Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [1]
‘Excalibur.’ he had warned the grey knights, lifting the fabled blade for them to recognize. Together, he and the weapon were one; sword and swordsman understood one another and were terrible in the havoc they could wreak.
But the knights only backed off a little.
Instead he had made to run, but only to draw the knights back in on him.
Three against one. Excalibur leapt eagerly out and slew the first two with one swing that nearly carried the king’s arm from its socket.
The third knight ducked and brought his sword in low.
The blow caught the king on the right knee, slicing into the hydraulic muscle of his armour’s joint. The old warrior pitched forward in the mud, but his jewelled sword swung itself back and took off the knight’s arm.
As the king lay alone and cold, trying to gather his fleeting senses, he had heard the knight weeping in pain.
Then there was quiet. No birds sang near the battle. The yells and screams of the fighting had grown more distant.
Close at hand, a sudden voice whispered, ‘My lord king.’
He opened his eyes and saw Bedivere bending over him.
The young black-armoured knight was helmless. He was pale and there was a crimson gash across his forehead.
‘Water.’ said the king. He tried to raise himself, but his armour was lifeless and he could not manage the effort alone. He felt Bedivere lift him easily in his arms and start to carry him. He swooned.
He was weary of fighting. Full weary of the hatred that beset the world like a plague. And weary of Morgaine’s endless plans to assert her dark order on them all. A weary and old king. She worked ceaselessly to overthrow him with her black arts. Everything around him was crumbling. Everything he knew and loved was either smashed or stolen. Most of all, he was weary of having to make decisions alone where Merlin once would advise him. But he would never cease to resist her monstrous duplicity.
He had smelt the lake before he saw it. The lake on whose banks the Pendragon had once defeated Vortigern the Usurper. On the Isle of Apples, away from the world, the willows were burgeoning into new leaf. Avallion in springtime. Yellow flags grew among the rushes at the waterside. He saw them fluttering like battle standards as the three women settled him on to a pallet constructed from linen and spear shafts. The prophecy was familiar, but the outcome either eluded him or he refused to remember.
Bedivere stood watching nearby, his handsome head bowed to hide his tears. Beyond him, along the bank, a group of local peasants stared, uncomprehending, by their rough huts of wattle. Now the women were loading the king into the boat. His chest was tight and wet inside the dead armour and he began to cough, feeling a trickle run down through his beard. He moved his hand against his side and shuddered.
‘My sword! Excalibur!’ Surely it could not have left him now? ‘Excalibur!’ Why did they not listen? Merlin would have listened.
Queen Selysette of Lyonce leaned in over him to wipe away the blood.
‘My sword! I must have it! And the scabbard!’
She nodded gravely to Bedivere who had drawn closer on the bank. The king heard his faithful young knight pounding away into the distance.
‘It will come,’ said the queen.
Mist drifted across the sky overhead. Or was it smoke from the battle? A full minute passed before the king realized that the boat was moving away from the shore. But the queen had given her word. The sword would come.
The gentle rhythmic swish of the boat’s fins as it paddled over the lake eased his mind. The mist closed in and the king scarcely noticed as a shimmering dome rose like a bubble around the boat’s occupants. It sank slowly beneath the surface of the lake and the light around it deepened into a water-dappled green. It seemed to the king that he was sinking down a great well. And then the well became a tall tower with walls of water lifting high above him. They glittered and streamed with rising columns of tiny bubbles. He began to be afraid. He dared not move or breathe for fear that one tiny disturbance would bring