King Vogt and the Guardians of the Round Table
— by Mario Crescibene
I. The Battle of Lake Erie
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
II. The Quest for the Holy Grail
Interlude
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
III. The King of the Wind
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9. Twenty-six golden ‘C’s burned on twenty-six chestplates, emboldening the Guardians to continue fighting the Black Sox army. And with the light came the strength.
The weight that had dragged at every sword was lifted, the drain of the Dread Warlock Dolan burned away by the sacred light.
The offense that had been stolen from them came roaring back, and the Guardians of the Round Table felt like knights again.
The Black Sox had been rattled by the light of the Grail beaming from the Guardians’ chests. But now they reformed their ranks to prepare for another attack. As they did, Sir Bibee stepped before the Guardians, his golden ‘C’ blazing.
“When I saw the Grail,” he called out to the Guardians, “it showed me that we must be tenacious, if we are to be victorious.” He lifted his gauntlet high. “This is not the time to falter on the battlefield, Guardians of the Round Table! Who will rise to the challenge?”
Sir Espino stepped forward in response.
He was one of the newest knights, his armor still unblemished from battle. As the Black Sox prepared to charge, he rallied the Guardians’ defenses, calling the line into place and setting shields shoulder to shoulder.
As the Black Sox attacked, he managed to strike down two of them with a speed they could not answer. But a third attacker broke through, and his blade found Espino’s arm.
Espino stood on the front line, breathing hard as the Black Sox fell back once more, blood running down the inside of his gauntlet. Then a battle-tested hand settled on his shoulder.
“The Black Sox aren’t the only army with a mercenary who spent time in Japan. I’ll take it from here, Sir Daniel.”
Espino turned to see the veteran warrior, Sir Foster Griffin, standing behind him. Sir Espino moved aside as Sir Griffin addressed the other knights.
“I spent three years in Japan, learning the samurai’s ways. During my time there, they taught me about advanced battle tactics for breaking through an opponent’s defenses… I think I have a solution to their wall of shields.”
But as Sir Griffin knelt down to draw up his plan, another battle was already underway…
In the Euclidean Stair, King Venable was shouting.
“It touched! My blade touched his shoulder! I felt steel on steel!”
“He missed me by a mile,” King Vogt contested.
Both kings were frozen mid-strike: Venable’s broadsword stretching out toward King Vogt’s shoulder, King Vogt frozen mid twist in an effort to get away from the blow. The Eternal Eye hung between them, rotating slowly.
“A touch… is claimed,” the Eye intoned. “The Eye… will review.”
The kings began to move in reverse: Venable’s blade drew back from Vogt’s shoulder, and Vogt’s body untwisted from its dodge, each retracing the moment exactly. Then the Eye let it play forward again, and back once more, and the kings repeated the same strike over and over like figures on a clockwork wheel.
The Eye drifted closer, staring unblinkingly at the space between King Venable’s blade and King Vogt’s armor. Then in an instant both kings were unfrozen and the Eye concluded in a monotone voice, “No touch… The round continues.”
“That is a farce!” Venable roared.
But the Eye did not answer. It simply rotated away, and the round continued as it had declared.
Back in the woods, Sir Griffin’s plan was ready: six knights formed an armored wedge shaped like a V with its point aimed at the Black Sox line. Griffin, Armstrong, and Cantillo made up the left arm, and Smith, Herrin, and Gaddis the right.
At the point, Griffin and Smith stood shoulder to shoulder, holding their shields together to form the tip of the wedge. And behind them, every knight carried his shield on his outer shoulder and tilted it forward until its edge overlapped the shield ahead.
“That wall of Black Sox shields mocks us,” Sir Griffin declared to the Guardians. “But this wedge will break through it. Give every ounce of force you have to the point.”
As he commanded the Guardian army, deep in the woods, the distant drumming quickened.
“Hold the angle,” Sir Griffin ordered. “And don’t stop pushing until we’re through that wall!”
With the wedge at the point of attack, the Guardians of the Round Table surged forward, striking the center of the Black Sox as one force. The V splintered the shielded barricade, throwing Black Sox to either side. But in the center of the breach, blocking the road, stood Murakami, the Southside Samurai, waiting with his two-handed katana held at his side.
Sir Griffin strode out to the center of the road to face him knight-to-samurai. The two lowered into their stances, preparing for the duel.
“I know that stance,” Griffin said quietly as Murakami readied for his charge.
Murakami roared and ran at him, the katana sweeping down in a great arc with everything he had behind it. Griffin leaned back, and the blade cut through empty air.
Murakami wheeled around… and charged again, swinging harder as he rushed past. But Griffin dropped beneath the attack.
Murakami let out an anguished yell. Twice he had now missed, and he swung a third time, wild with fury, with every ounce of strength he had left.
But Sir Griffin was ready. He met the katana with his own blade and wrenched it upward. The black sword spun out of Murakami’s hands, flipping end over end through the air — until it landed, its blade driving into the dirt. Murakami stood empty-handed and Sir Griffin laid his sword against the samurai’s neck.
