The Exile Read Online Free Page A

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,