The Fire of Merlin (The Return to Camelot #2)

  The Fire of Merlin

  Book Two in The Return to Camelot Trilogy

  Donna Hosie

  Acknowledgments

  For my beloved grandparents: Kathleen and Clifford Welch, and Catherine Molloy, because their names deserve to be immortalised too.

  To my Lady Knights of the Writing Table: Peggy Russell, Charlotte Evans and Kelly Bohrer Zemaitis. They read this first and made it better. I can’t thank you enough. Are you up for round three?

  To Donna Weaver, Suzie Forbes and Katherine Amabel. No writer ever had greater champions than the three of you. Thank you for all you did to get Searching for Arthur out to the masses. Now you have another quest…

  To Sir Mike Weinstein of Bandersnatch, who can slay an erroneous comma with his eyes shut, and who has gone far and beyond what any friend has the right to expect – or ask.

  And to those friends and writers who continue to follow my ramblings over at Musings of a Penniless Writer. Thank you for your support.

  Chapters

  Blasts from the Past

  Sir David Proves His Worth

  A Different Kind of Battle

  Trouble Underground

  Terror Visions

  The Beggar

  Don’t Call Me Natty

  The Cold Goodbye

  For Whom the Bell Tolls

  The Call of the Red Ddraig

  An Old Friend – and a New One

  The Burnings

  Voices in My Head

  Duke Corneus of Lindsey

  The Ghostly Battlement

  Seize the Witch

  A Gory End

  Fight Club

  The Magician’s Lair

  Speaking in Riddles

  Mucus and Mould

  Bedivere’s Hand

  Friendship is Love…

  Natasha’s Quest

  Dead and Alive

  Merlin Fights Back

  Camp Camelot

  Falling Down

  Battle of Mount Badon

  The Proposal

  Guinevere

  Chapter One

  Blasts from the Past

  I could hear Arthur’s breath behind me. The thick grass was bouncing underneath the soles of my black leather boots. The worn heel sank into the dirt as I struggled to stay ahead of my brother.

  But this race was mine to own.

  That pinprick of light was getting closer. I could still hear the distant tone of the bell, but it was starting to melt away with the wind chimes. The other four figures were now running from the trees; they were having their own race. My race was to Bedivere.

  It was real. He was here.

  I leapt up at him. Tightening my legs around his waist, the air was pushed out of my lungs as our bodies collided. In my world we had been parted for five horrible long months. I had so much time to grab back. Bedivere held onto me so tightly I couldn’t see where my body stopped and his began.

  “You found me,” I sobbed.

  “You…survived,” was all he could stammer in that voice I had never forgotten.

  And then his mouth was on mine and I wanted to own him in every way imaginable.

  Bedivere put me down on the ground. I stared at him. He stared at me. The chorus of angels in my head was quickly beaten to a pulp by my inner devil.

  Your hair is greasy, your skin is spotty, and did you get dressed in the dark? Get real, girl. He won’t stay. None of them will. This isn’t their time.

  “I don’t believe it,” gasped Arthur. He and the other knights had now joined me and Bedivere. “How did you get here? When did you get here?”

  The four other knights were smiling at one another. They looked relieved, satisfied. Tristram, the blonde curly-haired knight who was the same age as me; Gareth, plump-faced with friendly hazel eyes; Talan, the Irish knight who, at twenty years old, was the oldest of the five friends and who would rather sing than speak; and finally David, the youngest knight, who had been with me during the Solsbury Hill attack.

  Were our five friends now five strangers once more?

  Bedivere lowered his forehead against mine. He closed his eyes and whispered something that I couldn’t catch. I held my breath, waiting for his beautiful green eyes to open to me once more.

  This isn’t their time.

  His time is my time, I thought angrily. Don’t do this to me, not now.

  Finally the windows of his soul opened up to me, and I knew Bedivere really was mine again.

