Galahad's eyes drifted across the battlefield, scanning the fallen, the living, the broken. Then they landed on Sir Leodegrance.
The old knight lay on his side, his stumps wrapped in makeshift bandages, his body still and pale. But his eye the one that could still open was blinking.
Rapidly.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
A signal. A desperate, wordless cry for attention.
Leodegrance's mind raced.
Yes, he thought, his heart pounding against his broken ribs. He saw me. Now let me move my finger.
He focused. Concentrated. Willed the muscles in his hand his missing hand to twitch.
Wait. The thought hit him like a blade. My finger? How?
He rolled his eye downward toward his arms, toward the place where his hands should have been.
The stumps were still there. Wrapped in cloth. Bound tight. No fingers. No attachments. Nothing had changed.
But he could still feel his fingers.
The sensation was wrong. Impossible. Pure horror crawled up his spine, a cold, screaming thing that should have made him cry out.
But he could not scream.
His throat was locked. His jaw was wired shut by pain and exhaustion. The only sound he could make was a dry, useless rasp.
He blinked again.
Faster.
Galahad's eyes narrowed.
"Hey." His voice was sharp, cutting through the quiet that had settled over the survivors. "I think something is wrong here."
Tristan turned. Percival turned.
They saw it too Leodegrance's body trembling, his eye blinking, his chest heaving as if he were trying to run a race while lying still.
Sweat poured from the old knight's face. Great droplets rolled down his temples, his cheeks, his chin. His teeth were grinding together, his jaw bulging with effort.
He was trying to force action.
"What does he want to say?" Galahad's voice was urgent.
Tristan didn't answer. He moved quickly, efficiently and knelt beside Leodegrance. His hands grabbed the old knight's shoulder, and he rolled him onto his stomach.
Face down.
Then he began to strip Leodegrance's armor.
The leather straps came loose. The bronze plates clattered aside. The padded underlayer peeled away, revealing the old knight's back pale, sweating, covered in bruises and half-healed wounds.
Leodegrance's mind screamed.
What's going on?! He tried to thrash, but his body would not obey. Let go of me, you little pervert! What's wrong with you?!
Tristan sighed a long, tired sound as he removed the final piece of Leodegrance's upper body protection. The armor was damaged cracked in places, dented in others but it had done its job.
Leodegrance was alive.
"We're fools," Tristan said quietly. "Celebrating this early." He looked at the old knight's exposed back. "He almost died."
Percival closed his eyes.
For a moment, he stood still his breath held, his body tense. Then he opened them.
Veins formed around his eyes dark, bulging, strained. Blood trickled from the corners, thin lines of crimson that traced down his cheeks. He was using his ability again. Pushing his eyes beyond their limits.
He looked at Leodegrance.
Not at the surface at the inside. The vibrations of blood vessels, the flow of blood, the rhythm of life itself.
Leodegrance's blood vessels were slow.
The blood moved through them like water through a clogged pipe thick, sluggish, inefficient. The color was dark too dark depleted of the oxygen that should have brightened it.
Tristan looked at Percival. Percival looked at Tristan.
Together, they echoed the same word.
"So that's how it is."
Tristan's brow furrowed. "Huh?"
Percival straightened, wiping blood from his eyes.
"He lost a lot of blood." His voice was flat, clinical. "There's little to no oxygen supplying his body. His muscles are starving. His brain is fading."
Galahad's voice came from behind them dry, sarcastic, dripping with irony.
"Oh my." He tilted his head. "It would have been so hard to figure that out, right?"
Tristan and Percival both froze.
Their faces lengthened. Their eyes widened. Their cheeks flushed with embarrassment. They turned slowly like children caught stealing sweets to look at Galahad.
He stood behind them, his face stoic, his expression unreadable. But his eyes those empty, tired eyes held a glint of something.
Amusement.
Galahad said nothing more. But inside his mind, a voice spoke.
Sometimes, he thought, they are the greatest soldiers on the battlefield. Fierce. Unstoppable. Legends.
He watched Tristan and Percival squirm under his gaze.
And after that... they become complete idiots.
He moved forward.
His body was still shaking the Death Sword had taken nearly everything from him. But he held it in. Locked his muscles. Refused to show any sign of weakness.
Even small movements were difficult.
But he made them.
He knelt beside Leodegrance beside the old knight who lay face-down on the sand, his back exposed, his breath shallow. He placed his trembling hands on Leodegrance's spine.
"This will shock you a bit," he said quietly. "So brace yourself."
Leodegrance's eye widened.
