Lancelot and the Wolf

by Sarah Luddington

  He pulled back, “Sleep, Lancelot and I’ll hold you safe.”

  Surprisingly, I did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  I woke with bone aching weariness, as though I’d been forced to fight a horde of barbarian’s all night without rest. Else tried to take the pain but I found her touch just made matters worse. Arthur rose with me and while Geraint tactfully went to play with the horses, he tried to numb the ache with contact. Nothing worked. I knew we were being manipulated into a situation I didn’t want. If Arthur became enslaved to Else, he would do anything for her, or rather those that controlled her. They would have Camelot and Camelot belonged to us, not the fey. The whole situation just made me angry, so the day started badly and simply grew worse.

  In order to cross the river Severn we travelled north for some distance. Although this land belonged to Arthur, his hold on it remained tenuous. There were bandits in this place by the score and warmongers who did not like paying tithes to Arthur. We rode in silence and on full alert. Geraint took the lead, Arthur rode beside Else and I had our back. We were all fully armoured and carried our shields. Even Else managed the small one we’d packed for her in Camelot. Her bow remained strung and her knives close to hand. One place in particular lent itself to ambush.

  We were riding through a gorge without a river. Large cliffs towered either side covered in short scrubby trees, vines and moss. The light hardly penetrated the canopy, the trees leaning toward each other on either side like desperate lovers. One particular area widened suddenly, and although I’d led a force there myself and cleared the area of undergrowth, it still contained large boulders, small caves and trees for hiding. My tension levels hit critical. I sweated inside the hauberk and the breastplate I wore. My shoulders ached and I felt sick. I had refused to wear a helmet. Breathing came hard enough without smothering me in steel. Geraint held up his armoured hand, we all stopped. Ash snorted and pawed the ground, aware of the tension and hating it. I forced him round so his hindquarters faced our companions and we formed a circle. I heard a rustling, from the trees over our heads. Else knocked an arrow and waited for orders. Her eyes focused on a point almost fifty yards from our position. I left her to watch the trees while my eyes sought bodies among the rocks. We knew they were there, we didn’t know if they would attack. Would they risk fighting three heavily armed knights and one archer just for the packhorses?

  I wanted to issue a challenge, force them into the open and get it over with quickly. This level of concentration made me giddy. Then, a scream tore apart the air from over our heads. Else yelped. A body encased in flame crashed to the floor of the gorge in front of her horse. Yells erupted and men rushed toward us. We prepared to fight, without breaking form, when fire lashed from the ground as though marsh gas escaped from solid rock. We froze. Bodies burned. The screaming and stink of flesh made the horses frantic. The pack animals barged into the warhorses. Mercury’s usually passive nature broke. He threw his front legs in the air, almost unseating Else.

  “What the hell is going on?” Geraint yelled over the noise. He had his sword in hand and no enemy to face.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” Else moaned. She tried to calm Mercury. I turned Ash toward her, Arthur on her other side ready to defend her, instead we watched. The first man, who still smoked, rose from the ground a blackened husk.

  In his black and shrivelled mouth, a stump for a tongue, thrashed back and forth, miming a scream. The eyes were gone, replaced by pits into hell. Claws reached for Mercury’s bridle.

  “Run,” Arthur yelled. I crashed Ash into the body. He rode it down hard. Mercury leapt forward, with Else close over his neck.

  “Arthur, get after her. We’ll deal with this,” I shouted. Without a word, he turned Willow and charged after Else. The packhorses followed the stallion as a herd.

  Geraint and I pulled our horses close together and rode for the end of the gorge. Before we reached it, we wheeled the horses and assessed the enemy. All the bodies had risen and were changing before our eyes. The one Ash ran down stayed down, its head a pulp.

  “At least we know they can die,” Geraint whispered.

  The figures stood, the wind stirred around each burnt corpse, growing stronger with every fast breath I took. Detritus from the floor of the gorge gathered about their bodies. The wind grew, the gorge darkened, each body vanished inside their individual maelstroms. The wind sucked the stink from the air.

