The Knight She Fell For

chapter 2

Lancelot

The hunt was successful and we were on our way back to the castle when we suddenly stopped. I looked at Arthur, wondering what was going on. Gwaine, who had been riding next to Arthur at the front of our group, had dismounted his horse. He was looking at something on the ground. Merlin and Arthur were arguing about something but I didn’t pay it much attention since they seemed to do that at least five times a day. Instead I rode to Gwaine to see why we had stopped. He was crouching next to a body. The man was dead. His red and blue tunic stained with blood. I recognised the coat of arms that was stitched on his left shoulder. It was the emblem of one of the dukes in the north. Micheal Pierson, if I remembered correctly. A little further was another body.

I looked at Gwaine. Both of us were wondering what had happened here. The blood was still wet in some places so it couldn’t have been more than four or five hours ago. There were tracks leading away from the little clearing. Around six people went north into the densely vegetated part of the forest. Behind me I could hear the rest of the knights talk. Arthur and Merlin were still arguing.

“What are the two of you arguing about now,” Leon asked. Both of them looked up. Clearly they had forgotten that we were still here.

Arthur cleared his throat. “Merlin wants us to follow the trail to see where the others have run off to,” he stated. Everyone looked from Arthur to Merlin and back. Eventually Leon nodded his head. Gwaine and I found the courage to do so as well. If someone had killed two men so close to Camelot we had to find out who it was and why he had done it. Arthur looked at us with his eyebrows raised. He looked over his shoulder to Merlin and then to the bearly visible sky.

“You do know that it will get dark soon?” Arthur asked. There was a hint of disbelief in his voice. This time everyone nodded their heads. It seemed to take forever before Arthur made a decision.
“Fine, we will follow the trail,” he let out a sigh. “But if we haven’t caught up before sunset we will return to Camelot.” I could see the faint smile of satisfaction on Merlin’s lips.

Gwaine and I got back on our horses and we rode off. The trail was easy to follow. We rode in silence. Arthur kept looking at the slowly darkening sky. I knew he wanted to be back in Camelot before it really got dark. Merlin must have done a good job in finding arguments because Arthur would never change his mind unless he was given a good reason to do so.

After twenty minutes we reached a point where the tracks were a  lot less easy to follow. Gwaine dismounted his horse and studied them for a moment.

“They went east,” he mumbled more to himself than to the rest. Still everyone had heard him. There was confusion in the group. We had been travelling north for almost four miles. It had started to rain not long after we had started following the group. The clouds made the sky appear a lot darker than it actually was. I looked around, the footprints were barely visible on the now wet ground. The path to the north was blocked by a fallen tree. That could be the reason that they had turned east. I took a closer look at the tree and noticed a dark spot. I pointed it out to Gwaine. He walked over to the tree and lightly touched the stain.

“It is blood,” he said. That was what I had thought. I jumped off my horse and looked at the tree. The ground behind it was lower. The leaves and dirt at the bottom had been pressed together and pushed to the side. One pair of footprints led away from the place behind the tree.
“It seems that they have split up here,” Arthur commented. I hadn’t noticed that he had walked over to have a look himself.

“The question is,” Merlin interrupted. “Were they friends or was the group following that one person?” Merlin was right. That was the question that needed answering and of course we had to find out what they were doing here so close to Camelot. You could never be too sure.
Every knight had his own theories. Elyan thought that they were all bandits and that the lonely person was a scout. Leon thought that the bandits had followed the last of Pierson's guards that had survived the attack. Everyone was arguing now, giving arguments to prove their point. When no one could find another argument the arguing stopped.

A high pitched scream broke the silence. Everyone had heard it. It came from the west and echoed through the trees.
I was the first to move. I jumped over the tree and ran over the narrow path that led west. The others followed close behind me. I kept looking at the ground in front of me, checking if there were no holes or roots that we could trip over. It was hard to see since it was already getting dark.

The scream had come from a young woman. I could see her now. She was standing against a tree. Around her stood five armed men, dressed in the red and blue tunics of Pierson’s guards. Arthur brushed past me.

“And what do you think you are doing,” he said. His voice was loud and confident. The voice of a prince, not of a friend. One of the guards turned around. The spear in his hands was covered in thick red liquid. I noticed that the other four kept their weapons aimed at the girl.

“She is a traitor, a criminal, a thief.” It sounded like the man was angry, his voice trembling with rage. He lowered his spear. Not at the girl but at Arthur. Behind me I could hear the other knights pull their swords. The girl had walked around the tree trying to slip away from the guards but one of them noticed and swung his sword at her leg. It scraped her knee and she stumbled back.
I didn’t think to just move. My sword clashed with the sword of the guard that was attacking the girl. I forced it to the ground and out of his hands. Within minutes the other guards were also disarmed. When they had nothing to defend them they turned around and ran away, disappearing between the trees.

The girl was shaking on her feet. I walked towards her to offer her a hand but she stumbled backwards, away from me. After a few steps she lost her balance and fell to the ground. I could see the fear in her eyes as she tried to stand up again. I knelt beside her, putting one hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay. Stay on the ground,” I said, forcing my voice to be soft and calm. She just stared at me, her body still shaking. After what seemed like forever she seemed to relax a bit. She must have been exhausted because immediately after her eyes closed she lost consciousness. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders to keep her from hitting her head on the ground. I opened my mouth to call Merlin but he was already next to me.

It took Merlin fifteen minutes to clean all her wounds and make a temporary bandage. The rest of us had started a fire and sat in a circle around it.
“I think it’s best to get her to Camelot as quickly as possible so Gaius can help her properly,” Merlin said as he sat down next to me. I looked at Arthur. He thought for a moment and then made a decision. “Elyan, put out the fire. Everyone on their horse. Lancelot, take the girl.” Everyone did what was asked of him. Merlin helped me to carefully put the girl on my horse. I sat down behind her, holding her with one arm and the reins in the other. We raced to Camelot, going as fast as we could.