Sword of Light (12 page)

She smiled to herself and went to unsaddle Alba.

After that, things got better. Rhianna slept for a whole day without dreaming, and woke to
find a different camp. The men were training the older squires to fight with wooden swords, and there was much laughter as they set up a training target and tilted each other off the big horses with blunted lances. The younger squires whistled as they went about their work, slopping buckets and oiling armour, sharpening blades and clearing dung. Sir Bors found Rhianna some spare squires’ clothing to replace her sack-dress. She especially liked the soft deerskin boots, which kept her feet dry and warm. The horses seemed in better spirits, too, munching nosebags of oats commandeered from nearby villages. Rhianna even managed to rescue a few apples for Alba before Cai ate them all.

She gave Elphin’s bandaged hands a suspicious look, but he shook his head.

“It’s all down to you,” he explained. “I’m saving my songs for the victory feast at Camelot.”

“They’re going to fight, then?” Rhianna asked, her heart pounding.

“They’ll fight.” Elphin’s eyes darkened to purple. “There isn’t any other way in this world, apparently.”

But to her frustration, they didn’t set out for Camelot immediately. Sir Bors said they had to prepare properly. Many of the men were still recovering from wounds taken in the battle against Mordred’s forces that had killed King Arthur. They had to find and train replacement horses. They were going to need anti-siege machines to use against the Saxon camp. Also, the knights and squires and horses had to be fed, and they all ate an incredible amount of food.

Rhianna tried to control her impatience.
After all, neither she nor Elphin knew anything about battles – and Cai didn’t seem to know very much, either, in spite of his squire’s training. But she knew she somehow had to learn how to use her father’s sword before the battle, at least to defend herself and avoid blooding the blade.

After spending a few days watching the older squires bashing each other in the clearing set aside for training, she strode into the middle of them and drew Excalibur from the battered scabbard Sir Bors had given her.

“Teach me to fight!” she demanded.

They just laughed at her.

“Out of our way, Damsel!” called a lanky lad with curly brown hair. “Or you might get hurt.”

“You’ll get hurt, you mean!” Rhianna snapped, filled with a sudden dark anger.
Forcing him to defend himself, she caught his clumsy blow on Excalibur’s blade. The magic sword smashed the wooden one into tiny pieces, and the squire yelled as a splinter went into his finger. He flushed as he sucked the wound.

The other boys crowded round, eyeing her glimmering sword warily. Too late, she remembered Lady Nimue’s warning about blooding the blade and realised how stupid she was being. But she couldn’t back down now. All she could do was try to keep the Sword of Light from cutting anyone before they let her go.

As she hesitated, another wooden blade struck her hand from behind, and Excalibur fell into the mud. She stared at it foolishly, the strange dark desire to fight them gone. The boys cheered and pressed closer, pulling her
braid and prodding her with their wooden weapons, none too gently.

“Whack her, Gareth!” they called. “Teach her a lesson for blooding your finger!”

It was Rhianna’s turn to flush. Nothing had changed. She was still the odd one out, the one they all teased because she was different. But none of them dared touch the sword she’d dropped.

Then Sir Bors was there. He shoved the boys aside, scowled at Rhianna and thrust a wooden blade into her hand. “If you want to learn to fight, my lady, then you do it the way everyone else does. Or the way they’re meant to do it… ten to one are not fair odds, lads, are they? Even if you brave squires weren’t fightin’ a damsel.”

The boys backed off, looking sheepish.

“But she was using Excalibur on us, sir,” said Gareth, the boy whose sword she’d broken. “It might’ve eaten our souls!”

“And don’t forget I drove off a troop of Mordred’s bloodbeards on my own!” Rhianna said, raising her chin. “How many of your damsels can do
that
?”

The squires glanced sideways at her, as if they didn’t know whether to believe her.

Sir Bors shook his head. “In King Arthur’s camp, you learn to fight chivalrous, not dirty like the barbarians do. And that includes you, my lady. Right, you hold a sword like this… feet a bit wider apart… that’s it. Now then, when he comes at you, you raise it up like so and—”

“Ow!” yelled Gareth as she struck him on the elbow, making him drop his replacement
weapon. “Not fair, sir! She changed hands!”

