Sleepless Knights (30 page)

In such half-speed, the Master swung his sword at Sir Lancelot's shoulder. Sir Lancelot deflected it, and with his next move the Master aimed for Sir Lancelot's neck. Again, the block came to meet it. But this time Sir Lancelot's defensive stroke skimmed the Master's sword belt around his waist. The point of Sir Lancelot's blade sliced through the fastening of Excalibur's scabbard, which came loose and fell to the ground.

I stood up, the plastic seat beneath me flipping back with a dead
thunk
. The Master dropped his sword. He touched his hand to his neck and looked at the blood on his fingers. I ran down the steps and vaulted over the siding, slipping and slithering across the pitch. Morgan must have overlooked my presence, or else did not consider me a threat, for I found that I was able to move at a normal pace. I willed myself to run faster, urging my tired and aching legs onwards.

I was now close enough to hear the Master cough. To see blood spill out through the sides of his mouth. Close enough
to see the slashes on his face, and a large bite mark appear on his neck — the jaw print of a werewolf. To see the bite widen, and turn crimson, as if an invisible animal were tearing at him anew, though the wound was received a long, long time ago.

Sir Lancelot was down on the ground, clawing at the mud and grass for the Master's scabbard. He was about to pick it up when a skeletal foot stamped down hard on his hand. He cried out in pain as the sharp bone pinned him to the ground. The skeleton stooped down, picked up the scabbard and threw it through the air towards Morgan Le Fay's outstretched arms. Over on the opposite siding, I realised too late what the military men behind me had been staring at. The army of the dead had breached the stadium walls. They were tearing through Sir Gawain's attackers in horrible half-speed, revealing his immobile form, curled up like a foetus in the mud.

Dozens of skeletons poured onto the pitch and surrounded us. They looked to Morgan, awaiting her final command. Sir Lancelot pulled in vain at his pinioned hand. The Master fell face-forward into a widening pool of his own blood.

I closed my eyes and teleported to the only knight I could think of.

 

I ran down the collapsed cliff-side, stumbling and staggering. The amulet had taken me directly to Sir Pellinore. Down on the beach below, not far from the Otherworld portal, I saw his inert figure, splayed out on his back. The sand around him was churned up, heavily marked with the signs of a recent skirmish. I knelt beside him and rested his head on my knees. He had lost his jacket, and his
T
-shirt was soaked in blood.

“Sir Pellinore,” I said, and shook him gently but firmly. I could find only the weakest of pulses. “If you have the strength, the Master needs you.”

“Herne?” said Sir Pellinore, opening an eye.

“It is Sir Lucas,” I said. “We must hurry. We have to go and get Sir Kay, and bring aid to our fellow knights in the field.” But even before I spoke the words, I knew how empty they were.

“The Beast turned the tables on me, butler. Got me on the chest — see?”

He pulled up his
T
-shirt to reveal two large bloody puncture marks from a snake's teeth. “The quest mastered the man, in the end.” Sir Pellinore chuckled.

Then he closed his eyes and breathed out his last rattling breath.

†

Sir Pellinore was a lot heavier than I expected. I had carried him up the cliff from the beach, not knowing where I was going or what to do next, lost in a numb, grief-struck daze. Then I saw Merlin, and had stumbled half way back down the cliff-side towards the cowled wizard when I dropped Sir Pellinore's body. He slid down the scree and came to rest by a rock on the shore. Merlin did not lift a finger to help me. He merely stayed there like a standing stone. It was this more than anything that made me quake with anger and want to throttle him with my bare hands.

“The Eternal Quest is over!” I called to the wizard. “The Master lies on the brink of death.”

Merlin nodded.

“I hope you are pleased with yourself,” I said.

He nodded again.

“All this is your fault.”

He shook his head.

“Do not try to deny it. You knew this would happen if you came back.”

He nodded. I laughed, mirthlessly.

“Is there any point in even asking for your help?”

Merlin pointed at the inert body of Sir Pellinore, and then to me, to my bloodstained chest. “This is no time for riddles, damn you!” I shouted, my voice echoing around the rocks. Merlin pointed to his own chest, to the place where an amulet would have hung, had he been wearing one beneath his cloak. His finger traced the outline of a necklace. My hand reached up to my chest. There was nothing there. I was no longer wearing the amulet. Exactly when and where I had lost it, I could not say. But now that I thought about it, I was not sure it had been with me ever since falling off my neck during my tumble down the Camelot laundry chute.
So how on earth had I teleported? This and a hundred other thoughts were vying for utterance when Merlin stepped into the vortex of the Otherworld portal, swirled around a few times, and vanished.

I picked up the body of Sir Pellinore, this time hoisting him over my shoulder more securely in a fireman's lift. I walked towards the portal. The hairs on my head stood up as I approached. My face tingled with what felt like static electricity.

I stepped over the edge, and followed Merlin into the Otherworld.

 

“We meet at last, Sir Guy of Gisbourne,” said Robin Hood. His bow was drawn, the tip of an arrow aimed directly at my heart.

“The pleasure is all mine, so-called Robin of the Hood,” I replied.

“You are a good deal shorter than I expected, Sir Guy.”

“Your insolence, however, is of precisely the stature I anticipated. Did you really think you could steal from the Sheriff's purse without reaping the full harvest of his wrath?”

“Be that as it may, I have you at an advantage.”

“Indeed? How so?”

“Surely even one as distant from the life of the working man as you has heard of my skill with the bow? I could fell you and your lackeys in half a breath,” said Robin.

“Though it pains me to admit it, you are correct.”

“So give me one good reason not to pierce your black heart and leave your corpse for the crows?”

“I will give you two.” A second squad of my men emerged from their hiding place in the greenwood, leading two captives at sword-point. “Friar Tuck and Little John.”

