The field itself was the site of frantic activity. Men and women carrying bags and clipboards scurried back and forth between a podium at the centre of the field and a tunnel leading directly beneath the tiered seating where I stood. This podium was occupied by several official-looking figures standing in clusters, as technicians weaved around them setting up microphones on a lectern and attaching cables to television cameras. In front of the podium, a hundred or so chairs had been set up in rows, rapidly filling as more and more people emerged from the tunnel below me. The chairs and the podium were hemmed in by lines of uniformed guards bearing weapons, surveying the scene with the watchful air of the soldier on stand-by.
I had just started to make my way down the steps towards the seating area when Sir Lancelot suddenly appeared from out of the tunnel. He was not accompanied by Sir Gawain, but rather by more armed guards, including one whose uniform denoted him as The Man in Charge. It was then that I realised this entire set-up was for Sir Lancelot’s benefit. As he strode towards the podium the crowd got to their feet, shouting questions and thrusting their flashing cameras past the soldiers surrounding him. One of the guards made a threatening motion with his rifle and the audience reluctantly parted. This gesture, combined with the clamorous nature of the crowd, told me it would be wise to wait before drawing attention to myself. Fortunately, all eyes were now on the podium, so I walked down to the ground level unobserved and stood at the back of the gathering to observe what transpired.
After a hasty consultation with the podium’s occupants, The Man in Charge stepped forward to the microphone. The amplified sound of his throat-clearing rang out like a call to order. A big screen behind him flickered into life, displaying an enlarged view of his head and torso. “Ladies and gentlemen of the media, my name is General Richard Barber,” he began. “Thank you for your patience. I’m sure you have many questions, but I’d ask that you hold back until I’ve finished. Although what I am about to say will raise more questions than it answers.
“First, the facts. I can officially confirm that Great Britain is under attack from forces beyond this world. Approximately five hundred of what I can only describe as… ‘dragons’…” The General paused, as if he was finding it difficult to acknowledge the reality of the name, “…have emerged from Ground Zero, on the West Wales coast.”
The General’s face was replaced by a map showing Cardigan, then blurred footage, taken in the air from out to sea, of the energy beam shooting up from the Otherworld portal on the cliff-side. The beam was now as wide as a house. Myriad monstrous forms swarmed up out of the earth, provoking gasps of amazement from the crowd. General Barber raised his voice. “Our helicopters could only get so far before they were overcome by the sheer number of hostiles.” He allowed himself a small appreciative nod at this more appetising term, as the screen depicted one of the ‘hostiles’ engulfing the helicopter in a fireball before the image went fuzzy. Several people cried out in alarm. “Ground Zero has been evacuated within a fifty mile radius. The cause of the blast will shortly become clearer to you. I can also confirm the appearance of some kind of fortified town and castle, on the site formerly known as Cardigan.” More wobbly footage, this time taken from above the reconstructed Cardigan, showed Camelot at a distance.
Sir Lancelot watched this with interest. I realised that Camelot’s return would be news to him, too, and this was undoubtedly the first information he had received concerning the events that followed the parting of our company on the cliff-side.
“Cardigan itself has been moved aside by unidentified forces, to make way for this fortress. At the moment, we’re proceeding on the assumption that Ground Zero and this unexplained phenomenon are linked. Our soldiers came up against an invisible force field surrounding the fortress, causing them to instantly lose consciousness. Miraculously, that same force field also brought five fighter jets and three helicopter gunships to the ground, without so much as a scratch on anyone or anything.
“As you can see, this force field affects anyone approaching the fortification at ground level.” The screen cut to a camera-man approaching the outer walls of Camelot on foot, several sleeping bodies piled up on the ground ahead of him. As soon as he drew level with them, he too slumped to the floor, the camera arching backwards to give a sudden brief shot of the sky.
“Finally, as you will be aware, yesterday Cardiff suffered a heavy attack from a number of airborne hostiles, resulting in high civilian casualties and wide-spread damage to property. Soldiers apprehended two men in the city centre. A third man was picked up by the police while attempting to hitchhike his way from Cardigan to Cardiff, and is currently being held in connection with a body found at his residence in Hay-on-Wye. These three men are also wanted in connection with several other recent incidents, but as far as we’re concerned today, all of that is frankly irrelevant. Because when it comes to these men,” the General straightened his cap, as if to reassert the authority of all he once held dear, “we step into the unknown. We’re still awaiting the final results, but every test, reference, and cross-check over the past few hours, has drawn a blank. We therefore have no choice but to accept that these men are who they claim to be. I have authorisation from the highest level to facilitate their full co-operation in this national crisis, in what will henceforth be known as ‘Operation: Hostile Takedown.’ ”
The General took a deep breath and braced himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, I now hand you over to…” He groped for the remainder of the introduction, but seemed to feel, in light of his recent dragon difficulties, that it was beyond his grasp. “Perhaps it’s better if he introduces himself.” The General stepped down and the man in question stepped up. He raised his hand and every last drop of audience murmur evaporated as a legend addressed them with quiet authority.
“Good morning,” he said. “I am Sir Lancelot.”