  “If I may, Sir Bedivere?” asked Gareth. Bedivere smiled and stepped aside. “Lady Natasha,” said Gareth, and he bent low in front of me and then gently kissed my hand. Tristram, Talan and David copied their friend and I giggled like a stupid idiot. Arthur rolled his eyes and I made a face at him. It was all right for him, Arthur was treated like a king by everyone. I was the freak, but these guys made me feel important and I liked it.

  “How did you get here?” asked Arthur again. “What are you doing here?” I was trying to gauge his reaction by the tone of his voice. Was Arthur pleased or wary about the sudden interruption to our time? I couldn’t tell, and it made me nervous.

  “It is a long tale, Arthur,” replied Bedivere, looking back at me. “Much has changed in the kingdom of Logres since you departed.”

  “I can’t believe you found me - found us.” I gazed into Bedivere’s face. Screw Arthur. Who cared why they were here? They were, and that was all that mattered.

  “

  I told you I would find you, even if I had to travel through the boughs of time itself. ” The tips of Bedivere’s fingers brushed my lips and chin. I could feel his warm breath on my face.

  “OY! There will be no more kissing my sister here,” called Arthur. “It makes me feel quite ill.”

  Bedivere immediately dropped his arms. “As you wish, sire.”

  “Oh, bite me, Arthur,” I snapped, and I grabbed Bedivere around the neck and pulled him towards me.

  I could kiss Bedivere for the rest of eternity and it still wouldn’t be long enough. Blood wound through my veins like the golden ink on the Round Table, reawakening everything that had become a living death.

  “Take care, Sir Bedivere,” said Sir Tristram. “Our king may yet remove your head and serve it to the hounds.”

  The laughter that followed wasn’t quiet. Even Arthur joined in, once Bedivere had pulled away from me and had sheepishly turned around to face his…king.

  Arthur was going to be impossible to live with now.

  The five knights, Arthur and I had formed an uneven circle. There were a thousand questions now storming through my head. How did they get here? Where was that deep ringing coming from? What had passed since Sir Archibald had taken his revenge in that cold chamber in Camelot? Was Bedivere going to leave me once more? Why did my head hurt so much?

  He’s only just arrived and already you’re thinking of him going. Could you be more needy and pathetic?

  Fantastic. Just when I thought my darkness had become too depressing even for my inner voice to cope with, it was back like a nasty smell.

  Speaking of which - or should that be witch?

  “What the hell are they doing here?”

  I felt Bedivere’s back stiffen as Slurpy caught up with me and Arthur. He swapped the briefest of glances with Tristram and the others, but all five knights nodded in some perverse kind of reverence as my brother wrapped his arm around Slurpy’s shoulders. Arthur seemed to relax, but Slurpy was glaring daggers at everyone, especially me, like I had somehow managed to summon them all here by simply wishing hard enough.

  “They shouldn’t be here,” screeched Slurpy. “They don’t belong in this time.” She turned to Arthu
r and pulled at his arm. “This is way too weird, babe. Tell them to go back where they came from.”

  “And you did not belong in our time, Lady Samantha, and yet you found a way,” retorted Tristram.

  “A black shadow has fallen over Logres, Arthur,” said Bedivere, “but this is a battle I fear we cannot win without your influence. You need to come home.”

  “Are the Saxons back?” I asked.

  Gareth shook his head, and I immediately regretted opening my mouth. Deep in the well of my own misery for the past few months, I had forgotten that Gareth’s brother, Gaheris, had been killed in the battle for Camelot, shortly after we had rescued Arthur from its dungeons.

  “I’m sorry, Gareth,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to…”

  Gareth raised his hand and smiled kindly. “You will never have a reason to account for your words in my presence, Lady Natasha. It warms our hearts to see you looking so well.”

  “Indeed,” whispered Bedivere.

  “Getting back on track,” said Arthur sternly, giving me one of his big brother death-ray stares, that made him look like he had a hernia about to pop, “Bedivere, what do you mean by a black shadow?”

