Searching for Arthur (The Return to Camelot #1)

by Donna Hosie

  I left her as well. Eve. I had to get to Eve.

  Blind in the cloud, with my blood-splattered hands groping in the smoke, I made my way to where I thought I had left the cart and Eve. Or what was now left of it. It had been tipped over and dragged along the dirt on its side. One large wheel was lodged upright in a soot-covered bush; the other wheel was in pieces. My horse and the Shire had panicked and pulled themselves free, wrenching and splintering the wood into matchsticks.

  Eve was gone.

  I started yelling her name. Another pain-ridden scream shot through the air. The cry was so high, I couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. I wouldn’t allow myself to think of that little girl. She would be safe. Her mother would have come for her.

  Whatever had trapped us had everyone running around like ants in a rainstorm. We knew we had to get away, but we didn’t know where. We couldn’t see, we couldn’t breathe.

  “EVE!” I screamed again. “EVE!”

  A huge Shire horse galloped past me; the feathering around its long lean legs made it look like it was wearing four fluffy white boots. It was dragging a man along the ground. His fat ankles had become caught up in the leather straps that were fixed to the horse’s back. The man was clawing at the long pockets of grass that lined the hedgerows, trying desperately to hold onto something. Horse and man disappeared into the smoke.

  The back of my throat was dissolving. Huge chunks of skin were shredding into my gullet. I bent over and puked again, just as a large object appeared in the sky and swooped over my head.

  The force pushed me into the hard ground. I heard a bone-splintering crack. Agonising pain fired like a furnace through my face. I put my hands up to smother the flames, but there was nothing there except warm wet blood. Excruciating spasms juddered down my jaw and spine.

  The sky and horizon were almost clear of smoke now. Whatever was flying at us had dissolved the haze it had caused. In the distance, through my tear-filled eyes, I could make out the mass of charging horses galloping towards us. The glint of raised swords and spears reflecting like mirrors in the sunlight. Help was returning.

  “EVE!” I cried, as tears of pain and terror streamed down my bloodied face.

  “M’lady.”

  The voice was faint, but I knew it was hers. I stood up and made my eyes search the scene of carnage for her image. Eve was running across a field from the small copse of trees, which were, miraculously, still unscathed. She was running straight towards me through ankle-length grass. Bright yellow buttercups danced around her feet. She was safe.

  But Eve wasn’t looking at me. Her head was tilted back; her wide eyes fixed on the sky.

  More screams, and then the crushed remains of a food cart exploded beside me, sending pulped potatoes and beets flying through the air. The shockwave lifted me off my feet, and threw me several metres into a blackened hollow. The earth was hot and crumbly, like ground coffee beans.

  I lunged at the edge of the hollow and pulled myself out. The first face I noticed was Robert’s. He saw me and cried out, flapping his arms. I couldn’t hear his words, though, because the world had fallen silent. There was no sound, except a painful ringing vibration which rattled my skull.

  Then there was Eve; a fierce determination spread across her pale freckled face. Her long red hair flew behind her as she ran towards me, her arms pounding like pistons. In the deathly silence, I watched my friend, ready to hug her tightly, but she collided with me with such force I was thrown back into the blackened hollow.

  It came from the sky. A mass of sinewy white scales. An army of one designed to kill.

  Two huge, purple clawed feet, with talons like daggers, struck at Eve. She must have screamed because I saw the blood spurt out of her neck and stomach, but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t hear myself. Yet I knew I was screeching because the force of my voice was bleeding into my mouth.

  I lunged at the dragon’s claws, but with another sonic beat, the white beast flapped its enormous sail-like wings and took off into the sky. Fragile Eve, lifeless beneath its hideous frame. Limp and broken.

  I watched the terrorist of the sky fly away from the total devastation it had reaped, and the world fell into darkness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A Warrior is Born

  Voices. Hundreds of them. Rising in one symphony of tuneless screeching. Yet there was no memory of Arthur resurrected amidst the pain. Not this time.

