Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (24 page)

 
          
Do
not grasp too hard, the wizard, contrary as ever, exhorted him.

 
          
The
boy started toward the water, Gawain weighing down his arm.

 
          
But
what do I do?
he
called back to Merlin, trapped within
his oak tree.

 
          
The
child, undaunted by the hawk's scream (a point in his favor), attempted to
soothe his prize with fingertips, prudently avoiding his beak. His touch was
not inexpert, Gawain marveled, but, damn it, he had not returned from the dead
to be a falcon manned by a woodwose or peasant brat.

 
          
Find
the king, Merlin
cried,
a rustle of leaves in the
night wind. And follow his commands.

 
          
Gawain
could feel the boy adjust his balance to take the hawk's weight.

 
          
Already,
he raised his arm in the studied, elegant gesture of the falconer.

 
          
And turned his back on Merlin's tree.

 
          
Fortune attend
you!
cried
the mage.
The leaves rustled.

 
          
Up
ahead, a clash of arms, a death shout, erupted. Gawain decided Merlin could not
have pronounced a blessing. It was not his way.

 
          
The
boy dodged through the trees that surrounded this side of Camlann's
battlefield. It would be better to call it butchery than battle.

 
          
The
stream they passed ran dark with blood. From time to time, they edged past
bodies. From time to time, Gawain recognized the slashed devices on shields.

 
          
He
would have
Signed
them, but he had wings, not hands.
Well, John the Beloved Disciple was an eagle: that would have to serve, he
thought, not that he had ever been one of the knights noted for holiness.

 
          
Wrapped
in his own thoughts as completely as if they hooded him, he became only tardily
aware that the boy was talking, telling his fears and dreams to the creature he
thought of as "his hawk." Or perhaps, he spoke to himself,

 
          
"Thomas
this" and "Tom that." Already, the storyteller's cadence rippled
in his speech, not burred like the bardic voices of Gawain's
North
,
but like enough for pleasure.

 
          
Like
enough for music.

 
          
Merlin,
what do you know about this child that I do not? Is he your pawn as Arthur was?

 
          
No
answer from Merlin, but Gawain expected
none
. The boy
was talking enough for an army, all by himself. It was a wonder no one else
heard him.

 
          
From
this Tom's relentless babble as he sought to reassure himself, Gawain learned
that the boy, though ragged as one got after a battle, was at least of birth
that Gawain in his human incarnation as king's son, queen's son would have
deemed at least marginally gentle. But he was a dreamer and poor: such lads
took chances.

 
          
As
Gawain had assumed, Tom's first plan had been to sell him.
But
now?
Dreams of grandeur floated up in clouds of words. Tom now had
sword, shield, helm, and hawk. Let him but find a horse . . .

 
          
And
let any surviving warrior identify any of his takings, and Tom would speedily
become not warrior but corpse.

 
          
Perhaps
one shrewd peck, a bite, a deep scratch, and I can fly free . . . I am a risk
he does not need.

 
          
Tempting
as the thought was, Gawain knew he would not act on it. Raptor though he was,
the habit of protecting the weak was still too strong.

 
          
Moonlight
spilled onto the sodden ground. Blood mixed with the dirt, making clay that
would never hold the breath of life. Camlann's field was dark, except for the
skulk and rustle of those who crept out to rob the dead.

 
          
Tom
stopped so quickly Gawain wondered if he had tripped over a root or mistaken
one for a serpent like the one that had cost
Britain
its peace.

 
          
"Up
ahead," he whispered. "Sweet Jesu, do you see?"

 
          
Gawain
did not see before he heard. My God, that was Bedwyr's voice, pleading with
someone not to fight. "He is unhappy."

 
          
Unhappy?
On this battlefield, Bedwyr was indulging in
understatement. Who was unhappy?

 
          
"He
wears the Dragon," Tom whispered. "They both do, the old man and the
young, though the younger man's is barred. Sweet Jesus, it is the king.
Both of them."

 
          
Bedwyr's voice rose, imploring king and king's bastard son.

 
          
Tom
crept closer, trying not to breathe or tremble.
And failing.

 
          
As
they neared, Gawain could hear how the men panted, could smell the blood of the
wounds suffered and inflicted. Arthur, when his blood was up, could be as
fierce as any Orkney-man. His blood was up tonight, what remained to him.

 
          
"Tide
me life, tide me death," he screamed,
then
charged his son.

 
          
Arthur
was king, had Merlin's training, decades of victory in battle. But Arthur was
an old man, and swordplay was a young man's game.

