The Exile (3 page)

Dian, Cormac's younger brother surprised them all, coming out of the mountains at a sprint to be crowned King of the Mountains. It was a brutal race across six miles of crofters' paths and dirt tracks through the wild country, across the fields of wheat and rye and up into the heather-purple mountains, taking in three peaks and traversing rugged mountaintops. Dian was smaller and lighter than the other boys, and though normally not as fast, the nature of the course made it perfect for his slight frame and long legs. He ate up the ground, leaving a blustering Cullen of the Wide Mouth in his wake.

Sláine ran, arms pumping, chest heaving, gasping for breath, his eyes fixed on Niall's back. His lungs were bursting and his legs burned like fire but somehow, no matter how hard he pushed himself, Niall always managed to stay a few feet ahead of him. He collapsed over the finish line in fourth place with Núada, Fionn and Cormac bringing up the rear. Sláine rolled over onto his back and looked up at the clouds. His chest heaved on deep dizzying breaths. He heard Cullen laughing but he didn't care. The day was far from over.

"Come on, son."

A face swam in front of his eyes, obscuring the sky. His mother, Macha, held a cup of water to his lips. He struggled to sit up, leaned on one elbow and drank thirstily. With the nimbus of sun and sky surrounding her head Macha could have been the Goddess herself. Her hair, black like a raven's and oiled, cascaded down her back. She was beautiful, but in a different way from the maiden he had seen all those months ago. She cradled him as he swallowed mouthful after mouthful of water.

"It was a good race, lad," his father said, coming up behind them. "That young Dian ran as if the spirit of the wind had taken hold of his legs. Unbelievable. There's no shame in losing to him. He's still light and small: built for speed. Your muscles have bulked up more; your frame is meant for explosive bursts of strength and power. The spear throwing'll be a different proposition entirely, lad. Technique and strength of arm will win it."

There was very little to separate the seven boys after the first three events. Cullen had won the caber toss, and come second in the other two events. Dian had won the mountain marathon but had not placed in either the caber or the clachneart. Sláine had won the clachneart, hurling the sixteen-pound stone eight feet further than Cullen of the Wide Mouth.

Sláine forced himself to his feet. He walked unsteadily over to Dian and slapped the youngster on the back.

"Good race," Dian said. He hardly looked winded. He was breathing lightly and grinning with the exhilaration of victory. Sláine couldn't help but grin along with him. Dian was the last boy that anyone would have expected to win an event, making his win all the sweeter for its surprise.

"Aye, not bad," Sláine agreed. "Nice to see Wide Mouth humbled, that's for sure."

"We aim to please. Another mile and it might have been a different story though."

"Good job there wasn't another mile, then, eh?"

They walked together to the rack of spears, picking out the weight and length that best suited their arm. Cullen was already there, putting himself through a series of warm-up exercises to work the kinks out of his shoulder muscles. Sláine mimicked some of the older boy's movements. He breathed deeply, drawing his focus into himself. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted by anything. His world narrowed down until it consisted of the spear in his hands and nothing more. Gobhan, a Red Branch warrior, acted as judge for the spear throwing. He heard the sharp intake of breath from the crowd as Cullen launched his spear and the appreciative sigh as it sailed through the sky. He didn't need to see the throw; he knew it was long. It didn't matter. He couldn't change what happened to Cullen's spear so there was no point worrying about it. Instead he concentrated on regulating his breathing, maintaining a shallow regular rhythm, and keeping his mind clear of everything except for the throw. Catcalls and appreciative claps rang out. It was a good throw. It only meant that his had to be better.

Cormac was up next, and again judging by the crowd's response, it was a good throw, although not as long as Cullen's.

Fionn's flew true, but Núada's and Dian's throws were greeted with little more than polite ripples of applause from the spectators.

Sláine stood and walked to his mark.

Gobhan said something - he wasn't listening. The world had ceased to exist. It all came down to his hand and the spear in it. In a few seconds even that would cease to be.

