Chapter Text
“Arise, Sir Alefreon.”
The words had been years coming, savoured in the mind, and yet all they were in the present was a tawdry joke at the squire’s expense. Alefreon lumbered up out of his bed, ruffling his tasseled muddy brown hair out of his squinting, ice blue eyes. Sir Galehaut’s lady of his house, Gerchrista stood in the doorway of the sparse room, folded flannel cloths around her arm. She was dressed in a commonplace robe made of a coarse, mustard yellow fabric, with a deep blue apron over. Her stern and sturdy face was locked into an expression of considered purpose; a stiff upper lip in respect to her duty.
“Lady Gerchrista,” Alefreon regarded her as he sat up to rub the sleep from his eyes. She held the towels towards him, which he graciously accepted. “Many thanks.”
“Shall I see to fix you a bath, Master Alefreon?” The reality of his true unknightly title burred into his head, combined with the offer of bathing as if he were a child.
“I may fetch one myself, thank you,” He stood up, straightening out yesterday’s long tunic he had worn to bed and stretching his back. “What time is it, milady?” Though he considered his words, his Northumbrian accent was still something that caused those unfamiliar to wait a second before responding, putting the pieces of questions together mentally.
“I should expect just past morning. Fret not, you have plenty of time.”
“Of course. Thank you.” Alefreon nodded as she closed the door and retreated down the manor’s halls.
Sitting back down onto his bed, he stroked his short beard and mustache in deliberation before standing back up and out of the room to the bathing chamber across the hall. He knocked to make sure no-one was inside before entering. Within, the large wooden bath almost the size of a well's mouth sat. Sighing, Alefreon turned to the left side of the room, where a recess led to a shelved corridor of filled buckets taken from the river nearby. One by one he poured up a full bath, placing each bucket within the last in the crook where the bath touched the wall. He had considered heating the water on the coals of the fire just next to the door, but he had learned to respect the invigoration the cold water brought. Taking off his tunic and slowly dipping into the water, he met that invigoration once more, shocking his body from toe to head. The bases of his hairs upon his head felt it, aching at their tips until he scooped a handful of water over himself, and his whole face stung in alert. Rubbing away the oils and sweat in his skin, he turned his gaze to the wooden bar that would usually hold various perfumes and scrubbing rags was empty, save for a bundle of herbs he had held dear. Rosemary and mint, held slightly crushed on his body as he scrubbed himself, brought back the scents of home. Of Cumbria, far north. Where a bath such as this was a rarity, meant to step in where personal grooming could not, or to cure ailments of the body and mind. Sitting in silent consideration, he tried to prepare himself for the day by running through the events ahead of him. Arthur had announced a great feast and day of merriment to commemorate a whole six months of peace in the kingdom. Not an ounce of war, even from their newest and strangest neighbours from the sky. As squire to Sir Galehaut, he would have to arrive at the peace celebration with him, but would not be as essential during the toasts and festivities themselves, sequestered away in the background of proceedings with his fellow squires. He imagined they’d be there until late, so there was scant chance of him visiting his Lilith in the afternoon when she returned from the fields. That was no way to court, he thought, imagining her disappointment at him. Looking around the room of stone and vast pool of bath, he thought of his mother, and the great journey he had made to Camelot mere weeks after his eleventh birthday. He had heard the city held great apothecaries to cure any ailment. Such was the optimism of a child. He had been robbed twice on his journey, bitten by foxes and gnats, and arrived to Camelot’s walls coated head to toe in mud, sweat and misery. The water chilling his bones and scouring his skin soothed the boyish memory of despair that returned to him. His thoughts were interrupted when Galehaut barged through the door, clad in full plate and chain armour already.
“Oh,” Alefreon sat, scrubbing his shoulder and back of his neck with the herb poultice. “You are dressed already?”
“Yes, Squire. I always clad upon myself for moments of splendour. None know my heraldic attention like myself,” He brushed the embossed and inlaid filigree on his breastplate, adorned in a delicate green brushing. “Is my housekeeper not with you?”
Galehaut was a titan of a man, having to lean slightly under the doorframe so as not to clatter his broad, shaved head and thick brow off the top of it. His long fuzzy beard jostled as he spoke his bold, deep Scot words.
“I am capable of bathing myself, sir,” Alefreon said, grinning sarcastically as he scoured his scalp with his fingers, dragging water through the base of his hair. “Not to disrespect your house, of course.” Galehaut rolled his eyes.
“Young Alefreon, this is why you remain a squire. Yes, you follow me so ardently into battle. Yes, you fight with valour. Yes, you serve me so well and completely, but you do not show the gumption nor grace to allow yourself to become a knight; to be washed by others as thanks for your duty,” He laughed gently to himself. “You do not find my houselady desirable, do you? That it may embarrass you to see her in such a way, and likewise?”
