At last, growing bored, I crept out to find her standing in the middle of the lawn with her back to me. I called out to her, asking why she didn’t come looking for me. She turned towards me, her eyes blank and unseeing.
“Who are you?” she asked.
I started crying, my five year old self unable to understand why my mummy didn’t recognise me.
The dream changed. The house and garden vanished and my mother faded until I was stood alone in the middle of a snowy field. The sky was black over head and it was starting to snow heavily.
Something moved at the edge of the field, a patch of darker shadow. My stomach clenched and I turned towards it, trying to force my eyes to see through the darkness.
I spun on the spot as the snow behind me crunched and another patch of shadows crept closer.
I wanted to scream, but my throat was sealed shut. Where was Lance? Why was I alone?
The clouds overhead broke and a glimmer of moonlight filtered down, illuminating tall figures closing in on all sides. A shift in the breeze drove a smell towards me and I gagged. It was the smell of death, rotting flesh and dirt.
With a rasp one of the figures drew a sword. The blade was black, so dark it almost absorbed the moonlight. The rasp was echoed all around me as the other figures drew swords as well.
As they closed in the smell of rotting flesh grew overpowering. There was no where to run, no way of fighting them. I knew this was the end.
I fell to my knees as one of them raised their sword. My eyes closed as I waited for the blow to fall.
“Cara.”
Hands shook me roughly and my eyes flew open. I was on the bed in the cottage, my breath coming in frantic gasps.
Lance leant over me, his hair dishevelled and his eyes wide. I thought for a moment I’d woken him with my nightmare.
“Cara, we need to move. Now. Get up. Quickly.”
I stared up at him in bewilderment. “What? What’s going on?”
“There’s no time. Come on. We need to go.”
Swinging my legs around, I stood up, glancing over my shoulder at the dark sky outside. “Have the owners of the cottage shown up?”
“No. Please, Cara. We have to go. Now.”
His obvious anxiety was starting to affect me and I stumbled across the room to grab my bag.
“Leave it. It’ll slow us down. Quickly.”
He grabbed my wrist, tugging me across the room and out of the door. I tripped down the stairs behind him and out into the bitterly cold night. The snow had stopped falling but thick clouds still hung low and ominous, waiting to dump another load on us.
Wyn and Percy stood at the end of the garden path. They were both looking off into the trees but Wyn turned to face us as we came out of the house.
“Where are they?” Lance asked.
“Close. Too close. One of them showed themselves a few minutes ago. But I think he was just scouting the place out, checking we were still here.”
“We need a car,” Lance said, pulling me along with him as he jogged towards the narrow road leading to the closest town. “We can’t outrun them on foot.”
“Who?” I gasped. He had much longer strides than me and it was a struggle to keep up. “Who are we trying to outrun?”
Lance didn’t answer my question. He was frowning, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I’d rather we stuck together, but that’s not going to work. Wyn, run down to the village. Find a car, any car, and come to find us. We’ll cut across through the trees. I don’t want to lead them anywhere near other people.”
Wyn hesitated. “Lance, you can’t fight them alone.”
“What am I?” Percy protested.
“You’ve got a broken arm…”
“I don’t plan on fighting them,” Lance said softly. “Now go. We’ll be fine.”
Wyn nodded, even though he didn’t look happy about it, and raced off into the darkness. As Lance tried to drag me towards the trees I dug my heels in.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. I’m fed up of being kept in the dark.”
Lance spun to face me, eyes flashing. “We don’t have time for this, Cara. Just trust me when I say that you don’t want to meet what’s out there.”
I let him tug me into the trees. We’d barely gotten ten feet when the undergrowth rustled off to our left. My body froze as Lance swung towards the noise. A gust of wind drove a horribly familiar smell towards us and I whimpered, the terror from the dream flooding back. A dark shadow moved and Lance thrust me towards Percy. I stumbled and nearly fell, but Percy caught me, hauling me back to my feet.
“Take her. Take her and run. Don’t stop and don’t look back.”
Percy shook his head. “I’m not leaving you to face those things alone. Think about it, I can’t defend her when the others catch us up.”
Lance swore loudly and inventively. He stepped in front of us both. “Fine. Stay right behind me.”
The stench of rotting flesh grew stronger as the shadow stepped towards us. A shaft of moonlight lanced down through the trees and I saw what had been stalking us for the first time.
Ancient, coal black armour shrouded a form even bigger than Lance. There was no shine to the metal. It was matte black, dented and pitted with rust. Yet it was the eyeholes in the helmet that drew my gaze; there were no eyes, just empty pits, burning with dark fire.
“What the hell is it?” I screamed at Lance as the creature straight out of my nightmare strode towards us, booted feet crushing the undergrowth.
“A Wraith,” he muttered.
The thing unsheathed its sword and swung at Lance. Ducking under the blow he lashed out with his foot, catching it on the knee and its leg buckled.
“Come on.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me away through the trees.
It was impossible to run with the undergrowth catching at our feet but we stumbled along, Lance in front of me and Percy on my heels.
“What exactly is a Wraith?” I gasped when we seemed to have put some distance between us and it.