 
          
Mordred
was desperate, wounded, in fear of his life. And alone, where Arthur had
Bedwyr.

 
          
But
Arthur waved his kinsman back. And Mordred was younger.

 
          
My
uncle! Gawain thought, pride piercing the rage and terror. Aged, heartsick,
exhausted, but by God, there was still enough of him left that he would try to
wreak justice on a traitor.

 
          
Aye,
and get himself killed and the kingdom with him, Gawain could practically hear
Merlin saying.

 
          
He
felt himself jolted from side to side, and up and down as the boy Tom all but
danced in fear and excitement, his absurd plundered sword drawn. Hawk on one
arm, shield slung on his back, waving a sword more than half his length: what
could he do?

 
          
Get
himself
killed. Stupidity was a hell of a way to die.

 
          
Release
mel

 
          
Neither Arthur and
Mordred turned to see where the hawk
cried. Now they danced wearily together, their blades clashing like bells on a
hawk. Bedwyr held back, bound as much by fear of striking the wrong warrior as
by the king's command. And the boy Tom danced in an agony of doubt.

 
          
The
sky paled. By dawn, the survivors would be out and about. The boy would be
caught, and all the work that had hailed Gawain back from heaven or hell to
perform would be left undone.

 
          
"What
shall I do?" the boy asked himself.

 
          
Race
in and be struck down? Race away and be forever condemned as coward by such
conscience as he had?

 
          
Release
mel

 
          
Tom
was no Celt, but clearly he had the gift of tongues. As the hawk's rage
shrieked out, the boy flung up his arm, and Gawain was free.

 
          
The
sky was lighter
now,
a white line at the water's edge,
and that was good.

 
          
He
was not a nightflyer like the great owls or the gtvynhwyfar that betrayed them
all, for treachery ran in the women's kinlines as well as the men's.

 
          
He
flew above the duel, circled three times, and swooped down. A feint, a parry,
followed by a deadly lunge: he had taught the royal bastard himself and knew
his tricks. As Mordred lunged, Gawain swooped as if upon his prey, deflecting
the sword.

 
          
It
sliced feathers from his wing and, from the fire he felt, a slice of flesh.

 
          
Hawk's
blood fell to the earth. He screamed in outrage and astonishment and began to
fall, startling Mordred so that he stepped forward, evading, his head down. . .
.

 
          
And
Arthur brought his blade down upon Mordred's helm.
Sparks
flew in the darkness before dawn; the helm
split. Blood sluiced down, with paler matter.

 
          
Brains,
not that Gawain thought the traitor had had that many to spare.

 
          
Gawain
screamed in triumph. His wounded wing burned. If he perched now, he would never
have the resolution to fly again, and he would be a target. Merlin had not
intended that. . . .

 
          
But what?
He glanced down at Mordred.

 
          
The
Bastard was dead in that moment, he had to be. But just as a bird, its head cut
off, jumps about the farmyard for an instant more, the bastard's body jerked,
bringing up its blade and piercing the king's side.

 
          
He
fell. Bedwyr, released from his trance of duty and terror, caught him and eased
him to the ground.

 
          
"God,
is there any aid? Who's there?"

 
          
Blood
pulsed from Arthur's
side,
beat in Ga-wain's temples.
He heard a clatter of harness— the boy, throwing down his arms and seeking the
nearest priest, perhaps?

 
          
He
might arrive in time to shrive the king, and then he might not.

 
          
The
wind blew, bringing with it smells of oak and water, cleansing the stench of
war, reminding Gawain of Merlin's spells.

 
          
He
could not have saved the king. He could not save him now.

 
          
What
could he do? One need not be a mage to realize he had been brought back to do
something.

 
          
Instinctively,
he banked, caught a thermal, and soared. The sensation exhilarated him past
consciousness of pain, though he knew he was losing blood and must land soon.
But where?

 
          
Beneath
him, the battlefield grew tiny. He ould see Merlin's tree and far beyond it,
the

 
          
Abbey where St. Joseph's thornbush no doubt wept at a fresh
martyrdom.

 
          
At
the shrine there . . . but the boy had gone to fetch priests, healers, guards—

 
          
He
sought beyond, his farsight taking in the broken needle that was St.

 
          
Michael's Tor.

 
          
Michael,
Prince of Warriors, aid us now!

 
          
Music
raced across the wind, turning into laughter like tiny wicked bells.

 
          
Put
not thy trust in princes.

 
          
He
heard a woman's voice sing in the dawn wind. Not Michael, then.