Alefreon raised his eyebrows sarcastically.
“No, Sir Galehaut, I do not. I do not deny her whatever power you choose to give to her, but I have one in my heart already.”
“Ah, your dear farmer girl. Say, have you warmed that water at all?”
Flippantly changing the subject, Galehaut turned to regard one of his servants who had come behind to whisper something to him.
“No. It is both a hassle and a hindrance, I find. It awakens me in a way daylight does not-”
“Do hurry,” Galehaut’s tone was no longer light and jovial, but bitterly severe. Whatever the servant had brought him had been important. “We are needed at the castle. Urgently.”
Galehaut turned out of the doorway, and in filed several servants clutching Alefreon’s clothing and armour. They hurriedly placed them on a table at the far edge of the room, beneath a window facing out to the forests beyond. Unexpectedly, two of them then picked up Alefreon beneath the arms and pulled him up out of the water, towelling him down at a pace that became uncomfortable before awarding him the luxury of dressing him, though that was more likely for the urgency of departing quicker. Hoisting his mail vest over his head, Alefreon was surprised to feel the clamp of a metal breastplate around his back. He had never worn such an implement before, and as the front was attached around him, strapped together tight, he noticed the crest embossed into the metal was not of Sir Galehaut’s, but of King Arthur’s kingdom; a lion rampant surrounded by four crosses, encircled within a circular knot.
This was to be a strange day, indeed.
The day grew stranger as Galehaut and Alefreon approached Camelot. Their horses were wary on the dirt roads as they had trained to be, but their apprehension became unnerving as they approached the fort's walls. They seemed not to scan their environment, but cantered towards their destination with dreaded purpose. Ascending the hills, a quietness about the city only somehow grew as they approached the doors to the celebration hall. There however, accompanied by city guards to his left and right, was Merlin. Draped in a cross-hatched robe of teal and emerald green, banded by silver cuffs and seam, he clutched the cross at the centre of his necklace of wrought bronze alchemical symbols. His wispy beard, cut short and barely peeking past his chin trembled slightly, and the chalky blue thumb mark of paint on his forehead had started to streak under his nervous sweat.
“It has happened.” His voice was low and ponderous. Regretful, in a worldly way.
“What do you mean?” Galehaut said, leaning over the small man by easily a foot or so.
“Travel to the chapel behind the castle. You shall see it. You shall see him.”
“The chapel half unbuilt, what do you-” Alefreon started to question.
“Go.” Merlin declared, waving them away.
With some confusion, Galehaut and Alefreon steered their horses in the opposite direction, and took a newly carved side road out to the rear of the castle.
“What do you think has happened?” Alefreon said between the clattering of their horse’s hooves.
“I know not, however I- Christ!” As they rounded the corner, they saw the subject of Merlin’s woes. They saw it. They saw him.
Standing above even the spire of the chapel still being built was a titanic metal man. Galehaut was said to be the son of giants, but even he stared up at this thing in utter disbelief, craning his neck higher than he would ever have thought to regard another. Clad in night-black armour that seemed to be one with his skin, its fantastical heavy armour plates overlapped into the silhouette of a knight. Across his body that mimicked theirs however, they noticed deep oddities. Bracing his ribs from the back were crooked three-fingered arms tipped in claws of deep gold. A similar phenomenon travelled up his back, with similar lustrous claws adorning the shoulders of the knight. Each piece of him and his armour looked both at one with each other and totally discordant at the same time. It pained them to look at him somewhat, as their steeds ground to a halt. They expected them to rear, kick and bolt, but instead the animals stood completely still and silent as if accepting whatever fate this thing offered them. Hearing the arrival of the pair, the giant thing turned, groaning something awful from within as its crimson eyes like burning coals gazed upon them. His face was pure fury, yet considered and reserved behind the visage. Sharp, claw like calipers extended under its eyes, and a long smooth plate extended over its nose to its mouth, which was affixed into a permanent calculating scowl thanks to the presence of its domineering cheekbones, making him look quite alike a skinless skull, with odd slatted structures underneath his mouth. His chin was tipped in a two-pronged horned beard, and his face was ensconced beneath an engraved helm. The sigils upon it were jagged and wild, and upon each side laid a curved horn facing forwards, attached to two symmetrical half-helmet shapes that rose to a ridge on top of his head. He completed his turn to face the pair entirely, and upon his chest laid the face of a great dragon. Not carved into a smooth breastplate, however, but each part of this dragon’s head, wrought in bizarre facsimile from metal, had been segmented and placed along his person; eyes and brow crumpled into his sternum, allowing its spiralling horns to crest over his shoulders. The snarling maw of the dragon had been snapped, it seemed, and bent forward so that his stomach was made from both upper and lower sets of teeth. The vaned skirts on the sides of his legs seemed familiar, hooked claws at the tail of them as they sat by his thighs. While both of his shoulder pauldrons were smooth and rounded, each large enough to no doubt yield as much metal to provide for the whole Table, one was covered with savage, pointed spines, while on the other, his left, a single, blunt, upwards-curved horn spouted forth. The regalia covering his person was nothing of Breton, nor Saxon, nor any other creed’s words, except the only one capable of compelling Merlin to such doubts.
