We were amongst them—swords swinging and hooves trampling—before the sixteen raiders were hardly up from around the fires, scrambling for their weapons. I recognized one warrior, a tall burly bear of a man with long hair tightly braided down his back. I registered all this in the instant before Excalibur speared him through. The blade’s scintillating length blazed in the afternoon sun like a sacred relic.
Then the clannsmen seemed all the same with sneering faces and flashing teeth and eyes shining manically with the frenzy of sudden battle.
I sliced one man across the back as he went for his weapons. I whirled in my saddle and stabbed another through his throat before he slashed at Zephyr’s belly. I vaulted off my charger and then whacked her flank with the flat of my blade to send her running. She’d linger nearby for me when the battle was done. The quarters were too small to fight on horseback, and I wouldn’t risk her.
Arthur and the other knights had dismounted too. They now fought like the Danish berserkers I had seen in Aghanravel’s neighboring Norse settlements. Their swords swung so fast that I could hardly see them. Drops of red arced through the air as Dál nAraidi clannsmen fell, their leather armor soaked through, their lifeblood spilling into disbelieving fingers.
And as quickly as that, we had cut down half the clannsmen, leaving eight. These men were the best of their clann, grizzled warriors with years of fighting seasons under their belt. Professional killers who lived for the sword and died for glory. They faced the knights with a ferocity that I think startled even Arthur out of his battle haze.
A big man came at me with a Danish axe and a blood-curdling shout in Irish, “Bua nó bás!” I recognized his words as the Uí Tuírtri clann motto, meaning “victory or death.”
I screamed back at him as I brought my sword up to meet the fury of his blow, wishing I had my sturdy wooden shield. His shout was every warrior’s motto, in a way. I would win today, or I would die.
I lashed out with a vicious kick to the man’s gut. He stumbled back, providing me a moment to take stock. Lancelot was across the camp by the boulders, fighting two men. The dark knight’s sword struck fast and deadly, slashing the men on arms and thighs, bleeding them from a dozen different places. Arthur fought two men as well; Galahad was grappling with one over the fire. And Percival had the last man—they slipped and splashed on the slick, mossy stones of the river.
No, not the last man. That was seven.
I rolled out of the way as my opponent swung at me again. His huge Danish axe’s blade sliced into the ground until buried. My eyes fixed on the man creeping around behind Percival, raising his axe to throw.
“Percival!” I screamed, and then pulled one of my throwing daggers from its sheath along my forearm. The small blade loosed in an instant, borne aloft by muscle and whispered prayers. I watched as the dagger plunged into the man’s chest. A relieved smile crossed my face when the raider stumbled backward. But there was no time for relieved smiles in battle. I realized a split second too late that I had lost sight of my opponent—that I couldn’t account for the position of his battle axe’s blade. Instinct possessed me and I jerked sharp to the right, knowing I needed to move somewhere, anywhere.
It was that instinct that saved me. Had I waited a mere second more, the axe blade would have severed my spine rather than glance off my shoulder’s muscle. Still, pain exploded through my side as the blade rent leather and flesh. A tangled scream escaped from my mouth, so high and animal I hardly recognized it.
I rolled to see the clannsman’s eyes gleaming with the light of his killing blow, his certainty that he had me beat. But all I could think was how I couldn’t let them all down. My father and sister, Arthur and the knights. If I lived, I would have to choose, but if I died, I failed them all.
I was on the ground, the Uí Tuírtri warrior looming above me. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled out the wicked little dagger from my boot, and lunged forward, burying the blade into the meat of his groin. He bellowed with rage and pain as I yanked down in a jagged slice, seeking the lifeblood of his artery. Warm blood gushed over my hands and his axe thunked to the ground beside him. I shoved him away from me and he toppled backward, writhing in pain and shock.
