Oath of the Brotherhood (27 page)

“Have Abban send a scouting party.”

“They won’t know what to look for. It has to be me.”

To her surprise, Ruarc didn’t argue. Abban, on the other hand, resisted vehemently. He relented only when Aine agreed to add another ten warriors to her usual twenty. Once the sun rose high enough to cast shadows, Aine set out with her guard and three packhorses carrying food and shelter for their two-day excursion.

“What do you expect to find?” Lorcan asked once they cleared the camp.

“Not a pile of dead Sliebhanaigh warriors if that’s what you mean.”

Lorcan still looked uneasy, but the other men seemed unaware of the danger. They had traveled without incident along these wards for so long, they no longer expected battle or ambush. That alone disturbed Aine.

She identified the ward early in the day, but they rode for hours without any indication of trouble. Aine began to doubt her own certainty about the breach’s location. Then, as the sun dipped behind the tree-lined horizon, she pulled up short. A kernel of cold formed in her middle, and a chill crept across her skin, as if she had passed into a pocket of winter amidst the summer warmth.

“Here.” She had felt this sensation only once in her life, and it was one she couldn’t mistake.

Ruarc and Lorcan closed around her protectively.

“What is it?” Ruarc asked.

“Sidhe.”

“Here?” Lorcan asked. “Are you sure?”

“The last time I felt this, a bean-sidhe tried to drown me in Loch Eirich. I’m certain.”

“What about them?” Ruarc jerked his head toward the guardsmen who watched her expectantly.

“Don’t say anything yet.” She turned to the waiting warriors and called, “There’s nothing here. Whatever disturbed the ward is gone.”

Relief
 
—and perhaps disappointment
 
—rippled through the group. She turned back to Lorcan and Ruarc and said, “I don’t want to camp here tonight. I’ve had enough contact with the sidhe for one lifetime.”

Fortunately, the men didn’t ask the question that nagged at her: why would the sidhe appear in the middle of a sparsely populated region of Siomar, when before they seemed to hover around the border forests? Had their assumption that the wards repelled the sidhe been wrong? Were they somehow attracted to sources of power, whether dark or light?

That, of course, assumed this had been happenstance. There might be a far more calculated reason behind the disturbance.

Ruarc apparently had come to the same conclusion. When they made camp, he said, “We’ll double the watches tonight. We’ll take no chances this might be a trap of some sort.”

Evening passed into deep night without any sign of danger. Still, Aine led the men in the old prayer she had said at Dún Eavan. “Comdiu protect us, Comdiu watch over us, Comdiu be at the left and the right and smooth the way before us. Comdiu stand between us and the harm of this world, and banish the darkness with the light of Your son, Balus.”

She repeated it once more through, comforted by the number of voices that joined hers. The mood lightened as the men claimed Comdiu’s protection. Only a few remained silent, uncomfortable with the prayer, and they were fewer than she had expected.

Weary from her sleepless nights and a string of days on horseback, Aine retreated to the simple tent. Ruarc bedded down just outside the opening. The flickering of the flames against the canvas and the snap of the fire lulled her to sleep.

Aine jolted awake in the middle of the night, her heart pounding. She poked her head through the tent opening. The fire had died, and the only light came from a crescent moon overhead. She could just make out the shapes of the sleeping men.

“What’s wrong?” Ruarc whispered.

“I don’t know. Something woke me.” She scanned the camp with a tickle of disquiet. “Ruarc, who was on watch?”

Ruarc made his own quick assessment, and alarm broke over his face. He nudged the man nearest him with his toe. “Wake up!”

Instantly, the men sprang awake, weapons in hand. Ruarc kicked the fire’s embers to life again. “We’re missing men.”

A quick count revealed only three of the seven men assigned to the watch. Those missing were the four who had not voiced the prayer with the rest of them.

“The sidhe,” Aine whispered to Ruarc. “They must have lured them away.”

“Take Aine,” Ruarc said, gesturing to Lorcan.

The blond warrior hastened to her side, his sword drawn. “My lady.”

Unsettled, Aine followed Lorcan into the center of the group, which quickly closed around her. Ruarc and several others lit torches and searched for the missing sentries, but she knew they would find nothing. They had gone willingly, just as Aine had when the apparition lured her to the lakeshore.

The back of her neck prickled. She started to turn, but Lorcan shoved her roughly to the ground. She hit the turf hard and pulled her dagger free from her belt just as Lorcan’s blade deflected a thrust meant for her. A quick clash of metal, and the attacker lay at her guard’s feet, a red stain spreading across his chest.

Ruarc appeared beside her in the chaos, his own weapon drawn, and helped her up with his free hand. “Who is it?”

“Sualtam,” Lorcan said grimly. “I would have bet my life he was a loyal man.”

“He probably
was
a loyal man.”

