The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  Because of the speed of their flight and their trajectory, the vast majority of the dragons brought down by the ballistae plummeted earthward far beyond the battle site, many plunging into the sea, exploding and disappearing in a great, black plume of smoke. Others sailed beyond the range of low hills and disappeared into the distance. One massive beast did an impressive barrel roll in midair before crashing against the outer wall of Morgana’s fortress, causing the entire structure to shimmer and blink into existence before a huge section of wall exploded and collapsed inward, leaving a gaping hole half filled with a dragon carcass. Some of the impaled creatures simply disappeared in a flash of blinding light, vanishing into thin air as completely as if they had never existed. But occasionally one would land in the midst of the fighting, ploughing a great, bloody furrow through the screaming combatants, spewing bodies left and right, chewing a gaping hole in the ground, forcing the survivors to climb over the tumbled mounds of dirt to reach the enemy.

  After what seemed like days of making one pass after another at their human targets, losing hundreds of their number in the process, but incapable of penetrating Merlin’s protective shield, the dragons changed tactics. Decreasing the angle of their approach, some of them started landing at a safe distance from the allied line and lumbering toward their targets on foot. Spread out from each other far enough so they could pump their great wings, creating a huge windstorm ahead of their approach, they bounded across the tall grass, setting it aflame ahead of them; the force of the dragon-wind creating a wall of smoke so thick the engineers found it impossible to focus on the incoming beasts. Taking this as his cue to action, Llewellyn rode up and down the line of equites, shouting orders to his men before spurring his mount and disappearing into the smoke, five of his men galloping close behind him. In groups of five and six the horsemen charged through Merlin’s protective shield, disappearing into the advancing wall of fire and dragons.

  As the smoke wafted back and forth across the field, Jason caught brief glimpses that allowed him understand what the equites were doing. Riding through the wall of flames, they circled around the dragons’ massive sides - always in danger of being de-horsed by the huge flapping wings - and wheeled their horses around so they could charge the creature’s sides from the rear and drive their lances between the layers of protective scales. Without the bronze chains to ground-out their lances the impact did not cause the beasts to explode, but the vast majority of the strikes seemed to inflict terrible wounds, some of them throwing the creatures violently to one side, rolling them over and over, breaking their huge wings as they careened into others of their kind. Inevitably, when a dragon rolled across the field, there was the chance they would crush one or more of the equites as he darted back and forth alongside them.

  Other equites succumbed to the flames belched out by the beasts as they frantically sought to kill their pursuers. Here and there, through shifting smoke and fire, Jason could see men and mounts incinerated in mid stride, there one instant and gone in a flaming explosion the next. Even over the clatter and roar of battle the screams of the terrified horses tore at Jason’s ears and sickened him.

  Slowly, over what seemed like endless days, but must have been more like three or four hours, the intensity of the dragons’ assault began to slacken as their numbers slowly dwindled and they, like the humans battling them, seemed to become exhausted, finding it difficult to produce fire and death as easily as they had when they first descended from the sky.

  “Come on lad. You’re needed elsewhere.” Merlin stood beside Jason’s wagon, wagging a beckoning finger in the air.

  “What?” Jason pointed skyward. “I can’t just leave.”

  “I think your men can handle it from here. You and I have work to do.”

  Grumbling, Jason climbed over the side of the cart, jumping to the ground before staring accusingly at the old man. “So what the hell is so important?”

  Merlin hooked a thumb in the direction of the now visible fortress. “You and I are going to pay a call on the lady of the house.”

  “Oh, God, not again. She keeps trying to kill me.”

  “And me.”

  “Yes, and you, too.”

  “And Arthur and, just in case you need reminding of the fact, she came within seconds of killing your wife.” Merlin stared at Jason with his hypnotic blue eyes, waiting for him to process this information.

  “Right. Ok then. So what are we standing around here for? Let’s go snuff this bitch.”

