Galahad’s charger kicked up clods of torn turf as he hauled his horse hard to the left, putting his stallion’s flank directly into the path of Mordred’s surging mount.
“Pull up, damn it!” Galahad roared, his gauntleted hand lunging across the gap to seize Mordred’s leather reins, straining his shoulder as he yanked both horses into a skidding, dust-choked halt fifty yards short of the eastern gatehouse.
“Look at the parapets!
You’re riding straight into a kill-box!”
Mordred swung her helmeted head around, red lightning still crackling faintly along the joints of her vambraces as her stallion snorted, its hooves pawing the dirt.
Above them, three dozen longbowmen lined the granite battlements of Bristol, their iron-tipped arrows drawn to the ear and tracking the two knights below.
It was the sort of hospitality one expected when riding uninvited up to a rebel drawbridge.
“Tsk,” Mordred spat inside her iron chin-guard, her thumb reluctantly letting her broadsword drop back into its scabbard notch with a heavy metallic click.
“Cowards.”
“We wait,” Galahad ordered through gritted teeth, wheeling his horse around to force hers back toward the safety of the tree line three bowshots behind them.
“The grey stone ramparts of Bristol have stood for generations.
We do not throw lives away on a fortress wall before the King’s main body arrives.”
The low ramparts of Bristol sat along the riverbank.
For three centuries, local barons had dragged river granite to this bloody stretch of water, stacking stone on stone until the place resembled less a castle and more a stubborn iron jaw set against its own king.
It was built by men who fully expected to be besieged by their neighbors, and now, under the banners of a handful of rebel knights, every parapet bristled with longbows and pikes.
Galahad pulled up at the edge of the woods.
He sat motionless in his saddle, his white shield resting steady against his knee while his reins were held short in his gauntleted left hand, his eyes measuring the deep ditch running beneath the main gate while the wind off the Avon river snapped against his coat.
Beside him, Mordred’s charger stamped its heavy hoof into the mud, sending a spray of wet silt across the grass.
The red-and-gold horsecloth twitched with every jerk of the stallion’s head as Mordred’s gauntleted fingers tightened around her leather reins, the steel knuckles making a dry, grating sound against the hide.
“Wait for what?” Mordred muttered through the dark slits of her helmet.
“We’ve got three hundred spears at our back right now.
One hard charge at that timber outer gate and we’re inside before those idiots on the wall can untie their drawbridge ropes.”
“And take fifty arrows through the throat while we squeeze through a ten-foot choke point?” Galahad didn’t turn his head.
His visor remained locked on the iron portcullis ahead.
“That isn’t tactics.
That’s suicide.
We wait for the King.”
By mid-afternoon, the sun had tilted far past its crest, casting long shadows across the valley grass as the main royal host rolled out of the treeline in three dense columns of steel and ash-wood spears.
Over two thousand men-at-arms, horsemen, and supply wagons filled the fields, the heavy thrum of thousands of boots shaking the damp ground until the air smelled of trampled rye and wet wool.
At the head of the royal banner rode King Arthur, mounted high upon the massive white frame of Dun Stallion.
Arthur had spent the morning reading dispatches that confirmed what the masquerade had already suggested.
The three red fish crest appeared on two separate merchant ledgers from the river port.
The missing silver shipments matched the exact dates of the western horse purchases.
Even the supposed sudden illness of Bristol’s earl had conveniently kept him away from court while his household prepared for war.
Rebellion, as Arthur was rapidly learning, was rarely an act of sudden passion; it was usually a matter of very quiet, very thorough bookkeeping.
None of it was enough for a formal court execution—not yet.
But it was more than enough to explain why a fortress loyal to Camelot had opened its gates to rebels before the royal army even arrived.
Bristol had not fallen into rebellion overnight.
Someone had been preparing it for months.
Inside the command tent pitched in a clearing just beyond bowshot, a rough pine table had been dragged onto the damp grass, covered by an ink map of Bristol’s fortifications weighted down at the corners by four heavy iron horseshoes.
