Things are going to get a bit more supernatural (as if they aren't already) later in the story; I'm warning you now, but you don't have to worry about that for another fifty-six thousand chapters, so it's all good. :) Perhaps you readers who've read my other story, The Knight's Mare, remember the Archons...?
~9~ Silverblood
Baldwin Silverblood took the news of his son's death with barely a flicker of emotion. He simply nodded at the messenger, a man with shoulder length, white-blonde hair and black eyes like twin voids, and turned to face the assembly of his kin, or what remained of them.
"The time has come for us once more, brethren," Baldwin Silverblood announced, his thickly-accented voice carrying through the cavern of the abbey ruins with the force of a true leader. "Our greatest enemy, an enemy of thousands of years, has risen once more to plague this foreign land. Those of the mundane blood shall fight, but they will also lose. Our time has come again!"
The crowd cheered as Baldwin raised an arm, creating a deafening din that miraculously didn't bring the remains of the ancient stone building down around their ears. Those participating weren't many in number, no more than thirty, but their enthusiasm made up what they lacked in quantity.
"Cesare's death will not be in vain!" Baldwin bellowed over the noise. "We shall avenge your brother, avenge my son. Blood for blood! Life for life! The beast shall die, along with all of its kin, before their pestilence spreads and kills Albion. This I swear to you!" The roars of approval renewed, but calmed as their captain spoke again. "I only ask for your undying and unwavering loyalty, to your family, to your blood, to me! We must hold steady, together, if we are to withstand the onslaught of the beast, for if we falter, we will all fall. It is true, our kind has dwindled, and divided, and our blood has been diluted with those of lesser hearts, but we are the chosen ones! Chosen by the great Archons Larentia and Nocturn to protect the world from its demons and monsters. As our ancestral leader said one hundred years ago, We shall prevail, even if we are so surrounded with evil that the sun is blackened by their wings and the earth has drowned beneath their foul bodies. We shall prevail, because we are the chosen ones! We are the true Silverbloods!"
Baldwin bathed himself in the thunderous applause, pleased on how the abbey magnified the sound as though the run-down building was overflowing with his family. Then he stepped down from behind the alter and led his first lieutenant, Asmodius, off to a side room, to speak in private. The man waited expectantly yet expressionlessly for his leader to speak, his moon-white blonde hair a stark contrast to the dark stone of the walls.
"Tell me how Cesare died," said Baldwin, his deep voice cutting through the dwindling applause in the other room. His icy blue eyes held Asmodius's black ones, a gaze that would make any lesser man quake in distress.
Asmodius straightened his shoulders, and tried to put on a shuddering voice as he recounted the misadventure. Baldwin could hear the false sorrow, but couldn't care less.
"I watched your son as you asked, captain. He had done well in following your plan exactly, and the infected servant came to Gregory's Grove. Unfortunately, he wasn't strong enough to kill, and the servant overwhelmed and slaughtered him in moments. I've never seen such a man so easily succumb to the curse – perhaps he even encouraged it." A sneer befouled the man's otherwise handsome face. "What your son lacked in strength he made up with courage and intelligence – he told the werewolf nothing...important."
Baldwin nodded, not proud of his son but glad that he hadn't embarrassed the Silverblood reputation, one that would soon flourish once again. "And the body?"
"After I tried and failed to kill the beast, I had to flee, else it turned on me. But when I returned, I found Cesare's remains and buried them in the way of our kind." Asmodius bowed lightly. "I hope that pleases you, sir."
"That is just fine," the leader replied, not really paying attention to his left-hand man anymore. He took a deep breath, already forming new plans on how to bring an end to the disease that was the werewolf before it contaminated the world once more. "Perhaps I should have given you the Heart, just for a while. Tiberius still has it..."
"And, sir? There's one more thing."
"What?"
"The servant boy is a sorcerer. I could See his magic."
Baldwin hid his astonished reaction well. "Is he, now? Well, that makes him a high priority." His thoughts were hidden by a mask of deep consideration. Then, "How went the second operation?"
Now Asmodius looked more uncomfortable. "Sophia failed. The infected king lives."
Baldwin grunted. "Pity. It appears that cleaning up the Blackhands' mess is proving harder than initially anticipated. We must proceed to our second plan."
"And what is that, sir?"
A bobcat couldn't have bested Baldwin's grin. "If we cannot lure the wolves out from their den, then we must enter and catch them while they slumber."
Ͻ Ϫ Ͻ
Merlin finished the first pile of useless scrolls and moved onto the next, suppressing the yawn that crept up on him like a stalking cat. Gaius returned with a fresh set of candles and replaced the old ones, which sobbed ivory wax onto the polished archive table. As the physician sat down in his creaky, unyielding chair, Merlin stretched a kink in his neck, grunting as he did so.
"Is it dark yet?" he asked, then grimaced as his throat tugged painfully. He reached for his goblet but was disappointed to find it empty.
"It is," Gaius replied, not curious as to why the warlock wanted to know because he had already guessed at what he was up to.
"Can you hold the fort? I'll be a couple hours."
"Take all the time necessary." As Merlin got up to leave, Gaius turned in his chair and spoke just before the servant left the room. "And Merlin, watch yourself. I fear time is running out."
