“We’ve seen nothing like a tree of snakes,” Yoric said.
“Sure you’re lucky to see your hand in front of your face in this gloom. My mother and I will take a central grid before I fly south. If we manage no more than one or two, it’s still less to be done.”
And it all could be for nothing, Keegan thought as he and Tarryn walked through the wet. A story told by an old wizard to a young were-cat, long ago.
But he gave it three hours, then had a meal, as grown man or no, he found it difficult to refuse his mother.
On Cróga he flew north first, where the frigid air turned the wet into icy stones, and then to swirling snow. In the high peaks that speared up along the thrashing sea, he dismounted in snow that reached the tops of his boots.
The portal here opened to a world he’d visited once, and briefly, as he found its reliance on machines, its lack of interaction among its residents, inhospitable.
As no other portals had been found or recorded in that world, he thought it unlikely to impossible Odran could come through this way.
Still, he had six guards on duty.
A fire blazed on a wide, flat rock, and the wave of heat from it almost thawed his frozen bones. Snow fell in thick, fat flakes, and the wind tossed them where it willed.
If the rain had been a misery, he thought, this was brutality.
And yet Hugh, whom Keegan put in charge of the day duties, greeted him with a rosy-cheeked smile.
“A fine day in the high country.”
“Every arse within five miles is frozen solid,” Keegan tossed back.
“Ah, sure and a northman’s blood runs too thick and hot for that. All’s well here. One of us slips in and out every hour as you ordered. They’re no more interested in us on the other side than we are in them.”
“Stand on then, Hugh.”
“So we will. I’m grateful for the service here, as my home is just … well, you can’t see through the snow, but it’s just down in the foothills. So I’ll see my lady and our babe when we rotate.”
“May your lady keep you warm through the night,” Keegan said as he mounted Cróga.
“That she will.”
He crisscrossed Talamh on his way south, stopping at every portal. He flew out of the snow and brittle cold—thank the gods—into more rain, an all-too-brief moment of sun, and the smoky fog that followed it.
He stopped in fields, in forests, by the banks of a lake called Lough Beag for its small size.
When he soared over the valley, he took Cróga down at the farm, where the rain had slowed to a drizzle and the sun pulsed weakly against the stacked gray clouds.
He found Harken in the barn sharpening plowshares. Other tools, including three swords, lay already keen on the worktable.
“It’s cold as a dead man’s arse in the north, wet as a drowned rat in the east. And you couldn’t cut the gloom with an axe over the far midlands.”
“Warm and dry enough in here.”
Keegan took the kettle from the squat stove, poured the hot water through a strainer of strong tea leaves.
“Do you want a meal?” Harken asked him when Keegan sat on the top of a barrel.
“Thanks, no. Our mother nagged me into eating before I left the Capital. I’ve only got a short time, but wanted to check with you before I go on.”
“Quiet. I saw Brian when he came through, and he says Breen and Marco will stay on the other side today until they’re needed. They both have work there.”
“Just as well for that.”
In steady strokes, with sure, patient hands, Harken continued to run the blade over the whetstone. “I can feel you poking at me. I know where I’m needed, Keegan, as I’ve told you before. That’s here. If you need me somewhere else, you’ll say.”
“And you’ll go.” Keegan took a long drink, felt the warmth spread that was as much home as a hot drink and a fire. “I had a lot of time to think—you’ll have it when you’re flying through fucking blizzards and downpours and buckets of bloody hail.”
Harken grinned as he worked. “The luxury and glamour of the taoiseach.”
“Bloody bollocks on that. I know there are many who would give all, who do give, and they’re valued for it, every one. But it’s family, Harken, that holds me up. You and Aisling, Mahon, the boys, Ma. Knowing I can go to any of you. This place. I don’t work it like you, but I need it like you.”
“I know it.” Harken lifted his gaze as he worked, met Keegan’s. “I don’t lead like you, mo deartháir, but I need to know you hold the sword and the staff. It holds me up knowing it.”