Embark

by K. M. Shea

  “It isn’t normal for me to hand out armor, but I would hate to send you off on a quest with improper gear, like the horse. They didn’t get you a charger?” Britt asked, dumping her packs on the ground and nodding her thanks to a stable boy who led Roen—Britt’s black-as-night destrier. The big gelding nickered when he saw her and lipped her palm before sniffing Cavall.

  “I told them I already had one. Father said I could keep Mud if Camelot would have me—though I’m not sure he really expected it to happen,” Tor added.

  Britt whistled and caught the attention of a stable boy. “Saddle up one of the spare chargers for Sir Tor, please.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” the stable boy said, plucking the reins of Sir Tor’s horse from his hands.

  “It’s unnecessary,” Sir Tor started to say.

  “Nay, you’ll kill that little mare if you ride her for days like you’ll need to on this quest,” King Pellinore said.

  “More than likely, you’ll trounce a recreant knight while you’re out and win his armor and horse. Then you can return all of your gear, and no one will lose. Except the blackguard knight,” Britt said as she started securing her bags to Roen.

  “Are there many recreant knights, then?” Sir Tor asked.

  “I haven’t seen many, but Pellinore has a regular collection of shields from knights he has trounced,” Britt said.

  Pellinore grinned widely. “I use them to decorate my weapons hall. Adelind won’t let me hang them in the keep.”

  “I should think not,” Britt grunted, unhooking the mostly empty pack from Cavall.

  “Need provisions for the dog, My Lord?” a hostler asked.

  “I do.”

  “I will handle it, My Lord,” the man said, taking the pack and heading past the stables to the kennels.

  King Pellinore leaned back in his saddle and rested his hands on his sword. “I am reluctant to enquire, Arthur, but what are you doing?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Britt said. She briefly considered tying Excalibur to her saddle before tossing the idea aside. It was better to have it attached directly to her side as Excalibur’s scabbard was magical and would keep a person from bleeding out.

  “Oh, I see,” King Pellinore said, easily accepting the answer.

  Sir Tor’s new horse—a chestnut gelding that was not as fine as Roen or King Pellinore’s horse, but would suit the new knight well—arrived just as Gawain, mounted on his steed, entered the stable-yard with three leashed dogs.

  “Good evening My Lord, King Pellinore, Sir Tor,” Gawain said, his armor twinkling in the torchlight.

  “Hello there, Gawain,” Britt said, stopping to pet the large scent hounds. “You’re borrowing Agravain’s dog as well?” Britt asked.

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Just as well. I imagine three hounds are better than two—thank you,” Britt said to the man who gave her back her pack—now filled with provisions for Cavall, as well. “We’re all assembled. Shall we go—er, depart?” Britt asked, swinging onto Roen’s back.

  “You are coming with us?” Sir Gawain asked.

  “Yes,” Britt said, patting her hose.

  “Do you need to secure your dog, My Lord?” Sir Tor politely asked.

  “No, he’ll stay with me,” Britt said, smiling at her pet from her perch.

  “Then I think it is time we leave. The trail grows cold,” King Pellinore said.

  “Right. This way,” Britt said, leading the way.

  Chapter 4

  Traveling with Sir Tor

  When they passed through the inner walls of the palace and then the outer walls of Camelot, the guards stationed there stared hard at Britt—who had no doubts that Sir Kay would hear of her adventure as soon as she was out of sight—but did nothing to stop her from leaving.

  “Anyone know how to track our objectives?” Britt asked.

  “Our what?” Sir Tor asked.

  “Our quarry,” Britt said.

  “I took one of my hounds to the feasting hall to get the hart’s scent. She should be able to pick up the trail out here,” Sir Gawain said, nodding to one of the hounds—who had her nose planted on the ground.

  “We may as well follow you for a time,” King Pellinore said—holding above his head a torch he had swiped from the last set of guards. “I imagine whatever the story is behind the hart, it will also involve the kidnapped lady and her hound.”

  “Seems logical,” Sir Tor said.