All eyes turned to Aine. She still gripped her dagger in a shaking hand, and it took several tries to sheath it at her belt. “It was the sidhe.”

“The sidhe lured the sentries away?” Lorcan asked. “Made Sualtam try to kill you?”

“The sidhe can make you see whatever they wish, if you don’t guard yourself carefully. They exploit our weaknesses, play on our emotions, cloud our judgment. I should have expected it.”

“Which means we need to return to camp,” Ruarc said. “I don’t think this attack was any accident.”

Aine looked back to the dead man, her heart still racing. “I don’t think so, either.”

Hours dragged by as they waited for the sky to lighten enough to start the trip back to camp. It gave Aine far too much time to mull a new, troubling question: did the sidhe have their own agenda, or were they now doing Diarmuid’s bidding?

She wasn’t sure which was worse: the idea Fergus and his druid might control the sidhe, or that she had two separate enemies who wanted her dead.

Aine knew something was wrong when they reached the camp. Too many sentries watched the perimeter, and they scrutinized her party suspiciously as they entered.

Abban met them outside the main tent before they could dismount. His haggard appearance told of his own sleepless night.

“What happened?” Aine asked.

“Come inside, and we’ll talk there.”

Aine glanced back to be sure Ruarc followed and caught Lorcan’s eye. “You, too.”

Lorcan followed them wordlessly into the command tent. Abban noted the second man’s presence with a raised eyebrow, but he waited for Aine to speak.

“The sidhe breached the ward,” she said. “We lost five men. Four disappeared, and one came back tied to his horse.”

“He tried to kill Lady Aine,” Lorcan said calmly, but she knew the betrayal of one of their own weighed on him.

“And you saved my life. If it were not for your attention, I would not be standing here. Both the king and I will want to see you rewarded.”

Lorcan looked embarrassed. “I want no reward, my lady.”

“All the same, you rendered all of us a great service,” Abban said with a bow. He deflated when he turned back to Aine. “I had hoped our own problems were isolated. We too lost a number of sentries. Some of the others aren’t quite in their heads.”

“What do you mean?”

Abban hesitated. “They claimed to have seen things. They’re saying this place is cursed. We had to restrain them to keep them from fleeing or hurting themselves.”

Aine remembered the horrific visage of the bean-sidhe before it frightened her into the lake. Men who never before believed in the sidhe might certainly receive a shock to their sanity. “I’d like to talk to them. Perhaps I can help.”

“Too dangerous,” Abban said.

Lorcan spoke up from behind her. “I think Lady Aine has proven she doesn’t frighten easily. Keep them restrained. Perhaps she can do them some good.”

Aine nodded her thanks to Lorcan, buoyed by his support. “I don’t know whether the sidhe are acting on their own behalf or Fergus’s. Either way, they are doing the Adversary’s bidding.
They mean to corrupt the weaker minds and doubtful hearts. These are spiritual tactics, my lord. We have to respond in kind.”

“How exactly do you intend to do that?” Abban asked.

“By fighting the darkness with light.” It was exactly what she had been mulling when the disturbance on the ward distracted her. “I’ll ask Calhoun to send one of the priests. The men could use some spiritual leadership.”

Abban looked unconvinced, but he didn’t contradict her. “If you believe it will help.”

“I do. In any case, they can offer reassurance and comfort.” Aine looked back to Lorcan. “I’d also like to ask the king’s permission to take you into my service, if you are willing.”

Lorcan gave her a deep bow. “It would be a great honor, my lady.”

“It would put my mind at ease,” Aine said. “And Ruarc deserves some sleep.”

Ruarc and Lorcan grinned at each other. At least they were both taking to the change easily. Lorcan had time and again proven his loyalty and his skills, and it seemed only right to relieve Ruarc from the constant responsibility of looking after her.

She was beginning to think he would need every bit of help he could get.

When Conor returned to Ard Dhaimhin,
he didn’t mention the incident involving Aine to Eoghan. He thought Odran might comment on it, but when days passed without the subject arising, he concluded the tracker had either forgotten or dismissed it as yet another unimportant detail about the outside world.

Conor’s fading ability, on the other hand, elicited more interest. He had barely been back a day when Eoghan said, “Odran tells me you’ve discovered a new gift.”

They were back on the crannog where his training had begun, working through the drills he had neglected for the past three weeks. Conor paused, sword in hand, and grinned. “I’d hoped I could keep it quiet. I was looking forward to practicing on you.”

“Too late, I’m afraid.”

“You knew?”

“I suspected. You must take after Riordan. He’s maddeningly difficult to track.”

“I take it you’ve tried?”

“I trained with him as you’re training with Odran. He’s not so easy to follow either, if you’re wondering.”

Conor remembered how Odran had faded beside him and then reappeared before Aine’s guards. Maybe he hadn’t struggled to keep up as much as he thought.

