Disclaimer: I don't own King Arthur or any of its characters. The King Arthur movie is the property of Touchstone Pictures. So there is no copyright infringement intended, nor do I intend to tick anyone off – so please don't sue me, I'm poor enough already! If you do sue all you end up with is a rust bucket car and a load of rescued pets with attitude problems that make Tristan look like a teddy bear. But I do own the story itself and the characters of Bethan, Sandrina and Non-King Arthurian types. :O)

This is my first King Arthur fanfic. It is based on the 2004, as well as some legends I know a little about. I do not intend to rip off any other writer (I just can't wade through so many pages of stories to check, I'd lose the will to live!) so if this premise has been done before I'm sorry, I just hope mine is different enough for it not to be too boring. But if I digress from the movie and stuff a little, don't shoot me as I'm old and the brain (what little I have) is not what it used to be. Plus I might also change things to fit the story a little better –sorry. But that is what artistic license is all about! LOL

I watched the film again recently, for the possibly the 50th time and still thought we'd been jibed with the deaths of the knights. I got to wondering what would happen if someone brought them back?

It's going to be dramatic, romantic as well as fairly funny…in places anyway….. It is nothing but fluff, so if you don't like romance and stuff please don't read it!

All reviews, and constructive criticism, gratefully received – but no flaming please; and I will try to update regularly.

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Anyway…on with the show!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

KING ARTHUR:

Fallen Knights Return

Chapter One – The Calling

The woman skidded down the side of the hill, ignoring the mud now spoiling her breeches and shirt. She shushed the group of children of varying ages hidden in the trees behind her, being carefully monitored by a motley pack of dogs – the leader of which was a large black one.

"Dear Heavens, let me do this thing and let it work!" She whispered urgently as she crept towards the graveyard on Baden Hill.

She rapidly identified the three graves she needed and set to work; silently cursing the men who separated one from the other two, and then set fire to the third! The fates were definitely not going to make this easy for her that was certain!

She got her meagre provisions out of her little bag and set to work – she laid the herbs and shining violet liquid round each of the graves and then put powdered earth about each one. She then rose to her feet and stepped to the bottom of the graveyard.

Intoning quietly, but loud enough – she hoped – to be heard by the souls of the departed she said "I call on the souls of the fallen knights here buried…..Return from the realms of the dead. Come back to your leader, Arthur – King of the Britons.

Return to us Tristan, Lancelot and Dagonet – many here miss you and wish you back amongst them. Your time came too soon, and fate has not finished with you – destiny has yet to see you to the end of your paths.

HEAR ME – RETURN TO ME! TRISTAN! DAGONET, LANCELOT!"

As she finished her keening, for all this was spoken in a language that no one, except a Woad, would recognise, she saw the ground around the three graves she'd selected begin to shift. She panicked, realising she had not dug them free first and started digging with her hands at the nearest…Dagonet's. A large hand clutched her arm and it took all her strength not to cry out as she hauled him from the earth.

She rushed to Lancelot's grave and brushed the ash and burnt twigs aside and quickly dragged him out too.

Finally, she scrambled over to Tristan's grave and grabbed a hand that was blindly pushing its way through the soil. She pulled him out and pushed him onto the side; her chest heaving from the effort, her cough causing her to stop for a moment.

She looked cautiously at the three men all lying on the ground in surprise trying to get their bearings and panting for air. She'd half expected to see three rotten or burnt corpses being re-animated. Instead she saw three men as real as the day they'd died; all in one piece and all, she had to say, very handsome despite the battle scars they carried. The only thing was they were very dirty.

'But then why wouldn't they be?' she thought 'they've been buried for three months, and Dagonet longer than that…'

The old man's words ringing in her ears, even after all these years, she suddenly flew from the place just as they all looked at her. She must not be seen by them; it was not her place, that was what he'd told her. However, her hacking cough attracted their attention; and Dagonet and Tristan managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of her, before she melted into the deeper darkness of the woods above them.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The three men lay on the ground looking at the night sky. Tristan was the first to speak, his voice croaky and dry through lack of use "the last time I remember seeing the sky my hawk was flying towards the sun. Now it is dark; I don't understand….."

"Where are the fallen? I was surrounded by Woads and Saxons on the field of battle, now I'm lying next to a damn grave……" Lancelot's words petered out as the realisation of where he lay sunk in - his helmet mocking him on a stick….. 'NAY! He couldn't be……could he?'

"I only remember being on a frozen lake…." Came Dagonet's voice thickly, through the darkness. The other two men froze as they looked at their friend. Now it was possible, however remotely, that they may have somehow survived their wounds on the battlefield, though why they would be left out here was not so clear, but they knew for certain that Dagonet was dead.

They looked around their surroundings again, and the cold realisation hit them….they had been dead. But were they now? After checking themselves over, they thought not.

The woman on the hilltop became impatient, 'why couldn't the fools just move!' she thought.

"DAMN YOU – YOU'RE NOT DEAD ANYMORE! GO BACK TO THE BLOODY FORT! IT WAS NOT YOUR TIME….DESTINY STILL HAS A HAND TO PLAY WITH YOU YET!" She shouted in exasperation, before once again melting back into the trees.

