Orion and King Arthur Read Online Free PDF Page A

admitted. “Do you knowwhich way leads to the sea?”
    I raised my hand and pointed toward the rising sun. “That way, I think.”
    Quicker than they could follow I reached behind my head for my sword and cut the nearest man in two before he could blink an eye. As his blood fountained over me, the others roared with rage and ran toward me. I saw their charge in slow motion, languid as a dream, as my senses speeded into overdrive.
    Even so, thirteen against one could end only one way. One of them threw his axe at me; I dodged it easily as it spun lazily toward my head.
    The first two that came within arm’s reach of me I cut down like a scythe mows wheat. The others skidded to a stop and began to encircle me.
    Then I heard the furious bellow of young Arthur as he charged on horseback into the fray. Out of the corner of myeye I saw him, helmeted and crouched in the saddle behind his red dragon shield, sword upraised, glinting in the morning sun.
    Arthur had cleverly maneuvered to my right, so that his charge forced the Saxons to turn away from me to face him. I drove into their midst, slashing bone and sinew, shattering the blades they tried to use to protect themselves. Arthur cut a swath through them, then turnedhis steed and came back at them even while his first victims were sinking to the ground.
    The remaining few broke and ran, screaming for their lives. Arthur galloped after them and cut them down before they could reach the trees. All except the one who dashed in the opposite direction. I hefted his discarded axe and threw it. Its sharp edge caught him between the shoulder blades and he went downface-first with a final shriek of death.
    And then it was over. All fourteen Saxons lay dead or dying, and the two terrified girls knelt in the midst of the bloody carnage, by the stump of a felled tree, clutching each other in trembling fear.
    Arthur sheathed his red-stained sword and lifted off his helmet, tossing his long sandy hair.
    “Don’t be afraid,” he said softly to the girls. “No onewill harm you.”
    They gaped up at him and the elaborate red dragon on his shield.
    5
    The girls led us to a village by the lake’s edge, where they told everyone how Arthur had saved them from the Saxon raiders. I was taken to be Arthur’s squire, a nonentity compared to the handsome young nobleman.
    The whole village knelt at his feet and blessed him, but Arthur did not allow the villagers’ adorationto affect him. When the village elders begged him to stay the night and take his pick of their women, Arthur replied gently:
    “I cannot. I am on a quest that must not be delayed.”
    I wondered what would become of the two teenaged girls we had rescued. They were orphaned now, with no family to care for them.
    But Arthur had already considered that. As he swung up onto his saddle, he pointed tothem and pronounced solemnly, “Those maidens are under the protection of the High King. Send them to Cadbury castle in the spring and I will see that Ambrosius finds noble husbands for them.”
    The girls nearly swooned. The villagers raised a chorus of blessings. Yes, I thought, Arthur will make an excellent king—if he lives long enough.
    6
    As we rode slowly along the lake’s edge that afternoon,Arthur grew somber.
    “I’ve never seen Saxons this far inland before,” he told me. “If we don’t stop them soon, they will overrun all of Britain.”
    What could I answer? My Creator wanted the Saxons and their barbarian cousins to conquer Britain, to drive out the Celtic Britons and create an empire of their own.
    “Well,” I said, finding my tongue at last, “at least there are fourteen of them whoseonly part of this island is the ground they are buried in.”
    He grinned boyishly at me.
    I thought that the Saxon raiders were Aten’s attempt to turn me back from this quest for a sword for Arthur. Perhaps they were. My mistake was to believe that they would be Aten’s only attempt to stop us.
    We plodded along the lake’s