“You will pay for that,” Vance snarled, holding his bruised wrist close to his chest.
“No, Vance, this time it is you who will pay.”
Viviane’s voice came close at Arthur’s back. He felt a thrum of energy and something cold fitted into his hand.
“A few alterations have been made to Excalibur, but you will find she still responds to whatever you will require.”
Exhilaration rushed through him as he raised Excalibur high in the air. The handle made of onyx with matching guard wrapped around his hand, molding to it as he watched. The tine stretched out, hugging a wickedly sharp blade that glowed with a blue-white power. Here was the magic Arthur lacked. With this, he could finally fight Vance on an even footing. Satisfaction and expectation surged through him. With Excalibur, he could keep Gwen safe.
With Excalibur, the once and future King would become the man those words foretold.
Vance didn’t give him much time to enjoy the reunion as a ball of red energy headed for him with deadly accuracy.
Arthur narrowly dodged the fireball as it streaked past his shoulder. The heat of its passing nearly blistered his skin as his nostrils filled with the odor of ozone. He heard the hiss of impact, and he risked a quick glance over his shoulder to see it dissipate harmlessly against the dirt floor.
“I see you still have quick reactions. No matter, you can’t protect everyone, now can you?” Vance practically purred as he threw his magic at Gwen, still bound, gagged and helpless to protect herself.
“No!” Arthur shouted, hurtling himself in front of Gwen, lifting Excalibur up, barely in time to block the lethal spell. He heard the crackle of energy and the jarring pressure of the deadly magic as it contacted with the sword in a fiery burst of sparks. Thanking the gods he got to her in time, he knew he needed help to keep Gwen safe while he engaged the monster before him.
Vance’s face twisted with rage, his face turning ruddy in his fury. “Your warriors will not be able to help you this time,” he rasped out in a voice barely human. He spoke low, in a guttural language never before heard and power surged through him.
“Oh, shit this won’t be good,” Merci spoke for everyone as they watched the room twist and buck around them.
The air screamed around them like a banshee thwarted of her victim. A nauseating odor of decay and mold clogged Arthur’s lungs as the arena vanished in a thick green-grey mist that clung to his skin. Huge humanoid shaped forms separated from the barren landscape of swirling fog.
“Where in the nine hells are we and what are they?” Arthur demanded.
“This is one of the hells you speak so eloquently about. The third to be precise and these delightful creatures are called soul eaters,” Vance crooned with delight. “Merci and Drake you remember these charming creatures, don’t you? Only now they serve me. Doomed warriors who will help me rule the world with Morgan le Fey, at my side.”
“Now that’s wrong on so many levels I don’t know where to begin,” Rhea wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Ah, I know you.” Vance pointed a finger in her direction and laughed, a glint of madness burning in his dark eyes. “You are Morgause, sister to Morgan. She will be disappointed to see you changed your allegiance.”
“I changed nothing. I always opposed you and my sister,” she spat out, fury sparking in her eyes.
“Then you will die with the others, a traitor to your own flesh and blood.”
“Oh please, cut the dramatics already,” Merci interrupted.
Drake chuckled. “You really need to learn patience, my blood-thirsty wife. A word of caution everyone. These soul eaters exhale a sand like substance, which will temporarily blind you. That’s when they strike.”
Vance’s voice came to them out of the mist, “I have…modified them since you last fought them, Drake. You will find they have a few more surprises.”
“Oh goodie, just what we need since the last we were up against them it was so easy,” Merci retorted dryly.
“Well, we haven’t,” the rest spoke in unison, eying the shadowy forms warily.
“Viviane, free Gwen and don’t let anything happen to her,” Arthur ordered.
He could hear the rattle of the chains holding Gwen and soon her sweet voice filled his senses.
“I will not hide behind Viviane like a helpless twit! I’ve been chained, had a knife held to my throat, but gagged? Really?”
Rhea laughed, shaking her head with disbelief. “You’re more upset about being gagged than nearly losing your life?”
