Victories

by Mercedes Lackey

  All too quickly, it seemed, their mounts were ready. Burke rode beside her on Hengroen, another of the White Horses of Britain, of whom it had been said that he was swift enough to outrace the sun and the moon together.

  And now we ride to battle, the ghostly voice whispered in her mind.

  * * *

  Shrouded in illusions and blanketed by mist, the war party circled wide around The Fortress and the peasant village that lay at its foot. Spirit and Burke led them, but behind the two of them (she was glad to see it) Oakhurst mages and Reincarnate knights mingled freely. She gripped the hilt of her Hallow tightly, as if it might disappear if she didn’t. The weight of the sword blade was heavy across her thighs. I should have asked Vivianne to make a scabbard for me, she thought absently. The sword’s true scabbard had been as magical as Excalibur itself. But Mordred had destroyed it long ago.

  It seemed as if they rode through a landscape as deserted as the one Mordred meant to make. After a few minutes, Loch rode up to them, his Spear in his hand, and took the lead. His Pathfinder Gifts could lead them to Oakhurst even through the fog. Dawn turned the mist first to gold, then to white, then the sun burned it away as they rode westward, and when it was gone, Spirit could see they were a few miles past the edge of the village. She urged Passelande into a ground-eating trot.

  It seemed strange to ride as if she were an outlaw, without banners flapping in the wind, without bright gilded armor and bright surcoats blazoned with the devices that identified their wearers. Spirit shook her head, trying to get rid of the strange double-vision of Guinevere’s memories. If they were lucky, they could win the battle today without striking a single blow.

  But of course, they were never lucky.

  * * *

  The spur road that ran through Radial and then connected up with the Interstate used to run past the gates of Oakhurst, but now there was nothing there but grass. Their horses vaulted the low wall at the foot of the hill and galloped up the slope. Spirit heard yelps of glee from behind her as some of the riders forgot themselves in the excitement of the jump. Ahead she could see the main building of what had once been the school. Just as the scouts had said, the roof was gone, and the upper stories were smoke-blackened and half-ruined from the fire Kelly had set only a little more than a week ago to cover their escape. But the first floor—and the Great Hall—seemed to be intact.

  Spirit vaulted from Passelande’s back and ran up the steps, Excalibur flashing in her hand. In that moment she was Guinevere and no one else—Guinevere who meant to put an end to Mordred and the dark centuries of plot and counterplot that had led to this day.

  The door wasn’t locked. She flung it open and ran inside.

  And stopped.

  Here was the monstrous stone fireplace with the mocking crest of Oakhurst above it—the oak tree with the serpent coiled among its branches, the reversed Cup and the broken Sword, and above them the Bear, Arthur’s symbol, slain, its head set upon a silver plate. Mordred had blazoned his intentions in plain sight, knowing none of his enemies would possess the memories that would let them read it.

  Here was the grand double staircase that led to the upper floors, its carpet sodden with water and white with mildew.

  But the great Tree that should have stood between the staircases was gone.

  “No!” she screamed. “Where is it?”

  “Gone.” Burke had followed her in.

  “They moved it. We’re too late.” Loch came forward and knelt upon the tile floor. He reached out and brushed away dirt and leaves to reveal a thin band of metal and the sheared-off remains of several metal spikes. “They must have taken it out just after the fire.” He stood, and pointed up toward the ceiling. “You can see where it was. And look—there are marks all over the floor. They probably dragged it out on some kind of sled.”

  “And now it is secure within the walls of their great fortress,” Dagonet said, joining them. “And the day is lost.”

  “No,” Spirit said suddenly. “No, wait. It isn’t.”

  She turned around. Most of the “army” had followed her inside. A couple of them had even ridden their horses up the steps. “We can still win!” she shouted.

  “How?” Angelina shouted back. “Because it sure looks like that tree is gone.”

