I chuckled. “Ye of little faith, Lord Fitzwilliam. You should know us Pendragons will do anything for Camelot.”
“Yes, it’s clearly a great sacrifice to you, Sire, loving him and calling him vassal.”
“Hey, the scales had to fall my way at some point,” I said, smacking him lightly in the chest.
“He reminds me of your father right now, not his own,” Lance said, the wistful tone not lost on me.
“I thought the same thing,” I said. “He’s a lot better at this than I am.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Holt. He’s able to do this because of you, for you, if you weren’t here, he’d be a very different man. You are shaping him.”
“May the gods help him in that case,” I muttered.
Galahad raised his arms for quiet and the crowd listened. “We are now one. My blood and bone shall be used to defend Camelot as a true brother. We fight for the rights of freeborn men and women to continue to live as free, defending the laws and customs brought to Albion by the freemen of Camelot and her King!” At this point he grabbed my hand and lifted it into the air clutching it tightly in his own.
The crowd went wild. Lance grinned hugely and winked.
I glanced at Raven and he nodded to starboard. I looked over the rail and saw the ship, close enough now for me to discern the men – armed and ready to board us.
“To arms,” I bellowed over the noise.
We all moved and fast, Galahad grabbing Torvec and whispering something in his ear. Torvec nodded and patted his hand before breaking off to join me.
“Something I need to know?” I asked.
“No,” Torvec said. “Stay safe,” were his last words before moving to the forecastle so he could defend Raven and those needed to sail the ship.
Galahad joined me in the centre of the line along the Echo’s mid-ship. “Ready?” he asked, his eyes alight with the battle madness.
“Now I know how my father felt whenever he had to fight alongside Lancelot. It’s a real pleasure but also slightly terrifying in its own right,” I said, looking at the enemy and thinking about the carnage about to take place balanced against the overexcited young knight standing next to me.
“Nonsense,” Galahad said. “This’ll be easy.”
The deck grew silent save for the creaking of the wood and rigging as the ship heaved on the waves. The approaching vessel was also silent for the moment and I had a chance to see clearly the enemies who wanted to slaughter us.
The men were tall, but not broad like Galahad or me and they wore masks of some kind over their faces. They were either giant sea shells or perhaps they were wood, everything was covered, nose, mouth and eyes. Only their ears were clear and the long thick strands of whiteish hair down their backs and over their well armoured shoulders. The armour itself was clearly thick leather and wood, not as effective as the mix of plate and chain we wore but better than the shirts the sailors wore. We were facing an invasion by warriors.
There were normal men aboard and they were also armed, but they were clearly unhappy with their companions and wore no uniforms. They were ordinary sailors, perhaps pirates, but right now they were under The Lady’s fist. The men held bailing hooks on chain and rope, long planks and prepared to use both to breech the Echo.
The ships were now well within bow range and I glanced up to the forecastle. Valla, Nest and Morgan were up there with four others and all held longbows. Raven, controlling the Echo to ensure the enemy were forced to board into the sun, gave the order to release. A small hail of arrows silently crossed the water and hit the men on the other ship. The screams began and we held strong as the other ship rushed toward us. They didn’t have archers themselves, which was just as well, because we weren’t carrying shields. The tension mounted on our own vessel and the archers shot again into the ranks of the enemy. There were a lot of enemy.
“Hold the line!” Galahad ordered.
Bailing hooks swung through the sky and began to land amongst us; one poor soul was caught in the shoulder and pinned against the ship’s rail before any of us could cut him free. The screams from that one man sent a collective wave of fear through the sailors.
“For Camelot, for freedom!” Galahad bellowed. He hacked at the bailing hook nearest us and the rope snapped but dozens more were landing and the first plank to settle became his to control.
Without hesitation he leapt onto the plank between the vessels, balancing like a circus dancer on a horse’s back, and took the fight to the enemy.
“He’s a fucking lunatic,” Lance shouted over the noise of the ships crashing together in the heaving sea.
“Just be grateful he’s our lunatic,” I said and rushed toward the warriors swinging from their own rigging into ours and onto our decks. The Echo rolled under my feet the moment I had contact with a soldier. His blade was curved only slightly, unlike my straight broadsword, and had a single edge rather than two. The weapon sliced and didn’t hack; it also moved fast, very fast, in tight elliptic circles. The blades clashed, the dull chime adding to the noise around us. I relied on my training and the practice I’d had with Galahad, using the canting deck to my advantage. The soldier I faced clearly wasn’t as well trained for this environment.
He slid forward and sliced down. The deck shifted back and to the left, taking his balance because he’d over extended himself once the Echo rolled. I used the shift to move me forward and sliced into his leg, circled my blade up, around and down to smash into his shoulder even as his leg gave way under him. A strange undulating cry came from behind the mask, it startled me and I almost missed the slash toward my head from another warrior. I blocked and fought and killed the soldier.
For a moment the action lulled around me and I looked for Galahad. He’d surrendered the plank and fought on the deck of the Echo, gradually working his way toward me. I rushed forward and began taking down his enemies from behind. The fight was thickest around him but I’d also seen Torvec on the forecastle and he fought to defend the archers who were still firing into the masked soldiers. Chaos reigned. The sailors of the Echo were not warriors and they couldn’t fight with our discipline.
