Bors objected, “But, my lord, you shouldn’t engage yourself with a stranger. He might be an assassin, sent to kill you!”
Arthur laughed aloud. He had no fear of an assassin. He did not know that I had murdered men in other eras, at
Aten’s behest.
A squire, not much younger than Arthur himself, trudged up and handed him his helmet and a shield with a blood-red dragon painted on it. I drew my own sword, heard its steel tongue hiss as it came out into the sunlight. My fingers tightened on its leather-wrapped hilt.
“Where is your helmet, friend, your shield?” Arthur asked as he stood before me. His iron helmet covered his
cheeks and had a nosepiece shaped like an upside-down cross.
“I won’t need them,” I said.
His smile turned down a little. “Pride goes before a fall, Sarmatian.”
“Then I will fall,” I replied.
Arthur shrugged, then put his shield up and advanced toward me, sword cocked in his right hand.
My senses went into overdrive, as they always do when I face battle. The world around me seemed to slow
down, as if everything was happening in a dream. I could see Arthur’s gold-flecked amber eyes blinking slowly over the rim of his shield. And Sir Bors stepping sideways to keep at my side. His sword was still in his hand, ready to strike me down if I endangered Arthur. I thought he was more worried that Arthur did not have the skill or experience to face a true fighting man than fearful that I was
an assassin.
Arthur swung at me in lethargic slow motion, a powerful overhand cut that would have sliced me down to the navel if I hadn’t danced lightly out of harm’s way. He grunted, frowned, and advanced upon me in sluggish slow motion.
I feinted once to the left, then slashed at his shield, splitting it in two with a loud cracking sound. My blade would have taken Arthur’s arm off if I hadn’t
pulled back in time.
Arthur’s eyes went wide with surprise. After only a moment’s hesitation, he tossed away the broken shield and came at me again. He smashed another mighty overhand slash at me. I parried it easily and his blade shattered into several pieces with a brittle snap.
“Hold!” Bors shouted, sticking his sword between us.
I stepped back.
If Arthur had feared that I would kill him
he gave no sign of it. Instead, he tossed away the broken stub of his sword and then reached out for mine.
“That’s a fine piece of steel,” he said admiringly as I handed the sword to him.
Without thinking of why, I answered, “I know where you can get one that’s even better, my lord.”
2
It took hours of arguing and cajoling, but at last Arthur and I set out for the distant lake in search of
the sword I promised him. Sir Bors and the other knights were dead set against the king’s nephew traveling alone with a stranger from a distant land. Bors complained that the fort might be attacked by Saxon raiders at any time, and Arthur’s place was where his uncle had put him. But wizened old Merlin was on my side.
“The Sarmatian brings good fortune to Arthur,” the old wizard said, stroking
his long white beard as he spoke. The beard was knotted and filthy, his homespun robe even dirtier, but all the knights and squires stared at him with wide-eyed awe. They would not step closer than five paces to him; Merlin walked through the little fort’s dung-dotted courtyard as if protected by a magical aura.
In truth, I saw a burning intelligence in the old man’s narrowed eyes, a keen awareness
that belied his wrinkled, ragged appearance. Beneath those shaggy gray brows his eyes were shrewd, sharp, penetrating. Was he one of the Creators in disguise?
To satisfy the suspicious knights, Merlin cast a spell to protect Arthur, nothing but hand-waving and muttering as far as I could see. But it seemed to satisfy Sir Bors and the others, at least enough to allow their young leader to leave
the fort with me and no one else.
For two days we rode, and I got to know Arthur a little. He was burning for fame and glory. His highest hope was to one day be named Dux Bellorum: battle leader of his uncle’s forces.
Yet, like many an untried youth, he doubted his own abilities.
“I can see it in the faces of Bors and the others,” he told me as we camped for the night in a dark, dank forest.
The huge, broad-boled trees grew so thickly that much of the day we had been forced to lead our horses afoot. “They would never follow someone so young.”
“They will, my lord,” I said, “once you prove yourself in battle.”
He shook his head mournfully. “The curse of the Britons, friend Orion, is that they will not follow anyone for long.”
