The branch didn’t belong to a wolf.
It bent back with a slow, heavy creak, the wet bark tearing against leather, and out stepped Sir Kay’s least favorite squire—or at least, someone who looked like they spent their entire life being yelled at by men in shinier breastplates.
He was a lanky lad named Hob, his knees poking out from a frayed linen tunic.
He clutched a dented wooden bucket of brackish water with both hands, the rope handle groaning under the weight, looking like he’d rather wrestle an adder than interrupt whatever Mordred was doing with that oak post.
Mordred lowered the tip of her wooden practice sword, letting the gouged ash point rest in the damp moss.
She simply leaned her left hip against the torn oak bark, crossed her boots at the ankles, tilted her head, and offered him an easy, crooked grin.
“If you’re here to tell me the kitchen is out of salt pork again, I had nothing to do with it,” she said, her voice bright and conversational.
“The wild boar took one look at my ugly mug and threw itself off a cliff.
Entirely a tactical accident.”
Hob blinked, his knuckles locking white around the rope handle as the grip slackened, letting a cold splash of water slop over the rim and soak into his wool hose.
He stared at her for a second, his mouth opening slightly, caught completely off-guard by the total lack of blood-curdling screeches or dark mutterings usually associated with anything crawling out of Morgan’s nursery.
“I…
what?” Hob stammered, his shoulders uncurling a fraction of an inch as he shifted his stance in the mud.
“No.
The master of horse is looking for you.
Well, not looking for you specifically, but he’s screaming about two missing deer hides and a gray gelding that’s ‘mysteriously walked out of its stall’ like it grew wings.”
Mordred let out a soft, delighted huff of laughter, stepping away from the tree.
The soles of her boots squelched lightly in the wet leaf-mold as she wiped a streak of charcoal soot off her cheek with the back of her wrist.
“Wandered out?” She shook her head, adopting an expression of profound, theatrical sympathy.
“Poor thing probably had enough of listening to the stable master snore.
You know how drafts are in those stone stables.
Very bad for the constitution.”
Hob let out a dry, reluctant snort, catching himself quickly and glancing down at the muddy hem of his tunic.
“He says if he finds whoever took it, he’s going to nail their ears to the fence post.”
“Oh, harsh,” Mordred teased.
She sauntered forward, the leather straps of her scabbard slapping softly against her thigh until she was leaning casually against a nearby fern frond, her gaze warm and entirely unthreatening.
“Tell you what—did he mention which fence post?
Because if it’s the one by the south pasture, the wood is rotten.
Terrible craftsmanship.
If you’re going to nail someone’s ears down, you want seasoned oak.
At least standard pine.”
Hob cracked a sudden, genuine smile, shaking his head as he looked away toward the treeline and back again.
“You’re mental, you know that?
Lady Morgan’s grand weapon of vengeance, and you’re critiquing the local carpentry.”
“Hey, high standards keep the kingdom running,” she said, her tone dipping into an easy, conspiratorial cadence that made him feel less like a terrified peasant and more like an insider sharing a private joke.
“Besides, between you and me?
That gray gelding had a much better personality than the stable master.
Have you ever tried talking to that man?
It’s like discussing trade tariffs with a wet sack of turnips.”
Hob chuckled openly now, the tension draining out of his arms until the wooden bucket rested against his shin.
“God’s truth.
He spent an hour yesterday yelling at a fence because it wouldn’t move out of the way of his cart.”
“See?” Mordred beamed, giving his tunic-clad shoulder a light, friendly tap with her knuckles.
“We’re surrounded by visionaries, Hob.
Absolute visionaries.”
She lingered for a moment longer, shifting her weight to the other leg and tilting her head with a soft expression.
“How’s your mother’s hip doing, anyway?
Still acting up when the fog comes in?”
Hob blinked, caught off guard, his chest deflating.
“It…
aye, it’s rough in the mornings.
She can barely bend to clear the hearth, but she makes do.”
“Tell her to mix a bit of crushed willow bark into her tea,” Mordred offered, giving him a warm, reassuring nod before step-pivoting on her heel.
“Saves on the shrieking when she tries to sit down.”