Sir Bors smiled. “Left-handed, eh? That can be an advantage in a battle. The enemy don’t expect it. Stop whining, boy, and let that be a lesson to you. Saxons have left hands, too, you know. And when you meet them, they won’t be using wooden blades. Now then, again!”

By the time the lesson had finished, Rhianna was sweating as much as she had after rescuing Elphin from Mordred’s men. Every muscle in her body ached, and her arm trembled from blocking the others’ blows with the wooden sword. But she was grinning from ear to ear.

Sword fighting was very like dancing, really. You had to dance out of the way of your enemy’s blade, while making a shield around yourself with your own that no blade could slip
through. Easy enough for someone who had grown up in Avalon, where children learned to dance as soon as they could walk. And although Sir Bors gave her a ticking off afterwards for dropping Excalibur in the mud, her blood fizzed and her heart sang.

She would learn to be a great warrior! She would lead King Arthur’s knights to Camelot and drive off the Saxons for him, and when he was reborn she would fight at his side against Mordred and his bloodbeards! Then her father would be proud of her, even though she was his daughter rather than his son. Rhianna Pendragon, the bravest damsel who ever lived…

Still grinning, she burst into the tent Sir Bors had given them, eager to tell her friends about her lesson. She found a nervous Cai peering under the mats and behind the
curtains. “Lost something?” she said, thinking the boy must be after food of some sort, as usual.

Elphin’s purple gaze silenced her. “Mordred’s man is dead,” he said. “A snake got into the tent where he was being kept and bit him. The men guarding him saw his body dissolve into green smoke. I think it was poison sent from Annwn so he wouldn’t talk.”

10

Shadrake

T
he snake had left a trail of ice from the dead prisoner’s tent to the undergrowth, where it vanished into the night. If anyone doubted Elphin’s word that it had been sent from Annwn, they soon changed their minds when a cold mist descended over the clearing,
crackling in the bare branches of the trees and chilling everyone to the bone. But at least its attack spurred the camp into action.

The knights checked their weapons and ordered the squires to finish making repairs to their horses’ harnesses. Fires were stoked up against the dark. Rhianna shivered herself to sleep under her fur with Excalibur beside her in its battered scabbard. She had a dream in which the sword whispered to her, daring her to draw it, and woke to find her hand gripping the hilt. She snatched it away uneasily. Elphin sat cross-legged at the tent flap. He’d been awake all night as far as she could tell, his harp resting in his lap between his bandaged hands.

In the morning they found three of the horses dead, their manes white with frost.
The mist horses were still safe, though Alba’s coat was stiff with dried sweat under the sacking she wore against the cold. The little mare whinnied thankfully to Rhianna when she brought her breakfast in a nosebag.

Bad thing kill three stallions,
Alba told her.
They fight bravely to protect us.

“Poor mare!” Rhianna said, rubbing the cold white ears. “Why did I ever bring you out of Avalon? If that snake creature had bitten you, I’d never have forgiven myself.”

“Mist horses can’t die of Annwn’s poison,” Elphin said. “They were safe enough.”

Rhianna scowled at her friend. “How do you know? You’ve never been in the land of men before, have you? You didn’t even warn me it would be this
cold
!” Then she remembered him shivering at the tent flap all night, keeping watch,
and felt bad. “It’s all this waiting! What’s the problem? Why don’t they just get on and fight?”

Everyone was tense. Cai said it was only cold because it was winter, and complained that they would miss the midwinter feast if they didn’t hurry up and get back into Camelot soon. Unable to believe the squire could think of his stomach at a time like this, Rhianna seized a wooden sword and worked off her energy fighting the squires in the training ring. Elphin watched her with purple-eyed disapproval, but said nothing. His hands were still bandaged, so there was no question of him holding a sword even if he had wanted to.

Finally, though, the preparations were done, and Sir Bors climbed on a log to address the men. He gave orders about transporting the siege equipment, and what the squires should do while
the knights were away fighting at Camelot.

Rhianna’s heart pounded with excitement. She brushed out Alba’s tail until it crackled in the icy air. Then she pulled on her armour and hurried to fetch Excalibur and her shield. Amidst the buzz of the camp preparing for battle, nobody had time to notice her. Elphin stayed in the horse lines, talking softly to Evenstar.