I looked about for my knights, wild with fear. Had I missed an attack? Had something befallen any of the four while I was too distracted to help? One by one, my eyes drank in the sight of them. Percival, his chest heaving as he wiped his sword on the grass and moss, his opponent now face down in the river below him. Lancelot, pulling his sword out of a man’s chest. Arthur, running a shaking hand over his short hair. Galahad. Where was Galahad? The world seemed to tilt and I blinked through the fog as Galahad ran toward me. Wisps of honey-gold hair that escaped from their tie floated about his head like a halo. Relief welled in me.
They were all safe.
They were all alive.
“Fionna,” Galahad’s hand was beneath my head, cradling my neck. The other roamed over my body, checking for wounds. “There’s so much blood—” he breathed. His voice sounded distant and thin.
“Not mine,” I croaked. Everything felt faint and far away.
His hand was roaming over my back now, and came away wet with red. “And this?” he asked.
“Oh. That’s . . . mine,” I managed. My tongue was thick in my mouth, heavy with fatigue.
The other knights were by my side now. My vision blurred and swirled until all I saw was their colors. The colors I knew by heart. The blue ice of Lancelot’s eyes, the grass-green of Arthur’s. The copper of Percival’s hair, the tawny warmth of Galahad’s skin.
“Fionna, stay with us,” Arthur said.
I wanted to do as he asked. I wanted to honor them, please them, protect them. I wanted to love them. But I couldn’t. I felt consciousness slipping from me. Their colors draining into darkness. Then darkness carried me away.
FIONNA WAS BLEEDING. Fionna was injured. These were the words sounding in a loop in Galahad’s head. This could not be.
He cradled her body to his chest as they moved away from the Uí Tuírtri camp, a few hundred yards up the river. They didn’t want to move her far, but none of them were eager to stay amongst the dead.
“Here,” Galahad called as they reached a sun dappled clearing next to a flat expanse of slow-moving river. “Lay out a bedroll.”
It was Arthur himself who pulled his bedroll off his black mare, unfurling the hide layers at Galahad’s feet. The other knights’ faces were pinched with worry and fear, but none more so than Arthur.
Good, Galahad thought savagely. It was Arthur’s furious dash into the enemy camp that placed Fionna into this mess. Let him feel the guilt keenly.
Fionna moaned as Galahad lay her down as gently as he could on the bedroll. She looked ghostly, her skin pale and flecked with blood. As if all the color had drained from her. Except crimson.
“Someone fetch water, someone start a fire so we can boil it, and someone retrieve my medical kit from my saddlebag,” Galahad ordered, not looking up from his administrations to see who was jumping to which task. He was no healer, but his mother hadn’t had eight children or a farm full of animals without some meager medical skill, and Galahad had always watched by her side, soaking up her instruction. As a page boy, he learned even more animal husbandry tricks.
There were times his limited medical and sewing skills and easy way with people of lower classes singled him out among the nobles of Arthur’s court. From birth, they had the privilege of coin to hire tailors, apothecaries, and men of medicine. But right now, Galahad was grateful for his low-born knowledge.
Percival dropped to his knees at Fionna’s side and delivered Galahad’s meager kit of medical supplies. “Will she fare well?”
“Don’t know yet,” Galahad replied, keeping his voice impassive. She would be all right. She had to be. Fionna was the fiercest woman he had ever known. It would take more than a nick with an axe to end her.
Galahad unbuckled her leather armor, gently pullin
g the plates and guards from around her arms. “Help me turn her?” he asked Percival.
Together, they gently rolled Fionna onto her stomach, revealing the bloom of red blood on her white shirt.
Percival bit his lip, his eyes wild. “Looks bad,” he said in a hushed whisper.
“Percival,” Galahad said. He needed the lad out of here, distracted. “Fionna’s horse is missing. The mare should be around here. She’ll be beside herself, if she wakes and we haven’t found her. Could you—”
Percival sprang to his feet, eager for a task. “I’ll find her.”
“Fionna will be in your debt,” Galahad said, but the young man was already bounding toward his own charger.
Galahad ripped Fionna’s shirt in two, revealing the slender arrow of her spine, the smooth stretch of pale skin as well as the muscles of her back.