  “This is not going to end well,” Geraint said. “We should leave.”

  “Wait, we need to see what’s going on,” I said.

  The wind whipped at our cloaks. Ash and Pepper shifted, trying to turn. We held our position. The whirlwinds, eight of them, started to disperse. In their place, stood eight black emaciated horses, with eight black emaciated men. The horses moved, the men all opened their mouths and a silent scream made my skin grow cold.

  “Now, we ride,” I said. Ash span so fast I almost slipped off the side. We ran. Arthur had caught up with Else within a quarter of a mile. They were waiting with all three packhorses. One look at our faces and they turned back to the road.

  “No, we won’t manage it,” I yelled while pulling Ash to a skidding halt. “We have to think of something else.”

  “Is it that serious?” Arthur asked.

  “They are no longer human and they have horses,” I said, “it is that serious.”

  “They are golems,” Else said. She expanded as she realised we didn’t understand, “Basically, they are creations of our enemies and they will be after Arthur, we have to stop them. They will never give up and never leave his scent. They will hunt us, growing stronger the longer they are in this world.”

  “So, what do we do?” Geraint asked.

  “We split up,” Arthur said. “If they are after me, I can lead them away from the rest of you.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I said. “Leaving you on your own against eight monsters.” The scorn was not lost on him, “I’ll go with Arthur, Geraint make certain Else is safe. Don’t stop until you reach the edge of this damned wood.” I realised I would never, ever, be able to go into a wood again without being reduced to a quivering wreck of paranoia.

  “I don’t think,” Else began looking at me with large frightened eyes.

  “No, you don’t, you follow orders,” I snapped at her. “Arthur, with me.”

  Arthur glanced at Else and said, “It’s what he does, protect and fight, forgive him.”

  Then we raced back toward the gorge to force these monsters to zero in on us. We galloped, shoulder to shoulder, Willow and Ash perfectly matched. Finding a fork in the road, we stopped, waiting until our enemy came into sight. When they saw us, we vanished onto the new track.

  “How well do you know these woods?” Arthur asked.

  “Not well enough,” I said.

  He nodded and we just worked on staying ahead. The path inclined with a long gradual slope. The light started to fade. I glanced behind us, the black, skeletal horses were relentless and they were gaining.

  “We can’t maintain this pace,” I told Arthur. The adrenaline keeping me upright and thinking would run out eventually, replaced by the agony of the spell all too soon. With Arthur to protect, I needed to think of something fast. I couldn’t afford to be weak.

  “We don’t have to,” Arthur, reins in one hand, pointed. A collapsed bridge covered a huge gulf between us and the rest of the road.

  “Are you mad?” I asked.

  “Let them get closer,” his eyes shone with the fight. “They can’t see past us, we slow the horses, allow them to catch their wind and then ride like the clappers for the bridge. Ash and Willow will cover that, no problem. They won’t have time to prepare their horses or stop. And if they do they will have to ride around.”

  “You are insane,” I told him as I ducked under a branch.

  “I’m alive,” Arthur yelled at the sky, bringing Willow back to a canter. Ash and I followed suit. We were the perfect team, the four of us. I lau
ghed, I couldn’t help it. We were about to die, throwing ourselves over a ridge to run from dead men made real. I rode with my King and I was glad to be alive.

  The smell of burnt meat from the bodies behind us, laced the air, as if by scent alone they might stop us. Without a word, Arthur and I released the horses and forced them to lengthen their strides. I flattened over Ash’s neck and whispered to him to tell him what we were doing. His ears pricked forward and he stretched his neck. He and Willow were in perfect unison. We crested the rise, rode the short flat distance to the old bridge and I felt him gather himself for the leap. He had complete faith in my ability to gauge his capabilities. He hesitated for half a breath when he saw the gap, as did I, but he didn’t miss a step. We leapt into thin air. Both horses reached for the other side, Arthur and I leaning back as they approached the ground. I did not look down. The horse’s front hooves touched the soft earth and they picked up their stride. Willow stumbled slightly, but Arthur gathered him together and we slowed the beasts down. They quivered and sweated.

