Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (45 page)

“Tell Arror that I thank him and his pack, too,” Meriel told her. “I know I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for their help, and I’m sorry for what happened to his mate.”

Keira nodded, and turned to Arror with a series of growls and grunts to which the dire wolf responded in kind. “He says that two-legs are unwise creatures if they apologize for what wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t you who hurt Garrhal, but the one with the magic stone whose face Arror will remember.” Keira visibly shuddered under her robes. “And I wouldn’t care to be the tiarna if Arror finds him. The dire wolves are difficult enough as friends; they make terrible enemies. But now . . . it’s time to heal yourself, Meriel.”

Meriel brushed the clochmion with her fingers, feeling the power tingle with the touch. She felt the ache of her muscles, the sharp knives that slashed along her spine when she shifted her weight, the slow purpling of the bruises everywhere. It would be wonderful to make herself whole and free of pain.

It would be a delight, but . . . Arror stared at her. She could feel his gaze. “Keira, ask Arror where Garrhal is.”

Keira looked at Meriel curiously, her chin lifting. “I don’t need to ask. I know their dens. Down at the bottom of the hill, and a short walk under the oaks.”

“Then take me there.”

“You can’t walk that far,” Owaine said and Meriel glared at him.

“I’ll manage,” she said.

“Then let me help you.”

“Leave me alone, Bráthair,” Meriel started angrily, then stopped at the stricken look he gave her. “Bráithair Geraghty,” she began again, more gently. He smiled tentatively.

“Call me Owaine. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with ‘Bráthair.’ ”

“Owaine, then,” she said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done. Coming after me . . . that was incredibly foolish but also incredibly brave of you, and I’m glad you found Keira and came for me, but . . .”

Owaine’s eyebrows raised. Behind him, Arror seemed to be listening and sniffing the air around them at the same time, his mouth half-open in canine amusement.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Meriel finished. “Do you know what I mean?”

She could see the disappointment in his face and the futile struggle he made not to show it. Too late, he shrugged. “Oh, I understand. Actually, it is Dhegli who’s ultimately responsible. He didn’t give me a chance to think about consequences; he just brought me here.”

Dhegli
. . . The name made her smile momentarily.
His face, the touch of his fingers on her skin, the sound of his voice.
A sense of loss and yearning threatened to overwhelm her.
I want to call him. I want to see him again, be with him . . .

Keira had gone into the cave as Meriel and Owaine talked. When she emerged, she was holding an oaken staff burnished at the knobbed top by what must have been years of use. “Here,” she said. “This is one of Seancoim’s old staffs. I keep them, figuring I’ll need them one day myself.” Meriel took the stick in her free hand as Keira turned to Arror and growled something in his language. The huge wolf barked once, and padded off down the hill and into the cover of the trees as the three of them followed slowly, Meriel trying to find a rhythm that would allow her to walk over the broken ground with the least amount of pain, Owaine hovering unasked at her side. At the bottom of the knoll, they turned under the oaks and were plunged into darkness, the moon hidden by the dense foliage above. They could hear animals moving nearby and feel the pressure of eyes on them. Wind sprites glittered a few strides away, the bright stream of them flowing between and around the trees like a fast-moving creek, their voices a high chattering. Wings fluttered heavily above them; to their left some animal suddenly wailed, the sound eerily and abruptly cut off.

Keira seemed untroubled by the dark and the noises, walking quickly ahead of them. “The forest is most alive at night,” she said, glancing back at Meriel and Owaine as they paused, trying to adjust to the dimness. “The trees and most of the creatures who live here rest during the day. They prefer the darkness. Doire Coill is a dangerous place for travelers at night; the trees will hinder you deliberately and try to lead you to the Eldest and your death, and there are other animals out here who would also prey on humans—Arror’s people not the least of them. If the Eldest, the Seanóir, were singing tonight, then even I might be cautious, because ever since your mam brought the Filleadh, Meriel, the song of the Seanóir has been growing stronger and drawing the unwary from greater distances. But they’re quiet tonight and the trees know you’re with me, and you have Arror’s protection as well for now.”

