1. Chapter 1 (1/2)

mountain time.

~*~

time in the

village ran different than the rest of the world, but lancelot had

grown accustomed to that. three years and counting he had spent

here, laboring in the smithy guinevere had designed and the lady had

built to turn good mountain ore into fine steel and iron. over time

his body had mostly given up on its old insistence of rising with the

sun. his days had long since ceased to be ruled by the sun, and

instead he had learned to work metal accompanied by the flickering

reds of firelight and the smoky greens of witchlight.

this was his

life, now. lancelot had once, very

iefly, been a knight of

camelot, had fought against prince arthur himself in the

ight

sunlight of the courtyard. now he was a blacksmith of the mountain,

and his life was measured by sunsets instead of sunrises.

grigor came to

wake him when his watch ended in late afternoon, thoughtfully handing

him a sausage roll before wandering home for a few hours more of

sleep. lancelot went to the cooking fires, burning low to embers

during the quiet of day when everyone was sleeping, and found alun

pouring a fresh

ew of tea, hunched and slow in the merciless beam

of sunlight.

"how did you

get last watch, you lucky bastard?" lancelot mumbled, as he grabbed

a cup for himself. "and for the third time in a row, no less."

alun grinned into

his plate. "headwoman likes me."

"hmmph."

lancelot finished off the last few bites of his sausage roll and

stood, cup in hand. "she'll like you a lot less if she finds out

hafren's been visiting you on watch."

"then maybe no

one should tell her," alun said, and this time the mossy

expanse of his teeth bared in a smile was a lot less friendly and a

lot more pointed.

"you're

supposed to watch," lancelot reminded him, and went back to

his smithy. gwen's smithy; he just worked in it.

he spent an hour

or so on his swordplay, not willing to light the fires and start the

bellows before the rest of the village was awake, but after a while

he heard the others stirring and put away his sword,

eathing hard

and sweating lightly. he hadn't had to take up arms in true battle

for over three years, in a true fight to defend the village his own

poor skills would be as next to nothing compared to the least of the

mountain children that lived here, but still he practiced with his

sword every day. just in case.

he'd just

started working on his latest piece, a pair of giant iron hinges

commissioned by the mercian king himself, when he heard the alarm

bell ring. he waited, with baited

eath, for the second toll that

would mean emergency, but none came.

"riders were

spotted at the edge of the woods," said

enin, the headman, when

lancelot found him conferring with alun near the watch station at the

edge of the village proper. "luckily my daughter did not distract

our guard so thoroughly that he did not notice."

that was the end

of last watch for alun, lancelot thought ruefully. looking at the

young man's carefully rebellious face, though, lancelot rather

thought that alun might not care. if all went well, the lady would

be overseeing a handfasting before the year was out.

maybe gwen could

make it up in time for midwinter, lancelot found himself thinking

wistfully, then forced his attention back to the matter at hand.

"so they're

past the first warding," lancelot said. "that's not good."

enin nodded,

worry writ large across the rocklike planes of his craggy face.

"they should have turned aside before they even reached the forest.

the wards are failing us."

lancelot sighed

and hooked his thumbs through his

oad leather belt. "the lady

warned us that this might happen," he said. "the wards were

never designed to keep out someone that already knew we were here.

especially not today, of all days."

enin' eyes

flashed black with distress, visible even in the dim light afforded

by the slowly setting sun. "it would be today that we get

visitors. it's our weakest day and she is gone. just when

is she supposed to be getting back?"

"you know as

well as i do that midsummer was the only day she could." but in

truth lancelot had nothing more to offer in answer than a shrug. he

had long ago learned not to expect definitive answers out of life, as

he had long ago ceased to get any, especially where the lady was

concerned. "she'll be here before the meal is ready, my friend,

of that i am sure. the sooner you stoke the cooking fires, the

sooner she will be here."

enin laughed,

almost against his will, and his shoulders went down as some of the

stress eased away. "when you are right, you are right. ah, well."

he sighed, deeply. "we will call the village together, in case

the lady is running late."

lancelot grinned

at him. "that would probably be best."

so it was that

lancelot was standing in the village square with

enin and a dozen

of the village's strongest men, all armed with the finest mountain

steel, when a dozen horsemen swept into the village, clad in

pendragon red.

arthur was

immediately recognizable, all shining silver armor and gleaming gold

hair, the first horse in the spearhead of mounted warriors. and

behind him, sidesaddle on a fine white mare, wearing a fine lady's

gown, was gwen, his guinevere. lancelot's throat went tight.

arthur pulled his

horse to an a

upt halt a safe distance away from the villagers, as

the stallion sidled nervously and blew air out of its nostrils at the

scent of the villagers. arthur shifted in his seat and lancelot saw,

for the first time, the pendragon seal on his chest, the same

medallion that uther was said to have warn since the day of his

coronation. arthur was wearing the seal of the albion king.

"where is she,"

arthur said flatly, and he didn't even bother to shout. he didn't

have to; his voice eddied and echoed around the tight confines of the

village square, as if even wellspring magic itself recognized and

feared this man. as if the very air did so.

"king,"

lancelot acknowledged. he left off the traditional possessive at the

beginning; he would not say my king because he did not belong

to arthur any more than arthur belonged to him. "i'm afraid

you've come too late. she isn't here."

for a moment

lancelot was afraid that arthur was going to set his charger forward

and simply trample him, and the gods only knew how

enin and his men

would react to that, but then arthur a

uptly swung his leg

over the saddle and slid to the ground with the same boneless grace

he displayed in battle. out of the corner of his eye, lancelot was

watching gwen's tight, strained face, and the way she flinched hard

at the jarring thump of arthur's boots into the soft earth.

arthur put one

hand on the hilt of his sword, not as if he intended to draw it but

just as if he needed the comfort of having it under his hand, and

stalked forward. behind him, lancelot heard

enin growl, an inhuman

subvocal that lancelot had once seen drive away an entire pack of

wolves with the sound alone, but arthur didn't even look at him,

just continued inexorably forward until he was close enough for

lancelot to feel the king's

eath on his face.

"where. is.

she."

"sire i told