Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (21 page)

Alarm bells were ringing throughout the keep now, and they could see the cloudmages—Bráthairs and Siúrs—in the open courtyard at the center of the oldest section, rushing toward the gates. As they watched, helpless, blue streamers like twisting ropes of fire snapped about some of them, hurling them backward. More lightning flashed from the thunderhead around the gate and a fireball splashed red flame.

Meriel heard Faoil scream in fright, heard the other acolytes shouting or crying out in confusion. Several of them, mostly the fourth- and fifth-years, ignored Bráthair O’Therreagh’s admonition and began to run toward the keep themselves. Bráthair Geraghty shouted at them; a few stopped, the others continued to hurry toward the keep.

“Come on!” Meriel felt a hand tug at her sleeve: Thady. He gestured toward the rear of the keep and the tangle of pines fringing the mountainside to the west beyond the Low Tower. “There’s nothing we can do about this, Meriel, and we can hide there.” Thady said urgently. “You heard Bráither O’Therreagh. You’re the Banrion’s daughter and may be the target—you don’t want them to find you. Come on!”

“No!” Bráthair Geraghty pushed Thady away from Meriel. “Bráthair O’Therreagh said we’re to stay
here.
Besides, Máister Kriwan told me—”

Thady gestured violently toward the keep, where the smoke had thickened. A small group of men dressed in undyed leathers were sweeping around the side of the keep, shouting as they spied the acolytes rushing down the hill. Metal glinted in sunlight. “See!” Thady shouted. “Those are gardai! The Máister will thank us for making sure that Meriel’s safe. She’s
not
safe out here in the open where anyone can see her.” He looked at Meriel, his gaze steady. “Trust me,” he said. “You have to trust me.”

Meriel nodded.

“Meriel, no,” Bráthair Geraghty persisted. He reached for her arm; she pulled it away. “It’s vital that you stay here. Máister Kirwan was quite specific . . .”

“Why?” Thady interjected. “
You’re
the one who’s always around her, always watching her. Is that why it’s vital, Bráthair? Because you
knew
about this? Is that why you came up here this morning? Your timing was just about perfect.”

With the accusation, Bráthair Geraghty’s mouth dropped open, and Meriel wondered. She remembered all the times she’d looked up to see the man watching her . . . The smoke was thickening, the flash and thunder continuing to roil. The soldiers were coming closer. A fireball came streaking from somewhere in the confusion, striking the hillside between the soldiers and Meriel.

“Let’s
go!
” Thady said to Meriel.

“Meriel, you can’t listen to him!” Bráthair Geraghty wailed, reaching for Meriel again. Meriel pushed his hand away. “I think that he’s . . .”

“Let’s go,” she said to Thady. As they started to run, Bráthair Geraghty moved as if to stop them and Thady pushed the man down. He picked up one of rakes, raising it. “No!” Meriel stepped between them. “You don’t need to do that, Thady.” Thady shook his head, but he tossed the rake aside.

They ran.

The smell of smoke was stronger as they approached the oat field near the back wall, and they could hear the clash of arms not far away. Someone shouted orders—it sounded like Máister Kirwan, Meriel thought—and thunder rolled loudly enough that she felt the sound hammering at her chest. Crouching, they ran down the rows of the field and clambered over the stone wall bordering it, pressing close behind the flat rocks. Between them and the shelter of the trees there was only the green swath of grass where Meriel had first seen Dhegli. “You’ll be safest near the sea, where you can escape,” Thady told her. Meriel nodded. That felt right—if she could reach the sea and change . . . or perhaps Dhegli might, impossibly, be there.

“I’ll go first,” Thady whispered to her. “That way, if they have archers, or if someone with a cloch is watching this side . . .”

“No!”

“Don’t worry,” Thady said. “Just follow me once I’m across.”

Meriel could barely hear him over the sound of her panting breath and the pounding of blood in her temples. She nodded. Thady took a deep, shuddering breath. He pushed away from the wall. Meriel watched him run, head down, and push into the brush across the green sward. She saw him wave to her, and she gathered her own breath and ran.

She expected at any moment to hear an outcry, to feel the piercing stab of arrows into her back or the screaming fire of a Cloch Mór. None of it came. She could hear only the sound of her breath and her boots pounding the grass, then she was across and Thady’s arms were around her. For several seconds, they simply huddled there, then Thady’s arms loosened. “Come on,” he said. “This way. Let’s move down to the beach . . .”

She followed him, half sliding down the narrow, twisting path in their hurry. “This way,” he said at the first turnoff, where a smaller trail led out to an overlook. “Go on. I’ll be right behind you—I want to cover up our tracks.”

“Why?”>

“Only a few moments,” he told her. “You should get off the trail while I make sure they won’t follow us.” Meriel pushed through brush and came out onto the jutting ledge, where the ocean crashed far below.

Meriel halted, her breath frozen in her mouth.

“A spectacular sight, don’t you think?” The man stood only a few feet away. He looked to be no older than herself, but he carried himself with a confidence that Meriel had seen only in those with much experience. His hair was a brighter red than hers though his eyes were the same shade of green. Around his neck he wore a yellow stone with veins of scarlet, and a sword was sheathed under his clóca. Meriel took a step back, ready to turn and run, but Thady was standing at the edge of the path and the look on his face made her stop.

“Thady?” The word came out almost as a sob.

“I’m sorry, Meriel. I really am.”