Bedivere stood beside the map, one gloved finger resting near the river roads leading into Bristol.
“The timing is deliberate,” he said quietly.
“The missing silver, the horse purchases, the private meetings.
Whoever organized this wanted the appearance of a local dispute before revealing an armed uprising.”
Gawain frowned, his usual light humor gone.
“And they chose Bristol because they knew the response would be difficult.
Too important to ignore.
Too heavily fortified to take quickly.”
Arthur nodded once.
“Exactly.” Her pale finger moved across the parchment, stopping at the fortress walls.
“They wanted us angry.
They wanted us to charge the gates and bleed against our own people.” Her eyes shifted briefly toward Mordred.
“And they almost succeeded.”
Mordred’s helmet turned slightly.
She’s talking about me.
Obviously.
“What is there to discuss!” Mordred slammed her gauntleted fist flat onto the table, making the map jump and the iron horseshoes ring like small anvils.
“We burst straight through them!
Talk is useless against trash who draw steel against their own realm!
You think a bunch of traitorous cowards are going to open the gate because we asked nicely?”
Gawain leaned against one of the rear tent poles, his arms folded across his chest armor, watching Mordred with a mixture of quiet concern and sharp analysis.
“You know,” Gawain said quietly, “most commanders wait until the enemy has actually refused negotiations before attempting to personally introduce themselves to the gate.”
Mordred turned her helmet toward him.
“Most commanders are slow.”
“Most commanders also survive long enough to become old,” Gawain replied.
Princess Rowena stood near the rear of the command tent, a sealed bundle of notes tucked beneath one arm.
Arthur valued her here for the same reason she valued her knights—wars were rarely won by steel alone.
The princess watched Mordred slam her fist against the table and sighed quietly.
“Somehow,” Rowena murmured to Bedivere, “I am not surprised that Lady Morrigan’s acquaintance is causing structural damage again.”
Bedivere looked sideways at her.
“You have met this woman once.”
“Once was sufficient.” A faint, unreadable smile touched Rowena’s face.
“Some people leave impressions.”
Arthur did not flinch at the head of the table.
She stood straight, her thumb resting flat against Excalibur’s crossguard while her other hand reached down to stroke the broad arch of Dun Stallion’s neck outside the tent flap. This story is hosted at novelping.com.
“Restrain Sir Mordred, Galahad,” Arthur said, her deep, quiet voice cutting cleanly through the tension in the room.
“You are commanding the vanguard together.”
Galahad immediately stepped forward, his heavy iron pauldron brushing against Mordred’s arm as he reached down to clamp a gauntleted hand over Mordred’s forearm, pulling her back half a pace from the table.
“Understood, my Lord.”
Arthur turned her gaze back to the map.
“If the herald returns without an answer, we launch the first assault this afternoon.”
“Understood, my King,” Galahad replied, bowing his head.
Mordred felt the heavy metal of her cuirass pressing tight against her ribs.
She ground her back teeth together inside her helmet until her jaw ached.
‘Look at her.
That absolute, unshakeable wall.
If I ever dropped this bloody iron and stood before her as myself, nothing would change.
She’d look right through me with those exact same cold, perfect eyes.
What, am I supposed to just sit here and wait for some idiot like Shirou Emiya to magically fix my life?
Like hell I will.’
Mordred forced her arm down, her voice coming out like iron dragging over gravel.
“Understood, my King.”
The sun sank toward the western hills, painting the river mud in streaks of dull copper and dark red.
The herald had returned hours ago, his white tunic untouched, but from the high ramparts of Bristol, not a single horn had sounded.
No banner was lowered.
No messenger rode out through the iron portcullis.
The garrison sat behind their granite walls in stone-cold silence.
It seemed the rebels had chosen the ancient military tradition of pretending the royal army simply wasn’t there.
“It looks like there won’t be any fighting today,” Galahad sighed, leaning his heavy white shield against his knee as he stood near the edge of the royal camp.
