Hunting Ground

Arthur threw up his hands theatrically. “How should I know? Fae are easily offended. As for what I offered her-” He motioned to the sword case.

“That is not Excalibur,” Charles said. “When she discovers you don’t have it, she’ll be… offended.”

Arthur ran his fingers gently over the display case-and slid open a dark chunk of wood on the end. “There is something to be said about hiding things in plain sight.”

The sword he removed from the hidden compartment wasn’t the one that had been on display-though it looked very like. Both were swordsmen’s weapons rather than movie props. As soon as this once-hidden sword left the case, the hair on the back of Charles’s neck came to attention.

Excalibur or not, there was no denying that the sword in Arthur’s hand was a fae blade: he could feel its magic on his skin, could smell it.

Arthur was a swordsman, Charles knew. He’d studied fencing and had received the same sort of martial training that Charles himself had. Arthur’s balance was right and his grip-neither too tight nor too loose-showed all that training had not been wasted.

He hadn’t been worried about a sword, but that sword… Charles was a dead man, most likely. But Angus would be coming with help. Enough help that even with the sword, A

“A

Arthur smiled. “You really don’t believe in reincarnation, do you? Or fate. I came here to kill Chastel and your father. Chastel I had an answer for. For your father, I needed more.”

“Why my father?”

Arthur looked at him as though he was stupid. “Because I am he, of course. King Arthur. It is my destiny to be the high king.”

Madness indeed, thought Charles

“But my father didn’t come.”

“No,” agreed Arthur. “Fate is an odd thing. Do you know just who Dana is?”

“Obviously you are going to tell me,” said Charles dryly.

“I wonder if your father does. This is what I mean by fate-that I who was Arthur would find Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, here. I knew a couple of decades ago that she was here in Seattle -the first time I saw her, in fact. I knew that there would come a time that it was important-so I bought Su

Obviously, Charles thought, it wasn’t going to be hard to keep Arthur monologuing.

Arthur’s smile turned sly. “I didn’t find Excalibur in an archaeological dig-though that’s what I was doing at the time. At Cambridge I made friends with a boy whose family was old Cornish gentry. He invited me home for Christmas. I discovered that they’d been guarding a treasure for so many generations that they’d forgotten all about it. It took me to find it again. It was hidden under the flagstone in the carriage house. A sword in the stone-so to speak.” He laughed at his own cleverness.

“The boy’s older sister looked enough like Dana to be her twin.” With his free hand, he rubbed his thumb over his first two fingers. “A little research, and insight becomes knowledge. So I knew when I saw Dana I had the perfect thing to bribe her with.” He swung the sword gently. “She had no idea it wasn’t resting beneath the stone where she’d placed it until I showed it to her-a photograph. I am not stupid.”

“I could disagree with you on that,” Charles said. “You’ve done a number of stupid things that I can pick out. But trying to get the best of a Gray Lord is the stupidest by far. You never had any intention of giving her the sword.”

Arthur bobbed his head-a polite agreement. “The first deal would have been honest. Excalibur isn’t the only thing I discovered there. I had other weapons, you know. I offered her the dagger. She refused-and made it clear she would hunt me ‘to the ends of the earth,’ I believe. I know her, you see, but she doesn’t know me. Doesn’t believe I am Arthur.”

Charles knew which Arthur he was talking about.

“But my father didn’t come.”

“No, you did. And you brought her with you.”

“Her?”

“Gwenevere. My white lady.”

And then Arthur proved that he wasn’t as stupid as Charles had started to believe. Because without telegraphing his move by so much as a breath, while Charles was still absorbing the idea that Arthur wanted A

The sword in his stomach didn’t hurt, just robbed Charles of his strength. Of his ability to move.

He heard A

As his legs collapsed, Arthur followed him down. “A swift fight,” Arthur said, “is the best kind of fight. I know you. When your father didn’t come, I was so disappointed. But when I saw her… saw my Gwenevere, I knew.” He grimaced. “She was mine, and you had her, just like before. I could have killed you cleanly, you know. But I want you to suffer. Lancelot.”

“There was no Lancelot, fool.”

For a moment Charles thought that he’d said those words, he’d thought them so hard. But the voice was a woman’s.

Dana.

Arthur jerked the sword free and stumbled back until he regained his feet. As soon as the steel left his body, the coldness dissipated. Charles put a hand to his belly to staunch the bleeding. It hadn’t gone all the way through-Arthur had wanted him to suffer-so if he could keep from bleeding to death, Brother Wolf could heal them. The wound was small enough to heal fast.

Sharp steel, Brother Wolf told him, cuts swiftest, hurts least, heals soonest.

Charles gave the pack magic a little tug and received a bounty in return. He wasn’t the Alpha, but his father could grant him help if he chose. And Bran was a generous leader. Pain faded. No need to advertise that he was not dying, though. Not yet. He stayed collapsed, out of the way. Don’t pay attention to me, I’m not a threat. Charles could become less noticeable if he had to, though not as well as Bran-his da had the technique perfected. It is easier to go u

“Give me the sword,” she said.

“She is my sword,” Arthur said, taking a tighter grip and pulling the point up into a guard position. “Mine from the first. She came to my hand from yours-and when I died, it was not I who gave her back.”

Dana moved into Charles’s view. She’d dropped the glamour-or adopted a new one. It wasn’t so much that she changed anything, but she had become more. And A

Charles moved his hand, and when blood didn’t pour out, moved his shirt and looked at the scab. Too fresh to move yet, but soon.

“You stole it,” Dana said, her voice low and fierce. “It is not yours. Was never yours. The King may indeed come again-it was foretold so. But that is not you. Has never been you. You are not Arthur.”

“You are not meant to know me,” Arthur told her. “And we are quit of our bargain. Chastel didn’t kill Charles, as you promised. And when Charles defeated the Frenchman-you were unable to find another way to kill him, to kill Charles. You failed. I owe you nothing.”

She lifted her hand. “Caladbog. Caledfwych. Excalibur. I have delivered it to the hands of great men, fighters, heroes all. Your hands profane it. A coward who hires his deaths and kills those better, smarter, stronger than he.”

“You can’t take it from me,” Arthur said. “Not unless you kill Charles. And you ca

I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you, Arthur, thought Charles. I thought my father had worked out a bargain with her-and look what happened to us. Excalibur meant more to her than her word, and it still does.