The rods rained down like black judgment.
Sir Kay did not hesitate. His eyes trained by centuries of battle, hardened by the loss of comrades, sharpened by the desperation of this moment calculated the trajectory of every falling rod. There were too many to count. Too many to block.
But he had to try.
His left hand reached down, grabbing Lancelot's unconscious form. With a single, fluid motion, he tied the fallen knight to his body a makeshift harness of leather and will, securing Lancelot against his back.
He would not waste energy trying to cover attacks from hitting Lancelot separately. He would carry him. Protect him.
His right hand raised his sword.
He took a stance feet planted, knees bent, body coiled. His blade was positioned like an eagle's beak, pointing forward, hungry. His feet traced a circle in the sand a single, perfect ring.
He turned twice.
His body spun within the circle, his sword rising with each rotation, his form shifting. When he stopped, he was in the posture of a dragon sculpted, still, waiting.
He closed his eyes.
"May the sun shine on all of Camelot," he whispered, "one day."
The rods reached his level.
He opened his eyes.
And he attacked.
"THE SPIRAL OF A DRAGON THAT REACHES THE SKY!"
His sword moved not in straight lines, not in predictable arcs, but in spirals. Each stab was a twist, each cut a curve, each motion a continuation of the last. The blade sang as it carved through the air, shattering rods as they came.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Black steel exploded around him, fragments flying in every direction. But none touched him. None touched Lancelot. None touched the circle he had drawn in the sand.
The sand beneath his feet began to shift.
The circle he had traced deepened not just a ring, but a pattern. A circle within a circle within a circle, each one carved by the force of his movements, by the precision of his sword.
None of the rods that were destroyed touched anything around the circle. None fell within it.
It was an umbrella of steel and will, covering everything beneath it.
General Titus, still hanging in the sky, watched with interest.
"So that's the complete form of that sword style." His eyes tracked Kay's movements the spirals, the circles, the flawless execution. "Though it's complete, it's not completely refined. There are still multiple holes in it."
He tilted his head.
"But he covers those holes with his high skill level." A flicker of something respect? irritation? crossed his face. "Impressive."
Above them, Darlington watched as well.
His eyes moved between Kay's spiraling defense and Titus's falling rods, his mind comparing, analyzing.
"So that's the difference between the illusionary world and the real world," he murmured.
He replayed the battle in his head the rods in Lancelot's Lake, the rods in the sky, the same ability manifesting in two different ways.
"In the illusionary world, he was able to create the rods based on his killing intent. Hence why it drained him mentally. And it wasn't limited like this."
His eyes narrowed.
"To use this ability in the real world, he needs his two hands. In the illusionary world, it was based on instinct."
He shook his head slowly.
"It's too bad this isn't an ability that can be learned or stolen." A pause. "Though Lancelot might have the chance to replicate something like it. In the illusionary realm."
He smiled.
"Nice."
Across the battlefield, Sir Galahad regained consciousness.
His head throbbed. His nose was still broken, blood caking his face, his lips, his chin. His skull ached where Titus's fist had cracked it. But he was alive.
He opened his eyes.
The rods were falling toward him, toward Percival, toward Tristan. There was no time to run. No time to dodge.
He raised the Sword of David.
"CUT."
The blade sliced through the air not at the rods, but at the space in front of them. A cut stretched across the sky, long and wide, a wound in the fabric of reality itself.
The rods fell into the cut.
They disappeared vanished as if they had never existed.
And then they reappeared.
On another side of the battlefield.
Far from Galahad, far from the knights, far from anyone who mattered. The rods crashed into empty sand, useless, wasted.
Galahad had used his cut as a defensive ability not to destroy, but to redirect.
He lowered his sword, breathing hard.
"Still alive," he muttered. "Still fighting."
On the second front of the battlefield, the son of Arthur had arrived.
Mordred.
He stood where the fighting had been fiercest where the knights of the second front had made their stand, where they had held the line against Rome's advance.
They had not held it against him.
The severed head of Sir Agravain served as his foot stool. The knight's eyes were still open, still staring, still frozen in the shock of his death. His blood had pooled around Mordred's boots, thick and dark.
In Mordred's hand, Sir Ector's body twitched.
The old knight Arthur's foster father, the man who had raised the king was dying. Mordred's fingers were wrapped around his neck, crushing his windpipe, shattering his vertebrae. His eyes were popping out of his head like noodles forced through too small a hole.
His legs kicked weakly.
His arms flailed.
And then
Sir Ector was dead.
Mordred dropped the body. It crumpled to the ground beside Agravain's headless corpse, joining the pile of the fallen.
He looked at the remaining knight.
Sir Lamorak the Knight of Storm. His blade, the Storm Cutter, was made purely of silver, gleaming in the grey light. It was said he could create storms with it. Cut them down, too.
But he was not using it.
He was kneeling.
His hands were bound behind his back. His mouth was gagged. His eyes those fierce, proud eyes were fixed on Mordred with a hatred that could burn.
And on the ground beside him, still alive, was the hostage that Arthur's son had taken.
A knight. Unconscious. Bleeding. Waiting.
Mordred looked at the hostage at the leverage he held over the king he had come to see and smiled.
"Father," he said quietly, looking toward the distant golden light where Arthur still fought. "I'm coming."
Kay spun his dragon spiral.
Galahad cut the sky.
Mordred killed and waited.
And somewhere in the chaos, a hostage's life hung by a thread.
Tor is the hostage