Arthur brought out the horn Merlin had given him and blew it loudly for all to hear. Then he rode quickly into the battlefield, killing as many enemies as he could as he went. Meanwhile Lancelot followed Arthur and was keeping the dragon distracted with as many arrows as he could (firing them off quickly like a machine gun up at the dragon). Not a single arrow missed, although many arrows hit the dragon’s scales and merely bounced off.
All of Lancelot’s arrow shooting and Arthur’s sword-fighting seemed to inevitably draw the dragon’s attention to Arthur and Lancelot.
“Here she comes again!” said Lancelot, looking into the air.
“Good, we must draw her away from the battlefield!” exclaimed Arthur.
Lancelot fired another arrow up at the dragon. It hit the dragon in the leg, but she still continued forward through the air. She then dove down on Arthur, attempting to reach him with her powerful, sharp claws, but Arthur pushed his sword up and jabbed it up into her flesh. The dragon again screeched and momentarily retreated. But this time Arthur also screamed in pain. One of the dragon’s sharp claws had sliced his side. But he knew he could not stop now. He passed through the field and entered the dark forest, hoping that the forest would provide some kind of shield of protection for them from the dragon. He hoped that by now he had gotten the dragon’s full attention.
The dark forest was more moldy and chaotic than ever before. Almost every tree there was somehow distorted—being thrust, bent, or completely torn down and in shambles. This made the ride through the forest one chaotic obstacle course. Arthur could tell Hengroen was not pleased with this ride, but she was determined and rode as quickly as possible through the forest. Like a white beam of light Arthur’s valiant steed rode hard and fast with more agility and speed than any of the witch’s horses had ever ridden before.
The trees provided some form of shelter, but it was no match against the great dragon, who sent another terrifying beam of fire through the forest down near them. Lancelot and his steed quickly stopped and adjusted their route. This helped them avoid the swirl of fire that hit the ground right in front of them. “Arthur, we won’t be able to make it all the way to the palace like this.”
Arthur nodded. “That is not my goal. Just keep riding!”
Lancelot nodded. He had no idea what Arthur intended on doing to get up to the Poison Rose Palace. The witch had most likely sealed the gate around her palace in order to prevent anyone from getting to Alice and so their options seemed quite limited.
Lancelot and Arthur continued weaving themselves through the dark forest while at the same time looking up on occasion at the fierce dragon that was never far away.
Suddenly the branches above Arthur collapsed all around him. He looked up and saw the dragon’s large, fierce claws descend down onto him. He quickly drew his sword and again stabbed her, which sent her reeling back up into the sky.
Arthur sighed. He hoped they were near the edge of the forest because he knew they wouldn’t last much longer. The dragon tried several more times to grab Arthur from up off his horse, but before the dragon could pick him up Arthur would turn another way, forcing the dragon to simply grab a branch or tree trunk. This continued to irritate the dragon.
“Where is the dragon?” asked Lancelot, as the dragon suddenly seemed to disappear above the trees.
“I don’t know, just keep riding,” said Arthur, looking back at the forest now burning with a fiery heat.
Suddenly a light emerged from the distance. Arthur and Lancelot both knew they had almost reached the edge of the forest.
But even as their hearts filled with joy to near the end of the forest, they could see that the gate surrounding the witch’s palace was closed. And, to make matters worse, the dragon’s face suddenly emerged at the end of the forest—her mouth open and ready to consume them whole.
But Arthur did not stop or change his course. Instead, he continued forward, as if challenging the great dragon to a duel.
“What are you doing Arthur?” exclaimed Lancelot. “We are going straight towards the dragon!”
“Exactly!” yelled Arthur confidently.
Lancelot sighed. He felt that Arthur had now gone off the deep end. How was he supposed to believe that they could fight a dragon such as this? But, regardless of his doubts, he still trusted Arthur and so followed Arthur towards the dragon.