“If it weren’t for that damnable gag my life wouldn’t have been in danger,” Gwen huffed as she stood by Arthur, pulling a small crystal from the back pocket of her jeans and called up her magic.
A brilliant light infused the tiny crystal, piercing the fog and illumining the hulking horrors shuffling towards them. Glowing pinpoints of fire filled their eye sockets, casting them in a crimson glimmer. Flesh hung in loose strips over parched bone. Their teeth were exposed in macabre grins promising a painful death. Some wore rusted armor, which filled the air with the sound of metal scraping on metal. Others were in tattered tunics and breeches.
All held weapons.
Arthur’s hand tightened on Excalibur as the odor of death and decay thickened in the air. Narrowing his eyes, he searched for Vance, finding him behind one mammoth-sized creature. Nearly nine feet in height a threadbare tabard stretched across wide shoulders, his head covered in a helmet of beaten bronze, he carried a mace in one massive hand. The skeletal head turned his way, its teeth clacking together in a nightmarish parody of a laugh.
It lumbered toward him, nearly running over its brethren in a single-minded determination to reach him.
“Incoming!” Merci shouted as fireballs lit up the landscape of green–grey mist, transforming the world to sparkling silver.
Arthur took one last glance at his men and the women who fought at their side, then gazed down at the beautiful, brave little witch at his side, her hair a fiery halo of curls surrounding a small pert face. Green eyes full of determination gazed up at him. Something inside him shifted as he marveled at the beauty before him so full of passion and strength.
He felt humbled, awed and possessive. By the gods, he loved her and for her, he would fight this battle. For her, he would lay down his life to protect.
He turned to the soul eater bearing down on him, raised Excalibur and prepared to engage.
* * * *
Gwen’s breath caught at the love shinning in the dark depths of Arthur’s gaze. Her heart thumped heavily against her rib cage like a bird fighting to be free. Dare she hope? Could he give her what she so desperately craved?
Arthur met the oncoming giant with a powerful downward swipe of his sword singing in the air. He ducked and sidestepped, avoiding the heavy mace as it slammed down where he just stood.
Arthur continued the deadly dance with lethal grace as he swung low, the blade cutting deep into the soul eater’s hamstring. Without a sound, the beast dropped to his knees, swinging his mace above him, giving Arthur no opening to finish him. The mace snapped out from the end of its chain.
Deftly Arthur avoided the deadly missile and attacked with a downward thrust, decapitating the soul eater with his powerful blow, the body turning to dust before the head hit the floor.
Gwen tore her gaze away, scanning the horror steadily closing in on them. Would they even live through this nightmare? She squared her shoulders, chin lifting in defiance. Everything hung in the balance. The promise of a future she glimpsed in Arthur’s dark eyes, their happiness and the world teetered on a precarious edge ready to slip into the darkness.
Not if she could help it.
Gwen pulled the magic deeper into her, feeling it respond, waiting for her bidding. She built a shield around Arthur as she readied a sphere of white-hot energy. Pulling her arm back, she let loose with a pitch a professional baseball player would be proud of. Her magic hit three soul eaters nearest her, turning them to ash.
&nb
sp; The eerie silence filled the air, raising the small hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. Not even a moan came from the ones she destroyed and the others just shuffled forward, more replacing the hole she made in their ranks. Flashes of light hurtled through the air, taking more of them out and again, no sound came and others replenished their ranks.
Somehow they needed to get to Vance or no one would survive tonight.
It seemed Arthur read her mind as he started edging toward the soul eaters. “I need to get to Vance. You stay with Drake, Merci and Juliet perhaps if you combine your magic, we can slow them down.”
Instantly, the horde stopped, their jaw’s widening, and a high-pitched screech pierced the air, the noise threatening to bust Gwen’s ear drums as she clasped her hands to her ears, nearly driven to her knees with the pain stabbing into her temples.
