Free M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon by M. K. Hume Page A

when such birds normally slept, the owl looked down at their upturned faces and swivelled its head to impale each one with its wide, yellow glare.
    ‘We are reminded that she who must not be named has lost her favourite son, the Dragon’s Child. Before us sits Mark, taking his ease while better men have admitted to their sins and errors.’ Bran’s voice was implacable and as cold as iron. ‘What say you, Mark? Can you justify your treasons? Or will you go into the darkness, mute and cowardly?’
    Shockingly, Mark began to giggle, the noise ugly in the context of the deadly punishment that lay over him. ‘What does this nonsense matter? You’ll do as you like anyway. I welcome death. Anything is better than having to spend another day in that pesthole in the ground.’
    Then, sickeningly, he picked at his flesh with skeletal fingers tipped by talons that were every inch as long as those of the owl above him. Had the guard not cuffed him, he would have eaten the scabs from his own wounds.
    ‘He’s mad,’ Gawayne muttered with a curse.
    ‘He’d certainly like you to think so,’ the Deceangli king muttered softly, but his voice was still loud enough for the kings near him to hear his warning. ‘Mark is as he has always been, as cunning as a rat. He’ll eat shit and drink piss if that keeps him alive. After all, he’s survived when his master couldn’t manage to keep his head.’
    ‘I should have killed you when I had the chance,’ Mark said conversationally to his kinsman. Then, with a speed that seemed impossible for someone so emaciated, he threw himself from his stool and lurched towards Deinol ap Delwyn with his skeletal hands outstretched to grip and tear.
    But Mark had been weakened by the effects of starvation, and Deinol ap Delwyn’s guard had no difficulty in intercepting him. A tall, red-haired warrior knocked Mark flat on his back while another warrior drew his sword and pressed it against the traitor’s corded neck.
    ‘Kill me then!’ Mark crowed, with a voice as high as the cry of rooks in a distant wood. ‘Prove how brave you are by killing an unarmed man,’ and he pressed his throat against the sword point, forcing the warrior to lean away.
    ‘No!’ Deinol ap Delwyn ordered with unusual authority, for he was normally a passive and friendly young man. ‘Too much Deceangli honour has been lost because of you, Mark. I’ll not stain the consciences of good warriors with the guilt of your death, even if you sink those claws into my eyes. You disgust me.’
    ‘Hold him down,’ Bran ordered. ‘He refuses to speak for himself in a rational manner, so I ask the kings to pass judgement upon him.’
    ‘This is no court,’ Mark snarled, rising shakily to his feet and dragging his blanket around his lean flanks. ‘I’ve sat among you time after time and listened to you whisper treasons against Artor when you disagreed with his orders. You are hypocrites!’
    Several kings looked away from his mad black eyes.
    ‘None of you has the right to judge me. Given my choices, you’d have betrayed Artor for gold and land as readily as I did. You don’t have the right.’ The last words were howled almost maniacally, and spittle flew from his toothless, rotten gums.
    ‘ We have the right.’
    A stern voice fell into the shocked stillness with the grating violence of a sword dragged along a metal breastplate. ‘The citizens of Deva who were betrayed by you and your hell-spawn master have the right to call you to account and pass judgement on you.’
    The man who spoke had stood at the back of the hall with a group of other men whose grave faces, half-healed wounds, amputations and plain clothing marked them as both ordinary citizens and victims.
    ‘I am Causus Gallio, often referred to as the Gaul. My father was a member of the council of Deva, but in his youth he had served with the Romans in Gaul under Flavius Aetius. He retired to Deva as a trader in wool and lead, so I was born a Briton, and my