  “I would like to keep her leashed. If she runs off, she’ll be hard to track down again,” Sir Gawain said, letting the hound lead him into the meadow surrounding Camelot, taking a path that would lead to the Forest of Arroy—which hemmed around Camelot in an arc.

  “It’s just as well. If we go galloping off into the darkness, who knows what footing our horses will encounter,” Britt said.

  “It is true,” King Pellinore acknowledged as he moved his horse to the head of the line so it walked side by side with Gawain’s leashed hound. Sir Tor took up the rear, leaving Britt and Sir Gawain to ride together.

  “My Lord,” Gawain said, his words hesitant, “If I may inquire…”

  “Yes?” Britt asked, patting Roen’s thick neck. She had missed the warhorse—Kay rarely let her ride him, preferring that she would ride Llamrei, her white mare that was trained to flee rather than fight.

  “Why have you come with us?” Gawain finally asked.

  Britt was quiet as Roen’s sauntering walk rocked her back and forth. “I wished to be free of my courts,” she finally said.

  Behind her Sir Tor snorted. “You’ll have to do better than that, My Lord,” he said, his voice just as cheerful and open as she expected.

  Britt grinned and glanced at Sir Gawain. His expression was thoughtful, but he said nothing more.

  “That’s a reason I can sympathize with,” King Pellinore said from the front of their small party as they entered the forest. “There’s nothing worse than being cooped up with a bunch of goat-footed knights hemming and hawing at your every move.”

  Britt laughed. “I rather like my knights. Most of them, anyway,” she amended, thinking of Lancelot.

  “We’ll see. Now that King Leodegrance’s fools have come to your halls, you might think differently,” King Pellinore said.

  “That’s a harsh judgment,” Britt said.

  “It is the truth,” King Pellinore said. “Didn’t it ever occur to you how dishonorable it is that King Leodegrance has so many knights in his territory, and not one of them would ride to Lady Guinevere’s defense when Duke Maleagant attacked? There’s a reason why you had to be her champion, Arthur.”

  “I had forgotten about that,” Britt said, her lips twisting in a frown.

  “So, what’s your real reason for wanting to come with?” King Pellinore said.

  Britt was silent for an even longer time as she tried to find a way to phrase her deep-rooted desire.

  In the twenty-first century, Britt never had much time for King Arthur stories. One of her closest friends was a King Arthur fanatic, but Britt had been turned off from the legend at a young age by her disgust with Lancelot and Guinevere. Still, she couldn’t completely avoid contact with the famous legends. Besides the memory of King Arthur’s terrible wife (Guinevere) and dishonorable best friend (Lancelot), Britt most remembered the Round Table and that knights went out questing after its establishment.

  She also remembered (because she pointed it out quite often to her Arthur-crazy friend) that after the knights started questing, King Arthur’s role began to diminish. His courts were great because he was a king that his knights loved, and his knights took this love to the country by righting wrongs and performing good deeds. But after the Round Table…Arthur accomplished very few great deeds.

  Britt feared this. She didn’t want to be a King in name only. She wanted to hold herself to the same code of conduct to which she held her knights. She wanted to make a difference, too.

  “I want to set an example...and I want to remind mysel
f what ruling is about,” Britt said, speaking slowly. “Holed up in Camelot, it’s easy to think that everything is peaceful and prosperous. I need the reality check.”

  To Britt’s surprise, no one questioned her odd word choice, and they rode on in silence.

  “We should make camp soon,” King Pellinore said after what felt like an hour or two of riding in the darkness.

  “I won’t argue that,” Britt said, stretching before she dismounted. She went to work, unhooking her packs and removing Roen’s tack and gear.

  “I’ll get a fire started. The torch will burn out soon. It will be easier to use it to start a fire than by thumping around in this darkness. I’ll be back shortly—I need to find some decent-sized branches.”

  “Would you like me to hold your horse, King Pellinore?” Sir Tor asked.

  “You needn’t bother. This old boy and I have camped together under a hundred different skies. He knows the pattern,” King Pellinore said, fondly patting his horse before walking off, taking his torch with him.

  Britt fumbled with her packs in dark night, setting them aside. She managed to blindly slip Roen’s saddle and bridle off before King Pellinore returned with an armload of branches.

