Page 82 of The Quest for Excalibur
I nodded. “I did. I saw Llacheu’s men preparing to attack. Just for a moment, when you touched me.”
He reached out and grabbed Alezan’s right rein. “Back inside the wood then. Get out of sight, and I’ll try again. Come on.” He had to shout above the noise of the wind and rain.
With our guards, we plunged between the smooth beech trunks, back to where we’d originally been standing. Low branches thick with turning leaves blocked our view, rattling in the wind, and the force of the rain lessened.
“Make a circle around the Queen,” Merlin snapped at the five remaining men. “Not you. Get to the forest edge, and watch out for Saxons coming our way. Now.” The fifth rider spun his horse back to the northern boundary of our wood.
Four riders couldn’t make much of a circle, but they did their best.
Impatient, desperate even, I caught Merlin’s wrist, my nails digging into the flesh. “Show me now, before it’s too late.”
He compressed his lips. “I don’t know if it’ll work a second time…”
I scowled. “Well, try.” The words shot out like bullets from a gun.
Alezan’s hooves paced time in the leaf mold, but I didn’t release Merlin’s wrist.
Heaving in a deep breath, Merlin set his teeth over his lower lip for a moment. “Trying is all I can do. You know how little control I have over my gifts. Be patient.”
I let go.
His chin dropped to his chest, and his eyes closed. His restless horse, as though influenced by her rider’s sudden change, stood quiet, head down.
I stared, unable to drag my gaze away.
Merlin’s shoulders rose and fell as his breathing slowed, their movement almost hypnotic.
Every cell in my body quivered with anticipation and need.
Our guards, wary and afraid of anything that might be magic, turned their heads away. Their swift, secretive fingers made the sign against the evil eye.
I waited, my heartbeat counting the seconds.
Time stretched out. Thunder rolled again, followed by a jagged streak of lightning almost overhead. We were at the eye of the storm.
Merlin’s left hand shot out and closed around my right forearm. “Shut your eyes.” His voice, almost unrecognizable, had lowered to a hiss.
I obeyed. The rain began to fall more heavily, and the wind lashed the still leafy branches. Water ran off my helmet and down my neck.
Darkness behind my eyelids. My own breathing loud in my ears.
I concentrated on the touch of his hand on my arm. His warmth radiated through my tunic, blossoming until a real heat threatened to sear my skin.
Sound came to me first, battering its way through the darkness. Horses screamed, men shouted, weapons clashed, and thunder rolled. So loud and so real my eyes almost flicked open in terror that the battle had somehow found its way into our wood, and we’d been surrounded.
Then came smell. Blood. Shit. Sweat. Wet horses. Wet men. A stench of sulfur that might have been from the raging storm.
I opened my eyes. Lightning fissured the black clouds, sending jagged bolts to strike the earth like the wrath of God himself. Rain tumbled down. The dark clouds that had made a dim twilight of the day blazed with a strobing light, as beneath the storm the battle raged.
Chaos. Men fought pressed up against one another. Shoulder to shoulder, face to face. Saxons, or they might have been our men, unhorsed, fell under the hooves of our cavalry, trampled into the wet ground. Impossible to tell who was who.
Shouts– “For Dumnonia!”–whose voice was that? Battle horns– sounding for which side? Screams of the dying. The harsh cries of the circling carrion birds. The crash of lightning, the drum of rain, the stink of death.
A horse’s brown ears lay flat against her head in front of me. She struck out with her front hooves as she’d been trained, then kicked out with both back legs, jerking me in the saddle. As good, or better, a weapon as a lance, but more use at close quarters. I had no lance. Instead, a glittering sword flashed in my hands, the damascene blade slick with blood.
Excalibur.
I was inside Arthur’s head. With Merlin.
