The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One Read Online Free Page A

the ribs of the hull. For one frozen moment he hung over the stern in a cascade of foam, scream lost in the wind.
    Eremon pushed Cù away and launched himself across the oar benches, heedless of the men he was trampling. Conaire was already there, his great bulk steadying Aedan’s flailing body, and together he and Eremon fought the surge until the water surrendered the bard, and he collapsed at their feet. Panting, Conaire stared blankly through his dripping fringe, eyes fixed on a place over Eremon’s shoulder. Eremon took a breath and turned.
    The mast, weakened by the waves and wind, had finally cracked, and now leaned at a crazy angle, sail and ropes flapping uselessly. Eremon let the breath out in one long hiss of despair. When would it end? Then he looked past the shattered timbers to twenty pairs of eyes, all turned to him for guidance.
    At Rori on his oar bench, scarlet hair slick with water, chin thrust out manfully despite his quivering lip.
    At grey-eyed Aedan, who cradled his harp so carefully as he retched.
    At burly Finan, who had fought battles when Eremon was a baby at the teat, and who now clung fiercely to the tiller that had been abandoned by the cowering fisherman.
    Around Eremon huddled the rest of his warband. Some were young warriors with hero-light in their eyes, desperate to follow a prince to glory; and others, veterans like Finan, were loyal friends of his dead father, King Ferdiad of Dalriada.
    Though he was only one and twenty himself, they followed Eremon because they believed he could reclaim his father’s hall from his usurping uncle, a man who wrenched it from him by sword and betraying tongue. All Eremon had managed to salvage were these twenty men andsome jewels and weapons. They had barely escaped from Erin’s shores alive, in that last, surprise attack on the beach.
    And now death will claim us anyway …
    ‘We can’t keep this up!’ It was Conaire, yelling in his ear above the wind. ‘We have to hold, not row, or we’ll be food for fish by morning!’
    Eremon blinked rain away. Conaire spoke sense, but he knew that if they stopped rowing they could not keep head on to the waves, and would surely tip. Torn, he gnawed the tiny, puckered scar that worry had worn inside his lip. He must decide, and quickly.
    He reached out to grip Conaire’s shoulder, more for his own comfort. ‘We’ve fought plenty of battles, and this is no different!’ he cried. ‘I say we row!’
    Conaire’s face fell, but before he could answer, there came a hissing voice, and they both looked up to see a curling wave-crest begin its deadly descent towards them. They just caught the mast before it hit, and this time, when the spume cleared, it was Finan sprawled on his back.
    The tiller yawed, caught by a blast of wind, and as if waiting its chance, the sea grasped the boat and spun it wildly. They were wrenched side-on, and as the next wave swelled beneath them, the hull rose and tilted, until they were all staring into the black depths below. For an endless, sickening moment, the boat clung bravely to the wave shoulder, and every man aboard braced himself for the long fall, and the heart-stopping, icy splash.
    Then the wave released them, and the boat rolled down into the trough, upright again. Finan was on his feet before Eremon reached the stern, and between them they wrenched the tiller around, desperately turning the bow back into position.
    ‘Get to those oars!’ Eremon roared, chest pounding. The terror was so great that it immediately cleared the sickness, and he gave his belly no more thought. ‘Diarmuid, Fergus and Colum, keep bailing – everyone else row as if the hounds of the Otherworld are on your heels! To Alba!’
    Alba of the waves, of the moors, of the mountains. Though they had been blown north, not east, he knew his goal loomed somewhere near, just out of reach. But he could not spare any thought to what awaited them there.
    There was just the now: wind, black rain, and the hungry