Free The King's Wizard by James Mallory

to king to hero the blade had been handed down, always
     returning to the Ancient Ones who had forged it when its time on Earth was done. It was the sword of Weyland, of Lughd, of
     Taliesin—the sword of Maxen Wledig, last emperor of Britain before the Dark Times came. And now Merlin would use it to puta new king, a good king, upon the throne of Britain once more.
    Merlin held the sword skyward in triumph. The blade flashed silver in the winter sun, and once more he heard the faint song
     of the blade’s inviolable magic. Excalibur granted victory to any who wielded it and made them unbeatable in war. Merlin swore
     he would never allow the sword to be used except for a good purpose.
    The cold of its blade burned his fingers. Holding the sword in his two hands, Merlin walked back to where Sir Rupert stood
     patiently. When he reached Sir Rupert, he found a swordbelt and scabbard hanging from his mount’s saddle.
    So this was meant to be
, Merlin thought to himself as he buckled on the swordbelt. It was of soft golden leather, very plain, but worked by a master
     hand. When Merlin slid Excalibur into its sheath, the new weight at his hip felt right, as if it had always hung there. In
     a way, he felt that his life began at this moment.
    Merlin had always thought that his future would hold great deeds. It had begun when he had slain Draco Magnus Maleficarum,
     the Great Dragon. Now, armed with the sword of the Just, he was going to face another dragon—a red one.
    The red dragon was Uther’s crest, and Merlin was about to make it supreme—if Uther would let him.
    And he would slay a king.

CHAPTER THREE

T HE T HRONE OF B ATTLE
    T he Roman legions had worshiped Mithras as the Unconquered Sun at this season, and now the Christians worshiped a different
     Son in his place. There was a cathedral at Winchester, its presence was one of the reasons Uther had chosen to make that city
     his stronghold. The Young Prince was holding Christmas Court in Winchester Castle. His forces had doubled and doubled again
     in the weeks since his landing. All those who resented Vortigern—or had royal ambitions of their own—had flocked to Prince
     Uther’s red dragon standard.
    The red dragon will fight the white come spring
.
    Uther was a young man, who wore his dark hair short and a neat beard in the Roman fashion, as well as a Roman cloak and armor.
     The Continental courts were still run very much in the Roman style, and the boy who would be king had grown up there, as alandless beggar suppliant at the foot of a Norman throne, existing in the shadow of his mother, Queen Lionor, King Constant’s
     widow.
    He had not enjoyed the experience.
    Time and again Uther had fretted beneath the yoke of patience, waiting—always waiting—for the moment of his ascension. A thousand
     times he would have resigned his claim on Britain to become the Norman king’s vassal, but his mother had always dissuaded
     him. To the day of her death, Lionor had believed that Britain was a rich prize worth fighting for, but that it could only
     be won when the time was right.
    And at last Uther had come to share her vision. He had watched and waited until he was a man grown, until King Vortigern was
     old, and rotted through with mistrust, and had oppressed his people for so long that they looked back on the reign of King
     Constant as a golden time. Then Constant’s son had sold his mother’s jewels, borrowed all the money anyone would lend him,
     and sailed for Britain with the cross of the New Religion held proudly before him.
    Though he still marched beneath the red dragon standard of his Pagan ancestors, Uther was a Christian king, and meant to make
     Britain a Christian land. The Christian lords of Britain had flocked to him to pledge their support as soon as his ships landed,
     and the Bishop of Winchester himself had opened the gates of the walled city to Uther’s troops.
    The fighting that followed had been brief and apathetic, and ended with the