King's Warrior (Renegade Lords Book 1) Read online

  King’s Warrior

  by Kris Kennedy

  http://kriskennedy.net

  © 2017 Kris Kennedy

  978-0-9971899-3-3

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  Cover image: Period Images

  Cover Design: Erin Dameron-Hill

  All rights reserved.

  KING’S WARRIOR © 2017 Kris Kennedy

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part or the whole of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or utilized (other than for reading by the intended reader) in ANY form (now known or hereafter invented, discovered or otherwise…you get it) without prior written permission by the author.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is not only illegal, it makes it difficult to make a living. This is my job, if I don’t get paid…I don’t get paid. Help an artist out-don’t file share. If you’re dying to read the book and can’t afford it, contact me, and we’ll work something out.

  KING’S WARRIOR is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and or are used fictitiously and solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental, or intended fictionally.

  On Pronouncing The Hero’s Name

  The hero’s name is Tadhg.

  It is pronounced /tie-g/ or /teɪɡ/, and has a ‘bend’ in the pronunciation, a little bubble inside that can get missed. Anglicizing Irish words always flattens out the interesting parts.

  If you’re curious for more, here’s a short article that details some of the history of the name & its pronunciation. He explains it this way: “The easiest way I can think of is to say the word tiger, and drop the 'er'.”

  Done.

  Here’s a link to an Irishman speaking it because…Irishmen speaking.

  Tadhg is the ancient Irish word for ‘poet.’

  This story is brought to you by:

  My family,

  who accepted barely-nutritious dinners, distracted love, and many hours of me sitting beside them on a couch, muttering, while hammering away at a keyboard as they talked to each other. They did this, as always, with tolerance, a sense of humor, and a whole lot of love.

  I love them back.

  My fellow-authors in the Captured by a Celtic Warrior anthology. King’s Warrior was originally written for the anthology, a collection of novellas featuring Irish & Scottish heroes, romantic abductions, and a jeweled dagger. The anthology is no longer available (barring infrequent flash sales) but King’s Warrior lives on. Note: it is no longer a novella, not even close. Enjoy.

  Author, friend, and critique partner Erin Quinn,

  who called me out every time this story fell down, which it did often. If you like King’s Warrior, it’s because of her.

  My fickle muse,

  who only showed up some of the time, but when she did, did so gloriously.

  Grim determination,

  for all the times the muse didn’t show up.

  2:00am,

  for being my witching hour.

  Men usually grow from being naught to be very naught, and from very naught to be stark naught, and then God sets them at nought forever.” –Thomas Brooks

  Prologue

  Renegades Cove, western edge of Britain

  1177

  “CHRIST ON THE CROSS, you saved our arses tonight, Tadhg.”

  Fifteen-year-old Irish renegade Tadhg O’Malley dropped his plunder atop all the other plunder as the revelry went on in the huge sea cave.

  “Didn’t particularly want to, Rowan,” he retorted. “But you had my share of the booty stuffed in your breeches.”

  The others exploded in laughter.

  They were a ragged bunch of Irish man-boys, to be sure. Long-haired, wearing leather jerkins and knee high boots, the three of them were barely a year older than Tadhg. But all of them were strapped with more blades than had been on their kinsmen who’d fought—and lost—against the English five years ago. All had the simple, compelling confidence of men who’d accomplished every deed they’d set out to do.

  All of them dark, clandestine, and highly lucrative.

  Golden-haired Rowan grinned at Tadhg and cupped his hands over his ample groin. “Aye, that’s where all the good stuff is,” he quipped, and the others roared in laughter again.

  Tadhg did not.

  A fire burned in the sandy clearing at the cave’s center, flanked by a handful of iron-banded chests, some half-tipped over in reckless abandon. A barrel of wine and one of ale sat on their sides, dripping from their spouts, well-tapped.

  Like pagan warriors, the other three spread out and settled in front of low fires and the long spill of moonlight that came down through the cave tunnel, before it opened into this main chamber, then ventured back into even deeper darkness. High-ceiling ventricles of stone opened off the main chamber, filled with eerie echoes that no one ever followed, save one, the tunnel that lead to the hot spring.

  His brothers in all but blood laughed and clashed their mugs together in triumphant, self-congratulatory celebration. Another night of spoils for these dispossessed heirs of once-great Irish families.

  Their leader, Fáelán mac Con Rardove, exiled princeling of the ancient Rardove tuatha, gave one of his rare, heartfelt grins, and gestured to the high black rock used alternately as table, dais, and outlaw throne.

  “It’s all yours tonight, little brother. We’d be dead if it were not for you.”

  Tadhg scoffed but moved deeper into the cave, which upon a time been their home, but in recent years had become storage bin more than lair. Over the last half decade, they’d acquired money, dark renown, and an apartment in the city where much of their business was now conducted, the hub from they executed all manner of dangerous, illicit, or outright illegal deeds for well-paying customers who preferred to remain anonymous. But they still came here at times, to retreat, to store booty, and occasionally, simply to remember.