  “Yes!” Spirit said. “They took it—and it’s at The Fortress now. Mordred didn’t dare leave it unprotected! He walks this world again, just as he swore he would—but it is his own necromancy that allows it, not The Merlin’s magic. And so, I see a path to victory. You, Dagonet, and you, Loholt, and you, Gareth—all of you belong to this time and place. So do I. But Mordred doesn’t. He is not a Reincarnate, like the Grail Knights or the Shadow Knights. He has stepped from the world in which he was imprisoned to this one.”

  “And I am sure you’re about to tell us how that means we haven’t just lost,” Gareth said, sounding in that moment more like Dylan Williams than he did like a Grail Knight of Arthur’s Court.

  “It means he’s expecting another battle like Camlann,” she answered instantly. “Why not? It was his big defeat—but this time, he thinks he can’t lose. He knows by now he’ll be facing the Grail Knights, but why should he worry? We’re a bunch of teenagers. He’s got us outnumbered. He’s got the Shadow Knights. He’s got The Fortress. And—don’t forget—he’s got hostages.” Everyone in his brand new peasant village was an innocent bystander, and Spirit was sure Mordred wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if that would bring him triumph.

  “You are not making a really convincing case for our victory,” Burke said in a low voice.

  “So if he wants Camlann Part Two—we’re going to pretend to give it to him,” Spirit said. “We’re going to feed him the Middle Ages until he chokes on it.”

  “‘On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot! It is a silly place!’” Kelly called from the back of the crowd.

  For an instant Spirit froze in disappointment. Then she recognized the quote—Monty Python and the Holy Grail—about the same time everyone else did.

  Burke and Loch began to whoop with laughter. And Spirit joined them.

  * * *

  Mark Rider had had better days.

  Twenty years ago, on the eve of his graduation from Oakhurst, the man he’d known as Dr. Vortigern Ambrosius, Headmaster of Oakhurst Academy, had summoned him to his office. And there, Mark’s entire world had been turned inside out. He’d been given the chance to live, to serve Mordred of Britain as his Shadow Knight—or to die, his magic blasted from his mind.

  It hadn’t been a hard choice to make.

  Not then.

  For more than twenty years he’d enjoyed the wealth and power that came of being a member of Mordred’s Inner Circle. In his other life, he’d been a king. In this life, he had a kingdom his other self couldn’t have imagined—a business empire that brought him millions of dollars, and international adulation. He had a queen as his wife—Morgause of Orkney. Even Tristan had been returned to him—his brother Teddy. None of them could imagine a better life than the one they had—using their magic, secretly, on all the mundane cattle of the world. There had been nothing beyond their reach. And the Shadow Knights had gathered around Breakthrough’s banner. It was Mordred’s long-forgotten battle-standard. A fine joke, Mark had thought once.

  He’d known his master meant to rule. It was why Breakthrough had been created, and why the shadow-network of corporations controlled by Breakthrough had been built. Money was power. In this new world, one didn’t need noble birth or great armies—only money. And so Mark had thought he knew what Mordred meant to do. Between money and magic, he could make himself President of the United States of America. Bend the government to his will as he could so easily do, and he could make Great Britain a colony. He would rule over an empire vaster than any they’d once known. He could make himself, with time and patience, ruler of all of Earth.

  And then Mark had discovered what Mordred’s true plans were. Not to rule Earth as it was—but to smash it in
to a caricature of ancient Britain, the kingdom he had lost, and rule over that.

  And Mark couldn’t stop him.

  He’d tried. When Mordred first summoned him to tell him the time was near, and to tell Mark what part he would play, he’d protested. Tried to argue for a more modern endgame. But no one who wished to live would willingly face the Black Dragon’s fury. And so Mordred had given his orders. And Mark had obeyed them.

  Even Tristan and Morgause think this is a good idea, he thought bitterly. Tristan has never thought past his next entertainment, and my beloved wife thinks she can trade a queen’s crown for an empress’s coronet.

  Morgause meant to betray him the moment she no longer needed him. Tristan thought gleefully of a world in which there was no law but his own whim. Mark was the only one who thought Mordred’s plan was madness, and he kept his mouth shut. If any others among the Shadow Knights feared what was to come, they kept their thoughts well hidden. Even when the plan moved to its final stages—gathering the locals together and englamouring them—Mark heard no whisper of complaint from his people. Why should he? They were going to be the new rulers. The Shadow Knights had gathered from across the globe, converging on this insignificant little town in the middle of nowhere to wait for the moment of Mordred’s triumph.

