The Fire of Merlin (The Return to Camelot #2)

by Donna Hosie

  Blue flames rose up in front of my face as the skull rock and pool of water disappeared. My fingers, wet with Byron’s blood, clenched his hand, as deep bells tolled in my head.

  I was standing within a triangle of blackened trees. The roughly textured bark scraped against my clothes. Byron and Slurpy were nowhere to be seen. It was night: a starless suffocating darkness that stretched into everything. I looked down at my hands, and could just make out the stains of Byron’s blood, glistening like wet paint on my skin.

  Where was Byron? Slurpy had been draining him of his magic, sucking it out of him. He could be lying in the undergrowth, bleeding to death, and I wouldn’t be able to see him. I could barely make out my own feet in the impenetrable darkness.

  “I know you’re there, freak.”

  I held my breath as Slurpy’s Welsh voice called out in the dark void that was separating us.

  “Come on, freak. Show yourself.”

  I couldn’t tell what direction her voice was coming from. I guessed there was some distance because she didn’t sound close enough to slap.

  “Don’t make me hurt you, freak, because trust me, I would love to for what you’ve done to my life, and to Arthur’s life. You brought that acorn back deliberately, you little bitch. You knew something magical would happen, and you left it on the floor of Arthur’s bedroom on purpose. Everything is your fault.”

  I knew I had to keep quiet, even if it meant staying where I was. Byron had saved my life once more, but I couldn’t help him without revealing myself to Slurpy.

  I hated myself for the silence.

  Crouching down, I inched my fingers out across the forest floor. It was wet and sticky. Byron had been wearing black leather pants and a fur gilet over his brown tunic. If I could find him without moving too much, then I could wait for Slurpy to leave us. She had the patience of a two-year-old in a candy store. What Slurpy wanted, she wanted now. My brother treated her like a queen, which only made her worse. I, on the other hand, had waited five long months for what I really wanted.

  The first battle between Lady Morgana and Natasha, Lady Knight of the Round Table, would be a battle of wills – and I would win it.

  “I’ll find you, freak - and your dwarf boyfriend.”

  Her voice was getting further away.

  A large hand appeared out of nowhere and clamped down hard against my mouth. I took a quick sniff of air, and then fell down onto the forest floor, as a small ball of blue flame whizzed over my head.

  The light cast by the flame was enough to show me the outline of who had grappled me to the ground.

  It was Tristram.

  The knight shook his head at me. Don’t speak was his message, and he kept his hand over my mouth just to be sure.

  Tristram rolled his body onto mine. He was heavy – far heavier than he looked – and what little air I had in my lungs was immediately pushed out.

  “We are on the edge of the Gorian encampment,” whispered Tristram. “Do not move until I give the signal.”

  I nodded to show I understood.

  Tristram shifted his weight, and silently moved into a crouched position. I heard the slice of metal as he pulled something out of a scabbard. I tugged on his arm, and he lowered his head towards me once more.

  “She can do magic again, Tristram.”

  “I’m getting bored now, freak,” called Slurpy, even further away than before.

  “Follow me, Lady Natasha,” whispered Tristram. “Keep your body low.”

  I was glad I couldn’t see exactly what it was that I was crawling through. It was thick and freezing cold like slush, but it also moved. The stuff oozed over my hands, as Tristram and I inched through the undergrowth.

  More balls of blue flame were fired into the trees. Slurpy was getting pissed off. What would she do to me if she found me? She was a nasty bully at the best of times, and I had the scars from her at her worst. Dare I leave her with Byron?

  The guilt I felt at leaving him started to slow me down. Twice I stopped crawling and looked back over my shoulder. If we could just see a hint of Byron in the blue flame...

  Suddenly I screamed out in agony. Hot red flames engulfed me. My entire body was alight, and the pain was worse than anything I had ever experienced. I wanted to die. I could feel my skin melting, dripping off in long strips. The noise of my own pain pierced my eardrums. I was boiling in my own blood as I cooked from the inside out...

