Albion's Legacy (Sons Of Camelot Book 3) Read online

  SONS OF CAMELOT

  ALBION’S LEGACY

  BY

  SARAH LUDDINGTON

  www.theknightsofcamelot.com

  www.romanticadventures.net

  First Published in Great Britain 2016 by Mirador Publishing

  Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Luddington

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers or author. Excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  First edition: 2016

  Any reference to real names and places are purely fictional and are constructs of the author. Any offence the references produce is unintentional and in no way reflects the reality of any locations or people involved.

  A copy of this work is available through the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-911044-87-1

  Mirador Publishing

  Mirador

  Wearne Lane

  Langport

  Somerset

  TA10 9HB

  Also available through Mirador Publishing:

  The Prophecy

  Vampire

  Seelie

  Unforbidden: A Queer Collection

  The Knights of Camelot Series:

  Lancelot and the Wolf

  Lancelot and the Sword

  Lancelot and the Grail

  The Knights Of Camelot Volume One, Two and Three

  Lancelot and the Wolf and Other Stories

  Lancelot’s Challenge

  Lancelot’s Burden

  Lancelot’s Curse

  Betrayal Of Lancelot

  Passion Of Lancelot

  Revenge Of Lancelot

  Lancelot The Lost Years – The Spear

  Sons of Camelot Series:

  The Pendragon Legacy

  The Du Lac Legacy

  Albion’s Legacy

  Rock and Roll Mysteries

  Chords for the Dead

  Life moves on with or without you, it’s up to you whether you go with it and how you travel.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I ached everywhere and my eyes watered from the sand blasted wind trying to push me backwards. My nose and mouth were covered in a scarf but the stuff still coated the inside of my body and my clothes.

  The cold desert of north eastern Albion resembled nothing short of a foul nightmare. A wasteland of immense proportions with no living thing larger than a hare or a hawk existing in the scrub.

  I heard a noise behind me and looked over my shoulder, the wind finding a new way to blast sand between my layers of clothing. Sparrow also turned his large head, sensing something had changed.

  “Severus!” I called out. I ran back toward the bundle of clothing struggling upright behind my horse, reaching down to help. “Are you alright?”

  “Sorry, Holt. I... I...” he said, collapsing against my chest.

  I lowered us both to the ground once more and the horses arranged themselves around us, helping to block off the wind a little. It was more habit on their part than any conscious effort to help; they didn’t like walking into the wind and were constantly turning their backs.

  After searching my clothes I found a water flask and lowered Severus’ scarf. His dark skin looked ashen somehow and his eyes were hollow. I placed the flask to his lips and tipped the water into his mouth.

  The last of our clean water.

  He tried to push it away, knowing it was all we had left but I persisted and he yielded.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Thank you,” he said and he smiled; his lips were cracked like my own under my thick beard.

  I shifted him slightly and we huddled against each other, seeking comfort. “You need to rest,” I said, feeling him shiver.

  “We need to reach Galahad. He isn’t going to survive much longer. I can feel his desperation,” Severus said. “He’s moving closer to death than life.”

  I couldn’t say a damned thing. I’d sacrifice myself and Severus if I thought I could save Galahad in the process. I felt Severus relax against me and he slept. I let him and tried to piece together a plan.

  When we’d left Aleah’s body in the countryside outside the city of Larz, Severus’ true nature began to manifest. A half-bred fey, Severus’ heritage left him with some interesting ‘gifts’, including an ability to speak to the dead. He helped me reach Torvec who in turn gave me the strength to reach through The Lady’s hatred and touch Galahad often enough to keep him sane and whole. It also turned out Severus could ‘track’ the energy he’d touched as he’d piggy-backed my bonding to Galahad. We were drawn north and east toward The Lady’s home – at least we thought that’s where we were going.

  I had scoured the maps of Albion we held in Camelot but apart from notes made by my father and Lancelot about the possible home for the old bitch, I found nothing. We’d left the others under the care of my sister and Severus came with me north. The Lady had left The City the moment she had Galahad back in her small white hands. That was four months ago. The year of mourning over Morgana’s death and the moment Albion’s new leader would be chosen through the trials, now only had two months left.

  Galahad had been with The Lady four months.

  When I’d first seen him in the tiny cell she’d chained him in, he’d been beaten, his beautiful hair cut brutally from his scalp and he had been barraged with The Lady’s hate for me. Since then things hadn’t become any easier for him.

  I held Severus tighter to my chest, mourning for Galahad, and my companion shuddered in my arms.

  “No,” I whispered. “Not again.”

  Severus took in a deep breath and his features were blurred behind Torvec’s. “Holt,” he said, brightly.

  I frowned. “You cannot keep doing this,” I said, cross with him and not for the first time. “It is killing Severus.”

  “He’s fine,” Torvec said.

  “No, Torvec, he isn’t. He collapsed again this afternoon.”

  “That’s because you are pushing him too far. You are the one driving him north at this insane pace,” Torvec said.

