Gareth turned to Lamorak, his red eyes sharp and focused despite the exhaustion that hung on his shoulders like a shroud.
"How recovered are you now?"
Lamorak flexed his fingers around Storm Cutter's hilt, feeling the familiar hum of the blade against his palm. The silver sword responded to his touch awake, aware, hungry. He had been unconscious for hours, had lost blood, had endured the gag and the bonds and the humiliation of being a hostage.
But he was a knight of Camelot.
"Well." His voice was steady. "If it's for an attack, I can use more than half of my power. Stably."
Gareth shook his head.
"No." His voice was firm, final. "I don't need you to use an attack."
Lamorak's brow furrowed.
"Rather..." Gareth stepped closer, his eyes burning. "I want you to pour all your power into the winds. And create a large cyclone. The biggest that you have ever created."
Lamorak's eyes widened.
"If possible..." Gareth's voice dropped. "I want you to turn your artificial cyclone into one that is everlasting. Undying. Powered by the wind itself."
He paused.
"A cyclone that tears up anything in its path to shreds."
He looked directly into Lamorak's eyes.
"If possible... can you make a cyclone that can destroy an entire continent?"
Lamorak's mouth opened.
A dozen responses rose to his lips protests, explanations, warnings about the limits of his power, about the cost of such a spell, about the danger of unleashing something so vast and uncontrollable.
Gareth cut him off.
"Are you underestimating your power?" His voice was sharp, challenging. "The power of the storm is one of the fundamental powers that exist in this world."
He gestured at the grey sky at the clouds, at the wind, at the atmosphere that surrounded them all.
"It may not be as powerful as the sun of Arthur." His voice hardened. "But the storm destroys all."
Lamorak was silent for a long moment.
Then he lifted Storm Cutter to the sky.
The silver blade caught the grey light not reflecting it, but absorbing it, drinking it, becoming it. The hum that had been a whisper became a roar. The edge that had been sharp became absolute.
He took a deep breath in.
And he spoke.
"The storms are my power." His voice was quiet, but it carried. "And I am the storm."
He lowered the blade.
"But are you sure?" He turned to Gareth. "Are you sure this is all it will take?"
Gareth's expression did not change.
"No."
The word was flat. Final.
"If this was all it could take..." He looked at the battlefield at the bodies, at the blood, at the carnage that surrounded them. "...then we would be dead."
He turned back to Lamorak.
"You said there was a general on the battlefield, right? One that you could feel with your wind?"
Lamorak nodded.
"Well... there was one before." His voice grew tight. "But he died."
Gareth's eyes widened. "What?"
Lamorak's jaw tightened.
"Yes. He died. To Sir Galahad." He paused. "And now a new one has come up."
He looked toward the distant rise where the bald-headed figure stood, surrounded by his black-cloaked soldiers.
"But the difference..." His voice dropped. "Is that this new one... I can't tell from my wind what he is."
His fingers tightened on Storm Cutter.
"He gives off a very dark feeling. Like a pit." He shook his head. "And he's not the only one. Thirteen men, all told... they are killing people." His eyes narrowed. "I think those people are traitors."
Gareth waved his hand dismissively.
"Well, that's none of our business." His voice was cold. "We just need to watch out for them."
Lamorak nodded.
"And there's a woman on the battlefield." His voice grew strange hesitant, uncertain, troubled. "She feels really familiar, you know."
He looked at Gareth.
"I think she's Kiroto."
Gareth's brow furrowed.
"The closest comrade of Mordred?" He shook his head. "She hasn't made a move yet?"
Lamorak shook his head.
"No. Not yet."
Gareth sighed.
"So that's all the report, right?" He looked at Lamorak, then at the battlefield, then at the distant figures moving toward them. "Then our chess table has been completed."
He turned to face the direction where Galahad and the others were approaching.
"How far is Galahad and the rest from reaching us?"
