Ruins of Camelot (41 page)

"But this is pointless," Merodach gasped, turning on her and thrashing back in earnest.  "Your kingdom is already finished!  I have observed it myself in the enchanted face of that very mirror behind you!  I can see anywhere within it using my benefactor's book of magic!  At this very moment, your castle is in flames!  The fortress of hiding is breached, and all within it are dead!  Go and look for yourself if you disbelieve me!  You are too late!  Too late!"  He laughed delightedly between grunts of effort.

Gabriella faltered as his words struck her.  Her opponent sensed this and fell upon her fiercely.  Swords flashed in the firelight, and the clang of their blades mingled with the merry pomp of the music.  Gabriella fell back as the pain in her wrist increased, weakening her grip on the sword.  Then, with a skillful swoop, Merodach wrenched the sword out of her fists.  It spun away, clattering into the shadows.  He laughed at her darkly and made to run her through.

She ducked, dodged, and rolled beneath a plotting table.  Merodach's blade fell upon it with a rattling thunk even as she scrambled up from the other side.  She bolted towards the door, knocking over the iron candelabras as she went.  Merodach leapt after her but stumbled over the toppled candelabras.  Amazingly, he was still laughing gleefully.

Gabriella slipped on the rotten carpet of the outer landing.  Righting herself frantically, she bolted towards the ascending stairs.

"Do not go yet, Princess," Merodach cackled, leaping after her into the corridor and knocking wildly against the opposite wall.  "The night is still young!  Much mirth is afoot!"

Gabriella hit the stairs at a full run and took them two at a time.  Darkness met her as she followed the curving steps upwards towards a second landing. 
Here, nooks lined the hallway, each illuminated with a band of moonlight from an arrow slit
.  Another of the iron floor candelabras stood by the furthest one, empty of candles.  Merodach's footsteps clattered behind her, approaching quickly.  Gabriella pelted along the landing and ducked into the furthest
nook
, nearly tripping over the dark candelabra.  She threw herself up against the nook’s shallow stone wall, gasping for breath

Behind her, unseen, Merodach's footsteps knocked onto the landing, where he seemed to stop.

"This is good sport, Princess," he panted, and giggled lightly.  "But I am afraid it cannot end well for you.  Come out and give yourself up.  It is the best you can hope for."

He began to pace slowly forwards.  She heard him, knew that he had his sword raised, ready to cut her down the moment he discovered her.  She pressed back against the wall of the arrow nook, trying not to breathe.

"Do you know?" the villain mused thoughtfully as he approached.  "It just occurs to me.  With your father dead, you are no longer a mere princess.  Do you feel special, my dear?  It is official.  You are the last Queen of Camelot.  Congratulations," he said mockingly, "Your Highness."

With a dark shock, Gabriella realised that Merodach was right.  If Herrengard had indeed been breached—and she had no doubt that it had—then her father was dead.  She was the last of the line.  Whatever remained of the Kingdom, it was hers.  The realisation did not hearten her.

"Perhaps this is why you still fight," Merodach said ponderously, stalking still closer.  "Perhaps you fight as Queen, to protect the remnant of your kingdom.  But no!" he said suddenly, interrupting himself.  "
Not
for the Kingdom!  I see it now!  You do not fight for your kingdom, but for your child!  Surely, Queen, you know that even that is a hopeless cause.  Tell me you are not such a simpleton."

Gabriella remained pressed against the wall but spoke up.

"Darrick lied to you," she announced firmly, her words echoing in the arrow nooks behind her.  "I knew he would never betray us, but my father would not listen.  You may have killed the King and all those with him at Herrengard, but my son was not amongst them.  I sent him elsewhere.  He is safe from you."

"How very crafty of you, Queen," Merodach replied, unperturbed.  "Did you perchance… send him to Amaranth?"

The blood chilled in her veins as the question hung in the air.  She did not reply.

"Do you think I am an utter fool, Your Highness?" Merodach asked, and all the mirth had suddenly gone out of his voice.  "Do you truly think I would trust your man's word?  I had already learnt about both of the King's primary eastern retreats, Amaranth and Herrengard.  I simply did not know which would be his first choice.  But I did know this: I knew your husband would die before revealing to me the truth."

Gabriella's eyes grew wider as the madman spoke.  Hopelessness began to fill her like lead.  She dreaded what Merodach was about to say next, and yet she knew she had to hear his proclamation, had to know for certain what he had done.

He was much closer now, creeping slowly along the aisle of arrow nooks.  "Your husband was very brave," he assured her coldly.  "He told me the King would choose to retreat to Herrengard.  He lied to me, just as you knew he would.  And thus, I knew that
Amaranth
was in fact the true destination.  To be sure, I sent forces to
both
locations.  But I sent my most vicious regiment to Amaranth.  My soldiers were there in mere days.  And their orders were very simple: wait as long as necessary, and then, when the time came… kill
everything
."

Gabriella's knees grew weak beneath her.  Her hands dropped helplessly to her sides.

