“Well, when there’s time—”

“—In the sins of weak Mankind. That I find it is too much to ask—”

“Ancellius, will you—?”

.. “—I’m not worthy of that, but to be allowed the chance to seek it, perhaps point the way—”

“—Will you get up off your silly knees?” I hauled him up, his eyes still glazed with holy intoxication. “Yes, you Gallic monster. Yes. you can find their Grail and build a church to house it, but now we have to go!”

I released him and sank down by the water to drink and wash my face. Geraint gathered his sister and Lancelot into his arms, beaming.

“That’s well,” he said. “A sovereign must think of God as well as his throne, and you will be known as the king in whose reign the Grail was found.”

“Hurrah,” I spluttered, slurping water. “Now let’s ride.”

174

Firelord

Eleyne was radiant; her happiness encompassed Lancelot, her impossible Grail dream and myself, never knowing her man of sufficient grace would always love another woman simply because she was unobtainable. We play very dangerous games with life and no one knows our rules. “Bless you,” she whispered.

“Oh, hell.” I swabbed water about my face and neck, rolling over to grin up at them. “You’re all demented, you know that? Nattering on about Grails when there’s—”

That was the picture of us when it happened, Geraint with his arms about Lancelot and Eleyne, myself on the ground, a bird singing somewhere. I saw the sudden flash of sunlight on armor through the trees. Not far across the meadow, not far enough to give us any time. “Look out!”

Geraint and Lancelot lost a precious second shoving Eleyne behind a tree. I ran for the untethered horses, grabbed the two closest and swung them broadside to impede the four riders plunging down on us with swords raised.

It worked partially, gave the others time. Three of the riders veered left and right, but the damned stupid horses just walked out of the way of the fourth man, who came straight on at me. My heel caught on a half-buried root. I went over backward, already seeing myself dead as the horse and rider grew larger, the biggest, loudest tilings in the world coming to mash me flat. But even as 1 unfroze and tried to move, a form leaped between me and the coming death, a form with a sword in its hand. Lancelot—oh, beautiful to see him in that split second. With a mere two yards between us and the horse, he thrust forward both arms full extended with the sword. The horse took it square in its chest to the hilt. The animal made an indescribable sound, reared perpendicular and sent the unbalanced rider flying over its rump.

No time at all to think. 1 freed my sword, seeing Eleyne streak toward Lancelot—Christ, what’s she doing?—as a second rider plunged at him. The two swords clanged together, Lancelot’s parry a streak df light before it flashed home. Wounded, the rider reared his horse, the hoofs lashing out like weapons. Lancelot went down, the full, falling weight of the horse slamming against his chest, and then I had to guard myself against another of

diem. I caught the flash of helmet, a swinging sword and the mad

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eyes of the horse before dodging clear, parrying and slashing viciously to hamstring the mount as it passed.

Geraint’s howl of battle joy rose over the sunlit carnage. Another horse passed me, the rider comically stiff and sedate in the saddle, the headless neck a red geyser. My own adversary wheeled, the horse clumsy with its leg wound, unable to respond. The man slid quickly from the saddle, tall with blond hair wisping out around his cone helmet.

“Now, Pendragon!”

He was quick and long-armed, wielding the sword two-handed in a slanting overhand attack, the hardest to block. 1 met him hilt to hilt and kicked him hard in the groin.

His eyes went dull with shock before he fell and I pinned him to the ground. Then, too late, I saw the swift shadow moving in behind me, wheeled and brought up the blade too late before the world stopped—

—And jerked into horrible life again with the taste of blood in my mouth and jagged points of light needling my eyes. I blinked up at the faces that circled over me, made out Bedivere, Gareth and Kay. Geraint was at my shoulder, helping me sit up. My whole face felt stiff. A mirror would have showed a badger mask of blood dried on both sides of my nose from the long shallow gash across my scalp.

“I thought you were gone.” Geraint fussed tenderly over me. “But never did 1 see a hand so quick. Coming to take the pig off your back and knowing I’d never reach him in time, and his blade that close to cleaving your skull. And you stopped him.”

He looked up at the other men as if they would argue with him. “Did I not see it myself? Parried so close his sword was flat against his own head. But just enough, thank all angels. The next trice I sent the back-stabber to heaven or hell, whichever fancies him.”

I croaked at him, “Are you all right?”

“In the hand of Christ like my sister, and she’s fresh as brook water. But the Lancelot’s hurt.”

I spat bits of dried blood. “Who were they?”

