Free Excalibur by Colin Thompson

saying exactly when and where and who and lots of other details. 28
    â€˜Yes,’ said Morgan le Fey.
    â€˜Can you do that? Are you allowed to overrule the rules?’
    â€˜I am the King’s sister,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘I can pretty well do anything I like.’
    â€˜All their blood,’ said Fenestra, beginning to drool, ‘until they are completely white and empty.’
    â€˜Not every last drop. You can make them pale grey, but you must leave them enough to survive. You’re not allowed to make them dead,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘And you know what that means, don’t you?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜When they have made new blood, you can drain them all over again.’
    â€˜Wow,’ said the vampire. ‘And the dragon, we can have his blood too?’
    â€˜Oh yes.’
    â€˜Gosh, I’ve never tasted dragon’s blood,’ said the vampire. ‘It’s legendary.’
    â€˜So you’ll do it?’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘You’ll try to find them?’
    â€˜Absolutely,’ said Fenestra. ‘Though could we keep this just between us? I mean, there’s only one very small dragon and two humans. If all my twenty-six relatives could suck their blood too, there wouldn’t be very much for each of us.’
    â€˜So your philosophy doesn’t have a problem with selfishness,’ Morgan le Fey said with a smile.
    â€˜Who cares?’ said the vampire. ‘Dragon’s blood, I mean, come on!’
    Morgan le Fey agreed that even if the vampire didn’t manage to trace the rebels, but they were found anyway, the vampire could still suck their blood. She realised this meant the vampire could simply sit up in her tower and wait until someone else found them, but Morgan le Fey knew the lure of paperwork-free illicit blood would be strong enough to keep the creature searching all day and all night.
    When Sir Lancelot came round, the vampire had left and was already floating back up in her high tower, preparing for her mission.
    â€˜We could always go looking ourselves,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘On my trusty steed, the magnificent Susan.’
    â€˜Yes, but that could take forever,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘Even for me it can take half a day just to get across the bridges to the mainland.’
    â€˜We do not need to cross the bridges,’ said Lancelot.
    â€˜Of course we do. How else can we go searching everywhere?’
    â€˜Because Susan is no ordinary horse,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘She has wings on her heels. She can fly.’
    â€˜Yes, right,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘You are awonderful man who I shall love and respect forever, but flying horses? Come on. This is the Days of Yore, not the Dark Ages when people believed all that sort of hippy stuff. 29 Horses can’t fly.’
    â€˜But Susan was born in the Dark Ages,’ said Sir Lancelot and went over to the window.
    This time it was his turn to take a silver whistle from round his neck and blow it. Slowly a large horse that had been grazing in the courtyard below rose into the air. The back of each of her hooves was a blur as eight small wings carried the horse higher and higher. Luckily the window was a big window, so when Susan came level with the sill she simply drift ed silently into the room. She walked over to Lancelot and nuzzled him.
    Morgan le Fey did not faint. She thought about it and decided fainting was not as fashionable as it had been last week, so decided against it.
    â€˜Can she carry both of us?’
    Susan nodded.
    â€˜Can she understand what we’re saying?’
    Susan nodded again.
    â€˜So does she know that we are as one and our destinies are intertwined forever?’ said Morgan le Fey.
    Susan looked surprised and fainted. 30
    When she came to, she stood up and smiled at Morgan le Fey as only a horse can smile, which is kind of weird. Then she nuzzled the Princess to let her know she was