The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  Arthur, Hoel, Ambrosius, Aegidius and Bedwyr all rode furiously back and forth, shouting orders, instructing their men to trim their lines and hold fast, while behind them the enemy descended like an approaching avalanche of furious, shrieking madmen. As the mercenary army approached, a bank of black clouds rose up behind Morgana’s fortress, growing, roiling, reaching upward to blot out the blue sky, casting deep shadows across the battlefield, making it harder for both sides to single out their opponents with any degree of clarity.

  Wave after wave the shrieking warriors flowed onto the field, little more than a collection of dark forms moving inside the larger shadow of their combined bulk and the deepening gloom of the overcast landscape. As they rushed forward, it became clear that they were a random assemblage of ruffians dressed in the costumes of dozens of different nations. Some were wild Picts, naked as the day they were born, their bodies painted with strange blue shapes and designs and their hair spiked straight upward with snow-white lye paste. Others wore the long, heavy kilts and plaids of the Scots tribes, their orange hair and beards plaited in long braids, streaming out behind them as they plunged forward. Many carried the nasty, long-handled battle axes that marked them as Saxon warriors while still others wore Roman style breast plates of bronze and boiled leather, their scarlet cloaks fluttering behind them, swords in one hand and shields in the other. Mixed among all of these were hundreds upon hundreds of wild barbarians, nearly naked, wearing nothing more than animal skins wrapped around their waists and carrying crude spears. All of them, no matter what they were wearing or what they looked like, were running as fast as their legs could carry them, shouting, screaming in an absolute fury, shaking their swords and spears, each man shoving against his neighbor in a desperate frenzy to be the first to score a kill. So thick and fast did they come that great plumes of dust rose in their wake, adding another layer to the darkness of the scene, negating any attempt to calculate their true strength or numbers.

  * * * *

  Morgana le Fay stood in the center of the room, nearly a dozen strategically located braziers burning around her; each brazier charged with a particular combination of rare and exotic plants and ingredients intended to enhance her already considerable magical powers. She had moved away from her scrying bowl and was standing, arms raised high over her head, beneath a glowing orb that hung in midair, its obscenely pulsating surface making it appear nearly alive.

  “Blood, blood, rivers of blood. I see it, I smell it, I taste it. Oh, god, I love it.” Laughing maniacally she continued to chant while, outside, swirling things began to solidify in the moist air of the dense, black cloud cover she had conjured. Massive and horrible, they were things which had no names and very little form. Moaning like the bereaved, clicking like gigantic cockroaches and howling like all the banshees in hell, they descended from the sky, following in the wake of her army of barbarians and thugs, heading directly toward three thousand well-ordered troops assembled by Morgana’s brother.

  Pausing in her work, she turned and strode toward the table and her scrying bowl. Staring into its depths, she watched as one ant-sized army ran silently toward another, both sides encompassed by the rim of the jet bowl. As she tightened the focus for a closer look at her half-brother and his noblemen, Mordred’s head appeared at her shoulder, leering as he peered into the depths of the bowl.

  “Well, well, well. Would you look there.” Morgana directed one finger toward the clutch of diminutive figures, her son following her movements. “I want you to kill him for me, my love. Will you do that tiny little thing for your dear, loving mother?”

  Mordred stared at the group of half-a-dozen figures, a deranged grin twisting his face to one side as he reached around Morgana, stroking the back of her hand. “I will bring Arthur’s head to you on a platter, Mother. I swear it on my life.”

  In a fury Morgana pulled lose from her son’s embrace. Whirling around to face him she took his face in her hands, drawing him so close he could feel the puff of her breath on his lips when she shrieked. “SCREW MY BROTHER. I want MERLIN.” Releasing Mordred, she whirled back to the bowl, thrusting a finger toward the gray-clad figure. “I told you that motherless old prick was down there somewhere. I don’t know where he was hiding or how he kept himself invisible from me, but he’s there now. He stole my books and I want to drink his blood. Now you get your ass out there, find him and kill him.”