It seemed to Meriel that they walked for a full stripe, though it was probably far less. They came eventually to a small opening in the trees where steep, thorn-covered slopes ringed them on three sides. A bit of moonlight trickled down through the overhanging branches, and Meriel could see the dark, round opening of several holes in the cliffside ahead of them. Red eyes gleamed in the hole just ahead of them and Arror stepped out. Other dire wolves came from the dens until they were surrounded by well over a dozen of the beasts. They sniffed and muttered and growled, and Meriel found herself staying close to Owaine. “Arror says that he can smell fear on the two of you, and says that you should calm yourselves—no harm will come to you here tonight.”

“Tonight?” Owaine repeated, and Keira laughed.

“Tonight,” she repeated. “Among the packs, they have a saying I’ve heard: ‘No throat goes unbared forever. ’ They know that the one who is strong today may be beaten tomorrow, and their social order is always in flux. As a result, they make promises very carefully.”

As Keira was speaking, Meriel saw a gray form limp out from Arror’s den—a female wolf, her rear legs splinted and bandaged so that she seemed to half drag herself along. As she appeared, some of the other wolves growled, their mutters obviously aggressive and angry as Arror snarled back at them and showed his teeth. Four cubs—the size of normal wolves but tiny by comparison with the adults around them—came out with her. “Dire wolves don’t generally save someone injured as badly as Garrhal was,” Keira told them. “She’s protected only by Arror’s status in the pack—if he was less dominant, they might have killed her or driven her out of the pack already. They say she’s a danger, that she can’t contribute to the pack or her cubs and should be left to fend for herself to heal or die.”

“Tell Arror I need to go to her,” Meriel said. As Keira translated, Meriel hobbled to Garrhal, kneeling beside her with a sigh of exhaustion. The wolves watched, growling softly. “Thank you for carrying me today,” she told the wolf, even though she knew Garrhal couldn’t understand her. “I’m sorry you were injured; if I’d known that would happen, I wouldn’t have let you do it.”

Garrhal watched her warily, her tongue lolling from her open mouth as Meriel pulled Treoraí’s Heart from under her léine. She closed her hand around the stone as her other hand touched Garrhal’s side. Her sight doubled; in the cloch-vision, she could see the fractures like shimmering blue lines in Garrhal’s bones, with orange-and-red lines of pain radiating away from them. The legs had been set well by Keira, but the Cloch Mór’s blow had shattered bone and scattered fragments of bone were buried deep into the muscles. Now Meriel let the clochmion’s energy out, wrapping it about the legs. The pain slid along the lines of energy, coming to her; Meriel accepted the hurt, crying out helplessly at the feeling of the broken bones, the torn ligaments, the ripped muscles. Closing her eyes, she let herself see only in the cloch-vision, tightening the energy around the wolf’s injured leg before releasing it all in one burst. She fell into the wolf’s mind. She became the wolf.

There was the pain, aye—terrible and agonizing, like being stabbed repeatedly with a spear. But there were also new dimensions to the world: Meriel was awash in odors which assaulted her from every direction—the scent of the cool mold under the trees; the sharp tang of Owaine and herself, both with the undertone that she could recognize as fear, and the slightly different smell of Keira, overlaid with strong herbs; the incredibly distinct aromas of each of the wolves; the sweet milk-scent of her young ones. She could hear the rustle of fur, the panting breath of the wolves. Her vision lacked a strong color sense, but the moonlight might as well have been daylight—she could see easily, with an acute sharpness that made Meriel’s vision seem like Owaine’s.

And the thoughts . . . Meriel found herself caught in a mind that was totally unlike any of those Treoraí’s Heart had revealed to her before. There was primal heat in Garrhal’s thoughts, a purity of attention. There was hunger in the belly and a lust for bloody, rich meat. Meriel saw herself in Garrhal’s thoughts, felt the appraisal of how she might taste. She felt also Garrhal’s own acceptance of the pack’s attitude toward her, and there was a disgust and self-loathing for her own injuries below the pain. Meriel realized with a start that the only thing holding Garrhal here was Arror, that if he had not stopped her, she would have slunk off on her own to die—but Arror was dominant in the pack, and not to be questioned. So she stayed when she didn’t want to be here.