  I was running through the trees. But I couldn’t run because I was bent double. What was happening to me? Small balls of blue flames, like tennis balls, were being thrown at me. I was running backwards. Why wasn’t I facing the front? What kind of race was this?

  Tristram had thrown me over his shoulder, and his legs were the ones powering through the undergrowth, dodging the trees with ease.

  “Let me run, Tristram,” I gasped. “You don’t need to carry me. I can run.”

  “Then take my hand and do not let go,” cried Tristram, as a tree branch crashed down in front of us.

  Slurpy knew where we were. There was no point in whispering anymore.

  Tristram and I continued to run. My eyes adapted quickly to the darkness again, but I could not shake the cold, sweating terror that remained after the burning vision. It had been so real. It had felt so real.

  Slurpy was still firing her blue flame towards us, but we were getting further and further away. I knew she wouldn’t be able to run, not with her being the size of a walrus, but that didn’t mean other Gorians wouldn’t be able to catch us. Tristram and I ran until my lungs felt they would explode. The air was vile, heavy and thick, like a room filled with smoke.

  Tristram slowed down to a jog and then stopped completely. He bent his body over so he could clutch at his knees. I put my hand on his shoulder so I wouldn’t lose him, but it felt weird, touching someone who wasn’t Bedivere, and so I took my hand away. Then I freaked out that I would lose Tristram in the darkness, and so I stood right next to him, touching his body with mine, but that felt even worse.

  “I will not forsake you, Lady Natasha,” puffed Tristram, intuitively guessing what my problem was. “You need not get closer to my person than you deem true.”

  “Thank you for helping me back there, Tristram. Where are all the others? Are they close?”

  “I do not know,” he replied. “I ride with Sir David only.”

  “You mean Bedivere isn’t with you?”

  “Sir Bedivere rides at Arthur’s side. Sir David and I are seeking news of Sir Gareth, who has been missing in these accursed lands for too long now.”

  “We need to find Byron, Tristram. He’s here and he’s hurt. Where’s David?”

  Tristram nodded in the direction behind me.

  “Sir David is with Byron, and he is coming.”

  The brittle sound of branches snapping underfoot magnified in the darkness. David came stumbling towards us with a flaming branch in his hand, and what looked to be a lumpy sack slung over his shoulder. I could see enormous black stains against his tunic.

  “Take the torch, quickly.” David thrust the branch at me, and gently lowered the sack onto the ground.

  Only it wasn’t a sack, it was Byron. His eyes were closed and blood was smeared across his face. It was coming from his mouth.

  “Sir David saw the blue vision before I did,” Tristram whispered as he bent down. “We saw the king’s love appear, then yourself. Byron was faint, just a shadow at first.”

  “Forgive me, Lady Natasha,” said David, and the anguish in his voice was obvious. “I broke the knight’s tenet which declares a maiden in distress must be assisted. I left you to go to Byron.”

  “Where are your horses?” I cried. “We have to get him to a physician – now.”

  “It is...too late,” groaned Byron.

  “Do not say that, my brave friend,” said Tristram.

  David tried to pick Byron up again, but he groaned and swatted David’s hands away. A large bubble of blood popped out of his mouth and ran down
his chin. I wiped it with my sleeve.

  “I have done my duty...to the king?”

  “You have saved his sister, Byron. You will be lauded above all others,” replied Tristram, his voice choking.

  “No, no, we can save him,” I cried. “Leave me here. Get Byron back to the camp.”

  “It is...too late,” repeated Byron.

  “Don’t give up, Byron. I’ll ride on and bring physicians back with me,” said David, clutching Byron’s hands.

  “You must get Lady Natasha to Sir Bedivere...I have seen what is to come...she is...special.”

  Tristram gently placed his sword on Byron’s stomach. The dwarf pulled his hands away from David, and wrapped his stubby fingers around the hilt.

  He smiled.

  “I have...done my duty.”

  Byron’s sigh seemed to last forever. The sword slipped from his fingers as his head rolled to the side. I fumbled at his wrists and neck, trying to find a pulse, but it was Tristram who pulled me away. He was crying. Byron was dead.