“Hello, Robin,” grinned the Friar. “What a thing to happen, eh?”

“Came out of nowhere. Had no choice but to surrender,” said John, less amused than his companion. “Give the word, Robbie, an' we fight to the death.”

“Nobody dies today, John,” said Robin Hood. “Sir Guy knows that full well.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. You do.” Robin Hood seemed to have something in his right eye, for it closed and opened in a sudden spasm.

“Do not be so confident about that,” I said. “If you ask me, Robin Hood, you look far from hale and hearty.”

“Oh… Do I?”

“Yes, I am afraid that you do. Guards, seize him! Bring him to the castle.”

†

“The charges laid against the outlaw Robin Hood are as follows,” said the Sheriff of Nottingham. “That in the year of our Lord eleven hundred and ninety eight, he did knowingly steal property of the Crown, namely: five hundred gold marks, fifteen hundred silver marks, thirty pigs, twenty two swords —”

“Twenty six,” said Robin Hood, picking his nails.

“Twenty six swords and shields, fifty barrels of mead —”

“Fifty five.”

“Suffice to say,” I interjected, lest the Sheriff burst a blood vessel, “that the outlaw is guilty of crimes numerous and grievous against the Sheriff of Nottingham, wise and generous administrator of this county.”

“Aye, generous to him and his own, while the poor starve to death!”

“Peace, John,” said Robin Hood.

“What is the punishment to fit such a list of crimes, Gisbourne?”

“I believe that would be death, Sheriff,” I said. “To be more precise, death by firing squad.”

“Firing squad?” said the Sheriff. “What the devil is that?”

“I meant archers, Sheriff. My apologies.”

“No, don't apologise, I like it. ‘Firing squad.' I shall use it again.”

“Does the prisoner have any last words?” I said.

“Yes I have actually, Sir Guy,” said Robin Hood. “You are
quite sure
that I look far from hale and hearty?”

“Indeed, Robin.”

“Not as much as he's about to look, eh, Gisbourne?”

“Most amusingly put, Sheriff.”

“Sir Guy, you can't do this,” said Friar Tuck. “Not now.” He looked at me beseechingly. “Not yet,” he added, so that only I could hear.

“The law is the law,” I said. “An example must be made. Archers at the ready!” Ten archers drew their bows taut with a sound like the stretching of a great muscle.

“Take aim!”

Robin Hood looked at me without fear or regret. Indeed, if I had to describe his expression in one word, it would be ‘peeved.'

“Fire!”

Ten arrows were loosed from their bows. Eight struck him in the torso; two hit wide of the mark. Crimson bloomed on Lincoln green. Robin Hood staggered but did not fall.

“Is that the best you can do?” he laughed.

“Reload,” I said.

“No!” said Friar Tuck, attempting to rush forwards. My men held him back. Little John merely watched in silence.

“Fire!”

Another ten arrows, this time all of them hitting their target. Robin Hood fell to his knees and fixed the Sheriff with an unblinking stare. “Now I come to think of it, it wasn't
five hundred gold marks at all,” said Robin, and spat out a mouthful of blood. “It was a thousand.”

“Fire!” screamed the Sheriff. Another ten arrows loosed. Three of them hit Robin Hood in the face; one in each eye, and one in the middle of his forehead.

“That tickled,” he said, and lurched backwards into the wall.

“One more round, just to make sure” I said, as Robin Hood slumped to the floor and died.

“Good job, Gisbourne,” said the Sheriff.

“Thank you, Sheriff,” I replied. “Now cut the throats of those other two, and we shall see about a spot of lunch.”

†

The cart bumped and bounced along the pitted track. I tried for the third time to get a suitable grip on the arrow. “Aaaaah!” said Sir Lancelot. “By all the Treasures, be careful, Lucas!”

“I am sorry, Sir Lancelot, but these are far from ideal conditions.”

“So stop the bloody cart!”

“We daren't risk it till we clear the district,” said Sir Gawain with a grin, the scar already fading on his freshly-renewed throat.

“It would take the edge off the advantage of being dead if we were recognised,” said Sir Perceval, taking off his friar's cassock. “By God, this stuff itches.”

“Alright, alright,” sighed Sir Lancelot. “Just get on with it.”

“Aye, Lucas. Lancelot gets the point.”

“Shut up, Gawain.”

“Sorry, King Harold.”

“I mean it!”

I waited until the cart stopped rattling and tried once more to pull the final arrow out of Sir Lancelot's face. The eyeball stretched and quivered around the edges of the arrowhead. Sir Lancelot took another gulp from the flagon of Grail potion.

“Not too much, Sir Lancelot, until I have got it all out.”

“Hurry up then!”

The punctured organ yielded the arrow. The elements of Sir Lancelot's eye rearranged themselves as the eyeball resumed its natural shape. Sir Lancelot blinked hard, taking a deep glug from his flagon. “What was that ‘one more round, just to make sure' business?”

“I am sorry, Sir Lancelot,” I said, turning my attention to the many arrows still sticking out of his chest. “The Master instructed me to make your death appear as convincing as possible.”

“
That
. I would call over-convincing.”

“Fine one you are,” said Sir Gawain. “ ‘That tickled' indeed. Serves ya right. Glory hog.”

“Glory hedgehog, more like.”

“Ha, good one, Percy.”

“Glory's got nothing to do with it. The least I could do was give the people something to remember me by. Five years was the agreement, Lucas, not five months! What the hell happened?”

“A change of plan, Sir Lancelot.”

“You don't — ow, watch my nipple! — say.”

“The Master is becoming increasingly anxious at the rumours in circulation, concerning his return,” I said.

“He's been officially dead for 600 years. Surely no-one believes he's coming back now?” said Sir Gawain.