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Still her hand was bleeding. Watering the meadow. A root snaked around her feet, pulling her to the ground. She screamed as it dragged her across the dirt. A branch reached down, and the leaves, each as thin as a razor, lashed at her arms. Her sleeves were sliced apart, a hundred cuts.
“Guinevere!” Lancelot shouted. The tree pulled Guinevere higher, holding her out over the meadow as her blood dripped, dripped, dripped into the ground. To the roots of all the other trees.
And in the center of the meadow, something else was moving. Writhing beneath the dirt. Waking up.
“Command them!” Mordred shouted. “Make them obey! Maleagant is almost here.”
Guinevere could not. She had done the wrong thing. In the dream, Merlin had told her to fight as a queen—it was the only thing he had told her—and she had tried to fight as a wizard. A tree swung, a low branch swiping viciously at Lancelot. Lancelot ducked under it, falling off her horse. She whistled sharply, and her horse ran from the meadow.
Mordred ran to his horse, but the trees got there first. Roots engulfed his horse and slowly pulled it down. There was a crunching noise, a breaking and tearing sound. The horse screamed once—Guinevere felt the scream throughout her body—and then it went silent.
A root snaked around Mordred’s leg. “Command them!” he shouted.
“Stop!” Guinevere screamed. She was still bleeding, still held suspended. But the trees stopped. Waiting. Listening. She held Maleagant in her mind. Added five more men to him. She put iron in their hands, fire in their eyes. Then she put her hand against the tree branch that held her. She fed the trees the image of Maleagant, of his men. She fed them fire and iron and death.
The trees shivered. The thing beneath her still writhed, like a beast circling unseen beneath the water, sending out ripples. But it had not surfaced yet.
The root around Mordred’s ankle slipped back beneath the dirt. He ran to a spot beneath Guinevere. Lancelot joined him.
Release me, she told the trees. They pushed back. They were hungry. They were thirsty. And she was something new. She could not explain the excitement the trees felt. Recognition, but also delight. They were trees. They had experienced men, they had known blood in the battles with Arthur. Why were they feeling this?
Stop, she demanded. She let sparks dance up and down her arms. The tree recoiled, dropping her. Mordred caught her—staggering, but breaking her fall.
They froze as Maleagant’s cold voice cut through the night. “What did you do to her?” he asked. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “I do not like my things being damaged.” He loomed in the deeper dark at the edge of the trees, using them as cover. His men circled. Guinevere could hear them, but no one had stepped into the meadow yet.
Mordred set Guinevere down and stood in front of her. Lancelot shifted to protect both of them. “Run,” she said, her sword raised.
Maleagant laughed. “These are your champions? A woman and Arthur’s eel? You were right. The king does not love you, does he? I would send better after one of my dogs.” He paused. “Actually, my dogs are better than your protectors.” He lifted a hand and five riders burst into the meadow.
Their horses reared back, eyes rolling, nostrils flared with panic. Three of the men fell to the ground. The fourth held on. The horse fell instead, rolling over and crushing its rider before struggling to its feet and galloping into the forest after the other horses.
Lancelot spun among them, killing two of the men before they could get to their feet. Mordred did not leave Guinevere’s side. She did not want to look away from Lancelot, did not want to look away from Maleagant. So much was happening.
But she was staring down.
Beneath her feet, hundreds of jet-black beetles burst through the ground like fountains, spreading and scurrying away. Dusty black moths flew up, circling her, disappearing into the night air.
“To me!” Maleagant said. The two men remaining—two had been killed by Lancelot, one by the horse—backed up to Maleagant. As soon as the horses had gone mad, Maleagant had dismounted from his own. He had not set foot on the moonlit meadow. His men stood in front of him, swords raised. Maleagant stared at the quivering trees around them. “You are in trouble, little queen. You do not know what you have awoken here. I can get you out safely.”
Guinevere looked up from the horrors rising from the ground.
Maleagant held out his hand. “Walk to me very slowly and be grateful I am feeling merciful.”
The same darkness pouring out of the earth seemed to rise within her, filling her. The trees had tasted her—but she had tasted them, too. The ancient rage, sleeping for so long, was awake now. Beetles crawled up her, down her arms, over her face. The thing beneath her was almost free. She should be frightened.
She was only angry.
“I am not feeling merciful.” She closed her eyes and released the trees.
The man to Maleagant’s right stumbled, falling against a trunk. Branches grew in an instant, pulling him tighter and tighter. In a handful of seconds, the tree enveloped him, growing around him as it would a rock. But men are so much softer than rocks. So much more breakable. His screaming did not last long.
The man to Maleagant’s left met the same fate as Mordred’s horse. He was pulled down to the earth, embraced by roots. Squeezed and wrung out and broken down. The trees were not wasteful. They would use all of him.
Maleagant slashed at a branch that reached for him, cutting into it with his iron sword. The trees shuddered, drawing closer, leaning over the meadow. Maleagant ran toward Guinevere. He did not run fast enough.
Vines wound up his legs. He hacked at them, but each vine cut was replaced with three more. They thickened, keeping the shape of him, curling over him. They wrapped up to his arm, tightening, until he dropped his sword. He was rooted to the ground now, held fast. He fixed his eyes on Guinevere. The moon had broken free from the clouds, bathing them all in pale white light.
“You are worse than I,” he said, his jaw clenched, neck straining as he resisted the vines twining lovingly around it. “I sought to rule men. What you have awoken will destroy them.”
