Page 94 of The Road to Avalon
Men on both sides fell dying to the blood-soaked ground. Horses, impaled on the throwing spears, collapsed into the churned-up dust in the charnel house of battle. Their riders, if they were lucky, struggled up to fight on foot, dark with blood spatter, caked with dirt.
But where was Arthur?
Still fighting to control Enfys, who had a death wish, I scanned the battle in desperation, snippets of it ingraining themselves onto my retinas. A single riderless horse, its chestnut shoulder soaked with blood, cantered out of the mêlée, heading home toward Din Cadan. A man on foot staggered backward with a spear stuck through his belly from front to back. A sword swipe sent a head spinning through the air. Blood fountained like a geyser all over the rider who’d struck the blow, darkening his horse’s coat. The rooks rose screeching from their treetops then settled again, beady eyes fixed on the churning mass of men. And above the battlefield, the hungry buzzards circled ever lower, patient and attentive.
I had to help. The conviction that all this was my fault and I owed it to Arthur washed over me. I couldn’t watch while my loved ones died. This was Camlann where my husband was destined to be mortally wounded. Perhaps it was up to me to save him. Madness coursed through me, the same madness of battle that men must feel, with no care or thought for my own safety.
I took my reins in one hand and drew my sword, a weapon heavier to hold than the one I was used to. I was a warrior queen. I could do this.
Gripping the sword until my knuckles whitened, I turned Enfys toward the fray and gave my horse her head.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Get out!” Ceibellowed, wild with a mix of anger and battle lust. “You’re a danger to others. Get back!”
He’d appeared out of the seething mass of fighting men as if from nowhere, his face contorted with rage, sword raised ready to swing, and eyes wide with shock as he saw my face.
“I have to help,” I shouted back above the din of battle. From behind, a young warrior lunged for Cei, and, instinct kicking in, I slashed at the warrior’s sword arm. My blade cut into flesh, grating on bone. Blood spurted.
Cei twisted in his saddle, his own sword slicing through the air. The young man’s weapon dropped from his inert right hand as his severed head went flying. For a few long seconds, his body remained upright, before it toppled from the saddle to land on the ground with a thud.
All around me, men fought up close and hand-to-hand, yet for that moment, I was isolated in a cocooning bubble as though none of them could see me. I was on the outside looking in, on the edge of the battle yet not a part of it. Excluded.
Ignoring Cei, who was already exchanging hammer blows with another young warrior, I searched the seething mass of men for Arthur. He’d been so easy to spot when he’d had Llamrei with her gleaming white coat, but Taran was different. Every man rode a bay it seemed, and all of them were sprayed with blood.
Another warrior went for me. His shield hand gripping his reins, he barged his horse toward Enfys. Mad eyes stood out from his head, wild with bloodlust. Lumps of gray matter and blood splattered his youthful face.
I stared, the brief second of warning stretching out like a piece of elastic.
Was this a boy I’d seen grow to manhood at Din Cadan? A boy whosemotherI might know?
In slow motion, he swung his sword, and I raised my shield to block the blow. The impact shivered up my arm to jar my shoulder. Time sped up and he struck again. This time my sword met his. I didn’t have his strength, but I had all the skills I needed.
Our swords clashed again and then again. Every blow jarred my joints in wrist, elbow and shoulder. As if from far away, I viewed the fight dispassionately. How long could I keep this up before he killed me? The mêlée receded into a noisy blur. Only this warrior and I existed, exchanging blow after blow, each of us intent on killing the other.
The muscles in my out-of-practice sword arm ached. This strange sword was too heavy for me. Any minute now he’d get the better of me and I’d be dead. Would I care? Sweat ran freely down my back and stood out on my forehead, trickling into my eyes and mouth, salty on my tongue. My shield shivered from another blow. My opponent had youth and strength on his side, and I was a mere woman, but I’d be dying as a warrior queen. How odd that I didn’t care, how odd that my soul felt calm.
Without warning, the young warrior’s chest blossomed into an exotic red flower, the shaft of its stamen thrusting from between his ribs. His eyes flew wide in shock. His sword arm fell, and his mouth hung open as though his jaw had dislocated. Cei released his hold on the spear he’d run him through with, and the young man tumbled sideways from his horse.
Eyes rolling wildly, the horse kicked out as the dead man’s foot twisted and snagged in his stirrup, catching the young warrior in the head and sending his helmet flying. Terrified by the unexpected heavy weight dangling from its saddle, the horse bolted away from the mass of fighting men, the body bouncing across the uneven ground behind it.
I dragged my eyes away from the sight and back to Cei, as purpose rose its head again. “Where’s thatshitMedraut? I’ve a score to settle with him.”
As if for answer, from out of the crush a rider emerged, heading toward Din Cadan. The plume on his helmet blew out behind him; I’d have known that helmet anywhere. Alongside him galloped two other warriors. Fleeing the battle like the cowards they were. My heart leapt. Arthur must be winning.
To my left, the battle eddied away from me, but I had no eyes for it.
Only a dozen or so strides behind the fleeing riders, a lone horseman followed. He crouched over his own mount’s neck, a black bear rampant across his white shield and Excalibur gripped in his right hand. Without a glance to either side to see whether he had backup, he charged after Medraut. His voice rose above the sounds of battle. “Come back here, you coward!”
Medraut didn’t slow, but one of his followers, short and sturdy Cinbelin, hauled his horse into a handbrake turn, raising a spear he must have snatched from somewhere. He didn’t throw it, but lowered it like the lance it wasn’t and kicked his horse into a gallop heading straight for Arthur.
The momentum of Arthur’s gallop carried him headlong into the unavoidable impact. They hit one another with a resounding crash, Cinbelin’s spear splintering Arthur’s shield.
On the edge of the battle, heads turned.
“Do something!” I screamed at Cei.
Arthur reeled in the saddle from the blow but didn’t fall. Half of his shield fell away in shattered fragments. His sword arm swung Excalibur in a deadly arc. Cinbelin, despite his sturdy, muscular build and his youth, was no match for the man who’d bested Melwas and Cadwy in hand-to-hand combat.
