Gawain moved.
Not forward up. His great sword left his hand, spinning end over end as he threw it toward the giant with all his strength. The blade arced through the air, a silver comet of death.
But Gawain was already moving faster.
His legs coiled. Muscles that had served him through a hundred lifetimes tightened. And then BOOM he launched himself from the ground, soaring after his blade, his shadow stretching across the cratered earth.
His foot came down.
On the sword.
For one impossible moment, he stood on his own blade in mid air, using it as a stepping stone, a platform, a springboard. The great sword dipped beneath his weight—then he was gone, pushing off, flipping backward in a perfect arc.
The giant's eyes tracked him confused, searching, too slow.
Gawain's hand blade came down.
SHIIIIING!
The giant moved. Not fast enough to dodge, but fast enough to survive. His hand snapped up, not with his sword there was no time but with an arrow, pulled from his quiver in a heartbeat. He jammed the arrowhead up, catching Gawain's mithril blade on its tip.
Metal screamed against metal. Sparks exploded. The arrow bent, nearly breaking, but it held just long enough for the giant to bring his great sword around.
CRASH!
Their blades met. Mithril against iron. Will against will. For a frozen moment, they hung there Gawain in mid-air, the giant braced below locked in a tableau of perfect violence.
Then Gawain fell back.
He hit the ground rolling, came up in a crouch, and stabbed upward.
The blade not mithril, his great sword, recovered from where it had fallen sank into the giant's leg. Deep. Through muscle, through tendon, through. He pulled as he rose, the blade slicing upward, opening the leg like a fish's belly.
Blood poured.
The giant roared a sound of pain, of rage, of shock. His leg buckled beneath him, nearly sending him to his knees.
Gawain stepped back, breathing hard, and smiled.
"Huh." He tilted his head, admiring his work. "How does that feel?" Blood dripped from his blade, pattering on the rocks. "Try holding that wound, will you? Go on. I'll wait."
The giant stared at him. At his leg. At the ruin of muscle and sinew that should have ended the fight right there.
But he didn't fall.
He grinned.
It was a terrible thing, that grin wide and bloody and mad. His hand moved to his bow, still slung across his back. In one motion, he drew not with his fingers, but with his teeth, pulling an arrow from the quiver and nocking it with his jaw.
One hand held the bow.
One hand held the string.
His teeth held the arrow.
He released.
FWIP!
The arrow flew straight, true, perfect aimed directly at Gawain's heart.
Gawain's great sword came up. DING! The arrow deflected, spinning away into the darkness.
But the giant was already moving.
Despite his ruined leg, despite the blood that painted the ground beneath him, he charged. His great sword came around in an arc that would have taken Gawain's head from his shoulders.
Gawain met it with his own blade.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!
The shockwave flattened the ground around them. Rocks shattered. Dust flew. Both men held neither giving ground, neither yielding.
Then Gawain moved.
His left hand the one with the mithril blade shot forward. Not to stab, but to punch. The blade was an extension of his arm, a second edge, a surprise.
The giant's chin cracked under the impact. His head snapped back, his vision swimming.
Gawain pressed.
His great sword came down not at the neck, not at the heart, but at the chest. At the same moment, his mithril blade thrust forward.
They met.
SHUNK!
An X. A perfect, bloody X carved into the giant's chest. Flesh parted. Bone splintered. Blood exploded outward, painting Gawain's face, his armor, his grin.
The giant stumbled back, hands clutching at the wound, at the impossible depth of it.
Gawain backflipped away, landing lightly on a outcropping of rock.
He wasn't done.
His hand went to his belt to the row of small daggers tucked there, each no longer than a man's finger. Eight of them. He threw them in a single, fluid motion, his great sword held with just three fingers, the remaining two flicking the daggers forward.
They spun through the air, glinting.
But it wasn't the daggers themselves that mattered.
It was what was attached to them.
Small metal balls, no larger than grapes, dangled from each dagger by thin threads. They bounced and swung as the daggers flew, erratic, unpredictable, deadly.
The giant saw them. His eyes widened then narrowed. His hand snapped to his quiver, pulling not one arrow, but eight. In a blur of motion, he nocked and released, each arrow aimed with impossible precision.
Not at the daggers.
