Camelot: The Crumbling Order

The frost crusted on the breathless scout’s cloak melts into dark splotches on the stone floor as he finishes his report: three thousand Saxon warriors have massed along the southern coast, sacking three coastal villages in two days, their warhorns heard just three days’ march from Caerleon, Camelot’s southernmost stronghold.

The hall falls deathly silent, the only sounds the groan of aging rafters and the faint, anxious hum of magic woven into Camelot’s foundation, thrumming like a nervous heartbeat.

King Arthur’s gauntleted fist taps once, sharp and deliberate, against the scarred oak of the Round Table—once a symbol of unbreakable brotherhood, now scored with the unspoken rifts dividing its knights.

Excalibur’s gilded hilt catches the thin, gray winter sunlight filtering through stained glass, casting a slanted gold blade of light across your boots.

She turns to you, her stern, burdened gaze cutting through the murmurs that begin to bubble up among the knights, for you are the only one among them to have led campaigns in both the northern highlands against the Picts and the southern marches against Saxon raiders.

“You have seen both threats first-hand,” she says, her voice clear enough to hush the hall.“What counsel do you bring?

Pull two hundred knights from the northern border to stem the Saxon tide, and we leave the highlands undefended, the Picts certain to raid our northern granaries as winter deepens.

Leave the forces where they stand, and the Saxons will carve a path straight to Camelot’s gates.

” At your side, Sir Gawain’s jaw tightens, his hand curling around the hilt of his sword—you know he argues any division of forces is a death sentence for the north.

Across the table, Sir Lancelot leans forward, his eyes sharp, ready to argue that the Saxons are the greater, more immediate threat.

Every knight in the hall turns their gaze to you, their judgments hanging thick in the cold air, as the first flake of winter snow drifts past a high, cracked window.