Tales of the Once and Future King Read online

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2: Taliesin’s Riddle by Peter Nealen

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4: Tristan and Isolde by Matthew P. Schmidt

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6: The Hounds of Camelot by Morgon Newquist

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8: Arresting Merlin by Declan Finn

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10: Lady in Waiting by Jonathan Shipley

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12: Raising King Arthur by Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14: Fae by Katharina Daue

  Chapter 15: Airship Arthur by Bokerah Brumley

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17: The Beast by Ben Zwycky

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19: Sacred Cargo by R.C. Mulhare

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21: The Knight of Crows by Lela E. Buis

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23: Battle of the Bands at Raventree by Victor Rodriguez

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25: Stone in the Sword by B. Morris Allen

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27: King’s Ransom by K.A. Masters

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30: Kings of the Corona by Justin M. Tarquin

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33: Somebody’s Favorite Knight by Jon Etter

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37: Understudies of Camelot by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39: The Garden at the End and the Beginning of All Things

  Chapter 40

  Contributors

  Also from Superverisve Press

  TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING

  © 2017 Superversive Press. All rights reserved.

  http://superversivepress.com/

  Edited by Anthony Marchetta and Mariel Marchetta

  Cover Art: Dawn Witzke

  ISBN: 978-1-925645-54-5

  This book is dedicated to Mrs. Kristen Dundon

  The first person to teach me that theatre has the power to change lives

  CHAPTER 1

  It all began with a quest—or rather three quests—but everything was going awry.

  It was early in the morning on a bright spring day in the isle of Britain when Lance Shaw, Gavin Erewood, Bennett Warwick, and Maddie Calvin decided to cut through Sherwood Forest. The idea had seemed romantic at first, strolling among the enormous boles of ancient oaks that had once housed Robin Hood and his Merry Band beneath their boughs. By the end of the day, however, it was dark, wet, and they were properly lost.

  Having spent a sleepless night in the woods, the group had gathered around Gavin, a tall young man, slender and wiry, as he attempted to gain his bearings, acutely aware that the detour had been his idea. However, the second day had proven even damper than the first.

  Gavin was the only one who had actually traveled this far out of Scotland which is why Lance, his closest friend, had suggested he be the navigator. When they reached England, the danger had increased. Invaders swept over the center of the country, and a couple of the neighboring towns were on the brink of war. The drought had hit mainland England hard. With all this in mind, he had come up with the bright idea of cutting through Sherwood, neatly bypassing any number of potential battles or run-ins with unsavory figures. As a bonus, he knew the forest had expanded and grown denser over the years, which indicated that it was not yet overtaken with the drought.

  All of this turned out to be true, which was the problem.

  The forest had ended up being thicker and harder to cross than Gavin expected. They were eventually forced to walk their horses so they could clear a path through the underbrush. The drought had not hit the forest, but they soon realized that they faced the opposite problem. It rained all the time. The excess rain clouds apparently concentrated their efforts over Sherwood, ignoring the rest of Britain. This solved the mysteries of where the water was going while the rest of the country suffered a drought and of Sherwood’s massive growth. The positives of gaining water, however, were offset by the negatives of low visibility and the immediate problem of being soaking wet.

  Maddie had the most trouble. She was the smallest of the four, as tough as any adventurer willing to risk life and limb on a quest through the war-torn and drought-stricken country, but dainty, especially compared to the stalwart young men. Every step she took seemed to suck her ankle deep into mud, where she struggled not to trip. Sometimes she failed to win that battle, and fell face first into the gooey, sucking mire. Each time, she picked herself up, wiped the black gunk from her face, and smoothed her hair out of her eyes, plastering it with mud in the process. Then, she continued to march stalwartly through the woods, her mouth set in grim determination.

  Bennett, meanwhile, was convinced he could cobble together some sort of makeshift clothing from tree bark.

  “I think I’ve figured it out,” Bennett said, when they stopped to make camp. He was a solid young man, hardy from years of farm and blacksmithing work. He was younger than all but Maddie, and still clean shaven. “Birch is the best to use, it’s the most flexible bark. We can use these,” Bennett held up his creation from his spot on the ground, where more bark was laid out in strips, “if our shoes need time to dry out.”

  It was clumsily woven, almost like a small basket without a handle, and Lance looked back at Bennett as he tied his horse to the trunk of a tree.

  “That thing is full of holes,” Lance said. He towered over the rest, fair of face and form with the strength to rival an ox. “How is that going to protect our feet from anything?”

  Bennett frowned, lowering it. “It needs some work,” he admitted defensively, “I can weave them tighter.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Maddie interrupted, pouring water out that had collected in the bottom of her boots. She started checking their supplies and added, “At least Bennett is trying to do something about this weather.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” asked Lance, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “You can’t even get a fire going so we can try and dry off,” Maddie answered, still looking through their bags.

