow somewhat, and sent a pleading prayer upward. Dear Comdiu, be with us. Please let it work.
He began with the outer circle of the softening rune and then began to slowly draw the intersecting lines and squiggly marks that made up the rest of it. It was slow work in the dark, and the rough stone exterior of the wall meant he had to draw each line multiple times. When he was finished, he uttered one more silent prayer, then dug his battered fingertips into the wall. It crumbled in his hand like sand.
A relieved breath escaped him. Conor stepped aside and gestured to Blair, who immediately brought out the hand ax he had slung across his back. One swift stroke, and part of the wall vanished in a crumble of dust.
“It’s working!” Ailill whispered, his eyes wide and glowing in the little light that remained.
“Aye. Keep at it.”
Even so, it took several minutes for Blair to break completely through the wall, several more to widen it to the width of a man. Ailill stepped up, gestured for them to wait, and climbed through. A moment later, his face appeared in the opening and he waved them through.
Conor immediately saw he had misjudged the location. Instead of coming out behind a cookhouse or a storeroom, the hole opened onto an animal pen that held a single goat. It lifted its head from where it lay on a straggly patch of straw but seemed otherwise unconcerned by the emergence of four men into its home.
“I don’t suppose you know where the stone is,” he muttered to the goat, taking a moment to make sure he was still concealed in the shadows.
Unlike Glas Na Baile, these walls were stone, which meant that the rune stone easily could have been used as a pillar or the lintel of the front gates or . . . the front step of the elevated clochán that dominated the majority of the inner courtyard.
“There,” he whispered to Ailill beside him.
“You mean right in front of where everyone is sleeping?” Ailill hissed back. Once more, he seemed more amused than annoyed. Conor just shook his head.
It was a problematic location, though, in full view of the watch at the front gate and right outside the sleeping area of a good portion of the fort’s inhabitants. This wasn’t going to be an operation that could be completed with a chisel and a mallet but rather a lump of charcoal and his bare fingertips. Comdiu, protect me from view and turn their guards’ eyes away from our position.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “And if they sound the alarm, escape the way we came.”
“No,” Ailill said, reaching for the charcoal in Conor’s hand. “You’re too valuable to lose. Let me.”
It might have been for the best, though, because
even watching for the man’s presence, Conor lost him in the dark courtyard. Only the eventual soft scratch of the rune being drawn onto granite drew his eye back to the shadow crouched before the clochán. Conor could just make out the glint of a knife before Ailill started to shave away the chunks of softened rock.
“What’s this—”came a startled voice from behind them.
Before Conor could even turn all the way around, Blair loomed up behind the man and landed a heavy blow against the back of his head with the haft of the ax. The Fíréin knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, then gave Conor a nod. He was still alive.
Conor gave the soft night-singer whistle, alerting Ailill that they were running out of time. Another minute, and the man appeared beside Conor in a crouch.
“Did you get them all?”
“I think so. All I could see at least. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s dark.”
“It will have to do. Our time’s run out.” He inclined his head toward the man who was still laid out cold beside the goat pen. It was impossible to know how long he’d stay unconscious, but given the time it had taken to climb the hill, he figured someone would raise the alarm before they made it all the way to the meadow below.
Although it would have been easier to kill him, Conor wasn’t sure he could handle the thought of more blood on his hands.
But Comdiu was on their side, it seemed. No alarm came from the fortress above, despite the fact that it took them almost as long to climb down the side of the great hill as it had to climb up it. They crossed the half mile to the camp at a jog, arriving out of breath but also out of range.
“We were discovered,” Conor said. “We need to go now.”
Instantly, the other men jumped into action, unhobbling the horses and packing their bedrolls. Within twenty minutes, they were riding south as quickly as they dared, leaving as little evidence in their wake as possible.
Did you do it? Aine’s voice intruded into his mind, startling him from his focus on the uneven terrain in front of his horse.
Aye, we did it. It remains to be seen what Niall does in return. And now you know what I have to do.
Conor, I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you would just trust me.
He signaled the men to pull up the horses while he dug the ink from his bag. He used the little bit of moonlight peeking through the clouds to redraw the rune on himself. Even without words, he could feel Aine’s disappointment in his head, until the last line was drawn and the link between them winked out.
That night, he dreamed of blood and torture and battle for the first time in days, as if his resting mind were trying to tell him he was doing the right thing by shutting her out.
The next night, they got their answer from Niall, in the form of another black plume of smoke.
Conor hung his head and sloughed off the immediate feeling of failure. He’d done his best, and it hadn’t been enough. That meant that not all Niall’s men were ensorcelled or the druid’s destructive magic possessed a much greater range than they thought. Either way, for them to succeed, many more would die.
Aine sat motionless on the balcony beneath a covering of furs, her forgotten sewing draped across her lap. She’d taken to sitting on this balcony down the corridor from the Ceannaire’s office, not because she particularly wanted to think but because the stone walls of her chamber had begun closing in on her. Her confinement to the fortress might be voluntary, but that didn’t make it feel any less like a prison.
She sensed Eoghan before he even stepped through the doorway, but she didn’t turn her head. “Any news?”
“A dove came today. It’s done.”
Aine blinked up at Eoghan as he took his seat. “Done. Already? It’s been scarcely a month.”
“Conor didn’t waste any time in Faolán, and the other groups didn’t face opposition. We were lucky, I suppose.”