She wanted to die. She wanted to end this disgrace. Meriel wanted to die with her. Garrhal shifted her weight, and the searing agony of the smashed limbs washed over Meriel once more.

She fell back, howling with Garrhal as if her own legs had been crushed, her own discomfort lost in this greater misery. She sent the power of Treoraí’s Heart rushing out from the stone, and it was like handling fire. Meriel howled again, a sound enough like a wolf that the other members of the pack lifted their muzzles and howled with her. With a gasp, Meriel released the stone. She fell backward to the ground as Owaine rushed over to her, as Garrhal rose and shook herself before loping over to Arror with a howl that held relief and joy. The wolf cubs danced around them, yipping. Owaine’s hands were under her. “I can get up,” she managed to say. It felt strange to use words; part of her wanted to growl. “Just leave me alone a moment.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I will be,” she told him. Already the pain and the touch of Garrhal’s mind was fading. She let go of the emptied cloch as Arror padded over to her with Keira at his side. The dire wolf looked at her, red eyes staring into green. He growled long and low, and Keira nodded.

“He calls you Meriel Wolf-friend,” Keira translated. “He says that as long as he is master of this pack, you are safe and will be treated as part of them.”

She understood that, better than she had just moments before. “Tell him that I’m grateful,” Meriel told her. “Tell him that I hope he and Garrhal live long lives.”

Keira spoke to Arror in his language, and the wolf barked once and went back to Garrhal and their cubs. “You didn’t need to do that,” Keira said to Meriel as they watched the wolves. “You could have used the cloch for yourself. But that’s what your mam would have done also. She was generous with others, too.”

“My mam?” Meriel nearly laughed, forcing the sarcasm back.
My mam generous? The hard, cold Banrion? The “Mad Holder”? The mam who never seemed to have time for me? The mam who never paid the ransom Doyle Mac Ard must have demanded?
She wanted to scoff and protest, but she closed her mouth.

It was Owaine who nodded in agreement.

“Aye,” he said. “The Banrion’s a generous woman. I know that well.”

Meriel thought it best to say nothing. She took a breath, watching Arror and Garrhal. “I’d like to get back to the cave,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”

Meriel could feel Keira studying her for a moment. “Aye,” she said, “and we need to send word to your mam that you’re safe, before she does something she’ll regret. . . .”

“I
DON’T know what’s happened to Meriel, or what that bastard Doyle may have done to her, or if he’s carried out his threat . . .” Jenna raged and sobbed at the same time, pacing back and forth in her chambers, high in Dún Kiil Keep. Kyle MacEagan and Máister Kirwan watched her—she could feel their gazes on her. “Mother-Creator, if I’ve killed her because . . . because . . .” Her intake of breath was a shuddering gasp. She couldn’t say more. She gave in to the tears that had threatened ever since Inishduán, sinking to the floor in front of the fire in a silken puddle.

Lámh Shábhála throbbed at her chest in time to her huddled grief.

She heard the rustle of cloth, felt the heat of Kyle’s body kneeling behind her just before his arm came around her. “Jenna . . . Jenna, you did what you had to do,” he said softly, almost a whisper. “You had no choice. Mac Ard and Lámh Shábhála gave you no room to do anything else. Don’t blame yourself.”

Jenna lifted her head, her face stricken with anguish, the lines of tears on her cheeks but sudden fire smoldering in her eyes. “If he’s hurt her, I’ll hunt my bastard half brother down and kill him. I don’t care what it costs me, I don’t care what happens afterward or how many clochs stand between me and him.” She saw the troubled glance that Kyle threw to Mundy and that only fueled the rage. “I know what you’re both thinking.
I don’t care.
I condemned my daughter so I could keep Lámh Shábhála. Do the two of you understand that? The flesh of my blood, the flesh of
Ennis
’ blood, and I couldn’t give up this damned stone around my neck to save her. Blame myself? Who else is there to blame? I
still
can’t give up the stone, even now—curse the Mother-Creator for giving it to me. Meriel was all I had and
I couldn’t make the sacrifice for her.
I’m her mam; I should have laid down my life for my daughter, but no, I had to keep the bloody Lámh Shábhála—”

She stopped. Kyle and Mundy were staring, their faces stricken, and she realized that she was raving.