  Once a band of noble exiles from Ireland, they were now a band of wealthy criminals. And none of them were over sixteen.

  Fáelán sat down beside the largest pile of booty and poured them all more drink, and they toasted again.

  Fáelán had had a price laid on his head five years ago when his father had lost his lands and titles, and he’d fled Ireland, followed by the sons of two other great Irish lords who’d also lost their lands and lives. It had been an exodus of young princely Irish blood, and the laments had been sung across Ireland.

  Tadhg came with them when they launched themselves into the sea. Followed his tuatha’s leader, Fáelán, followed him into exile. Followed, he thought, true greatness.

  In truth, they were all great. Fáelán, Máel, and Rowan, sons of noblemen and Irish princes, with lineages stretching back to the time of Brian Boru and further, into the mists of legend, to Cú Chulainn and the Red Branch warriors.

  All of them but him.

  Which is why he did not toast now. He did not toast, and he was not noble. Tadhg was cousin to Fáelán, but not of the Rardove derbfine, the four degrees of blood kinship to the king that allowed a man to rise to the head of the family and become chief. Tadhg could never become The Rardove. He could never be great. Whereas Fáelán was practically built for the role.

  As Tadhg passed deeper into the cave, Rowan thrust a mug of ale in his hands. It sloshed over the sides as he swung it up.

  “That was a close one, little brother,” Rowan said, lifting his brows and nodding toward dark-eyed Máel, who’d just ducked into the cave. “Another moment and he’d have been taken from u
s.”

  Tadhg shrugged. “Och, he’s too stubborn to die just because someone shoved a sword in his belly.”

  Rowan dropped onto a blanket, holding his mug high to keep the liquid from splashing out. “True enough. I tried shoving his head into a wall once and it didn’t change his mind on a single thing.”

  “It changed my mind about how hard you can shove,” Máel retorted, coming in and taking a mug from Fáelán as he passed.

  Rowan grinned. “Give me a pretty face and I’ll show you how hard I can shove.” He hooked Máel’s ankle as he strode by and yanked, toppling the older boy onto the sand beside him. Máel fell with a mild curse, punched Rowan in the stomach, then lifted his dripping mug into the air in Tadhg’s direction.

  “You did good, tighearna bó. My thanks.”

  Gratitude did not come easy to dark-eyed, dark-hearted Máel, and Tadhg should be happy, but the nickname stung, as it always did: Cow Lord.

  That was his only title.

  Bonded by their shared outrage, they had formed a pact the night they’d washed up on the shores of Renegades Cover, a brotherhood, these exiled lords and Tadhg. “To something else,” Fáelán had vowed.

  Tadhg had heard ‘to something greater.’

  But this, this was not great.

  Now the renegade princelings and one bastard were all on a level: common criminals. Outlaws. Renegades.

  Fáe sat beside the pile of golden booty, a boot up on it, the firelight reflecting ribbons of red and gold in his hard, laughing face as he polished and repolished the gleaming sword laying in his lap.

  How had it come to this?

  “And tomorrow’s take will be even larger,” Rowan predicted. “There’s the tourney, and Earl de le Mare, who needs to be reminded of his debts. Be lots of coin. And women.”

  “And fighting,” said Máel.

  Fáelán just smiled faintly and kept cleaning his blade.

  “Not for me,” Tadhg said, the words were thick in his mouth but he said them nonetheless.

  Rowan and Máel did not hear, but Fáelán turned to him, his smile fading. “What did you say, little brother?”

  It was their affection, their insult, their pleasure to call him that. But he was fifteen now. He was no longer little, and he was no longer theirs.

  “I’m leaving.”

  The other voices fell away as Máel and Rowan turned to him.

  “I am leaving,” he said again in the sudden silence.

  Tawny-haired Rowan, sprawled on an elbow a blanket on the sand, grinned up at him. “Leaving what?”

  “Leaving this” he said, slow and distinct. He dropped the pouch of his portion of the night’s bounty the sand, where it squatted like a turd.

  Máel took another swig of his drink, then threw it down on the floor of the cave. It hit with a wooden clatter.

  “I cannot do this anymore,” Tadhg said to their disbelieving silence.

  “What are you going to do instead?” Rowan asked, still grinning.

  He knew his answer would condemn him to Rowan, who knew nothing outside of this outlaw brotherhood.

  He gave it anyway. “Something…better.”

  Fáelán swung a leg over a bag of coin, still polishing his sword, a faint smile on his lips. “Time to find your fortune then?”

  Tadhg swallowed and shook his head, severing his ties with these men he’d fought with, bled with, cared for, and loved to the last.

  Rowan sat up straighter as his words sunk in. “What are you going to do instead?”

  “I have enough money to join the tourneys on the continent. I look old enough.” They were silent at that. No one handled a sword as Tadhg did, even at fifteen. He wasn’t as strong as he would be in years to come, but he had a warrior’s innate eye, the knowledge of a blade was in his body, in his heart.

  He could see it now. Knights in armor and ladies in fine gowns, banquets and shields and pennants, glory and honor. Honor and glory were the thing.

