The moor scavengers were descending just beyond the next hill. I shot up my arm for a halt and signaled Gareth to me, studying the ground to the west and north. There was the familiar hill of the fires crowned with its ancient stone circle where I went home to fhain. Camlann lay just beyond the next hill. Agrivaine must be there, halted still, though that was hard to

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believe. The gathering crows indicated a different possibility. I wheeled my arm overhead, one hand over my mouth, the cotnbrogi signal for quiet, as Gareth reined in by me.

“Lord Gareth, who is your best scout?”

Without a pause, “Myself, sir.”

“But among the younger men.”

The question gave him some umbrage and Gareth let me know it. “Well, if it’s a novice you want, high king, there’s a glimmer of talent in Culwych/’

“Send him forward. And don’t sulk, Gareth-fach. You’re lord-milite now and much too important to go poking around alone.”

Young Culwych was a Grail knight like Bors; his shield was already blazoned with the cup symbol in one corner. He carried it proudly and always turned it so that a newcomer or someone who didn’t know him couldn’t help noticing the golden cup.

“Go forward,” I instructed him. “Around the hill to the north, not over it. Take a look without being seen.”

We waited then in the dusty, fly-buzzing heat, no one talking. The south wind dropped to nothing. The air sweltered. When a freshet of breeze sprang up for a moment from the northwest, my horse tossed his head nervously and snorted. I didn’t try to quiet him. He was my guide now. When the breeze came again, I smelled it myself.

“Gareth, alert the men. Stay silent, ready to move quickly. There’s something besides Agrivaine out there.”

We waited. Bedivere trickled a few drops from the water bag over his sweaty red face, rubbing it in. “What’s keeping Culwych?”

I was still tasting the air for the fliain-scent. There it was again: wild garlic. Prydn ponies fed on it.

Bedivere pointed. “There he is.”

At the top of the hill in front of us, Culwych sat his horse at ease, waving us on. He pointed urgently beyond it and waved again. I started to signal the column forward when something—I don’t know what—said no. With a wary glance at the hill of the fires, I motioned Gareth to me.

“You’re in command. Seems clear ahead, but Bedivere and I will go up for a look. Watch that hill to the northwest, the Prydn may be there. And send me Dafydd.”

Culwych waved us on again. When I trotted forward with Bedivere and Dafydd, he turned and disappeared down the opposite slope.

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Bedivere was a little in the lead when we topped the hill. He reined in sharp. “Jesus!”

Dafydd set an arrow to his bow, trying to look everywhere at once. I was right. Agrivaine had chanced a brief rest here, just long enough to dismount and breathe. It must have been a slaughter swift as Gawain’s. The men lay scattered from the base of the hill over a hundred yards. A few might have escaped but no more. Far out on the moor, three horses staggered clumsily about, dragging the weight of men who’d made it as far as the stirrup.

We couldn’t feel sorry for them, the justice was too poetic. Still 1 wondered at the awesome efficiency of the attack. Such a tiling must be done quickly. Men don’t just stand still waiting to be targets. Dafydd instructed me tersely.

“Done it myself, sir. A hundred bows massed, one man forward to sight. Second flight ready while the first’s still falling. If the men know their craft … and these did.”

No other explanation for what we saw. The archers hidden, perhaps behind this slope, bows angled up, loosing in a deadly rush, the next in flight while the first is striking. Perhaps a few lucky men escaping, and then the eager crows, resentful now of Culwych dismounted and stalking among them. ,

“North, Artos. There!”

I followed Bedivere’s point. The line of small riders dashed out from around the north slope of Cnoch-nan-ainneal, a hundred and more, streaking away to the east. Modred’s first mistake. He could hide from combrogi but he couldn’t outrun them on open ground.

“Garcth!”

He saw them too. His head swerved to me.

‘ ‘After them!”

A sweep of arm, and the column shot out in a galloping arc to overtake the Faerie.

“I’m sorry,” I said to my son and the men of my blood. “I didn’t want this, but it has to be.”

The distant figure of Culwych pointed urgently to something on the ground. I wondered if I should take the time.

Yes. Gareth could catch them, and rather him than me. I had to know Agrivaine was dead.

“A few paces behind, Davy, and keep that bow nocked.”

We started down the slope, raising a cloud of crows at the bottom. They flapped away to settle again at a distance, waiting.

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“Culwych should stay mounted,” Bedivere worried. “They could still be watching.”

Our horses threaded through the arrow-pinned bodies toward Culwych, who waited some distance beyond. I paused by the red mound he’d pointed to. Only by the shield blazon could I recognize it as Agrivaine. Cumaill would want that for Gawain’s widow.

