Very quickly, I came to the recognition that the trouble with Sir Ector is that he thought he knew everything.

Which is a special sort of ignorance, all on its own really.

The kind that’s so blissfully unaware of itself, you can’t even enjoy watching them trip over their own stupidity—because they don’t. They just keep on barrelling forward, being loud, obnoxious, breaking things and calling it leadership.

I’m still not feeling this little expedition, if you’re wondering.

But what do I know? I’m just the poor bastard following in the wake of a genius ‘survivor’, wondering how long it’ll take before we’re all up to our necks in Saxon piss because Sir Ector mistook his arse for a map.

“You there! Get that tent upright! We’re not bloody sleeping under the stars like fucking savages,” bellowed the man himself, voice carrying over the din of the camp with the authority of someone used to being obeyed—or at least loudly ignored. His target, two hapless men wrangling with the mess of canvas and poles, flinched but didn’t dare look up, focusing instead on their Sisyphean task.

I watched the grimly hypnotic scene from a safe distance. The tent, a standard issue A-frame meant to sleep four, was having none of it. One man crouched awkwardly by the groundsheet, hammering stakes, while the other tangled himself in guy lines that seemed to have developed a sentient resistance to knots.

Every time they managed to secure one corner, another flapped free, catching the breeze and billowing outwards. The canvas buckled, twisted, and folded in on itself, mocking their efforts with the grace of a bowl of jelly resolutely refusing to be inserted into a condom. The wind didn’t help either, catching under the fabric and turning it into an unwieldy, snapping sail.

It had been nearly an hour of this theatre. I’d had shorter relationships.

“The ridge pole goes through the sleeves, not around them, you fucking idiot!” Ector shouted again, face going red enough to suggest he was on the verge of a coronary.

“We’re trying, sir. The wind keeps—”

“Trying? If you tried any harder, you’d fail backwards!” However, his tirade was cut short by a sharp gust that tore the entire assembly from the ground, sending it cartwheeling a few feet before collapsing into a crumpled heap.

It was hard not to feel a bit sorry for them. Still, I stayed exactly where I was. There are moments when lending a hand feels heroic and moments when it feels like an open invitation to join the circus.

This was firmly the latter.

“And you!” Ector jabbed a finger at me, his brow furrowing in what I could only assume was meant to be an expression of authority. “Why are you standing there like a lump? Shouldn’t you be off, I don’t know, communing with spirits or whatever it is you Wizards do?”

I considered my options.

I could get Drynwyn to roast him alive, but that would probably result in more paperwork than I cared to deal with right now. Arthur had been clear that he had each and every one of these men out to me, and he’d be pretty unhappy with my overall performance should he count any less in. He’d smiled when he’d said it, too.

The bastard.

So, instead, of relieving some tension by more fiery methods, I settled for a more oral incineration. “Oh, fuck you, you colossal puffin-wanker.”

Not funny, but fast, my dear.

“Such language is unbecoming of a woman,” Ector snapped back, turning on his heel to march toward the firepit, where I was sure another disaster was brewing. “I must say, I fail to see what you are bringing to this particular expedition. The King has charged me to take command of this warband in order to collect these Meridian Stones. When that mission is complete then, and only then, will you have a role to play in proceedings. Until then, should I desire your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

“Surely I can just mildly toast him?”

Be the bigger person, my dear.

“Dude, you forget I’ve actually read some of the legends about you. Do I need to remind you of the Riddle of the Stones? Exactly how big a person were you there?”

I have no idea of what you speak.

“Really, well join in when you know the words. So there’s this wizard - let’s call him Smerlin - who strolls into a village in the Brecon hills. To start with, it’s all sunshine and rainbows, and he even helps them out with crops and livestock. When it’s over, Smerlin asks for a small annual tribute in return. Because, even in the Dark Age, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Nothing wrong with that, my dear. I often did such services for the smallfolk. And Qi doesn’t grow on trees.

“Ah, but these villagers, being the forgetful lot they are, don't pay up, do they? And then what does Smerlin do?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Whatever it was, I’m sure it was proportional and perfectly justifiable.

“Well, that rather depends on your view of things, doesn’t it? You set them an impossible riddle: "What comes from the earth, cannot be held, but weighs more than treasure?" And when nobody gets it, you do what any reasonable wizard would in those circumstances—you turn them all into stone. And there they stand to this day, forever frozen mid-guess. But yeah. I’m the girl who overreacts!”

Shall we go back to hating on Sir Ector? I believe the colloquial expression is ‘fuck that guy’.

I would have laughed if the sight of Ector blundering around the camp didn’t get my goat again. Honestly, he reminded me of a chicken I’d once seen on a farm. Why I was on a farm is a story for another day. But this chicken, right, it strutted about, pecking and squawking, utterly convinced it was in charge while the actual world went about its business, uncaring.

Almost felt bad for choking it.

I sense you crafted some complex innuendo there that I, for one, found simply delightful . . .

I can’t believe I’m being the fucking voice of reason here, but this level of fucking whining and bitching is not what Arthur had in mind when he sent us out here.

