“What a fool,” Sir Boris grumbled. “Fighting in winter!”
“Perhaps I was the fool, thinking winter would make me safe,” Uther answered slowly. “But we’ll be ready for him now.”
“We must choose our battleground, Sire,” Gorlois said, impatient with Merlin’s slowness.
“Here,” Merlin called back to them from across the ice. The cold of the north had frozen the water into ice at least a foot thick, strong enough to bear the weight of horses and men.
“You mean by this river?” Uther asked, puzzled. He would have chosen a site farther from his own stronghold, to keep Vortigern from besieging it with a second force during the fighting.
“On it!” Merlin answered. “Vortigern has to come down here through the pass and cross on his way to Winchester.”
Uther looked at his companions. Neither of them trusted the wizard at all, and, despite the warning about Vortigern’s plans he had brought, Uther himself wasn’t quite sure about Merlin the wizard.
“Uther, this is where you meet Vortigern—and crush him!”
Merlin’s words had the force of a prophecy—or a vow. At last Uther nodded. Here he would meet Vortigern … and pray that his new wizard spoke the truth.
It was Christmas Eve. Tomorrow morning, Vortigern’s army would meet Uther’s. Though many hoped and prayed and conjectured, no one truly knew what the outcome of that battle would be.
King Vortigern—for whom Christmas was just another day—lay resting upon his bed in the royal tent. Though his eyes were closed, he wore full armor, and clasped the hilt of his naked sword against him much as if he were posing for the lid of his own sepulchre. Later he would go and rally the troops for tomorrow’s battle. They would fall upon Winchester like wolves upon a fat and unsuspecting lamb, and by nightfall his crown would be secure once more.
Sometimes he wondered why he bothered.
Just as his mind shaped those words, he felt a breath of cold air fill the tent.
“Uther knows you’re going to attack,” a familiar voice hissed above his head. “He’s waiting for you.”
Vortigern didn’t bother to open his eyes and look; he knew who it was. “I wonder who told him I was coming?” he said mockingly.
“Merlin.” Mab spat the name as if it had a bad taste.
“The dragon didn’t kill him?” Vortigern was mildly surprised. Draco hadn’t eaten a single peasant in the last six weeks, and Vortigern had assumed it was resting up after a big meal. “What about the girl?”
“She’s alive,” Mab admitted. She turned away from the bed and stalked to the far end of the tent.
“So much for your magic.” Vortigern opened his eyes and sat up. “It doesn’t matter. I never believed in it anyway.”
Mab turned and glared at him. She was dressed as if for battle, her hair braided up into a Medusa’s nest, her eyes painted wide and dark and her body sleek in a tight corselet of gleaming silvery leather. Jeweled bracers were laced onto her forearms, and her boots were long and sleek. A shimmering cape of violet silk hung from her shoulders. She looked as beautiful and as dangerous as a venomous serpent.
“You’re a very brave man, Vortigern—but so stupid! You have to believe in something now!” she cried in her harsh voice.
“Like what?” Vortigern scoffed. Why does everyone keep calling me stupid? First the wizard and now Mab. You’d think they weren’t afraid of me! He stabbed his sword at the carpet that covered the floor of the tent. Its sharp blade sliced through the weave, into the earth below, and Vortigern smiled. He liked destroying beautiful things.
He folded his hands over the hilt and looked at Mab for a long moment before he spoke again. “I’ve been king for twenty years. I’ve never been defeated, and I didn’t use any magic. I did it with my bare hands.”
And just as well, in Vortigern’s opinion. The one time he’d dabbled in magic, it had cost him a valued ally. After he’d given Nimue to the Great Dragon, Ardent had gone over to Uther’s side. Deep down, Vortigern was sure that Mab had tricked him to her own advantage somehow, and his enemy was the stronger for it.
Looking at the Queen of the Old Ways across the length of the tent, Vortigern thought he could see tears well up in her eyes. There was a glitter as something fell, and when Mab approached him, there was a tiny oval jewel in the palm of her hand. It sparkled like sunlit ice, casting bright shadows against her skin.