  “This will get us started,” the older king grunted. He arranged the branches and prepped tinder before starting the wood on fire with his torch, casting a bright light on the knights.

  “Thank you,” Britt said as she hunkered down to hobble Roen before setting him loose. The horse sniffed around the forest, nibbling a few weeds as Britt prepped her bed with unease. Sleeping on the ground wasn’t a problem—she had done it before. The real issue was Britt’s hauberk. Britt knew from experience that sleeping in the chainmail would make her achy the following day, but shimmying out of it in front of the knights would give Merlin a heart-attack, even if he wasn’t present.

  “Is there a water source nearby?” Britt asked.

  “I saw a faerie pond. It’s past your horse. Just keep walking, and you will not miss it,” King Pellinore said.

  “A faerie pond?” Sir Tor asked.

  “It had no scum or lily pads on its surface and was as clear as a cloudless sky. It could only be a faerie’s work,” King Pellinore said.

  “I see,” Sir Tor said.

  Britt set off before she heard more of the conversation, carefully shuffling through the dark. She almost walked straight into the pond before she noticed the wisps of moonlight and starlight that made it down through the trees were reflecting on the ground.

  She drank, gratefully pulled off her hauberk, and slipped on a much lighter—but still disguise-worthy—leather doublet.

  When she rejoined the men, she gave Cavall a snack of some kind of dried meat before curling up to sleep with her dog and equipment mounded around her, and the knights softly talking.

  “Do you need help, My Lord?” Sir Gawain asked, his gaze hinged on one of the armor straps Britt was struggling to tighten the following morning.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, thank you,” Britt said, holding her arm up so Sir Gawain could make the adjustment.

  “Good news,” King Pellinore boomed as he made his way into their camp, making Britt and Sir Gawain jump like startled fawns.

  “Young Sir Tor and I scouted ahead. It seems two horses carrying loads followed the hart’s trail—which is quite obvious now that we can see its tracks—and split off not a short ride from here,” King Pellinore said, smacking Sir Tor on his broad shoulders.

  “So we haven’t lost any time by following the hart’s trail?” Britt asked, flexing her shoulders when Gawain finished helping her.

  “Indeed, we have not,” King Pellinore said, heading for his horse—which was already saddled and munching on undergrowth. “We can bridle our steeds and water them at the faerie pond before we split up,” he said. Clearly, he was excited to be on a quest again.

  “With whom shall you ride, My Lord?” Gawain asked.

  Britt checked Cavall’s collar to make sure it wasn’t too tight. “Sir Tor, I think. I would like to observe you in action—if you don’t mind,” Britt asked the ex-cowherd.

  “Not at all. I should enjoy the company, My Lord,” Sir Tor said, just as chipper in the morning as he was the previous night.

  “Then it’s settled. Let us begin our journey!” King Pellinore boomed.

  In less time than Britt thought possible, she and Sir Tor found themselves alone—excluding Cavall and their mounts—following the hoof-prints of the horse King Pellinore and Sir Tor thought to be carrying the man who kidnapped the hound.

  “How did you surmise this is the hound-napper?” Britt asked, watching Sir Tor as he kept his eyes on the trail.

  “The hoof-prints, My Lord. The knight who came for the lady was much bigger and—according to the guards I spoke to before receiving my gear—rode a horse that was larger as well. Not only are the horse’s hooves bigger, but because he carried a heavier load, they sank deeper into the ground,” Sir Tor explained.

  “Ah,” Britt said, afraid to betray her lack of knowledge.

  “Do you go hunting much, My Lord?” Sir Tor asked.

  “No, I can’t say I do. I sadly haven’t the time for it,” Britt said, offering out the lie Merlin had come up with. The first and only time Britt had ever gone hunting, she was nearly killed by some of King Lot’s men, not to mention she was terrible with a bow and stood no chance of hitting anything. “Have you?”

  “Only small game—rabbits and such. I was thankful to King Pellinore for teaching me about tracking horses,” the new knight said.

