“And if it costs her own?” Calhoun asked. Ruarc averted his gaze. “That’s what I thought.”
“The decision is not Ruarc’s,” Aine said, sensing she was losing this battle. “It should be mine. If I’m willing to take the risk, and you believe it to be strategically sound, you cannot look at the situation as my brother. You are a king. You owe it to your people to protect them, whatever the personal cost.”
Calhoun stared at the charm, the pulse of a muscle in his jaw betraying his conflict. Finally, he said, “I’ll consider it.” When she began to protest, he held up a finger. “That’s all I’m willing to promise. Now I suggest you go think long and hard about what you’ve proposed.”
Aine rose and retrieved the charm from the table. “Thank you, Calhoun.”
He waved a hand. “Go. I’ll let you know when I’ve decided.”
Ruarc escorted her from the study. He remained silent the whole way back to Aine’s chamber.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked, her voice small in the echoing corridor.
Ruarc touched her shoulder. “No, I’m proud of you. Your mother would be as well.”
Aine reached out and quickly squeezed his hand, and she saw him smile before he left her at her chamber.
In the end, Calhoun relented. He didn’t look pleased with the idea, but it was an opportunity he could not pass up. He gave orders to prepare for a swift departure, and Aine tried not to dwell on her dangerous task as she collected the books, herbs, and implements she might need on the battlefield. Not until Ruarc met her at the door of her chamber with a leather breastplate did she fully comprehend the peril.
Seek My wisdom, accept My guidance. It is not for you to know what is to come. Only know I am with you, and there is no task for which My strength is not sufficient.
Aine let out her breath in a long, silent sigh. Your will be done.
She held up her arms for Ruarc to strap on the armor.
The group that had been chosen to accompany Aine to Lord Abban’s camp in northern Siomar seemed an unlikely one, even if they were all professional warriors and, as Calhoun assured her, the best of their kind. The group’s leader, Lorcan, compact and brawny with white-blond hair, possessed a careful, measured manner Aine found reassuring. The red-haired twins, Myles and Uilliam, spent most of their time arguing and insulting one another. Dark and lanky Sualtam remained silent, but his comportment—a sense of violence barely reined in—made her edgy.
Only two other members of their party were not warriors: Cúan and Aran, the mappers. Their job would be to scribe the wards as Aine found them, a task for which their knowledge of Seareann topography would be essential. They looked just as uncomfortable on horseback in their armor as Aine felt.
Lorcan set a swift pace from Lisdara with the ease of a natural horseman, and he seemed to sense when the horses needed rest or the riders grew tired. Even with frequent breaks to stretch and change to their remounts, Aine’s legs and back soon ached from the effort of balancing at a trot. They did not take the most direct route south, but rather avoided certain holdings while riding close to others. Some nights, they cold-camped in copses of trees or beneath hollows cut in the rolling hillsides, eschewing fires in case they drew the wrong sort of attention. When they neared the homes of Calhoun’s loyal lords, two of their warriors rode ahead with letters of introduction from the king and secured the households’ cooperation.
In many places, the holdings were no more than scraggly plots of farmland and thatch-roofed cottages where the lords and servants slept communally in their halls. The lords offered their hospitality with less and less enthusiasm as the group neared Siomar’s border. Ruarc often slept upright beside Aine, his sword across his lap, because he didn’t like the way the lord or his sons looked at her.
Their tension built further once they crossed the border into Siomar. The two kingdoms may have been at peace, united by a common enemy, but the history of warfare stretching back half a millennium wouldn’t be so quickly forgotten. The party skirted all signs of habitation, camping in the open at night and doubling watches. Aine became accustomed to the hard knot of anxiety in her gut.
On the tenth day, Cúan announced they were a half day’s ride from Lord Abban’s last known position. Lorcan went ahead to scout the area and be sure they were not blundering into a Timhaigh trap. At midday, he rejoined the group while they rested and exchanged horses.
“They’re a mile out,” he said, dismounting. “They didn’t see me, but I could make out the Faolanaigh banner.”