Arthur had the fire going now and Lancelot had set a pot of water on a stand above it.
Galahad used his knife to cut strips from Fionna’s shirt, silently apologizing for mangling her tunic so. They’d buy her a hundred new tunics when this was over. He folded a scrap neatly and pressed the linen to the wound, not wanting to examine the injury until he had washed his hands.
Lancelot knelt at Galahad’s side and reached out with inquisitive fingers toward Fionna’s wound, then let his hand fall. “Your assessment?”
“The wound is deep, but the location was lucky. The blade cut into muscle, but muscle will heal. The biggest risk will be infection. If I clean the laceration well and stitch the skin up, she should be fine.”
“The slice isn’t deep enough to pack with moss first?”
“No, I don’t believe so. But if she continues to bleed after stitching, we will pack her wound.”
Lancelot nodded, relaxing perceptibly.
It was almost painful, the way Galahad’s heart twisted in his chest when he looked at her, the longing he felt, this unquestionable need for her. The exquisite taste he’d known the other night had only kindled his need all the brighter.
“She looks like an angel when she’s like this, doesn’t she?” Galahad asked.
“An angel of death,” Lancelot whispered.
Arthur appeared with the pot of water, and Lancelot’s odd response was forgotten. The three men went to work—washing and sterilizing the strips of cloth, cleansing Fionna’s back, and finally, with clean, lye-scrubbed hands, Galahad bent over Fionna’s back with a needle and gut and began to sew.
As he pierced Fionna’s skin with the needle, she exploded awake with an anguished scream, struggling beneath Galahad. He pushed one forearm to her back to hold her still. “A little help!”
Arthur sat on her legs and Lancelot grabbed her shoulders as she cried out with a moan of pain.
“Fionnabhair . . .” Lancelot crouched low while still holding her, peering into Fionna’s eyes, just inches from her. “Be still, warrior. Galahad is stitching your wound.”
Her muscles relaxed and unclenched as Lancelot’s words seemed to sink in. She let out a hiss of pain as Galahad pulled the needle and string through her skin, but held still.
“It will be all right,” Lancelot murmured to her, stroking his fingers down her face before tucking a small braid behind her ear. “You will be fine.”
Arthur shifted his weight off her to sit in the hard dirt, his face buried in his hands.
Galahad continued to sew, while Lancelot whispered soothing words to Fionna, and while Arthur buried himself deep into the despair of his own thoughts.
GALAHAD WAS WRAPPING Fionna’s wound when Percival reappeared in the clearing, leading Fionna’s dappled mare by the reins. Percival swung down and led the horses toward the river to drink. “How is she?”
“Good,” Galahad murmured, tying off the bandage. Finished, he pulled a blanket over her sleeping form and then strode over to the river beside Percival to wash his hands. “She’ll be fine.”
“When I saw all the blood on her . . .” Percival trailed off with a shaky smile. For once, the lad seemed lost for words. He tied the two horses to a nearby tree, before both he and Percival walked to join Arthur and Lancelot around the fire.
Percival, as usual, talked as if unaware of the tension brewing between the men. “The Kingdom of Gwynedd has plenty of warriors and enough ego to slay thousands of invaders. If they requested aid to defend the River Dee from raiders, why were the villages left unprotected?”
Arthur peered up from his perch beside the fire but remained silent.
“Perhaps these were not the raiders spoken of in the missive.” Galahad volunteered. “Could be the Northern Lords and their warriors were already caring for the problem, not expecting a second set of raiders.”
Lancelot tossed a twig into the flame. “Or the note was false.”
“A fake request for help?” Percival asked, head angled in confusion. “Not verra sporting of Gwynedd.”
“Not from Gwynedd,” Lancelot drawled in irritation. “Obviously.”
Arthur cleared his throat and nervously chanced a look their way. “You believe Tintagel is behind the Irish raiders?”
“They did ask for my head in a box and they knew of Fionna only one day after her knighting.”
Their king closed his eyes tight as his face reddened.