Frantic, she looked around her at the others, her skin turning cold and clammy with dread. They all were nearly senseless by the high-pitched scream. Desperation clutched at her throat, threatening to take her sanity. She needed to find a spell, something to combat the mind numbing, ear-splitting sound. She grasped for anything she could think of, willing her brain to function in the midst of such utter chaos. Slowly, her brain came on line, there, almost within her mental reach she found what she needed. She struggled for a moment more until she grasped it.
Clutching the crystal in her hand so tight it cut into her palm, she recited the words and let the power flow over them dulling the paralyzing effect and bringing them back from the brink.
She would have sagged with relief if that ended the assault, but she soon found out it was only the first phase in their strategy. With jaws completely unhinged and elongating into grotesque characters from some horror movie, a buzzing noise built.
“Oh, shit, incoming!” Merci screamed.
“Shields up, Now,” Drake demanded on a snarl just as millions of what looked like black shinny beetles burst from the soul eater’s gaping maws.
A loud shout followed by a curse came from Darius as several of them landed on his arm before the shield activated. He tore them off with savage force, crushing them under the heel of his boot. “By the nine levels of hell, they’re flesh eaters,” he snarled, wiping the blood streaming down his forearms with loathing.
Dear Hecate, now we are up against flesh eaters? When will this madness stop?
Only one man could stop this and, as his gaze locked onto hers, she knew what he planned to do, and knew this could very well be the last time she saw him alive. The memory of the convent crystallized in her mind, of Lancelot standing behind her in the small receiving room reeking of blood and death. She remembered his words given in a low emotionless tone of Arthur’s death. Camelot finished and the world forever changed.
“I go with you,” Gwen stated it as fact, no question and no room for argument. He studied her for a brief instant, yet his gaze seemed to stroke lightly over her skin, bringing the sensation of raw passion to life so fierce with its demand she nearly gasped out loud from the sheer perfection of it.
He gave her a slight nod.” Then let’s do this. Together.”
Gwen let out a shuddering breath she didn’t know she held. Arthur turned his attention to the soul eaters and raised Excalibur high. The steel seemed to pulse with excitement, ready to bite deep into another enemy. She followed, throwing her magic at the ones foolish enough to try and hem Arthur in. At times, the beetles obscured their vision as they clung tenaciously to their shields. The angry high-pitched buzz of their wings filled the air as they tried to breech Gwen’s shield magic.
Sending an electric charge to both Arthur and her shields, their view cleared as the beetles fell away, leaving her with the sight of Excalibur swiping up into an arch, then in a powerful down stroke as it cut through the soul eaters with fatal efficiency, leaving only a pile of dust on the floor. Over and over Arthur swung and slashed with the force of a berserker, thinning his way toward his goal.
* * * *
Arthur tried to block out the sounds of battle around him as he sliced a path toward the cause of the nightmarish existence he now found himself in. Guilt ate at him at the thought of losing a single man to this war. And then there stood Gwen, hurtling her magic with deadly precision, fighting with him as they neared their quarry.
She was a female of worth, a queen to be admired, a lethal fighter, the king’s lady, his lady, in every way, which mattered. If they made it out of this, she would never again know the feeling of being discarded. She would be at his side, making decisions in all things. He avowed silently to himself.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched with dread as Darius went down under the assault of three soul eaters, heard Simon’s shout and Rhea’s howl of rage and terror. Shots rang out, sulfur and smoke blending with the taint of the decay around him.
He caught the flash of Lancelot’s blade as it swept in an arch, two heads rolled off the shoulders of the soul eaters pinning Darius to the ground. Neil took aim and fired. A hole blossomed in the forehead of the other, stopping it long enough for Simon to cleave his sword through the solid neck. Juliet conjured thick green vines, which coiled around soul eaters, leaving them immobile while Colin removed their heads.
Viviane held tightly to a terrified Nimue, encasing them both in a shield as they watched on. As a goddess she could not affect the outcome of this battle, could only watch with horror as those she cared for fought to the death.
Arthur’s attention swung back seeking Darius, only to find him lying still and pale. Anger mixed with dread clutched his heart in a brutal vise. The very thought of losing Darius distracted him. The man fought with honor and struggled more than any of the others with his gift. Grief at the possibility of his loss stabbed deep in him.