Aine tossed around that word in her head. Lucky. She supposed they could look at it that way. They hadn’t lost any of their men. “How many dead? The villagers, I mean.”
Eoghan sighed heavily. He took a few moments before he could manage to answer. “Nine hundred, perhaps.”
“So only the fortresses that Conor visited.” She looked up at Eoghan, her eyes filling with tears. “Niall’s tormenting him, isn’t he? This wasn’t meant as a deterrent. Conor proved he was going to go through with his mission regardless. Niall just wants to make sure he feels all the lives that have been lost because of it.”
“I don’t know. Niall has taken a special interest in Conor since he’s thwarted his plans more than once. Maybe he’s just toying with him.”
“Why?”
“Because he delights in the pain of other people.”
“While we sit by and do nothing.”
Eoghan seemed to measure his words before he spoke. “Aine, I know that what I’m doing feels cruel, even unconscionable. But I can’t discount the possibility that this is all a distraction. What happens if I divert men from Ard Dhaimhin and he chooses that moment to attack? Then we don’t just have hundreds of people dead, we have thousands, and we’ve lost Seare in the process. I have a responsibility to more than just individual lives.”
Eoghan was right. Aine knew he was right, but it didn’t feel any better knowing that people were dying because of the Fíréin’s actions. “Conor would say that’s why you were chosen to be king.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?” Eoghan shot her a smile. “At least this means he’ll be back in time to see the birth of his son.”
“Not you, too. It could still be a daughter.” She rubbed her stomach, now unmistakably round beneath the pleats of her skirt.
“How long?”
“About eight weeks.”
“Good.” Eoghan rose and gave her a little bow. “Don’t stay out here too long. The nights are getting colder now.”
“Aye, I’ll go in soon.”
With a sad smile, she watched him go, until Iomhar stepped forward. “My lady, he’s right. We should go in.”
“Just a few more minutes.”
Eoghan had said it was done, that Conor would be coming home. She wanted to hear that for herself. But other than a short period of time when he had played the wards around the last fortress, she hadn’t been able to catch his thoughts. He was avoiding her when he should be celebrating a mission completed. That could mean only one thing.
He was hiding something.
Sixteen.
The number had been bothering him for the last two fortresses. Sixteen old strongholds. Sixteen rune stones. A nice even number, divisible by four, the number of kingdoms in Seare. It all fit nicely, neatly, like the four major prophets, the four divisions of each book of the Holy Canon.
Except that was a Balian conceit. The druids did not think in even numbers. Three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen . . .
Seventeen. The holy number of the druidic order, even now. Had the druids truly wanted to divide up important information, they would have done it on seventeen stones in seventeen places.
Which meant there had to be one more stone out there still. How could they have missed one? He pictured the map in his mind’s eye, counting off each fortress. Maybe there had been one destroyed that was no longer on the maps? The ancient Seareanns were too deliberate about their numbers for them to have stopped short of the holy number when planning their strongholds.
And then it came to him so abruptly he nearly fell off his horse. Dún Eavan.
He’d not even thought of it because it had been used as a Faolanaigh palace before Lisdara was built, but it dated back much further than that. Hadn’t Aine always said she sensed an old, deep magic there? Of course she’d also encountered the sidhe, which might argue against the existence of a rune stone. Except he knew very well the runes merely dissuaded rather than prevented the presence of the sidhe.
“Halt,” he called, and the group reined in around him. “Ailill, send a dove. We have one stop left.”
The next two weeks were the longest of Aine’s
life. Eoghan had said that Conor was coming home, but a mere day later, Conor had sent a message saying he thought there was one more stone located at Dún Eavan—less than a day’s ride from Lisdara, where Niall had taken up residence, where he could very well be now.
“Conor knows what he’s doing, Aine,” Eoghan told her. “If he’s sure there are seventeen stones, there are seventeen stones.”
“I don’t doubt his knowledge,” she had said. “I just don’t understand why he has to be the one who does it.”
“Because he’s the closest. And he’s not a man to ask another to do his duty for him.”
She couldn’t disagree, but the waiting wore on her with each passing day. She had never been walled up in a fortress for this long. She’d been on the battlefield, actually participating in their efforts against the evil that threatened Seare. But they’d lost that battle, and now Aine felt she was waiting on the final battleground. Even Eoghan with his encouraging words seemed as on edge as she was, though he wouldn’t admit it aloud. She wondered if he sensed it as she did: a storm on the horizon, simply waiting for the first thunderclap.
She left herself open when she slept, hoping Conor would try to contact her, hoping for some reassurance that he was all right. All she got were slivers and shreds of other people’s thoughts and dreams—until one night, she found herself out in the cold, her breath puffing around her in clouds of steam.
She crept slowly into the darkened clochán, the buzz of snoring men hiding the scuff of her footsteps on the hardpacked floor. Despite the late hour, a fire still roared in the center pit, raising beads of sweat on her forehead. She signaled to the men behind her and slowly drew the sword from the sheath on her back.
Wait. Why did she have a sword? Why was she in the brothers’ barracks? She tried to release the weapon, but her hands wouldn’t obey her. She watched, a terrified prisoner in her own body as the men fanned out behind her with bared blades.
On her command, the men fell on the sleeping brothers, swords cutting silently into bodies, daggers slicing across windpipes to still screams before they could escape. Blood sprayed warm against her skin. Aine struggled against the urge to vomit.
The Sword and the Song Page 28