Galahad’s ire rose at the sight. “Arthur—”
“You don’t need to say anything.” Arthur held up a hand. “I know. I put us all at risk today. I was angry and I let reason give way to emotion. And, for that, I am truly sorry.”
But Galahad didn’t want to let his king off so easily. Fionna almost died. This reality wasn’t something a simple apology could wipe away. “You can’t risk her like that.”
A strange look came over Arthur’s face. “I value each of your lives over even my own. But I am king and you are my knights. Fionna included. Sometimes I will have to risk her.”
“But she isn’t just a knight,” Galahad rumbled, his fingers curling into a fist.
“What are you saying?” Arthur asked.
“He’s saying he’s in love with her.” Lancelot threw up his hands. “The whole lot of you are.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?” Galahad retorted. “I’ve never seen you push a woman away the way you’ve done to Fionna. That can only mean one thing. You’re afraid to let her get close.”
Lancelot was as mysterious as his fae foster mother when it came to some things, but not women. When it came to women, the man was as simple as a strawman. He wanted them, he bedded them, he left them. And since Lancelot hadn’t bedded Fionna yet, he must still be in stage one.
“Or, maybe I learned my lesson with Morgana.” Lancelot threw a small stick into the fire and then glared at Galahad.
“Is that why you were whispering to her while Galahad stitched her up?” Arthur pointed out.
Lancelot rolled his eyes. “I was calming her down. I would have done that for any of you.”
“I dinnae recall Lancelot ever murmuring sweet nothings in my ear,” Percival said. “What about ye, Galahad? Arthur?”
“Nope,” Galahad said, unable to hide his victory from his icy sword-brother. His grin grew wider when a muscle pulsed in the other man’s jaw.
Lancelot stood, his expression dark.
“No,” Arthur commanded. “Sit. You’re not walking away from this conversation. Any form of attraction to Fionna concerns all of us.”
Lancelot dropped back down, crossing his arms before him, and then stared into the crackling fire.
“Well, I’m definitely in love with the lass,” Percival said, chipper as usual. “I’m not ashamed to admit my feelings. I’ll gladly wipe the floor with all of ye in the contest for her heart.”
Arthur sighed. “She’s captured my heart as well, despite my better judgment.”
Galahad took a breath, his thoughts warring within him. Normally, he would keep the truth of what had happened with he and Fionna to himself—he wasn’t a man like Lancelot, who liked to k
iss and tell. But if the other men thought they had a fair claim to Fionna, it was only right to tell them that they had missed their chance.
“I’m afraid to break the news to you lads, but Fionna has already made her choice. She came to my room the night before we left Caerleon,” Galahad said.
The other knights fell silent, shocked expressions on their faces.
Galahad struggled to keep another grin off his face. He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that some part of him was pleased to stun them into silence.
“Did you—” Arthur tripped over his words, his mouth open and closing like a fish gasping for water.
Galahad shook his head. “No, but I made sure the lass enjoyed herself, if you catch my drift.”
Percival apparently did not. “What do ye mean?” He leaned forward, his eyes wide.
Lancelot cuffed Percival over the head, but the gesture was gentle. “We’ll tell you later.”
Arthur furrowed his brows, seeming to pull his kingly mantle around himself. “She kissed me too. We don’t know . . . what her attentions mean. What she wants. We vowed we wouldn’t let her come between us. We let her choose. Maybe she’ll choose Galahad and maybe she won’t.” Arthur’s eyes met Galahad’s, and there was a challenge there so powerful that Galahad recoiled slightly.
Arthur wanted Fionna, that much was clear. And who was he, the son of a Danish blacksmith, to stand between a king and what he wanted? Galahad knew that he should back down and step aside. But didn’t he deserve to be happy too? If Fionna preferred Galahad, why should Arthur have her, just because he was born with noble blood and crowned King of all Briton?
“We let her choose,” Galahad said.
The other men nodded.
“Trouble,” Lancelot mumbled under his breath. “The lot of them.”
Gwenevere's Knights- The Complete Knights of Caerleon Trilogy Page 16