Lancelot and the Wolf (22 page)

“
Arthur, don’t goad the dead people,” I scolded and we both laughed with joy.

Grinning like boys, we turned the horses back to the path and trotted away.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

As we rode, we talked. This side of the gorge the trees were thinner and dusk seemed to have changed its mind. I held my face up to the sun and smelt the clean air. There are times when life feels too good to be real.

“
Do we know anything about who attacked us by using those bodies?” I asked, with my eyes closed.

“
I have no idea, but they must have been incredibly powerful. I don’t think Merlin could have done that,” Arthur said.

“
So we are looking at a full fey.”

“
I don’t know,” Arthur said. I opened my eyes and looked at him. He frowned and picked at Willow’s mane. “I can’t imagine a fairy being that powerful. They use magic in a sympathetic way and they manipulate minds.”

Facts I knew all too well, I sighed, “They would poison you but they wouldn’t send dead monsters after you.” I realised the truth of my statement. This had to be an enemy we didn’t know or understand.

“
It’s not a happy thought is it,” Arthur said. “And those things will be after us. Once they find a way around that gorge, they will come.”

“
That’s not,” I began, before pain rippled through my guts. It hurt so much I collapsed over Ash’s neck and he stopped, surprised, thinking I’d been attacked. I groaned, my hands lost power and my legs turned to jelly.

“
Lancelot,” Arthur cried out. I felt his hands on my back.

I drew a shuddering breath into my chest as far as I could “Don’t worry. It will be fine,” I managed to gasp.

“
No,” Arthur said. He moved to dismount Willow.

“
Don’t,” I grasped his arm. “We don’t have time for this,” the pain eased but still left me horribly weak. “I can manage this it’s just taking revenge for being pushed to one side for an hour. We can’t stop, those things will be circling back to the place we left Else and Geraint. They won’t need to rest as we must.”

“
You should let me have your woman. Then we can have this under our control,” Arthur said darkly.

I pushed myself upright slowly. The thought of Arthur inside Else made me feel very odd, sort of excited and sort of horrified all at once. I loved them both but share them? Not certain. Definitely not a good idea if the fey gained control over them both.

“
You just want her because you’d rather have her than me,” I said jokingly. At least I’d meant it to sound joking, even I heard the bitterness.

Arthur gasped, his shock clear, “And I suppose you think all I want is revenge for you fucking Guinevere?”

He had never, ever spoken to me like that. The horses stopped and we sat looking at each other, horrified by our own words. The joy of a moment before a myth I no longer believed.

“
Yes,” I said slowly, “yes, I rather think I do.”

I watched a veil descend over Arthur’s heart. His eyes no longer allowed me access to his soul. I’d hurt him, deeply. I realised in one stupid moment I’d sliced into our friendship. A thing too fragile for such harsh truths. I could not throw these feelings at him and expect him to love me.

“
No,” the word burst out of me and I grabbed his hand, which rested on his saddle. “No, I’m wrong. Don’t, Arthur, please. Don’t cut me out.”

Arthur’s blue eyes filled with tears. They fell like raindrops from the gods. “I love you, Lancelot, your wife is just an extension of that and if being with her stops this pain, that’s all I want. You are the one I would choose to share my bed and life, not her.”

“
Arthur, I’m sorry, I really am. Please, my King, forgive me.” I moved to dismount, enabling me to kneel before him. He stopped me moving and pulled me toward him. Ash stepped into Willow to accommodate my shift of balance. Arthur kissed my mouth. Neither of us had shaved, his skin felt rough, his lips bruised mine. I groaned and held him to my mouth, forcing his lips open with my tongue so I could taste all of him. I loved him.

When we broke apart, we were both shaking with the intensity. I said, “If you want Else and she wants you, then I will not stand between you. But I won’t have you do this just to save me from a little discomfort.”

Arthur stroked my hair and nodded, “All right, Lancelot. But when you can’t live with the pain, I will take your wife to my bed and you will be there.”

We rode in silence, grim now. Our victory shallow next to the torment we placed on each other. My mind kept up a circle, first thinking about Else and how I loved her, then about her with Arthur, with or without consequences, then Arthur and my feelings for him. They were galloping out of control for certain. His response to me, his desire for me, just fuelled my own need. I’d always loved him, right from the first moment we met, but now he seemed to actually want me, it made everything a thousand times more intense.

We cantered down the hill, which led us to Else and Geraint. The trees began to thin and the long flood plain of the Severn opened before us. I saw them waiting a good quarter mile into the open expanse, so we would see them easily. We rode toward them quickly.

“
It went well?” Geraint asked his relief at our appearance clear.

“
We managed to kill two of them, but there are still six following us and Lancelot is suffering,” Arthur said.

“
I’m fine,” I muttered through gritted teeth. Else rode to me, pulled off her gloves and held my face in her own. The spell fizzed, but I felt so wretched I hardly moved. It did ease slightly.

“
He can’t keep this up,” she told the others.

We heard a noise behind us and six black horses, with riders, burst from the trees. “It looks like I’m going to have too,” I cried, gathering Ash together for a fight. They were too close for us to run. Willow and Ash would not make it far and the packhorses all needed to rest. We could have left them and tried for the ford in the river but there would have come a time when we had to stop. Far better to fight in the open than be caught in the middle of the night somewhere.

Three of us drew our swords. Else knocked an arrow to her bow and brought her quiver into easy reach. We didn’t comment. Arthur rode on my right and Geraint on his left. The horses moved as one and we raced toward our enemies. Else rode behind us, before finally pulling Mercury up and firing over our heads. She hit one of the foul creatures square in the chest, it fell from its horse but did not die, merely standing and running with an arrow in its chest.

“
Aim for their heads,” Arthur called out.