The road was open.
Sir Kwan was the first through the gap. A Black Sock turned to meet him, but Kwan’s blade came down swiftly, dropping the Black Sock where he stood. Behind him, the Guardians continued to force their way further into the Black Sox ranks unleashing an offensive onslaught.
Sir Adell tore through the Black Sox wielding a monstrous mace. Three foolish Black Sox surrounded Adell, hoping to outnumber him, but he lifted his mace — and with a fearsome full-circle swing — he brought the heavy head across the brow of the three Black Sox, felling the lot with a single swing.
The other Black Sox scattered as he strode past their fallen comrades, three fools who learned their lesson too late.
Meanwhile in the Euclidean Stair, King Venable was shouting again.
“The thigh! I struck him on the thigh! You can’t tell me that didn’t land!”
The two kings stood immobilized before the Eternal Eye, King Venable’s sword frozen in a low sweep past King Vogt’s armored leg.
“A touch… is claimed,” the Eye intoned. “The Eye… will review.”
Like before, the kings moved forward and backward as Venable’s blade swept and unswept in its arc. The Eye stared intensely at the minuscule space that lay between the blade of the sword and the plated armor.
“No touch…” the Eye declared, equally as emotionless as before. “The round continues.”
“Twice!” Venable raged as he was freed from his paralysis. “Twice you have ruled against me!”
The Eternal Eye turned towards King Venable slowly, almost menacingly, and reminded him in a chilling tone, “Do not question… the Eternal Eye… I see all.”
Sir Ramirez was eager not to be outdone by Sir Adell, and charged after the Black Sox as they scattered through the woods. But then he stopped.
Let it come to you.
As he remembered the Grail’s lesson, his golden ‘C’ cast a light across the woods, and four Black Sox who had regrouped could not resist the lone knight. They stepped out of the shadows and circled him, shields up, swords out.
“Well,” he thought to himself. “If Sir Adell can fell three Black Sox then certainly I can manage four.”
The four Black Sox closed the circle. Ramírez turned slowly, taking the measure of each man, his golden ‘C’ throwing light across four dark visors.
The first Black Sock lunged with a straight thrust. Ramírez stepped inside the blow, deflected the blade to the side, and with the follow-through, slashed across the gap in the man’s armor. One down.
A second Black Sock rushed in and Ramírez feinted left, slid past the charge, and plucked the dagger from the man’s belt as he went by. The Black Sock skidded to a halt and was still looking down at his empty sheath as Ramirez plunged the stolen dagger into the ribs of the third attacker who was closing in from the side.
Never one to keep what wasn’t his, Ramírez yanked the dagger free, spun, and hurled it point-first back across the circle — the blade jamming into the narrow eye slit of its owner’s visor.
Three down. One to go.
The fourth man froze, his sword trembling. Ramírez stayed where he was and let him come. The man broke first, lunging wildly. Ramírez caught the blade on his crossguard, wrenched it free, and drove his pommel into the visor. The final Black Sock hit the dirt motionless.
Ramírez stood in the middle of the circle, breathing evenly, the golden ‘C’ blazing on his chest.
“Three, Sir Adell?” he said to no one. “I do believe I count four.”
Back in the Euclidean Stair, King Venable was still arguing.
“Twice you have ruled against me, and twice you were wrong!” He jabbed a finger at the Eye. “A king’s honor demands a fair review! I felt that blade! I demand a third look!”
The Eye hung in the center of the great cube and said nothing.
“Do you hear me? I will not be…”
Venable stopped. The landing was empty. King Vogt was gone.
King Venable spun in a circle. Stairs climbed in every direction, but Vogt was nowhere to be seen.
“Vogt?” he called. “Where did you go?”
The Eye said nothing.
Then something rang out across the space — a clang — as a dagger struck King Venable’s breastplate and clattered to his feet.
The paralysis took him at once. He couldn’t turn his head, but his eyes followed the dagger’s flight across the Euclidean Stair, to the far platform on the opposite wall…
While Venable had been raging at the Eternal Eye, King Vogt had snuck to where he had an open shot at the distracted king. And there stood King Vogt frozen as well, his arm still extended from the throw.
“You can’t challenge that one, Venable.” King Vogt called across the space. “It hit you. We all heard it.”
The Eye turned to face King Venable.
“A point… to King Vogt.”
“This is a trick!” Venable roared, unable to move so much as a finger. “He is a coward! He threw it!”
“I see… all,” The Eternal Eye said.
“The first to three touches escapes,” King Vogt chided in. “Those are the only rules.”
But then something caught the attention of King Vogt, and he looked down at the ‘C’ on his chest. It was no longer glowing like before. It now looked like it was burning as amber veins of fire spread out from where the gentle glow had begun. The light was coming to life.
The fourth round of the Euclidean Stair was about to begin.
1-2.