  Grinning, Merlin stepped behind the wagon, making his way toward the edge of the swamp. Keeping low, the pair followed the edge of the bog to the northeast until they were well clear of the battle lines. There, they took off their shoes and waded through the swamp and across the shallow river, reaching the opposite shore at a point roughly half way between the northern-most edge of the battle and the limp, black tail of the dragon which had opened a convenient seventy foot wide breach in the fortress wall. Keeping low, so the tall grass disguised their passage, Merlin and Jason emerged next to a massive green-black leg that had nearly been torn off when the creature slammed into the wall. A single glance across the dead beast’s back told Jason that the situation inside the fortress was quickly going very, very wrong. Everywhere, buildings, clutches of fleeing men and even the grass and trees were phasing in and out of existence; there one second, gone the next; on, off, on off, like a flickering neon sign about to burn out.

  “Is it safe to go in there?”

  “Ah, that. Once I was sure Mistress le Fay was distracted by the course of the battle I managed to weave a few spells of my own. I thought you might find the effect amusing…” With a sly crinkle around his eyes, he winked and added “I know they have her undivided attention.”

  Merlin climbed up and over the shattered, scaly leg, sliding down the opposite side, waiting against the interior of the wall while Jason followed him. Inside the fortress everything was sheer pandemonium; lights flashing, objects and structures appearing and disappearing at random, and everywhere a disconcerting crackling noise that sounded like someone crumpling a sheet of thin plastic.

  “When the hell did you have time to do all this?”

  “In my copious amounts of spare time. Now come on.”

  Even the ground at Jason’s feet seemed to be shifting in and out of existence, the earth appearing and disappearing beneath his shoes, leaving him suspended over a vast, gaping nothingness.

  “Is this safe?”

  “It is if you stay close to me.”

  Rushing across a dangerously exposed courtyard toward the shelter of a building which alternately was, and was not, seventy or eighty feet away, Jason pressed his hand against the pistol tucked into the waistband of his trousers. As he ran, he mumbled to himself “Nine rounds left, nine rounds left.”

  Three more dashes across insanely unprotected areas and they came to rest against a building which seemed more stable than the rest.

  “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

  Resting his back against the rough stone wall, Merlin took a moment to catch his breath before answering. “You remember the building where Morgana’s office was?” Jason nodded silently. “This is it.”

  “You think she’s in there?”

  “Oh, I know she’s in there. I can feel her. I can sense the evil.”

  “So what do we do now? I mean, we can’t simply waltz in there and say ‘hi, we just dropped by to kill you’.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “WHAT THE FUCK?” Jason’s panicked voice came out as a strangled shout. “You mean you brought us in here and you don’t have a plan?”

  “Shhhh. I got us this far, do I have to do everything?”

  “You could have given me some warning.”

  “Life doesn’t come with advance notice, Jason. Consider this part of your training as a wizard. It’s called thinking on your feet.”

  “Oh, God. Ok, wait. Just give me a minute.”

  “Here. Take hold of
my sleeve and I’ll make us both invisible while you ponder. Just remember that…”

  “Wait. Maybe… Oh, why the hell not.” After a long pause and a huge sigh, Jason continued. “Morgana doesn’t know who I am, right?”

  “She won’t meet you for another sixteen hundred years, so I shouldn’t think so.”

  “Ok. Then this is what we’re going to do.” Head down, holding tight to Merlin’s sleeve, he led the way around the corner of the building and down a long colonnaded corridor, explaining his plan in hushed tones. At the far end he could see small clusters of armed guards rushing back and forth, some of them vanishing in mid stride, others only partly visible; torsos without legs, bodies without heads, once a pair of feet ran past, the man attached to them invisible from the ankles up. It all made Jason slightly giddy, and despite having spent the last four hours in constant danger of his life being snuffed out at any second he felt an almost overwhelming desire to giggle.

