The giant should have been dead.
Lancelot stood at the edge of the outcrop, breathing hard, watching the massive body crumpled among the rocks below. Blood pooled beneath the fallen warrior, dark and thick. The neck wound Aronde had gone clean through was unmistakably fatal. No one survived that. No one.
Then the body twitched.
Lancelot's eyes widened. No. Impossible.
The giant's hand moved, fingers digging into the rock. Then the other hand. Slowly, impossibly, the massive form pushed itself up, rising from the ground like a nightmare given flesh. The wound in his neck the wound that should have killed him was closing. Flesh knitted together. Blood flowed back into veins. In seconds, the giant stood whole and unharmed, his ruined eye reforming in its socket.
He threw his head back and laughed.
"HAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The sound echoed off the rocks, bouncing and multiplying until it seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was the laugh of someone who knew they couldn't lose. The laugh of a monster.
Lancelot's grip on Aronde tightened. His mind raced, searching for explanation, for weakness, for anything.
"The grace of the gods of Greece," the giant boomed, his voice deep as earthquake, "is in Valhalla, little knight! Did you think we Romans came here with nothing? Did you think we fought only with steel?"
Lancelot stared, his heart pounding. Gods of Greece? What
The giant saw his confusion and grinned a wide, terrible grin full of too many teeth.
"My muscles are twenty times stronger than any seasoned warrior! Twenty times denser! Twenty times harder!" He pounded his chest with a fist the size of Lancelot's head. "Not even a blade to the heart can put me in my grave! It was foolish of you to think otherwise!"
He reached down, picking up his fallen bow the one Lancelot had made him drop. But he didn't nock an arrow. Instead, he slammed his fist into the ground.
CRACK!
The impact sent a shockwave through the rock, nearly knocking Lancelot off his feet. The ground split, a fissure racing toward the outcrop's edge. And from that fissure, something rose a stone case, ancient and weathered, carved with symbols Lancelot didn't recognize.
The giant opened it.
Inside lay a bow unlike any Lancelot had ever seen. Massive, built for those enormous hands, crafted from heavy iron and gleaming gold. Beside it, a great sword not the crude blade of a barbarian, but a weapon, forged with skill and purpose, its edge singing with deadly promise.
The giant slung the bow over one arm, tucking arrows into a quiver along his forearm. In his other hand, he took up the great sword, testing its weight with a satisfied grunt.
Well, Darlington's voice came, calm and cold in Lancelot's mind, this is where our real battle begins.
Lancelot had no time to respond.
The giant moved.
For something his size, it should have been impossible. But the rocks shook with each step, and in three heartbeats he had crossed the distance, his great sword arcing down in a blow that would have split Lancelot in two.
Lancelot raised Aronde to block.
CRAAAAASH!
The impact was catastrophic. Lancelot's arms screamed in protest, his knees buckling, his feet sliding back across the rock. The giant's strength was beyond anything he'd ever faced beyond any human, beyond any knight, beyond reason.
He couldn't hold. Couldn't even slow the blow.
The great sword smashed through his guard, and Lancelot felt himself flying, launched from the outcrop like a stone from a sling. He twisted in the air, trying to find purchase, trying to see
CRUNCH.
He hit the ground below, the impact driving the breath from his lungs. Pain exploded through his side. Rocks dug into his back. For a moment, the world spun, grey and blurred.
Get up. Darlington's voice was sharp, insistent. GET UP!
Lancelot's hand found Aronde's hilt. He shoved the blade into the ground, using it to pull himself upright. His arm vibrated from the force of the blow, his muscles screaming. He could feel blood running down his face from a cut somewhere, could feel ribs that might be cracked, might be broken.
To his right, steel clashed against steel.
He turned his head too fast, the world swimming and saw them. Two blurs, moving too quickly to track, their blades meeting and separating and meeting again in a dance of death. He forced his eyes to focus, to see.
Percival.
And a Roman soldier unlike any other.
This one wore almost no armor just leather and cloth, built for speed rather than protection. His movements were fluid, graceful, deadly. But it was his helmet that caught Lancelot's attention. Bronze, polished to a mirror shine, with wings sprouting from the sides.
Mercury, Lancelot thought wildly. Hermes. A messenger of the gods.
Percival was holding his own, barely. His spear moved in beautiful arcs, each thrust calculated to kill. But the Roman was faster, always a step ahead, always where Percival's blade wasn't. It was only a matter of time.
Lancelot's lips twisted into a grim smile.
"Well," he muttered, pushing himself upright. "Seems Percival has his hands covered. Can't really ask for help with this."
He's coming down from above, Darlington warned. Get ready to block.
Lancelot looked up. The giant was jumping from the outcrop, great sword raised, descending like a meteor.
