“Blessed Comdiu,” Oisean murmured. “What did you do?”
She didn’t look away from Uallas’s stunned gaze. “I have more than one gift, my lord.”
Uallas’s hand gripped hers. “Thank you.”
She disentangled her hand and looked at each of the men in turn. She hadn’t wanted to use either of her gifts, and now she had been forced to exercise both. So be it. “I don’t need to tell you what this means for me. If anyone finds out what happened here, my life will be in danger. You cannot tell anyone.”
The men slowly nodded their agreement, though they didn’t seem pleased about it.
“Your life is already in danger.” Uallas pushed himself to a sitting position and held up the broken end of the arrow, fletched with a familiar feather pattern. Her heart sank in recognition even before he said the words.
“Our ambushers were from Forrais.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eoghan trudged toward the meeting place, preparing himself. He hadn’t spoken with Liam since the revelation in the Hall of Prophecies, and the Ceannaire had been content to leave him to wrestle with his thoughts in peace.
As had Comdiu. Perhaps the Almighty didn’t appreciate that his lowly servant was angry with Him.
Eoghan wasn’t angry, though. Not really. It wouldn’t do any good if he were. He’d chosen a life at Ard Dhaimhin when he committed himself to the leadership of the brotherhood. He’d taken one possible avenue Comdiu had offered him—to train Conor as his apprentice—knowing full well it meant that his friend would leave the High City in his place.
Apparently Liam had decided Eoghan had sulked long enough, because he’d summoned him to the practice yard where the elder brothers and the Conclave sometimes trained in private. But when Eoghan reached the clearing, he found only Liam, working through his sword drills alone, one impressive form after another.
Conor had been extraordinarily talented, truly. How else could he have gone from a weakling to one of the brotherhood’s most skilled warriors in only three years? Even so, watching Liam now, Eoghan knew Conor shouldn’t have been able to beat the Ceannaire. Comdiu had surely orchestrated Conor’s release from the brotherhood, just as it seemed Comdiu had determined Eoghan would never leave.
Liam turned and broke off his form.
“You summoned me?” Eoghan asked.
Sweating but still breathing easily, Liam nodded and crossed to where several weapons lay on a flat rock. He selected a blunt sword and tossed it to his apprentice.
Eoghan automatically caught it by the grip, the movement pulling at his healing flesh.
“Still in pain?”
“Not much. Well enough to train. Well enough to fight.”
“Good. I’m giving you a céad.”
Eoghan paused in the middle of an experimental stroke with the sword. “Sir?”
“Only to train. Not to lead. When the battle comes to Carraigmór, I’ll expect you to be safely behind walls.”
Eoghan lowered the weapon. “I’m no coward, Master Liam. I can fight.”
Liam put up his own sword and moved closer. “I know. It is not for your sake that I ask this; it’s for the safety of the brotherhood. You remember what I said when I showed you the chamber?”
“Keondric must not be allowed to access it. You think he will try to force you to let him in.”
“He will try. He will fail. And then he will not hesitate to torture the name of my successor from the other men. Your identity will not remain secret for long.”
“What happens if I’m killed? I haven’t chosen a successor yet.”
“I don’t know,” Liam said. “It’s never been a question. Perhaps anyone could gain access. Or no one. Either scenario would be just as disastrous as allowing Keondric in. When the fighting starts, I will lock you inside the chamber. It is the only way to be sure you and the Hall remain safe.”
Eoghan exhaled a long, heavy breath. “It feels wrong. You taught me never to run from a fight.”
“I also taught you to be strategic and think of the larger purpose behind your actions. By protecting yourself, protecting our secrets, you ensure the safety of Seare. Will you do what I ask?”
Obey.
Eoghan closed his eyes for a brief moment. Of course now Comdiu chose to speak to him. He opened his eyes and raised his sword. “I will obey.”’
“Good. Now let’s see how much your loafing has slowed you down.”