He scuffed his foot in the dirt, marking the point he wanted to launch off his lead foot and send the spear flying. He turned away from the run, looked up, feeling the wind on his face. It was slight, a cross-breeze blowing from left to right. It was fast enough to affect the throw if he launched the spear too high. He needed to throw flat and hard. He paced out nine steps - enough to lend the throw some momentum, not enough to tire his legs after the mountain run. He turned. Sláine closed his eyes, visualising the snap and throw before he made it: low, hard, bouncing and skimming across the grass, not stabbing into the earth abruptly. He nodded, rocked back on his heel, and started his short run. He almost missed his mark, forcing him to adjust his balance and throw all of his weight onto his front foot as he loosed the spear. He skidded as his footing betrayed him but it didn't matter, the spear was away. The power was all in the shoulder, the trick to beating the wind lay in keeping the spear-tip flat, that would negate the weapon's natural instinct to launch up into the sky and arc down sharply. He couldn't readjust his balance and ended up flat on his face in the mud. Gobhan's hand went up. The throw was good! It didn't matter that he had fallen; he hadn't crossed the mark. He lay there, watching the spear. It flew low and hard.

Cullen's laughter rang out harshly.

Sláine held his breath, silently urging the spear to fly.

And it did.

Cullen's laughter choked in his throat as he realised that, despite his fall, Sláine's spear was in danger of matching his own.

Cheers went up as spectators urged it on, yelling: "Fly! Fly!"

And it did.

He held his breath, trying to force it on with the sheer strength of his mind. His lips mouthed the beat of the crowd's invocation: Fly! Fly!

His eyes widened as he realised how close to perfect the throw was.

Sláine drew himself slowly to his knees, unable to take his eyes from the spear as it began to waver. He willed it on another precious foot.

The spear dipped sharply and stabbed into the dirt, quivering.

The cheers were deafening.

Sláine pushed himself to his feet.

He closed his eyes to savour the moment, knowing that he had outdistanced Cullen's spear by more than twenty paces. It wasn't just that the throw was good - it outdistanced even the best throws of the warriors. It was an incredible feat, one, most certainly that would draw the attention of Grudnew and the warriors of the Red Branch. It couldn't have been better. He held out his arms and spun in a slow circle, drinking in the crowd's adulation. He could lose the games now - it didn't matter how good Cullen of the Wide Mouth was, how many events he won. Nothing he could do would come close to matching Sláine's powerful throw, and judging by the look of seething hate on Wide Mouth's face both of them knew it.

To add insult to injury, Dian came running up and wrapped Sláine in a fierce embrace. Cormac and Fionn joined the bear hug, the four boys dancing and shouting and spinning around in a circle, unable to hide their delight. Núada and Niall bundled into them, sending all six of them sprawling across the floor, laughing and whooping and punching the air.

When Sláine looked up, King Grudnew was standing over them. "Graceful," the new king said with a wink and held out his hand to help him up.

"It was incredible," Dian blurted, unable to contain himself.

"That it was, young man; much like your triumph over the three peaks. The future of the tribe is in such good hands. There are good days ahead, but for now there is a tug-o-war waiting for you lads, is there not?"

The tug-o-war came down to Cullen and Sláine in the end. As with everything the boys did it was a close-run thing. They weren't evenly matched in terms of sheer brute strength and muscle, but with the adrenalin still surging through his body Sláine gave Wide Mouth the fight of his life. The rope straddled the river, a boy on either bank, heels dug in to the earth and stubbornly refusing to budge. Roth and Macha led the cheers for their son. Sláine's feat with the spear had won him a lot of support. To Sláine's ears it sounded as if no one was cheering for Cullen.

He wrapped the rope around his shoulder and looped it around his wrist.

The nature of the games changed. What had been healthy rivalry took on a darker edge.

Cullen didn't wait for the signal from Gorian, Warlord of the Red Branch. He pulled viciously on the rope, unbalancing Sláine a moment before Gorian's arm came down and the contest began in earnest. Sláine fought to regain his balance. The rope burned against his shoulder and hands, and his feet took him closer to the edge, slipping and sliding in the mud even as Wide Mouth's anger drove him on. Sláine found his footing and somehow managed to arrest his slide. He dug his heels in and clawed first one and then a second step back. With Cullen on the back foot the pull could have gone either way. Their faces betrayed the strain. Cullen grunted. Sláine growled. Cullen roared. Sláine howled. Neither gave an inch. Their arms trembled violently and the sweat stung as it ran into their eyes. Still neither Sláine nor Cullen gave an inch of ground up to the other.

Then, from somewhere, Cullen Wide Mouth found the strength he needed to up-end Sláine and dump him unceremoniously in the river.

The crowd applauded but it wasn't the wild adulation they had afforded Sláine. It burned him; that much was plain to see. Cullen turned his back and stalked off towards the wrestling circle for the final event. He didn't give Sláine's floundering a second glance.

