Chapter Twenty-Five
Summer 518
Outside the mists, the Grail was true to its promise of peace until our own men began to turn on us. The rumors began with rumblings from the countryside of bands of marauders terrorizing farmers and herders, destroying crops and livestock. Then one of Arthur’s men was brought before us, accused of inciting a riot in a village by killing the local lord’s heirs and carrying off his eldest daughter to become his wife.
I would never forget the intensity in his eyes as he strove to justify his actions, pupils dilated, blue-green irises burning with the passion of the depraved.
“What would you have me do, sit around and whittle figurines out of wood? I am a fighter. I know nothing else. When the opportunity for combat doesn’t arise naturally, I make one.” He