Eoghan fought a laugh. “You should not test me.”
“And you should have less confidence in your youth.”
Eoghan’s smile broke out at the first ring of metal and then faded again when he thought of the one question he should have asked: “How long do we have until they arrive?”
“I don’t know,” Liam said, sobering. “I just know they’re coming.”
Eoghan moved toward the practice yard where he was to meet his new céad, adjusting the buckle of the sword baldric he had checked out from the armory. Before, the céads had been arranged by age and ability for younger boys, by skill set and function for full brothers. Since Riordan had returned with news of Keondric’s mounting army, however, the Conclave had begun reassigning men into fighting units under battle captains. What that meant for Eoghan’s céad, considering he had been forbidden to fight, he didn’t know. He had just been instructed to evaluate his céad’s readiness and bring up weak skills as quickly as possible.
As he entered the training yard where his hundred men gathered, Eoghan faltered. They were boys, not men. The oldest couldn’t have seen more than fourteen years, the youngest perhaps ten or eleven. Faces turned toward him, expectant, waiting for orders. These boys, too young to be sent out on patrol or trusted with guard duty at the fortress, would now be called upon to fight, perhaps die. Even worse, they might be required to kill boys even younger than themselves. Was this what the brotherhood had been reduced to? Sending boys to do a man’s job?
No, this was not Liam’s choice. It was Niall’s or Keondric’s or whatever he chose to call himself at the moment. The druid would not hesitate to kill the young ones.
Hence Eoghan’s charge to ensure their readiness for battle.
Pushing down his creeping sense of sickness, he faced them and made his expression stern. “I am Brother Eoghan, your new céad leader. You will show me what you’ve learned. Positions.”
Instantly the boys spaced themselves with military precision, practice swords in hand.
“First form,” he barked, and they simultaneously took the first position.
His eyebrows arched upward in surprise. They were young, not particularly strong, but they were well-trained, even by Fíréin standards. He was obviously not taking over an existing céad as he thought but rather one that had been newly formed of the most talented novices and young apprentices.
Eoghan took them through their sword drills at a fast clip, pushing them, looking for weaknesses. By the time he broke them into pairs, his pessimism had faded some. Young they might be, but they possessed a gravity, a maturity, that made him think they had spent most of their lives at Ard Dhaimhin.
He wove through the group as they sparred with their wooden swords, making minor corrections. He stopped beside a pair to watch the smaller of the two. At first glance, Eoghan had dismissed the redheaded boy as the youngest and weakest of the group. Now he saw he handled the sword with the ease of a much older student.
They disengaged and stepped back when Eoghan approached.
Eoghan directed his attention to the younger one. “What is your name, boy?”
“Breann, my lord . . . I mean, sir.”
“My lord? You were raised in the kingdoms.”
“Aye, my l—sir. Faolán.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Two months and a bit, sir.”
“What’s your clan name?”
“I have renounced my clan ties, sir. I am sworn to the brotherhood now.”
Eoghan studied Breann for a moment. Educat
ed, certainly, and with a good grasp of the politics of such a place, even if Ard Dhaimhin differed from the kingdoms. He was clearly a bright boy.
“Very well, Breann. It’s clear you have been trained. Care to have a go with me?”
A cautious smile spread over his face. “Aye, sir.”
“Your guard.”
Breann moved into a respectable guard position while Eoghan drew his sword. The boy’s eyes darted to the weapon’s sharpened edge and then returned to his eyes. Good. He wouldn’t freeze when faced with the real thing. Of course he also trusted that Eoghan, his instructor, wouldn’t harm him.
Eoghan started slowly, and the boy met each strike confidently, countering with ease. Eoghan continued to trade strikes and parries, gradually increasing the pressure until the boy was working harder and harder to keep up. Then, in one swift movement, he disarmed the boy and set the flat of his sword against his neck.
“Well done, Breann.”
“I lost, sir. I would be dead now.”
