Chapter 1, Camlann
Overhead, the mass of spitting, hissing, and then a writhing of flame. Not just the head of a dragon now; Arthur did not look upon just his own namesake, but a whole beast.
Lancelot paused in his self defence, pushed back as he had been towards the hedgerows, Caerloyw deep below them all as the Sais fought for power and dominance and the Britons fought for their very existence against Morgana.
"Watch! Keep watching!" he demanded of Eluned, who had stopped in her own defence to watch Arthur as he led the charge. "Take your eyes away from the king; look to your own salvation, not his!"
Eluned turned and yelled back to her brother, perspiration coating her forehead as she ducked another blow as another came to the man she loved. "Heed your own words!"
And to herself, unsaid, unsayable, were those in her heart: "I love him, Lancelot," was what she wanted to declare. But she could not. Not that Lancelot needed Eluned to tell him; he had known before she did.
How had it come to this? Eluned, poor foundling, washed up on the banks of the river, adopted against the wishes of the elders, had learned swordcraft from Lancelot before he had left for Camelot.
'Disown her! Expel her from the village!" had come the cry. But the farmer and his wife who had kept her alive, had taken her in, had raised Eluned, had refused.
'No good will come of keeping a Saxon foundling!" This scornful plea to see reason had too been ignored, and Eluned had picked up Lancelot's sword one day to fend off an attack from two sons of the elders, liking the feel in her hands, the power of defence.
Not that she could raise it; Lancelot had been angry that she had blunted the point by dragging it in the dirt.
Eluned was not dragging her sword now: now she was holding her own against people beside whom she had grown up, Britons, those who would not put aside the old ways.
A swift wheel to her left, and she caught her brother's shield, shocking him into moving. Had he not, Lancelot would have been short of his right arm.
He glared at Eluned, then carried on his attack, giving her a brief nod of thanks.
Because she shouldn't have been here. Her mother - her real mother, had found her, tracked her down after years of searching and never giving up hope.
Had told her, just before she died, after years of wandering in search of Eluned. Who had been cast aside in her swaddlings by her very own father.
Which made Eluned Sais - a Saxon - and, as such, a stealer of land and rustler of livestock.
But Eluned had rejected that label and had instead, after her mother had been buried, left her step parents bereft by going off in search of Lancelot, to Camelot.
To be beside the one person who had loved her unconditionally since she was found.
He had not been there. But Eluned knew he would return. For Camelot, for Lancelot, was seared marrow-deep.
And she had found work. Not much at first, but as a stablehand, as a servant. Eluned had turned herself for safety into himself: Aled, working his way up in the household guard of Camelot itself. And into the sphere of the king to be.
Arthur Pendragon.
Eluned - Aled - had done things that never should have been done, and developed feelings for the man who was to be king that she never thought possible to be felt.
And now, with the odds against them, Eluned was standing inches from him, wishing with all her heart she had had the courage to approach him and confess to him that she felt -
- Mordred!
Was it true? Could it really be him, who Eluned had defeated, come back from the dead? To take his revenge on Arthur?
Eluned turned, as Lancelot stepped beside her. Had she not the battle-mantle about her emotions she might appreciate more what her big brother had done - had been doing since the start of the battle, high up on the ground overlooking the river Hafren - covering Eluned, anticipating that she would turn to Arthur.
She struck. Blade swift, the stroke light. and fast, Eluned's sword should have delivered a fatal blow.
But Mordred simply stalked away unharmed.
Then the world changed texture, the air grew thicker. She reached out to Arthur, throwing her right arm between him and his killer -
- and then -
- and then -
- one way of life stopped and another started. Arthur wrapped a hand around Eluned's forearm, pulling her out of the way…enveloped her in his own self…
…as lightning and thunder teemed from the sky, and a dragon changed the fate of the world…