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Lancelot rolled his eyes behind closed lids at his own wishful thinking. He already knew that the opposite would occur.
This obsession was going to get much,muchworse.
Before dawn, Lancelot slipped down from the oak tree without any of Arthur or his men waking. He silently made his way to where he hid his horse and rode to a hill overlooking the village and the surrounding terrain.
Arthur and his men moved into position not long after, just outside of the woods and in front of the river. If the invaders wanted to raid the village, they’d have to get past Arthur and his warriors first.
And come, the enemies did. In a sudden charge through the trees.
Hundreds of Saxons all at once, on horseback, on foot, weapons raised, shields clamoring.
Arthur’s men stood firm before the mouth where the two rivers met, but the Saxons out-flanked them. The knights cut down every enemy soldier that came at them, but there were others who crossed the river farther upstream, escaping past the blockade and advancing toward the village.
Lancelot spurred his horse into motion and dismounted in the cover of trees on this side of the river. He quickly scaled a particularly tall oak and balanced in the branches as he did the night before, his bow and arrows at the ready.
As the Saxons who managed to cross the river flooded into the woods, he let his arrows fly.
Five. Ten. Twenty…
In minutes he took them down, multiple arrows shot at once, only one required for each foreign foe. But he was quickly running out of ammunition. When the second wave came, he faced them with the discarded swords of his enemies, one in each hand.
Thirty. Forty. Fifty…
He lost count of how many enemies he’d slain, too concentrated on his task to notice. He was determined to not let any get past him, but he could feel his strength draining, the blood from his wounds weakening him.
There were too many.
All at once, Arthur and his men charged this way on horseback, presumably having dealt with the others at the mouth of the river.
Their eyes met for only a moment as Arthur slashed through two Saxons on his way toward Lancelot, his gigantic chestnut stallion barely breaking its strides. Arthur reached an arm down and Lancelot reached up.
Effortlessly, like a choreographed dance, he swung onto Arthur’s steed behind the warrior. Then, he flattened himself against Arthur’s broad back, arms around the man’s waist as Arthur spurred his horse toward the village with a subtle squeeze of his thighs.
Enemy soldiers had reached the town ahead of them. It was a pandemonium of screams and shouting. The small village militia had been cut down like a hot knife through butter. But Arthur and Lancelot were here now to do the same to the Saxons.
Lancelot leapt off his borrowed ride and onto the horse of one of the invaders, knocking the other man off.
“Here!” Arthur shouted over the din, tossing one of his swords to Lancelot.
Thus armed, they began to cut down the enemies with ruthless precision, Arthur’s men holding off the rest from flooding the village. Soon, there were no more Saxons to dispatch, and a piercing whistle from Arthur’s men signaled their victory outside of the village as well.
Lancelot’s eyes immediately sought out Arthur’s, and the two men’s faces wore matching, dirt and blood-streaked grins—
Until a blood-curdling shriek rented the air.
When Lancelot looked toward the commotion, half of the village was already ablaze from enemy torches.
This was the Saxon way. If they could not conquer the places they invaded, they’d destroy them instead.
The mud-brick houses with their straw-thatched roofs were perfect kindling for a wildfire. They were close enough together that the flames of one house would easily catch another.
And another.
And another.
Arthur, as usual, leapt into the fray, rescuing scattering villagers on his horse, then dismounting to help the men beat out fires with thick, woven rugs and throw water from pails at the flames. His men scattered around the village to help as well, some of them carrying the young, old and infirm out of the village, others working alongside the able-bodied villagers to put out the fires.
One of the huts was entirely aflame, and a woman’s screams were shrill enough over the din of chaos to draw Lancelot’s attention.