The man behind her laughed. “I suppose I should apologize as well,” he said. “This is a terrible way for an uncle to have to meet his niece for the first time.”

Meriel drew in her breath through her teeth. She looked back over her shoulder. “Doyle Mac Ard?”

He gave an exaggerated bow, the Cloch Mór swinging forward with the motion. “Aye, you have the name. I see my sister hasn’t neglected giving you the family genealogy, then.”

A sour burning filled her stomach and the back of her throat. Meriel felt disoriented and yet strangely calm, as if she were watching this happening outside herself. “All that up there . . . ?”

“A diversion designed to allow Thady to bring you down here. I should think you’d feel flattered by the attention. I know I would. We all underestimated how much resistance there would be and how well-prepared the Order was for an attack. This has cost more than a few people their lives.”

“Are you here to kill me?” The words sounded strange and impossible.

Doyle seemed to shiver. “Commit an act of fingal and be cursed by the Mother-Creator for the rest of eternity? I would never slay my own kin, Meriel—that’s an ugly crime. No, you’re far more useful alive.” He glanced upward to where the trees fringed the lip of the steep cliffs. Meriel could hear nothing of the battle above; it had stopped, or the mountainside blocked her hearing. A falcon fluttered down through the trees. It landed on Doyle’s shoulder and seemed to lean forward as if speaking into his ear before fluttering off again. Doyle’s face went solemn. “Things have not gone well above and we really must go now. This can be easy or hard, Meriel—we’re going to go down to the beach where we have a currach waiting to take us out to our ship. You can walk between Thady and myself, or—if you insist—you can be bound and carried.” His lips twisted. “The path is steep and treacherous, though. I really can’t guarantee you won’t be dropped a few times.”

“I’ll walk,” Meriel told him. She glared at Thady. “Bastard,” she said. “You’ll get all you deserve for this.”

For a moment, she thought she saw remorse and guilt cross his face, then his mouth tightened and his gaze steadied. “I’m certain I will,” he said. “That’s why I did it.” With that, he turned and started back down the path. After a moment, with a glance back at Doyle, she followed.

Her thoughts raced as they made their way slowly down toward the beach. Through the bracken clinging to the rocky soil, she could see the currachs—a quartet of the small boats were pulled up on the pebbled shore; out in West Bay, a larger ship rode the waves, its mast significantly empty of any banner or colors; she stopped to stare at it curiously. She wondered how it could have reached the island without being noticed—surely someone should have seen the ship and warned the keep. Behind her, Doyle gave her a small push; she glanced back angrily, then continued on, clambering down.

The decision crystallized and she acted before any doubts could arise. Thady was just ahead of her—she took a running step and pushed at him hard, her hands striking him between the shoulder blades. He overbalanced, falling forward with his arms out and a wail. Meriel didn’t wait; she rushed past him, slipping and sliding over the rocks, not even noticing the pain as they tore at her clothing and skin. Behind her, she could hear Doyle’s shout of alarm. She didn’t dare look back; she half fell, half ran the rest of the way down, tumbling out onto the spray-wet shingle. Panting, she got to her feet. The water was but a few strides away—

The air in front of her shimmered. A beast appeared, snarling on the rocks: a dragon with scales of yellow tipped with fiery red, rearing twice as tall as Meriel with jaws of daggered teeth and talons of razor-edged ivory. It hissed; it fumed; it roared. Meriel gathered her breath—she ran, hoping to get past the apparition, to dodge the blow that would come.
All I need to do is reach the water . . .

The dragon reared.
One more step . . .
The tail, barbed and long, curled like a whip. Meriel tried to duck, but it was too fast. She tried to throw her hands up: as the coils hurtled toward her, as they crashed into her and flung her back onto the boulders at the foot of the cliffs.

Then, for a long time, she remembered nothing at all.

B
RIGHT light flickered beyond her eyelids and she could hear faint querulous voices. Meriel blinked, trying to focus eyes that didn’t want to work and realizing that the blankness in front of her was the white roof of a tent with the sun gleaming through, the fabric. She was lying on her back on a carpet spread directly on grassy earth, with an uncomfortably hard rock digging into her hip. Her head throbbed, and the hair on the left side of her head was stiff and matted; when that side of her head touched the ground, it was tender and sore. Wooden boxes were stacked near her, the symbol of a dragon burned into them. That brought back to her all too vividly the dragon on the beach: she remembered the snarling mouth, the lash of its tail snaking toward her too fast . . .

She tried to shift her weight and realized that her legs and arms were bound, far too well for her to work free of them. For a moment, she had the terrible thought that the clochmion Máister Kirwan had given her was gone, but she could feel its reassuring heaviness around her neck.
Where am I? What’s happened?

Frightened, she lay still and listened to the voices.

“. . . and keep her. You will keep her
safe
as well—in all ways—or I will personally come find you. Do we have an understanding, Nico?” That was Doyle’s voice, Meriel knew, sharp-edged and quick.

Someone laughed, low and quiet and mocking, the words lilting with an accent Meriel had never heard before. “If you can’t trust my word, then take the girl with you, Tiarna, along with your little threats. They don’t frighten me.”

For a moment, there was silence. She could imagine Doyle’s thin face, and she wondered whether there was anger in his eyes now and if she would hear the ring of a sword being drawn or the roar of the dragon unleashed. Then Doyle spoke again. “I trust your word as Clannhri, Nico. Aye.”