Eoghan withdrew his blade and looked at the students who had gathered around them to watch. “This is no longer play, boys. There will come a time when you will be facing a man with a real sword who wants nothing more than to kill you.”
Their expressions sobered and a few shifted uncomfortably. “You are young. You do not yet have a man’s strength. That means you must use what you have: energy, speed, intelligence. You must be smarter than your opponent.”
“How do we do that?” one of the younger boys asked.
Eoghan smiled and looked from face to face. He had them now. “I will teach you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They might have been young, but Eoghan’s boys attacked their training with enthusiasm. Perhaps it was because he had trained Conor, who was already something of a legend among the younger brothers, a symbol of what hard work could accomplish. Or maybe it was because Eoghan treated them like men. Whatever the reason, they obeyed him unquestioningly, no matter how hard he pushed them.
The same sort of urgency he’d felt with Conor crept into the teaching of his céad, just magnified a hundredfold. He sought every edge he could give them over the enemy, bringing in some of the older brothers to give them a taste of a real fight. He dispensed with the open battlefield tactics as soon as he was sure they were reasonably proficient, teaching them instead how to use their smaller size and speed to their advantage. He taught strikes to disable their opponents: tendons, major arteries. He attempted to teach them ways to minimize exposure to their enemies’ infected blood, but how did one fight with swords without getting bloodied?
That brought him to the discussion he dreaded, even though it was essential. Talk had been rippling through the city ever since Liam had announced that the Fíréin must ready themselves for battle.
Eoghan gathered his céad together in the stone amphitheater. A hundred pairs of earnest eyes stared back at him, but it was Breann’s, too old and wise for his age, that made him look away.
“You’ve no doubt heard the rumors about what we face. Lord Keondric has turned his eye toward Ard Dhaimhin, and he commands more than eight thousand men.”
“One Fíréin warrior is worth five of the kingdom’s,” one of the older boys called, his newly deepening voice laced with bravado.
Eoghan smiled. “That is certainly true. Yet they have a more dangerous weapon at their disposal. Keondric controls his men by sorcery, a dark magic that lives in the blood.”
“So their blood is a threat to us?” Breann asked quietly. “How do we avoid it?”
“The best you can.” Eoghan hesitated. “You must understand: no matter how well we fight, we may still lose men to the sorcery. Some may be strong enough to resist it; some may not.”
Breann looked at him. “And if we aren’t?”
He knew. The boy was prompting Eoghan along, trying to make it easier. How had an eleven-year-old gotten so wise?
“If you are infected, and you will know if you are”—Eoghan hoped so, at least—“the honorable thing to do is turn your blade on yourself before you can betray your brothers or infect those around you.”
Not a whisper moved through the group. Some looked at him aghast. Others had tears in their eyes, though they held them back for fear of looking weak. He didn’t blame them. It was one thing to die in battle. It was another to be defeated by a foe against which you couldn’t defend, to die by your own sword.
“And if they won’t do what needs to be done?” The older boy asked, the bravado gone. “What then?”
“If they act as an enemy, they must be treated as an enemy.”
Eoghan delivered the words quietly, but they still jolted through the gathering like a shout. The boys looked at one another, wondering if they would be called upon to kill someone with whom they had lived and trained for years.
“Archers,” Breann said.
All heads snapped around, and Breann looked startled. “Doesn’t it stand to reason we’d be best using our archers, keep them at a distance? We’ve some good bowmen in this céad.”
Eoghan nodded. The same idea had been discussed by the Conclave. The sentries and trackers would eliminate as many as they could when the druid’s army breached the borders, relying on their fading ability and stealth. Archers would attempt to decimate their numbers before they broke free of the trees into the city itself. Perhaps an obvious plan, but he was impressed by the young boy’s strategic ability. He certainly hadn’t been that aware at Breann’s age.