“Where are you going, Damsel Rhianna?” Sir Bors said as their paths crossed. He had an armful of lances, which he added to a stack propped against an ancient oak. Cai and the other squires had the job of passing them out to the knights as they mounted up. The boy paused to wave at Rhianna, slipped on some ice and almost got himself trampled by an
overexcited
horse. He scrambled out of the way just in time, red-faced.

“I’m going to ride with you, of course!” Rhianna said.

Sir Bors shook his head. “You, damsel, are goin’ to stay right here. I’m leaving a skeleton guard to look after you, and you’ve got Excalibur’s magic to protect you so you should be safe enough. The younger squires’ll stay with you. We need the older ones to fight.”

“But I can fight too!” Rhianna could hardly believe he wasn’t going to let her go with them. “I’ve been training.”

The big knight smiled. “You’ve learned a few defensive moves. If any of them Saxons sneak in here when our backs are turned, you might need them. But until Camelot’s back in our hands, you are staying right here where it’s safe.”

He dumped the lances and strode off.

“But it’s not safe here! What if there are more of Mordred’s bloodbeards creeping around? And what about that snake-thing…?” Rhianna called. But it was no good. The knights galloped off, led by Sir Bors, pennants snapping from their lances in the winter sunshine. They left Sir Bedivere in charge of the camp.

She eyed the knight they called Soft Hands, wondering what he’d do if she leaped on Alba and galloped after the others. He saw her expression and came over.

“I know it’s not easy being left behind, Rhianna,” he said. “But a battlefield’s no place for the daughter of Arthur, believe me. We’ll be there as soon as Bors sends word the castle’s ours. You can lead the knights into Camelot, and you’ll sleep in a proper bed tonight.
What would your mother think if she saw you get hurt in the battle?”

Rhianna supposed it wouldn’t be very fair if, the first time her mother saw her, she was covered in mud and blood like her father had been in Merlin’s boat the first time she saw him. Reluctantly, she unsaddled Alba, but the little mare made the job difficult by dancing around at the end of her reins and neighing after the other horses.
Not gallop with stallions
? Alba said with a disappointed snort.

“Not yet,” Rhianna told her. “But you’ll get your apples tonight, if all goes well. A warm stable, too.”

Alba calmed down and shook her mane.
Good. This world is very cold and wet
.

Rhianna straightened the mare’s rug and joined Cai and Elphin beside the glowing
embers of their campfire. She eyed the trees, wondering if her father’s ghost had gone with the knights. She hadn’t seen it since their first night at camp, and hoped it wasn’t angry with her for using Excalibur against the squires.

“What’s the queen like?” she asked Cai. “Is she very beautiful?”

“I s’pose,” the squire said.

“What about this knight who’s supposed to be looking after her? Sir Lance-something?”

“Sir Lancelot’s the greatest knight in all the land!” Cai told them, brightening. “He’s King Arthur’s champion and carries a magic lance. Least he used to, before he broke it.”

Rhianna met Elphin’s violet gaze, her heart quickening.

“Do you mean the Lance of Truth?”
she asked, thinking of Nimue’s second riddle.
Who carries the Lance of Truth
?

Cai nodded. “I think Merlin used to call it that, yes. Dunno why.”

Rhianna frowned. But she felt a bit better on hearing this news. If her mother had a champion knight looking after her, the Saxons were unlikely to hurt her even if the battle went badly.

“Sir Lancelot and my father must have been good friends if the king trusted him to look after my mother,” she said.

“Er, not exactly,” Cai mumbled, going red.

Rhianna would have liked to know more about her mother. But Cai seemed reluctant to speak of the queen. He kept changing the subject, telling them about the feast they held at midwinter to celebrate the Christ’s
mass, when King Arthur would knight all the squires who had completed three heroic deeds that year. Elphin wanted to know what qualified as a heroic deed, and the two boys got into an argument about whether killing someone in battle made you a hero or simply a murderer.

Rhianna poked the embers with Excalibur, thinking of the main reason they needed to get into Camelot. “Tell us how the Round Table works,” she interrupted. “How did my father use it to contact Merlin?”

Cai pulled a face. “I dunno, do I? I told you before, we squires aren’t allowed in there when the knights sit. But he used to take Excalibur in there with him, and it’s a magic table, everyone knows that.”

Elphin looked interested. “It might work
like Father’s crystal palace back in Avalon. Maybe the sword wakes the magic in some way. What’s the Round Table made of?”