Aine’s stomach somersaulted. She had never met Abban Ó Sedna, but the chieftain had a reputation as a fearless leader and a fierce warrior. How would he receive her and the disruption she brought to his camp, especially once he learned her true purpose for coming? Even she could admit her claims sounded a little farfetched.
While they rested, Lorcan unfurled the green-and-silver banner and placed it atop the standard pole. Seeing the royal arms gave her a needed boost of confidence. She came on the king’s authority. Lord Abban had no choice but to defer to her wishes.
They had just glimpsed the tops of the tents when a small group of riders approached them. Lorcan rode ahead, the banner streaming in the wind, and conversed with their leader. The captain skimmed Calhoun’s letter of introduction and nodded.
“He was surprised to see us so soon with a woman in our party.” Lorcan’s voice held a wry note at the insult. “The Mac Cuillinn’s messenger arrived only the day before yesterday.”
“Must have been patronizing all the alehouses between here and Lisdara then,” Uilliam said with a smirk. “We rode fast, but not that fast.”
Myles shot his twin a warning look as they joined their escort. When they drew nearer, Aine saw it was actually two camps separated by a gulley. The nearest one flew the green-and-yellow banner of Clan Sedna below Faolán’s, while the other flew two red-and-black banners of differing designs. Siomaigh.
“King Semias evidently doesn’t trust the Faolanaigh on his lands without supervision,” Ruarc said. “I can’t say I blame him. Some things don’t change so quickly.”
They proceeded down a wide avenue, and Aine drew up the hood of her cloak so she could observe the camp unnoticed. A quick count numbered about three hundred men, a large contingent for countries that rarely engaged in concerted, full-scale warfare. Seareanns were known for their strike-and-retreat tactics, unlike the massive Ciraean armies that had conquered the known world not so long ago. Still, Abban had organized his camp with a precision that would have made a Ciraean general proud, cook fires marking individual campsites in a neat grid, several dozen horses picketed beyond. White canvas tents housing foodstuffs and supplies dotted the arrangement at regular intervals.
The outriders led them to a large, curtained pavilion at the center of camp, where five men pored over a stack of maps spread across a campaign table. When they stopped, one of the men detached from the group and strode out to meet them. It could only be Lord Abban.
The chieftain was a bear of a man, bigger than even the priest Treasach, his bulk emphasized by the tar-black armor he wore over his tunic. A coarse black beard punctuated with tiny plaits sprang from a square jaw, and a tangle of braid-studded hair fell around his shoulders. He hardly needed to draw a sword in battle to intimidate the enemy.
Ruarc helped Aine from her horse, and she clutched her guard’s arm while her quivering legs accustomed themselves to solid ground. Then he stepped back. As Calhoun’s sister, Aine was technically the leader of this party. She threw back her shoulders and lowered the hood of her cloak.
“Lady Aine,” Abban said, giving her a stiff, but respectful, bow. Even his speaking voice seemed outsized. “I trust your journey wasn’t too taxing?”
“Not at all, Lord Abban. I was glad to hear you were expecting us. I’m told you are not fond of surprises.”
“No surprise involving Calhoun’s illustrious sister-healer could be unwanted. May I offer you refreshments while we discuss
matters?” He glanced at the other men, and his gaze lingered on Ruarc, who hovered protectively. “Your escort will be taken care of, I assure you.”
“Ruarc will join us,” Aine said, and Abban bowed his head in acknowledgement.
He led them to the pavilion, which his captains had since vacated, and let the curtains fall behind them. He gestured for them to take seats while he retrieved a pitcher and two cups from a nearby folding table.
“Blackberry wine,” he said as he poured. “A goodwill gesture from our Siomaigh hosts.”
Aine caught the irony in his tone. “I was surprised to see a Siomaigh camp here.”
“No more surprised than they would be to see you. Semias has rather rigid ideas about women on the battlefield.” By the appraising way his eyes traveled over her armor, Aine thought Abban shared those ideas. He put the cups before them and paused, his massive frame looming over them. “I could tell you how dangerous it was for you to come here, but I’m sure you’ve already heard it. Which leaves the question, why exactly are you here?”