“What is it?” Vortigern asked. For the first time since he’d known her, the Queen of the Old Ways looked less than confident.
“It will protect you,” Mab answered.
“What are you afraid of, Madame?” Vortigern asked. He took the hand that held the jewel, and drew her down to sit upon his knee. Her face was inches from his own.
“The world is passing you by, leaving you behind,” Vortigern said, answering his own question. “Old ways—new ways—it will all come together in the end. I’ve never been afraid, and I never will be.”
And if he must die tomorrow, he would not try to elude his fate. He would meet it with eyes open, as he always had. With a quick gesture, he plucked the crystal teardrop from her hand and flung it into the brazier that sat at the foot of his bed. There was a spark, a sizzle, and the talisman was gone.
Mab gazed into his eyes, and now there was sorrow instead of fear in her stare. “Vortigern—” she said, and her voice held a last despairing warning. “Vortigern, it’s your pride that condemns you.”
“No,” the king said quietly. “You’ve shaped my whole life, but you never trusted me enough to give me victory. If I die tomorrow, Madame, it is you who have been my executioner.”
* * *
It was still dark when Uther’s army took its place on the bank of the frozen river. There’d been some grumbling from the men at taking orders from a wizard, but in the end they had all done what they were told. Merlin placed them carefully: pikemen in the first rank of the center wing, archers behind them. What little cavalry Uther had was evenly divided between the left and the right. He held back no reserves. If they were to win this day, it would not be through a contest of endurance.
The Bishop of Winchester had come out to say a Mass and bless the troops. His elaborate jeweled robes sparkled as if they, too, were made of ice, and the censer trailed clouds of fragrant incense that hung upon the air like fog.
Merlin had withdrawn from the others, not wishing to give offense to the Christian priest. He stood now on a high hill overlooking the river valley. Though he could not see them, his magic told him that Vortigern’s forces were just beyond the ridge.
His magic. It was such an easy thing after all these years to fall back into using the powers Mab had given him. All that his renunciation of his abilities had done was doom the woman he loved to a travesty of life and validate his path. Mab had been so certain that using his magic would make him return to her, but he was using those powers to fight her. Because Mab wanted Britain to return to the Old Ways, Merlin would set a Christian king upon its throne. Everything Mab wanted, Merlin would work to destroy.
It had become as simple as that.
* * *
“What if they don’t come?” Godwin, a young archer in Uther’s army, stared out into the dark nervously. This was his first battle. His friends said that was lucky for him, because this was Uther’s first real battle as well and he would share the Prince’s luck.
“They’ll come,” the man beside him said. “And all too soon.”
But as the sky lightened and the sun rose, it began to seem as if Vortigern’s army would not come, and Uther’s soldiers had lost their Christmas feast for nothing.
“Look!” someone shouted, pointing toward the ridge across the river.
Vortigern’s army lined the horizon, its numbers stretching as far as the eye could see.
King Vortigern sat easily in the saddle of his war-stallion, indifferent to the tension of the knights around him. His battle-standards—a white pennon embroidered with red runes and a ram skull mounted
on a long pole—were displayed prominently in the front ranks of his troops. They were Pagan symbols, but those members of Vortigern’s army who followed the New Religion did not think it wise to object to their presence.
Sir Gilbert and Sir Egbert were at his side, awaiting the command to charge. The sky lightened, and still Vortigern did not give the signal to attack. It was as if the king was waiting for something.
“Look!” Sir Gilbert said, pointing toward the enemy host. “Lord Ardent! The traitor—he has changed sides!”
The king shot Gilbert a look of disgust and raised his arm. The sword he held flashed in the rising sun.
Uther waited, resplendent in his red-crested Roman armor, every muscle tense. If he attacked too soon, the battle would be fought on the far bank of the river and in the dark, and Merlin had assured him that victory would come only if he fought Vortigern on the surface of the river itself. He must trust the wizard’s advice. It was the only advantage he had against an army three times the size of his own. Compared to Vortigern, Uther had no cavalry worth the name, and a mounted knight could cut a foot-soldier to pieces within minutes.
