He s planning to wait until I weaken myself dealing with the other cloch, then strike… I wonder. . She sent her awareness racing to the center of the other cloch: she could see a face, strained and hurting as it fought her: Damhlaic Gairbith, the Ris commander. He tried to push her away; she would not let him. She shouted at him, feeling her throat go raw with the near-scream. "Mac Ard’s using you, Gairbith! He intends to let you die fighting
Gairbith didn’t reply-couldn’t reply, she knew, for handling the cloch was taking all his concentration. But his eyes went wide with fear and suspicion, and he looked away toward where the other cloch pulsed blood red, watching and waiting.
The truth was enough. Jenna felt Gairbith’s focus shift and with that the defenses he’d set around himself weakened. Jenna cried out, releasing a new flood of energy from Lamh Shabhala. It raged forward, overwhelm-ing Gairbith. The mental connection between himself and his cloch snapped. Through her true eyes, she saw one of the men sway in his saddle and fall. In the middle of the field,
O'Deoradhain and another man were fighting, steel clashing as a sword rang against the Inishlander's long dagger.
Jenna nearly fell with Gairbith. The sudden release of pressure made her gasp and Lamh Shabhala was nearly drained. Weary, she turned her attention to Mac Ard.
"We don't have to do this, Jenna." She heard Mac Ard's voice as if he whispered in her ear. "I don't want to hurt you. Give up the cloch. Let me take it and I'll let you go or take you back to your mam. Whatever you want. I swear it."
The thought of losing the cloch was worse than contemplating death. "No," she answered. "Lamh Shabhala is mine. It stays mine."
She heard no more words, but she felt his sadness.
Jenna could feel Mac Ard's cloch opening and knew he was readying a strike. She didn't wait for it; she grasped at the dregs of power within Lamh Shabhala and flung them at him. The energy shattered against his cloch, absorbing the lightning he hurled toward her. As it crackled around him, she could feel Lamh Shabhala sucking the rest of the life from his cloch until there was nothing left. She saw Mac Ard's face go suddenly wide-eyed with fear.
Mac Ard's horse reared up as he yanked at the reins. Faintly, she heard his cry of pain and frustration as he fled, galloping into the trees and over the rise. Within Lamh Shabhala, there was still power left, enough that she could feel Mac Ard's cloch moving away until she could no longer sense it at all.
She let go of the cloch. It was a mistake, she realized immediately, for it was only the residual energy within Lamh Shabhala that was keeping her upright. With the release of contact, a doubled wave of severe pain and exhaustion swept over her. She could still see O'Deoradhain fighting close by, but the edges of her vision had gone black, the scene before her shrinking and condensing until it was only a pinpoint. Thunder roared in her ears, and the drumbeat of her blood. Her right arm felt as if it were on fire. She tried to lift it, tried to call out, but the darkness closed in around her and she felt herself falling.
She didn’t feel the impact of the ground at all.
Chapter 34: The Gifting
"YOU see, she’s weak and stupid. She doesn’t deserve to be Holder…" I "You can’t be seriously thinking she could survive the Scrudu…"
"Next time they come after her, she’ll die. The only thing that saved her was the inexperience of the others, and they’ll learn… "
"She doesn’t have the discipline… "
"Lamh Shabhala has chosen poorly this time…"
"Be quiet, all of you. She will learn, she may take the Scrudu in time, and she is stronger than you think… "
"Riata?" With the word, the voices faded. She could see nothing. Her eyes refused to focus though there was a whiteness all around her, and she was being jostled. She tried to move her hands or her legs and could not-something held her. She remembered the last thing she’d seen:
O’Deoradhain and the other man fighting. If O’Deoradhain had lost. . had she been captured? Had Lamh Shabhala been taken from her? She closed her eyes, gathering her strength.
This time, she could see. The whiteness was a cloth draped over a wooden framework above her face, the sun shining through it. She could lift her head, and saw that she was reclining on a crude carrier-canvas stretched and tied between two saplings. She could hear the slow clopping of two horses’ hooves and smell their ripeness-the carrier she was in was being dragged along behind one of the animals, the saplings evidently tied to the saddle, and the jostling was the device bumping and lurching over the broken ground. Someone had tied her into the frame as well.
Her body felt as if it had been bruised and battered and she could easily have slipped back into unconsciousness. Her right arm throbbed as if someone were rhythmically pounding it with a hammer of ice. She wanted to scream for someone to bring her anduilleaf, the old yearning for the drug rising from the suffering. She gritted her teeth to stop from crying out, forcing herself to take long, slow breaths, sending her aware-ness deeper. She
did cry out then, in relief rather than pain.
Lamh Shabhala was still around her neck. She could feel the cloch, as drained as she was, but alive and with her. It will always be part of you now. . The last of the voices whispered to her… to lose your cloch is like losing your child. You can't imagine that pain. . "O'Deoradhain?" she called. Her throat felt as if someone had scrubbed it with a steel file.
The horse came to a sudden halt. She heard someone dismount, then footsteps. The cloth was pulled away from the frame, and Jenna was blinking up into a bright sky as a dark face eclipsed the sun.
"You're finally awake." The voice was familiar and deep.
"Finally?"
"It's been nearly two days," he told her.
"Two days?" She repeated the words wonderingly. "So long?"
"You learn to bear using the cloch against others as it happens more. At least that's what I was taught. We can hope that Tiarna Mac Ard suf-fered the same fate, though I suspect he's had more practice than you." He crouched down in front of her. "Can you stand? Here, let me loosen these ropes…" He unlashed her, and helped her out of the contraption. Her knees were wobbly but they supported her; O'Deoradhain, after help-ing her to rise, let her go as she took a few tentative steps. She recognized none of the landscape around her: tall, grassy peaks with steep rocky outcroppings, and limestone-boned ground underfoot. There was an odor in the air that she couldn't identify, a fresh, briny scent. "Where are we?"
"In Tuath Connachta above Keelballi, near the northern border with Tuath Infochla. We're perhaps five or six miles from the sea. I'm hoping to reach a fishing village where we can find someone who'll take us to Inish."
"Mac Ard? The others?"
"I don't know what happened to Mac Ard or the other one who fled. The rest… are dead."
Jenna touched the cloch. O'Deoradhain's eyes followed the gesture. "The cloch Gairbith had. .?"
"Was that the man’s name?" O’Deoradhain shrugged, then reached into a pocket under his cloca. "Here. . It’s yours now." He took her left hand, turning it palm up and placing in it a gold chain. At the end of the chain was a turquoise gem, faceted and gleaming and far larger than Lamh Shabhala. "There’s his cloch na thintri. I took it from the body after. ." He stopped.