  Inside her office Morgana le Fay was storming back and forth, waving her arms in the air, mumbling incoherent incantations, weeping and screaming curses at the top of her voice. Her beautiful, wonderful son was dead, more than half of her army lay slaughtered on the battlefield - many of them wiped out by the very dragons who were supposed to be her allies - and half of the men who were not dead had deserted in a frantic attempt to save their miserable, worthless lives. She had tried and tried to reach the Dragon Lords on her communicator but they refused to answer; didn’t the fools know she needed reinforcements? Worst of all Arthur was still alive and that miserable old man had vanished again. She had searched back and forth across the battlefield but couldn’t find any sign of him in the scrying bowl. And now something had gone horribly wrong with the spell that kept her and her fortress invisible. Would Arthur and his army of traitors storm her fort? If they did, would they be able to see her?

  “DAMN IT TO HELL. How in the…”

  Her furious outburst was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on the door. Storming across the room, shrieking until her vocal chords were raw, she depressed the latch, jerking the door inward. “WHAT?” There was no one there. “Show yourself, you son of a motherless dog.”

  In one smooth, easy move Merlin ducked beneath her arm and circled around behind her. Jason held fast to the long, trailing cuff of the wizard’s batwing sleeve as long as he could. When the last inch of rough, homespun cloth slipped through his fingers, his invisibility vanished and he stood eye-to-eye with Morgana le Fay. Breaking into a broad smile he offered a cheery “Hi there. We’ve come to kill you.”

  Stunned, not knowing how to react to this weird apparition, Morgana took one step backward, muttering “Who the hell are…” That was as far as she got before the flaming ball of energy struck her squarely in the back. Whirling around to face her attacker, when she saw Merlin standing at the far end of the room her lips curled in a hate-filled sneer.

  The two intractable enemies faced each other, flexing their hands, readying themselves for what was to come. Seconds later orbs of pulsing, glowing energy were cascading from both of their fingertips. As the bolts flashed from their hands, they slammed against each other, sending sparks and streamers of iridescent power cascading in every direction, filling the room with brilliant shards of light, blinding all three of the occupants. From somewhere, Morgana produced a second energy beam, sending it rocketing toward Merlin. Shouting spells, incantations and prayers to ward-off evil, Merlin produced an umbrella of protection, deflecting Morgana’s attack harmlessly to the side. Waves of pure power pulsed from both wizard’s hands with such fury that the entire room hummed with the intensity of the assault. As the energy level climbed, it produced audible vibrations ranging from so high only a dog could have heard them to so low that the ground throughout the fortress shook and quivered like it was made of pudding.

  Wave after wave, energy bolts came thick and fast, one after another, filling the room from floor to ceiling with balls of fire and cascades of light so potent that Jason was forced to shield his eyes and step back, terrified that the building would explode. Through the glare and the din, he could faintly discern Merlin’s glowing outline and realized that the great wizard was being forced backwards, retreating towards the far wall. His shield of protection was glowing less intensely and his bolts were being bent, warped and pushed aside by the fury of Morgana’s onslaught.

  Jason had to do something but he knew there was no way he could withstand the power of Morgana’s magic. After taking the briefest second to weigh his options he pulled the pistol from beneath his tabard, flipped off the safety, and took careful aim at Morgana. Taking a deep breath, he released the pistol, leaving it suspended in midair, and moved to one side of the doorway. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he screamed “HEY BITCH, CATCH THIS.”

  Morgana whirled around to stare at the small, black object suspended in the center of her doorway. “What the…”

  Concentrating on the gun, Jason used his limited powers to pull the trigger three times. Two of the shots struck the sorceress squarely in the midriff, driving her backward, tripping and stumbling across the room toward Merlin. The second he heard Jason’s shout, Merlin had made a dive toward the row of armor standing guard over an array of wall-mounted weapons. Grabbing the nearest Saxon war axe, he jerked it from the wall and leapt back to the center of the room. Pulling the axe backward over his right shoulder, he brought it forward in a great, wide arc just in time to connect with Morgana le Fay’s neck. As gracefully as a ballet movement, her head separated from her shoulders, did a double pirouette in the air and crashed to the floor, rolling next to her collapsing body.