  “The shadow that Sir Bedivere speaks of is an unnatural darkness of the sky, Arthur,” said Tristram. “Day and night, the shadow now infects the living. It is the lingering shadow of fear, of a power more dangerous than any living foe.”

  Slurpy was muttering under her breath. She took out a packet of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, and lit the end of one with a quick flick of her fingers. If I hadn’t seen her pocket the red lighter, I would have sworn she had done it through magic.

  “Fire at her fingertips once more,” murmured Tristram.

  “Blue fire,” I added quietly.

  A growl came from Arthur’s chest, but because he was glaring at me, he couldn’t see that beside him, Slurpy was smirking.

  “We have much to tell you, Arthur,” said Bedivere, tightening his hold on me, “and your counsel is required. Is there somewhere we can find drink and food? Sir David cannot last long without either.”

  Gareth and Talan roared with laughter as Tristram ruffled the long hair of David, who looked as if he had grown at least a foot since I had last seen him.

  “How are you, David?” I asked.

  “Sir David is in love,” said Tristram with a snigger, as Bedivere, Gareth and Talan continued to laugh. David’s pale face flushed with a blotchy pink rash, which spread from his eyes all the way down to his exposed neck.

  “Leave him alone,” I said, feeling a rush of sisterly affection for the youngest knight. At fifteen, David was the same age as our little brother Patrick – had he lived.

  “We jest only, Lady Natasha,” replied Talan in his thick Irish accent. “Sir David is lucky to have found the welcoming charms of a lady at such a young age. Some of us are not so blessed. Isn’t that a knight’s woe, Sir Tristram?”

  “I have no desire or want of a wife,” replied Tristram. “My heart belongs to the court of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, and my liege alone.”

  I remembered the book on Arthurian legends that was tucked into the front pocket of my striped hoodie. Tristram’s love life had been mentioned in great detail, far more than any heroics against wicked knights with a habit for decapitation. I decided to stay quiet. Tristram and I were not yet friendly enough for gossip.

  “Arthuuuurrrrrr,” whined Slurpy; she actually stamped her foot. “Make them go back to whatever space dimension they came from. I don’t like this. I’m scared.”

  “How did you all get here?” asked Arthur for the third time. “The tunnel that Titch and I went through last year collapsed.”

  “Sir Bedivere had a vision,” replied Gareth, smiling at his friend.

  “From Nimue?” I asked.

  “Not the Lady of the Lake, no,” answered Bedivere. “This vision was from another enchanter, someone as powerful as Nimue, but someone who was long thought to have been gone from Arthur’s lands.”

  “Merlin.”

  The name came from my mouth, but in my head the voice that uttered it was deep and old. An image struck me like lightning. I felt my knees buckle, as a painful flash of brilliant white knocked me to the floor. For the briefest of seconds, I was no longer in the middle of a field in Winchester. Time dissolved as the landscape changed. I was under water, suffocating as my breath left me. I could hear laughter, and a woman’s voice that was musical. My head snapped back, and above me, I saw the rippling reflections of large green objects. Something small was moving very quickly. Then a piercing scream of anger, and the image shattered into white-hot fragments.

  “Titch…Titch…”

  “Natasha, come back to me.”

  “Attention-seeking freak.”

  My head and nose were throbbing, like I had been punched several times in the head. I actually checked for blood, and yet my eyesight was more defined and crystal clear than ever. I could see the veins of the leaves, and the rainbow reflections on the tips of the damp grass.

  “What did you see, my love?” asked Bedivere urgently, as he lifted me to my feet.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied, “but I think I was under water because everything was distorted.”

  “She had a vision?” questioned Talan. “Lady Natasha, do you have the Sight? Has this befallen you before?”

  I shook my head, aware that Arthur and Slurpy were now arguing about something. As I moved, I registered the heat coming from the back pocket of my jeans.