“Stone, I think,” Cai said.

“What sort of stone?”

“Dunno. Some kind of blue stuff. Merlin gave us a lesson about it once. It’s supposed to be the same sort the ancients used to build their stone circles, something to do with the mists between worlds.”

“That might be why you dreamed of Merlin at that circle we camped in,” Elphin said, giving Rhianna a thoughtful look. “Did King Arthur only contact Merlin at the Round Table, Cai? Did he ever speak to anyone else using its magic?”

“He might have done… I wasn’t really listening to tell you the truth. Merlin’s a really
grumpy teacher, and all that druid stuff about mists and spirit magic always makes my head spin. I’d much rather learn to joust.”

Rhianna smiled. Jousting sounded fun. Maybe there would be time for her and Alba to learn after they got into Camelot. Then she sobered, remembering the Saxons and Mordred, and her father lying in Avalon waiting for her to bring him Excalibur to restore his strength. Until King Arthur sat on his throne again, they couldn’t waste time enjoying themselves. “Could it have something to do with Excalibur feeding on souls?” she said.

Elphin frowned. “I’d forgotten that. But Merlin’s a druid, so his soul wouldn’t be trapped in the sword…”

As Elphin and Cai discussed swords and stones, it grew colder. She touched the jewel
thoughtfully, remembering that Nimue had said the hilt was strong in spirit magic, but it felt no different. The clouds had thickened, and the pale morning faded to a gloomy winter’s afternoon. It looked like rain again.

She began to worry. How long did a battle normally last? The daylight would be gone soon. Surely the knights wouldn’t keep fighting in the dark? Did they stop for dinner and sleep, and start again the next day? She thought of the battlefield they’d seen, with the dead bodies and the ravens flapping their black wings.

Just as she felt certain Sir Bors had forgotten all about them and ridden into Camelot without her, a puffing Gareth galloped into camp on a pony dark with sweat, shouting, “Come quickly! Sir Bors says you got to bring Excalibur!”

Rhianna leaped to her feet and snatched up Alba’s bridle.

“Slow down, lad!” Sir Bedivere told Gareth. “Breathe. Now tell us exactly what he said.”

“Sir Bors said we need the magic sword at Camelot! The Saxons outnumber us, and there’s this great big black dragon breathing ice everywhere and scaring all our horses!” The boy glanced nervously over his shoulder.

“The shadrake,” Elphin said, his eyes turning purple.

Rhianna shivered. With all the excitement of the battle, she’d almost forgotten the dragon that was hunting them.

The knight thought for a moment. “There’s no need for Damsel Rhianna to bring Excalibur. I’ll send an escort with you,” he continued to Gareth. “You should be able to handle the
sword safely in its scabbard, if it’s well wrapped.”

“A lot of good that’ll be!” Rhianna snapped, trembling with a mixture of excitement and fear. “I’ve got to go as well. No one else can use Excalibur, can they?”

Gareth rolled his eyes. Sir Bedivere looked at her doubtfully.

“That’s true, sir,” Elphin said. “The Sword of Light was forged in Avalon to serve those of the Pendragon blood. Its magic won’t work for anyone else. I could handle it safely, maybe, but I couldn’t use it against a dragon. My magic doesn’t work properly when the shadrake’s around, and my hands…” He lifted his bandaged fingers.

Sir Bedivere gave Rhianna another uncertain look. He didn’t seem to know what to do. “Bors didn’t ask for you as well, Damsel
Rhianna…” Finally, seeing her determined expression, he sighed. “All right. But you wear your armour at all times, you carry your father’s shield, and you stay well away from the fighting. Elphin, you’d better come too. We’ll need any magic you can manage.”

“And me!” Cai said, pale but determined. “I can ride by myself now – ask Rhianna!”

Rhianna nodded, though her mouth had gone dry. She thought of Lady Nimue’s warning about not getting blood on the blade, and the way the sword had made her forget this when she’d drawn it against the squires. In spite of Elphin’s confident talk, she didn’t have the first idea how to use Excalibur’s magic against a dragon.

The sky darkened still further, and a few feathery white flakes whirled between the trees.
Sir Bedivere sighed and eyed the clouds. “That’s all we need,” he muttered. “It’s far too late in the year for battles. Let’s get going, before the snow comes.”