Block? Lancelot's smile widened, something wild entering his eyes. I have a better idea than that.
He raised Aronde but not to defend.
To activate.
The blade's second ability. The one he rarely used, the one that cost him something every time.
Curse.
The wounds on the giant's body the neck wound that had healed, the eye that had reformed began to glow.
Deep red. Angry. Alive.
The giant's face twisted. Mid-descent, his body convulsed, muscles locking, a scream tearing from his throat. The great sword fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering to the ground. He landed badly, one leg crumpling beneath him, rolling across the rocks in a tangle of limbs.
Lancelot didn't wait. He leaped, meeting the giant as he rolled, and their blades clashed Aronde against a desperate, one-handed block.
The giant's eyes were wide now. Confused. Afraid.
"How does it feel?" Lancelot growled, pressing his advantage, driving the giant back. "How does it feel to be eaten alive by my blade?"
Aronde's curse was simple: any wound it inflicted, it remembered. Any injury it caused, it could reopen could make the victim feel again, experience again, suffer again. The giant's body had healed, but the memory of those wounds remained. And Lancelot had just set them all on fire.
What a cursed blade, Darlington observed, genuine surprise in his mental voice. Now that I think about it, Excalibur doesn't really fit you at all, does it? You were never meant for holy light. You were meant for this for blood and memory and pain.
Lancelot ignored him. He pressed the attack, forcing the giant back, back, toward
The giant's hand caught his blade.
Bare-handed. Ignoring the edge, ignoring the blood that poured from his palm. He held Aronde in his grip and looked at Lancelot with those terrible, empty eyes.
"As long as the will of Caesar is accomplished," the giant said, his voice a rumble of thunder, "we Romans will pay any price. Any price. Do you understand, little knight? Any"
Lancelot twisted the blade. The giant's fingers screamed three of them falling to the ground. But he didn't let go. Didn't even flinch.
" PRICE. "
He pushed.
Lancelot flew backward, torn from his feet, Aronde ripped from his grip. He tumbled across the ground, rocks cutting into his back, his side, his face. He came to a stop against something solid warm alive.
Sir Gawain's armored back.
Gawain caught him without looking, one massive hand steadying him while the other kept his great sword raised against an attacker Lancelot couldn't see.
"Lancelot." Gawain's voice was calm, unhurried, as if they were discussing the weather. "It seems you've met an unfair opponent."
Lancelot gasped, trying to find breath, trying to find Aronde. "Gawain, I "
"Rest." Gawain released him, stepping forward to face the giant, who was rising in the distance, retrieving his great sword, his ruined hand already beginning to heal. "Let me take this battle from here."
Lancelot wanted to argue. Wanted to say no, he's mine, I can finish him. But his body had other ideas. His legs wouldn't hold. His arms hung limp. He could only watch as Gawain walked forward, great sword swinging onto his shoulder.
"Please," Gawain added, glancing back with a slight smile, "meet Sir Tristan. It seems his problem is more about numbers than quality. He could use another sword."
Lancelot's eyes found Tristan.
The hunter was surrounded. A dozen Roman soldiers no, two dozen pressed in on all sides, their short swords darting, stabbing, retreating. Tristan moved among them like water, like wind, his spear never still, never where they expected. But there were too many. Too many.
He'll fall, Darlington observed. Not immediately. But eventually. Numbers have a quality all their own.
Lancelot's hand closed on empty air. Aronde lay twenty feet away, gleaming in the grey light. Could he reach it? Could he move at all?
"Good," he gasped, forcing the word out. "Let me… take a short breath."
Gawain's smile widened. "Take two. I'll keep this one busy."
He turned to face the giant, who had finally risen to his full, terrifying height. They were almost evenly matched in size Gawain was no small man but the giant still had half a foot and a hundred pounds on him. And those muscles. Those impossible, twenty-times-stronger muscles.
Gawain didn't seem concerned.
He raised his great sword plain, unadorned, utterly without magic and smiled.
"Now this," he said, his voice rich with anticipation, "will be a great battle."
The giant roared and charged.
Gawain met him head-on.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!
Their blades collided with force that cracked the rocks beneath their feet. Shockwave rippled outward, staggering nearby soldiers, sending dust and debris flying. Both men held neither giving ground, neither yielding.
The giant's eyes widened. "You… you blocked that?"
Gawain's grin was feral. "Blocked it? My friend, I'm just getting started."
He pushed. The giant slid backward, his feet carving furrows in the stone. For the first time, something like uncertainty flickered in those empty Roman eyes.
Lancelot watched for one more heartbeat, then forced himself to move. To crawl. To reach.
Aronde waited for him, gleaming in the dust and blood.
Behind him, the clash of legends began in earnest.