We'll Always Be The Last To Fall

Part One

By the time Arthur turned seventeen, the wood of his sword had been replaced with live steel, and his friendship with Leon, the only one of the squires who came close to him on the field, was as deep as if they had been born brothers.

He had also brushed too close to death too many times to count.

The attack eight years ago had been the least of which he'd ever had to face. It had turned out to be little more than a stab wound inflicted by a measly knife, the only element of sorcery having been a weak spell stopping the blood from clotting over.

But it had been no match for Gaius' medicinal prowess, and it had taken less than a week for the bleeding to stop completely. Though Arthur had been weak for weeks afterwards, by the time the first flowers had bloomed in the meadows, he had already been on the training field again.

But the ones that came later left scars—a delicate roadmap of slices and cuts sprawling over his skin. There was one serrated slice that cut across his right forearm, inflicted with a silver blade that had glowed a deep crimson when it had come in contact with his blood.

There was a deep gouge in his thigh when a bolt shot at him from yards and yards away and didn't once waver in its trajectory— even when its heavy metal arrowhead should have at least caused it to drop from the air halfway through its trip. And one impossibly thin slice cut across the breadth of his throat, once when he had come too close to death, hidden under his jawline from an obsidian blade enchanted to be sharper than any made of metal.

He still doesn't know how he survived that one.

But the ones that cut across his flesh had nothing over the scars etched deeper into his memory and mind.

The fury that had always come with knowing he was being hunted like an animal again, the despair when the screams erupted all around him when people realised the prince had been attacked, the all-encompassing, gut-wrenching fear when he caught the eyes of the person who would be his killer and saw the feral madness that had made its home there.

That is something that he doesn't think he will ever forget no matter how years pass.

But all that—all that and more—hits him when he stares down the shining silver of the sword held in the hand of the man before him, the point aimed unerringly at Arthur's own throat and the burning golden eyes above it.

Behind him, his father lies slumped at the foot of his throne, fallen halfway down the dais, blood flowing from a deep gash in his forehead and the stab wound in his gut. The blood-smeared crown sits crooked on his head. Morgana struggles sluggishly in the arms of two men a few metres to his left, drugged out of her mind by the water her servant had served her minutes before the attack. All others who had been in the room are dead, and the doors barricaded.

The traitors are taking no prisoners—except for them.

There's a vague hammering as the people outside try to break in, but there is a reason why the throne room is considered the stronghold of the citadel. The doors are heavy wood, reinforced with steel and multiple locks, all of which are now engaged. It was to be used as a last resort in case Camelot was overrun, to keep invaders out.

Or, in this case, keep people inside.

The man who held the sword to Arthur's throat—Sir Brador—is decked in gleaming armour, the crimson cape characteristic of Camelot's knights slung over his shoulders. The cape that is the source of foremost pride of the men that would one day be Arthur's own—that same cloak that inspires hope and admiration wherever it waves on their backs—be it in the Lower Town or the furthermost recesses of Camelot's borders.