'No,' Jenna said. 'This is Ennis O’Deoradhain, Tara-he’s a friend, a traveling companion. We’re going north-'
O’Deoradhain cleared his throat. When she glanced at him, he smiled, though his eyes glittered warningly. '- and east,' she finished. 'Along the High Road up to Ballymote, then on to Glenkille and maybe even across the Finger to Ceile Mhor.'
Tara 's eyebrows raised at the names. 'So far? Child, I haven't been farther than a stone's throw from Ballintubber all my life, and you're going all the way to Ceile Mhor? It's not safe traveling. Not any more. Not with the fighting and the lights in the sky, and the strange creatures that have been seen.
Why, only the other night, Matron Kelly saw wolves with red eyes and as tall as horses on the hill near her house. A pair of them, howling and snarling and frightening her so that she was afraid to go out of her house for days. Killed four of her sheep-tore their throats out and picked them up in their mouths as if they weighed nothing at all. No, I wouldn't be traveling. Not me.'
The two strangers had risen from their chairs. They passed by the table as they left without a word. Jenna saw O'Deoradhain's gaze following them as they opened the door and went out.
'I see you still have people stopping at the inn,' Jenna said to Tara, nodding toward the door.
'Them? They're the first in a week. Came up from the south, they say, from Ath Iseal. The High Road's not as well traveled these days. And not
much business of a night, either.' She shook her head, wiping her hands nervously on her apron.
'Not since. . well, you know. That was a bad time when those Connachtans came raiding. Killed Aldwoman Pearce, and cut down Tom Mullins and all four of his sons not a dozen steps from here when they tried to help. And poor Eli; one of them opened up my boy's face just because he didn't move fast enough when they told him to curry their horses. It was awful. They burned half the houses, and some of the women they…' Her voice trailed off. Remembered horrors drained the color from her face.
'Aye. I understand,' Jenna told her.
'We thought you and your mam and that tiarna were all dead, too. We saw your house burning like the rest, and those that went to look said there was no one there alive, though there were dead Connachtans and your poor dog. We thought you'd been burned with the house.'
Jenna shook her head. She found she didn’t want to talk about it. The days when the Connachtans had swept through in pursuit of the mage-lights and Lamh Shabhala had damaged Ballintubber but not truly changed the place. Ballintubber remained sleepy and forgotten; if it was lucky, it might stay so. For the first time, Jenna saw just how much she’d been altered by the events of the last several months. She was no longer the person who had lived here. This was no longer 'home.'
'We managed to sneak away, my mam and I and the tiarna,' she told Tara. 'It didn’t seem safe to go back.'
'So you went to Lar Bhaile,' Tara finished for her. From the expression on her face, she seemed to find it alternately amusing and unbelievable that someone from Ballintubber would have made that choice. 'And now you’re. . traveling.' She said the word as if it were something mildly distasteful.
And we’ll be needing horses,' O’Deoradhain broke in, leaning for-ward. 'Would you have two good steeds in your stable, or can someone in the village sell us the mounts? We’ll pay in hard coin.'
Tara shrugged, but Eli spoke up. 'We have one, sir-a roan mare that’s a good twelve hands high and strong,' he said. 'And One Hand Bailey has another he’s been talking of selling, a big brown gelding, past its prime but still healthy. He was asking half a morceint, and not getting it. He’d take less now, I’d wager.'
'He can have his half a morceint,' O’Deoradhain told him. 'And a morceint to you and your mam for the roan and livery for the two.
Here. .' O’Deoradhain opened his purse and took out two of the coins, flipping them to Eli. 'Go fetch the gelding and get them both ready for us, and you can have the other half morceint yourself.' Eli grinned; Tara’s eyebrows went up again.
'Aye!' Eli almost shouted. 'Give me a stripe; no, half a stripe,' he said and he was gone, running. Tara, after a few more minutes of conversation excused herself to go back into the kitchen. Erin the Healer left with another silent nod to Jenna. O’Deoradhain sipped his tea and leaned back in his chair. He whistled tunelessly.
'Horses?' Jenna asked.
'I didn't like the way those two strangers stared at us, like they were memorizing our faces,' O'Deoradhain answered. 'I didn't like the fact that they came up the High Road from the south, either. If they've been travel-ing through Gabair, then who knows what they've heard and what they realize? I want to get as far away from here as fast as possible.'
'So you're the little Rl here, eh?' She lowered her head in mocking subservience, then glared at him. 'And I must follow your orders.'
'I would point out that you made the decision to come here. I'm just making the decision as to how to leave. That seems fair enough.' He gave her that strange, lopsided smile of his. 'You know, I get the sense that you still don't like or trust me much.'
'I don't,' she told him. 'Either one. I want to go to Inish Thuaidh; you do also. Our paths just happen to lie together at the moment.'
'And when they don't?'
'When that happens, or if I decide I can't trust you, then we part.'
O'Deoradhain nodded. He took a hunk of bread and gnawed it thoughtfully. 'That seems fair enough, too,' he said.
Chapter 33: A Battle of Stones
THEY were three days out of Ballintubber, and it still seemed strange to both of them that they'd encountered very few people. Though the land at the northern borders of Tuath Gabair was sparsely populated and they were traveling overland rather than on the road, the area seemed oddly empty. Fields that should have been plowed by now were fallow, with weeds and grass growing up among the straggling clumps of wheat and barley. The day before, they'd passed near one village, and though they heard the sounds of children playing and saw several women work-ing the fields nearby, the only men they noticed were the old. O'Deoradhain turned grim at the sight.
'They’ve been sweeping the land, then, and pressing men into service. The Ris are strengthening their armies,' he’d said, and Jenna hadn’t wanted to believe him.
Now the proof lay before her.
They were walking through a wooded valley between two tall ridge lines. The trees thinned, and they came out into an open field where the hills swept wide apart in great curving arms.
A mound of raw new earth cut across their path, and the banner of Tuath Gabair flapped on a pole planted in the dirt. Jenna glanced at O’Deoradhain; his face was grim, and he pulled on the reins of his horse to Pass to the left of the mound.
He quickly brought his horse to a stop. 'By the Mother,' he breathed. Jenna came up alongside him. 'Gods,' she said. Her stomach jumped, and she tasted bile in her mouth.
They were on a slight rise. The full expanse of the field lay spread out before them: trampled, torn, and bloodied. Black flocks of carrion crows fought and scrabbled over the bodies of soldiers; feral dogs lifted their heads from gory feasts to glare suspiciously at them. Flies buzzed and whined through the air. The bodies, Jenna noted, all wore the blue and gold of Tuath Connachta. There were two more mounds on the field, and on each Gabair’s banner flew.
A few heads had been mounted on broken lances as a warning. O’Deoradhain rode his horse up to one of the trophies, the horse shying away from the smell of rotting meat and the crow-emptied eye sockets, and a cloud of flies rising from the face as O’Deoradhain leaned over from his saddle to peer at it. The jaw hung upon, the head gaping in eternal amaze-ment. 'A boy,' he said. 'No more than fifteen, I’ll wager, and a pressman in his Ri’s army. I’ll bet he told his mam he’d be back a hero.'
Jenna’s stomach turned again, and she leaned over, vomiting quickly. She hung onto the horse.
The wind shifted slightly, and the smell came to them: rotting, ripe flesh. The sweet sickly smell of death.
'Victory,' O’Deoradhain said mockingly. ' Tis a wonderful sight, don’t you think?'
Jenna wiped her mouth and nudged her horse
