Conquest Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

“Crandyn is on fire,” Gawain said. He pointed to the village below. The wind had slowed just enough to show that the snow covered city below had several pillars of black smoke mixing with the ice in the air.

“At arms! March!” Arthur called. The order was repeated all along the line behind him since his voice failed to carry over the howl of the wind. When he started forward, his men followed, ready to fight even if they were half frozen from the intense cold.

It took over an hour of pushing through knee high snow to reach the city gate. It lay splintered and broken, most of it still afire from the attack, when Arthur reached it.

“Arthur, wyverns!”

Arthur followed Gawain’s pointing hand. Circling in the air above were creatures that, though different from dragons, unmistakably resembled them as well. Arthur counted six of them moving through the air above. He moved on, making sure to motion to the sky for his men to see the wyverns if they hadn’t noticed them already.

Screams could be heard from deeper within the city. Though the road had been shoveled on a regular basis, with piles of dirty snow caked up against the sides of the street, there were a couple of inches of fresh powder from the snow that had begun to fall again while Arthur and his men struggled to reach the city.

Several dead Camelot knights who were here with Sir Kay littered the immediate area. All of them had a wyvern crouched on their bodies as they feasted on their dead flesh. Arthur and Gawain took their crossbows and fired at the creatures, aiming for the eyes where they were most vulnerable. At first the wyverns were so engrossed in their meal they didn’t notice Arthur’s arrival, but soon they realized a new threat had come when several of their kind fell to the ground with screeches of pain as arrows pierced the tender flesh of their eyes.

Following instinct, the wyverns took flight to escape, and it was their undoing. Another vulnerable target was the soft flesh under their wings. The knights behind Arthur managed to fell all but one of the wyverns that made an escape.

“If wyverns are here, Merlin probably isn’t far behind,” Arthur said to Gawain. His cousin nodded grimly.

They rushed through the streets and occasionally saw the fearful faces of women and children in the windows of the little houses along the way. The men split up on Arthur’s orders, taking different streets as they headed toward the sound of battle that came from the center of the city.

Arthur and Gawain continued straight ahead, searching for Sir Kay. They finally found him, locked in battle with two knights wearing the blue and silver of King Thomas. Where Arthur’s men wore the golden dragon, Thomas’s knights wore a silver lion emblazoned on their cloaks and shields. Arthur and Gawain shot his opponents down, and Sir Kay turned to see who had done him the favor of saving him. His face broke into a smile of utter relief upon seeing Arthur.

“Arthur!” Kay exclaimed. The poor man had been fighting for hours and looked exhausted.

“Report,” Arthur said brusquely.

“Thomas’ men attacked before dawn. I suspect Thomas was in negotiations with Lord Corbyn when we first arrived, though he never mentioned making any deals with Thomas.”

“If Corbyn was in talks with Thomas why did they attack the city?”

“They’re not attacking anyone but us. They refuse to fire on any of Crandyn’s people or lift a blade to them. They haven’t sought to burn one house deliberately. Once they breached the gates they came for us and only us. Arthur they have these female archers that have skill like I’ve never seen!”

“The Sisterhood of the Bow,” Gawain said.

“I thought that was just a myth before. Now I believe. They have no mercy, Sire,” Sir Kay said darkly. “I’m just glad my message for help got through.”

“No messengers got through, Kay,” Arthur said. “Father ordered us to Crandyn to set up a military presence in the hopes of deterring Thomas from entering the city. We’re here now by pure luck.”

Kay paled slightly at this news. “I had five hundred men under my command. Almost all of them are dead.”

“Is Thomas himself here?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know. So far I’ve only seen his wife, Queen Minerva. She came with another woman, one of her daughters I think, and a hundred female archers. Not to mention those damned wyverns attacked, most likely at his command.”

Arthur’s heart began to pound. Guinevere was the founder of the Sisterhood of the Bow. They were her creation and she led them exclusively. That meant she was in the city with her mother. He looked at Gawain before turning back to Kay. “Is Minerva in the castle?”

“Yes, but her daughter is in battle. A princess in battle,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Mount up. We have a battle to fight,” Arthur said.

