The Exile Read Free Page A

in the coming games.
    No warrior wanted to be humiliated before the new king.
    The children's games were no less competitive, and the young men of the tribe no less eager to prove themselves in the eyes of the men. The games were a trial, a trial of strength, of guile, of technique, and, as with their fathers' games, only the most exceptional of the youths could hope to triumph.
    "If that is the best you can manage, Sláine Mac Roth, you might as well stay in bed come games day!" Cullen of the Wide Mouth sneered. His own spear had fallen six inches closer to the mark than Sláine's, just as his clachneart had sailed another foot before the stone embedded itself in the dirt, and his caber turned a degree closer to true. Núada and Cormac had yet to throw but it didn't matter, neither could hope to match Cullen's spear for distance or accuracy.
    They didn't. Núada's landed a full fifteen feet shy of Sláine's mark. Cormac's was closer, but not by much.
    Sláine trudged up to reclaim his spear.
    He dragged his feet.
    He wasn't used to being second best.
    "Another throw?" he asked, working his spear free.
    "Why bother? We all know how it will end." Cullen held his hands up, fingers just wide enough apart to signify the shortfall between their spears. "Or do you enjoy losing?"
    Cullen of the Wide Mouth had been swaggering around the settlement for weeks, boasting about how he would walk the path of heroes and be crowned champion of the games just as his father would emerge victorious in the senior tournament. Sláine was loath to admit it and with good reason. Cullen was almost a full year older than Sláine and the other lads. This made him a step faster and stronger, and he already had the endurance of men twice his age. He was also every bit as cunning and ruthless as a weasel. Few doubted he would follow his father into the Red Branch when the time of the choosing came.
    For all that, his talent hadn't earned him any friends. Cullen was a dour spirit who solved his problems with his fists. He saw little joy in life outside fighting. He was a natural bully and saw his strength as proof of his divine right to make life a living hell for anyone who couldn't stand up to him. Of all the young men of the tribe Cullen of the Wide Mouth was the one Sláine Mac Roth had least time for.
    Sláine saw Wide Mouth for what he was: a bully, a liar and a cheat.
    That was how he had earned his name.
    Fionn had caught him out in a series of vile lies involving his younger sister, Elspet, and made sure that everyone knew exactly what kind of a gutless liar Cullen was. Cullen had blackened Fionn's eye for it but it didn't matter. The name stuck because Cullen was incapable of giving an honest answer; his mouth was so wide he couldn't even speak straight, that's what Fionn said. In the eyes of the Sessair Cullen would be a man soon, but he would not be known as a good one.
    These would be his last junior games - and a new king would be watching.
    Sláine wanted nothing more than to humble the wide-mouthed braggart. Nothing would give him more pleasure.
    "I'm done here. I'll let you have a taste of victory, Sláine. Even you ought to be able to outdistance these losers."
    A murder of crows flew in a thick bank of black overhead, circling over the rooftops of the village while the boys threw again. Sláine hurled his spear a full six feet beyond the scar in the earth that marked where Wide Mouth's spear had fallen. There was no satisfaction in it. Cullen wasn't there to see it. Sláine collected his spear and threw again, and again, both times surpassing Cullen's last throw.
     
    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