By the time Hob wandered back toward the bailey, his bucket sloshing lazily against his calf as he shook his head with a bemused grin, he had completely forgotten that he was supposed to interrogate her about the missing horse.
Mordred watched his stooped back disappear behind the hazel brush.
The warm amusement in her eyes flattened into a cool, pragmatic evaluation as she reached down, hooked her thumb into her weapon belt, and adjusted the iron scabbard against her hip.
‘People are remarkably easy to manage if you don’t treat them like furniture,’ she thought, rolling her shoulders to loosen the tight muscles along her neck.
‘Morgan sits in her tower plotting the downfall of the entire realm with dark geometry, and meanwhile, half her guards would hand over the castle keys if you just ask about their rheumatism with a straight face.’
She swung around the outer timber gate, leaving the cold damp of the canopy behind.
The smell of crushed bracken and wet soil immediately gave way to the thick, suffocating wave of heat rolling out from the lower bailey—a heavy soup of charred hickory, rendered animal suet, and the sharp, metallic bite of red-hot steel.
‘Five years to go from a screeching infant in a wooden basin to a full-grown teenager is an absolute nightmare for a girl’s wardrobe,’ Mordred thought, ducking her head under the low oak lintel and stepping out of the chilly afternoon drip into the roaring, orange-lit haze of the castle forge.
Over five years, her joints had pop-cracked and pulled every few weeks as her bones lengthened.
Her linen sleeves tore at the elbows, her leather boots pinched her big toes until the seams split, and her center of gravity shifted overnight.
‘Normal kids get years to figure out how to walk without tripping over their own feet,’ she thought, flexing her gauntleted knuckles in the red furnace glow, listening to the iron plates rub against her wrist guards.
‘I got five minutes.’
Instead of sulking or brooding over her artificial nature, Mordred had spent those five years turning the smithy into her personal hangout.
She brought the local smiths fresh hare from the upper woods, helped drag heavy iron ingots across the cinder floor, and learned every inch of the trade by watching them sweat over the anvil.
“How’s the headpiece coming, Master Garret?” she asked, resting her forearms over the wooden anvil block with an eager, amused grin.
The burly smith wiped his soot-blackened brow with a thick, calloused forearm, setting his heavy cross-peen hammer down with a dull thud.
He gestured with his chin toward a massive, dark iron helmet resting on a wooden block amidst a scatter of iron filings.
Long, curved iron horns flared outward from the temples, forged with aggressive, ridged flanges that gave the dark steel dome a terrifying, demonic profile.
“It’s finished, Lady Mordred,” Garret grunted, shaking his head as he picked up a rasper to clear a burr from the neck guard.
“Though why you insisted on adding those giant iron horns is beyond me.
It weighs a ton, and it’s going to catch every low branch between here and the coast.”
Mordred stepped closer and reached out, her gloved fingers wrapping around the thick horn base.
The metal was cold and heavy—rough-hammered iron that retained the raw, pitted texture of the forge.
She hoisted it off the block, feeling the dense, top-heavy drag of the steel pulling at her wrists.
‘Morgan gave me the design drafts herself,’ she thought, turning the helm in her hands and watching the firelight dance off the aggressive iron brow.
‘She wants me to look like a nightmare incarnate to strike fear into Arthur’s court.
Personally?
I think it looks ridiculous, but if I’m playing the part of the horned rogue, I might as well commit to the bit.’
She lifted the heavy iron bucket, ducked her chin, and slid it over her head.
It settled down over her scalp with a loud, hollow metallic CLANK, the padded leather liner catching her ears and flattening her hair against her skull.
The world instantly narrowed to two thin horizontal slits.
The smell of burnt coal dust, old grease, and cold iron trapped inside the dark dome filled her lungs, and her own breath echoed back against her jaws with a muffled, rhythmic scrape.
“How do I look?!” she shouted through the narrow visor slits, her voice booming inside the iron chamber and echoing out like a struck brass kettle.
“Terrifying?
Magnificent?”
Master Garret sighed, picking up his iron tongs and poking at the glowing hearth coals.
“You look like a walking anvil, my Lady.”