  “He wants Galahad back just as much as I do,” I said, rubbing my grainy eyes.

  Torvec snorted with derision. During the weeks since he’d reached me through Severus’ gift he’d become stronger and better at taking over. “He loves you, of course he doesn’t want Galahad back.”

  I sighed heavily, too exhausted to think through all the complications. “What do you want, Torvec?” I asked.

  “I can’t just come to visit?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I love Severus and he’s fading because of you,” I said.

  The shade of my dead lover looked hurt. “But I love you.”

  “I know, Torvec, I know...” I said quietly. The sad regret sweeping through me at his words robbed me of my anger.

  The last time, several weeks ago, Severus and I made love we’d been kissing deeply when he suddenly changed the way he responded to me and I opened my eyes to see Torvec lying under me. Since then we’d been unable to make love. Despite my pleading for Severus to find a way to cut Torvec out he’d refused because we needed the White Dragon to help contact Galahad.

  I shivered with more than just the cold. Trying to reach Galahad in both body and spirit cost me dearly, I’d grown lean to the point of starvation and a deep weariness dragged on my soul. Severus and I were united in our mission to save Galahad without the cost of more lives, but I feared the consequences and I feared what I was becoming.

  I was a mortal man driven to use fey magic he didn’t possess. I needed a hefty crutch to help me reach Galahad, whether I used Torvec or not, and my fingers were already searc
hing Severus’ clothes for the small box he carried.

  “Holt? Are you listening to me?” asked Torvec.

  “Yes, of course,” I lied. I found the box.

  “Then you need to prepare yourself,” he said.

  I finally focused on him properly. “What?”

  “I knew you weren’t listening. It’s the damn weed.”

  “That ‘damned weed’ is the only thing that’s keeping my sanity in one piece,” I snapped. “Besides, you suggested it.”

  Torvec let the subject drop. I opened the box and retrieved a small leaf from the dwindling supply. My hands were shaking so badly I thought I’d end up tipping the lot over my companion. I managed to close the lid and placed the bitter leaf under my tongue. The intense tingle eased the shivering in my body instantly and I relaxed completely, managing to take a deep breath free of sand and feeling my mind expand into the wilderness.

  “If we need to reach Galahad we can now,” I said, the tension in my voice gone for the moment.

  With practiced ease Torvec’s influence whipped through Severus and into me, dragging my consciousness out and into the ‘otherness’ where my bonding for Galahad existed. It was the only way I could reach him through the bonding and even this had begun to fracture.

  “Brother?” I whispered. The heartache inside me burned in pity at the sight of the Prince of Albion.

  Galahad lay, huddled on his side, wrapped in a thin blanket on a roughly made truckle bed. He now lived in what might be called a cell rather than a dungeon. He was forced to train to arms everyday with exhausting and bitter methods of instruction. He was utterly alone except for his foster mother, his nemesis.

  My shade knelt beside his miserable form and I reached out to touch his ruined jaw, the wound savage now he’d lost so much weight and with his beautiful hair gone.

  “Beloved?” I tried instead.

  “Holt?” he asked, lifting his head. His eyes were dark pits into the misery a man’s soul can carry when it’s trapped in hell. A torc of gold fitted tightly around his neck and had done for weeks; he wouldn’t tell me why he wore such a beautiful piece of jewellery and clothes not fit for a beggar.

  “You need help,” I said.

  His eyes filled with tears and he turned away so I wouldn’t see his weakness. My shade, made strong by Torvec’s power and the weed in my mouth, reached for him and a wave of peace washed through me from Torvec. This is why I allowed the White Dragon to dominate Severus. He could give Galahad something I couldn’t give on my own – a way to ease the burden of hurt and grief. Galahad didn’t say anything, he merely sighed deeply and I watched him relax into sleep. I kept my hand on his face until Torvec pulled me back from that lonely hole and I woke with Severus in my lap, not the dragon.

  He opened his eyes and smiled up at me. “Did you sleep?” he asked.

  I stroked his lip with my thumb. “I did,” I lied. He often didn’t remember much of my trips to Galahad’s side, for which I was grateful. His hands fluttered over his clothing and he found the box on his chest.

  “Holt...” He looked at me with deeply troubled eyes, one brown hazel the other green hazel, and silently reprimanded me.

  “I needed it,” I said roughly.

  “You promised not to take it without asking me,” he said. “That’s why I am carrying the box.”

  “I needed it, Torvec came.”

  “So you lied to me about sleeping as well?”

  I pushed him off me and I rose on shaking legs. “Galahad slept,” I muttered.

  “That’s helpful. I’ll be certain to thank Torvec for that when I’m trying to dig your grave in this wasteland,” Severus yelled at me, struggling off the ground.

  “Don’t overreact, it was just a leaf,” I said. The attempt to justify my actions sounded pathetic even to me.

  “It’s killing you!” he actually screamed at me.

  I blinked in surprise. In all the months we’d been travelling Severus and I had barely shared a cross word, never mind an actual fight. “I’m a big boy, I think I know when something is going to kill me,” I snapped, turning my back on my companion.