Else’s next arrow hit the same fiend in the face and it dropped, twitching but not able to stand. Then the fight became real. We crashed into their tight ranks. My sword took one across the throat instantly. His head rolled off easily and without blood but the stink almost made me vomit.

“
Breath through your mouth,” I yelled over the noise.

I realised three of the dead men were trying to take Arthur down. I charged into the medley. The fighting grew desperate, these creatures had him in their sights and it made them single minded. I tried to break their attack, attempting to decapitate them, but they were too close to Arthur. They fought with a wildness and ferocity, which made us vulnerable to mistakes trying to fight them off. Geraint fought another but we couldn’t maintain this for long. I caught sight of Else coming on foot. She braced herself and pulled back her bow.

“
Duck,” she screamed. I flattened over Ash’s neck. An arrow hissed over my head and my opponent dropped over the back of his horse. Ash lashed out with his rear end and kicked the dead horse. It shattered, once more becoming leaves, twigs and rocks. I forced Ash tight against Arthur’s enemy and swung a mighty arc over my head. My sword sliced into the monster’s face and carved his head into two pieces. Else fired at Geraint’s attacker and we were done. All the bodies collapsed into woodland detritus and scorched corpses of men.

We stopped, surprised by the sudden peace.

“
Anyone hurt?” Geraint asked.

“
No,” Arthur and Else said.

“
I don’t,” I managed before the pain sweeping through me became unmanageable and I slipped off Ash. My mind went blank and forgot what it was supposed to be doing.

I came to with Arthur holding me to his chest. As my eyes fluttered open, I heard him say, “He’s waking, thank God.”

Darkness sat over my head, surprising me and a fire danced in my field of vision. A flask smelling of water pressed against my lips. I drank, gratefully.

Else knelt beside me on the other side, “They have realised they’ve pushed him too far. They were killing him, with any luck his stubborn attitude has made them back off. He might have won this round.”

I didn’t feel like I’d won anything. I hurt everywhere, my brain considered me a traitor, convinced I’d been drinking heavily for days and this was the world’s worst hangover.

“
How did I win?” I asked.

“
Just by not giving in, no matter how much pressure they put you under,” Else said. She stroked my face. Her touch hurt and made me flinch. She gasped softly, withdrawing.

I curled into Arthur’s body and wrapped my arms around his waist, “Make the pain stop,” I said quietly.

“
You are still in pain?” he asked.

“
Not from the spell, this is a spiritual hangover,” Else said from some distance away.

“
What do I do?” Arthur asked.

“
We leave the two of you alone for a while,” Else said. I heard her speak to Geraint and they left us.

Arthur murmured over me until I felt able to move from his lap. It took a long time. I finally sat up, but stayed inside the circle of his arms.

“
I feel fucking terrible,” I complained bitterly. “If it takes this much effort to fight their damn spells I’m not going to manage it again.”

Arthur tightened his arms around me and kissed my neck, “I am grateful to you. Bedding Eleanor de Clare would be a complication too far for all of us.”

I snorted, “It would make for an interesting conversation when it came to working out who was the father of any off spring.”

“
I often wondered if that was why Guinevere wouldn’t let you go,” Arthur said slowly.

He must have so many questions about that time in our lives. He had never let me talk to him and I didn’t think Guinevere would have told him the truth.

“
I made certain she never carried my child, Arthur,” I said.

He didn’t speak for a long time and I just sat in the circle of his arms, passive, waiting for him to make the next move.

I felt him shift away from me, but only to lie back on the ground. I turned and looked at him, “You can ask me anything.”

He sighed, “A part of me wants to know. A part of me thinks it’s over so what’s the point. The important thing is us.”

“
Us?” I asked.

Arthur grunted, “So, you don’t think this is any more than an aberration in our lives.”

I frowned, realising we were having a different conversation to the one I planned. I didn’t really have the wherewithal for this, “I didn’t say that. I don’t think our relationship can be easily defined.”

Arthur stared at the stars, “No, I suppose it can’t.”

I had managed to avoid an argument. Get me, managing my relationship. Arthur suddenly sat up, “You need sleep, Lancelot.” He drew himself out of my space, rose and walked to our kit. He grabbed his own bedroll and mine. He lay his own down on one side of the fire and mine near it, while I still sat watching.

There seemed to be something going on here I’d missed entirely. Else would have left us alone for a reason. I stood, the world wriggled slightly, I stepped forward, not really seeing clearly.

“
Whoa, Lancelot,” Arthur cried out and I felt his hands on my chest. “Sit, you almost ended up in the fire.”

Not quite my intention but I had him here, “I needed to stop you.”

“
Stop me?” Arthur said as my vision cleared and my head ceased pounding.

“
I’ve hurt you.” I took a deep breath. I felt him still. One of us had to say it and Arthur couldn’t, “I don’t just love you, I am in love with you. I love Else, I know I do, but what we have,” I touched his chest, “has been a part of me for years. I don’t know how to cope with what I feel. When we return to Camelot, I know I am going to lose you again. You can’t be with me there and it hurts. Our love is not what should happen between two men, or for a king.” My hand found his throat and jaw, feeling the roughness of his stubble.

“
I cannot promise you anything,” Arthur said sadly.

“
You don’t have too. Just tell me how you feel.”

“
Do I really need too? I have loved you since we were boys. I have burned with desire for you. I have craved your body. I don’t think you realise how much I have needed you or for how long. Ordering your punishment because of Guinevere broke my heart. Watching it almost broke my mind. I know we are both married but I want you with me, selfish spoiled bastard that I am.”

I opened my mouth to tell him Else and I weren’t actually married but this wasn’t the time. “I will answer any question you have about Guinevere, or Else. And I swear to you, Arthur, unless I have to, I will not leave your side. We will be together the only way we can be, as brothers in arms.”