At the threads.
The arrows flew FWIP FWIP FWIP FWIP FWIP FWIP FWIP FWIP each one targeting the thin lines that connected daggers to bombs.
Gawain's eyes widened. "You"
But the giant's face twisted. The wound in his leg was screaming. The wound in his chest was burning. The effort of that eight-shot volley had cost him cost him dearly. His leg buckled. His vision swam.
One thought echoed in his mind:
This battle… I may lose it.
His jaw tightened. His grip on his sword hardened.
But in the name of Lord Caesar… I will win this battle. Even if I am dead.
He threw his head back and roared.
"WE WILL TAKE CAMELOT! "
His arrows struck.
The threads snapped.
The metal balls fell.
And then they exploded.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Eight explosions, so close together they became one a wall of fire and smoke and noise that swallowed the battlefield whole. The shockwave knocked soldiers from their feet. The sound deafened everyone within a hundred yards.
And the smoke
The smoke was thick. Heavy. Dense. It hung in the air like a living thing, a cloud so opaque that visibility dropped to zero. Nothing could be seen. Nothing could be heard beyond the ringing in everyone's ears.
Into that smoke, Gawain ran.
He didn't need to see. Didn't need to hear. He felt the giant's presence the mass of him, the heat of him, the blood of him. It was like a beacon in the darkness.
He struck.
CLANG!
His blade met iron the giant's sword, blocking. He struck again CLANG! blocked again. Again CLANG! blocked. Again CLANG! blocked. Again CLANG! blocked. Again CLANG! blocked.
A flurry. A storm. A frenzy.
And in Gawain's mind, one thought burned:
This… this is exhilarating.
His heart sang. His blood danced. Every strike, every block, every near miss sent electricity through his veins. This was what he lived for. What he died for. What he'd kill for.
It's beautiful.
He couldn't see the giant. Could barely hear him. But he could feel him the weight of his blocks, the shift of his weight, the presence of him.
The sound.
Each clash of blades was a note in a symphony. Each spark that lit the smoke for an instant was a flash of lightning in a storm.
He's turned red, Gawain thought, and laughed a mad, joyous sound. I've turned him red with my blade!
Behind him, hidden in the shadows beyond the smoke, Lancelot watched.
He couldn't see the fighters themselves the smoke was too thick. But he could see the sparks. Each clash lit the cloud from within, brief flashes that traced the dance of death inside.
Left. Right. High. Low. Parry. Strike. Block. Counter.
Lancelot's eyes tracked each spark, each sound, each movement. He built a picture in his mind a map of the battle within the cloud.
"Well," he murmured to himself, a faint smile crossing his face. "He's always been a pervert for battle. Not surprising, really."
Inside the smoke, Gawain pushed harder.
His blade found the giant's again CLANG! and again CLANG! and again CLANG! a relentless assault that gave the giant no time to breathe, no time to think, no time to recover.
But the giant held.
Wounded. Bleeding. Dying. But holding.
Because he was Roman. Because he served Caesar. Because giving up was not in his nature.
Gawain's hand closed on something on the ground. An arrow one of the giant's own, fallen during the chaos. He snatched it up, gripping it in the same hand that held his great sword.
Two weapons. Three, counting the mithril blade on his other arm.
He lunged.
Straight for the giant's face.
The arrow plunged into the giant's eye.
Not his sword. Not his mithril blade. An arrow jammed into the socket with all of Gawain's strength behind it.
The giant screamed.
But even as he screamed, his fist flew. Connected with the side of Gawain's head a massive, bone-breaking punch that sent the knight flying.
Gawain hit the ground and rolled, the world spinning. His ears rang a high, piercing whine that drowned out everything. His vision blurred. His thoughts scattered like leaves in a wind.
He lay there, stunned, as the smoke slowly began to clear.
And across from him, the giant stood one eye gone, chest carved open, leg ruined but still standing. Still fighting.
The arrow protruded from his empty socket like a grotesque decoration.
He pulled it out.
The sound was wet. Horrible. Final.
"Again," the giant rasped, blood pouring down his face. "Again."
Gawain pushed himself up, shaking his head, trying to clear the ringing.
"Again," he agreed.
They moved toward each other.
One last time.