“They will follow you, my lord. I’m sure of it.”
In the
darkness of the forest night I heard him make a sound that might have been a sigh. “No, Orion. Look at us! Ambrosius calls himself high king, but who follows him? A handful, that’s all. You travel for two days in any direction and you pass through two or three different kingdoms. We have kings every few miles, each of them jealous of all the others.”
“No wonder the Saxons can raid and plunder
as they wish.”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “Our people shatter like the sword I used against you. One blow and they break.”
He was silent for a moment. Then, “But if I
could
bring all the Britons together, unite all these petty kingdoms…”
“You could clear the land of the barbarian invaders,” I finished his thought.
This time he sighed unmistakably. “It’s a pretty dream, Orion. But only a dream.”
The ambition was there. He had the dream. But he needed the courage to make it come true. I could sense that he was longing for the daring, the tenacity, the strength to become the true leader of all the Britons.
Again Arthur fell silent, this time for many moments. At length, he spoke up again.
“That sword of yours,” he said, changing the subject because it was too painful for him to continue,
“a sword such as that is a rare treasure, Orion. A man would travel to the ends of the earth to get such fine steel for himself.”
Like so much else, the art of steel had been lost when the Romans departed. In centuries to come the Celts would learn the art of fine steel-making, but that time was far in the future of these dark years.
“You could have taken my sword from me,” I said.
He laughed
softly as he lay in his blankets. “I’d have to kill you for it, I wager.”
Lying on the ground a few feet from him, with the dying embers of our tiny fire between us, I replied, “Not so, my lord; I would give it to you willingly.”
It was too dark to see the expression on his face. The night wind keened above us like an evil spirit, cold and harsh, setting the trees to moaning.
“No,” Arthur said
at last. “If I am meant to drive the Saxons out of our island, I will not do it with another man’s steel. I must have my own. Merlin prophesied that I would, when I was just a lad.”
He was hardly more than a lad now, yet this young man wanted to drive off the Saxons and other barbarians who had seized most of the coast of what would one day be England.
3
I dreamed that night, but it was not
a dream.
I found myself in an emptiness, a broad featureless plain without hill or tree or even a horizon: nothing but an endless flat plain covered with a softly billowing golden mist stretching out in every direction to infinity.
Vaguely, I remembered being there before, in other lives, other eras. And, just as I expected, I saw a tiny golden glow far off in the distance, like a candle’s warm
beckoning light, but steady, constant, without a flicker.
I began to walk toward it. I was clad as I had been when awake, in a simple tunic and chain mail. But my sword was gone. Except for the little dagger that Odysseos had given me during our siege of Troy, I was unarmed.
Something drew me to that beacon of light. Despite myself, I began to run toward it. Faster and faster I raced, legs churning
through the ground mist, arms pumping, my lungs sucking in air. After what seemed like hours I was gasping, my throat raw, my legs aching from exertion. But I could not stop. I wanted to rest, but I was unable to stop. I was drawn to the light, like an insect obeying an inbuilt command.
The tiny distant glow became a golden sphere, a miniature sun, so bright and hot that I could not look directly
at it. I raised my arms to shield my eyes from its glare, yet still I ran, racing toward it as if it were an oasis in a world-covering desert, a magnet pulling me with irresistible force.
At last I could run no more. Soaked with sweat, exhausted, panting as if my lungs would burst, I collapsed onto the strangely yielding ground, still blanketed with the perfumed golden mist.
“Are you tired,
Orion?” a mocking voice asked. I knew who it was: Aten, the Golden One. My Creator.
The blazing bright golden sphere slowly dissolved to reveal him. He stood over me, strong and handsome: thick golden mane of hair, eyes tawny as a lion’s, perfectly proportioned body encased in a formfitting suit of golden mail.
He sneered down at me. “What is this madness you are engaged in, Orion? Where are
you leading that young pup?”
I blinked up at him. His radiance was so brilliant it made my eyes water. “I thought you wanted me to—”
Angrily, Aten snapped, “You are not supposed to think, creature! Your purpose is to do what I instruct you to do. Nothing more. And nothing less.”