  Turning in the saddle, Arthur and I watched the pack of riders cresting the rise. They were tight together and the riders at the rear didn’t see the gaping hole at the front. They all tried to stop, but the ones in the lead didn’t manage quickly enough. Two dived over the edge, forced by those at the rear. They fell silently, a long way down.

  “That was too bloody close,” I said.

  “That was fucking great,” Arthur whooped. “Come and find me now, you stinky bastards.”

  “Arthur, don’t goad the dead people,” I scolded and we both laughed with joy.

  Grinning like boys, we turned the horses back to the path and trotted away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  As we rode, we talked. This side of the gorge the trees were thinner and dusk seemed to have changed its mind. I held my face up to the sun and smelt the clean air. There are times when life feels too good to be real.

  “Do we know anything about who attacked us by using those bodies?” I asked, with my eyes closed.

  “I have no idea, but they must have been incredibly powerful. I don’t think Merlin could have done that,” Arthur said.

  “So we are looking at a full fey.”

  “I don’t know,” Arthur said. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He frowned and picked at Willow’s mane. “I can’t imagine a fairy being that powerful. They use magic in a sympathetic way and they manipulate minds.”

  Facts I knew all too well, I sighed, “They would poison you but they wouldn’t send dead monsters after you.” I realised the truth of my statement. This had to be an enemy we didn’t know or understand.

  “It’s not a happy thought is it,” Arthur said. “And those things will be after us. Once they find a way around that gorge, they will come.”

  “That’s not,” I began, before pain rippled through my guts. It hurt so much I collapsed over Ash’s neck and he stopped, surprised, thinking I’d been attacked. I groaned, my hands lost power and my legs turned to jelly.

  “Lancelot,” Arthur cried out. I felt his hands on my back.

  I drew a shuddering breath into my chest as far as I could “Don’t worry. It will be fine,” I managed to gasp.

  “No,” Arthur said. He moved to dismount Willow.

  “Don’t,” I grasped his arm. “We don’t have time for this,” the pain eased but still left me horribly weak. “I can manage this it’s just taking revenge for being pushed to one side for an hour. We can’t stop, those things will be circling back to the place we left Else and Geraint. They won’t need to rest as we must.”

  “You should let me have your woman. Then we can have this under our control,” Arthur said darkly.

  I pushed myself upright slowly. The thought of Arthur inside Else made me feel very odd, sort of excited and sort of horrified all at once. I loved them both but share them? Not certain. Definitely not a good idea if the fey gained control over them both.

  “You just want her because you’d rather have her than me,” I said jokingly. At least I’d meant it to sound joking, even I heard the bitterness.

  Arthur gasped, his shock clear, “And I suppose you think all I want is revenge for you fucking Guinevere?”

  He had never, ever spoken to me like that. The horses stopped and we sat looking at each other, horrified by our own words. The joy of a moment before a myth I no longer believed.

  “Yes,” I said slowly, “yes, I rather think I do.”

  I watched a veil descend over Arthur’s heart. His eyes no longer allowed me access to his soul. I’d hurt him, deeply. I realised in one stupid moment I’d sliced into our friendship. A thing too fragile for such harsh truths. I could not throw these feelings at him and expect him to love me.

  “No,” the word burst out of me and I grabbed his hand, which rested on his saddle. “No, I’m wrong. Don’t, Arthur, please. Don’t cut me out.”

  Arthur’s blue eyes filled with tears. They fell like raindrops from the gods. “I love you, Lancelot, your wife is just an extension of that and if being with her stops this pain, that’s all I want. You are the one I would choose to share my bed and life, not her.”

