Don’t be so dramatic, my dear. That wasn’t a dragon.
Clutching my mauled shoulder, I rolled as I fell from my horse and came up in a low crouch. All around me was chaos; the beating of leathery wings almost drowning out the shouts and screams of men and the terrified whinnying of the horses.
I couldn’t make out anyone I recognised around me – where the fuck had Arthur gone? – but I figured that could be a problem for a me who survived the next few minutes. I flattened myself even lower as a massive fuck-off green reptile with wings flew overhead, an unfortunate spearman shrieking in its jaws. Although, on the plus side, not for very long.
“You’re telling me that’s not a bloody dragon!”
Hardly. You see how the wings are attached to the front talons? You won’t see a dragon with that sort of body shape. Four legs and two wings all day long. And, my dear, whoever heard of dragons attacking in such numbers? Honestly, I have been quite remiss in your education.
One of these giant monsters swooped down to land on my horse, slicing its head off with one claw and opening its belly with the other. It was dark green and at least twice the size of my unfortunate animal. I’m not going to lie; it looked pretty damned draconic to me.
“So, what are they?” I could barely hear my own voice over the tumult of battle.
Wyverns, my dear. No fire and very little intelligence. I imagine they live on the border between our world and the land of the fae in order to feast upon unwary travellers. In fact, that’s probably why we do not have better records, especially since the dividing line is so thin here.
“What do you mean?”
He means they’d eat anyone that came this way.
It took me for a moment to realise Drynwyn had spoken. I don’t think I’d heard more than a few sentences from it in weeks. By the fire glowing around its blade, it seemed it may have got a bit of its groove back.
Fucking hate wyverns. The intensity of the flame increased.
Good, good, let the hate flow through you. The wyvern in front of me had almost finished eating my horse – it had swallowed it whole, and there was just a leg remaining sticking out of its mouth – and was clearly casting around for its next meal.
By the bellows and shouts of orders, it sounded like some form of organised defence was being restored – now the initial shock had worn off. I probably wanted to start being part of that. I tried to send a Qi suggestion to the monster.
Sorry, my dear. There is not enough intelligence to push in this way. You’re trying to influence something without any conscious thoughts, just instincts.
So no
The whole immolation took barely a few seconds.
I was aware that, with the shrieking and the fire and the lightning etc, I’d gathered quite a bit of attention from the other combatants. At this juncture, a quip seemed appropriate.
“Yippiekayyay, motherfuckers!”
Not your best, my dear. Perhaps something more contextually amusing? “Now we’re cooking with gas”, for example, might have been better.
“Fuck off, Merlin,” and I moved to help the rest of the beleaguered defenders.
*
Guinevere had spent the last couple of days having an awful lot of fun with the Grey and Blæk in particular.
There had always been rumours of shadowy figures operating around the throne, and it was quite a thrill to realise that not only did these people exist but that she was now very much in charge of them.
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The amount of information she had at her disposal was colossal. If she was interested in how much tribute a certain lord had paid in the last year, she could access that. If she wanted to know how much that lord should have paid and where he had hidden the excess in order to avoid detection, she could see that too.
There seemed to be no limit to the range of gossip, scuttlebutt and rumour that the Grey had collected, catalogued and prepared for her inspection. It was all quite overwhelming after a bit. And then there was the temptation to look into things that, just plain good sense, suggested she’d be wise to keep away from.
“And what do you know about my husband?” she asked lightly.
Blæk simply cocked his head in that strange, bird-like way he had. “Queen Igraine was most clear that every care should be taken to keep abreast of his movements. Especially around breasts. That was her joke, by the way, not me trying to be flippant.”
“Please take it as read that I will assume any attempt at humour is you quoting someone else. What does it mean, though? That the queen wanted Arthur watched?”
“Everything, my lady. We know everything about King Arthur.”
The destructive desire to reopen old wounds was overwhelming. She knew he had been spectacularly unfaithful over the years—it was an open secret across the court—but she was comforted by not knowing the precise details. Did she really want to know more now that they were trying to turn over a new leaf?
