Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Milady
Percy slightly bowed at Zatanna and said "Milady."
Zatanna grinned at that, while Edward asked "How are you?"
Zatanna shrugged and replied "It feels weird to not have my magic anymore. I'm counting on you to change that."
Edward raised an eyebrow and asked "Will you send us to the cavemen?"
Zatanna pouted "I only made a single mistake."
Edward replied, his voice rather cold "A mistake that sent a demon to ancient times, a demon which will probably kill many innocents before it can be stopped."
Zatanna looked away, angry and sad. Edward didn't like being harsh like this on people, but he had to do it. Zatanna was obviously a very powerful magician, effortlessly sending the three of them 14 centuries into the past, and although she had good intentions, that made her even more dangerous as she didn't control her powers.
Still, he decided to add "Banishment is a very advanced spell, and not many Sorcerers mastered this kind of spell. Even though you aren't a Sorcerer, you still have to learn how to use your magic. Next time, don't try to forcefully use a spell well above your league, and call someone more experimented."
Zatanna nodded, reluctantly or not, and quickly changed her facial expression to a smile as she grabbed Edward's arm and said with a smile "Let's go sit then."
Edward didn't budge though and said "The custom is to wait for the king, and let him sit first."
Zatanna stopped, and surprisingly didn't complain this time and instead said "While in Rome, do as the Romans do?"
Edward nodded, surprised at her sudden change. Was she bipolar? A super powerful witch who can't control her powers and is bipolar? What was this feeling of impending doom he was feeling?
Edward, Percy and Zatanna continued to chat while waiting for the others, and although there was some obvious tension between Zatanna and Percy because of the view he had of the fairer gender, Edward took it upon himself to do most of the talk.
Thankfully, the other knights didn't take long to arrive, and while in the crowd the knights seemed less judgemental of Zatanna. And maybe because she was a powerful witch and people of this time could be superstitious, they were surrounded by witches and wizards after all.
Arthur was last to arrive, alongside his wife, Queen Guinevere, a beautiful black haired woman. Once the king sat down, everyone else was allowed to sit. Edward found himself between Bors and Zatanna.
One was a middle aged man who talked louder the more he drank, and he drank a lot. The other was a cheeky brat… who drank too much too.
Actually, everyone drank too much, and were very loud. The only exception to this was Lady Guinevere, who was a lady and thus couldn't appear drunk in public.
Edward tried to strike up a conversation with her, but he unfortunately found her to be plain boring. Times were different, and women weren't treated or seen the same. Surrounded by this, women themselves locked them in the image men have of them, turning them into nothing more than facades.
This pleased men of this time, but Edward, who was accustomed to the women of his time who didn't fear showing their personalities felt bored by such a person. Just in this banquet, the difference in times could easily be seen.
Lady Guinevere mostly stayed quiet, barely making a sound while eating, and only speaking when someone talked to her. On the other hand, Zatanna was mixing up with the men easily, having fun. Edward didn't doubt the knights around the table took her for a tomboy, or whatever was today's equivalent.
Edward was even with Diana, who could possibly become one of feminism's greatest symbols in the future, so he really wasn't accustomed to this.
Thankfully, Merlin came to the rescue while they were eating dessert, and Edward gladly followed him to his tower.
As they stepped through Merlin's portal, and it disappeared behind them, Merlin said "The spell has been successfully cast, but I must say, you really aren't afraid of trouble."
Edward tilted his head at that, and Merlin replied "Handing a powerful such as Chi to Arthur… You made Yao and I use a lot more energy because of that."
Edward scratched his head and said "Sorry." Merlin waved his hand and replied "It's already done anyway. While you are here, you may use my library as you wish. Be careful not to touch anything too advanced for you, although I doubt the warning is really needed."
Edward replied with surprise "Thank you for this, and I will stick to knowledge for now." Merlin nodded and left to another room, leaving Edward to his studies.
After that day, Edward quickly understood life in the 6th Century was boring, and he quickly fell into a routine. Back in his time, something would happen everyday, and although he always thought of them as something minor, now that his days were all the same to a terrifying degree, he understood they weren't so minor and were the things that didn't make his life boring.
Here, for one whole month, Edward would wake up from meditation in the morning, eat, train with Arthur, eat again, study mystical arts, eat, meditate.
And this cycle repeated itself over and over, Edward did earn something, as the bore made him work even harder and longer on what he wanted to improve, since he didn't have anything else to do.