"Basically, what I'm going to do is send an enormous amount of information from your spine to your brain." Galahad's fingers found the vertebrae one by one, counting, measuring. "It will overload your brain force it to shut down. While it restarts, your body will rest. Adapt to its present condition."
Tristan's eyebrows rose.
"So, basically... forceful adaptation." He crossed his arms, nodding slowly. "I guess spending time with lots of medics really rubbed off on you." A small smile crossed his face. "Gave you a lot of these medical techniques."
Galahad did not respond.
His fingers still trembling, still weak pressed against Leodegrance's spine. He held them there for a moment, gathering himself, preparing.
Then he struck.
His fingers moved like needles sharp, precise, impossible for a man in his condition. He hit every vertebra along Leodegrance's spine, one after another, from the base of the skull to the base of the back.
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.
The sound was sharp, crisp, almost musical.
Leodegrance felt pain.
Not the dull ache of old wounds. Not the sharp sting of fresh cuts. Something new. Something terrible. It shot through his entire body like lightning, like fire, like death.
His body shook.
His muscles convulsed. His back arched. His mouth opened
And he screamed.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
The sound tore from his throat raw, primal, alive. It echoed across the battlefield, bouncing off rocks and bodies, filling the grey sky with the proof that he was still there.
Then silence.
His body went limp.
He fell asleep.
A few seconds passed. Maybe more. Time had lost its meaning on this battlefield.
Then his eye opened.
He pushed himself up slowly, painfully, impossibly. His arms the stumps where his hands had been pressed against the sand, lifting him. His body swayed. His vision swam.
But he was upright.
He looked at his arms at the wrapped stumps, at the place where his hands should have been. The cloth was clean Tristan had bound them while he was unconscious. No blood seeped through. No pain pulsed from the wounds.
"I can't even feel them anymore," he muttered. His voice was hoarse, barely audible. "They were... somewhat there before. But now..."
Galahad nodded.
"Well." He straightened, his own body still trembling. "At least, in a way, it's better that way."
He met Leodegrance's eye.
"If the illusion of the past is in front of you, it will keep you from advancing into the future." His voice was soft. "That's a dangerous thing to happen."
He opened his mouth to say more
Leodegrance interrupted him.
"Cut that out of the way." The old knight's voice was sharp, desperate. "We need to leave here. Head forward."
He pushed himself to his feet.
"There is still an enemy that is alive."
Galahad's brow furrowed.
"A top Roman soldier?" He shook his head. "Won't be able to change anything more. Not now. Not after what we've done."
Leodegrance's eye burned.
"This enemy is not from Rome." His voice dropped. "He is from Camelot."
Tristan's face went pale.
"An enemy from Camelot?" His voice was barely a whisper. "One that sides with the Romans?"
Leodegrance nodded.
"Yes." His voice cracked. "The worst nightmare of our nation. The reason why we came to an end."
He looked at each of them in turn at Tristan, at Percival, at Galahad.
"The son of Arthur is here. "
On the first front of the battlefield, Sir Bors and Sir Gareth stood on their mountain of corpses.
The bodies of Roman soldiers lay piled around them dozens, hundreds, a monument to their endurance. Their armor was dented. Their blades were dulled. Their bodies were exhausted.
But they stood.
And then a sound.
Footsteps.
Approaching from the direction of the second front.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Something was being dragged. Two things heavy, limp, unresisting. The sounds came closer slow, deliberate, inevitable.
Mordred emerged from the dust.
The son of Arthur walked toward them calm, unhurried, his face a mask of cold amusement. In one hand, he dragged Sir Tor's unconscious body the knight's head bouncing against the rocks, his limbs sprawled. In the other hand, he dragged Sir Lamorak bound, gagged, his eyes burning with hatred above the cloth that silenced him.
Sir Bors and Sir Gareth saw him.
Their hands shook.
Their resolve the iron resolve that had carried them through centuries of battle, through the deaths of countless enemies, through the hell of this war weakened.
Because they knew that face.
They had seen it in paintings. In memories. In the nightmares that still haunted their sleep.
Mordred.
The traitor.
The usurper.
The son who had killed his father.
He stopped before them, dropping Tor and Lamorak to the ground. The bodies thudded against the sand unconscious, helpless, hostages.
"Hello, uncles."
His voice was almost cheerful.
"It would have been better if I had not followed this path." He tilted his head, studying their faces. "But you see Father destroyed most of the landscape with Excalibur and his abilities."
He shrugged.
"And unfortunately... I have enough hostages with me."
He spread his arms wide.
"So it is left to you." His smile widened. "Whether you choose to forgive me... or bear resentment against me."
He reached for his sword.
"Today..."
The blade came free.
"...you shall die."