He mounted his horse and then helped Kay into the saddle behind him. They joined the flow of men riding toward the center of the city where the heaviest of the fighting was.

The further in they went the more skirmishes they saw. After a few miles into the city Arthur could see that most of Thomas’ men were dead and all of the fights were between the knights of Camelot females dressed as knights and wielding bows and arrows. Like their male counterparts the women wore blue and silver, but it was no lion on the front of their tunics. Instead they had an image of a longbow with an arrow ready to fire.

“Capture the women!” Arthur shouted as he rode into battle. “Spread my order, capture the women! Kill only when necessary!”

The women were putting up an amazing fight. By the time they reached the heart of the city, where the castle loomed high and imposing, chaos reigned. More than eighty female archers were in battled with the knights of Camelot.

About twenty archers stood at the wall of castle Crandyn, firing arrows into the crowd with unerring accuracy that enabled them to steadily pick off Arthur’s men without doing harm to a single one of their sisters. Over sixty more women fought to protect something at the center of the yard that led to the main gate of the castle grounds.

Arthur, Gawain, and Kay dismounted and went into battle, still giving the order to capture when possible rather than kill, but the women weren’t making it easy to obey that order. They fought hard, proving themselves to be skilled swordswomen as well as frightfully skilled archers. Many of Arthur’s men fell under the blades of the Sisterhood of the Bow.

More than the Sisterhood, or the male knights of Malnor, peasants also fought Arthur’s men, making it clear they sided with Thomas. Arthur cut down several untrained men, farmers by the looks of them, as they foolishly attacked him with pitchforks, axes and hammers.

Arthur was embattled with a particularly skilled young woman when her helmet fell away. The distraction was all he needed to backhand her. She staggered back, her long blond hair flapping in her face. She attempted to run him through, and would have succeeded had Gawain not run her through from her right side.

“I said spare them!”

“You said spare them when possible! They’re not making that easy to do, are they?” Gawain shouted back.

Arthur reluctantly nodded agreement and turned back to the crowd which had begun to thin. That was when he saw them: Queen Minerva and Princess Guinevere stood back to back, swords in hand, fighting together so smoothly they were almost like one living being.

Guinevere’s eyes locked on Arthur, and with a cry of rage, she rushed right for him.

*****

Arthur hesitated, and it almost paid for it with his life.

He parried a thrust from Guinevere’s sword at the last possible second, stepped to the side, and brought his sword down. Rather than knocking the blade from her hand as he expected, Guinevere turned in time with Arthur, and brought her own blade up level with his throat. She attempted to slice the edge of her sword across his neck, but he backed off, giving up ground.

“Guinevere!” he shouted, facing off with her. Her vicious attack hurt him on a very personal level.

“There won’t be any dinners and peace talks now, Arthur Pendragon,” she said, her voice dripping venom.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t,” she said, and went on the attack again.

Fighting Guinevere was like trying to fight the flow of water. She didn’t resist him; she didn’t try to use brute strength against him either. None of the women did, he noticed. They rolled with every punch, took in every thrust of the sword, only deflecting it enough to avoid injury, while moving quickly to come back and cut, rather than thrust their blades as the men did. At times Arthur fighting Guinevere was like practice fighting with air. It was not only frustrating but dangerous since this particular gust of wind could cut him to pieces.

In the past five years of nearly non-stop war, Arthur had never encountered a style of fighting like this. There was a fluid gentleness to Guinevere’s moves that disturbed him. The women didn’t rely on brute strength—they relied on speed and reflexes.

Fighting with these women was almost like dancing with them, except a single step out of rhythm would be his end. It was, Arthur heard from the sounds of pain coming from around him, the end of many of his men. If they weren’t cut down by Guinevere’s warriors, they were shot down.

The battle seemed to go on forever and Arthur regretted his order to spare the women. It probably cost many men their lives. In addition to trying to fight these women, they were being picked off from above by archers who never missed a mark, or accidentally brought harm to one of their own.

“Kill the women!” Arthur shouted. “Kill them!”