As the two rode towards the dragon the beast prepared to chomp down on their bodies. Its mouth was open, revealing its large, sharp teeth. But just before the dragon could bite down on them Arthur yelled, “Jump!” Then Lancelot suddenly realized what Arthur had been planning. Both horses suddenly leapt up, only a few feet away from the dragon, and Lancelot and Arthur jumped off of them up onto the dragon’s head as it tried to bite at them.
Arthur and Lancelot successfully managed to land on the dragon’s head. The dragon, realizing she missed them and their horses, drug her head backwards and upwards, and tried to bite into them or knock them off her head. But both Arthur and Lancelot grabbed the dragon’s scales on the top of her head and held onto them firmly. This seemed to annoy the dragon tremendously and propel the dragon upward. So the dragon flew higher and higher, annoyed at the fly-sized intruders on her body, hoping to just hit or fling them off to their deaths. But this was all part of Arthur’s plan to get to the Poison Rose palace.
After a few moments of flying through the air, the dragon lifted them up near her palace. Arthur and Lancelot both realized that they were so high that the air was suddenly getting too thin for them to breathe. Both jumped off the dragon and hit the ground with a hard thud only a few yards in front of the witch’s palace.
Although they hit the ground hard, neither Lancelot nor Arthur was knocked unconscious. The ground around them was cold, but the garden was still lush. Although the witch’s power was fading, Arthur knew that, because of the garden’s lush condition, Alice’s power as a witch must be increasingly rapidly. He knew he had little time to waste to find Alice.
“Lancelot, stay here and distract the dragon while I go find Alice,” said Arthur. Lancelot nodded, aimed another arrow up at the dragon, and fired.
Arthur entered the witch’s palace and looked around, desperately searching for Alice. Everything in the palace looked about the same as it did before, however, when he leaned against the wall of the palace to get a rest he felt his hand break through the wall like it were made of styrofoam.
“What is this? Her entire palace is dying as she is dying,” said Arthur back to Lancelot.
“Then go!” yelled Lancelot. “I will take the dragon!” The dragon dove on Lancelot, but Lancelot jumped out of the way just in time.
Arthur obeyed Lancelot and rushed up the first stairway to try to find Alice. But the dragon was not long distracted by Lancelot. She seemed to sense now that Arthur was after Alice. So, as Arthur was running, she crashed down suddenly and quickly through the palace, causing pieces of wall and ceiling to fly all around Arthur like shattered glass.
There seemed like no way down now. The entire stairway had been shattered away by the dragon. But Arthur continued ever onward searching for Alice until he reached her in the very top tower. He suddenly stopped and sighed when she came into view.
But Arthur was terribly saddened by what he saw. Alice turned around and gave him an insidious stare. She now wore an elegant and beautiful black dress. Her hair was no longer blonde but a putrid black. Her body had begun a type of transformation—she looked more beautiful and adult-like than before, but also much more evil.
“Alice!” said Arthur. “Come, we must leave now before the transformation is complete!”
But Alice did not reply. It seemed that now the evil that was inside of her had grown to unparalleled heights. She had to admit that she actually enjoyed the power she was receiving from the rose.
“I will not come father,” replied Alice. “This is my home now, a home that you have seen fit to bring to shambles. It was your fault for everything Arthur. You were the reaso
n my mother died. You were the reason I was kept isolated from the world, rarely ever leaving the castle, let alone Camelot. And now the witch will kill you, making my transformation complete! I will then be more beautiful and powerful than anyone who has ever lived!”
Tears formed in Arthur’s eyes. “Alice, do not be deceived by the witch’s lies. You must trust in me! I have made mistakes, but not the mistake of love. I have always loved you.”
Suddenly the dragon burst through the tower, which forced Alice and Arthur to duck down to the ground. Arthur watched as the top half of the tower tore completely off and was sent to the distant ground. Arthur knew he could not waste any more time talking, so he rushed over to Alice and picked her up off the ground.
“Get your hands off me,” yelled Alice, attempting to escape his grasp.
“You aren’t a witch yet!” retorted Arthur. “You are still my daughter.”