  I felt hands pulling at me, dragging me. Too many directions. Ripping me apart.

  There wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t covered in blood, but I didn’t know which red streaks belonged to me. My body was a metro map of pain and suffering. Outlines of bodies ripped and torn like paper.

  We are nothing.

  We are irrelevant.

  The hope that I had maintained for days of finding Arthur was gone. Snuffed out with Eve’s death. I would never see him again, and we would both die in this timeless land.

  What were the last words I said to my brother? I couldn’t remember. Were they words of anger? Words of sarcasm? They wouldn’t have been words of love, I knew that for sure. I loved Arthur with all my heart, but I had never told him. We were too close to not fight. With us it was sarcasm and angst. We didn’t exchange words. Not ones that mattered.

  Why had Eve done that? Stupid, stupid girl. Why didn’t she listen to me and stay near the cart?

  Because the horses bolted.

  Then why hadn’t she stayed in the trees? She was safe there. The stupid fool.

  She was trying to save you.

  “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP.”

  “Natasha is in shock,” said a voice. It was that thick Scouse accent again.

  “LEAVE ME ALONE.”

  Hands were pulling me. Strong hands, calloused hands. Wet and cold hands. My own balled into tight fists and I started fighting back, but it was too little, too late.

  Voices. Hundreds of them. Issuing orders, drawing together groups, searching for loved ones. My loved ones were gone. I had no reason to speak.

  I just wanted to scream.

  It started in my stomach, and like a tsunami, it drew back and then unleashed hell from my voice box. I doubled over and fell forward, as gravity owned my grief. I screamed and clawed at the dirt.

  Two arms swooped under my body. They held me tightly.

  “I should never have left her,” said a gruff voice.

  “It was an ambush. When you are dealing with the devil itself, you need to think like evil.”

  “Will she recover?”

  “Get away from this place. It has been poisoned by the Ddraig’s breath. The former physician of Caerleon wrote about it in quite some detail, and gruesome reading it makes too. Advise Sir Percivale to regroup the knights at least five leagues away. More will be lost before night, but we can contain it if we act quickly.”

  “I should never have left her.”

  “You are a knight. You had no choice.”

  My eyes were closed again. I saw nothing but blackness and flashing streaks of strange white light. I knew the voices belonged to Bedivere and Robert of Dawes, but I didn’t want to see them. I couldn’t face seeing what was beyond them.

  I always thought ghost stories were worse than the reality of death, but that was psychology crap. Fed to me by the child shrink I saw after Patrick died. The thought of my little brother haunting me had caused me to regress. I was eight years old and living in a world of nightmares. I wet the bed. Cried until my eyes were red raw. Cut my bed sheets with scissors. Did anything I could in an attempt to stop bedtime and the inevitability of darkness that comes with it.

  Death was acceptable because it was part of life, explained the shrink. I was afraid of the unknown, which was why I was terrified of the ghosts.

  But nothing in this world was worse than death. I should have realised that nine years ago when my six-year-old brother drowned. My parents knew it. My mother had spent every moment since that day grieving for what had gone, instead of lovi
ng what she had left. Arthur knew it too, even though he was only a year older than me when it happened. He had tried to protect me by backing up my lies, but he had realised, even then, there was nothing more horrific than how it all ends.

  And it was so easy to die.

  We are nothing.

  We are irrelevant.

  And there are always more fools to replace us.

  I felt Bedivere’s cold mouth against mine. His fingers scrunched tightly into my hair. It wasn’t passion; he was trying to revive me.

  “Sir Bedivere,” called a voice, but he dismissed it with a bark-like command.

  “Come back to me,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”

  “Give her this,” said the voice belonging to the physician.

  I felt a hand leave my back, and then a rough rim of metal pressed against my lips. The battle I was waging against my eyes started to weaken.

  “She’s rousing,” cried Bedivere.

  “Come on, Natasha,” encouraged Robert, “that’s a girl, open your eyes.”

