“Stand down, Nyneve,” came the queen’s voice in her ear. She turned to find Guinevere at her side, the queen’s hand held out in front of her.
“Your Highness,” one of the guards said, his voice shattering any peace the atrium might’ve held. “We must get you to a safer location.”
In a sweep of heavy fabric and practiced grace, Guinevere straightened to her full height. “Not before you inform me of what is happening,” she replied, steel creeping into her tone.
The guards exchanged a glance as Nyneve held her breath, her heart beginning to race. “Raiders, it seems,” one of them replied, unsure. “We do not know for certain at this time, either.”
“This far from the coast?” the queen asked, crossing her arms.
“But why would they break the accord?” Nyneve found herself saying. To her surprise, Guinevere turned to hold her gaze, ignoring the guards entirely. “Your Highness, do you think...”
The queen’s mouth was a firm line as she considered. Outside, more guards, followed by a group of knights, raced down the hallway, the sounds of shouts and clanks of armor thrumming in Nyneve’s ears. “Yes, I fear I do,” the queen said in a sour tone. “The Fair Folk have made Their next play.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mordred
The intensity of the blow reverberated up Mordred’s arm as he parried the Northman’s axe with the flat of his sword. He ducked under the massive warrior’s next swing and slammed the point of his elbow into the man’s jaw, rattling his teeth.
“What are you doing this far inland?” Mordred snarled, advancing on the Northman, who fought for his footing. The raiders had appeared suddenly and inexplicably, swarming Camelot’s southernmost hill as if they had materialized out of the fenlands.
So why had the bloody kelpies not warned him?
The Northman did not answer. Mordred repeated the question in another dialect. From the glint in the man’s eyes, Mordred had a feeling hedidunderstand, but instead of answering, the raider took another swing.
Mordred stepped to the side, sighing. He had seen the tall, tattooed man shouting orders to other raiders, and the highly ornamental axe—in addition to all the magical fetishes hanging from it—told him this particular Northman might have answers.
“Fine.” Mordred shrugged, sliding past the Northman’s defense and slitting him from chest to navel. The large man gagged, blood pouring from his mouth as he fell to his knees. “You could have just answered my questions,” Mordred added as he turned away, eyes scanning the hills.
Camelot’s walls had not yet been breached, which was very good news. The raiders seemed oddly unprepared—no grappling hooks or rope that he could see, though he supposed if it were him, he might have one group exhaust the forces along the ramparts, then move a second one to actually scale the walls. Butthenwhat, the knight wondered as he strode closer to the main fray of fighting, striking down one, two, three, four, five, and then six Northmen as he went.
He frowned, whistling for Rook. The warhorse came galloping from farther down the hill, where he had been gleefully trampling an axeman. Sheathing his sword, Mordred vaulted onto Rook’s back and sent him cantering up the hill. A stray arrow from Camelot’s guard glanced off his right shoulder. He shot a dark, terrible look at the young archer who had sent it flying. He had almost dived into the fray with nothing but his aketon. Thank the gods, he supposed, that Gawain had bullied him into donning mail.
“This is strange, is it not?” Mordred shouted, neatly beheading a short Northman who had apparently not heard Rook’s hooves.
From a few paces away, Gawain ducked under a Northman’s axe and sliced the man across the knees with his dagger. His opponent let out a shriek and dropped to the ground. “Quite!” the redheaded knight replied, aiming a perfect kick at the raider’s head. “Why so far inland? And how did no one see them coming?”
Mordred gritted his teeth, hoping he was wrong. Faerie magic could certainly conceal a large group of raiders as theymade their way from the shores and through the fenlands. A dagger whistled by his face, and Mordred turned, his gaze tracking to the man who had lobbed it at him.
The darkness beneath his sternum rose in him like a wave, hungry, teeming with a thousand teeth. Mordred drew in a deep breath as Rook, sensitive as always, danced beneath him. He should not, he knew. He should simply cue Rook into a canter and ride the man down. Perhaps chase him a little, make him think hemightlive. But that horrible power two goddesses had buried behind his lungs keened.
“Pyrdaeth,” he hissed before he could stop himself, the feeling of the Old Tongue on his tongue nothing short of euphoric. That beast within him barely contracted its muscles, and then the Northman was putrefying before him. With his free hand, Mordred threw up a glamour to stop any mortals from seeing the man’s skin peel away and blacken, the pink muscles and pale viscera beneath turning to wet ropes of mold and decay. Only a few moments later, the Northman was little more than a pile of stinking refuse, the corpse of a man ten days in the sun. Mordred pulled the glamour down, and Rook wheeled, rising into a half-rear.
Dread clawed into the knight’s stomach as he saw more raiders rising from the fenlands, their lips peeled back in mindless fury. “Something is not right,” he murmured, exchanging a glance with Gawain.
The warrior squinted into the weak, murky sun as his gaze followed Mordred’s, tracking down the large, grassy slope of Camelot’s southern walls, toward the meadows that knitted into marshes along the horizon.
“Fuck,” Gawain said, turning on his heel to signal to the rampart guards.
“How is this possible?” yelled a voice to Mordred’s left. He glanced over, watching as Palamedes came galloping on Qila.The gray warhorse was covered in sweat, a long scrape along its flank.
“I know not,” Mordred replied as Palamedes came to a halt beside him.
“They’re coming out of nowhere!” Gawain shouted, stabbing his shortsword up beneath another raider’s leather cuirass.
“Should we ride down and meet them?” Palamedes asked, watching as some of the Northmen regrouped on the other side of the hill.
Mordred considered. Keeping as many of the raiders away from the walls—and from possibly flanking Camelot’s hill and breaking into the villages on the northern side—was paramount. If this were a mere distraction, though, moving too many forces away from the main gate could be a mistake. But if he went down alone, he would be able to ask the kelpies why in the name of the bloody gods they had not lifted a single slimy hoof. He set his jaw. Perhaps the High Court’s breaking of his carefully, painstakingly crafted peace included the kelpies.
