A/N- kk guys here's the next chapter, after this we get into some kinda dark days (oooo plot twists :)) and the plot will thicken. BTW- note to all KA writers LANCELOT'S EYES ARE NOT BLUE! (this is a SERIOUS pet peeve of mine)
Camille, still fuming at the disgusting roman stormed over to Lancelot, who was watching Arthur tramp over to a small dark building, being walled up. Lancelot looked at her curiously, noting the fury in her face but didn't ask. Instead he bumped his mount threateningly against a guard who refused to move for his leader. A sinister shriveled man boarding the door barred their way and moaned in a withered voice
"No one goes in here, it is forbidden!" They tore the door open anyways and traveled down into what appeared to be hell on earth, shock evident on their faces. Inside walled cells and hideous machines of torture corpses rested, stinking and rotting. A priest, in whose eyes burned the feverish glow of insanity, seized Lancelot by the arm and tried to stop him, crying
"how dare you set foot in this holy place!". Swiftly, the knight turned and drove his blade hard into the man's body, horribly enraged and reviled by the horrors their twisted minds had put to work. All swallowed bile at the smells that emanated from the bodies, broken and torn in their prisons. Camille made it all the way to the back where she released the door to the last prison. She cried out in dismay and her eyes rolled back in her head. Falling to her knees she wretched, vomiting on the floor. Lancelot rushed over to help but drew back, shocked. Within the last cage lay a woman, naked and horribly mutilated, facedown and dead, one arm reaching for a baby, just as mutilated, whose tiny head was fallen in and crusted with blood, as if crushed by the heel of a man's boot. Horrified he pulled her up and away from the gruesome cell over to Arthur, who carried a thin wasted girl, delirious and close to death in his arms. When they emerged back into the daylight Arthur bellowed for water to be brought to the girl and a young boy, rescued by Dagonet. Camille unable to repress the image of the mother, reaching in death for her tortured infant, tore from Lancelot's arms and vomited again on the ground huddled and wreathed in the newly falling snow.
Honorius stormed over raging at Arthur. When the commander stood, murder in his eyes, the lord turned his anger upon a more helpless target, striking, and knocking his wife, Fulcinia, to the ground. Unable to tolerate him any longer, Arthur launched his fist at the man's jaw, sending him flying then place excaliber at his throat. He would have killed him but one of the priests spoke up, voicing his wish to have
"died with them, to show them their rightful place with god" nearly speechless with fury, Arthur ordered their wish to be granted and a horde of angry surfs swarmed them, shoving them back inside their soon to be living tombs. On the ground the girl coughed, unable to take any further water. Arthur took her hand solemnly and promised her that no harm would come to her. To his credit, Horton had come with medical supplies for the little boy, whose arm was broken. Dagonet took them wordlessly and began to tend the little boy. When he shied away fearfully, he took him by the shoulder looked into his eyes and told him
"You must not fear me" his lower lip trembling, the boy decided to be brave and allowed the big man to tend to his wounds. On the side of the hut, Camille still knelt, head bowed, tears dripping off her nose. Lancelot came over to her and, disregarding the smell of the vomit and blood she reeked of, turned her face up to his gently
"What is it?" he asked softly, as a warrior he knew that a man could see a lifetime of gore and still be struck with horror at a particular sight. Before he had met her, he had always prided himself on his strong stomach. He had never wept for the comrades he'd lost, choosing to stuff away his grief or suffer in stoic silence. He now wondered, if it would be possible to do so were anything to happen to her. Because he knew her grief to be deeper than just horror at the gruesome sight, there was no pity in his eyes, only understanding and kindness. She swallowed and whispered brokenly
"Did you see her, Lancelot? They tortured her then tortured and crushed her baby in front of her. She died trying to reach it and hold it one more time." Some small part of him whispered the day he had met her, when he had wondered aloud whether she breathed and bled like a human. It appeared that not only did she live, breathe and bleed like a man, she felt the despair of a woman as well. He offered her his hand and helped her rise, pulling her into a hug. He felt her shoulders shudder and finally relax allowing her to breathe deeply and master her tears. He offered her her water canteen and she used it to bathe her hands and face. No longer smelling of blood and vomit, she followed him back to where Arthur and the others were, directing the people around them. When the family and the people had been assembled and packed, they rode off into the mountains; to facean uncertain fate.
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