  We buried Byron under a pile of rocks. The ground was too hard to dig into. Not one of us said a word as we trudged away into the dark. My brain was in shock. After Eve died, I was consumed by terror and anger. Now, I was just empty. I needed to find the right words, but mine weren’t good enough. I needed the words of another, someone more articulate, someone who could do justice to Byron’s life, his strength, his valour.

  Byron.

  The poet who shared his name once said “Friendship is Love without his wings.” Well, he was wrong. Friendship did have wings, and Byron had flown for us all.

  And I would make Slurpy pay for what she had done.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Natasha’s Quest

  “You must not lay blame at your own house, Lady Natasha,” said David. “Byron understood the task he had been accorded. To travel using the Gorian dark arts is fraught with danger.”

  “I don’t blame myself,” I replied. “I blame her.”

  “Byron knew it was only a matter of time before the sorcerer came for him, as the dwarf had seen you in a vision,” added Tristram. “I believe Sir Bedivere had time to write before the wind descended, and then Byron was gone. He had not been afforded time to recover fully from his visitation to Sir Gareth and his sister, Guinevere. Many moons to us have been but a passing glance to Byron and those who challenge time. He was weak, ailing, and unable to restore to full strength.”

  “She was sucking his magic out of him. I saw her. She was changing, growing stronger.”

  “We must tarry here no longer,” said David. “We must take Lady Natasha to Arthur and Sir Bedivere.”

  “No.”

  “Lady Natasha...”

  “No. You both have a job to do here, don’t you? You were told to find Gareth and Guinevere. So that’s what we’ll do. The three of us.”

  “Lady Natasha...”

  “No, David. I have to do something – something that will help. And as much as I want to see Bedivere, I’ll only be a distraction to him right now. Bedivere needs to be with Arthur, because hell knows it’s my brother that needs protecting, from himself and from Nimue, as well. So I’m staying with you two, and we will find Gareth and Guinevere together. And if that witch gets in the way, then heaven help me, because I’ll kill her.”

  “Lady Natasha is a Knight of the Round Table,” said Tristram. “She was anointed by Arthur, and she has earned the right to choose her quest.”

  “Sir Tristram,” protested David. He had lowered his voice, as if that would somehow stop me from hearing him. “Lady Natasha is but a maiden.”

  “A maiden who bore the blade meant for Sir Bedivere,” said Tristram. “She and I are now bound by the blood that was cast when I cut the throat of Sir Archibald. Lady Natasha stays with us until we have accomplished our quest and found Sir Gareth and the fair Guinevere.”

  I wasn’t sure whether David was still Tristram’s apprentice, but David argued no more. Never before had I felt such a rush of affection for Tristram. Of all the knights, he was the one I had the most strained friendship with. Perhaps it was because we were naturally distrustful of strangers, or perhaps it was because we were both very similar in our personalities. Either way, Tristram had dragged Archibald away from me and helped save my life.

  He slit his throat.

  Good, I thought coldly. One less person to worry about.

  “We must head back into the thick of the forest,” said Tristram. “We must know for sure that Sir Gareth and Guinevere are no longer in the midst of the Gorians.”

  “Byron said that three and a half months had gone since Mordred took me from the court of Bedivere’s father,” I replied. “Would Mordred have kept Sir Gareth and Guinevere for that long?”

  “Sir Mordred is a duplicitous traitor,” said David. “It will be grave news for us if Sir Gareth was not able to make his escape during that time.”

  “You say he was alive, Lady Natasha?” asked Tristram. “When you saw him last, Sir Gareth was alive?”

  “Yes, definitely alive,” I said with certainty, thinking back to the last wispy image I had of Gareth and Guinevere. As the wind and fire of Merlin descended on the Gorian encampment, Gareth had rolled onto Guinevere to protect her.

  Was that through his own doing, though, or had his body been thrown by the wind?

  Even though Tristram, David and I were encased in the darkness of the forest, I still clenched my eyes shut as I tried to remember. In real time – in my time – it had been just a couple of days ago, but it felt like a memory that had been made years earlier.