For a moment it didn’t look like Lance was going to reply, but then his shoulders sagged slightly.
“A wraith is a creature of old magic. They’re not alive; they’re spirits of long dead knights drawn back into this world. You can’t kill them, you can’t fight them. They won’t stop until they finish the job they’ve been summoned back to complete.”
I screamed as another wraith stepped from the trees to our left. Lance spun, but Percy was already there. He charged under its outstretched sword and slammed his shoulder into its chest. They tumbled out of sight into the undergrowth.
“Percy!”
“Leave it, Cara. He’ll be fine. Come on.” Lance dragged me onwards, but I stared back over my shoulder, praying for Percy to re-emerge from the trees.
A root caught at my foot and I fell, almost pulling Lance down with me. He dragged me back upright and we staggered on.
“You said they don’t stop till they complete a job,” I said, trying to stop myself thinking about what might be happening to Percy. “So what are they doing here?”
Again Lance hesitated. “You really want to know?”
He stopped so suddenly I slammed into the back of him. He caught me as he turned, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight. I threw up my hands to steady myself, palms pressed against Lance’s chest.
“They’re here to kill you, Cara. They’ve been sent to kill the only threat to their master, the one who raised them from the dead.”
His voice seemed to be coming from a long way away, my vision blurred at the edges. I felt sick, I couldn’t seem to breathe. My fingers clutched at the fabric of his shirt.
“Kill me?” The words came out as a strangled gasp.
“This is why I didn’t tell you,” Lance said, grabbing my face between his hands. “I need you to be strong.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted in a whisper.
“No one is immune to fear. It’s how you deal with it that matters.”<
br />
I nodded just as there was a rustle behind us. Lance shoved me backwards, but it was Percy who staggered out of the trees. He was covered in blood again, but he seemed relatively unscathed.
“What are you two standing around chatting for?” He grinned like a schoolboy and shoved us both towards the trees.
Only seconds later we stumbled across a small ditch and onto the tarmac of a road. With a firm surface under our feet we could run, pounding down the road. All I could hear was the pumping of my own blood.
Tyres screeched down the road and a car cornered at high speed. The full headlights illuminated one of the wraiths waiting in the middle of the road for us. It turned too late and the car hit it full on, sending it flying into the ditch.
The car fishtailed as it braked and came to a halt side on to us. The driver’s door was flung open and Wyn looked out at us, eyes bright with adrenaline.
“Well, get the hell in.”
We ran for the car. Percy got there first and flung open the back door before sliding over the bonnet and round to the passenger door. Lance shoved me inside and scrambled in after me. He barely had the door shut before Wyn stamped on the accelerator.
Chapter Ten
My heart tripped in my chest as the car sped down the road. The stench of the Wraiths hung around us still. I felt I would need a dozen showers to get rid of it. Hysteria threatened to bubble over inside me, but I kept it tightly contained behind a mask of calm. Lance cast me a brief look then leant forward in his seat.
“Percy, are you hurt?”
Percy shook his head and looked over the back of the head rest. “I’m fine. A couple of surface scratches is all. I’ll live.”
Lance patted him on the shoulder. “Glad to hear it.” His eyes flicked to me. “Cara?”
“If you’re expecting me to say I’m fine you can forget it,” I snapped, the calm mask slipping. People used the phrase ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ all the time, but I’d seen it and I still wasn’t sure I could believe it. “Things like that – they’re not even supposed to exist.” I couldn’t deal with this.
“They exist when there are those around to summon them. They’re creatures of the old magic – magic that died out centuries ago for the most part.”
“So how the hell are they walking around right now? And why would they have anything to do with me?” Magic? Wraiths? None of it seemed real. It was like something out of a horror film, only horror movies didn’t smell so bad.
“Because there are still those who can control the old magic. As for what they have to do with you – well, everything really.” Lance shifted uncomfortably under my glare. “You know I’m not going to tell you more than that, so you can stop looking at me that way.”
A dozen choice swearwords came to mind, but instead I pressed my lips together tightly and slumped back into the seat.
A heavy, awkward silence filled the car. Percy and Wyn exchanged glances in the front but wisely kept their mouths shut.
You’re being childish. The voice muttered in the back of my mind.
I resented that, partly because I knew it was true. But I also thought I was entitled to a little melodrama, after all, my whole world had just flipped. But I want to know what’s going on. None of this makes any sense.
I doubt it will make much sense even when you do know. But if it helps, I will tell you my name. I think it’s time for you to know at least that much.
Tell me. I was desperate, desperate for any hint, any clue, of what was happening to me.
There was silence and when the voice spoke next it was in the faintest whisper.
My name, Cara, is Arthur Pendragon.
The name rung in my mind like a bell, but for a moment I couldn’t work out why I knew it.
“King Arthur!” The words burst from my lips.
The car jerked as Wyn jumped, and Percy spun in his seat. Lance didn’t even look my way, but a tiny smile twisted the corner of his lips.
I ignored all three of them.
You’re trying to tell me you’re King-friggen-Arthur?
I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘friggen’, but yes, I am King Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot and Albion.