“You will know,” she began carefully, “that my husband has not always been true throughout our marriage.”
“I have the details of every brothel he has ever visited. We also track each of his bastards and have substantial records around each woman – peasant or noble – that we can confirm he had lain with.”
Guinevere felt the colour come to her cheeks. “Goodness. Okay. Well, let’s ignore all of that for now. Tell me, since our return from the Dark Tower . . .” She hesitated. Did she really want to know this? Things were so much better between them. Was it worth sabotaging that?
Blæk regarded her with his bland eyes. “My lady?”
Oh, well. Fuck it. Might as well know everything. “Has my husband been unfaithful since we returned from the tower of Aurelius Ambrosius?”
Blæk blinked once, then twice and cocked his head the other way. “We have no examples of the king conducting any such activities in that time frame.”
“And you would know?”
Blæk smiled humourlessly. “We would know, yes.”
A weight she did not know she was carrying lifted off Guinevere’s chest.
“Right. Excellent. Well, now that’s done with; let’s focus on which thegns are not quite being full-throated in their support for the king.”
*
Turns out, Drynwyn really hates wyverns.
By the time I joined the fray, though, things appeared well in hand. After the initial shock of the ambush, the various different sections of our group coalesced into the sort of professional, dogged defence you would expect from elite warriors.
Without panic blinding our eyes, it became clear there were only about ten wyverns, minus the one I had incinerated and a combination of sheer numbers and some well-aimed arrows and javelins were keeping things on an even keel.
Enter Morgan. Or, to be fair, Drynwyn and my current coolest technique.
It took a few minutes, but in no time, I’d napalm-deathed six of the buggers, and a combination of Lancelot and, annoyingly, Beric’s men, finished off the last few.
“How are you feeling, big man?”
Fucking hate wyverns.
“Glad you’re feeling a little more like yourself.”
Wasn’t going to let you down again. Especially around fucking wyverns.
“Good timing,” I said, ramming it back into its scabbard.
Arthur appeared, slapping me on my back in a very manly way that, in a different context, would have been tantamount to assault. “That was all very dramatic!” His face was a mess of cuts and scrapes, and I was alarmed to see his left arm was hanging uselessly by his side.
I tossed him one of the rare Elixirs of Wellness I’d started to be able to produce. He took a sip and quickly looked as good as new. Although still with no hair.
“Do you have any idea what happened? Or where they came from?”
I decided now wasn’t the moment to share Big M’s sudden realisation about alternative rune translations. It didn’t really feel like the time. Instead, I looked at the chaos caused to our convoy. “Many casualties?”
Arthur shrugged. “Some. Not as many as it would have been without your intervention. I think we will have made a good impression on the others with your little display.”
I mean, sure. In a leading-you-into-danger-and-then-saving-you kind of way.
Lancelot joined us, inexplicably shirtless. I swear, this dude went full Hulk Hogan at the slightest hint of trouble. His muscles glinted in the firelight. “Of this place, my people speak.”
Arthur and I turned to him. “Mate, we’ll take all the info you’ve got at this stage. The Big M is basically making up as he goes along.”
I resent that, my dear. This is a quest. It is not supposed to have a step-by-step how-to guide. There will always be an element of risk.
“Tell that to the guys who just got eaten,” I called over the quartermaster, a heavily tattoed man called Karl. “I’m going to need a bigger horse.”
We indulged in a few minutes of quality Jaws-related banter. This was only slightly ruined by the fact only one of us had seen the movie. Or was even aware of the existence of sharks.
“So, what do your people say about this place?” I asked Lancelot, who had fallen to the floor and was pumping out press-ups.
“We call it Niefeheim – the place beyond the pines.”
“And what can we expect here, beyond wyverns?”
“Death. Death and pain.” There was no glimmer of humour in his eyes.
Which wasn’t exactly a great introduction to us realising we’d lost Owain and all his men.