Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland by Jeremiah Kleckner, Jeremy Marshall Page B

ground.   The knight swung his axe behind him in a wide arc.   It gained speed as he brought it up over his head and clasped it with both hands.   He bent his back in century-honed technique and drove the weapon with a force that cut the air into a whistle.  
    There was a clash of steel as I drew my sword and deflected the knight’s axe into the dirt.   I stepped on the axe handle and held the blade of my sword to Bertilak’s throat.   “No more boys die.”
    The knight looked at his axe for a moment before meeting my eyes.   Disappointment crept across his face, creasing it deeply.  
    “And you would kill me to save them?” Bertilak asked.   He waited for an answer that I didn’t give, then lifted his axe out of the dirt with my weight still on it.  
    I backed up between Bertilak and the boy, my sword at the ready.  
    “It seems as though we have a disagreement,” Bertilak said.  
    His eyes flashed red as he attacked.  
    The knight swung his axe right and I thrust for his head.   Bertilak swiped it away and used the momentum of the parry to swing across my midsection.   I jumped in time to avoid and regroup.  
    “I expected more out of you, Captain,” Bertilak said.  
    “I am still hoping to resolve this with only Pan’s blood on my sword.”
    “I meant your form.”
    “My form?” I asked.   “I am not even trying yet.”
    “And what does you trying look like?”
    Bertilak swung his axe high.   I jabbed my sword into the dirt and rolled underneath the strike.   I rose, pulled a pistol from my belt, and shot.   The bullet ripped into the knight’s chest and his eyes widened with surprise.   I dropped the pistol and charged.   I grasped my sword, raised it, stepped hard with my lead foot, and thrust the blade through Bertilak’s throat.  
    Bertilak dropped his axe as he choked on the blood that spilled from his mouth.   Disbelief flashed across his face.   I pulled my sword from the man’s neck and let him slump to the grass with dignity.  
    “That is my form,” I said, at the moment not caring whether it was good form or bad.  
    Bertilak crawled on the grass and gurgled.   More blood spilled over his green and gold tunic.   He gasped and moved his lips to form words.   I turned to the boy and gave up trying to interpret what the knight was trying to say.   Seconds later, I didn’t need to interpret at all.  
    “Now, Captain,” the voice rasped.   Bertilak removed his hand from his neck and I saw a web of veins intertwine like tiny writhing fingers.   “I shall show you the terror of Arthur’s table.”   Thin lines of green wormed under the knight’s skin, shifting the tint of his hue to a sallow pale.   Bertilak laughed as his clothes stretched and tore.   Shock froze my every movement as deep corners of my mind nudged thoughts forward.   The sense of awkward familiarity rose in me again.   Images and memories flashed back to me, not of my life, but of lives I read about long before I was born.   Legends.  
    Wood splintered above us and a limb split the trunk in half as it fell.  
    Two boys clung to the branch and screamed as their home collapsed under them.   I grabbed the shackled boy and dove to the side, covering him from the raining fire.   The limb fell on Bertilak with a crash of smoke and dirt.   Ash kicked up all around us and I covered my face with a sleeve.   The smoke burned my eyes, but I squinted through the pain.   The two Lost Boys who fell with the branch scrambled like rats into the forest, their hair and clothes alight.  
    Everything else was a curtain of black.  
    “Stay here,” I ordered.   The boy nodded between coughs.  
    I navigated the fire, hoping to get a look at the knight’s body.   With each step, waves of heat washed over me.   I approached where he was, but flames surged and licked my face. I worked around the side, then ducked under one branch and into an opening between limbs.   The smoke grew thicker with