Arthur advanced across the battlefield like a force of nature.
He moved alone now not because his knights had abandoned him, but because none of them could keep pace. None of them could survive in the radius of destruction he created with every step. Excalibur blazed in his hand, its golden light turning the grey landscape into something resembling dawn.
One man. One army.
Romans fell before him in waves. They came at him with swords and spears and shields and faith, and they died. All of them died. The blade cut through armor like paper, through flesh like water, through bone like air.
Arthur did not slow.
He did not stop.
He did not feel.
Behind him, Sir Bors and Sir Gareth followed at a distance, their orders clear in their minds. Arthur had spoken to them before the advance briefly, quietly, with the weight of a king who had seen too much.
Both of you, we must survive.
The words echoed in their memories.
I have failed to keep my duties in the world of the living. I owe it to the allegiance pledged to me. I, King Arthur, will not fail the will of Camelot. The will of my people. The will of my knights.
His eyes had burned with something they couldn't name.
Even if it costs me everything.
Arthur stopped at the edge of a crater one of many that now dotted this section of the battlefield. Ahead of him, a fresh wave of Roman soldiers was forming, their commanders shouting orders, their discipline holding despite the terror they must have felt.
He looked at them.
Then he squatted.
His body coiled like a spring, muscles tensing, energy gathering. The heat from Excalibur intensified, bleeding into his flesh, his bones, his soul. The ground beneath him began to melt.
He leaped.
BOOM!
The force of his jump destroyed the ground below him. A crater exploded outward uneven, chaotic, impossible as the power he released pushed sand and rock in every direction. The shockwave flattened Romans for fifty yards in every direction.
Arthur rose.
Higher. Higher. Higher.
He soared through the grey sky like a comet of gold, leaving a trail of light behind him. The wind screamed past his ears. The world shrank below him.
And he looked.
From this height, he could see everything. The four battlefronts. His knights fighting and dying and surviving. The mountain where Titus watched. The darkness where Lancelot floated.
He saw it all.
And for a moment just a moment he closed his eyes.
The hallway of Camelot stretched before him, long and grand and empty. Marble floors gleamed beneath his feet. Tapestries depicting great battles hung on the walls. And at the end of the hall, a door covered by golden strip curtains marked his private chambers.
Arthur stood in the hallway, but he was not the Arthur of Valhalla. He was younger. Weaker. A king who still ruled a living kingdom.
Beside him stood Sir Galahad.
The pure knight's face was troubled, his brow furrowed with concern. They had been discussing strategy whether to invade an opposing nation that threatened Camelot's borders. Galahad had proposed using sleeper agents, infiltrators who could destroy the nation from within.
Arthur had refused.
"What would that make of me?" Arthur's voice echoed in the empty hallway. "We are to conquer them because of the destruction they cause to the world at large. If we destroy their own people innocent people it would make us monsters."
Galahad studied his king's face. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
"My king," he said carefully, "why the sudden change of emotion? This is war. Such tactics are "
Arthur covered his face.
His shoulders shook. Sweat dripped down his face, though the hallway was cool. He made a sound a small, broken sound that Galahad had never heard from him before.
Galahad's expression shifted to concern. He bent forward, trying to meet his king's eyes.
"My king? What's wrong? What's going on?"
Inside Arthur's mind, a division was occurring. He didn't know who he was anymore. Didn't know who he was supposed to be. He was lost completely, utterly, terrifyingly lost.
"Galahad." Arthur's voice cracked. "Galahad, my friend..."
He fell.
Not dramatically just a collapse, his legs giving out, his body sinking to the cold marble floor. He sat there, a king in name only, broken and empty.
"I have lost the way," he whispered. "I have lost the will."
Galahad stared, frozen.
"I have lost the authority of the holy sword Excalibur."
The words hung in the air like poison.
"I don't know what it means anymore to be a king." Arthur's voice grew smaller, younger. "Should I... no. I'm not worthy to lead Camelot again. My son has turned against me. My queen.."
He choked on the words.
"A king." He laughed a bitter, broken sound. "What a joke. I am no king."
He reached up and pulled the crown from his head.
The golden circlet gleamed in the light as he held it away from himself, as if it were diseased. His arm drew back, ready to throw it to send it skittering across the marble floor, to abandon everything he had ever been.
SHINK!
Galahad's sword was at his throat.
The Sword of David pressed against Arthur's flesh, cold and sharp and absolute. Galahad's face was a mask of conflicting emotions anger and hope and desperation.
"What is the meaning of this?" His voice trembled. "How can you abandon your own people? How can you commit such acts against those who have given you everything?"
Arthur looked up at him at the blade at his throat, at the knight who held it and his eyes were tired. So tired. Too tired to fight. Too tired to care. Too tired to exist.
Before Galahad could say another word
A sound.
From Arthur's chambers. Behind the golden strip curtains.
A moan.
Galahad's head turned. His eyes narrowed. The sound came again a woman's voice, soft and breathless and intimate.
The queen.
Galahad's spirit weakened. His grip on the sword faltered. He looked at the curtain at the shifting shadows behind it and saw.
Two figures.
Lancelot. Holding the queen in his embrace. On the king's bed.
Galahad's hand trembled.
He could not speak. Could not move. Could not think. The Sword of David hung limply in his grip, its holy light dimming as his faith crumbled.
Through the gap in the curtain, he saw them. Saw everything. Saw the betrayal that would tear Camelot apart.
His voice, when it finally came, was barely a whisper.
"Lancelot..."
The name was poison on his tongue.
"...how could you?"
The present.
Arthur's eyes opened.
He was still in the sky, still falling toward the battlefield, still Arthur. But the memory lingered heavy and painful and real.
He had been broken once. Broken by betrayal, by loss, by the weight of a crown that had become too heavy to bear.
But that was then.
This was now.
He opened his eyes and looked at the battlefield below at the Romans, at his knights, at the darkness that held Lancelot and understood.
He was no longer the man who had sat on that cold marble floor. No longer the king who had tried to throw away his crown.
He was Arthur Pendragon.
And he would never yield.