“You will be assigned to guard the storehouses. If he’s smart, Lord Keondric will target the things we require to live separately and independently.” Eoghan was sharing far more than he should, but if he was asking them to lay down their lives in service to the brotherhood, they deserved to understand why. “Our crops, our granaries, our animals. The flax we grow for our clothing. These things keep us from dependence on the outside world. It is more important than ever that we maintain our livelihood.”
“We will not let the enemy destroy them, sir,” one of the boys called from the back. “Will we?”
A chorus of agreement went up. Even though his heart was heavy, Eoghan smiled. “Good lads. Now take the session off to rest and I will see you at archery. I expect a good showing from you lot.”
The boys exchanged smiles as they dispersed, far more enthusiastic about the discipline than usual. It was a solid plan, but considering the numbers they would face, it would almost certainly come down to close combat.
That night at supper, Riordan slid onto the bench across from Eoghan and folded his arms on top of the table. “What do you think of your céad?”
Eoghan looked toward his boys, scattered among the tables near the cookhouse, and his stomach clenched once more.
“I think we have a fair bit of work ahead of us. Is this what it’s like to be a parent? This queasy feeling of responsibility?”
Riordan chuckled. “In a sense. They’ve got potential, you think?”
“Aye. Some talented swordsmen in the group. I wish I could be assured they’ll live to reach that potential.”
“If anyone can see them through, it’s you. What you did with Conor—”
“Has far more to do with Conor than me. Comdiu had plans for him.” Eoghan glanced up at Riordan. “What are the chances any of us will live through this? That there will be an Ard Dhaimhin left if we do?”
Riordan placed a hand on his shoulder and then disappeared back into the crowd. Eoghan looked back at his boys. The brother’s silence said enough.
CHAPTER THIRTY
A knock rattled Aine’s workshop door a split second before it opened.
“Lady Aine, we must talk.”
She didn’t pause in her work, though the voice caused a ripple of disquiet through her body. “Lord Uallas, you should not be here alone. We should not be here alone.”
“In this case, my lady, I disagree.”
Aine sighed and set the pestle into the mortar before she turned. Lord Uallas stood by the doo
r, dressed once more in his court attire, his bearing erect, even regal. Nothing to hint that he had taken an arrow meant for her only two weeks before.
“How is the wound, my lord? Any more pain?”
He took a step toward her. “As if it never happened. Which, for our purposes, I supposed it never did. Though it was difficult to convince my manservant of five years he’d simply missed two scars.”
Aine grimaced. “Does he suspect anything?”
“He suspects that perhaps I’ve been dueling without his knowledge. But does he suspect what actually happened? No.”
She sank back against her workbench. “Thank you, my lord. These matters are not easy to keep secret.”
“No. They’re not. That’s why I’m concerned for your safety. By your own insistence, we cannot investigate the ambush without admitting what happened afterward. But there is at least one person at Forrais who wants you dead, and that person saw me fall with an arrow to the chest. Yet, here I am, walking about with no indication of injury. If you think that doesn’t raise questions . . .”
She had known it would. She’d thought of little else in the two weeks since the incident. “What do you propose we do about that, my lord?”
“You must leave Forrais.”
“I’ve just received Macha’s permission to begin seeing patients. You don’t think it would be suspicious if I suddenly felt the urge to leave Forrais?”
“Not if you were to marry me.”
Aine lifted a hand to her forehead, feeling dizzy. “I am a married woman already, my lord.”
“Not by the laws of Aron. I took the liberty of consulting your aunt’s lawyers. Handfasted marriages are legal only when performed by a member of the clergy and witnessed by another of equal status.”
“And in Seare, members of the Fíréin brotherhood are granted the rights of clergy, which makes my marriage perfectly legal.”
“In Seare only.” Uallas bowed his head. “Forgive me, my lady. I do not mean to argue that your marriage was not valid before Comdiu. I do not ask you to forget your husband. But surely you can understand that your aunt wishes to see you married, and there is no legal impediment to doing so.”
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