Aine glanced at Ruarc, who produced a sealed message from inside his cloak. She passed it to Abban. “Best you hear it from the king directly.”
Abban slid his thumbnail beneath the seal. Aine watched him as he read, but his expression did not hint at his thoughts. He set the letter down on the table. “You can identify the wards?”
“I believe so.”
“How?”
Aine met his piercing gaze. “Does it matter?”
A muscle in Abban’s jaw twitched. “Young lady, these men are my responsibility. If I’m to trust their lives to your judgment, I’ll need more to go on than your word.”
Aine’s stomach quivered, but she was not about to let this man bully her. “You already have more than my word. You have the king’s. Unless you would question his decision?”
She held her breath, expecting an angry response, but Abban just chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have Cuillinn blood in you. Calhoun was an upstart whelp when he took the throne, but he was rarely wrong, then or now. Very well, I’ll take you at your word. It doesn’t sit easily, knowing if you’re wrong, I’ll lose some very good men.”
“I admire your dedication to your warriors,” she replied softly. “Be assured I do not take this responsibility lightly.”
“We’ll want to see the Threewaters battlefield as soon as possible,” Ruarc said. “How many casualties?”
“Nearly two hundred. We outnumbered them four to one, and I’m not talking farmers and blacksmiths. These were our best men. The Siomaigh lost half in the first ten minutes. We had slightly better luck. I received sixty back, and only half of them wounded. But every man told the same story: not only did the enemy seem to know what each of its men would do, they anticipated our moves as well. Some of my warriors fought the Ciraen army, and they said even the Empire didn’t have such well-directed soldiers.”
“Tigh has always been known for its warriors,” Aine said.
Abban looked at her over the rim of his goblet. “These were Sliebhanaigh fighters led by a Timhaigh captain.”
“Seareanns fight by clan like Aronans,” Ruarc explained. “Even the best leaders can barely get men from their own region to work together, let alone former enemies.”
“Another indication there’s sorcery involved,” Aine said. “What happened then?”
“Our side retreated, but the enemy cut off our route, and we were pushed back to the Threewaters. It looked as though we were finished, but then they just stopped, as if they hit an invisible wall. The Timhaigh captain cut down his own men as an example, but they wouldn’t budge. Those that made it to the bank collapsed dead. Semias’s archers picked off the rest, one by one.”
Aine shuddered at the image. The retelling was vivid enough. She didn’t want to see it herself. Still, she had a job to do. “Can you provide directions to our mappers?”
“Of course. In the meantime, take my tent. As the only woman here, you should stay out of sight as much as you can. I’ll tell the men you’re here to treat the wounded. I assume you don’t want the truth known.”
Aine rose, sensing dismissal, and gave him a slight curtsy. “Thank you, Lord Abban. We’ll leave at first light.”
She stepped out of the tent and let out her breath in a rush. Her entire body sagged with relief.
“You did well,” Ruarc said.
Aine nodded her thanks, but her insides twisted into knots when she recalled Abban’s story. It was one thing to avow her capabilities back in Lisdara. It was another to face the reality of blood and death firsthand. What would they find when they reached the battlefield?
Ruarc placed a firm hand on her elbow and steered her to Abban’s tent. The appraising stares of the warriors around them prompted Aine to lift her hood again. She had been uncomfortable at Dún Eavan surrounded by twenty-five of the clan’s warriors, but somehow she didn’t expect the vulnerability she felt at being among hundreds of strangers.
The following day dawned chilly and damp, and thunderclouds mounded on the horizon. Aine dressed quickly, wishing for a change of clothing that didn’t smell of sweat or horse, but she abandoned that hope as futile. Ruarc appeared minutes later to help her with her armor, and then she found herself riding in the center of her seven companions again. Either she’d get used to the days on horseback, or she’d never walk again. Right now, it felt like the latter.
They skirted the Siomaigh encampment before turning south toward where the river emerged from the old forest. By the time the sun rose, glowing faintly behind the cover of clouds and mist, Cúan and Aran agreed they were less than an hour’s ride from their destination.