“They aren’t going to stop,” Galahad said, panting slightly. “We are just going to have to kill them all.”
“Unless they manage to kill us first,” I muttered.
We both began to fight side by side, moving through the enemy with relative ease. Blood started to make the wood under our feet slippery and the bits of bodies became traps to snare our footing but we were making a significant hole in the opposing force. Lance and Kerwin were on our left flank and the four of us held the centre of the main deck while our sailors started to cut us free from the enemy vessel, pushing the planks overboard and Raven working to move the Echo from the bulk of the larger ship. The men left on the Echo knew they were going to die, many of them making a last bid to be free of the slaughter we’d produced among their ranks.
Torvec, more blood than man, leapt down the stairs from the forecastle and joined us to finish off the unfortunate few. He hacked and slashed, his skin silvery in the few places blood didn’t cover him. Within a few more moments the deck grew still, the fighting over. We’d all sustained injuries but nothing life threatening and we’d done well; I could not see faces I recognised among the dead and dying onboard.
I turned to congratulate Galahad and the others, relief making me feel lightheaded and elated. Galahad grinned at me before a flash of terror made him lunge forward, his sword point missing my guts by less than a hand span. I twisted to check behind me but a body hit me at the same moment and Torvec stood where I’d been with the point of a sword sticking out of his back. The sword sliced sideways with terrible efficiency and came out of his body between his ribs and hips.
Torvec’s insides became his outsides.
Galahad screamed in rage and the fallen soldier who’d clearly been faking death before trying to kill me, died on Galahad’s blade.
Torvec stumbled backward into my arm
s.
Galahad dropped the hilt of his weapon, now buried in the head of the enemy, and turned back toward us.
Torvec’s knees gave way and he collapsed against my body.
Galahad began screaming orders, screaming for help from the healers among us, trying to aid me in lowering Torvec to the deck of the ship.
I found myself sitting on the sticky planks with Torvec in my arms. He stared up at me with profoundly beautiful eyes, the deepest blue I’d ever seen and with narrow catlike irises. He smiled slightly, blood just staining his lips, his breathing very quick.
“Everything will be fine,” I whispered to him, brushing his white blood stained hair back from his angular features. “We are going to be fine. You, me and Galahad. We will find a way to make it work. The three of us together.”
Torvec reached for my right hand and brought my knuckles to his lips, kissing them tenderly.
“I love you,” he managed.
“I’m glad, I’m so lucky, Torvec. You’ve such a big heart. I love you as well you know. Galahad knows. He knows and it’s alright. We’ll sort it out. Have a proper talk. None of this magical bullshit getting in the way. Man to man. A proper talk.” I realised I was babbling.
Galahad knelt beside us and Torvec’s eyes looked straight at him. “Look after him,” Torvec told Galahad.
“Always, I swear it,” Galahad said, holding Torvec’s other hand.
“I lived free of her because of you,” Torvec managed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t leave him,” Galahad begged suddenly. “Please, Torvec, don’t leave us. We need you.”
“Could you have loved me?” Torvec whispered.
“I already do,” Galahad replied softly, his hand now laced with mine, holding Torvec’s.
Those blue eyes turned back to me. “It’s for the best. There are no dragons in Albion.”
My tears dropped onto his cheeks, streaking the blood. “Don’t give up, Torvec. The healers can fix you.”
He smiled. “Nothing can fix this, King of Camelot. It was an honour to love you.”
“I am so sorry I let you down,” I cried out. “I am so sorry I couldn’t love you enough.”
“You saved me,” he whispered and his eyes closed, his body became slack and the death rattle sighed through his lips.
Torvec left me.
I bowed over his body and the pain raced through me stealing everything in its path. Strong arms encircled my back as I held Torvec’s body to my chest and wept. Great heart wrenching sobs of anguish and loss. Not even the death of my beloved father and mother came close to this cascade of misery.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Leave them,” Galahad’s voice penetrated my consciousness sometime later.
“But Torvec’s body –” Lance said.
“I know, but I can feel things you can’t. He cannot let Torvec go, not yet. Leave them. I’ll scrub the damn mess from the planks myself,” Galahad snapped.
“Galahad’s right, love,” Nim said. “We need to leave them alone. Galahad will see to Holt. There is nothing we can do right now.”
“He’s my friend and King as well,” Lance said.
“I know but they are bonded, it’s different, leave them be, just for now.”
I heard steps moving away from me and those arms around me once more. I fell slightly sideways against the large chest and just stayed there hearing people moving around us but no one coming close.
Orders were given to throw the corpses overboard and to begin cleaning the deck of blood and worse. I think the entire crew and most of our people helped, everyone moving around quietly and leaving the three of us alone. Isolated because of my shame and grief over Torvec.
The sun began to set, the heat of the day vanishing, and I heard Galahad mutter a quiet thank you when blankets were placed over us. Still I couldn’t move. I couldn’t surrender Torvec. If I let him go all this would be real because I’d have to bury him, or burn him, or put him in the water. I knew he was dead. I knew I’d lost him forever. I knew I’d surrender him at some point but not yet. Not just yet.