The warlock nodded grimly and departed, his heart heavier than it was a moment ago.
Out in the hall, the air was much cooler, but soothingly so. After so many hours of drowning in the musty, ancient air stirred up by the old tomes and scrolls, it was a refreshing reprieve. Merlin's step grew more hearty, for he didn't need a rusty library when he knew of a much older, living source of information, one that came with but a few words of summoning, even if he had no choice. But it wasn't just knowledge Merlin sought: he dearly wished to see his scaly friend Kilgharrah, for it had been nearly a month since they had last spoken.
Merlin had many questions to ask the age-old dragon, including how Aithusa fared and if he's satisfied with how the world had changed over the past quarter century, during which he had been trapped beneath Camelot by orders of the late King Uther. Merlin doubted much had altered, but he was happy for the dragon – a creature of the air should never be kept beneath the ground like a monster, to grow blind in the darkness and die never feeling the wind under-wing ever again.
Then the warlock's thoughts were rudely interrupted by a sudden stabbing pain in his belly. Breath catching in his throat, Merlin staggered into the wall, gasping as the agony gradually receded, fading like it had never been.
He waited for a few minutes, dreading the return of the pain, but it didn't, and he gingerly straightened and continued down the hall. His apprehension quickened his pace, and just as he reached the front doors of the Main Hall, he was wracked with a second flare of internal agony, in his chest this time. He grunted and keeled to the side, hitting his shoulder against a pillar.
The two guards by the door looked to him in confusion and concern, but did not move from their posts. Merlin retched emptily, holding his stomach, and the guards glanced at each other knowingly, figuring that the servant was just drunk.
Again, the pain ebbed away like the ocean tide, but Merlin was not appeased. He straightened and made to exit, but the guards barred the way with their halberds.
"It's best if you stay inside, son," the first said loudly. "Can't wander around like that, no you can't."
"I need...but I need to..." Merlin gasped as his chest tightened, as though a rope was slowly constricting around his midriff. "Out...I need to leave..."
The second guard rolled his eyes at the first and passed him his halberd. Then he made his way over to Merlin and threw his arm across his own shoulders in support. "Come on, son. I'll take you to Gaius."
"Get away from me," Merlin snarled, pulling away from the man's aid. Then he shot off down the hall, and before long, he lost the pursuing guard in the maze of corridors. The warlock knew the castle like the back of his hand, and he rerouted his path and took the shortest root to the armoury, which had a side room that led to a rather inconspicuous door into the siege tunnels.
His next fit left him writhing on the floor just before the armoury. He stifled his screams with his fist as what felt like a wolverine ravaged his stomach from the inside. The pain didn't vanish completely like before, but stayed like he had just eaten a small morsel of raw chicken and it was rebelliously disagreeing with him. He forced himself to stand and snatch a torch from a bracket on the wall. He took the little-known door and slipped down a set of dusty stairs, and from there, the labyrinth of siege tunnels below the citadel. If one knew them well enough, he could go anywhere quickly, even outside the city. Merlin had used them several times, including the couple of days he had harboured a Druid girl called Freya.
He had to shake away the sudden memories, not only because they made his heart ache with sorrow, but because they distracted him from his current crisis.
Out, out! Have to get out before—
He stumbled, screaming as a shattering pain ripped through his leg. Clutching at is uselessly, he pictured the bone breaking the skin, only to check to see that it looked normal. He waited in agony as two minutes passed and the pain showed no signs of letting up. Staggering to his feet, he pressed on, trying to ignore the white spots blooming before his eyes.
Where is it? Where is it...? There!
The final grate leading to the outside came into view, and he dropped his torch before slamming against it, his hands grasping at the bars. Let me out! He tugged and pushed helplessly at the metal, but then his heart seemed to burst and he blacked out.
Ͻ Ϫ Ͻ
Arthur retched again, spewing up the undigested contents of his dinner on the cold floor. Gwen tried to comfort him, but he could not hear her; he only heard the roar in his ears as agony tore through his spine once more, making him arch his back and fall on his side, struggling to withhold screams of utter torment.
He vaguely heard himself ordering at Gwen to leave, and vaguely noticed her stay behind anyway. Between bouts of pain, which lengthened every time, he lay there, panting like an overworked hound, shuddering in silence in an attempt to prevent the guards from being alerted. His goal was getting increasingly difficult to hold, for the attacks came at random, coming as a surprise even as he expected them.
Arthur shoved a fist into his mouth as the newest episode sprang unbidden in his stomach, like an entire hive of aggravated wasps had been jammed down his throat and into his belly. This one receded faster than others, and the king coughed up the blood that had collected in his mouth from biting his tongue. As he stared at the little ruby puddle on the hardwood, he had the sudden inclination to wipe it up with his sleeve, and then he fell face down to the floor, unconscious.
"Legends are a way of understanding things greater than ourselves. Forces that shape our lives, events that defy explanation. Individuals whose lives soar to the heavens or fall to the earth. This is how legends are born...The thing about legends is, sometimes, they're true." ~ Carter Slade (Ghost Rider)
