M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon by M. K. Hume Read Free Book Online

the Western Saxons in southern Cymru, but for all his military prowess Artor’s proposal to restrict the Saxon advances along the mountain spine of Britain had been fought every step of the way by that fractious, ambitious group.
    Bran sighed as he remembered the faces of men who had become legends through the telling and retelling of their exploits. His mother, herself enshrined in the songs of the poets, looked at her son’s anguished face with concern. In this ruined place, she too was remembering, thinking of the tall, ascetic figure of Myrddion Merlinus whom the Saxons already called Merlin. The barbarians spoke of him with awe, for they believed him to be a magician and a wielder of wild magic. In their arrogance and simplicity, they could not imagine how Artor had defeated them, again and again, except through sorcery. With affection, mother and son remembered old Targo and stolid Odin who had stood at their master’s back and protected the High King with their heart’s blood. And there was Gruffydd, disreputable and irreverent as always, but holding Caliburn, the High King’s sword. The younger Bedwyr, scarred by the Saxon slave collar but bearing deeper wounds that shadowed his eyes, stood in the background and expressed his disgust with the kings and their recalcitrance in every line of his whipcord body. Now all that strength and hope had gone into the shadows, or been defeated by time.
    ‘This place is full of ghosts,’ Anna sighed. ‘If I close my eyes, I can still see them and hear them, but then the dreams are shattered when I gaze on these ruins. I am grown old, my son.’
    ‘Aye, Mother. This hall was more than just a meeting place, at least to me. Three High Kings served the people here, in equality and duty, but all that was finest in their ideals was washed away by Modred’s civil war. The amity has been broken for ever.’
    Both looked up at the sky through the burned rafters that Myrddion had designed for King Ambrosius with such imagination and brilliance. Most of the circular wooden wall was irreparably damaged, as were the captured Saxon banners, looted and burned by the Picts and the Brigante. Charred timbers were evident in the tall ceiling, while cracked and fire-scarred stone was empty of the cushioned seats where the kings had lounged with their retinues. Bran stroked a broken stool that Artor himself had used, shunning panoply for efficiency, valuable now because it was all that was left of a grand idea.
    ‘We shall judge Mark of the Deceangli here. Fitting, don’t you think, Mother? It was Ector’s idea, which surprised me. I never thought him to be a vengeful lad, but in the short time he knew King Artor he learned to worship him. And now he thirsts for Mark’s blood.’
    Anna sighed. As Artor’s only legitimate child, she had the right to demand Mark’s death as her own blood price, but many long years of secrecy had protected her real identity from the High King’s enemies, and she had no desire to demand more bloodletting. She still feared for her grandson’s future, for the boy had little of Artor in him, but much of his father. In her heart of hearts, Anna doubted that either boy or man had the necessary long view to defeat the Saxon advance, or the cold-blooded authority to save the Celtic people. They were, simply, too decent to do what needed to be done in the dark days that were upon them. She sighed. The times were bleak when goodness was a character flaw. She was loath to make this admission to herself, knowing that their futures lay in dutiful but ultimately futile hands. But none of her inner despair showed on her lined and tranquil face.
    ‘Ector will soon learn that the actuality of judgement is very different from his desire for revenge. Any decisions made here will have repercussions which he must learn to endure. The boy is still very young to lose his childhood, but the Saxons won’t wait until he becomes a man.’
    ‘I have called the kings to Deva,