  Slipping my hand in, I pulled out the acorn that had been my one tenuous link to the land of Logres and Bedivere. I had picked it up after speaking with Nimue at the Falls of Merlin; the day after Mordred, the druids of Gore and Slurpy Morgana had used me for magical punchbag practice.

  The acorn looked the same: as green as an apple in a little brown crusty cup, but now it radiated with an invisible flame, which meant I had to roll it around my hand to stop it from burning my skin.

  “Pray, where did you find such a seed?” asked Gareth quietly. His fingers hovered above the acorn, but he appeared too afraid to touch it.

  “A squirrel dropped it by the Falls of Merlin. I don’t know why I picked it up,” I replied quietly, thinking back to the bushy-faced creature that had come so close to me by the waterfall. “It was in the pocket of my tunic, and so it travelled back through the Vale of Avalon with me. This acorn was the only thing I had left to remind me it had all been real.”

  I couldn’t look at Bedivere because I didn’t want him to see me cry. I really didn’t want to get all snotty and silly, but there are times when tears have a stubborn will of their own.

  We were going back to Logres, and the voice in my head was whispering that not all of us would be returning.

  Chapter Two

  Sir David Proves His Worth

  My legs were wobbly, and the inside of my head ached with cold. It was just like getting a massive brain freeze from eating too much ice-cream too quickly. With Bedivere supporting my right side, and Gareth supporting my left, we started to move away from the copse of trees and back towards the stands.

  Another groan rose from the watching spectators. Both riders in the joust had fallen, and judging by the furious yells coming from David, the two pretend knights hadn’t managed to hit anything except dirt.

  “What foolishness is this?” cried David. “The steeds can smell their fear, as well as their cheap ale; they are rank with it. A mount will not ride true and straight under such witless wonders.”

  “Then show the pretenders how it is done, Sir David,” suggested Talan. “Show them that it takes years of falling at the quintain to master such a skill.”

  “Why, I think I will, Sir Talan,” replied David, puffing out his chest.

  “This will be a sight for sure,” muttered Bedivere, but he was smiling.

  “Sir David, you will require armour,” called Gareth, but David was no longer listening. His long legs were striding across the grass
to where the horses were impatiently stamping at the ground.

  “Won’t he get hurt without armour?”

  “Sir David is the most masterful jouster I have ever seen,” replied Tristram proudly. “The braggarts of your time will be slain into the mud like fools.”

  Clenching my front teeth into a grimace, I looked at Arthur and saw the same worried look mirrored back at me. The braggarts of our time were just men with nothing better to do on a cold February afternoon than dress up in medieval costumes and act like heroes. They were absolutely harmless.

  And they were all going to end up in hospital if we weren’t careful.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea, Bedivere,” I said, as we watched David handle a horse, which immediately started to nuzzle against his head.

  “Sir David has borne many blows, Natasha,” replied Bedivere. “Even without armour, he will show no cowardice.”

  “It isn’t David we’re worried about,” muttered Arthur.

  A pretty girl, with a short pixie-style haircut and a clipboard, was talking to David. She seemed quite overcome when he bowed to her, and she soon forgot that she was supposed to be writing, and instead started giggling and swinging her hips in front of him.

  “And yet another maiden smote down with love,” said Talan.

  “I’ll find you a girl, Talan,” said Arthur, slapping him on the back. “I know hundreds.”

  “I’ll find Talan a girlfriend,” I said back. “There’s no telling what kind of skank he’ll end up with if you help him.”

  “What about the princess, Lady Gaga?” suggested Talan hopefully. “I long to be matched to a maiden with a love of song.”

  “Not sure she’s your type, mate,” replied Arthur, and he winked at me. I laughed and then wobbled, as tiny black stars swam in front of my eyes. Both Bedivere and Gareth tightened their hold on me.

  “Sir Gareth, will you be able to support Natasha?” asked Bedivere. “I must take counsel with Arthur – alone.”