First, his swordsmanship had improved a lot, although he was far from Arthur's level with Excalibur, he now understood much more about swordsmanship, and his own level was much better than before.
He also improved his Chi Sense, and started implementing into his swordplay, allowing him to 'feel' the world better. It was a fancy way of saying he was more attuned to the air surrounding him, and he was able to use it to his advantage.
For any fighter, everytime they swung their weapons, or even their bodies, they would face a certain amount of air resistance, and wind could change the speed and strength of their swing. It would be a minor change, but in an intense, highly skilled battle, it mattered a lot.
But Edward had started feeling the movements of the air around him with all his senses, and wasn't as affected by it as before.
In most of his fights, the difference wouldn't be felt, but he could feel himself that every fight against Arthur were getting easier, and he could even fight for a few rounds, although he was still losing everytime. He had no doubt though that he had already surpassed his master, Dragon, with the sword.
As for his magic, although he did not learn any other spell yet, Merlin's library was different from Kamar-Taj, and offered Edward a second view of magic, from the standpoint of the magician and blood magical schools.
But more importantly, after this month, his routine was finally broken as it was time to fight Morgana, again. The witch's base had been found, as it turned out she had built a castle from the ground up.
It was unknown whether she used slaves or simply her magic, but Arthur and Merlin were certain this castle wasn't there before.
They did not attack directly after finding it as Arthur's troops were still tired from the fight a month ago, but now was finally the time for them to attack.
Edward and Zatanna were given a horse each, which was quite the honor as apart from them only Arthur's knights and Arthur himself were riding horses.
Horses were hard to come by in the region since a few decades ago, and only nobility could afford to ride one. No armies in what would become the United Kingdoms even had a cavalry.
As for the reason for Zatanna's presence, it wasn't for her mystical knowledge, which was inferior to Edward, but because the demon would be weakened by her presence.
Although it was transformed into dark energy by a spell, the power the demon was invested with was still Zatanna's at the source, and it would naturally try to get back to it's owner.
The closest Zatanna was to the demon, the weaker it would get as it wouldn't be able to use it's stolen power.
Anyway, Morgana's castle wasn't far from Camelot, and after a march of two hours, they arrived. Merlin could also have created a giant portal there, but exhausting so much power before the battle wouldn't be very wise.
As they arrived, Edward, who was atop his horse, saw that they were expected. An army of orcs were standing in front of the fortress, forming a giant rectangular formation. Some other orcs were on top of the castle's walls, prepared to fire their arrows.
Morgana was obviously there too, she was sitting atop the demon. Speaking of which, the demon had changed quite a lot since the last time Edward saw it. It's grey skin had turned much darker, and it was also bigger, and scarier looking.
Merlin took off into the sky and without asking any question, drew in a large amount of magic as a gigantic eldritch array appeared in the sky.
This was Merlin's speciality, Eldritch magic, and what Edward had been striving to learn in the past month. Eldritch Magic was incredibly versatile and powerful, and was something that could be used by Sorcerers.
Eldritch Magic was nothing more than energy constructs after all.
Countless small Eldritch balls started falling from the sky, heading for the army of orcs and the castle. Before the mortal men could see the effect of the rain liked attack though, a dark circle appeared beneath it, and blocked all the Eldritch Balls.
Edward knew though that if Morgana hadn't done this, then her entire army would have melted away.
As the two magicians of immense power began fighting into the sky, Arthur raised his sword and pointed it toward the enemy as he yelled "Charge!"
Every soldiers under him felt emboldened and strengthened by the shout as they shouted themselves, charging toward the enemy. This was another of Excalibur's powers.
Edward unsheathed a sword he had been given by Arthur as he charged alongside the other knights on their horses. Although he usually fought bare handed, he had recently found fighting with a sword to be more to his liking.
Across them, the army of orcs roared equally as loud as they held their positions.
Edward and the rest of the knights were the first to reach the army as their horses bumped into the crowd of orcs.
Despite the orcs being stronger than normal men, even they couldn't resist the charge of the armoured war horses as they smashed their chest in and broke their limbs.
Edward never learned how to fight on horseback though, so he slashed as well as he could at the orcs at the sides.
Still, their first attack opened a breach into the orcs' defence line, and allowed the soldiers to fill in, and start to slaughter the orcs.
As Edward decapitated an orc that tried to attack him with a spear, he felt a sudden danger and hurriedly jumped off his horse into the air, just in time to see a mass of blackish grey smash into his horse and the surrounding orcs and soldiers.
This was the demon, and it was coming for Edward.
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