  “You can’t make a fire when everything flammable is also soaked,” Gavin pointed out from his position on the ground, kneeling before a pile of damp logs around which he had placed a makeshift circle of rocks.

  Lance looked down at Gavin, then back at Maddie. “There you go.”

  Maddie glared at him. “And where are we, exactly, Gavin?”

  Gavin bit his lip. “... Okay, I don’t know. I knew the forest was big, but we should have got into thinner woodland by now. It’s larger than I thought. And the trees are thicker, too. Something isn’t right here.”

  Lance frowned. “Do you think it’s Morgana? This is far from the strangest thing that’s been happening in Britain lately.”

  Starting from months before the four travelers had started their journey, mysterious and unexplainable things had begun appearing throughout Britain. Through a series of visions and encounters with unearthly forces all four were convinced that Morgana, the Queen of Air and Darkness, had returned, sensing a chance to strike in a country ravaged by war, famine, and plague. How much of it came from her and how much of it was mere chance
nobody was certain.

  Gavin shrugged helplessly. “It’s always possible. Even so, the best thing to do, I think, is keep going southwest until we can make it out of the forest.”

  Maddie sighed and looked at Bennett. “You think you could try making a pair of those shoe things for me?”

  “Let me see your foot. It might be easier to weave when I’m doing it on someone else’s feet.”

  He resumed his work with Maddie, and Gavin focused on the fire. After a couple of minutes Lance squatted down next to him.

  “Any luck?”

  “Can’t even get it to start smoking,” said Gavin. He didn’t sound annoyed so much as disappointed.

  “How much longer you think we’ll be travelling through here?” asked Lance.

  “I honestly don’t know now,” Gavin answered. “Could be a week, or maybe we’re right near the edge of the forest. I just can’t tell.”

  Lance rubbed a hand across his face, then tried to wring out his hat. The leather hat with a wide brim was one of Lance’s most prized possessions.

  “Never thought I’d say this,” Lance said, “but I am really sick of all this water.”

  Gavin smiled. He tried to make a flame again, striking his flint and steel together against the nest he had made of birch. It glowed, and Gavin gently blew on it, but like every other attempt it quickly went out. He frowned again.

  “It looks like we’re sleeping without a fire again tonight,” Lance said. He clapped Gavin on the shoulder, standing up. “I’ll go see if I can’t find anything drier. Saw a log sitting under a tree before, maybe some of it got shielded from the rain.”

  He went to grab his gun, and his knife, slipping them into the holsters strapped to his trousers. “Bennett, Maddie, I’ll be back. I’m going to look for firewood.”

  “Don’t go too far alone,” Maddie replied. She watched Bennett trying to weave the bark around her feet. His large, square hands did the job with surprising finesse.

  “That’s a lot better,” Bennett said, standing up and wiping off his pants. “See?”

  Maddie was pleasantly surprised. “Could we fill it with something soft? It would make it warmer.”

  “We could try bulrushes—”

  Bennett was cut off by a loud bang that reverberated through the woods, causing thebackground noise of the forest to go silent.

  Gavin yelled and sprang to his feet, reaching for his bow and arrow, as Maddie and Bennett turned toward the sound, Bennett stepping in front of her. Nobody dared to say it out loud, but all of them were thinking the same thing: What happened to Lance?

  Lance had miscalculated how difficult navigating would be. It wasn’t raining, but the threat hung in the air, clouds obscuring even what small amount of light the moon would have provided.

  He considered just going back and trying again in the morning. Sleeping in the wet and cold wouldn’t be pleasant, but neither would getting lost. Lance had made up his mind to give up for the night when he spotted a small clearing of trees ahead of him. Curious, he walked forward to investigate. Something about it didn’t seem right. But what?

  As he looked around carefully, it finally occurred to him: If he spotted a clearing of trees, that meant light. Light meant fire, and though he couldn’t see the source, he figured it had to be somewhere. Perhaps in the trees? But how?

  It hit him with the force of a thunderbolt at the same time an arrow whipped past his head. In one motion he drew his gun and fired in the direction of the arrow, but before he could prepare another, he was surrounded: A small army of people appeared to have formed out of thin air, and all of them had arrows notched and pointing in Lance’s direction.

  A young, thin, muscular man with black hair and a peach fuzz beard and mustache stepped forward. He held a shotgun in his hands, rusty and battered, but cocked nevertheless. “Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air slowly, or we will fire.”

  Seeing no other choice, Lance did as he was told.

  After jumping to their feet, the three travelers looked at each other. Maddie spoke first. “What do we do? Do we go after him?”

  Gavin spoke next, one of the few times he’d said anything the entire night. “I’m going to go find him.”

  “No,” said Bennett sharply. “It’s dark and there are people out there shooting. I know it’s hard, I want to help him too, but leaving now is a mistake. We have to leave when it’s lighter and we’re all a little less tired.”

  Gavin had already strapped his bow to his back. “I’m not leaving him out there if I can do something about it. I’m going.”