  Mark climbed the stone steps that led to the ramparts of The Fortress. The morning breeze ruffled his hair. It was a beautiful spring day. From here he could see the highway. Cars sped by, filled with motorists who had no idea the world was going to end a fortnight from today. He could feel the thrum of magic beneath his feet as Breakthrough’s Jaunting Mages emptied warehouses a hundred miles distant, filling the storerooms of The Fortress with the last of the necessary supplies. Below him, he could see peasants tilling the fields. There was no need for that: an Earth Mage could cause a crop to spring up, ripe and ready for harvest, with nothing more than a spell. But Mordred’s world had contained peasants, and so peasants he must have.

  You think ill of your liege at your peril, Mark of Cornwall, he reminded himself. Mordred sees and knows all. And yet.…

  And yet Prince Mordred had not seen enough to know those five children plotted against him. Even Morgaine, who he’d been so certain was already theirs, had defied him. And Agravaine had slain her. But the other four had escaped. Worse, they’d returned bearing the Hallows of Britain, to free the rest of the young mages held prisoner at Oakhurst—children for whom Mordred had plans that did not involve their survival.

  Mark had ordered the rebels found and recaptured, of course. He’d thought it would be safe, for he’d ordered that none of them be harmed, only captured. But Mordred had been furious that he’d given any order at all, and forced him to call his knights back—nor had Mark dared to refuse.

  But he knew it was a mistake.

  If they have the Hallows, they know who they are now. When next they meet, Mordred will not face frightened children, but Knights of the Grail. Why does he not see his peril?

  Perhaps, Mark thought, what Mordred sees is a chance to flaunt his final victory before his greatest enemies. But that is madness.

  Perhaps—

  Suddenly a gleam of light caught his eye. There, to the west, there was movement. Horses, coming from the direction of Oakhurst.

  Suddenly, in the distance, he heard the mellow call of horns. He turned to the nearest sentry. “There is nothing to see here,” he said meaningfully. “I am going to my chambers.”

  * * *

  Loch carried the banner. It wasn’t much of a banner, but then, they weren’t much of an army. They’d scavenged what they needed from the theater and the music room: a blue sheet with a hastily-painted-on white horse, stapled to a yardstick that was nailed to a pole. Renee and Peredur rode behind him. They’d been in the orchestra, and their French Horns had still been in the music room. When they reached the place where the edge of the town had been, they stopped and sounded the call to battle. The notes were loud in the stillness.

  Then they rode on.

  * * *

  “What’s going on?” Brenda demanded nervously from the back of the black van.

  “Did I know, be certain I would say,” Addie answered irritably.

  Something had gone wrong. She knew it.

  She’d waited with Veronica and Brenda (trying not to think of them as “the mortalfolk,” trying to remember she was Adelaide Lake, not Vivianne of Avalon) while the others rode out. Her Hallow was perhaps the most powerful of the Four—the Cauldron of Plenty, which could provide anything its possessor asked of it. The Cauldron had made Avalon a center of healing and peace …

  … and those memories, of a lifetime spent coolly ruling over the lives and fortunes of all who came to her for help, were not what Addie wanted for herself. She wanted to matter. She wanted to make a difference.

  She wasn’t sure, any more, where Addie Lake ended and Vivianne began.

  All I know is, powerful or not, it’s a very awkward Hallow to wield, if what you want to do is follow your friends into trouble.

  “We’re not just going to sit here, are we?” Veronica said.

  The black van—the Cauldron of Plenty—was parked behind a stand of trees directly opposite the gates of The Fortress. Addie couldn’t remember what had been here when Radial had still existed. Maybe nothing.

  “There’s nothing else we can do,” she said. “The fog is gone. If I move, we’ll be spotted. We have to wait for the others to get back.”

  “Well, I’m not waiting!” Veronica said. Before Addie could stop her, she shoved open the side door of the van and jumped out.