  I allowed Bedivere to pour the liquid down my throat. Menthol vapours washed over me. It reminded me of the cream my grandmother rubbed onto my chest when I was sick. It was a memory of a place that should have been called home, but never was.

  My eyes opened further. A smoky haze existed around everything that was solid. The sky had turned a pale diluted yellow.

  “Can you ride?” asked Bedivere.

  I nodded weakly.

  “My horse will carry her,” said Bedivere, rising to his feet with my whole body still in his arms. “Tell Sir Gareth and Sir Tristram I am taking Natasha to the monastery of Solsbury Hill. They will follow.”

  “But Bedivere…”

  “Do not argue with me, just do it.”

  “Lord Percivale will be very unhappy if some of his knights leave the travelling court now,” protested Robert.

  I felt the anger ripple through Bedivere’s body.

  “I am not one of Lord Percivale’s knights, and his travelling court is not my concern. My allegiance is to Arthur and him alone.”

  “Then leave Natasha with me. I have the means to protect her. She should not be riding in her weakened state.”

  While they continued to argue, my mind slipped back to Eve. Desperate Eve. Foolish Eve. Weakened Eve.

  The bravest person I had ever met.

  “Put me down.”

  “I am not weary. I can bear your burden.”

  “Put me down.”

  “You are in no condition…”

  “PUT ME THE HELL DOWN BEFORE I KILL SOMEONE.”

  My feet were gently lowered to the ground as anger surged through me. My hands, bloodied and filthy, grabbed the hilt of Bedivere’s sword and pulled it from its scabbard.

  “Get the others,” I shouted. “Gareth, Talan, David, and even Tristram if you must, but you are going to show me how to use one of these. You are going to train me how to fight, how to kill.”

  Bedivere took a step towards me, but I raised the sword with both hands and held the point to his neck.

  “You swore an oath to protect me,” I cried, shaking violently with the weight of the blade. “So do it. You will not leave me defenceless again. I will not lie on the ground like a coward while those around me die – not ever again. Do you understand me, Bedivere?”

  He pushed the gleaming blade from his neck. A small droplet of blood started to swell on his skin. I had cut him. Gently prising my fingers, one at a time, away from the leather grip, Bedivere took back his sword.

  “I will never leave you again,” he said quietly.

  “Swear you will train me to fight.”

  “If that is what you desire.”

  “It isn’t desire, Bedivere, it is worse than that. If I don’t learn how to protect myself in this land with your rules and your monsters, then I will die, and my brother will die as well. I can’t let that happen, not again.”

  “Natasha…” started Robert of Dawes, but I had neither the time nor the interest in hearing what he had to say. With my palm open, I slapped him as hard as I could.

  “And you’re even worse,” I cried, balling my fist, ready to hit him even harder. “You’re like me, but you knew what was coming at us, and you chose not to tell me. You let me stumble around like an idiot. If I had known, I could have saved her. I would have saved her.”

  “You could not have saved the maid, Natasha,” replied Robert, his eyes blazing with the reflection of the fire that was still burning all around us. “That beast had you in its sight and was coming right at you. If the girl had not reacted when she did, then we would be mourning your loss, not hers.”

  “We will honour the girl,” said Bedivere.

  “HER NAME WAS EVE,” I screamed. “How can you honour her when you don’t even know her name?”

  Three more knights on horses pulled up alongside us: Tristram, Gareth and Talan. Their faces were sweaty and pink. Talan had an oozing raw burn seared across his cheekbone.

  “Sir David has gone after the white beast, Sir Bedivere,” cried Tristram. “He believes the girl may still be saved.”

  “You have to stop him,” exclaimed Robert vehemently. “We all saw the girl – Eve – we saw her die before our eyes. The Ddraig pierced one of her arteries. She is gone.”

  “Bring him back, Sir Gareth,” said Bedivere quietly. “Sir David’s health is still waning and he will not have gone far. Sir Tristram, you must ride with him, the boy will listen to you.”