Circling carrion birds were the first indication of their proximity to the battlefield. She steeled herself for the sight when they crested the rise, but she couldn’t adequately prepare for the carnage. Bodies lay strewn across blood-soaked earth on the opposite side of the river. Those that had died on the water’s edge still lay there, caught on the rocks or half-submerged in pools of blood-stained water. Hundreds of birds picked at the rotting flesh.
“Abban’s men collected their dead,” Sualtam said. “Apparently Fergus didn’t bother.”
Aine’s gorge rose, but she pushed it down and locked away her revulsion. She took the lead down the hill into the shallow river valley, clapping a gloved hand over her nose and mouth at the stench. How could they have left so many men here like discarded rubbish?
She extended her awareness beyond the ever-present background hum of power, but she felt nothing. What if she couldn’t do what she had so vehemently assured Calhoun and Abban she could?
No. She couldn’t accept that.
“We need to cross,” she said, looking up and down the river for a spot not choked with corpses.
“There.” Ruarc pointed downstream to a shallow, slow-moving spot, protected by a small outcropping of rocks.
As soon as Aine’s horse set its front hooves in the water, a thrill of power coursed through her. She clutched her horse’s mane and rode the wave of dizziness while the mare scrambled up the opposite bank. Aine barely managed to rein her in as Ruarc splashed across behind her.
“What is it? Do you feel something?”
She nodded, her throat tight. It was undeniably Balian in origin, similar to the ones in the old forest, but this one was a hundredfold stronger than those fine, old threads of magic. It left her gasping for air, her heart hammering in her chest. The charm burned against her skin. This was not the faded remnant of a centuries-old ward.
“If I didn’t know better,” Aine murmured, “I would say it was new.”
“How is that possible?” Ruarc asked.
“I have no idea.” She slid from the mare’s back and handed the reins to Ruarc. Carefully, she edged down the riverbank and knelt in the mud beside the water. Power vibrated into her bones, and she swayed in place. She closed her eyes, concentrating, and this time she sensed a faint resonance beneath the overwhelming p
ulse of power. As she walked upstream, the ward shuddered and vibrated, undulating with the splash and tumble of the water, then fading to barely a whisper.
When she returned to the group, they all stared, wide-eyed. “There’s a new ward laid over the old one, as you’d mend a fence or darn a sock.”
“Who could be doing that?” Lorcan asked.
“I don’t know. But it runs the length of the river, like a natural border. I want to see how it feels where the fighting took place.”
They looked at her doubtfully, but she moved upstream anyway. As she neared the battlefield, her heart started to pound. The oily stench of sorcery lay beneath the smell of rotting flesh. The ward trembled in contact with the dark magic, like liquid sizzling in a hot pan, steaming away everything but its scent.
It took supreme force of will to walk among the bodies, enveloped in the sickening smell. Ravens flapped away, squawking at her presence. She gritted her teeth and stripped off her glove, but it took several attempts before she could bring herself to kneel beside a corpse and touch its putrefied flesh.
Death and corruption spiked through her, followed by the dim echo of pain. Aine sucked in a lungful of putrid air as magic crawled across her skin, clawing its way in, desperate to find a new host. Her vision went dark.
Bright, pulsating heat flared from the charm, burning away the sorcery. She leapt to her feet and fled the scene like a startled animal. Then she collapsed on the riverbank and retched up the meager contents of her stomach.
“Aine.” Ruarc’s hands gripped her shaking shoulders.
“I’m all right now,” she whispered, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. She let Ruarc lift her to her feet, then stumbled down to the water and scrubbed her skin raw. When she finally lurched up the bank toward the others, their expressions ranged from amazed to horrified.
Aine dried her hands on her skirt, pulled on her gloves, and took a steadying breath. “The druid’s using blood magic to control the warriors. It’s as if they were possessed.” She shuddered, recalling the sorcery’s grasping touch. “That’s why they couldn’t breach the ward. Their very beings would have resisted it. The magic preserves itself.”
Oath of the Brotherhood Page 21