He looked out over the darkened fortress, where the first torches were being lit along the parapets.
“Be patient, Mordred.
Bristol’s walls were built to withstand a six-month siege.
If we can talk them down, nobody wants a frontal assault.
The casualties would be terrible.”
“Tsk.
Watch me.”
Before Galahad could reach for her bridle, Mordred drove her spurs deep into her charger’s flanks.
The heavy warhorse let out a low bugle and exploded forward, its iron-shod hooves churning deep clods of black dirt into the air as it tore across the open grass toward the eastern curtain wall.
“Mordred!
Halt!” Galahad shouted, his voice caught instantly in the wind as he lunged forward, but the stallion was already twenty paces out, accelerating into a full gallop.
Fifty yards from the granite wall, Mordred stood straight up in her iron stirrups, pulling her reins hard to throw the horse into a sliding halt.
She raised her right hand toward the sky, feeling the raw, agonizing burn of crimson mana flooding her veins at unsafe levels.
‘God, that dress was stupid.
Pointless, soft, green trash.
I hated every second of it.’
The lie tasted like copper in her mouth.
‘It was light,’ a smaller, quieter voice whispered from the dark corners of her mind.
‘It didn’t bruise your shoulders.
It didn’t smell like blood.
And Rowena looked at you like you were a person.’
‘Shut up,’ Mordred snarled at herself, her gauntlet trembling as mana arc-welded the air around her wrist.
‘It was a fake disguise.
A joke.
Last night I actually caught myself thinking—what if I just walked away?
What if I dropped the name of Mordred and let some girl named Morrigan exist instead?
If I just disappear, doesn’t that change the bloody ending?’
For one terrifying heartbeat, the thought felt like freedom.
‘I loved it,’ she admitted, the realization striking her harder than any spear.
‘I loved feeling like a normal girl for five minutes.
And I hate myself for it.’
Her teeth ground together until her gums bled.
‘No.
I don’t get an out.
I only know how to be a weapon.’
“Red Lightning—!”
BOOM!
A massive flash of crimson light slammed directly into the base of the stone curtain wall, shattering three feet of solid granite into fine, white dust.
Huge boulders tumbled inward with a grinding roar, collapsing a thirty-foot section of the rampart into a jagged slope of broken rubble and settling dust.
Back at the camp line, Galahad slowly lowered his raised hand.
Behind him, several knights who had spent the previous hour discussing siege ladders were now staring at the breach with expressions ranging from disbelief to silent irritation.
There is, after all, very little point in hauling wood across three miles of mud when your youngest knight can simply unmake masonry.
A young squire near the supply wagons whispered, “Sir…
was he always able to do that?”
Nobody answered.
Nobody wanted to admit they had spent an entire day preparing for a siege against a wall that one angry knight could apparently remove.
“With that kind of destruction…” Galahad muttered, his voice flat with disbelief.
“If I knew he could do that, why the hell were we standing around negotiating?
We should have just charged from the start.”
Behind the royal command post, Sir Bedivere stepped forward, his silver-plated arm catching the fading red light of the sunset as his hand rested on his scabbard.
“My King,” Bedivere said quietly, his clear voice carrying over the murmurs of the stunned camp.
“I believe the moment to strike has arrived.”
King Arthur looked at the shattered wall, the crimson smoke still drifting lazily into the evening sky.
She drew Excalibur from its sheath in one smooth motion, the golden blade catching the last rays of the sun like a beacon.
“All units—charge!”
A roar went up from three thousand throats.
The royal knights surged forward like a tide of polished steel, streaming through the smoke and pouring straight into the jagged breach Mordred had torn through the stone.
The crash of iron swords on wooden shields and the screams of the garrison instantly filled the stone corridors inside.
As Mordred moved through the burning corridors, she saw the direct evidence of what she had pieced together the night before.
Private wealth had become private soldiers.
Private meetings in bailiff lodges had become open rebellion.
The wealthy men who had sat drinking behind closed doors had not personally drawn the first sword; they had bought horses, ordered spear crates, and convinced these fools to die for them.