  Both knights nodded, and spurred their horses with their heels. The ground thundered as they galloped away across an open ploughed field. Robert turned to Bedivere.

  “What are your intentions, Sir Bedivere?”

  “My intentions are not your concern, Robert of Dawes,” replied Bedivere, and his arm wrapped around my waist. “Now go attend to the lord of Caerleon and his travelling court. If what you say is true and this land has been poisoned, your counsel will be required elsewhere.”

  “I will not leave Natasha,” argued Robert, glancing at me. I knew what he was thinking behind those narrowed eyes. It wasn’t my safety or health he cared about. It was my memory and passage through a tunnel that would lead us all back to civilisation.

  “My brother is being held captive at Camelot,” I said to Robert. “That’s where you’ll find me.”

  “We are making to leave now?” asked Talan.

  Bedivere nodded. “We leave for Solsbury Hill. If our timing is true, we will reunite with the travelling court of Caerleon at Camelot. For now, Sir Talan, Natasha requires her steed and weapons.”

  The singing knight, now so unnaturally quiet and pensive, pulled at the reins of his own horse and trotted away towards the armoury. All around us, people were crying, screaming and yelling. They wouldn’t notice a few more departures from hell.

  “Promise me, Natasha, that you will find me,” begged Robert, taking my hand.

  Bedivere tightened his grip around my waist. It suddenly occurred to me that he saw Robert of Dawes as a rival. It was ludicrous, but no more so than the truth.

  “Find me at Camelot,” I replied dully.

  It was as near to a promise as I could get without lying. Robert kissed my bloodied hand, bowed to Bedivere and turned away. He disappeared into the crowd, and I didn’t search for him once he was gone.

  “Don’t hold back on me,” I said, twisting my body into Bedivere’s.

  “I loved Arthur as a brother,” whispered Bedivere, wiping blood from my mouth with his fingers. “He is a brother to me once more, and I will defend you both to the end.”

  He bent his head down and kissed me again.

  A new warrior had been born, and she was coming to unleash hell on those who had turned her world upside down.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gore

  Bedivere, Talan and I left the travelling court of Caerleon to deal with the aftermath of the Ddraig’s attack. We now had our own journey to make. There were no road signs to Solsbury Hill,
no obvious landmarks to follow other than the sun and the landscape of mountains, and yet Bedivere and Talan were totally confident that Gareth, Tristram and David would find us.

  As we rode further away from the devastation unleashed by the Ddraig, I felt the poisonous cloud I had been covered in, start to lift. We stopped to allow the horses to drink from a fast-flowing river. Bedivere and Talan stripped off and washed themselves in the cold crystal shallows. I desperately wanted to get the stains of death off my skin, but the water took me back to another memory of death I had tried so hard to repress. I started shaking. All I could see was the colour blue. Bedivere and Talan had to combine to hold me upright as I scooped water over my skin.

  Death may have been removed from my body, but it was now tattooed inside my head. I thought back to the little girl who had been screaming for her mother. Had she found her? Was she even alive? My own mother swam into a pain-filled haze before my eyes. Slurpy and I had set out from Avalon Cottage just three days earlier. Arthur had been gone a day longer. Was my mother screaming for me? Had she even noticed I was gone?

  Who was really doing the running here?

  I was now armed. Talan had given me a silver sword and a dagger with a curved blade. The smaller weapon was already attached to my waist by a leather scabbard. The sword was wrapped in a dark red cloth and tied to my saddlebag. Bedivere had promised he would show me the basics of sword movement, and as we dried off, he took me through the steps of grip and stance. Talan was left to clean the horses of the Ddraig’s toxic residue. Their chestnut and dapple grey hides had already started to bubble up with yellow weeping sores, and huge pink blisters were forming around their gums. Their pain was very upsetting to watch, but the horses trusted Talan; their long noses nuzzled him constantly for reassurance as he washed them down.

  Tristram, Gareth and David rejoined us not long after. The men hailed each other as knights, but I was now all too aware of their young age, especially David, who looked like a child playing with older brothers.