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This was the longest monologue Arthur had ever heard cross the other man’s lips. For a moment, he was stunned into stillness.
And then, he realized that Lancelot had insulted his prized possessions. It wasn’t to be borne.
“My weapons are forged by the finest smiths in all the land. Unless you have a better suggestion, I will continue to rely upon Dragon Tooth,” Arthur replied.
Lancelot cocked his head again, considering.
“I would have thought ‘Bear Claw’ would better suit a weapon of yours,” he observed off-handedly.
“Dragons are more powerful,” Arthur muttered.
It was on the tip of his tongue to reveal his true identity, but he held back instinctively. He didn’t know why. It might be easier to recruit the man if he knew Arthur was the heir to Uther’s throne.
But Arthur wanted to…winhim. On his own merits. Not because of a title he might soon inherit.
Lancelot chewed on this for a moment, then shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly, just a loosening of muscle. And before Arthur knew what happened, he was under furious attack.
Looking back, Arthur would like to say that he held his own. That it was close to a draw.
It was no such thing.
Within minutes, Lancelot had wrested the sword out of Arthur’s hands by twining the chain of his flail around it and yanking it away. Like taking sweets from a child. He discarded the Morning Star along with Arthur’s sword and cornered Arthur with his dagger, drawing first blood—
A thin slice along his neck that could have been the killing blow. As it was, Arthur bled from the wound no more than a too-close shave would have done.
He had no choice but to yield, seeing as how the dagger was pressed against his jugular. And Lancelot was once again kneeling on top of him, a knee gouging into his diaphragm, cutting off his breath.
“I want you,” Arthur said through clenched teeth, since moving his throat much wouldn’t be wise at the moment. And despite the other man’s seemingly lithe build, it felt like an anvil sat upon Arthur’s chest.
Lancelot tilted his head, his mercurial eyes curious. But he said nothing.
“Join me. Join my guard,” Arthur pressed.
“I am destined to defend a mighty king,” Lancelot said at last, easing the blade’s pressure from Arthur’s neck and getting up off of him.
“Perhaps I will be king one day,” Arthur immediately threw out, still sprawled upon the ground.
Lancelot regarded him with an unreadable expression.
“But will you be a mighty king? The greatest of all time across these isles?”
The question seemed rhetorical, for Lancelot didn’t wait for an answer before turning and walking off the battlegrounds, not even waiting for the referee to declare him the victor.
Arthur watched after him with a growing sense of…destiny. That his fate was tethered to the warrior somehow...
Now, on the final day of the tournament, with the morning archery event already completed (of course, Lancelot won. He split the arrows one after another upon the bull’s eye. He shot multiple arrows at once to bring down moving targets, finishing in half the time as everyone else), Arthur donned full armor for the much-anticipated joust.
As he secured his gauntlets, Gawain came into his tent.
“He refused it.”
Arthur looked at the suit of armor carried across Gawain’s bulging arms.
“Why? Is he utterly daft?”
Arthur had sent the armor with Gawain to Lancelot so that the man had some small chance of surviving the jousts with all his limbs and organs intact.
Warriors died in these events all the time. Whether they fell wrong getting knocked off their steeds, or trampled beneath their charger’s hooves. Or the lances hit them too hard. Or splintered and penetrated their armor.