  Simultaneously terrified and physically excited, Mordred grinned, clutched at his crotch like a small child who needs to go to the toilet, and began backing out of the room. “Yes, Mother. Immediately.”

  “Oh, and son…” When she was sure she had his attention she smiled benignly. “Once Merlin is dead, then you can kill Arthur, and when the dragons have burned the corruption and weakness from the world and given me my kingdom, I will make you the heir to my throne.”

  “I love you, Mother.”

  “I love you too, dear. Now run along and kill people.”

  * * * *

  As the enemy surged toward Arthur’s neat formation, the barbarians, with their crude spears, surged to the front of the ranks. Above them, high in the air but descending like diving birds of prey, came the hoard of things Morgana had conjured to harass and terrify Arthur’s troops. Dashing across the rear of Arthur’s battle line, Merlin waved his arms in the air, scribing runes that left brilliantly colored tracers behind them as they faded into nothingness, each one instantly replaced by more and more arcane designs and symbols. As the wizard worked his magic the stampede of shrieking, shimmering nightmares began melting into nothingness. But inevitably, as they faded away they were replaced by other, equally horrible things. Merlin chanted and prayed in Latin, his rich baritone voice filling the air with a strength that seemed, to all who heard it, more than equal to any threat, either natural or supernatural. Below the airy battle taking place in the belly of the dark, lowering clouds, a less visually spectacular, but no less bitter, confrontation was taking place on the ground.

  When the mercenary army was within a dozen yards of the Britons they raised their spears high over their heads, lunged forward and launched them into the air. For a split second, as the air filled with slender, whistling shafts, the missiles flew so thick and fast it appeared as though it was raining sticks, but in a matter of seconds the missiles reached their zenith and began a rapid fall earthward. In unison the tight ranks of allied infantry raised their shields over their heads, allowing the spears to slam with a mighty thunder against their ironclad surfaces. Where the enemy might otherwise have been expecting a blood-curdling chorus of screams and cries of the wounded and dying, there was only a dull banging like the pounding of hailstones on metal. When the last spear fell harmlessly aside, the shields were lowered, revealing rank upon rank of men who remained virtually unscathed.

  Stunned, the oncoming mercenaries paused long enough in their headlong rush for General Ambrosius to give the order to advance. Slowly, with ordered steps, the army marched forward. As they did so, the enemy regained its composure, spreading out along a front more than fifteen hundred feet wide, before charging into the bizarre alternating formations of neatly ranked troop blocks separated by strange wedge-shaped formations. At the moment the two sides met the onrushing mercenaries lost what little sense of order and discipline they displayed in their initial push, breaking their ragged line against the saw-toothed edge of Arthur’s phalanxes. Hacking and slashing with wild abandon the mercenaries fell on the Britons, inadvertently giving their adversary the precise opportunity they were waiting for. Remaining tight and orderly, the Britons pushed forward, one hard-won step at a time.

  Inevitably, there were moments when small cracks appeared in the tight formations. When they did, Morgana’s men made the best use of every small advantage and within seconds hundreds of men on both sides lay writhing on the ground, blood pouring from deep wounds, swords and spears protruding from broken bodies. But always one of Arthur’s noblemen would rush to the scene of the break, urging their me
n forward, shouting orders to “Close the gap. Close the gap.” And always the soldiers proved up to the task, repairing their lines, pressing forward, slowly squeezing the enemy backward, forcing it against itself, making it harder and harder for them to advance.

  Hour after hour the two sides pressed against each other, the overwhelming number of mercenaries more than compensated for by the tight formation and carefully crafted tactics of the Britons. Slowly, inch by painful, bloody inch the barbarian hordes were divided into small, manageable pockets, pressed backward, condensed and surrounded on three sides until they could no longer attack, the constant forward pressure of their own rear ranks making retreat impossible. Once immobilized they were hacked to pieces.