"Your child is dead," Merodach breathed, relishing the words.  "Those that were meant to protect him are destroyed.  Everything that you fight for, Queen, all of it… is in ruins.  Why continue to resist?  There is nothing left for you.  Come out.  You are the last ruler of Camelot, and as such, you must die.  But I can make it quick.  Soon, you can join those whom you have failed.  Come out and face me.  Die like a queen, and I will not even turn your body over to the appetites of my troops.  It is only fitting.  And admit it.  You
desire
this…"

Gabriella's eyes were glassy in the dimness.  Her enemy was nearly upon her now.  She nodded to herself once.  Slowly but resolutely, she stepped forwards, turned past the iron candelabra, and faced her nemesis.

"There," he said, and smiled sympathetically.  "That is better, is it not?"

He raised his sword, positioned its tip just above her breastplate, inches from her throat, and began to thrust.

Gabriella's arm swept up and forwards, bringing the wrought-iron floor candelabra with it.  The heavy metal clanged against the steel of Merodach's sword, smashing it against the wall, where it shattered.  Merodach cried out in pain and clutched his hand to his chest, still gripping the hilt of his sword.  Gabriella was not finished however.  The candelabra whistled through air, unseen in the darkness, and struck her enemy firmly on the temple.  He jerked aside and stumbled, barely keeping his feet.

"Wait," he choked dizzily.  Blood began to course down his temple, matting his black hair.  "Wait.  So be it, Queen.  It does not have to end this way…"

Gabriella followed him as he clambered backwards, clinging to the narrow walls of the arrow nooks for support.  She hefted the heavy length of the candelabra and swung it again.  It made a low whoosh as it arced down, connecting with the villain's left shoulder.  He crumpled but still managed not to collapse fully.  He supported himself on one knee, still scuttling backwards, waving his broken sword before him.  Six inches of its blade still protruded from his fist, ending with a hard, glinting angle.

"Stop," he demanded, and laughed wetly, deliriously.  "You cannot!  It is not possible!"

Gabriella did not so much as blink.  Her shadow fell over him as he scrambled backwards.  With a jerk, she caught the candelabra in both hands, hefted it over her right shoulder, and brought it down on him like a spear.

Merodach shrieked as the empty candle holders punctured his abdomen, driving deep into his flesh and sticking there.  Blood welled in the wounds immediately.  Still, flattened against the stone floor, he scrabbled backwards.

"You cannot stop what has begun!" he babbled, his voice cracking with terror.  "It is too late!  You have failed!  You will die like all the rest!"  With that, his face hardened.  He mustered his strength, ripped the candelabra from his guts with a grunt of pain, and lunged upwards, aiming to plant the remainder of his sword into Gabriella's belly.  She caught his wrist in mid-stab, however, using her good right hand.  A moment later, she wrested the broken sword from his grip, spun it around in her fist, and dropped onto him, pinning him with her knee.

"What
are
you?" he spat up at her, terror and rage mingling on his bloody face, contorting it.  A look of dreadful suspicion widened his eyes.  "Are you a witch?"

"No," Gabriella seethed down at him through gritted teeth, raising the broken sword.  "I am just a
very
determined human."

And she drove the shattered blade deep into his chest, burying it there.

Merodach convulsed beneath her, only once but massively.  He coughed a mouthful of blood, fell back, and then met her gaze.  For a second, the rage was still there, radiating from his eyes like heat from a furnace.  And then, with no perceptible change at all, they simply went blank.

Merodach was dead.

W
hen it was over, she could not bear to be near the villain's body.  The realisation of what she had done overwhelmed her.  She struggled to her feet, began to walk away from the body, then broke into a shambling run, lunging for the stairs.

It simply could not be.  Her son could not be dead.  Everything else paled in comparison to that sudden, unbearable truth.  She no longer cared that her castle home had been attacked and was in flames, or that Camelot, her kingdom, was under siege and effectively overthrown.  She did not even care that Merodach, the architect of it all, was dead by her own hand.  The moment the life had flickered from his eyes, he had ceased to matter.

All that mattered was the fate of her child.

She refused to believe that he could be no more.  It was too huge a tragedy for her to comprehend.  Her beautiful son, her only remaining hope…

She made her way to the lower landing and the entrance to the citadel's grand hall.  Near the descending stairs, Darrick's dark candle sat.  Gabriella stopped, dazed, and stared at it.

You must return to him,
her dead husband's voice had said. 
Make him the man he is meant to be.  Only you can do that now…

How could he not have known?  Was that even possible?  Then she recalled something else he had told her, something characteristically teasing but with a ring of truth to it:
No one ever said trust was easy.  But it is always better than the alternative…

Perhaps Merodach had been wrong.  Or even lying.  Perhaps there was a chance…

A tiny flicker of hope alit inside her chest.  It was not much, but it was enough to keep her moving, to keep her from simply falling to the rotten, red carpet, bereft and hopeless.  She walked into the bar of light that led into the grand hall and peered inside.

The enchanted musical instruments had stopped playing.  The fiddle and flute lay on the little stage as if dropped.  Fire still roared in the hearth, flickering over the ruins of the enormous chandelier.  Beyond all of it stood the horrible, dark sculpture, the eight-fingered skeletal claw embracing its cursed prize.  Eerily lithe shadows surrounded the black candle, protecting and hiding it.  The flame burnt like an eye of midnight.

She had to put it out.  But how?  If others had died simply by moving into its black glow, cursed to ashy bones, then how could she?