  “Tourneys? You, a great Irish knight?” Rowan threw his head back on an outright bellow of laughter, and even Máel smiled. Beneath the din of amusement, Fáelán smiled too, but it was cold. He looked at the sword he was polishing and gave it another wipe. “You’ll not find it, you know, Tadhg,” he said quietly.

  “Find what?”

  “What you’re looking for. It isn’t out here. What you want does not exist.”

  “What do I want?” Tadhg demanded coldly.

  Fáe shrugged, still looking down as he wiped his hand along his now gleaming sword. “Glory, great deeds, renown.”

  “It exists,” he retorted fiercely, because he desperately needed it to exist. He needed something that mattered to exist. Something uncorrupted by greed and dishonor. “At least, there has to be something better than this, for this,” he swept his hand around the cave, “is not greatness.”

  Fáelán followed the gesture and shrugged. “To some it is. ’Tis better than starving to death. Or licking the spittle off someone else’s boot.”

  “I will not lick spittle,” he said fiercely. “I will fight. There are great men, doing great things. I can do them too,” he explained swiftly, as if convincing them would make it so. “Someone will notice me.”

  Máel shook his head. “Who’s going to notice a little Irish nub like you?”

  “Maybe a king,” he snapped, then clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t meant to say it, but at least it stopped the laughter, cut it in half as if it had been cleaved by a hatchet.

  “The English king?” Máel said slowly. He was on his feet now, his starry-dark eyes cold and glittering on Tadhg, the younger ‘brother’ Máel had teased and taunted and taken under his wing, taught everything he could of warrior skills and stone cold fury.

  Half of it had taken.

  The other half stared at Tadhg now, bent and betrayed.

  Tadhg looked his dark-haired, dark-hearted brother in the eye and claimed his secret dream. “Aye. Mayhap.”

  Even the air felt the finality of Tadhg’s statement. The English king had stolen their lands, their titles, their lives. But Tadhg had none of that to steal. He was Irish, aye to the flesh and bone of him, but still, he’d seen the English king and understood what the others did not.

  That, that was greatness.

  This, this was depravity. And it was in him, would become him if he didn’t leave now.

  He was going to get far away from the blood of his past and the dirt on his hands and the mud in his soul, so far he’d forget where he came from.

  “How will you do this thing?” Rowan asked, still not believing. “The English king thinks the Irish are dogs to kick.”

  And living the way they did gave no one any reason to think different. But his brothers would never see it that way, so Tadhg bit hit tongue.

  “There are wars and lords seeking soldiers,” he said instead, with a shrug, as if his heart were not ripping open at the thought of life without these men who were his family. His broken, black-hearted family. “No one is better with a blade than I. Someone will notice me—”

  With a snap of his arm, Fáelán swiped his sword out and knocked the blade from Tadhg’s grip.

  It flew across the cave, clattering off the damp walls of the cave, then fell with a muted thud, landing almost silently on the sand.

  Tadhg stared down in disbelief. A thin ribbon of blood droplets rose up on the heel of his hand. He lifted his head, a lock of dirty hair falling across his face as stared at Fáelán, who met his gaze, cold and level.

  “There is always someone better than you, little brother. Of especial, when you’re bent on betraying them.”

  “How do I betray you by leaving?”

  “By leaving,” Máel rasped. Fáelán said nothing. Rowan stared in utter shock.

  “Then come with me,” he said hoarsely. “All of us, we can do great things—”

  Máel gave a bitter laugh and turned away.

  “I am doing something great,” Fáelán said quietly, sitting back, his
spine to the great black rock that rose like a pillar, a sacrificial table, near the wall of the high-ceilinged cave. “I’m making the English suffer, every day.”

  Fury in his blood, Tadhg gave a clipped nod and turned to sweep up a bundle of his things. Rowan got to his feet in stunned silence. Máel kept his back turned. Fáelán kept cleaning his sword.

  Tadhg threw a heavy cape over his shoulders, then looked down at it. Stolen too. With a growl of fury, he flung it off again.

  He reached for his pack, stuffed in whatever he could that had actually been purchased.

  Fáe gave another long wipe up his sword. “Careful what you wish for, tighearna bó. Kings and great men are perilous things. All great things fall.”

  “That is a lie. You fell.” Tadhg pulled the laces on his pack tight, swung it over his shoulder.

  “You’ll be back,” called Máel as he strode to the cave opening. Inky black night spread outside, filled with stars, beckoning him. He squared his shoulders. Fifteen was not too young to take on the night.

  “You were built for home, Tadhg,” Máel’s voice followed him out. “Of all of us, you are meant for it.”

  But they were wrong.

  He had no home. He needed no home. He was going to greatness and glory and grand adventures. His horizons were wide and bright and he felt as if he could see forever.

  Chapter One

  Fifteen years later

  January, 1193

  Saleté de Mer, Northern France

  “GOING HOME, then, are you?” the gnarled sea captain said, eyeing Tadhg warily in the dimming twilight.