Arthur ran down the stairs as far and as fast as he could before reaching a steep drop-off where the stairs were broken with about ten feet between them. Suddenly the dragon burst through the wall at Arthur. He ducked and with his left hand grabbed the end of the dragon’s tail. The dragon carried them downward before she flung them to the ground. Both Alice and Arthur hit the ground and ran outside of the crumbling palace.
Alice suddenly stopped and fell to the ground with exhaustion right in front of what was left of the front façade of the palace. There, she crawled up and hid herself behind a piece of wall, afraid of the terrible dragon that had now ascended in the air hundreds of feet above them.
Arthur tripped over the front stairway of the palace. He hit the ground hard and was temporarily knocked unconscious by a piece of the palace that came hurling down to the ground. Lancelot looked to Arthur for direction, but he realized Arthur was in trouble. He fired another arrow at the dragon, this time hitting it in the face. The arrow caused the dragon to get even angrier, but did little damage to its exterior.
Lancelot reached over and heaved up the piece of palace off of Arthur. Arthur then woke up staring up at the dragon flapping her wings above him several feet in the air. The dragon suddenly began her descent. Arthur looked over at Lancelot and yelled, “Fire another arrow!” Lancelot nodded and reached for his quiver, but realized he had a major problem.
“I am out of arrows!”
Arthur watched as the dragon swiped her massive tail down at Lancelot and flicked him several feet away with one powerful swing. This rendered Lancelot unconscious. The dragon then moved back up into the air and prepared for another descent—this time for Arthur.
Arthur looked away from Lancelot and back up at the dragon as she prepared for her powerful dive. It seemed as if she knew that Arthur was now very weak, both from the thin air and from carrying his daughter. But it was in this moment, this grave moment of physical weakness, that he found a spiritual strength. It was here that he stood up, drew his sword and aimed it up at the dragon.
“Dragon, no matter what your size and evil good will always triumph!” declared Arthur. “May you perish in the deepest chasms of the earth!”
The dragon heard these words, which angered her even more. So down she dove, at this now weak, but valiant Arthur who held his sword pointed up at her. Although the dragon’s descent only took a matter of moments, for Arthur it seemed to last an eternity. It seemed as if everything he had been through with this witch was destined to come to this one moment.
In this one moment thoughts swirled through Arthur’s head. He thought about Guinevere, that perhaps he would finally soon join her in the afterlife. Then his thoughts were drawn to his beloved Alice, who sat behind the broken wall looking up at him, not with hate, but confusion and fear. Then he thought about Merlin, the great wizard that perished by the evil witch. Then he looked over at Lancelot, unconscious on the ground because of this fierce creature. It was in this moment that everything seemed to come together. He knew what he had to do and his spirit was all the more willing to do it.
The dragon looked down and watched as, oddly enough, Arthur tossed away his sword, throwing it towards the broken wall in front of him. Arthur then heard a voice in the air, which must have been from the witch: “Arthur, once again you lack the will to kill me. But this time I will not stab you in the side, but will surely kill you!”
Arthur stared up at the dragon but did not say a word. He thought the whole situation was ironic. The anger the witch meant to incite within him now was, in the end, only brought into her. He could feel her anger now more than ever and it was hotter than the hottest fire. But now Arthur was smart. Like what the witch did with him, he would use her anger against her, for he knew, in her enraged state, the witch would not fear killing Arthur in front of Alice. And the only hope Arthur had was to place everything on Alice—that she still loved him and would choose him over the witch. Words were of no use now. Now all that mattered was action. He had a time to prove that he was willing to give his life for his daughter.
Arthur watched as the dragon moved enthusiastically down through the air at him until her massive mouth grabbed him and lifted him up off the ground. The dragon bit down hard on Arthur, using her sharp teeth to pinch down against his body. Arthur looked down, noticing that the dragon stood on the ground with his own body lifted high in the air above it. He looked back up and could see the insidious red eyes of the dragon only a few feet away. Interestingly enough these were the same eyes of the woman that had so long ago been his love.
