His Dark Knights - Chapter 3

Arthur stared at this group of men and women, unable to comprehend what they were telling him. He turned to the window, eyeing the drawn curtain and the glint of sunlight shining through. Even if they were mistaken, they had saved him. He owed them that much. 

“You are mistaken,” he said. “I am King Arthur.”

“And do you remember much from before that?” the man who claimed to be his brother asked. 

“I do not,” Arthur admitted. “And your name would be?”

“You always called me Kay.”

“Sir Kay—”

“No, your grace.” Kay looked uneasy, but it wasn’t clear if that came from interrupting him or the lack of blood. “I am no sir.”

Arthur frowned. He didn’t follow how any brother of his could not be knight. “Explain.”

“When you took that cursed sword, everything was to be erased.” Kay glanced uneasily at the others, who helped him to a chair. He waved his hand and several of them went to work, only one of the older men remaining at his side. The man had a thick mustache, with white hair that might have once been orange like Kay’s. 

“Erased?” Arthur asked, annoyed at the delay. The need for sleep was coming over him, as the curse demanded. 

“My father’s castle and title stripped, all of us to be killed.”

Arthur’s eyes moved to the man beside Kay. “And you are… our father?”

“Sir Ector,” the man nodded. “Though to be clear, in the name of honesty, you were a foster child. Therefore a foster brother to Kay here, as well.”

“But no less a brother for it,” Kay countered. 

“I see.” Arthur nodded to Sir Ector. “Thank you for raising me, then. But my real parents?”

“That is… unknown.” Sir Ector replied. 

“Father,” Kay said, almost as if in warning. 

“He must know the truth,” Sir Ector said. “If we don’t tell him now, he will learn later.”

“The truth of what?” Arthur demanded. 

“We took you in… at the request of Merlin.” Sir Ector looked ashamed, and it took Arthur a moment to realize why. 

“He planned this from that moment,” Arthur said, voice catching. “He… took me from my parents, or worse. Who knows what became of them, aside from that monster?” 

“But we came for you,” Kay said. “The minute we understood what you had become, what he had turned you into. And ever since, we’ve sworn to be ready to help you escape, should that day come.”

“Why you?” Arthur asked Sir Ector. “That’s the piece that doesn’t fit—I want to know why he chose you to raise me.”

“The lake, the sword… it was on my land,” Sir Ector explained. “It’s as simple as that. He knew that the best way for the curse to take hold was for you to stumble upon it and accept it. That you would not take kindly to outside influence. He set it up so that you would be the one to bring the curse about, and then he could swoop in and make you one of his puppets.”

“The puppet,” Kay corrected. “Above all else—and more powerful. That’s why he’s got to be scared now. He has to be worried that you’ve escaped.”

“And yet I’m the one who will burn in the sunlight.” Arthur turned from the men, eyeing a woman who was at the stove cutting potatoes. “And these others?”

“Servants,” Kay explained. “Those loyal to us for saving their lives that day.”

A shorter, plumper woman entered with a plate of vegetables to cut. She turned to him, a glimmer of recognition in her eye, before she turned back to help the other woman. 

It was that brief glimpse that brought a memory to Arthur. Distant, fleeting, but a memory all the same. Another woman entirely, her long blonde locks flowing golden in the afternoon sun. She had a smile that could warm his heart, a laugh that made him forget what he was. He reached, wanting more from this person. 

“Who is she?” he asked. 

“That there is—”

“No,” Arthur cut Kay off. “Who is the woman I see in my vision?” 

“Ah…”

Kay and Sir Ector betrayed their discomfort in a shared look. It was Kay who spoke up. “Your betrothed, and the first to die that day.”

The words stung, bringing with them another memory—of kneeling in a pool of her blood, her limp body in his arms. Tears of sorrow mixed with a newfound wrath and craving for that blood. It sickened him, so he pushed the memory away, he couldn’t stand the thought of it, considering what the moment meant to the man he had once been. 

And now he remembered why he couldn’t stand the creature became or those like him. Why, when holding Guinevere and thinking she wad dead, only to find out that she had become a monster as well, he had no choice but to leave her behind.

“I cannot be this person,” Arthur said. “It would have been better had you left me to perish.”

“No,” Sir Ector said. “Because then she would have died in vain. So many of our friends and family along with her.”

“You can make a difference,” Kay said. “You can change this land.”

“I don’t give a damn about any of that,” Arthur snarled. “All I want is to be done with this curse…” 

He stared at his hands, their pale flesh and the claws that protruded from the tips of his fingers. Rage built up in him, and he realized they were right. Simply being done with it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t flee anymore, not when Merlin was still out there. 

“You’re right,” he said. “Ending it isn’t the answer. Maybe I won’t ever have her back, maybe the memories have even been stolen from me… but I can have my vengeance.”

“That is a path of darkness,” Sir Ector cautioned. “Let it be justice and a new beginning. Let it be—”

“You take your justice and be damned. I’ll have my vengeance in the form of Merlin’s heart on a platter.”

Kay and his father shared an uneasy look, but it wasn’t like they had any real say in this matter. As one of the women and a man began bringing out a fruits and nuts, Sir Ector helped his son to sit, then motioned for Arthur to join them. “

“I’m not exactly hungry,” Arthur said. 

The statement made Kay shift uneasily, and Arthur’s attention moved back to the two puncture marks on the man’s neck. Arthur hated that he was the cause of this man’s weakness, but there was no use dwelling on it. 

A moment of silence followed, during which Kay took some water and an apple. It was good that he ate to start regaining his strength. 

“Forgive me,” Sir Ector said, eyeing Arthur with awe. “I never treated you half as well as I should have.”

“If I remembered it, that might be something,” Arthur countered. 

“Maybe. But I can’t help but think this, at least indirectly, is my fault.”

“Father, that’s unfair,” Kay said, pausing in his eating due to exhaustion. 

“It is what it is,” Sir Ector said. “Someday… I hope to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me right now,” Arthur said. 

“Name it.”

“Tell me who I was. Before... this.”

Sir Ector scrunched his nose, eyeing Kay before starting. “While my son would be the better one to tell you, he needs to regain his strength. I will say you two were nearly inseparable, back in those days. Between chores you would run off into the woods, hunt for hare, go swimming in the river. You were a fun-loving lad, though none of us would have thought you would become king. Less so… in this manner.”

“And Merlin told you nothing else about my family?”

“He didn’t, but…” Sir Ector glanced to Kay again. 

“We poked around, and there are rumors of a man who went missing from beyond the murky pools, out past druid land. As far as the black forest, even.”

“Wouldn’t many boys have gone missing?” Arthur asked. 

Sir Ector nodded. “This was a special case, though. Some lord’s son, and it would have been right around the time of your disappearance. While it might be nothing, it seems too big of a coincidence.”

“And also a stretch of the imagination.” Arthur leaned back, wondering if it could be true. He would just as soon assume he came from nothing, but if so, why would Merlin had selected him? His curiosity was piqued. 

As he thought on it, full memories didn’t come, but flashes of what might have been parts of a memory—a smile of dark lips, a scream… and a girl being pulled away from him. 

A shout sounded in the distance, a sliver of light showing through the kitchen window. A dish broke, the plump woman turning to face them from where she let the curtain fall. Even before she said the word “Run,” Arthur could hear the thunder of hoofs. Merlin had sent riders after him, and they were here. 

Being a vampire in the middle of the day, though, he was faced with one big problem—running wasn’t exactly an option. He had made it before, but just barely. He couldn’t always rely on his brother to be there to save him.