Chapter 30 #2
Something had been nagging at éadha since picking up the threads from the Fodder wagon, some familiar sensation.
As Senan flew into position above her, she bent again toward the threads, held loosely in her mind until they were needed.
She fingered through them like beads on a string, holding and testing them, seeing if she could catch at that sensation again.
At the last thread, the weakest of those she’d chosen, she felt it again.
Bending all her concentration toward that weak signal, it came to her.
It was Seoda, there in the Fodder wagon.
Her thread was almost unrecognizable but unmistakably hers.
éadha’s heart caught. She hadn’t thought Seoda, as a presentable, would be sent out in a Fodder wagon.
She immediately blocked her thread so Senan couldn’t draw hard on it, substituting as much of her own power as she could instead.
Above them Master Joen sent a gout of flame roaring from the dragon illusion.
It plummeted toward the waiting Channellers.
On Linn’s signal the net of power sprang into life, shining dimly in the winter sunlight.
The dragon flew into the net, its wings becoming briefly entangled, its progress slowed.
It roared and flamed all around it, so the Channellers had to break away or be burned.
Several strings snapped as they flew, enough so the dragon could gather speed once more.
Senan came flying in from behind, staff raised, pulling a huge surge of strength from the threads held by éadha for a concentrated bolt of deadly power, but the dragon was pulling away too quickly, and his bolt shot harmlessly through where the illusion had been seconds before, to land with a splash in the waters beyond the combat ground.
Master Joen was normally kinder than that, letting the apprentices score hits on his illusion if the shot was good, but clearly Ionáin wasn’t inclined to let his classmates, and especially Senan, win any easy victories over his dragon.
The hunt was on then, the apprentices galvanized by the challenge, quickly realizing Ionáin was taking them on.
Senan hurled himself into the fray, drawing gulps of power through éadha.
He was drawing so ferociously she was hard-pressed to manage the flows between the remaining threads, all of which quickly came under strain.
All the while she was watching Seoda’s thread, seeing it weaken further.
Her block on Senan’s channel was sparing her the worst of it, but she was still fading further and further, her line hardly visible in the sunlight glittering on the waves in front of them.
She squinted up at where Senan was holding position, waiting for the dragon to come back around.
The Fodder wagon as a whole was dangerously low in strength.
Ordinarily he’d be the first to call for a pause to bring out fresh Fodder, always greedy for as much power as possible.
As she shaded her eyes, she saw him look down at her, a focused expression in his eyes.
The next moment her knees buckled as he pulled power savagely out of her and the Fodder.
And she knew that this vicious draining of the Fodder was all entirely deliberate—his parting gift to her.
She panicked then, reaching down within herself to try to find more reserves of power.
But her own strength was running down too fast now, trying to cover Seoda and the other threads from Senan’s clawing, relentless demands.
Her legs began to tremble, and dark smudges appeared in front of her eyes.
Shaking her head, she tried to force herself to concentrate harder, to keep shielding Seoda, but she was weakening dangerously with each vicious draw from Senan.
Head Keeper Maebh saw nothing, preoccupied by her own work keeping Master Joen supplied with power for his illusion, caught up in the excitement and beauty of the pretend combat that was playing out in a fiery dance above them as the apprentices traded bolt for flame and the illusion-dragon wove in and out between the massed Channellers, its wings torn but still aloft and coming back to fight on.
Meanwhile, the real, invisible battle between éadha and Senan for the life of a Fodder girl stretched and stretched like a rope pulled ever more taut.
éadha grew more and more dizzy, struggling to focus on the lines she was defending with her very life.
No longer able to stay on her feet, she fell to her knees on the ground, her hands thudding down, her head hanging, the world darkening around her.
Every scrap, every hidden pulse in every nerve she sent up that silver line.
Still Senan hauled, savagely, mercilessly, until at last éadha had nothing left.
She toppled over, darkness rising to greet her.
As she faded out, she felt something snap, a tight-drawn hawser cut loose and whipping, for a moment flying free as if filled with life, before falling limp.
And she knew Seoda was dead.
éadha lay almost unconscious on the ground like a swimmer underwater, able to dimly hear the sounds in the air above her.
She wanted to stay like this, but she felt her silver fish nudging, pushing her back to the surface.
Stiffly, reluctantly, she swam back up to unwelcome consciousness.
At éadha’s fall, Senan’s thread had broken too.
Seeing this, Maebh had stepped in to keep for Senan so he could land safely.
Above them the dragon winked out of existence, the only trace it’d ever existed the fireballs that raced on through the empty air, the hissing as they splashed into the waves suddenly loud in the silence.
All of them had sensed the fragile thread snapping out of existence.
It was the first Fodder killing for the class.
The Channellers flew back to the ground, the Keepers barely remembering to hold the threads that let them descend.
Ionáin and Linn ran over to the group gathered beside éadha.
Her heart had resumed its normal work pumping life around her body, but she couldn’t move yet.
Senan came down last, talking loudly as he landed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I didn’t touch her, just the Fodder. Really bad-quality stuff we had today too—that last one had hardly anything in it.”
“Thank you, Lord Senan, that’s enough,” said Master Joen, guiding the group away from the wagon and back toward the House.
“All of you, in the light of this interruption, we’ll continue back in the combat room. Be prepared to answer questions on the flight path and dragon characteristics when we resume.”
Turning to éadha, still prone on the ground, Master Joen continued, “Keeper éadha, you know that in the event of a Fodder wagon expiration, it is the responsible Keeper’s duty to dispose of the remains and look to the remaining Fodder.
You will observe this duty. It will be good preparation for your Westport posting.
The soil here is too shallow for a grave, but there’s a boat on the shore.
Row out an appropriate distance, and use stones to weigh down the body. ”
As the class began to move away, éadha levered herself up to a sitting position. “Why did you do it?” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
“What?” asked Master Joen.
“Why did you do it?” she asked again, louder. Senan was walking straight ahead, not looking back, already some way away from the killing field. She pulled herself to her feet and screamed after his retreating back, “Why did you do it?”
Senan looked back then but only to roll his eyes at Maebh. “Control her before she gets into real trouble.”
Maebh took her arm then. “Keeper éadha, you don’t speak to a Channeller like that. Get to the wagon, see to the disposal. That is all.”