“Yeah, well, Arthur can fuck off too.”

From across the camp, I caught sight of one of Ector’s men—a skinny, bug-eyed lad whose armour had clearly been nicked from someone twice his size—fumbling with a pot of what was supposed to be stew. Except, judging by the smell wafting over, he’d burned it beyond recognition.

“Oi, what the bloody hell is this?” Ector demanded, striding over to the poor soul and lifting him off his feet by his throat. “You’re cooking for a Knight’s fucking warband, not boiling rats!”

“And the difference would be . . .”

Ah, more biting sarcasm. You truly are in fine form today, my dear.

I ignored him, walking over to where the rest of the men were gathered. The atmosphere around the camp was truly shitty in that special way only a long day hunting giant stones under ill-tempered leaders could create.

The men were exhausted, hunched over their makeshift meals, chewing through tough bread and watery gruel, eyes dulled by the monotonous shittiness of life. The daily grind of being in Ector’s warband, I guessed. In no time at all, small irritations festered into large ones as the day dragged on without the relief of a good battle.

One of the older knights, a grizzled man named Roderic, was rubbing his shoulder with a grimace, muttering about the damp settling into his bones. Across from him, another—Cai, I think his name was—was trying, and failing, to sew up a rip in his tunic. Every few moments, he pricked himself with the needle and cursed under his breath.

I walked past them, glancing down at the stitching job. “You know, if you’re trying to sew a hem, it helps if you don’t stab yourself every third stitch.”

He blinked up at me, surprised, then grinned sheepishly. “I’m more used to swords than needles, to be fair, my lady.”

“Clearly.”

Nearby, someone’s horse let out a disgruntled snort, shaking its mane as if to protest the whole situation. The animal, like the men, was weary. I could feel it in the air, the way irritation clung to everything like a spurned ex.

“Sir Ector’s got us searching for stones in the wrong bloody place,” Cai grumbled to no one in particular, his voice a whisper. “We should be up in the hills, but no, he’s convinced they’re down by the river.”

Roderick snorted. “Stones near the river? What does he think, they’ve just rolled down for a dip?”

“He thinks whatever suits him,” Cai said, grimacing as he finally succeeded in getting the needle through without stabbing himself. “Man’s got the brains of a turnip.”

“Don’t insult the turnip. An extremely useful vegetable. I mean, it’s no cucumber, but I’ve had some good times with a turnip.”

Careful, my dear. It is one thing for us to belittle the man in private. Undermining his authority with his men may be satisfying, but it won’t make this camp any more bearable.

“No, but it’ll make me feel better.”

Short-term gain, my dear. You know better than this.

“Tale of the Riddle Stones, Big M. Tale of the Riddle Stones.”

Ector’s grating voice rang out again, continuing to berate the unfortunate lad who’d charred the stew. “If I wanted to eat something that tasted like ash, I’d have thrown shit in the pot myself!”

Not trusting myself to keep quiet, I rolled my eyes and wandered away from the fire.

The first day of our hunt for the Meridian Stones was waning, and the horizon was beginning to glow with the burnt orange of an impending sunset. I stopped at the edge of the camp, looking out at the expanse of Salisbury Plain, the silence of the land stretching out before us. Sensing the eyes of most of the warband on my arse, I might have plumped things up with Qi a little down there.

Fucking hell. If you were any thirstier, we could use you as sandpaper.

Despite the tension and the petty frustrations, there was something oddly serene about the landscape in this fading light, like it had seen centuries of idiots like Ector come and go without so much as a blink.

All joking aside, the fact Sir Ector is still relatively unharmed speaks volumes about your personal growth. You are handling things remarkably better than I might have expected would be the case.

“I’m handling it because I don’t have much choice.”

True. But you’ve avoided killing anyone yet. As far as Cultivators go, that actually counts for something.

I snorted. “Yeah. And look at my prize. Behind enemy lines, in a fucking valley, looking for magic rocks with a man who couldn’t find his cock with a map, a willing prostitute and a copy of the Karma Sutra.”

Such vivid imagery, my dear.

The evening settled in, and with it, an odd, small sense of contentment arrived to our camp. The men had given up on the stew, most of them opting for the cold rations they’d brought along. Ector was still grumbling, pacing around like a malign peacock, but even he seemed to be running out of things to yell about.

As I sat down on a nearby boulder, I allowed myself to enjoy a small, rare moment of real-world quiet. In the stillness, I could feel the pulse of the land beneath me—subtle, but present.

The leylines, my dear. They know we seek the Meridian Stones. They approve.

“Well, that’s not fucking weird at all. You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever had lines in the ground have my back before. I mean, I’ve certainly taken plenty of lines that got me on my back . . .”

Do you think you may grow out of the crudeness as time goes on?

”Probably not.”

No, well. I suppose we can only hope for one miracle at a time.

With that, I let my mind drift—if only for a moment—to just exist in the pleasant lull.

I feared that, with Sir Ector in charge, further chaos wasn’t far off.