“Don’t get down,” Bedivere warned.

“I just want the shield.”

As 1 hooked it to my saddle,! saw Culwych bend and retrieve a bow at his feet and called to him, “Ay, who dropped that now?”

Still looking away across the moor, Culwych fitted the shaft. “None.”

He swung around in a fluid motion, drawing the bow. In the flash of realization before the arrow hit me, I saw the changeling’s face. Tall as Culwych, able to fool us in the mail, but the cheeks were darkened with years of weather and scarred as mine.

“Did make it, Belrix.”

1 stumbled backward with the shaft deep in my gut, jolting in a grotesque dance as the second arrow hit me in the back. Shock before the pain, and through its glaze, I saw it all happen at once. Dafydd bent and loosed on the changeling, the arrow finding its mark in the sun-browned throat, Bedivere off his horse and at my side to cover me with his own body. When the arrow hit him, Bedivere went taut with the shock, grabbing at me. The whine of another shaft and Dafydd’s cry of pain.

“Down,” I hissed to Bedivere. “Down and still.”

We collapsed together in a bleeding, shaken huddle. I felt the warm stickiness under my mail and clothes. “Down, Davy, it’s our only chance.”

The startled crows settled down again while the heart-thudding seconds passed with no sound but our ragged breathing. Bedivere lay with his face close to mine, the arrow protruding from his left shoulder. It was painful—he panted with it—but not as deep as the two in me.

“Bad, Artos?”

“Worse. Don’t move. Davy, are you hurt?”

“S-summ’at,” he wheezed. “M’leg. How is it with you, sir?” :

“Managing.” What else to say with one arrow in rny vitals and another in my back? I was beginning to die, but fought to

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stay conscious, willed myself not to writhe with the pain settling into a steady throb.

Bedivere choked on pain and strangled fury. “God damn it, let them come down. We shouldn’t go like this.”

The crows hopped closer, interested, no doubt wondering when we’d be ready.

“Is there anything they won’t eat?” Bedivere wondered.

“Let them get close. You’ll look deader to the Prydn.”

“Where d’you think they are?”

“Waiting.”

And so did we, motionless, while the sun crawled across the white sky and die half-gorged crows lurched drunkenly about us. One lighted on my back, and I felt a tentative peck at the rent in my mail, fighting the revulsion with all my will. One wave would have scattered them, but we couldn’t afford that.

Bedivere sucked in his breath. “There they are.”

“Can’t see. How many?”

“Two.”

“Modred?”

“Could be. And a bigger one. Not coming down yet. Not yet, the bastards. Just looking. Christ.”

“What?”

A little shamed, Bedivere admitted, “Damned thing hurts.”

“Oh. Davy, how is it?”

“Bleedin’,” he husked.

“Bow to hand?”

“Aye, sir. But I can’t last much more of these crows.”

Bedivere’s voice was tight and cool now. “Coming down, Artos. Slow. Aye, it’s that sweet bairn of yours.”

“See ‘em, Davy?”

Dully: “I do that.”

“On Bedivere’s word … steady. How close?”

“Twenty paces,” Bedivere said and then stopped breathing.

Ear against the ground, I detected the first faint vibration of bare feet. Flies buzzed around my face, The seconds stretched out like eternity while i waited for Bedivere’s word that didn’t come and didn’t come—

“Now!”

My eyes shot open to see Dafydd rear up, drawing and loosing all in a blink, his right hand already fitting the second arrow. I hauled up painfully on one elbow in a flurry of cawing, flapping crows as Bedivere roared to his feet, saw the tall changeling go

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over backward with the shaft in his heart. Startled, Modred lost his chance in that trice, shooting a hair wide as Dafydd’s second arrow ploughed into his naked middle just over the wolf-hide girdle.

Bedivere strode down on him, sword drawn. “Now, you little—”

“No, I croaked. “No, wait—”

Dafydd sent another shaft into Modred’s shoulder. I heard it grind against bone as he staggered back. The bow dropped from his fingers. The wound would have been fatal, but Dafydd was wounded and shaken, far off his best. There was still time.

“Hold,” I screamed at them, struggling up to my knees. “He’s done. Leave him, he’s done.”

So was I, with the blood seeping fast and sticky from my stomach and down my back. The four of us poised like figures in an interrupted dance, Bedivere’s sword raised, Modred swaying on his feet but never taking his eyes from me. I tried to read them before it was too late.

“Let me kill him, Artos. Don’t be a fool.”

‘Wo.’” I couldn’t. At the end I couldn’t let them, could only say his name. “Modred.”

His near-naked body shook with something beyond pain as he clawed the bronze knife from his belt. Bedivere’s sword lifted in warning.