Perilous Times

Perilous Times is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.Copyright © 2023 by Thomas D. LeeAll rights reserved.Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.BALLANTINE is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.Published in the United Kingdom by Orbit, an imprint of Little Brown Book Group, a Hachette UK company.Hardback ISBN 9780593499016Ebook ISBN 9780593499023randomhousebooks.comTitle-page, part title, and chapter opener art: Fatih, vertyr © Adobe Stock PhotosBook design by Sara Bereta, adapted for ebookCover design and illustration: Will Staehle/Unusual Co.ep_prh_6.1_143634502_c0_r0 ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightPart OneChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Part TwoChapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45DedicationAcknowledgmentsAbout the Author_143634502_ 1 Kay crawls up from under his hill, up through the claggy earth.For the last thousand years, the land around his hill has been dry. Drainage and farming and modern miracles kept the water away. He remembers. Now the ground is waterlogged, as it was when he was first buried. Before the fens were drained. He starts to wonder why, but then he gets a worm in his eye, which is the sort of foul development that drives the thoughts from your head. He makes a small, disgusted sound and wipes the worm away.This part’s always disagreeable, the brute scramble up toward daylight. He burrows through clay, grabs at roots, until the earth falls away and he’s looking up at a vaguely yellow sky. He gets his head out first, and then an elbow, before taking a break to catch his breath. The air doesn’t taste particularly good. The sun is baking down on his face. It must be midsummer.He has another go at getting free. The earth’s pulling down on his legs, but the slippery mud slickens his chainmail and provides lubrication. Finally there’s an almighty squelch, and he feels the earth let go. His leg comes free. His hips get past the roots. When he’s out to his knees he almost slips, falls back into the strange hollow that he’s climbed out of, but he manages to stop himself. He gets his shins above ground, and then he’s up, kneeling in the sun, panting in the heat. Wearing a coat of mail and a green wool cloak, both rimed with muddy afterbirth. His dreadlocks are matted with earth.Sure enough, his little burial hill is surrounded by bog. The waters have risen. This is how it was when he was buried, before the tree grew from his stomach.He gulps down air, trying to fill his lungs, but the air feels heavier than it ought to feel. It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here to wake him up this time. In the old days there were bands of horsemen, sometimes even a king, in person, when the need was dire. Then it became army lorries, or circles of druids in white shifts, slightly surprised that their dancing had actually achieved something. More recently, a man in a raincoat, checking his wristwatch, with a flying machine roaring on the grass behind him. Nothing today. It must be one of the more organic ones, where the earth itself decides to shake his shoulder. Something shifting in the spirit of the realm. Or maybe the birds in the sky have held a parliament and voted to dig him up. He looks around. No sign of any birds, either.“Bad, then,” he mutters, to nobody.Kay drags himself to his feet. First thing to do is to find his sword and shield. They usually get regurgitated somewhere nearby, though there’s no exact science to it. He’s not sure that the earth fully understands its obligations. The covenant with Merlin was fairly specific. Make this warrior whole again and surrender him back to the realm of the living, whenever Britain is in peril. Return him with his sword and shield and other tools of war, untarnished. When peril is bested, let him return to your bosom and sleep, until peril calls him forth again.It couldn’t have been much clearer. But mud is mud. Mud struggles with written instructions. There were bound to be some misunderstandings.There’s something new across the bog. He squints at it, because the sun is bright and reflecting off the metal parts. An ugly cluster of low buildings, with pipes running everywhere like a mass of serpents. In the center is a silver tower shaped like a bullet. A fortress? Bigger, though, than Arthur’s fortress at Caer Moelydd ever was.“Didn’t used to be there,” he says to himself.It seems like a good place to start, if he’s going to figure out why he’s back.He heads downhill, the earth squishing underfoot. His sword might be in the bog somewhere, hilt protruding from the wet earth. Hopefully he’ll just stumble onto it. That’s usually how this works, the various ancient forces of the realm conspiring to make things easier for him. That was always one of the perks of being in Arthur’s warband. You’d blunder into the forest and you’d happen upon a talking raven who could tell you where to find what you were questing for. How else would idiots like Bors and Gawain have achieved anything, if they hadn’t had assistance from white hinds and river spirits, guiding them on their way? Not that they ever showed any gratitude.Across the bog, the mess of buildings glistens. Strange that whoever built this thing built it so close to his old hill. But it’s no stranger than white hinds or talking ravens. Riding through the old forests, you could never shake the feeling that there was a quest around the corner, put there by some greater power, whether