“What do you know about the wards?”

Eoghan frowned at the change of topic. “Not much. Why?”

“There have been disturbances outside the forest. I think it has something to do with the war in Siomar.”

“He’s been holding out on me.”

So Odran was Eoghan’s source of information after all. “I gathered Liam forbade it.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. It’s been too quiet for too long.”

“Do you suppose Brother Gillian would know something?”

“Gillian knows something about everything. Why so much interest in the wards?”

Conor hesitated. His thoughts about Aine were private, but perhaps Eoghan could help him. “We intercepted a small party of riders on the Seanrós borders. They said they were tracking a ward from outside.”

“And Odran let them go?”

“They weren’t a threat,” Conor said. “Just a couple of Faolanaigh scholars and their guards. I figured it had to do with the war, and I wondered what use the wards might be to them.”

“I know there were far more wards in Daimhin’s time, but they weren’t maintained after the kingdom split. And before you ask, I don’t know how maintenance is done. I’m not sure anyone does. Even the wards around Ard Dhaimhin are growing thin, or so I’ve heard. I can’t feel them myself. I don’t have the gift.”

But Conor did. He had felt them each time he crossed them in the forest, just as he felt the power of Meallachán’s harp, the
oath-binding sword, the wheel charm. He drew on the same power each time he played.

You can do it at will
, Odran had said about his fading ability.

Those with the gift of music have the instinctive ability to transform the language of music into the language of magic.

The storyteller makes his story real during the telling.

Even the wards around Ard Dhaimhin are growing thin.

His knees weakened at his sudden flash of insight. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

“Eoghan, I need to go to Carraigmór. Are we done here?”

Eoghan frowned, but he nodded. They packed their supplies and crossed back to the shore, where Conor strode off toward the keep.

A brother escorted him to Liam’s study. The Ceannaire rose from his desk when he entered. “Conor. I didn’t expect you for a few hours yet. Is there a problem?”

“No sir. I’ve just been away so long I was anxious to play. Besides, I understand Eoghan has plans for my evening.”

Liam gestured to the harp in the corner. “As you wish.”

Conor’s hands shook as he took the harp onto his lap. He turned his mind to the wards that protected the fortress and waited, but not a single note surfaced in his mind.

“Is there a problem?” Master Liam asked.

“No, no problem.” He had to play something. It was his only way back to Aine.

The music came to him, but it wasn’t what he expected. His elation and confusion over seeing Aine spilled from the harp, and he turned the direction of the song with effort. He couldn’t afford to reveal too much, despite Liam’s claim he couldn’t interpret the music. Conor tried to shape the song’s direction, take it back to the wards, but instead, he managed only a discordant
collection of notes. He dropped his hands from the strings, disappointment welling inside him.

“I’m sorry, Master Liam. I must still be tired from my last assignment.”

“Return tomorrow then, Brother Conor.”

Conor left the study, crushed by the weight of his failure. He had been so certain that if he could just focus on his objective, he could effect the transformation from music to magic and have some sort of impact on Carraigmór’s wards. Yet it felt like trying to speak a foreign language of which he had no knowledge.

He was halfway across the hall when a thready voice called his name.

Brother Gillian stood in the doorway behind him, one hand braced on the wall. Conor rushed to his side and took his arm.

“Brother Gillian? What are you doing here?”

“It didn’t work, did it?”

“No. How did you
 
—”

“Not here. Help me back to my chamber, boy.”

Conor could hardly suppress his questions on the way back to Gillian’s chamber. When they were safely ensconced in the room, he blurted, “How did you know?”

“I could sense what you were trying to do.”

“Then why didn’t it work?”

“You tell me.”

Conor scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration. “I have no idea. Usually I can think of something and play it.”

“Ah, but there is still a difference between music and magic, isn’t there? Music is a talent. Magic is a gift. Think of when you have used magic.”

He thought back to the night at Lisdara with Meallachán’s
harp and just recently in the forest when he had faded from sight. “It was the most important thing to me at that moment.”

“There’s your answer then.”

Conor had another question. “Why are the wards so important anyway? Other than binding the sidhe.”

“They weren’t made to bind the sidhe,” Gillian said. “At the time, Seare was under attack from a bigger threat. After Daimhin and the coming of the truth, most of the druids retreated to the nemetons or one of the eastern isles. But a few, those you call the Red Druids, refused to give up their power. Fearing they would use their magic against the throne, Daimhin himself created the wards. The druids could not cross them. The sorcery within them is repelled by the Balian magic, and so their influence and movements were much restricted.

“While belief remained strong, the wards held. But as the influence of the darkness grew greater, the wards became weaker. They’re all but gone in Tigh and Sliebhan, and somewhat intact in Siomar and Faolán.”

“How do you know all this?” Conor asked in amazement.