At last the first moment came when there was light enough. “Loose!” Uther shouted, and the air was filled with arrows.
The volley of arrows rattled through Vortigern’s line like a shower of pointed hail, claiming few casualties. Though one of the victims was Sir Egbert, Vortigern did not flinch as the man beside him fell from his saddle.
“Charge!” Vortigern bellowed, bringing down his sword. The shout was taken up along the line, and within moments the army was in motion, charging down the hill.
Uther’s pikemen ran forward to meet the foe. He’d had to give the order—he could not have held them back in the face of the oncoming cavalry. Quickly, the young prince gestured his troops forward, and heard a whooping cheer run up and down the line. He drew his own sword and ran toward the frozen river, shouting his battle cry.
Vortigern hung back only long enough to select his targets. Ardent first, just to warm up with, and then that upstart boy who wanted his throne. And then Merlin, just to spite the lynx-eyed serpent, Mab. All his enemies would be dead before nightfall. Vortigern spurred his warhorse forward.
From his vantage point upon the hill, Merlin saw the king’s white stallion charge forward. He began to walk slowly down the hill, Excalibur flashing in his hand.
In the moment that the two armies met, Uther saw the wisdom of the wizard’s plan. When the horses reached the ice they went down. Vortigern’s cavalry was useless. In moments the battlefield became a tumult of screaming horses and shouting men. The momentum of Vortigern’s charge was broken, and the fallen horses were doing more damage to their own side than to Uther’s.
In the distance, the Young Prince saw Vortigern galloping toward him. Hacking around him with his sword to clear his way, Uther began to forge through the tumult of fighting men to meet him.
The stallion fell the moment its hooves touched the ice, trapping the king beneath its flailing body. Three of Uther’s soldiers turned toward what they saw as easy prey, and in a moment Vortigern was buried beneath a pile of soldiers stabbing and hacking at him.
But if he had been that easy to kill, the king would have been dead long ago. Groping around with his free hand, Vortigern seized a spear that had been dropped by its former owner. He used it as a bludgeon, and in moments he had fought his way free, killing all three of his opponents, and was able to retrieve his sword from its sheath on his horse’s saddle. Standing alone over the bodies of his foes, Vortigern saw Ardent a few yards away, fighting gallantly against zealous foes. Eager for prey, Vortigern waded back into the battle that raged all around him.
Ardent saw the king and rushed toward him, his sword at the ready. For half his life he had groveled and toadied to Vortigern, serving him faithfully, guessing at his moods, and the king had repaid him for his care by feeding Ardent’s only daughter to the Great Dragon. Now he would do what he should have done years ago, and kill the Saxon usurper.
“Vortigern!” he shouted.
Vortigern closed with Lord Ardent, who quickly found that righteous rage was no substitute for regular sword practice. In moments Vortigern had beaten through his guard and bludgeoned the older man to the ground. Setting the point of his sword carefully into the center of Ardent’s armored chest, Vortigern hammered its point home with heavy blows of his mailed fist. In moments Ardent lay dead, his blood spreading through the snow beneath him.
“Ardent,” Vortigern said softly.
Merlin strode through the middle of the battle, paying no attention to the carnage around him. He wore no armor, only a close helmet of leather and bronze upon his head and his usual long feathered cloak. His lack of armor did not distress him. He had eyes only for Vortigern, and as if Fate itself had decreed that nothing should prevent their meeting, none of the other soldiers’ combats touched him. It was as if Merlin moved through a world that held him alone.
At last he reached the king.
Vortigern stepped over Ardent’s body and sneered mockingly when he saw Merlin. “Are you going to use some of your magic on me, Merlin?” he asked tauntingly.
“I’ll kill you any way I can, Vortigern—but I will kill you,” Merlin answered evenly.
In that moment Vortigern swung at him. Instinctively, Merlin raised Excalibur to block the blow. The sword hummed sweetly, and there was a ringing sound as the swords met. But Excalibur only shuddered in Merlin’s grip. Vortigern’s blade was sheared off at the hilt.