Sláine swam to the bank. This time it was Fionn who offered him a hand to help him clamber out. All of the boys had taken a dunking during the tug-o-war. Dian sat huddled on a stone bench, wrapped in a fur and shivering. Núada and Niall flapped their arms and stamped their feet, trying to work the chill out of their bones. He saw some of the village girls clustered together, heads down and giggling as one of them turned quickly away from his gaze. Grinning, Sláine shook the river out of his hair. He unwound a leather thong from his wrist and bound his hair up in a long ponytail.

It all came down to the final event, the wrestling.

Sláine drew Dian to one side, away from the others.

"Paint me, like a demon."

Dian grinned. The boy's smile was infectious.

"Come on, quickly, before they notice we've gone!"

They ran back towards the village together. The first series of bouts would give them about quarter of an hour to craft their horrors on Sláine's skin. The warriors of the Sessair daubed themselves in woad before battle, depicting the very pits of the Underworld on their skin. The intention was to put the fear of devils into their foes. Dian was a deft artist; his brushstrokes were precise, his art haunting. He drew a spiral vortex across Sláine's left cheek and the face of some nameless demon in the centre of his brow, talons reaching down and digging in to either temple. The right cheek was transformed into an endless knot that curved away down his throat and across his chest. It lacked subtlety and finesse but it was impressive. The knot spread into a huge Celtic cross, and behind it Dian sketched a warped warrior in the full grip of a mighty spasm. As Sláine's chest rose and fell the warped one grew as if seething with earth power.

Fionn burst in on them and stopped dead in his tracks seeing Sláine, slowly rising to his full height. The effect of the woad tattoos was startling. He looked like something risen with vengeful fury from Cernunnos's underworld.

His knowing smile undid the illusion.

"They're waiting for you, you've drawn Wide Mouth and he's ranting about how it should be a forfeit because you aren't there."

"Well let's go put him out of his misery shall we?" Sláine said.

The three of them strode through the village and out to the tournament fields. Heads turned and seeing Sláine, eyes widened. He walked tall, proud, Fionn and Dian at his side. He ignored the whispers. His eyes sought out Cullen Wide Mouth, who could easily have been renamed Cullen Slack Jaw when he saw his opponent striding out of the crowd to face him.

Sláine didn't say a word.

He strode into the centre of the fighting circle, bowed to Brand, Wide Mouth's maternal uncle, who served as judge, and dropped into a tight crouch, circling, circling, lips curled back in a feral snarl.

Cullen stood on the edge of the circle, staring at the beast that was Sláine. He moved hesitantly, dropping into a crouch and scuffling forwards, fingers clawing at the dirt.

The pair circled each other warily, each weighing the other up, looking for a weakness. Sláine's bone-white grin was stark against the blue woad. He curled his lips back in a feral snarl and slapped his own face. Then he winked at Cullen, knowing that Wide Mouth's temper would get the better of him. It was almost too easy to goad him into losing his concentration.

Cullen slapped out at the side of Sláine's face but Sláine rolled around the blow, coming to his feet six feet from where he had been, and threw his head back, howling at the sun.

To a man, the spectators were silent. No one dared utter a word for fear of breaking the spell the combatants had cast over the scene. It was almost like watching a dance, such was the grace and fluidity of the boys as they feinted, blocked and rolled around blows, neither gaining the upper hand for more than a few seconds at a time.

Sláine reared up, luring Cullen in. Wide Mouth lunged, throwing himself forwards, off balance. Sláine drew in a huge breath, feeling the surge of earth power infusing his blood as he gave in to his anger. It gave him strength beyond anything he had ever felt in his life. When he came down on Wide Mouth's head it was with all the ferocity of a cudgel of stone, slamming both fists into the hard bone of Cullen's skull. The blow sent Wide Mouth reeling, spitting cracked and broken teeth as he tried to gather his wits about him. Wide Mouth struggled to get his legs under him. His left leg twitched uncontrollably. He was beaten, badly, but his body refused to lie down. All that remained was for Sláine to move in for the coup de gras. There was nothing pretty about it. He reached out, grabbing a handful of Cullen's hair and pulled him off balance. Brand moved to intercede but Sláine was determined to win, not be given victory. He spidered sideways, scuttling on all fours and keeping just beyond the judge's reach, forcing Brand to drop a strip of white cloth between Sláine and Cullen. The cloth signified the end of the fight.