Lamorak closed his eyes, letting the wind speak to him. The currents carried information footsteps, heartbeats, the strain of exhausted bodies pushing through pain.
"Well..." He opened his eyes. "In about three minutes, they should be here."
Gareth nodded.
"If that's the case..." His voice hardened. "...then let's leave this place. Head toward them."
He began to walk.
"We need to meet now."
He paused, turning back.
"But I want to ask when you create the storm, can you make some places within the storm weak? Passages? Openings?"
Lamorak opened his mouth to respond
A bright light started to emerge.
It filled the entire battlefield not gradually, not slowly, but all at once. One moment, the world was grey. The next, it was white blazing, scorching, absolute.
Lamorak and Gareth turned their faces away.
Because it was like the sun.
The sun itself, standing on the earth.
General Titus watched from a high vantage point.
His bald head reflected the light not shielding him, not protecting him, but absorbing it, becoming it. He smiled as he covered his face with his hand, squinting against the brightness.
"So." His voice was quiet. "The sun is here."
Behind him, the thirteen Roman soldiers in black cloaks used their dark fabric to cover their faces. The cloth was thick, insulated, designed to protect against heat and light and death.
If they had delayed even a bit if they had hesitated, if they had doubted the bright light would have burnt their eyes from their sockets.
The light was not only bright.
It was also hot.
The heat radiated outward from the blazing figure from Arthur, from Excalibur, from the sun that had descended upon the battlefield. Waves of warmth pulsed through the air, shimmering across the sand, melting the edges of metal and stone.
Even from where Galahad stood far from Arthur, far from the epicenter of the light he saw it. Felt it.
Everyone with him covered their faces.
Sir Kay, still unconscious on Galahad's back, stirred his skin flushing, his breath quickening. Sir Lancelot, carried by Tristan, groaned his transformed body reacting to the heat.
Percival raised his arm to shield his bleeding eyes.
Leodegrance turned his face away, his stumps pressed against his chest.
Tristan squinted, sweat already beading on his forehead.
The heat was so intense that everyone on the battlefield began to sweat.
Great droplets rolled down faces, necks, armor. The sand itself seemed to steam. The bodies of the fallen Roman and Camelot alike crackled as the moisture left their flesh.
The remaining Roman and Camelot soldiers hid themselves.
They ducked behind rocks, behind shields, behind anything that might offer a moment of shade. They removed pieces of metal helmets, gauntlets, breastplates as the metal grew so hot that it melted, dripping from their bodies like wax from a candle.
King Arthur was now in close proximity.
This was the sun of Camelot.
His hair blazed like a furnace. His beard burned like a forge. His armor glowed with an inner light that seemed to come from somewhere beyond the physical.
Excalibur was no longer a sword.
It was a star.
Held in the hand of a man who had become something more than human.
Gareth grabbed Lamorak by the hand.
His grip was iron desperate, urgent, alive. He pulled the younger knight away from the approaching light, away from the sun, away from the death that walked toward them.
They sprinted.
Toward the direction of Galahad. Toward the survivors. Toward the only chance they had left.
"Use the wind!" Gareth shouted, his voice almost lost in the roar of the light, the crackle of the heat, the thunder of Arthur's approach. "It's so hot I feel like I could die!"
Lamorak did not argue.
He raised Storm Cutter the silver blade gleaming even in the blinding light and called to the winds.
They came to him.
Not reluctantly. Not slowly. They rushed from every direction, from every corner of the battlefield, from the sky and the earth and the space between. They wrapped around him, around Gareth, forming a dome of rushing air.
Cool.
Protected.
The heat did not reach them. The light did not blind them. They ran through the battlefield, surrounded by the winds of the storm, shielded by the power of Lamorak's blade.
Their bodies cooled.
Their breath came easier.
And they ran.
Gareth and Lamorak ran toward Galahad.
Arthur walked toward Mordred.
And the grey sky burned.