“We’re trying,” Kay said in frustration. He was facing off with two women who refused to fall under his blade anymore than Guinevere refused to fall under Arthur’s sword.

“No mercy!” Guinevere told her archers. That was an order her warriors obeyed with relish.

The fighting turned even nastier then. Arthur was horrified to see it was going in favor of Guinevere’s archers. He had only one option if he wished to put an end to this: He had to take the queen. He had to get to Queen Minerva or he and his men would die, defeated by less than a hundred women. The shame of it would haunt his soul for eternity, as well as the souls of his men.

“Gawain, capture the queen!”

Gawain managed to kick the woman he fought away, and he darted toward Minerva. She parried his sword easily, showing that she fought with as much grace as her daughter and the Sisterhood of the Bow. As soon as Gawain went for her mother, Guinevere stepped up the ferocity of her attack. She tried to move past Arthur to get to her mother.

“Protect the queen!” Guinevere shouted. “Get her into the castle!”

Several women tried to gather round the queen, but were struck down once their attention was divided between the men they fought and getting to their queen. Guinevere cast several glances in the direction of her mother, but her distraction wasn’t enough to give Arthur the advantage he needed to overcome her.

He’d yet to encounter a warrior so skilled, much less in a woman. Insanely, Arthur had to admit every quick and clever move Guinevere made in battle made him want her more in bed. If he could just get her sword—

Sir Kay suddenly cried out in pain. Arthur saw an arrow protruding from his chest and realized one of his favored knights had taken an arrow that had been intended for him.

“No!” Arthur shouted.

Though skilled in battle, Guinevere was not above physical fatigue. She tried to back away but Arthur was relentless. He’d gotten a feel for her style and managed to bring his sword down in a hard arc. The sword dislodged from her sweat slicked hand, and she drew an arrow from the quiver on her back. Her bow was long gone, lost among the many that littered the ground, broken beyond use.

“I will not concede!” she said ferociously.

Arthur said, “Surrender, and I will spare your life.”

“Never.”

Arthur attempted to break the arrow in her hand, but she stepped back and then brought the arrowhead around in a sweeping arc, slicing the sharp stone tip across his arm. The edge was so sharp that at first it didn’t hurt, but then he saw blood gush from the cut on his hand, and searing pain made it difficult to hold his blade. She thrust the arrowhead forward, aiming for his throat. Arthur sidestepped, grabbed her wrist with his left hand and pulled with all his might, slinging Guinevere around and onto the snow-covered ground that was stained red in patches with the blood of fallen warriors on both sides. He put the tip of his sword to her throat.

“Stay down, Guinevere,” Arthur warned.

“I’ll die first!”

“I surrender! I surrender, Arthur!”

Arthur didn’t look up since he knew Guinevere would take full advantage of his distraction. He’d quite clearly heard Minerva’s fear-laden voice all the same.

“Have mercy! I give myself up. Guinevere, order your archers to surrender.”

“No!” Guinevere shouted. “Fight! Fight on!”

Arthur expected confusion on the part of the Sisterhood of the Bow. He expected them to be torn as to whether or not they should obey the queen or the princess. Instead they chose, without hesitation, to obey Guinevere, as though their own queen had not spoken to the contrary. It was clear where their loyalties lay. They obeyed Guinevere and continued the fight, even as Gawain grabbed hold of Minerva and put a sword to the her throat.

“I’ll give the order to kill,” Arthur said. “Do you want your mother’s blood on your hands?”

Guinevere stared at Arthur with such hatred it stabbed at his heart. Around them the battle raged, Gawain faced the castle, so that the queen, who was as tall as he, stood between the archers and him, effectively using her as a shield.

“Gawain, kill the queen! Cut her thr—”

“No! I surrender,” Guinevere finally said.

“Wait, Gawain,” Arthur commanded.

Though she clearly hated it, she hated him for making her do it, Guinevere gave the order to surrender. “Lay down your weapons! Cease fire!”

Like a great lumbering wagon with weakened brakes the battle slowly ground to a halt. Her command had been half swallowed by the wind so Guinevere gave a hand signal to the women on the wall. Immediately they lowered their bows. Wind and snow whipped around Guinevere as Arthur pulled her to her feet.