III
From my position at the side of the pitch, I had a most unsatisfactory view. I would have preferred to be closer, but for the time being there was not much I could do about that. From the remainder of the press conference, I learned that Sir Lancelot (and presumably also Sir Gawain) had taken up residence in the stadium, requisitioned as the headquarters of ‘Operation: Hostile Takedown.’ The venue’s retractable roof provided temporary protection from the dragon hordes. This was reinforced by heavy artillery, stationed immediately outside. However, the frequent ricochet of gunfire from the stadium walls highlighted the first problem to address — namely, the unsuitability of modern weapons in dealing with dragons. Put simply, the solution was in danger of creating far more destruction than the problem. Sadly, this lesson was not learnt quickly enough to prevent Cardiff suffering a level of bombardment it had not seen since the Second World War.
One over-enthusiastic platoon had destroyed the front of the museum. In Cardiff Bay, the drawback of deploying heat-seeking missiles was brought vividly to life with the levelling of several blocks of flats and a world class opera house. And all this was accompanied by a dragon casualty rate that stubbornly refused to rise from zero. Fortunately, this sobering statistic strengthened the case of the two men arrested at a scene of similar destruction earlier in the day, who insisted that far from being responsible for such carnage, they were actually attempting to put a stop to it. Why should we believe you? was the gist of the official response. Because you have nothing to lose, was the unanswerable reply.
And so it was that several hours and one press conference later, Sir Lancelot was engaged in the task of instructing the modern military in the lost art of dragon slaying. From the central podium he issued instructions through a loud-hailer, while all around him, troops wielded swords of every description. These appeared to have been scavenged in great haste, and I sympathised with the hapless lackey given the task of assembling an arsenal from such odds and ends. Tourist replicas, much like the one I had utilised for my own recent dragon bout, were swung alongside flimsy foils never used outside a fencing class. Some soldiers considered themselv
es lucky to get their hands on antique broadswords, until they tried unsuccessfully to lift them up, while others brandished blades that were little more than crowbars crudely sharpened to a point and wrapped in a hilt of cloth.
The soldiers were divided into units of ten, each unit allocated a fake dragon on which to practice. These not-to-scale models consisted of a gymnasium horse body with a cardboard box head taped to the front, into which a football Dracontias had been lodged beneath several towels. Small trampolines were positioned at the rear, and from these each soldier would jump onto the dragon’s back, attempt to dislodge the stone, and jump down again in swift succession.
They were learning fast, which was just as well. According to a screen displaying their itinerary, ‘Operation: Hostile Takedown’ would commence with the retracting of the stadium roof at six o’clock that evening. Sir Lancelot surveyed the scene, correcting technique and apportioning praise or criticism as he saw fit. “Cut, thrust, lever! Cut, thrust, lever!” he said, his amplified voice high and clear, “Remember the principle!”
One principle unlikely to apply to battle conditions was a dragon choosing to land in front of a conveniently-placed trampoline. But this had not escaped the tutor’s expert eye. “Let the dragon come to you. Show no fear, they can smell it, like a dog. When he’s upon you, it’s dodge or die. Then, quick as you can, get on the dragon’s back. Don’t let him fly too high, or you have another problem.” Sir Lancelot illustrated this understatement by pointing at a computer-generated diagram on a display screen, showing the best way to exit a plummeting dragon. This boiled down to a strategy of staying with the beast after the fatal blow, and relying on its carcass to break one’s fall. I imagined Sir Gawain would have something sharp to say on this optimistic tactic, but I had yet to spot him. He was not on the platform; neither was he to be seen moving among the recruits, offering pithy advice. This was a shame, as I was hoping to have a quiet word. The high level of activity on the pitch made it impossible for me to reach Sir Lancelot on the podium without attracting the kind of attention I was still keen to avoid. Thus I remained at the ringside, cursing my uncharacteristic tardiness.
If I had only arrived an hour earlier, I could have furnished Sir Lancelot with information that would have made his recent press conference even more effective. Of course, I am talking about mere icing on the cake, for Sir Lancelot’s address had been note-perfect. It was, he said, placing hand on heart, “true that several of the Knights of the Round Table have walked among you for many years. The matter of our mission has been necessarily secret, but trust me when I tell you that our work has only ever been for good.”
As to the next inevitable point, he answered the question of our immortality without revealing the existence of the Grail by a simple catch-all phrase. We had, he said, been sustained by ‘magical means.’ The persistent questioner asked him to provide a more specific definition of magic, but Sir Lancelot simply replied, to much laughter, “are dragons in the sky not magical enough for you?” This deflection provided a neat link to the Otherworld portal, which was, he said, an unfortunate side effect of our presence in the modern world, but easily dealt with. ‘Operation: Hostile Takedown’ would soon have the crisis under control, thanks to the simple process of swapping guns for swords and giving the military a crash course in hand-to-claw combat.