“And what of these two?” The giant’s voice was hoarse, and scraping. He sounded much like a Norse Swede, which silently terrified the pair that one from such distant lands would know their tongue in both perfect parlance, and a foreigners accent. His words revealed sharp teeth inside his mouth, and the realisation he was indeed, as rumoured about his kind, entirely metal.
“The last of my Knights. Once they sit our audience may begin, Sire” The weary voice of King Arthur said.
Sat upon a makeshift throne at the head of a makeshift Round Table, he was still clad in his gentle green day robes, while each and every knight around the table wore full battle regalia. Arthur’s face wore the gentle weathering of middle-age, his shoulder length hair and wispy goatee greying slightly at the ends. Deep bags under his eyes and creases beside his mouth like dried river beds betrayed him, all sourced from the stress and rigor of kingly duties. Gently inching past the giant knight, Galehaut sat three positions from Arthur’s left in a dinner chair, pulled from the banquet hall on short notice. Evidently, this was the only place on castle walls that could receive this grand visitor; the chapel still in construction for its servants’ worship. Alefreon nodded deeply as he regarded King Arthur, earning a small nod back. Arthur had always respected Alefreon, an outsider who made such a great pilgrimage from the north to ask for the king’s favour as but a boy. Alefreon sat on a small, rickety stool behind Galehaut, as did his fellow squires, clutching their deed knight’s shields almost as protection of their own from the interloper, this Black Knight.
“Excellent,” He said as Galehaut and Alefreon sat. He did not bow in the presence of the King, and his countenance suggested he had not prior and would not in future. “O Mighty King. With my learned eye I have studied your kind from afar these past few years. I have seen your ways of life and death, and the duty you carry for one another. You are indeed, despite my preconceived notions, a respectable world, far from what I once considered you. It is with this respect that I offer to you a premonition of the world to come for your race. Tomorrow, I shall stand upon the fort on the hill at Carmarthen. If by nightfall, you have not selected a champion to face me, I shall single handedly bring ruin to your kingdom. Then, when the last of Britain’s bones are scorched and black, I shall travel to the next kingdom with the same offer. And the next, and the next, until every inch of this realm is mine, dead, and burning, so that my people will reclaim our home on the backs of your extinction.”
Arthur stood from his chair, much to the dismay of Lancelot and Gawain to his sides.
“And should this champion defeat you? Would you leave us in peace? Would you dare not darken the sun’s reach?” He spoke with considered power beneath his crown, its shine dulled slightly after years of service as Arthur’s projected might. With a subtle wicked grin, the Black Knight took one step forward, heaving and settling with a mighty sound. His body creaked as he leant down on one knee and craned his face close to Arthur’s, sighing a cloud of steam as he met his visage.
“Of course. But know this, and know me. The ground itself knows to give way upon each and every step of mine. With a wave of my finger I carry the weight to break bone. There has not yet been arrow built or blade forged that may pierce my hide. Within my blood itself resides fire and might beyond even your magics and sorcery. Even among the strength of my people am I known as a destroyer. With land yet to be granted to me, I am still regarded as Lord. In the great pits where my race tests its mettle, I am the lone undefeated warrior. Upon my soul, the weight of hundreds of lives taken rests.” He looked around at each knight, relishing the doubt and fear churning behind their stalwart stoicism. “I look forward to meeting your champion at Carmarthen, Your Highness.”
With a considered swoop, he unexpectedly gave a curtsy to Arthur, before rising with such speed he leapt into the air, and an ungodly change took place. In the air, kept elevated by flapping wings that were once his skirts, and clenching golden claws that once held his countenance together, the Black Knight had become a foul, midnight dragon. The sound of the change was enrapturing, like a blacksmith’s chests had come undone and sent plates and raw ore clattering and sliding over each other and the floor. Gurgling his metal throat, which glowed with tempestuous flame, he swooped away into the sky, each and everyone within the half-built chapel rushing to chart his movement. He passed directly over the houses and streets of Camelot, belching flames yards above the thatched roofs as he flew into the distance. The awestruck silence that followed was interrupted by Teredha, Gawain’s squire, dropping his shield to the ground and sprinting away from the chapel, raving and flailing his arms in terror.