  Those at the extreme flanks of the front line who tried to save themselves by escaping to the left or right were surrounded by the equites and driven back into the mass of churning bodies like sheep being led to slaughter. All the while, as the two sides ground against each other like two gigantic mill wheels, Merlin rushed back and forth, dispelling any mischief that Morgana tried to impose on the scene and working small miracles when and where they were most needed.

  Across the river, Jason, his engineers and four units of equites stared in open-mouthed silence as the massive battle surged back and forth only a few hundred feet from where they stood. Transfixed in horror by fountains of blood filling the air and painting the combatants on both sides with slippery, pink slime, nearly three hundred equites, engineers and their assistants looked on in terror as their comrades struggled against the enemy hoards. From minute to minute there were subtle shifts in the line that made it impossible to determine who was winning and who was losing. At one point, a group of several hundred wild Saxons attempted to attack the left flank of Arthur’s line by making an end run around the outermost edge of Duke Aegidius’ equite unit which was already hard pressed to contain a surge of Picts trying to execute an almost identical maneuver. As the Saxons pushed forward it was only sheer luck and masterful horsemanship that kept a dozen equites from being pushed backward until they plunged down the low cliff and onto the rocky shore.

  “In the name of God, Jason, this is madness.” Llewellyn wheeled his dappled gray mare around in a nervous little circle, pulling her close to where Jason leaned against his ballista, transfixed by the tide of battle. “We’re doing no good at all here and our men are dying like flies over there. No offense to you, but I don’t think your dragons are going to show up. I’m taking my men across the river. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Jason turned to face Llewellyn and rubbed his hands across his weary face. Behind him he could hear the screams of hundreds of dying men. “Llewellyn, I know the dragons will come. They work with Morgana and they are not going to allow her army to be defeated if they can help it. I know how…”

  “What seems to be the problem?” Both Jason and Llewellyn turned at the sound of Merlin’s voice. The wizard was floating toward them across the swamp, his feet barely brushing the tops of the reeds. “Well?”

  As many times as Jason had seen Merlin perform logic-defying feats he never quite got used to the sight of someone doing the physically impossible. While Jason collected his thoughts, Llewellyn spoke.

  “With all respect, Praefator, The dragons have not appeared as you predicted and our men are dying by the hundred over there. They need our help. Just one more unit of equites is all they need to turn the tide.”

  As silently and calmly as if he were contemplating his next chess move, Merlin looked at the empty sky and surveyed the line of equite units lined up in front of the ballistae. Finally, before turning back to Llewellyn, he looked across the river, impassively surveying the mass of foot soldiers and horses struggling near the edge of the escarpment.

  “One sortie, horseman. And take no more than one unit of your equites. But see to it that you confine yourself to the seaward flank. The dragons will be here and when they arrive I want you back in line.”

  “Two units.”

  “Never bargain with a wizard, boy, he might just turn you into a frog. You can have one unit and I want you to leave Bedwyr here in command of the rest of your men.”

  Scowling, Llewellyn turned his horse around, charged to the far end of the line and passed a few shouted words to Bedwyr before charging back, motioning to one of the two center units of equites to follow him. Instantly twenty horsemen charged after him, their anxious mounts flying over the low cliff, landing on the pebbly beach before making a hard right turn across the river and thundering up the ramp to join the battle.

  From the vantage point of his cart, Jason watched as Llewellyn ploughed through the surging wall of enemy soldiers, heading directly toward Aegidius, while struggling to keep his men in a tight formation so they would not be dragged from their horses one at a time and hacked to pieces. Jason had no way of knowing what was said, but after exchanging a few shouted words while simultaneously fending off an attack by a clutch of screaming, naked Picts, he saw Aegidius nod, raise up in his saddle and shout something at the top of his voice.

  Just as it seemed that the Picts and Saxons were about to push the cavalrymen and their stocky little battle ponies backward, over the cliff edge, both Llewellyn and Aegidius’ equites kneed their horses in the ribs, lunging forward, breaking through the massed enemy like a plough cutting through soft ground. Surging laterally across the field, they drove their horses through the ranks of the enemy, riding over the bodies of living and dying alike, before breaking onto the open ground at the far end of the battle line. Behind them, Arthur’s left flank was dangerously exposed to an onrushing mass of Saxons and Picts who were surging forward, heading directly toward the unit commanded by Griffudd.