If I was being hypercritical, the speech was deficient not in what it did state, but in terms of what it did not. As I say, Sir Lancelot could not be blamed for this. There were factors he was simply unaware of. It was, however, most unfortunate that all of these factors concerned the Master. Here I confess that my account is incomplete. Had I related the content of the press conference word-for-word, it would have rendered the above information unintelligible — for not a moment went by without yet another question about the Master: Why is King Arthur really here? Who is he? Where is he? What is he doing in his country’s hour of need? What has he done with himself all these years? Is the castle in Cardigan the legendary Camelot? If so, will we find him there? Is he intending on claiming the throne? What does he think of the current Royal Family?
If the barrage was relentless, then so was the unchangeable reply. To these questions and a hundred more like them, Sir Lancelot gave the same flat response: “No comment.” Only when he drew the proceedings to a close did he offer any elaboration. “I can’t answer for King Arthur. All I will say is that I intend to put everything right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Thank you and good day.”
Of course, I understood his reluctance to speak on the Master’s behalf. He undoubtedly felt it was the Master’s right alone to address the world on the matter of his return. However, the effect of his refusal to comment was to paint the Master in a light that was far from flattering, especially when compared with Sir Lancelot’s active stance. This was proved at the end of the conference, when I heard several comments to the effect that King Arthur had better show his face soon, and it was just as well one of his knights was willing to do something about all this mess. I was certain that when Sir Lancelot was brought up to speed, he would use the first available opportunity to redress the balance from the Master’s perspective. But in addition to this, another matter concerned me. One that arose from the contents of his speech, and made it imperative that I talk to him as soon as possible.
I was craning my neck and searching for a way to reach him, when I happened to notice a large glass-fronted room, on the opposite side of the stadium to where I stood. Several figures were busy within, attending to a seated red-headed man. I was too far away to confirm his identity as that of Sir Gawain, but the odds were in his favour. I walked into the shadowy tunnel leading back to the lower levels, and, when I was confident nobody was watching, teleported over.
IV
The people in the glass-fronted room were so wrapped up in their own activities that I was able to enter unchallenged. The room was a studio, of the kind where interviews are conducted with sporting stars and relayed by television cameras to the viewing public. These cameras were in operation now, and in a smaller ante-room off to the back, a group of men and women attended to a bank of monitors, shouting instructions into microphones as various images appeared on their screens. Most of these pictures featured the figure in the main studio, who was indeed Sir Gawain.
At present he was engaged in a tussle with a young man attempting to replace his hip flask with a bottle of water, while a girl applied powder to his forehead with darting dabs of her brush. Another man was directing the cameras, which were all trained upon the seated knight. “Positions, everybody,” said this fellow. The attendants stepped away from Sir Gawain. A screen lit up directly in front of him, displaying a script that moved from the bottom to the top.
I stepped into the ante-room, the better to observe Sir Gawain, as from my current position I could only see him in profile. He shifted uncomfortably under the bright studio lights, peering at the scrolling words.
“Quiet please,” said the director. “We’re live in five, four, three…”
Music blared from the speakers, and an unseen voice spoke in solemn tones. “Emergency Broadcast, live on all channels!” The words were accompanied by a sequence of images, and I saw that the problem had already spread beyond Wales. One picture showed dragons against the London skyline, picking up cars in their talons and flinging them at the face of Big Ben like bowling balls. No doubt there would soon be similar scenes in towns and cities all over the world.
Sir Gawain was also captivated by these images, and it came as something of a shock to him when his own face appeared on the screen. He jumped, then saw himself jump, and realised that he was staring at the wrong camera. He quickly gathered his wits, clearing his throat with a violent cough. His obvious nerves, coupled with the fact that he was not a natural reader, gave his voice the parrot-fashion of a child forced to recite poetry against his will. “Good. Evening. Ahm Sir Gawain. Of King. Arthur’s court in this time of notional — national crisis, we… need me
n of courage to step…” The camera zoomed in on his face. Drops of sweat beaded his brow. He licked his lips, took a swig of what was now mineral water, grimaced and spat it out. “Step forward, and, ah, answer their…” Panic filled the booth as the technicians considered cutting to more footage. The director made it clear by means of several wild hand gestures that they should do no such thing.
It pained me to see Sir Gawain such a prisoner of his nerves, and I was considering what I could do about it when he suddenly got to his feet. “Ah, sod this Churchill shite. Listen up, and listen good! Think you got what it takes to take down a dragon? With nothing but your bare hands and a sword to stop your head getting snapped off?” At this, the screen showed the dragon I had disposed of in the River Taff, with Sir Gawain stood on top of its floating corpse, waving his sword triumphantly at the cameras. The film cut back to the studio. “Well, do yer? Then shift your arse to Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, and we’ll see if yer balls are up to the job, won’t we just?” With that, he tore off his microphone and stomped off-camera. The screen then filled with pictures of Sir Lancelot training his troops, and the relevant contact details. “Lancelot Needs You!” said the voice over.
“Eh?” cut in Sir Gawain, returning to position. But the cameras had stopped rolling. Sir Gawain grabbed the director by the lapels. “What’s the deal? You told me you wanted me for this!”
“We do, we do,” stammered the director. “You’re perfect! If you’d just put me down a moment —”
“Then why’re you plastering his squashy nose all over the shop?”
I deemed this an opportune moment to make my presence known.
“Ah, Lucas! Did you see all that, then?”
Sleepless Knights Page 14