I started laughing. I laughed so hard tears rolled down my cheeks. The laughter scared me, but it wouldn’t stop. If I stopped laughing I was scared I’d break down.
White hot pain erupted across my cheek and the laughter stopped abruptly. I blinked and Lance came into focus leaning over me, flexing one gloved hand.
He’d slapped me. Hard. I lifted my hand to my burning cheek.
“Sorry,” he said carefully. “But you were getting hysterical.”
“Hysterical?” I asked, feeling almost numb with shock. “Too damn right I’m getting hysterical. I’m bloody crazy. I’m completely and utterly insane.”
“You’re not insane.”
I snorted. “I think I’m bloody King Arthur – what else would you call it.”
He shook his head. “You’re not King Arthur. You don’t even think you’re King Arthur. You’re just being melodramatic. But you are currently mortal host to his soul.”
He is right. You’re not insane, Cara. However strange all this may seem.
“I don’t believe any of this. I don’t even know why I’m here – why I trusted you. I want you to take me home. Now.”
“I can’t do that, Cara.”
“Yes, you can.” I knew my voice was getting hysterical again, but I didn’t care enough to try to control it. I shoved Lance aside and lunged forward to grab Wyn’s shoulders. “Turn around. Turn around now. Take me home.”
We were back on the motorway and the car swerved across three lanes of traffic before Lance succeeded in pulling me off Wyn.
Brakes screeched all around us and horns blared from every side.
“Are you trying to get us all killed?” Lance snarled, manhandling me back into my seat. He grabbed the seat belt and hauled it across me, clicking it into place before breaking the button so I couldn’t undo it. “Stay there.”
“I want to go home,” I pleaded, tugging futilely at the broken seatbelt.
“And then what? Join your mother at Snedham? What good will that do anyone? There is a reason this is happening now. A reason that it’s you. And you are going to have to deal with it. None of us can escape fate.”
“You knew…”
“Of course I knew.” Lance slumped back in the seat suddenly looking tired. “I’ve been watching you for months. But none of this was supposed to happen until you were eighteen. I was supposed to have more time.” He scrubbed one hand across his eyes. “Wyn, how long is it going to take to get there?”
“A couple of hours at least,” he replied with a shrug. “Can’t we get him to meet us half way?”
Lance shook his head. “No. He has no power beyond the Lake. He is bound to it.”
“Who is he?” I asked quietly, giving up my fight with the seat belt.
“You mean you can’t work it out?” Lance sighed when I glowered at him. “Are you going to get hysterical again?”
“No.” I wasn’t lying. I was still freaking out just a little bit, but calmness had come over me. I had a feeling it had something to do with the voice – I couldn’t bring myself to call it Arthur.
“We’re taking you to see the one person who can explain all this. Just as I told you at your house. We’re taking you to Merlin.”
I almost started laughing again. But the voice, Arthur, held me in check, his whispered reassurances getting through to me even if I didn’t want them to. “Merlin?”
Lance scanned my face, as though looking for any sign that I was about to go crazy again. “Yes, Merlin.”
“The all-powerful sorcerer, Merlin? Long hair and beard, robes? That, mythical, non-existent, Merlin?” I injected as much sarcasm into my voice as I could, but Lance ignored it.
“He’s as real as you or I, Cara.”
“Are you real? I’m not even sure I know anymore.”
<
br /> “I’m real. I’m flesh and blood. You’ve seen enough of Percy’s blood to know that.”
I had to accept that. I’d touched Lance; felt him warm and alive beneath my fingers. But accepting everything else? That felt like to much. An awful thought occurred to me.
“This could be some kind of hallucination. Maybe I never left Snedham that day I went to visit my mother. Maybe right now I’m sat in one of those little white rooms, staring at nothing whilst my father has me committed for life.”
“Would you prefer that?” Lance asked. His voice was low and angry. “Would you rather think yourself crazy than accept the truth?”
“It’s a more realistic explanation,” I snapped back. “King Arthur was a myth, a legend. He never really existed. Magic isn’t real.”
“You saw those wraiths.”
“I’ve got a pretty good imagination. You’d be amazed at the things I can dream up.”
“Ah, yes, talking of dreaming.” Now Lance looked smug. “How are you going to explain those away? You saw things before they happened. You know you did. You still do.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t have an answer for him.
Cara, you know all this is true. It’s in your blood, in your heart. Stop using your head. There is more to this world than you can see or touch. The old magic faded. People forgot. History became myth and legend, and I was forgotten, known only through fantasy and fiction.
His voice trailed off slightly, throbbing with sadness, but then it came back stronger.
The world moved on. But whilst the magic faded it did not disappear. One who can still command the old magics has returned to this world. She seeks what she always craved. Power and vengeance. She will turn the world back to the old ways, when magic was wild and untamed and the people lived in fear. She has already begun. The wraiths will not stop until they destroy you. She knows you. She knows you are the only one who can stop her.
“Why?” I said out loud. “Why me?”
Because of your blood. The blood of Kings. You, Cara Page, are the last descendant of a line of kings. You are a Pendragon.
The Last Knight (Pendragon Book 1) Page 8