  “I don’t think you do and I’m the one that has to watch while you dissolve into nothing before my eyes,” Severus cried out. “Holt, I can feel the pain of your withdrawal. I can see it dominating you and you do nothing to fight it.”

  “I have to reach Galahad,” I said with determination. “Everything will change once we have him back, you know that.” I turned back.

  “Do I?” Severus whispered, the devastation in his expression pierced my heart.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I stared into those earnest eyes and knew I lied to myself and my lover. Unable to bear his gaze I grabbed him and roughly pulled him to my body, tucking his head under my chin and against my chest.

  “Just don’t leave me, Severus. Just don’t leave me. I can do this if I’m not alone.” My voice was hoarse and not just from the endless bloody sand.

  He clung to me just as tightly. “You will never be alone, King of Camelot. We’ll do this together or not at all.”

  I kissed his sand covered hood. “I promise I will find a way to clean myself of the drug when we have him back,” I said.

  “I only hope you can,” Severus said, looking up at me, the earnest warning all too clear.

  I smiled grimly, silently agreeing with him, and turned to pull Sparrow around to start us walking again. Severus grabbed the horse’s tail and we began once more to fight the wind. The small leaf of bugleweed under my tongue gave me the strength to push through the horror of taking another step and another. The leaf eventually dissolved but its effects would remain in my blood for some time, enhancing my ability to endure the physical hardships. I’d learned to rely on this small narcotic over the last few weeks and knew it spelled trouble but my human blood wasn’t enough, my spirit was too weak, and Galahad needed me.

  We continued to walk on, slowly making progress over the rough ground and against the harsh wind. It was miserable going. The drug took away the hunger pains but it did make my thirst worse and we’d run out of clean water.

  The bugleweed came from the southlands of Albion, Torvec jokingly suggesting it months ago when I’d passed out after a visit to Galahad. I jumped at the chance to use something to help me sustain contact with Galahad but Severus was horrified I took Torvec’s idea seriously. After some bitter conversations he’d finally conceded and gone to The City to find the narcotic. It gave me the psychic strength I needed and it gave me greater physical endurance while it worked. Once gone from my body I was left a weak, shuddering, vomiting wreck.

  Severus tried to control how much I used but, it was an uncomfortable truth, I often bullied him into giving me more.

  “Holt, I think there’s a village ahead,” Severus called out before coughing up the invasive dust.

  I squinted into the wind. North and slightly west of our position the land dipped. It was hard to see through the swirling dust but it looked like there were houses down there. I studied the terrain more carefully and felt like smacking myself on the forehead.

  I pulled down the scarf over my mouth and turned my back on the wind. “Severus, is that a lake?” I pointed north.

  The dust around his eyes crinkled and he nodded. “I think we found our destination.”

  “Does it feel right?” I asked, then hawked up more sand.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. I’m so bloody tired and hungry I don’t know what I’m sensing from Galahad anymore.”

  “Then we go to the village. Carefully,” I added after a moment’s thought.

  I turned Sparrow slightly and we now trudged with the wind blowing against us at an angle.

  It seemed to take forever to reach the village and I’d begun to think we’d been dreaming. When we finally drew close I knew we arrived at The Lady’s stronghold.

  Lancelot’s spies, who fed him information about Galahad’s safety while the boy grew up
, told him of a walled village that took in supplies and where The Lady’s staff lived when not working. It was heavily fortified.

  When Lancelot first employed these spies, he and Morgana used everything they knew to find out where the spies had been, but their minds were always a blank about the location of The Lady’s lair. The Lady managed to block all geographical information about her home from people’s minds the moment they left.

  We could access the bitch’s lair from this village, that’s all we knew from records kept in the palace. Unfortunately we didn’t know how we’d breach the walls and between the hunger and thirst, the exhaustion and fear, we were already fighting bad odds.

  We staked the horses out of view and I carefully covered their faces to help keep out the dust. Severus and I, with the sun sinking to the west darkening the dust filled sky, walked slowly toward the village letting twilight hide us where the dust didn’t.

  We crouched low next to some large boulders to watch the walls. I heard Severus’ stomach growling. “We have to find a way in there,” I said.

  “How?” Severus asked.

  The walls were high and thick, castellations graced the top and the gates were small. The whole affair looked less than a league around and other than a tower facing away from the lake, none of the houses inside poked over the top.

  “I can’t see any guards,” Severus said.

  “With luck we might have killed them all,” I said, meaning the fights we’d had before Severus and I began this terrible journey.

  “I’ll see if I can get in there,” he said, gathering himself together to brave the wind-blasted sand once again.

  I stared at him in horror. “I don’t think so.”

  He grinned. “You plan on learning to steal food, King of Camelot? Besides, they’ll see you coming. They won’t notice me.”

  I hated it but he was right. Knights are not trained to be subtle or small. “It shouldn’t be like this,” I muttered. “I shouldn’t be relying on you.”