The swarm of beetles obscured his vision and again, Gwen fried the beasts, clearing the way. He pushed all thoughts out of his mind save one. He would defeat Vance. No other option was acceptable.
He slashed his way to his prey with single-minded determination and found Vance, a madman lost to the dark promise of his black magic.
* * * *
Suddenly, Vance appeared from the thinning monsters, his dark hair whipped about his pale face, eyes wild with manic delight. The air around him crackled with power as he continued to push the soul eaters to advance. His head swung in their direction. His stare pinned her to the spot, a slow grin of anticipation forming on his face made her shudder with apprehension.
“Ah, there you are, little witch. I feared you perished, but look at you, so strong and full of potent magic! Morgan will be very pleased with your blood.” Vance nearly clapped in delight.
Arthur placed his body in front of her and growled at Vance, “You will never lay a hand on her, but I promise you will feel the touch of Excalibur’s kiss.”
A green glow extended from Vance’s hand, solidifying into a sword. “Then let’s end this, shall we?”
Chapter Fifteen
With as much control as he could dredge up, Arthur stood against Vance’s taunting, keeping Gwen at his back, and waited, Excalibur poised.
With a vicious snarl, Vance engaged Arthur with his sword up and ready to swing. Arthur shouted a war cry and met him with a ring of steel against steel. Sparks flew as the blades kissed with a hissing promise of death, their bodies met with a meaty thud. Vance stepped back, his sword a blur of movement, the air whistled with the velocity of his strike. Excalibur met each potentially deadly blow.
Arthur parried another, then another strike, forced to take defensive action as Vance’s onslaught forced him to take a step back, then another. His fingers numbed on Excalibur, his muscles burning at the onslaught. A fine sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead from the strain of holding back Vance’s attacks. Sparks sizzled from the contact of blade to blade, burning his hand, yet he fought on, waiting for an opening.
Vance aimed high, clashing with Excalibur with a clang of steel, then shifted in blinding speed to Arthur’s unprotected side, sink
ing deep into muscle. He gritted his teeth against the searing pain spreading through his trembling body. His heart raced at the thought he may lose against Vance.
Arthur blocked another strike, took another step back. Another vicious blow made his arm tremble. He felt his blood pulse hot from the wound at his side weakening him further. He stumbled and fell to one knee, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. He lifted his head and took the full measure of the madman staring down at him with wild eyes, lips twisted in a smile as cold as death.
“You will die again by my hand, and I will then have your bitch. I will summon Morgan and there is nothing you can do about it.”
“Oh really? I can,” Gwen’s voice rose strong and confidant above the sound of battle.
Panic seized hold of Arthur and his pulse raced as fear clogged his throat. His mouth moved, but no words came out. He experienced an unfamiliar sensation of helplessness to protect Gwen as his death came closer.
He watched in agonizing despair as Gwen moved between Vance’s sword and him. Magic thrummed in the air, sparks of it glinting against her pale arms as she filled her palms with magic, then hurtled it toward Vance in a blinding flash.
Vance hurtled through the air, slamming him to the earth against the urn which upended, spilling the ashes of Morgan over the floor. Vance screamed his denial as he came to his feet, his eyes turning as red as those of the soul eaters. “I will have your head for this, you bitch!”
“Um, yeah, I’m a bitch. No surprise there, can you come up with something more original?” she taunted as she knelt beside Arthur and placed one glowing hand against the wound.
The pain diminished, muscle knitted and strength surged through his body. Gwen grinned down at him and winked. Backing up a step, she gave him room to stand as he rose to his feet and leaned close to brush his lips against hers in a chaste kiss, which promised a whole lot more.
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she whispered in his ear, the confidence in him sparkling in her blue gaze gave him all he needed to fight.
Vance already shook off Gwen’s spell and with a fierce snarl, bared his teeth that seemed a bit too sharp. He launched himself at Arthur. Even so, this time Arthur expected the brute force of his opponent and prepared accordingly.
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