  Bennett was about to respond when the sudden appearance of the mysterious bowmen made the point moot. Nobody had any idea how they’d gotten there.

  The young man with the peach fuzz beard walked forward. He dragged Lance, whose hands were tied behind his back, with him. There was a knife to his neck. “Everyone here needs to drop their weapons and turn around slowly with their hands in the air. Anybody tries to be a hero and I slice your friend’s throat.”

  Apparently Lance was no longer lost.

  Lance, Gavin, Bennett, and Maddie were blindfolded, tied up, and forced to march through the forest. While they were never kicked or beaten, every time they started to slow down they’d get dragged forward until they caught up again. As the smallest and weakest of the travelers, Maddie suffered the most of the four of them. She still made no complaint.

  After what seemed like hours, the four travelers were forced to kneel in the mud. When the blindfolds were ripped off their faces they were treated to a strange sight.

  They were in another clearing, slightly smaller than the earlier one. It appeared that this one had been cleared by hand. Stumps littered the space, and the whole thing was too neat and circular to have formed entirely naturally.

  The clearing was surrounded by torches tied into the branches of the trees. There was a fire pit in the center, but it was unlit. Sitting behind the fire pit appeared to be a large, simply built stagecoach. The wheels had been removed, but the rods remained. Maddie wondered why anybody would go through the trouble to somehow work a stagecoach into the middle of the thick, dark woods, but she was too tired and afraid to puzzle it out completely.

  The young man with the peach fuzz beard stood in front of them. He stared each one in the eyes briefly. Maddie tried to read his expression, but it was too dark, and she saw nothing. None of them spoke. They were all smart enough to know that their best opportunity to escape would be to do what they were told and wait for an opening, and they knew to give up as little information as possible. Maddie knew this too, and forced herself to swallow her fear. She tried to keep the expression on her face as neutral as possible.

  There was a slight pause as nobody spoke. Then the young man put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  The effect was magical. Before the whistle, the only people in the clearing had been the few men who had gone out to capture them, but afterward the area was crowded with people: Some women, some children, but mostly fit, strong men. They were dressed like savages, mud on their faces and their clothes in tatters or made of animal hides. All were armed. Maddie couldn’t help but gasp.

  The young man — apparently, the leader — noticed. “You are right to be afraid, girl. This is to make it clear to all of you that there is no escape. Even if you appear to be alone, we are always watching. And now…” Here he paused. “It’s time for you to tell me why you’re here.”

  Bennett answered. “It’s no crime to be wandering alone at night. Our only goal was to travel southwest until we reached the edge of the forest. Nothing more. You have no cause to keep us.”

  The leader raised his eyebrows. “I’ve long since stopped trying to guess the means and motives of others. I have no reason to believe you will cause me harm, true; I also have no reason to believe you are harmless, and your friend’s bullet came within a good two inches of my head. When strange armed men wander through my realm I make it my business to find out why. So I ask
you again, and this time I suggest you give an honest answer: Why are you here?”

  A small voice piped up from far behind the leader, near the stagecoach. “Brand, it’s them. They’re the ones.”

  Brand looked at him, puzzled for a moment, and then his eyes widened. “You mean…”

  “Yes.” The speaker walked forward. He appeared to be a tall, thin, rather gangly teenager, perhaps about eighteen years of age. His weight bordered on emaciated, and he had little muscle to his bones. His clothes were, somehow, even more tattered than the rest of the group’s. Nevertheless, he was not unhandsome, with thick black hair tumbling into short bangs over his forehead and strikingly deep brown eyes. He spoke again. “I know why you are here. You seek Avalon... or you did. Now you seek Morgan le Fey. You are the Knights of Avalon. Well... two of you.” He looked pointedly at Bennett and Maddie.

  Maddie gasped, then turned red. The teenager walked in front of her. “You and your friend there I don’t recognize. But you two…” Here he walked in front of Lance and Gavin. “You’re Lance Shaw and Gavin Erewood. I know you two. And you can relax. We’re not your enemies.” He looked at the leader. “Lord Brand, you can release them.”

  Nobody moved. Maddie looked to Lance, then Bennett, and finally Gavin. None of them seemed sure of what to do either.

  “You can forgive me, Fox,” Brand said, “if I’m not keen on immediately freeing them from their bonds. That one almost killed me.”

  He raised his chin at Lance, who glared back.

  “Because trying to defend myself from bandits means that I want to go out of my way to kill you?”

  “Not helping,” Maddie mumbled, and Fox looked at her again.

  “Lord Brand, I think they’ll be more useful if they aren’t tied up. They are unarmed, surrounded, and exhausted. They can’t go anywhere.”

  They looked at each other. It was clear there was something they knew that Maddie didn’t, which wasn’t surprising. But it wasn’t thrilling to know that Brand and Fox were silently contemplating how they could be put to work for them.