“Let my mother go. You can have me in her place.”

Arthur smiled down at her, the wicked gleam of victory in his eyes. “You have no negotiating powers here, princess. I’ll have your mother, your archers, and I’ll most certainly have you.”

*****

Guinevere began to struggle against Arthur when she realized he was leading her into his bedchamber. She struggled so fiercely he was forced to grip her from behind and lift her bodily from the floor before throwing her onto the bed. 

Guinevere yelled several obscenities at Arthur, who made no effort to approach her. She looked like a crouching tiger ready to pounce and rend his flesh without mercy. Instead of getting closer, he looked back into the corridor and nodded to Gawain, who led a much calmer Minerva into the room.

“That will be all,” Arthur said. Gawain nodded once and then left room, closing the door behind him.

“Pig,” Guinevere hissed, and got up to go to her mother’s side. “You would torture us both in such an unseemly and—”

“I have no unseemly intentions toward either of you. The same cannot be guaranteed of Hengists’ men, even on my order. To ensure your safety I’m going to keep you both in my bedchamber. You ladies may have the bed while I sleep on the divan.”

“I don’t trust you,” Guinevere spat.

Minerva put an arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “Enough, Gwen. If Arthur is anything like Igraine then he is a man of his word. He will be a true gentleman.”

Says the woman who wanted me castrated, thought Arthur. Still, he understood her anger then. After all, he’d violated her youngest. He bowed to her in gratitude for her civility now.

“Thank you, My Lady,” he said respectfully.

“He is Uther to his core,” Guinevere insisted, though she kept the venom in her voice to a minimum in deference to her mother.

“We shall give him the opportunity to prove us wrong, and we shall behave as ladies while we do so,” said Minerva.

“What about my archers? Will they be raped and tortured by Hengists’ men?” asked Guinevere. “How will you ensure their safety and virtue?”

“I will have Gawain arrange to keep them under guard by my knights, not Hengist’s mercenaries. None of my men would dare disobey me, nor would they dishonor an unwilling woman. Not even if they’re the enemy.”

Arthur gave the order to Gawain to secure the archers under the guard of his knights and that none of the women were to be molested under pain of death. He did so in a voice loud enough for Guinevere to overhear so that she knew he really had given the order. He doubted she would trust his word alone. He doubted she would trust his knights to behave honorably toward her archers, but this was the best he could do.

“It has been a long and exhausting day for us all,” said Arthur. “I shall order hot baths for the two of you, and when you are finished I will return to dine with you.”

“How very gracious, Arthur. Thank you,” replied Minerva, squeezing Guinevere’s arm to ensure her silence. Once Arthur was gone, Minerva turned to face her daughter. She didn’t realize he stood with his ear to the door listening in on her talk with Guinevere.

“Gwen, I understand your dislike of Arthur, but you’re going to have to control your temper and treat him with some respect.”

Guinevere looked outraged. “Respect? How could you ask me to respect him? Look at the horrible things he’s done in Uther’s name. He led the army that killed Gwendolyn. She was my best friend, my sister. I couldn’t have loved her more if she was blood. Arthur’s no better than his father!”

“I don’t ask you to feel respect just to show respect. Arthur is our captor. Until your father can rescue us our lives are in his hands. Arthur strikes me as being a basically honorable young man, if not misguided by his father’s lies.”

“What about Uther? Arthur undoubtedly intends to take us to Camelot and turn us over to his father. The king is a disgusting letch who has wanted you for himself since the day he met you.” Tears welled up in Guinevere’s eyes. “Uther will rape you, Mother, and I won’t be able to stop him. I won’t be able to protect you…”

“Guinevere, shhhh…” Minerva could see the true source of her daughter’s anxiety. She was ready to face anything Arthur or Uther would do to her, body or mind, but the thought of her mother suffering such humiliations was the true root of her fears.

“I’m so sorry, Mother. I should have listened Father when he said he wanted you to stay in camp with him and Merlin.”