  “I can imagine,” Britt said, glancing down at Cavall when silence fell. Sir Tor—as cheerful and good tempered as ever—seemed to have no trouble with it, so Britt kept quiet and allowed the younger man to follow the trail.

  The two rode for maybe an hour when they found…Britt knew he had to be just a short man but he looked much like, well, like a dwarf from a fantasy movie. He had thick, braided hair, carried several hand axes, and was wielding a stout staff.

  “Excuse us, good sir,” Sir Tor said, moving to steer his horse around the dwarf.

  “You shall not pass!” the dwarf shouted, jumping in front of Sir Tor’s horse.

  Britt laughed so hard at the unintentional Lord of the Rings reference she almost fell from Roen’s back.

  “Are you finished?” the dwarf asked when Britt’s mirth finally subsided.

  “I don’t know. If you say that again, then no, I don’t think I am,” Britt said, flicking a tear of laughter from her eye.

  “Why can’t we pass?” Sir Tor asked the dwarf.

  “I won’t let you,” the dwarf said, eyeing Britt when she hid a gurgle of laughter behind a cough.

  “And why won’t you let us?” Sir Tor patiently asked.

  “Because I serve one of those yonder knights, and he has instructed me to send all traveling knights to fight him,” the dwarf wearily said, pointing at two knights who were hammering at each other with maces just outside two brightly colored tents. “You could always turn around and go back the direction from which you came,” the dwarf helpfully added.

  “That won’t work. We’re following a trail. We must go forward,” Sir Tor said.

  “Sorry, I can’t let you pass. My master will flay me should I let you continue unmolested.”

  Britt had another suspicious coughing fit.

  “What do you recommend, My Lord?” Sir Tor asked Britt when she recovered.

  “Normally, it’s best to avoid unnecessary conflicts, but in this case, I see only good in fighting those knights—provided we can trounce them,” Britt said.

  “Neither of them are very good,” the dwarf wryly said.

  “Then why are you with your master?” Sir Tor asked.

  “He didn’t give me much of a choice when he slew my previous master,” the dwarf said, crossing himself.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Sir Tor commiserated.

  “Right, let’s go rattle some knights. Come on, Sir Tor,” Bri
tt said, directing Roen in the knights’ direction, Cavall trailing behind with a wet snuffle.

  The squabbling knights saw them coming. They stopped beating on each other and instead ran at Britt and Sir Tor.

  Roen lashed out before the knight aiming for Britt could reach them. He knocked the knight down, tossing him straight into a mud puddle.

  “Thanks, Roen,” Britt said, patting her horse before she carefully dismounted and unsheathed Excalibur.

  She saw Sir Tor throw himself from his mount, flattening his opponent like a pancake when he landed on top of him.

  Britt adjusted her grip on Excalibur as she approached her challenger—who was on his feet and unsheathing his sword, having tossed his mace away.

  “You are cowardly with the gizzard of a chicken,” the knight declared.

  Britt ignored the taunt and exhaled, sinking into an offensive stance as years of training as a medieval mixed martial artist took over.

  The two things that most greatly extended her lifespan in this crazy time period was her desire to wear a riding helmet and her mastery with the sword. Even though Britt had yet to be beaten at swordplay since she arrived in ancient England, she approached every fight with a gravity and fierceness that kept her clear-headed and observant.

  Even as Britt took in the knight’s sword stance with disgust—he had holes in his defense everywhere!—she planned for the best attack that would end the fight as swiftly as possible.

  “You are a recreant knight, smeared with pig dung!” the knight said.

  Cavall growled, the fur on his spine standing on end.

  “Cavall, stand down,” Britt whispered to the fierce dog.

  The knight opened his mouth to speak another insult, but Britt lunged forward, striking like a viper. She hit with such speed that the knight, not expecting it, found his sword swatted aside before Britt ground her elbow into his gut. The chainmail he wore did nothing to soften the blow, and as he gasped for breath, Britt threw him over her leg, sliding Excalibur next to his throat as he sat, pinned like a bug.

  The knight gurgled and tried to suck in air, his eyes wide and chest heaving as Cavall stiffly approached Britt, his lips pulled back in a silent snarl.