Free The Exile by Steven Savile Page B

Goddess."
    "Oh my sweet beautiful Sláine, that wasn't the Goddess. That was Niamh," Brighid said, the amusement gone from her voice. The darkness couldn't hide her sadness as she spoke.
    "Heaven?" Sláine asked, misunderstanding. Niamh was the old world for heaven.
    "Grudnew's chosen bride. She was raised by women in Rath Grainne, I think, and brought to camp not three moons since. No man has ever seen her. No man will until she is wed to the king. There is to be a huge ceremony."
    "I have seen her," Sláine said simply.
    "And you must never see her again, my beautiful boy. To do so can only bring you pain. Promise me, you will never see her again." She leaned over him. "Promise me, Sláine."
    He made the promise, but like so many midnight promises shared between lovers it was made to be broken.

Five
     
    Warrior's Dawn
     
    It was Dian's idea to repeat the poison oak gag on an unsuspecting Cullen, smearing the prickly herb inside his breeches while he slept and then delighting in Wide Mouth's discomfort as he itched and scratched his way through the best part of the day.
    Sláine made the mistake of laughing as Cullen rooted around in his crotch trying to ease the poison oak's sting.
    "You're hopping around like a whore in heat, Wide Mouth. You got some little love bug you didn't think of mentioning when you were getting deloused by the druids last week?"
    "Shut up, Sláine. I know it was you. I'll make you pay for this you miserable sack of shit. You mark my words."
    "Trembling in my boots."
    Today was the day their training began in earnest. The past few months since having taken the Red Branch had been spent on exercises aimed at working on general fitness and stamina. Gorian drove them hard, pushing the boys beyond the limits of endurance to the point where mind and body wanted nothing more than to break. Then still he goaded them into doing more.
    The drills were repetitive, running, lifting, carrying, running, lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying and running some more.
    Over and over and over again.
    From sun up every day for the last week they had laboured on the new roundhouse, building muscle by lifting huge blocks of stone and carrying them into place for the masons to lay into the complicated mesh they were constructing. The physical labour was a welcome change from the endless running.
    It was all about turning the soft flesh of youth into the iron muscles of a fighter. They hadn't lifted a weapon since being sworn into the warrior's sect.
    "Just shut up." Something in the way he said it made Sláine do just that.
    It had been raining the night before. The soil was still damp underfoot.
    Murdo, Gorian's youngest brother strode towards them carrying three tathlum.
    Sláine walked away to a tear in the ground where the clay was exposed, wet his hands on the damp grass and scooped out a handful of red clay. He worked the clay into a paste and smeared it into his hair, working it up into red spikes.
    "You look like a fool!" Cullen sneered, but that didn't prevent him from walking over to the same tear and spiking his own hair with red clay.
    "You boys look like real Red Branchers now," Murdo said, kindly. "Just like your father's in the grip of a mighty warp-spasm."
    "Not that Bellyshaker ever had a spasm that wasn't brought on by the beer," Wide Mouth muttered.
    "Enough of that, Wide Mouth," Murdo said, tossing the young warrior one of the three tathlum. He handed the second to Sláine. Each tathlum consisted of two balls joined by a leather tie. "You know what these are made of?"
    "Stone," Sláine said, stating what he thought was the obvious.
    "No," Murdo said. "Brains mixed with blood and lime to make 'em set hard. We favour the brains of our enemies."
    "Better than our own brains," Cullen agreed.
    "Now then, see that tree over there?" The offending oak was more than sixty feet away. "Watch and learn, boys. Watch and learn." Murdo whipped the tathlum around in a vicious arc above his head, once, twice, and on the