“I am a daughter of Crandyn. The people favor me. They would choose to side with one of their own before they sided with Uther. It was necessary for me to be here. I understood the risks. You are not to blame. Remember—I can take care of myself. Did I not train you in the way of the sword and the bow?”

Guinevere nodded, feeling a small measure of comfort.

Minerva said, “I will not allow anything to happen to you. The servants are here. Let us keep our faces free of tears. Be stoic but polite, be civil. Be a true lady, not just a warrior. Neither your father nor Merlin will fail us.”

*****

“King Thomas will send men soon,” Gawain said.

He slid under the water and emerged, his long hair free of the soap that had been thickly lathered into it seconds ago by a rather plain looking maid who worked for Hengist. She knelt beside Gawain and lathered his beard, but he declined a shave, as did Arthur since the hair helped protect his face from the cold. Instead they had the maids trim their beards until they were sharp.

Arthur looked his girl over. She was flat out ugly; she was skinny as a rail and most of her teeth were missing. He didn’t care. All he needed from her was a trimming and his back washed. Once that was gone he sent both maids on their way. 

“It will take time for word to reach Thomas. This blizzard will hinder him as much as it does us.”

“It won’t hinder Merlin and his dragons,” Gawain replied reasonably. “Merlin alone could take what’s left of us apart.”

“That’s why I’ve had the village children rounded up in the dungeons. One move from him will sentence them all to death,” Arthur said.

Gawain snorted. “You’d no sooner kill children than he would. Well, not normal, non-magical children.”

“I wouldn’t even kill magical children but Merlin doesn’t know that. He won’t risk it.”

“You don’t know what he’d risk to get a shot at killing you. When we were held captive by Thomas it was the king’s word alone that spared us from his vengeance. Arthur…”

Rather than finish his sentence, Gawain fell silent. He dipped his washcloth in the steadily cooling water, rang it out, and then repeated the process.

Arthur cocked a brow and waited for Gawain to speak, but when his cousin showed no signs of opening up, he prompted him. “Speak your mind, Gawain.”

Gawain looked up at Arthur with eyes that were heavy with regret. “You think my life is free of regret. It isn’t. I was the one who killed Gwendolyn. I personally took her life.”

Arthur momentarily froze in the act of scrubbing his armpit. “You?”

Gawain nodded.

Arthur swallowed. “You were following orders. We all were.”

“She was all but defenseless.”

“She was a witch. She was hardly defenseless.”

Gawain swallowed hard. He quickly washed his face with fresh water, giving himself something to do. Making his face wet would disguise any tears that may slide from his steadily reddening eyes.

“She only used magic to try to shelter some dragon hatchlings. Arthur, that whole campaign was a slaughter. I am a murder. I murdered a defenseless woman.”

“Stop, Gawain. We’re warriors in the service of our king. We’re trained to follow orders, not think them through first, or decide if they’re right or wrong. People who use magic are corrupted by it and use it for evil. Maybe there are a few benign warlocks and witches but the majority of them cannot be trusted. The things we do are ugly but they’re necessary to create a safe world for our people. To think anything else is unwise.”

Gawain nodded but he looked no more heartened by Arthur’s words than he had before Arthur spoke them. Arthur finished with his bath and then dressed in some fresh clothes.

“Morgan said I would return victorious but I won’t chance Merlin and his dragons getting through this storm. You and I will ride out with Queen Minerva and Lady Guinevere first thing in the morning. Have the supplies and our best men ready to ride out post haste.”

Gawain bowed his dripping head. He looked so much younger when he was shaved clean. “Yes, My Lord.”

Arthur touched his neatly trimmed beard. He’d never liked wearing one, but it would come in handy on the long and arduous journey back to Camelot.

*****

Arthur returned to his chambers to find Queen Minerva and Lady Guinevere freshly scrubbed and changed into trousers and tunics that were suitable for travel. A feast of grilled venison, bread, cheese, and canned fruits occupied most of the table space. Crystal decanters of wine glowed blood red in the light of the overhanging chandelier.

“Ladies,” Arthur said, bowing before seating himself directly across the table from Queen Minerva.