  Without hesitating, Merlin stepped forward, picked up the head and tossed it into the nearest brazier. As her hair caught fire and the skin began to blacken, Merlin leaned down and stared into the melting face. “My dear” he murmured “that was probably much less painful that what the dragons did to you in the future, so you can take this as an act of undeserved mercy.”

  Walking across the room, he put an arm around Jason’s shoulders. “Thank you again. That’s the second time today you’ve saved my life.”

  “That’s ok. You’ve saved mine plenty of times.” He rubbed a hand across his weary face, smearing layers of dirt and dragon soot. “Is this finally over? Can I go home now?”

  “I believe it’s finally over. We’ve saved the world…again.”

  “Thanks Batman. Now let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It took the rest of the day for the battle to grind its way to a weary, inglorious conclusion. Too exhausted to keep fighting but too angry, frustrated and belligerent to quit, the three sides continued to hammer away at each other, hour after hour, wearing each other down an inch at a time, long after the outcome would have been painfully obvious to any casual observer watching from the distant hills. Mercifully for all concerned, before the first fingers of dusk crept across the landscape, the last of Morgana’s mercenaries who had not been roasted in the inferno of dragon fire or cut down by King Arthur and his allies opted for saving their skins. Deserting the field they fled across the hills or along the coast, vanishing into the distance from where they had come. Not long after the last of the barbarians disappeared even the dragons seemed to have had enough, turning their great tails toward the western horizon they retreated eastward, returning to the portal leading to the nightmare existence of their own world.

  After bringing down one last dragon, burying a ballistae bolt into its retreating rump and watching it cartwheel through the air before exploding and dissolving into nothingness, Jason slumped over the bed of his ballista and rubbed his dirt-smeared face with trembling hands. It took five full minutes before he mustered enough energy to lift his weary head and survey his surroundings, taking stock of the destruction and desolation wrought by a single day of relentless slaughter.

  King Arthur, the army of the Britons and the combined forces of their allies had won the day but the cost had been horrib
le. While a dispatch rider was sent back to the main camp, taking news of the victory and warning the women to prepare to receive an unknown, but huge, number of injured, the work of untangling the dead from the wounded, the bodies of friends from those of the enemy, began. Those who had the strength worked far into the night; those who were too exhausted to move slept where they fell to the ground, among the dead and wounded, rejoining the clean-up crew with the coming of the dawn. Over the next two days Merlin worked with the rescue crews, administering last rites to the dying and delivering massed funeral services over slit trenches filled with bodies. High ranking officers and noblemen received individual burials and orations but speeches for each of the more than one thousand fallen men would have been impossible.

  While Merlin toiled among the dead, Jason worked with his engineers and carters. Pulling all but six of the ballistae from the beds of the twenty one surviving battle wagons, they repaired the damaged carts, making them ready to carry the wounded back to base camp where they would be handed over to the gentle ministrations of Beverley and her nurses. As each of the patched-together carts became available for service, four broken, moaning men were laid on the rough wooden floor and transported away from the battlefield. Inevitably, base camp was quickly overwhelmed by the influx of wounded, particularly because many of the volunteer nurses were informed that they were now widows and were so grief-stricken it was nearly impossible for them to concentrate on their work.

  It was not until noon of the second day that the true extent of the losses began to emerge. As near as Jason could figure, about one in three of Arthur’s men were dead and nearly as many had suffered some kind of injury – mostly burns of greater of lesser extent. One third mortality and one third wounded was disastrous by the standards of any organized military at any period of history. On a more personal and individual scale, Llewellyn the handsome, dashing commander of Arthur’s equites was dead, crushed by a wounded dragon as it careened across the field. King Hoel, too, had been cut down; slashing and cursing, wreaking death and destruction on the enemy, the old warrior had been stabbed multiple times, finally killed by a Saxon war axe. While righting one of the overturned wagons, Jason uncovered the small, broken body of Cadwaladr, Arthur’s young page who had bravely volunteered to serve as baggage boy to the engineers. Lifting the limp body gently, Jason carried his sad burden to the king who directed him to the boy’s father who sat among the wounded, a bloody, makeshift bandage engulfing one arm and hand.