King and wizard both stared at the enchanted blade. When Merlin looked up, he could see the knowledge of defeat written plainly on Vortigern’s face. As Vortigern began to step backward, Merlin raised the sword high above his head and brought it down again, but this time Vortigern was not his target.
The tip of the sword touched the ice gently, and the ice exploded away from the blade. In moments a deep fissure appeared in the frozen surface running directly toward Vortigern, and widening as it ran. The surface that had been so solid a moment before gave way beneath the king’s feet, and Vortigern fell through the ice into the icy black water beneath.
For a moment it seemed as if he would drag himself onto the ice again. His mailed hands scrabbled at the edges of the ice as he strained to save himself, but the cold leeched the strength from his limbs as the weight of his armor pulled him inexorably down into the chill lightless dark. He screamed as he sank from sight, and his last despairing scream echoed through the icy air, unnaturally loud, startling the men who fought around him. The ice closed over him as Vortigern struggled desperately to reach the air once more, entombing him like a dragonfly in amber.
As the men around Merlin realized what had happened, the fighting stopped. Men lowered their weapons, turning to stare at the spot where the king had vanished. Slowly the clash of weapon against weapon died away, until the entire battlefield was silent, waiting.
Merlin stared down at the shining blade of Excalibur, and at Vortigern’s dead face gazing up at him from beneath the ice.
“Surrender!” The cry was taken up by others; it rippled through the soldiers like wind over summer wheat, and men began to throw down their weapons.
“That’s a mighty sword,” said Uther—King Uther, now.
Merlin had not seen him approach. The force of the rage that had sustained him ever since the moment he’d seen the Great Dragon attack Nimue had ebbed at last, leaving him hollow and sickened by what he had done. He had used his magic, or the sword’s, to kill—and in this moment, standing in the cold bloodstained snow, Merlin could not remember why killing had seemed so important to him.
“It’s Excalibur …” Merlin said. He offered the sword—still unstained by blood—to Uther, who took it reverently. Swords like Excalibur were for executioners and kings, and Merlin did not wish to be either.
“It can only be used by a good man in a good cause,” Merlin said, though even as he spoke he knew that was not true. Excalibur would grant vic
tory to any who held it, but they must look elsewhere for wisdom.
“I understand,” Uther said. He flourished the shining sword in the air, and his men closed around him, cheering his great victory over Vortigern as if Uther had won the day by force of arms alone.
No one in Uther’s Christian army wanted to congratulate Merlin, and he was able to slip away, unnoticed, from the king’s side. He walked steadily, empty-handed now, through the men and the horses, the reddened snow, and the vast landscape of the dead.
Vortigern was dead. Only one tear had ever been shed for him, and his pride had cast it away. In the end, he had paid for that pride with his life.
Now Uther was king, and his Christian rule would heal the scars of the land and so defeat Mab. Merlin could return to Avalon Abbey, and Nimue.
Merlin looked back toward the frozen river, and saw that the men were carrying Uther on their shoulders, cheering as lustily as if so many of their fellows did not lay dead at their feet. Now they would crown their new king. The Red Dragon had defeated the White, and the prophecy that had called Merlin from his forest home was fulfilled.
But a strange sense of uneasiness filled his thoughts, as though—somehow—he was wrong.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE THRONE OF PRIDE
Deep under the Hill, in the Land of Magic, Mab gazed into a scrying crystal that showed her only ice, and a battlefield long cleared of bodies. She felt a curious pain in the place that had once been her heart at the knowledge that Vortigern was dead. The two of them had fought from the moment they had met. Mab had tangled the threads of his life and denied him the chance to found a dynasty, but now that he was dead, she would miss him. Of all her cat’s-paws down through the centuries, Vortigern had been the only one to go to his death clear-eyed and accepting.
She waved her hand over the surface of the glass, and the scene changed. Now the crystal showed a nun’s cell in Avalon, where a Healing Sister helped Nimue to take her first unsteady steps. The heavy bandages were gone, and the girl’s face was veiled in a hopeless attempt to conceal her scars, even when there was no one to see.
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