Arthur suddenly felt his chest collapse beneath him. He couldn’t breathe and he knew that it would only be a matter of moments before he was dead. The dragon seemed to laugh a little and wait a few moments to savor the kill. But Arthur’s last look was not one of fear or confusion, but of confidence. It didn’t matter that he was held firmly in between the dragon’s rows of razor sharp teeth. He still felt hope.
The dragon prepared to chomp down on her prey and Arthur felt himself able to take one last breath. He felt her large jaws clamping tighter and tighter, until suddenly the dragon’s head snapped upward. He then heard a loud moaning cry from the dragon as her jaw suddenly flung open, which hurled Arthur away to the ground. The dragon continued to screech loudly and began writhing around in pain like a snake for several seconds before she suddenly collapsed to the ground dead.
Arthur sighed with relief as he lifted himself off of the cold, hard ground and stared back over at the dragon’s massive corpse. Then he looked with relief and joy to see Alice lift Excalibur from out of the dragon’s side. Alice approached Arthur, now appearing in all her natural beauty. She smiled and handed Arthur his sword, a sword covered in black dragon blood.
“This blade is as true as its king,” said Alice.
Arthur smiled. They stared at each other there for several seconds, until they could bear the suspense no longer. They then suddenly rushed towards each other. A lice leapt up into Arthur’s arms. Joy surged through Arthur’s soul at being united again with his beloved daughter, and for several moments Arthur kept his arms so tight around her as to keep her entirely off the ground.
After this tender moment of reconciliation the two decided to walk together among the palace ruins, now merely standing as a faint memory of the witch’s power.
Arthur looked down towards the ground, picked up a piece of the palace, and watched as it seemed to evaporate in his hand. “So, after all the work and magic that went into making this palace and garden, it is all so soon turned into rubble,” said Arthur. “I suppose that all things created by magic only last as long as that magic lasts. I hope that the castle in Camelot will last much longer.”
“It will father,” replied Alice. “Because it was not built by magic, but by generations of great kings.”
Arthur felt good. He loved seeing Alice again and her being with him, walking among the old ruins of an evil witch’s palace, made him feel so much better. “This is how it was meant to be!” said Arthur. “Me with you walking among these ruins. I am sad that I ever walked here with the
witch by my side.”
The two continued their walk and it was there, among the ruins of the witch’s palace, that Alice spotted the same rose that used to be the poison rose, only now its stem was broken and battered, its rose entirely wilted and dead except for one dried, yellow petal.
“You must take the last petal father,” said Alice as she picked it up and lifted it up towards Arthur.
Arthur smiled. “No my dear,” said Arthur. “This last petal is for you.” Arthur plucked the last petal from the rose, placed it firmly into Alice’s right hand, cupped it, and pushed it near to her heart. “You will always have my heart Alice, no matter how frail it may become.”
It was in this moment that both Alice and Arthur knew the wicked evil of the witch had finally been defeated and, because of this, they felt a soothing sense of joy and relief.
Then they both suddenly heard a voice, the voice of Lancelot yelling, “Arthur! Arthur!”
Arthur turned around in joy to see Lancelot running up the hill. Without hesitation they both dashed towards each other and embraced each other as the greatest friends that man had ever known. “You are alive brother!” exclaimed Arthur. “I have never been happier than in this moment!”
Snow suddenly began to descend from the clouds above. “This mountain will finally be purified by its first snow in a long time,” said Lancelot.
The three then walked back towards the front of the palace. There they all saw the massive dragon corpse being covered in snow. Lancelot laughed. “So it may seem that not even a dragon could severe the love between us three. Joy may now finally come to this land, a land free of the evil of the witch!”
The three then turned and stared out over Badon Fields as the sun began to set in the west. The battle, they hoped, would soon be over.
******
After the witch was killed a moment of complete silence and awe filled Badon Fields. The men who served the witch suddenly stopped fighting and looked back up at Poison Rose Mountain. They could feel something different. Arthur’s soldiers on the battlefield, now numbering no more than two hundred, stopped fighting and looked up towards the mountain as well.
The Poison Rose: A King Arthur Tale Page 26