This was not going according to how she thought it would. She sighed 'great, this was just great – they're obviously completely disorientated; I'll have to follow them back to the fort to make sure they got there alright. Then I'll have to stay here with the 'tribe', instead of moving on as I'd hoped, just to make sure everything's alright!

These were meant to be heroic knights…why weren't they just pleased they were bloody living again and go gaily off to the fort, like they were meant to? Instead of…of……' she watched them for a moment 'what the hell were they doing NOW!'

She glanced down the hill to see Dagonet pull his sword out of the dirt; both Lancelot and Tristan took their helmets from the posts over their graves, and then the scout pulled his sword and bow from the earth.

Except Lancelot - "They BURNT THEM! They bloody burnt my swords!" He exclaimed angrily in disbelief. Tristan and Dagonet, who were gingerly walking around the graves of their fallen comrades, just in case any of them suddenly decided they would make an entrance too, merely looked at him blankly.

Finally Dagonet spoke, "Can you save them?"

Lancelot swung one round in the air "Hmmm, with a bit of work I might…but bloody hell…..to burn them!" he stopped "where do we go from here?"

Dagonet shrugged "Do what she said I suppose……"

"Go back to the fort" finished Tristan.

Lancelot smiled mischievously "I wonder what they'll make of us returning! I mean, do we even know how long it's been?"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The woman hurried down the hill with the children and dogs. She managed to get ahead of the three knights, who were still a little unsteady on their feet, and made it back to her tent at the edge of the forest before them; trying to look as if she'd been there all along.

She watched the men walk towards the fort where, fortunately, Bors was on watch; at first he thought he was seeing things. Vanora had banned him from drinking so much since they'd wed two weeks before. 'Cursed wench….. I see more ghosts without my ale than with it!" He laughed, though a little uneasily. For the three men looked remarkably real and very much like his fallen friends and comrades at arms.

Dagonet spied him first "BORS! Open the bloody gates….we want to come in!"

Bors nearly fell over; he would know Dagonet's voice anywhere. Without thinking he called out "Dagonet! Who is that with you?"

"Tristan and Lancelot…now open the damn gates!" A light caught his eye as the large knight looked to the left; he saw a small tent with a woman standing at the entrance, before she quickly ducked back inside. He realised it was the same woman from before and nudged Tristan "It's her!"

"She has more to do with this than we know Dag" was the calm reply.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Bors in the meantime had almost fallen from the battlement in his haste to get to the gate, shouting and laughing at what seemed to be transpiring. If he was losing his mind, he didn't care….at least he would be insane with his best friend for company!

Arthur heard the commotion and came to investigate "What the hell is going on! Why are you gibbering like an idiot Bors, well without the aid of ale anyway!" he smiled, thinking his friend had clearly not been dealing with his enforced lack of beer very well.

"It's DAGONET! Did you heard me? Dag is back! Dagonet, Tristan and Lancelot….they've come back to us!" Bors yelled.

"But they're dead Bors, no one would want them alive more than I….but…but that can never be….they died…." He sounded pained.

"Well, they're not bloody dead now! See for yourself!" And with that he pulled open the gate.

Lancelot sauntered in, trying hard not to show the concern and trepidation he felt, "Hello Arthur…….missed me? I see you've had another…..'promotion' while I was…away!" he smiled, motioning to the plain crown on his friend's head.

Bors grabbed Dagonet in a hard bear hug that would've suffocated a smaller man "Dag! Dag my old mate, it is so good to see you! Dag we thought…I mean you WERE…. Oh, who gives a damn….you're back my old friend, you're back!"

Dagonet broke free, grinning widely at his best friend... "Listen I can't explain this any more than you can!"

Tristan walked past the others, merely nodding at Arthur as if he'd only been on a routine scouting mission "Was my hawk well? Did she take to her freedom?"

Arthur dumbly shook his head as, with a loud scree, the hawk which had been haunting the fort for the past three months landed on Tristan's arm "Hello there, miss me?" he murmured, stroking her feathers.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Word had quickly spread via the other guards on the gate that three dead knights had apparently returned from the grave; Galahad, Gawain, Guinevere and Vanora came skidding round the side of the building, to be greeted with their three fallen friends confronting an hysterically happy Bors and a non-plussed, but clearly emotional, Arthur.

Vanora promptly fainted onto the floor where she stood; Galahad and Gawain, on regaining the power of speech, flew over to greet their friends, particularly Tristan; and Guinevere merely smiled and shot a knowing look to Merlin….who stood on the battlements casting a deep smile towards the tent.

She had done well, the girl - woman now – as he knew she would all those years ago when he chose her. Her part Briton blood was a help; but he knew it was more that that - she had the sound of the trees in her ears, the rush of the water in her veins as he did, and more than even most woads. She was of the elements, like him, though she did not realise it yet….

It mattered not that she had been seen, he knew that would happen despite him telling her to avoid it, her life now was inextricably tied to those below him – she was for one of them, one of the returned... and she would bring a light and happiness to this place that had been missing.

She had a temper and she was a fighter. He knew, had seen, how she would defend them and how they would take her as one of their own. She might also stop the coming darkness…but that would remain to be seen.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Destiny had placed her in his hands, shown him her path and he meant to ensure she followed it…..and in so doing save the men, now happily reunited, below him….