  To everyone watching this bizarre scene unfold, including Jason and his engineers, it appeared as though two entire units of King Arthur’s cavalry were simply abandoning the field, leaving their comrades to the mercy of the enemy. It was a sentiment that was evidently shared by Morgana’s mercenaries because when the equites pulled clear of the fray a massive cheer went up from the rabble as they waved their weapons in the air and closed in on Griffudd’s collapsing position, pushing it inward toward the adjoining flying wedge who were far too busy to come to their aid.

  With Morgana’s soldiers totally engrossed by the prospect of rolling up Arthur’s left flank, they were far too occupied to see what Jason and his companions could see from the elevated vantage point of their wagon beds. More than a hundred yards distant, in the center of the open field, the two units of equites were executing a one hundred and eighty degree turn and reforming into a single, wedge shaped formation aimed directly at the rear of the enemy line. Those who still had intact lances took the lead positions, at the point of the formation, while those behind them drew their swords and crouched low in the saddle, ready for the coming attack. At the head of the formation Duke Aegidius tucked a borrowed lance tight under his right arm, nodded his head once and screamed “Forward”.

  Like a single, swift-moving body more than forty of the best equipped cavalrymen on earth plunged forward, their horses’ hooves thundering across the open grass, heads down and necks thrust forward. Suddenly, completely unexpectedly, in a matter of seconds they hit the back of the massed enemy soldiers, trampling hundreds to death under the thrashing hooves and impaling dozens more on their lances, sometimes spiking three and four men at a time before the lance broke; leaving their victims skewered like chickens on a spit. Deeper and deeper into the enemy ranks they rode, killing anyone they could reach and pushing dozens more aside, throwing them on their backs where they lay flailing until they were pounced on and killed by Gruffudd’s furious troops.

  For more than twenty minutes the wild cavalry attack continued with Llewellyn and Aegidius pressing their advantage, never giving an inch of ground. Despite being surrounded on all sides by the enemy they refused to be halted, instead continuing to cut a swath of death and destruction laterally through the enemy line. What they did not see as they reache
d the far right end of the thousand foot-long front, was a slim young man dressed in black, a mop of red-blond curls falling across his shoulders, and the three companions who followed close behind him.

  By the time the equites reached the emplacement of eight ballistae at the right end of the line, and wheeled around for a return pass, Mordred and his co-conspirators had disappeared behind the safety of Arthur’s rear ranks, scurrying between the men and the edge of the swamp, only jumping out of hiding when they were sure they could stab a man in the back without the danger of confronting him face to face. Long before the equites completed their second heroic pass through the massed enemy troops, Mordred and his companions had slipped silently into the swamp, crossing to the opposite shore in their search for the man who robbed his mother’s library.

  But to Mordred’s mind the most important part of his mission had to do with his Uncle Arthur, and how much fun it would be to watch him die amidst the spurting fountain of blood that would erupt when he drove his knife deep into the king’s throat, slowly twisting the handle while the man choked out his life, his eyes bulging with pain and fear.

  Elsewhere, at the shore end of the main battle line, Llewellyn had separated his men from those of Duke Aegidius, feeling supremely lucky that of the twenty equites he had arrived with only five had fallen during their insane ride through the body of the enemy. Before charging back down the ramp to the sea shore, Llewellyn circled around to the back of the lines, holding his prancing horse in check long enough to salute his king, who raised the gleaming Excalibur, nodding in acknowledgement of a job well done. Heading back to his men, Llewellyn offered one last theatrical display by bypassing the ramp and jumping his mount off the low sea wall before leading his unit back to the far side of the river. Once there, he reined his mount to a halt in front of Merlin and Jason, offering a huge grin and as much of a sweeping bow as he could manage while still in the saddle.