“Perfect!” she laughed, the sound rattling through the steel faceplate as she hooked her gauntleted thumb under the visor edge, flipping it up with a sharp metallic clatter to beam at him.
She left the suffocating heat of the forge behind, her boots crunching across the cinder yard before stepping onto the cold granite threshold of the high keep.
The temperature plummeted instantly.
As she climbed the winding stone staircase, the hot grease smell of the lower bailey vanished, replaced by the damp, bone-chilling draft seeped from the mortar, heavy with the scent of crushed lavender, old rush mats, and stale frankincense.
Her iron shoulder plates clanked softly against the narrow stone wall at every turn, her leather coat stiffening in the cold.
At the top of the stair, the heavy oak doors stood ajar.
The high hall of Morgan’s stronghold was draped in dark, moth-eaten tapestries that swallowed the dim light of two flickering wall torches.
Morgan le Fay sat upon a high-backed carved chair of dark bog oak, her long, raven hair cascading over her shoulders like liquid obsidian.
Her pale skin remained entirely unmarred by time, her dark eyes burning across the hall with a feverish, unhinged intensity.
‘Still using the exact same crazy-eyes she had when she hauled me out of the wooden tub,’ Mordred thought, letting her posture stay loose, her thumbs hooked lazily into her belt as she crossed the flagstones.
“The time has come, my child,” Morgan whispered.
Her smooth voice didn’t carry so much as it slithered through the quiet hall, echoing like dry silk dragging across stone.
She leaned forward, resting her sharp chin on her long, pale fingers, her dark skirts pooling around her boots.
“You have grown strong.
The blood of the dragon surges within you.
Go to Camelot.
Claim your right.
Tear down the golden King and drag his crown into the mud.”
Mordred stopped ten paces from the dais.
Her heavy leather coat creaked over her iron pauldrons as she shifted her weight.
The horned helmet rested securely under her left elbow, the iron horns flaring against her ribs.
She bypassed the dramatic knee and the blood oath entirely, offering Morgan a warm, easy smile instead, tilting her head with relaxed confidence.
“Leave it to me, Mother,” Mordred said, her tone bright, light, and completely unbothered by the suffocating gloom of the throne room.
“I’ll make sure Camelot remembers the name Mordred.”
‘Vengeance?
Dragging crowns into the mud?’ Mordred thought, turning fluidly on her heel.
Her heavy leather cloak swept around her legs with a crisp whoosh as she started back toward the archway.
‘Not a chance.
I’m going to Camelot to live my own life, fight strong opponents, and see if this famous King father of mine is half as impressive as the legends say.
But if I tell her that now, she’ll probably curse my boots.’
Outside in the courtyard, tethered to the rotting rail near the outer fence, stood the thick-legged, dull gray gelding she had quietly acquired earlier.
The horse let out a long, wet snort as her boots crunched over the gravel, its heavy head tossing against the leather halter.
“Told you I’d come back for you,” Mordred murmured with a grin, reaching out to pat the gelding’s damp, velvet snout.
She hoisted her heavy leather saddlebags over the animal’s flank, checking the girth strap with a quick, practiced tug.
Holding the reins in her gauntleted left hand, she planted her boot into the iron stirrup and vaulted up.
The leather saddle creaked loudly under her weight, the iron shoulder plates clanking against her breastplate as she settled into the seat, gathering the reins to feel the bit pull against the horse’s jaw.
She looked back once over her shoulder at the looming, dark granite towers of Morgan’s fortress, then reached down and pulled the horned iron helmet over her head.
The visor dropped into place with a heavy CLICK, locking her into the dark, echoes-and-coal world of the iron dome.
“Alright, gray,” she called out through the narrow visor slits, her voice bouncing inside the iron mask with a hollow, metallic twang.
“Destination: Camelot.
Let me show you how a real knight rides.”
She dug the heels of her boots into the gelding’s flanks.
The horse grunted, its heavy iron-shod hooves striking sparks against the cobblestones as it broke into a trot, pushing out through the shadow of the stone gates and onto the long, muddy road leading west.
Had a tiny mix-up.