"They're getting too far away from us!"

There were many things I did not like about King Mark. His whole aesthetic didn't help. Considering the paucity of junk food options in Dark Age South West Britain, it took a real commitment to gluttony to reach his level of corpulency. I mean, I don't want to fat shame, but I'd had to pack Earth Qi at my end of our canoe in order not to spend most of the early moments on the lake playing a game of seesaw.

However, my irritation with him went a bit further than just not wanting to spend much time with someone who was one wafer-thin mint away from explosion.

For a start, there was the whole issue with his son. Merlin had filled me in on the Tristain-Isolde-Mark love triangle. I had a dim memory that the whole Romeo and Juliet story had been based on those two kids, and it turned out that I wasn't too far away from the truth. I mean, I didn't remember the bit where Romeo's dad decided he fancied a bit of Juliet himself, arranged for his son to have a little 'accident' and then tried to turn into his own personal sex slave. That Tristian slaughtered the guys sent to kill him, beat seven bells out of his dad and then vanished into the land of the Fae - having faked both of their suicides - gave somewhat of a feel-good end to the whole thing.

If you ignored Mark ordering the immediate execution of Isolde's entire family line down to the dogs in the yard.

Dude had some issues with being told 'no'.

So, he was repellently fat, was clearly psychotic and also a shit dad. Nevertheless, my most pressing issue right now was that the man wouldn't fucking row.

"Mate, you do get that I have a few more important things to do right now that ferry your fat arse across this lake, don't you? Remember those monsters I'm on the lookout for?" He just stared back at me.

"It is vital we reach the island at the same time as Arthur and Owain."

I looked significantly down at the oars lying in the water - trying to ignore that they were covered in frost and bits of wood were flaking away. Fuck knows what was happening to the bottom of the canoe. "Then. Start. Rowing."

To be honest, I wasn't delighted at how far Arthur, Owain and Lancelot were getting away from us. I was supposed to be our Early Kraken Detection System, but there was going to be little point if they couldn't hear me screaming 'We're fucking doomed!" Now I thought about it, I wondered if I should have come up with a more subtle signal.

I sent a light buzz of Qi across the water's surface. The smaller of the two remaining monsters was well over the far left of the lake. It hadn't moved in the time we'd been faffing around getting into the canoes, so I was assuming it was in the land of nod.

I was more worried about the bigger ball of malevolent energy that was cutting a wide circle around the perimeter of the lake. We'd watched it do this pass three times, carefully measuring how long it took to complete an entire circuit. As far as we could tell - okay, Merlin did the sums - we should be able to reach the middle of the lake before it noticed us.

I was worried about the amount of heavy lifting 'should' was doing in that sentence.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the fight with the first Kraken out of my head. It wasn't just that we'd been absolutely battered; it was that it was the first confrontation I'd had here that had properly left its mark on me. Even being tortured by Aurelius Ambrosius didn't feel as permanently debilitating as that terrifying mound of tentacles, claws and teeth.

It was all very well for me to 'keep an eye' on the two creatures, but fuck knows what we were planning to do if they came for us.

Tell you what, though, I'd be using Mark as a human shield.

I glanced ahead and agreed with the King of Gwynedd that the gap between us and the cool people boar was getting too big. "Dude, let's just work together and see if we can get out of this in one piece."

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Mark looked at me, then the oar, and then back at me. "I'm not rowing. It's beneath me."

I may or may not have let a little spark of drift across the canoe to singe his beard. "If we're stuck in the middle of the water when that big dude comes back round, you better believe I'm out of here faster than light. The only way you're making it to that island is if we work together."

We had a bit of stand-off before he took his oar in hand and, with a colossal amount of distaste, began to row.

We'd been going for a decent amount of time but were still nowhere near the first boar when I sent out another pulse of monster-searching-Qi. The big guy was still on track, lazily drifting around the outside of the lake, about a quarter of the way through his latest circuit. So far, so good.

And the little guy was . . . nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, shit!" I increased the power to the searching pulse and eventually found the missing Kraken. It had sunk to the very bottom of the lake and was now moving upwards towards Arthur's boat at a pace I would describe as "ramming speed."

*

Owain was the first to notice Morgan's panicked signalling. "I think we've got a problem."

Arthur paused his long, powerful strokes and looked at where the King of Gwent was pointing.

"Okay," he kept his voice calm—no point letting terror take over. "We knew this might happen. Let's push it.!

Lancelot began pulling his oar at a blinding speed. It took everything Owain and Arthur could do to keep up with him. They were not too far away from the island now. Arthur concentrated on his strokes - he would not let Lancelot outperform him. Not if this were the last thing he would do in this world.

Arthur fixed his eyes on the cairn rising in the middle of the island. They were close enough that he could see the handle of the blade sticking out from the top of it very clearly now. And, was that a woman sitting at the base of the stone? She was tall, as far as he could tell from her position, and had long, blonde hair cascading down her front and to the floor. She also appeared to be naked.

Any increase in Arthur's rowing output was obviously entirely coincidental.

Then, a dark shape breached the water ahead of them, and he had his mind very much on other things.

*

I watched, in horror, as the Kraken reared up in the water ahead of Arthur's boat.

It was directly between them and the island. My mind rebelled at the sight of the thing again, but I locked the madness down tight. Now was not the time. Funnily enough, I imagined years and years of pretending I wasn't about to have a horrible experience at the hands of one dealer or another made me pretty good at this sort of compartmentalisation.

"Hurry up," Mark hissed, "we can slip past while it is bust with them."

Surprisingly, he did not seem to be too worried about our companions.

I, on the other hand, was wrestling with a dilemma. Arthur becoming the Pendragon was the ball game. I'd only got into this to keep the timeline intact, so Zizzie wasn't wiped out of existence. Sure, I'd like to think I'd moved a bit past being Riggs in the first Lethal Weapon movie, but my personal survival remained far behind that key aim.

So, Arthur needed to get his Excalibur. That was a non-negotiable outcome of this quest. Me still being alive at the end? Well, that would be a bonus.

"What are you doing?"

I'd dropped my oar and stood unsteadily in the canoe, facing the monster towering over the other boat. We were probably four or five football fields away, but I could make out Lancelot pushing his way in front of the king, moving with far more poise and grace than I was managing. Did that dude do anything badly?"

Mark, surprisingly, did not seem to be on board with Operation Noble Sacrifice.

To be honest, my dear, I'm not sure I'm over-delighted either.

"You have a better plan?" I'd filled my hands with Qi and gathered every joule of lightning I could hold at my fingertips. I had no illusions of taking this thing out at this range, but I figured I could piss it off.

Sadly not. Try not to hit Arthur when you attack. That would seem a touch counterproductive.

"Oh ye of little faith."

*

The sparkling, flashing lightning stream arced over Arthur's head, striking the creature with a sizzling hiss. It roared - the pressure of the sound dropping each man in the canoe beneath it to their knees - and dove back under the water, surging towards Morgan's boat.

"Fucking row!" Arthur grabbed his oar and began pulling against the water. The canoe lurched to the right. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Arthur turned to see why Lancelot was not doing his bit and was astonished to see Owain crash his own oar into the side of the barbarian's head and knock him into the water.

It was such an unexpected moment, Arthur's usual razor sharp reactions did not have chance to kick into action before the King of Gwent whipped out a dagger and plunged it straight into his stomach. He looked down uncomprehendingly at the hilt before toppling into the water after Lancelot.

Owain watched the surface of the water impassively for a few seconds until he was sure neither man was going to resurface. Then, grabbing an oar in each of his hands, he moved with smooth pulls towards Caeldfwch.