I desperately urged my horse into a breakneck pace. I allowed myself to glance back behind me; the horrid man was still chasing me, the bodies of my entourage strewn carelessly behind us. It was the second time this had happened to me. Before I had escaped; this time it looked as if I would not, and no one was here to save me.
The rogue thundered up to my horse's flanks. I kicked the mare urgently, but the poor thing was spent. I braced myself for the truth: I would be caught, and when I was…. My soul cried out to anyone who would listen, "Save me!" But I had no rescuer now.
The faithful mare began to slow and terror stopped my heartbeat. The knight jerked me off the horse by my hair, and I was dragged behind his stallion a few feet before it slowed. He threw me in the dust and I curled into a heap. It was a hard thing to be a woman. Why couldn't I just die now?
My mind vaguely wondered to my former protector, the Knight of the White Brachet. He is Mordred, I reminded myself. He will not help you. Why did the nicest man I had ever met have to be a cursed, unnatural traitor who would kill the king?
I heard the knight dismount his horse and tie it to a log. I could barely breathe because of the dust the man's landing had caused. He walked over to me and yanked me up by my hair. A shiver danced down my spine as he pulled me close to him. Funny, I didn't even know his name; but that didn't matter now.
For some reason I screamed, knowing no one would hear me. I thought of Mordred again and screamed with all the fear, terror, and hope I could muster; and at that moment I could muster a lot of fear and terror. The man slapped me, his gauntleted hand opening wounds on my face, but that made me scream even louder.
Believe it or not, a few seconds later, I saw a rider break out of the Wayless Wood. He wore all black, had short dark hair, and carried a black shield. The knight released my hair and I fell back into a lifeless heap. What else could I do?
The knight mounted his sweating stallion and rode out to meet the new comer. I didn't see the fight, but a few minutes later I heard the jolt of armor and a bloodcurdling shriek. I glanced up at the sound of hooves coming toward me. Who was my new master? The black clad knight swung down from his horse. "Get up, Lynette," the sound of his voice sent chills down my spine, and I found myself gazing into beautiful indigo eyes, though the light that had once been in them was gone. It was my duty to hate this man; my duty to the king who had made him a knight of the round table.
"Get up," he repeated and I stood on shaking knees, blood streaming down my pail, dirty face. He had already stripped the armor off the dead knight and it was piled on the ground beside the horse. He held the reins of the stallion and my mare in his hand.
"H-how did you find me, Mordred?" It was so hard to say his cursed name.
"I heard you screaming," he replied, but somehow I knew he was lying. Still, I didn't press the matter; after all it would be unwise.
He handed me the reins of the dead man's stallion. I looked at him confusedly, but he gestured impatiently for me to take them. Next, he handed me a beautiful gold dagger with a deep emerald stone in the handle. "Use this next time," he explained. I nodded speechless. Then he took something down from the pommel of his saddle. I was sick in the grass beside me when I saw the severed head of the unknown knight. Mordred ignored this and tied the bodiless head to the pommel of the man's saddle; how ironic.
"Ride with that at your knee until you can bare the stench no longer. After that, you should be left alone. All the same keep the dagger with you always," he said bluntly. I nodded again, still to horrified to speak and slipped the sash it was sewn to over my head.
I should thank him; he had done me a great favor by saving me. But something in me rebelled. True, when I knew him as the Knight of the White Brachet I had loved him because he had respected me and treated me kindly. But that was all a lie; he was not that kind of man. He was an unnatural, evil being, cursed to be a traitor and kill the good King Arthur. How could anything about him be good? I thought back on all I had observed of him. He had treated me uncommonly well when he had rode with me to attend his lady mother, but that could have all been a front. When his brothers had killed Queen Morguse, he had tried to carry me away with him. No, no, that was not true. He had kept me from going to her because they would have killed me, I suddenly realized. My heart tore as I remembered the things I had said to him, and he had bore it all in silence, he had not slapped me or yelled at me. I remembered the heartbroken look on his face as he left the hall; yes, I had watched him leave. Now, he had saved me from that awful knight and was giving me what he should have rightfully kept.
"Thank you," I stammered, the memories still tearing at my heart. Mordred ignored this; he seemed not to need my thanks.
"Anything you would like to say? Call me evil or unnatural perhaps?" He said the words without emotion, as if he was sincere in asking me the question. Even if the words weren't meant to cause pain, they certainly did. I blinked back the tears that had always threatened since my mistress had been murdered.
"No," I said, grateful my voice held no trace of them. "How did you find me?" I knew I was overstepping the safety of ignorance, and as I had already questioned him, I also risked making him angry and suffering the consequences.
Mordred, who was about to mount his horse, paused and turned back to me. He seemed to being considering whether he should tell me the truth or not. Finally he said, "I scryed you." I was shocked. Scryed me? That was impossible for a man. This is no ordinary man, a voice in my head reminded me.
He mounted his horse and looked down on me as if he wanted to remember every detail of my face forever. I was confused; did he never plan to see me again?
"I think you should know, if you had loved me, I could have fought my fate; but you would not. Now it is too late; my fate is sealed. Remember that when we die; you have as much hand in the Very King's death as I do." Having said that, he yanked his horse around in the direction of Camelot.
I watched him ride away through a veil of tears. Was it true? Was I more to blame for the King's death that the man who would wield the sword? A black raven perched on my stallion's back and watched silently as I broke into little tiny pieces in a field a few miles outside Camelot.
Mordred was wrong. I did love him. Maybe it was too late to change fate, but I still loved him. My tears traced their way down my face through the dirt and dried blood. When they forded the streams of blood caused by the man in what seemed another lifetime they stung like little sparks of fire, but I almost welcomed the pain, for it was only a shadow of what I felt inside. I think at that moment I would have torn out my heart of it would have changed his fate, I loved him so much. Perhaps I always had and never known it. "Regardless," I told the raven with strangely human eyes, "I'm in love with a man with no soul."