"What in the hell is a loading screen?"Dred asked.
Lancelot laughed."A problem suffered by old games, way before our time."
With a snarl, Dred summoned fire and cast it out, lighting every brazier in the place as he had before, at each column and along the balcony overlooking the courtyard from above.
In the middle stood five knights, each with a black collar around their throat.Galehaut stood in the middle, clearly the leader of this stolen band of knights.The others were arranged two on each side:
Percival, Bran, Tristan, and Bertilak.
"Galahad, get up high and summon the others," Arthur said."Whatever it takes, get them here."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Galahad said."Be careful, all of you."Then he was gone.
Morgan stepped back, the mage taking cover behind a wall of steel and might, and summoned her shadows.Lancelot, Arthur, and Dred stepped forward, a line of water, earth, and fire, and prepared to fight their friends.
Friends and Foes
Like Arthur, Percival and Bertilak were not small, but towering blocks of muscle, the kind of guys who could throw hay bales like they weighed nothing.He'd once seen Bertilak heave a rock nearly twice the size of his head across a field.He'd complained it was difficult, and left him sore, but he'd done it.They, Arthur, and Galehaut had been the overwhelming muscle of the group.Lancelot and Dred were no slouches, but they had a lean, wiry strength, inclined more toward movement than heft.
To say this was going to be an ugly fight was an understatement.
Behind them, Morgan released her shadows, casting the room in a darkness that would impede their assailants but be withheld from them.
"Galehaut will be the biggest problem," Arthur said."Do your best to ignore him for now.Lance, focus on Tristan.If Iseult is still around here somewhere, we can use him to get her.I feel that's going to be important somehow."
"She's still playing music somewhere," Dred said."That'simportant.I'll deal with Percival."
Then the fight was upon them, Galehaut starting off strong with his own wind magic, turning the small area into a storm of chaos.Arthur countered with earth, but Percival and Bertilak were also earth-elemental fighters.
And Tristan, of course, was fire like Dred.That was fine, though, because Lancelot was the thing that fire feared most.With the lake so close to hand, and the chaotic winds in the air, it was easy to call the water to him.
In moments, the place was flooded with a good three inches of water, and Tristan was soaked head to toe.Galehaut's winds turned everything into a raging storm in a bottle, a feeling enhanced by Morgan's shadows.
Lancelot threw torrents of water at Tristan, dousing him to the point of near drowning.
A heavy splash was all the warning he had, barely in time to dodge and roll away from a killing blow thrown by Galehaut.Pushing away the hurt, Lancelot focused on his goal, meeting fire with water, driving Tristan back, separating him from the rest of the group, ignoring the rest of the fighting, despite the agony that decision brought.He had his orders, and Arthur knew what he was doing, so obey Lancelot would.
Even in the midst of the thunderous chaos, he could still hear singing.Dred was right: that mattered somehow, more than they understood.
Tristan was no slouch of a fighter.Nobody in Arthur's inner circle was; each of them had felled armies single-handedly.The bastard had a mouth on him, but he was also sharp of mind and martial skill.He'd fought like hell to earn Iseult's hand and protect her from the people who'd wanted her and her mother dead, to make them safe at Camelot.There was nothing Tristan would not do for his beloved maiden who'd defied the world that insisted she was a man.
So they were evenly matched on tenacity and ferocity—but only one of them had ever won the day by summoning the ocean itself to the fight.
With a scream, he dodged the weakening flames that came at him, wincing at the cloud of steam that followed, pushing through it and throwing himself at Tristan, sending them slamming through a half-open door into the hallway.
He heaved to his knees and threw a punch dead into Tristan's face, knocking him flat, stunning him for precious seconds as he used strips of his own torn tunic to bind Tristan's hands and feet.One of his skills that most surprised people was an uncanny talent with knots, but if there was one thing life in water taught you, it was how to make certain that things stayed where they were put, and that meant good knots.Something any fisherman could tell you, and yet they were still surprised the son of the Lady of the Lake herself was good at them.
"Morgan!"
She appeared before him in a burst of sinuous shadow, like smoke in a fancy incense burner.Not a trick she used often, as it was dangerous and took a lot of energy."The singing is coming from the queen's solar, or somewhere close to that."
"Thank you."Of course she'd had the answer before he could even make the request.That was Morgan.Rumors outside of Camelot were always that Arthur kept her as a mistress, insulting Guinevere by flaunting his lover at court.When anyone could tell that Morgan was second to no one, and would never tolerate being so for any person, let alone a man.Arthur and Merlin wereherlovers, and Guinevere her best friend, and only fools believed otherwise for even a second.
Heaving Tristan, bound and gagged and pissed off, over his shoulder, he hied off through the castle, through halls and interconnected rooms until he reached the private courtyard, currently also flooded, that led to the royal apartments.Inside was the main hall, a shared space, but from there the quarters were divided with Arthur's apartments to the eastern half, Guinevere's to the western, and the rooms of their friends divided between them.Properly, of course, men to one side, women to the other.Wink wink, nudge nudge.
Through the door to Gwen's apartments, he kicked open the door to the solar and then the secret door that led up to the top of the turret.So far as most knew, the access to it was on the mezzanine overlooking the main hall, but that door led to a small storage space.
He was impressed the game knew that detail, but then again, Maleagant had kidnapped at least five of Arthur's knights.