  “Arthur, I’m sorry, I really am. Please, my King, forgive me.” I moved to dismount, enabling me to kneel before him. He stopped me moving and pulled me toward him. Ash stepped into Willow to accommodate my shift of balance. Arthur kissed my mouth. Neither of us had shaved, his skin felt rough, his lips bruised mine. I groaned and held him to my mouth, forcing his lips open with my tongue so I could taste all of him. I loved him.

  When we broke apart, we were both shaking with the intensity. I said, “If you want Else and she wants you, then I will not stand between you. But I won’t have you do this just to save me from a little discomfort.”

  Arthur stroked my hair and nodded, “All right, Lancelot. But when you can’t live with the pain, I will take your wife to my bed and you will be there.”

  We rode in silence, grim now. Our victory shallow next to the torment we placed on each other. My mind kept up a circle, first thinking about Else and how I loved her, then about her with Arthur, with or without consequences, then Arthur and my feelings for him. They were galloping out of control for certain. His response to me, his desire for me, just fuelled my own need. I’d always loved him, right from the first moment we met, but now he seemed to actually want me, it made everything a thousand times more intense.

  We cantered down the hill, which led us to Else and Geraint. The trees began to thin and the long flood plain of the Severn opened before us. I saw them waiting a good quarter mile into the open expanse, so we would see them easily. We rode toward them quickly.

  “It went well?” Geraint asked his relief at our appearance clear.

  “We managed to kill two of them, but there are still six following us and Lancelot is suffering,” Arthur said.

  “I’m fine,” I muttered through gritted teeth. Else rode to me, pulled off her gloves and held my face in her own. The spell fizzed, but I felt so wretched I hardly moved. It did ease slightly.

  “He can’t keep this up,” she told the others.

  We heard a noise behind us and six black horses, with riders, burst from the trees. “It looks like I’m going to have too,” I cried, gathering Ash together for a fight. They were too close for us to run. Willow and Ash would not make it far and the packhorses all needed to rest. We could have left them and tried for the ford in the river but there would have come a time when we had to stop. Far better to fight in the open than be caught in the middle of the night somewhere.

  Three of us drew our swords. Else knocked an arrow to her bow and brought her quiver into easy reach. We didn’t comment. Arthur rode on my right and Geraint on his left. The horses moved as one and we raced toward our enemies. Else rode behind us, before finally pulling Mercury up and firing over our heads. She hit one of the foul creatures square in the chest, it fell from its horse but did not die, merely standing and running with an arrow in its chest.
/>   “Aim for their heads,” Arthur called out.

  Else’s next arrow hit the same fiend in the face and it dropped, twitching but not able to stand. Then the fight became real. We crashed into their tight ranks. My sword took one across the throat instantly. His head rolled off easily and without blood but the stink almost made me vomit.

  “Breath through your mouth,” I yelled over the noise.

  I realised three of the dead men were trying to take Arthur down. I charged into the medley. The fighting grew desperate, these creatures had him in their sights and it made them single minded. I tried to break their attack, attempting to decapitate them, but they were too close to Arthur. They fought with a wildness and ferocity, which made us vulnerable to mistakes trying to fight them off. Geraint fought another but we couldn’t maintain this for long. I caught sight of Else coming on foot. She braced herself and pulled back her bow.

  “Duck,” she screamed. I flattened over Ash’s neck. An arrow hissed over my head and my opponent dropped over the back of his horse. Ash lashed out with his rear end and kicked the dead horse. It shattered, once more becoming leaves, twigs and rocks. I forced Ash tight against Arthur’s enemy and swung a mighty arc over my head. My sword sliced into the monster’s face and carved his head into two pieces. Else fired at Geraint’s attacker and we were done. All the bodies collapsed into woodland detritus and scorched corpses of men.

  We stopped, surprised by the sudden peace.

  “Anyone hurt?” Geraint asked.

  “No,” Arthur and Else said.

  “I don’t,” I managed before the pain sweeping through me became unmanageable and I slipped off Ash. My mind went blank and forgot what it was supposed to be doing.

  I came to with Arthur holding me to his chest. As my eyes fluttered open, I heard him say, “He’s waking, thank God.”