“Let him be, Gawain,” Arthur whispered, holding his arm over his nephew as he rose to chastise his bearer. “Let him be.” He sat back down, tenting his fingers over his temple as he thought.
“Aye,” Sir Kay said, confident as ever, standing up from his place next to Gawain. “Should no squire wish to stand with their Knight in the wake of such a beast, then he may run like Teredha!”
Arthur could only muster a deep sigh as all but two squires peeled out of the chapel. Some had the decency to delicately place their master’s shield upon the floor and cower to their knight with apology, but most let them drop with reckless abandon as they ran.
“Such awe-inspiring words as always, Sir Kay.” Lancelot groaned, as he sat back down and regarded his loyal, but poxy squire, Tymon, who coughed gently in the still air. Still his golden locks practically shone over his youthful and defined face, his bold cheekbones forcing his face into a state of permanent aloof questioning.
“Well? Who will raise their sword to this challenger for their king? Hmm?” Kay continued, undeterred by the squires fleeing. His eyes widened and elegantly mustached lips pursed in upstanding questioning of his fellow knights.
“Do not be a fool, Kay,” Arthur muttered. “That thing is one of them. A Knight from Afar. A warrior from Siber Trom. We have no such response to them. We will meet him at Carmarthen with our whole might, and pray to God we have a chance to pierce even his armour, let alone the Black Knight’s foul heart.”
“Surely,” Alefreon caught his throat as he spoke, his mouth dry from the palpable tension of the audience. “Surely then, we may ask the rest of them for aid? Caer Paxus is but a quarter-day’s ride from here.”
Each of the knights, including his own Sir Galehaut, looked at him with shock in their eyes. Their neighbours in the sky had been gracious when they arrived seeking refuge, arriving at Camelot prostrated in respect to the ruler of the lands who had so kindly granted them asylum within, but very little had been spoken between the two lands since.
“Well, thank the Heavens that Galehaut has a brave squire, with a heart of gold! A Saxon heart of gold!” Lancelot baulked, leading the rest of the knights in a low chuckle.
“Do not denigrate the lad!” Arthur hissed, clearly allowing himself to be wracked in terror at the prospect of his kingdom’s new foe. Each knight fell silent in an instant.
“I welcomed Galehaut to our Table as an outsider, even as he came to our lands with intentions of conquest and war. You especially should know that, Lancelot,” Lancelot ducked his head beneath his blonde locks in apology. “I say we give young Alefreon here a mirrored treatment.”
The knights around the table shuddered in silent disagreement. They would have preferred to passionately argue their case against Alefreon to their king, but they sensed he was in no mood for such a talk. Arthur himself shared their debate inside, but a sheer instinctual force caused him to press on. This was the way towards light.
“I would volunteer one, if not all of you to take his place, should I not need your hearts and steel to safeguard our kingdom against his future wrath!” He shouted, chastising his territorial men.
“After all, this Black Knight is who they spoke of when they first arrived to our lands, a Deceiver. Should they be so dangerous as to live in infamy with such a name, then it is only fit they intercede to our lands and make right whatever wrong birthed this Deceiver. Yes…,” Arthur stood up, gesturing for his servants to follow him. “Come, boy. We shall see to it that this raider in my court meets an equal blade. Come!”
“Your Highness, I sh-sh,” Alefreon swallowed back his growing nerves as he was gestured off of his stool by Galehaut. “I should know the name of this Black Knight before I depart. I should hardly think warriors such as the Iacon Knights would know their brother by his shade.”
Arthur stopped in his tracks, furrowing his brow.
“Yes… yes. Of course. Should they know him, they will know who to send to end him,” He turned back to his gathering servants, who had started moving back into the castle’s main structure. “Gather some armour for the lad, the fastest horse in our walls, and a sword and shield. With haste!”
“He has no need for a shield!,” Galehaut stood to alert the servants. “He may take mine, for such a noble task.” He took the shield from Alefreon, before proudly presenting it back to him with a soft nod. The servants rushed towards the castle, one tall slim one at the front hurriedly pointing to different corners of the castle to direct his underlings.
“His name was one I have never heard before,” He guided Alefreon towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder as they walked towards the castle. “I know not the names of these peoples, but nonetheless I found it peculiar. No surnames, not even to tell from which land they hailed. One word, all he had to know him by.”
“His name was Megatron.”