“But Arthur needs—”
“I will decide what Arthur needs, not you!” Aten snarled. “I want you to help him win a few
battles, not take him on a foolish excursion through such dangerous territory.”
I bowed my head, my eyes burning at the radiance streaming from him.
“Arthur’s only purpose is to resist the Angles and Saxons well enough to force them to unite against the Britons. Then they will drive the Celtic oafs into the western sea and take the island for themselves.”
“But what will happen to Arthur?”
“He will be killed.”
“No!”
Aten’s voice hardened. “All men die, Orion. Only my own creatures, such as yourself, are revived to serve me again.”
“But Arthur…”
“He could make a nuisance of himself,” Aten said. “He could become too powerful. For the time being, I allow him to live. But that time will end soon enough.”
“And then?”
“Then the Angles and Saxons and other barbarian tribes will create
a mighty empire, Orion. An empire that spans the globe and begins to reach out into space.”
“But can’t Arthur be permitted—”
“Stop pleading for him, Orion! Obey my commands. That is your destiny. Arthur’s destiny is death and obscurity.”
I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him that I would not obey his commands, that I would help Arthur and save him.
But suddenly I was sitting on
the ground at our forest camp again, soaked with sweat, breathing heavily. The first milky light of the coming dawn was just starting to filter through the tall trees. Arthur slept across the ashes of our dead campfire from me, as blissfully as a man without a care in the universe.
Should I turn back to Amesbury fort? Abandon this quest for a sword for young Arthur?
His eyes snapped open, bright
and clear as the finest amber. He was awake instantly.
“How far are we from my sword, Orion?” he asked as he sat up, all youthful eagerness.
“Not far, my lord,” I replied. “We will reach the lake today.”
I couldn’t turn back now. I couldn’t disappoint Arthur. He trusted me, and I would not betray him, not even for Aten and all his haughty demands.
Yet I should have known that Aten would not
willingly allow us to reach our goal.
4
The forest was like a maze of giant trees, their boles as massive as the pillars of a mighty cathedral, their thick leafy canopy so high above us that it was like a dark green roof that blotted out the sun. We had to walk our horses most of the morning, picking through the sturdy trees while birds whistled far overhead and tiny furred creatures chattered
at us.
The ground sloped gradually downhill. We were nearing the lake, I realized, although how I knew about the lake and its location was beyond me. Something in my mind told me that we would find the sword for Arthur there; but just how and why—I had no idea.
The forest thinned out as we led the horses, but the underbrush became thicker between the trees. I saw a clearing up ahead, strong
morning sunlight slanting through it, and smelled smoke. It was rising from a tiny thatched farmhouse.
Too much smoke. The farmhouse was afire.
“Saxons!” Arthur whispered, dropping to one knee as we peered through the underbrush at the scene in the clearing. I crouched down beside him.
A dozen men in long blond braids and steel-studded leather jerkins were laughing and whooping as two of their
compatriots dragged a pair of screaming, struggling teenaged girls across the clearing toward them. A trio of bodies lay in their own blood before the burning farmhouse door: husband, wife, and baby.
Arthur stared, barely breathing.
“We’ve got to stop them,” I whispered.
“Two against fourteen?”
“They’ll murder those girls when they’ve finished with them.”
Arthur wet his lips and shook his
head. “Too many of them, Orion. It’s useless.”
He was no fool. Young he may be, but Arthur was not rash. He was loath to charge in against hopeless odds.
“Perhaps we can at least divert their attention,” I whispered hastily, “long enough for the girls to get away.”
Without waiting for his reply, I pushed through the screening foliage and stepped out into the clearing, keeping my sword in its
scabbard upon my back. Although the Saxons’ attention was centered on the struggling, pleading girls, one of them noticed me approaching and pointed toward me.
“What clan are you?” I called out in the Saxon tongue. It never occurred to me to wonder how I knew their language. Aten built such knowledge into me.
“Who are you?” demanded the biggest of the barbarians. They were armed with axes and
short stabbing swords, I saw. A few steel-tipped spears lay on the ground at their feet.