Lucan’s mount went wild with fright, and it was all he could do to pull it to order. He didn’t bother nocking an arrow; from this range, he was unlikely to penetrate its armour-plated skin. Instead, he cast his bow aside, drew his hunting spear and shouted at the top of his voice as he galloped across the clearing, veering around and behind the monster to distract it away from the boy.
It spun to face him.
Its countenance was truly devilish — it was flat-headed and broad-mouthed, and its eyes were soulless baubles of emerald hate. With a deafening hisss, its jaws gaped, revealing a flickering forked tongue and cavernous mouth that were both jet-black, and a pair of fangs that were at least a foot long and curved like sabres. Yellow fluid bubbled from their tips.
Lucan closed on the serpent’s flank, and it turned to face him. Shrieking in terror, his horse vaulted over its body, before he pulled it deftly to the right, now galloping straight for the oak tree. As he did, he hurled his spear, but it caught the beast at a poor angle and glanced harmlessly from its thick scales. Of all the horrors he’d faced in Arthur’s service, there’d been nothing of this magnitude. Without his armour, Lucan felt no shame in admitting that it was time for flight rather than fight.
“Jump, lad!” he roared. Malvolio was perched directly overhead. “Behind me!”
Malvolio had watched bug-eyed as Lucan had navigated around the clearing. He’d seen the monster loop back on itself, but its vast, sinuous body had now shifted position, and it was coiling to strike.
“My lord!” he wailed as he descended.
Lucan leaned forward, pressing into the pommel of his saddle. Malvolio fell heavily into position behind him. The horse, shocked by the impact, squealed and bucked, giving the serpent all the delay it needed. Thrusting itself in a blur of motion, it snapped its jaws shut, a single fang puncturing the right sleeve of Lucan’s pelisson, sinking into his shoulder and lodging there. With his horse driving onward, Lucan was yanked sideways from its back. Malvolio was almost buffeted from the saddle as well, but managed to hang on. The next thing Lucan knew, the leafy ground had struck him, driving the wind from his body. In the process he became detached from the serpent’s tooth, and rolled away.
Again its massive jaws slammed shut, this time missing him by inches.
He leapt to his feet and doubled back, running alongside the monster’s trunk, leaping over it as it twisted in pursuit. He grasped at his hip, only to find an empty scabbard. He swore; he’d left his sword on his horse.
He glanced back to see the serpent bunching for another strike, its tongue flickering. Beyond it, the diminutive shape of Malvolio struggled to stay on the terrified horse as it bounded off into the wood.
Lucan cast around for something else he could use. Nothing lay nearby, not even a stone or rotted branch. To his left was the yawning mouth of the cave; evidently the creature’s lair. Aside from that, it was a rugged rock-face coated with thorns and briars — not climbable in the time he had.
He swung back to face the monster.
It slid towards him, its head low. Its gaze was almost hypnotic.
Lucan locked eyes with it. It seemed to hesitate, and he couldn’t help wondering if it was relishing the moment. Did it understand that he was the ruler of these lands? Did it realise the extent of its victory, and was it pleased?
For Lucan’s own part, he felt only regret: that he hadn’t done better things in his life; that there weren’t kinder words he could have spoken to his friends, and above all to his wife. It was a familiar sensation. He’d known it from a hundred battlefields past, when he’d thought he was facing death. And he responded now in the way he always did — standing tall, shoulders back. He clawed his hands as though ready to grapple his way through his final minutes, although he knew it would be futile. As did the serpent.
It struck with numbing speed, lashing its entire body forward — and at the same time it was hit in the left eye by an arrow, slanting down from the top of the rock-face.
The eye burst in a welter of green putrescence.
The monster reared to a colossal height, its black tongue rigid in its gaping maw and its prolonged hisss taking on a painfully shrill note. It whipped back, folding over itself, and crossed the clearing, its body writhing and twisting in agony, loops passing from its snout to its tail.
Lucan turned, and saw Alaric scrambling down a steep crevice in the rocks, tripping and sliding through the briars and mulch. As he reached the ground he threw aside his bow, hefted his spear and launched it. It struck the serpent squarely in the open mouth, piercing its head clean through, driving the flat head backward and pinning it to the bole of the oak.
“My… my lord!” Alaric cried, seemingly stunned by his success.
“Sword!” Lucan roared. “Sword!”
Alaric, flushed and gleaming with sweat, took a moment to realise what his master had asked; he drew his sword and threw it. Lucan caught it and dashed across the clearing. Alaric pulled a hunting-knife from his boot and stumbled after him.
The transfixed monster thrashed its body, throwing such immense coils of muscle and scale at them that a clean blow would have crushed the marrow from their bones. But Lucan was elusive, darting to and fro as he ran, and — once he was upon it — chopping and hacking, his gleaming blade rending through scaly flesh and pink sinew, ignoring the blood that spurted over him, ignoring the yellow venom that gurgled from either side of the monstrosity’s open mouth — until at last, with a sickening crunch, its spine came apart. Abruptly, it dropped in a heap, the tip of its tail quivering for a moment before lying still. Lucan didn’t halt, sawing and slicing until, with a little help from Alaric, he’d entirely separated the head from the torso.
Seconds passed before they turned and regarded each other, breathing hoarsely. Steam enveloped them both, rising from their own sweat rather than the blood that spattered them, which had never been warm in the first place.
Alaric crouched and tentatively peered into the rents in the serpent’s body.
“If you’re looking for your friend, he’s quite safe.” Lucan rested his hands on the pommel of the sword. “He made sure of that himself.”
Alaric stood up and mopped the sweat from his brow.
“We had to spread out to find him,” he explained. “It’s a good thing I was on foot. Sir Wulfstan sent me to look up there along the ridge. Otherwise, I’d never…”
“It’s also a good thing you were brave. Not to mention quick-thinking.”
“To be honest, my lord, I acted without thinking.”
“That’s the way it should be with a warrior.”
Alaric now saw the hole ripped in the upper sleeve of Lucan’s pelisson, and fresh blood coursing over his hand.
“My lord, you’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing. A nick.”
“If that creature bit you…”
“It’s a nick.” Lucan smiled — or attempted to. He was ash-pale. “So how does it feel to be eighteen and a hero? Until now only Arthur has been able to answer that.”
“My lord, I think the venom…”
“It’s not important. You realise you’ve just saved your lord’s life, Alaric?”
“Erm, yes… I suppose.” Only now was it striking the squire what he’d done. He’d prevented the death, not just of his lifelong friend and mentor, but of a full-fledged Knight of the Round Table.
“So now I have to reward you,” Lucan said. “I wonder what might be a suitable accolade.” His complexion had worsened. Faint shudders passed through him as he spoke. “Why don’t we put it to a vote at tonight’s birthday banquet?”