Gillian turned his head and lifted his white hair. Faded black tattoos traced the lined skin of his neck. “You see, you must have the need to effect the wards. And you must have the tool used to create them all that time ago.”

Conor knew immediately. “Meallachán’s harp.”

“You are a clever boy. Now run along. I have nets to mend.”

Conor rose to leave. “Brother Gillian, if the wards fade where darkness holds sway, why have they begun to weaken in Ard Dhaimhin?”

Gillian opened his mouth to answer. Then he snapped it shut and gave a sharp shake of his head before he felt once more for his nets.

Knowing what needed to be done made little difference to Conor’s daily routine. He was still Eoghan’s apprentice, and he was far from being ready to take his trials. Short of Liam’s summoning Meallachán back to Carraigmór, he had no way to test his theory.

As if to temper Conor’s success with Odran, Eoghan proceeded to show him exactly how far he had to go in his training. Over the next several weeks, the older boy increased the intensity of his drills, leading them with as much effort as Conor exerted and extending the length of their practice matches. Eoghan pushed him to his limits, regardless of the bruises or lacerations they inflicted on each other. Conor’s time must be drawing short if Eoghan was attempting to give him a taste of a real life-or-death match. After nearly four weeks of the strict routine, Eoghan sent Conor back out with Odran to collect reports from the sentries along the southern edge of Rós Dorcha. A thrill of anticipation rippled through Conor when he realized these sentries might have direct knowledge of the war in Siomar.

Odran was no less abrupt than before, and he seemed to delight in seeing Conor fail, but he was meticulous in his teaching. Conor learned how to create different kinds of traps and snares and how to read tracks and estimate their makers’ weight and speed of travel. Odran also taught him how to take and maintain a heading in the tangled thicket of ancient trees. In short, he began to impart the skills that would keep Conor alive on his own.

Odran also drilled him in close-quarters combat, an entirely different way of fighting than the open-battlefield techniques he had learned from Eoghan.

“This is about survival,” he said. “In the forest, you don’t have the luxury of a fair fight. Seize whatever advantage you can.”

It was Odran’s short preamble to ambush using his fading skills. The Fíréin had perfected the strike-and-retreat tactics for which Seareann warriors were known, and this sort of fighting put Conor’s strategic thinking to good use.

In between lessons, Conor and Odran took messages between posts and met up with runners who would take them back to Ard Dhaimhin. The runners were odd and solitary, and they seemed to have forgotten how to behave in human company. Conor quickly gave up trying to befriend them.

The sentries, on the other hand, welcomed the company, and Conor needed only to offer interesting stories or news from Ard Dhaimhin to elicit information in return. Their sharp eyes missed nothing, including the nuances of the shifting loyalties in the southern kingdoms.

The most interesting intelligence came from their last stop, a sentry named Ciaran. He was the polar opposite of Innis, tall and slender with the arrow-straight posture of a man too disciplined to be bent by time. He wore his long white hair in a queue away from a deeply lined face the tone and texture of fine, old leather.

Ciaran took a single look at Conor and said, “You want to ask me about the wards. Come in. I put on a pot of tea when I felt you coming.”

Conor exchanged a startled glance with Odran and followed the man into his small cottage. A large table sat in the center of the room surrounded by four stools, an oddly inviting vignette for a border sentry. The interior smelled of wood smoke and fragrant herbs. Ciaran lifted the pot from the fire with a hook and produced three cups from a board above the hearth.

“Now, sit, Odran, or at least smile. Pretend this is a friendly visit.” He glanced at Conor and shook his head. “Too serious,
this one. But you . . . I feel music in you. What would you like to know?”

Conor sat and took the proffered cup. “You tell me. You seem to know why I’m here.”

“You’re here about a woman.”

Conor nearly choked on his tea. “Why would you say that?”

“It’s always about a woman, dear boy,” Ciaran said, unfazed. “But you want to know what I’ve felt, don’t you?”

Conor nodded, alternately intrigued and baffled. Either the sentry was completely mad, or he possessed a gift of sight not unlike Liam’s and Aine’s.

“Usually the wards are quiet,” Ciaran said. “I can feel the comings and goings of the runners and trackers, and not long ago, a number of warriors died on the wards. But lately, someone has been rebuilding them.”

Conor’s mouth went dry. “Who?”

“I can’t tell you that. If that’s what you’ve come to find out, you’ve wasted a trip.”

But Conor knew. If Meallachán’s harp was the instrument used to make the wards, the bard must be rebuilding them. Why wouldn’t Meallachán have simply told Aine what he knew?

Unless he had already left Lisdara.

Conor almost laughed at the bitter irony. Had he stayed at Lisdara, both the bard and his instrument would be within reach. Yet he would never have known what must be done had he not come to Ard Dhaimhin.