And now the fools were bleeding on the flags.
Deep within the castle’s eastern ward, the battle had broken apart into small butcheries.
Broken bodies in leather and iron lay sprawled across the stone flagstones, their blood pooling in the narrow drainage gutters while discarded broadswords lay slick in the dirt.
Mordred kicked a wooden door off its iron hinges, stepping into a narrow, dead-end courtyard.
Her broadsword hung low at her side, its edge dripping thick crimson drops onto the cobbles.
Ahead of her, backed against a dead wall of mossy stone, a single rebel knight panted heavily.
His shield was splintered, his chest plate dented inward from a heavy blow, and his sword hand shook so violently the tip of his blade scraped against the ground.
“Answer me!” Mordred took a heavy step forward, her horned helmet glinting beneath the smoke-choked moonlight, looking like a demon dragged straight from the pit.
“Why did you draw steel against your King?”
The knight backed up until his shoulder armor struck the granite wall.
He had nowhere left to run.
Looking up through his cracked visor, he let out a bitter laugh.
“Because that King…” the knight wheezed, his knuckles turning white around his sword hilt, “…that King is far too perfect.”
Mordred’s broadsword stopped halfway through its windup swing, the heavy steel hovering motionless in the damp air.
The knight laughed weakly, spit and blood foaming at the corner of his lips.
“Do you know what happens when everyone believes their king cannot be wrong?” His broken shield slipped from his numb arm and struck the flagstones with a dull wood-and-iron clatter.
“They stop speaking.”
Silence hung thick in the narrow courtyard, broken only by the distant crackle of burning timbers.
Mordred froze.
‘They stop speaking.’
The words hit her stomach like a sack of iron nails.
Then the moment snapped.
Her eyes narrowed behind the visor, and her sword moved.
The blade bit clean through mail and bone.
Head and helmet parted from shoulders in a single stroke, slamming against the stone wall before rolling into the gutter.
A thick spray of hot blood hit the wall and splashed across the front of Mordred’s visor, running down the dark iron plates in thick red lines.
Mordred stood motionless in the quiet courtyard.
Her vision turned red as warm blood trickled through the sight-slits of her helmet.
“Fool…” she whispered, her voice dark and cold inside her chin-guard.
“What right do you have to complain about a perfect King?”
The corpse slumped sideways into the dirt.
High above on the inner parapet, Arthur watched from the shadows of the walkway.
She had caught the brief, telling hesitation in the dark below—the fraction of a second Sir Mordred’s broadsword had hovered frozen before it fell.
Excalibur’s hilt felt cold in her gloved grip.
Then the moment vanished as Sir Mordred turned away.
Below, Mordred clamped her gauntlet against her helmeted temple, steel fingers biting into the iron as a throb spiked through her skull.
‘No matter what happens…
I won’t rebel!
Absolutely not.
I’m stopping Camlann before it starts.’
Her boots ground into the blood-stained gravel.
Copper and burning oak filled her nose, thick and suffocating.
‘Wait…
why am I getting so damn emotional?
Why is my chest burning like this?’
She stared at her own gauntleted fingers, watching fresh crimson drip off the knuckles.
‘Is Mordred’s fate guiding her to her destiny?
Is this bloody iron dragging me down the exact same path no matter what I do?’
A cold wave of dread washed over her, followed instantly by a surge of white-hot defiance.
She gritted her teeth until her gums bled.
‘No.
I refuse.’
Her eyes narrowed beneath her visor, burning with a sudden, vicious light.
“Fine then,” Mordred growled, her knuckles tightening around her dripping hilt until the leather grip groaned.
“I’ll just butcher every single one of those spineless nobles who coaxed these idiots into drawing steel in the first place.”
She turned on her heel, her heavy iron greaves striking the flagstones with loud thuds as she marched out of the dead-end courtyard.
She didn’t head back toward the main gate where the King stood.
She turned toward the dark stone arches leading straight into the noble residential quarters.