  “Veronica!” Addie cried.

  “There’s got to be something!” Veronica called back over her shoulder. She started running toward the village.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Brenda said, opening the passenger door. “I’m sorry—we have to!” She followed Veronica.

  Addie pounded on the steering wheel in frustration.

  Then she heard the sound of the horns.

  I can’t just sit here either, she thought, and turned the key in the ignition.

  The van rolled forward.

  * * *

  Mordred’s knights had made a wide trampled path leading from The Fortress around the southern edge of the village. They followed it. Every few minutes, Peredur and Renee blew their horns.

  “Shouldn’t they have come out by now?” Burke asked in a low voice.

  “They should,” Spirit agreed uneasily. “We’re giving Mordred exactly what he wants. We’re riding to battle as if we’re living in medieval Britain.”

  “So where are the legions of hell?” Burke asked.

  Spirit had no answer, then: “Look,” she said, pointing.

  The walls of The Fortress were filled with people watching them advance. Hundreds of them, all in the red-and-black of Breakthrough.

  And of Mordred.

  * * *

  There was no way Mark could keep it a secret that the missing Oakhurst students had turned up and apparently gone mad. They couldn’t possibly be riding to The Fortress to surrender—not if they rode beneath the White Horse banner. But he’d learned his lesson well: Mordred did not summon him, and so Mark did not summon his Shadow Knights to ride into battle.

  By now, nearly everyone—everyone human, that was—from The Fortress was on its walls. The top of the wall was twenty feet wide. There was room for everyone. Shadow Knights, Gatekeepers—everyone who served Mordred was here. Waiting.

  “We aren’t just going to watch, are we?” Tristan asked. “I could—”

  Mark grabbed his arm before Tristan could prepare a spell. “You could join the others our liege lord has sacrificed to feed his great spell, if you defy him,” he snapped. “Let them come.”

  “Surely Prince Mordred has power enough to destroy them without our help,” Morgause said silkily. Her bright hair whipped around her face in the morning as she leaned out over the parapet. “We must allow him the glory of that victory.”

  �
�Yes,” Mark said meaningfully. “We must indeed.”

  * * *

  The black van was waiting for them at the gates of The Fortress. The building’s gates stood open. There was as much space between them as a four-lane highway. This time, when Peredur and Renee sounded the call to battle, the sound echoed back off the stone walls, as if the horns had been blown inside a giant parking garage.

  The column of riders walked their horses forward. The van gunned its engine and rolled along beside them.

  This was the first time Spirit had actually seen inside the walls of The Fortress. She didn’t think anybody outside of Breakthrough actually had. It might have been a little hard to explain. There was an open courtyard the size of a football field. It was grass, not stone, just as the inner courtyard of a castle would have been centuries ago. At the far end was Mordred’s keep. There was really no other word for it. Like the walls, the building itself was grey granite. Steps the width of the entire building went up to the main entrance. The stairs gave onto a deep portico. The entrance itself was set back. It was high enough above the ground that there was probably a full floor below it, but if there was, it had no windows. The floors above overhung it, so its doors—and whatever decoration they had—were lost in shadow. But above the entrance the Breakthrough logo was displayed, a shield in carved relief, three stories tall.

  No. It’s not the Breakthrough logo. It never was. It’s Mordred’s symbol.

  At the foot of the granite steps stood the thirty-foot-high trunk of the Gallows Oak. For a moment, Spirit wondered why it was out here, instead of locked up in a vault somewhere. Then she saw that the ground around it was muddy and dark, and she understood.

  Blood sacrifices. Mordred’s a necromancer. He’s been making sacrifices to renew his body and let it out of the Tree. But the people he’s killed haven’t given him enough power to do that. He needs to sacrifice magicians.

  He needs to sacrifice us.

  The top of the walls around the courtyard were deserted now.

  “Yoo-hoo?” Loch called. “Anybody home?” His voice rang off the stone walls. Silence greeted his words. “Okay, we do it your way,” she heard him mutter. He cleared his throat. “I, Lancelot du Lac, King in my own land and vassal of Arthur of Britain—”