Bedivere surveyed the four bodies laid neatly in a row. “Marcus’ men by the look of it. Damn it, Artos, when will you learn? Every time you leave me behind, you get hurt. I was always the better sword, you said that yourself. You need me with you.”

“The sight of you’s enough to make a man weep,” said Kay. “But there’s not much time. Can you ride, brother?”

“Come to get me, they did,” Geraint muttered savagely.

176

Firelord

“Oh, Marcus, you devil. Damn if we should not gut this land one end to the other to show who has the right of it.”

‘*Let me up,” I croaked.

Geraint tried to restrain me. “Lie back, rest.”

“Let me up.”

I pushed him away, scrabbling up awkward as a doll, head throbbing from the wound in my scalp. The matted hair lay thick and stiff over my caked forehead. Lancelot lay with his head in Eleyne’s lap. When I came near she bent over him, protective and fierce.

“I will tend him.” She was trembling. “No one but me.”

“How bad? Where’s he hurt?”

She stroked his hair. “Where not, and himself crushed in the saving of your life. He will not rise this month, look you, and only I will tend him.” Her eyes blazed with cold murder. “We killed that dog before he fell. Lancelot and I, myself clawing at the villain’s eyes and wishing they were Mark’s.”

“You must take him home with you, Eleyne. Back to Astolat.”

Lancelot’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused and expressionless. “Arthur …”

“Don’t talk.” I bent close to him. “We’re all safe.”

He tried to smile. “You don’t look it.”

“Thanks to you.”

“I think I can ride, but it must be slowly.”

“You dear, damned fool, the only thing you’re going to ride is a bed. Go home with Eleyne, Ancellius. Find her Grail.”

Find peace, I meant. Something you can have and not just yearn for, something clean that doesn’t smell of blood and the dirty little games princes play. You are not for that.

“That might be best,” he admitted. “It’s hard to move.”

“The gods bless you, Ancellius.”

“I’ll come back,” he promised.

“Only when you’re well.”

I took Eleyne’s hand. “Lady, please. I … Please take care of him.”

“I must,” she said softly. “For such men come once only in the world.”

The sun shone on the meadow. Birds sang, the horses shied and snuffled. My men stood waiting on me—always on me: the choice of Merlin or ambition or fate, who knows.

And who cared?

The men would wait on me while flies buzzed over Britain. Dead men, dead children, all to make a country and secure a

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crown, and I thought: I’m twenty-three and I feel old. But I’m going to be king.

How long ago that first sight of Ambrosius’ cohort seen from a Severn hill with Kay and Bedivere, the boy-wish and the vision of Merlin. We’d come a way since then, all of us. The battles fought, the women loved, the honors and the prides and the banners. And the learning that this was how it was done, not with honor but betrayal, not flags but flies.

Let it be. For a time I’d questioned fate, wanted this, wanted that. But let it be. No more questions. Right, wrong, I accepted the burden, took it up on my shoulder-to make a world as Ambrosius did.

The realization built and throbbed with the wound in my head. There would be no choosing of a king. I would take the sword because I was the best. Me, not Marcus who turned aside viciously to crush one small rebel. Not Cador with his balances of power and clever games. Not the myriad littler men in their narrow pride. Britain was one great body that breathed and felt and suffered, one hand needing only another to hold and lead it.

Bedivere winced as I lurched up, a gargoyle of matted hair and blood like a ravaged peasant. No better symbol for this ravaged land. 1 would go to Kaelcacaestir—blood, pain and all—to finish the job for Ambrosius.

And nobody would stop me.

I raised my sword over the bodies of Marcus’ men. One was headless already. I worked with demon ferocity until four heads lay at my feet.

“Kay! Bedivere! Gareth! Geraint! Each of you will ride behind me with one of these heads on your lance. We don’t ask for the crown, we don’t wait to be chosen. We take it. Do you understand?”

Bedivere hauled the lance from his saddle straps and speared a head on it. “Give the order, Artos-bach.”

“We ride to Kaelcacaestir, and nothing stops us. Whatever’s in the way, whoever raises sword against us, we ride through or over them. We stop for nothing today. Not today, do you hear me? Nothing!”

Geraint thrust his lance into the gored base of another head, lifting it high. “For God and Arthur!”

“God and Arthur!” my men echoed as I faced them, shaking with the passion of determination. My voice was harsh as a vengeful crow’s.

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“We take the crown, we take the imperial sword. And good or bad’s for later to decide, God damn it, but we will ruler” “God and Arthur!” “Geraint, leave some men with your sister. The rest of you,