Servants filled their plates with food and their goblets with drink before a taster sampled each serving, proving it safe from poison. Once that was complete, the servants melted into the background, waiting for a plate to run low or a goblet to run dry before emerging like ghosts from the shadows to refill them.

“We leave for Camelot as soon as the snow begins to let up,” Arthur announced. Neither woman responded. It wasn’t as though he’d announced their eminent release to their king. Instead, they ate in silence, and Arthur didn’t try to force polite conversation.

Dinner ended quietly. Guinevere and Minerva went to sleep and Arthur stretched out on the divan, which was comfortable but a little too short so that his feet hung over the edge. He was nearly asleep when he sensed someone close by. He opened his eyes and found Guinevere standing over him.

Assuming she’d snuck a knife away from the dinner table and was now going to make an attempt on his life, Arthur sat up, grabbed one of her wrists and put his other hand about her throat, pulling her down onto the floor. He rolled atop her, pinning her down, but was surprised she offered no resistance. By the light of the fire he could see she was unarmed.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, lest they rouse the queen. 

“I wanted to speak with you privately. Preferably sitting up without you atop me.”

Arthur released her, still wary of her motives, and got up to sit on the divan. Guinevere took a position on her knees before him.

“If you’re going to beg for Minerva’s release, you’re wasting your time.”

She sneered at him. “The queen is my top priority. Her safety is all that matters to me. I would like to strike a bargain with you, Prince Arthur.”

“You are my captive. There is nothing you have to bargain with.”

“Are you certain of that?”

To Arthur’s immense surprise, Guinevere boldly ran a hand up his thigh and then softly cupped his balls. There was a brief moment when Arthur thought that he was dreaming rather than experiencing reality.

“Guinevak told me of her…encounter…with you. You spoke my name often while you took her. In fact, you only bedded her because you thought it was I you lay with, not her.”

“She tricked me,” Arthur said with some difficulty. It was hard to think, much less speak with her touching him the way she was.

Arthur was now fully hard, and the throbbing need in his groin made his entire body tense. This erection was unlike any other he’d ever experienced. He’d never been affected by a woman the way he was by Guinevere. In the most vulnerable moments between waking and sleeping Arthur sometimes thought he may be in love with Guinevere.

It was those feelings that made this encounter so different from any he’d ever had with a woman. He wanted Guinevere more than anything he could think of, despite her hatred of him. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t reason it out but it was true. Now, here she was on her knees before him, stroking his hardened cock over his trousers.

“I saw the way you looked at me when you were in my father’s custody. Let us not play games or deny the truth. You want me. More importantly, you want me to give myself to you willingly. Protect my mother from Uther and I will lie with you whenever you desire.”

Guinevere parted his knees and shifted so she could lean in to him as she stroked him. Her lips were soft and wet against his neck. She was driving him to the brink of release. When she whispered in his ear, it drove him nearly to madness with lust. He wanted to get put her to the floor, free himself from his trousers, and fuck her.

“Tell me, Arthur. Can you ensure that my mother is safe from Uther?”

“I can,” Arthur said, but he wasn’t sure he could. His father was the king. He got what he wanted and no one alive could stop him.

“Liar,” Guinevere said. “He is the king. He will take her regardless of your protests.”

“Not if I lay claim to her myself,” Arthur said. “Father would not take what I have claimed as my own. It would be bad form in front of the council and his people. I will claim you both.”

“But you will only come to me when you wish to satisfy your needs?”

“Only you. I swear it.”

She pulled her hand away from him, leaving him panting, sweating, and needy.

“Then I am yours,” she said.

Guinevere made certain her mother was indeed asleep and not pretending, and then freed Arthur’s erection from his trousers. She took him into her mouth, suckling the head of his cock and pumping him with one hand whilst stroking his balls with the other. He put a pillow over his face to stifle the increasingly loud moans that slipped past his lips and then came hard into her mouth. Guinevere swallowed his seed without any hint of distaste.

“Mother believes you’re a man of your word. Prove her right, Arthur Pendragon.”

Guinevere stood and returned to the bed where her mother snored lightly, having missed her daughters encounter with Arthur in a fitful dream of dragons, fire, and death.

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