  I had to remember.

  “Gareth had been poisoned,” I said, reliving my last moments with Gareth and Guinevere. “His body was covered in small red blisters. It happened really quickly. Blood was coming out of his eyes and nose and Guinevere was screaming. Mordred was there, and he had a potion that he said would make Gareth better, but before he gave it to him, I had to swear an oath on flame or something like that. I had to agree to do something, but I can’t remember what. I was in a panic. I would have agreed to do anything to save him.” I continued to flick through the photos of my memory, but they were going too fast in my head. I saw blood on my hands. Byron’s blood.

  Then my arm burned.

  “Mordred cut me. That was how the oath was sworn,” I said, grabbing my forearm where the blood oath had been slashed into my skin by Mordred. “While I was with Mordred, I had to forsake rescue by another person, whether they were a knight or not. Then Mordred gave Gareth the potion, and he had some kind of fit. Guinevere stabbed Mordred because we thought he had killed Gareth. Then the sky went orange, and there was fire everywhere, and Merlin came for me. The Gorians were fighting Merlin’s magic with the blue flame, but everything was being blown around. Gareth rolled onto Guinevere to protect her – he definitely rolled – and he had his eyes open.” I screamed it again. “HE HAD HIS EYES OPEN. Gareth was alive because he had his eyes open.”

  “What then, Lady Natasha?”

  “Then my body was wrapped in some kind of invisible rope, like coils from a snake, and everything went black. I didn’t see or hear Gareth or Guinevere again.”

  “The sorcerer, Merlin, would not have harmed those remaining, would he, Sir Tristram?” asked David.

  “Merlin is as dangerous as the Lady of the Lake in these dark times,” replied Tristram. “One only has to look at the land of Logres, and the despair that has fallen upon it, to see that.”

  “Merlin wants Arthur’s baby,” I said. “That’s why he took his girlfriend. He says I have to play a part in it, as well. That was why he came for me. Merlin wouldn’t have killed Gareth or Guinevere, I’m sure of it. This means Mordred and the Gorians still have them, or they escaped and are out there on their own.”

  “Or they are dead?” said David softly.

  “I do not believe that, not in my soul,” replied Tristram. “We will go on with strength of heart until our quest is fulfilled. Until I see a body
, I will labour under the hope that both Sir Gareth and Guinevere are alive.”

  “Works for me,” I said.

  Something hard and cold was pressed into my hand.

  “Where do you keep all these weapons, Tristram?”

  “I keep my friends close and those I am unsure of even closer.”

  “I thought the saying was keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

  “We are not enemies, Lady Natasha, although you may not have seen me as an ally when we first met.”

  Tristram, David and I started walking through the trees. The ground snapped and crackled under our feet. It was like walking on shattered glass. Tristram led the way; I followed with my hand on his shoulder, and David brought up the rear. He placed his hand on my back, which made my procession more difficult as he kept pushing me forward. Our voices lowered as we continued to talk.

  “Tell me about Bedivere and Arthur,” I whispered. “Are they okay?”

  “Much has happened since we last parted, Lady Natasha,” replied Tristram. “Sir Bedivere has been disinherited and banished by his father, Duke Corneus. Sir Lucan, too, for coming to his brother’s aid.”

  “What a tosser. You know the Duke tried to burn the three of us at the stake, don’t you? He thought Guinevere and I were witches.”

  “We heard word as we reached Camelot. Arthur was consumed with rage, but the Lady of the Lake appeared and gave him private counsel.”

  “I bet she did,” I muttered.

  “The Lady of the Lake is now chief counsellor to the king. She advised the king that precious resources were not to be wasted on the smaller battles. So, under her guidance, Arthur has raised an army to bring down Merlin. It was his intent to rid the land of Logres from the plague of darkness, and to rescue you and the lover he still calls Lady Samantha. We will get word to him and Bedivere as quickly as we can that you have now joined our quest. It will give him some peace of mind.”