Slowly the overwhelming grief became a hard nugget inside my chest and I moved at last.
“Holt?” Galahad whispered.
“What do I do?” I asked him. “So many have died – so many that I have loved. My father...”
“I know. I feel it keenly too,” he said.
“Torvec was a good man, he did not deserve this or me,” I confessed.
“Don’t say that, it diminishes his love for you,” Galahad told me.
“I can’t let him go,” I said.
“You have to, Holt. Torvec needs to find peace at last. He deserves his peace,” Galahad said. He grunted as he moved, releasing me from his embrace.
I realised we’d been sat still for a very long time. During this last day of Torvec’s life I’d fallen from the rigging, nearly become drained of life, bonded with Galahad and fought off an army. I ached everywhere. My arms relaxed and cramped muscles moaned. Torvec slipped down my body and into my lap, his head lolling to one side. I whimpered at the lifeless movement.
“We’ll take him downstairs,” the young Prince said. “We will carry him together but I think you should allow Lance to help me wrap him in blankets.”
The image of Torvec’s intestines spilling through his fingers filled my head and I rose on shaking legs and vomited over the railing. I heard Galahad speaking with Lance behind me. I heard movements but I didn’t react; I remained at the rail staring out over the black sea surrounding the Echo. The endless blackness. Death was black. A terrible endless blackness full of loneliness. A wave of grief shook me to the core of my being when I thought about Torvec in that terrible place.
“Shh, Holt, it’s alright... It’s not like that, he will be with our fathers, safe and warm,” Galahad said, his body pressed against mine, his arm around my back once more.
“We don’t know that,” I choked.
“He died a warrior’s death, saving you, we know that,” Galahad said.
“What if death is endless blackness?” I asked, looking up at him. He was tired, his eyes hollow, and dried blood crusted his cheek.
“You don’t believe that,” he said.
“I’ve lost so many people,” I said more to the night than to him. “I know it’s the life of a warrior to lose those we are close to but it never gets any easier – if anything it is worse. It makes you doubt everything – the worth of everything we do.”
Galahad didn’t have anything to say. He was too young, too green to understand what it was like to see those you loved cut down in battle. I moved away from his embrace and returned to Torvec. They’d wrapped him tightly in blankets, hiding the damage. I knelt and lifted his shoulders off the planks.
“You cannot do this alone, he’s too tall,” Galahad said, kneeling on the other side.
“I don’t know where to take him,” I said.
“They’ve prepared a table downstairs,” Lance said behind me. I turned my head and looked up at him, he crouched down to make our gaze equal. “I am sorry, Sire. I know he meant a great deal to you. I owe him a debt for saving your life, the whole of Camelot owes him.”
I nodded my acknowledgement of his regret and turned back to Galahad. He’d laced his arm around Torvec and under the dragon’s knees. I matched him and without words we lifted together to carry Torvec through the ship.
Nim and Morgan were waiting for us, tending to the injured among the ship’s crew. Everyone descended into silence when we arrived. We lay Torvec down on the table and Galahad stepped away. Nim approached and gently removed my hand from Torvec’s.
“Let us wash him, prepare him as we would for any Salamander. That’s the best way forward, Holt. You need to sleep and you need to grieve. Allow us to help him so we can say goodbye as well. We couldn’t do it for our mother, let us do it for him – for you,” she said quietly.
I blinked at her heavily. “I don’t know...”
She patted my hand a
nd smiled, the sad tenderness in her eyes making my own tear up once more. “I do, this is a job for the women in your family. Let Galahad and Lance look after you while we look after Torvec. He won’t be alone. I promise.”
I nodded and before I knew it I’d been ushered out of the room by Galahad and Lance. “We need to wash him and get him changed,” Lance said. We were in Raven’s large captain’s cabin at the stern.
“He needs something to eat and drink,” Galahad added.
“He needs to sleep.”
“I want to give up,” I murmured. “I just want it to stop.” The pleading tone made both men stare at me, their eyes another weight on my soul.
“Sire,” Lance said, stepping forward with his hands out in a placating gesture.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, irritated now by their subservience to my grief. I headed for the brandy flask in the cabinet.
“Holt, I’m just trying to help,” Lance said.
“Well, you can’t. No one can. No one can bring him back, or my father. No one can take the fucking crown off my head and no one can stop... can stop...” I wanted to say – no one can stop the memories of being raped ruining my life. I’d have been able to love Torvec if it hadn’t been for those memories.
Galahad, tuned to my every thought and feeling now we were bonded companions, didn’t say a word. He merely took hold of Lance’s arm and pulled him from the room. I was alone. I wanted to be alone.
I drank a large brandy in one gulp, the burn a welcome pain that diminished the hurt provided by Torvec’s death.
“Torvec is dead,” I said aloud, leaning heavily on Raven’s large chart table. “Torvec is dead because of me. Gods, what am I going to do? How am I supposed to survive this?”
I had no idea and suddenly I realised I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t have to be alone. “Galahad,” I whispered. Moments only and he was there.
The Du Lac Legacy (Sons of Camelot Book 2) Page 13
