“Use your sword once before you ask brave men to surrender,” I shouted at him.
“Afraid to fight, are you?” Sagramor jeered for so far none of us had seen Gorfyddyd, Cuneglas or Gundleus in the front of the enemy shield-wall. King Gundleus sat on his horse a few paces behind Prince Cuneglas. Nimue was cursing him, but whether or not he was aware of her I could not tell. If he was he could not have been worried, for we were all now trapped and surely doomed.
“Or fight me now!” I shouted at Cuneglas. “Man to man, if you dare.”
Cuneglas gazed at me sadly. I was bloodstained, mud-covered, sweaty, bruised and hurting, while he was elegant in a short suit of scale armour and with a helmet surmounted by eagle feathers. He half smiled at me. “I know you’re not Arthur,” he said, ‘for I saw him on horseback, but whoever you are, you have fought nobly. I offer you life.”
I pulled the sweaty, confining helmet off my head and tossed it into the centre of our half-circle. “You know me, Lord Prince,” I said.
“Lord Derfel.” He named me, then did me honour. “Lord Derfel Cadarn,” he said, ‘if I stand surety for your life and for the lives of your men, will you surrender?”
“Lord Prince,” I said, “I do not command here. You must speak to Lord Sagramor.”
Sagramor stepped up beside me and took off his black spired helmet that had been pierced by a spear so that his black curly hair was matted with blood. “Lord Prince,” he said warily.
“I offer you life,” Cuneglas said, ‘so long as you surrender.”
Sagramor pointed his curved sword to where Arthur’s horsemen dominated the northern part of the vale. “My Lord has not surrendered,” he told Cuneglas, ‘so I cannot. But nevertheless’ he raised his voice “I release my men from their oaths.”
“I also,” I called to my men.
I am sure some were tempted to leave the ranks, but their comrades growled at them to stay, or perhaps the growl was simply the sound of tired men’s defiance. Prince Cuneglas waited a few seconds, then took two thin gold torques from a pouch at his belt. He smiled at us. “I salute your bravery, Lord Sagramor. I salute you, Lord Derfel.” He threw the gold so that it landed at our feet. I picked mine up and bent the ends apart so that it would fit around my neck. “And Derfel Cadarn?” Cuneglas added. His round, friendly face was smiling.
“Lord Prince?”
“My sister asked that I should greet you. And so I do.”
My soul, so close to death, seemed to leap with joy at the greeting. “Give her my greetings, Lord Prince,” I answered, ‘and tell her I shall look forward to her company in the Otherworld.” Then the thought of never seeing Ceinwyn again in this world overcame my joy and suddenly I wanted to weep.
Cuneglas saw my sadness. “You need not die, Lord Derfel,” he said. “I offer you life, and I stand surety for you. I offer you my friendship too, if you will have it.”
“I would honour it, Lord Prince,” I said, ‘but while my Lord fights, I fight.”
Sagramor pulled his helmet on, wincing as the metal slid over the spear wound on his scalp. “I thank you, Lord Prince,” he told Cuneglas, ‘and choose to fight you.”
Cuneglas turned his horse away. I looked at my sword, so battered and sticky, then I looked at my surviving men. “If we did nothing else,” I told them, ‘we made sure Gorfyddyd’s army can’t march on Dumnonia for many a long day. And maybe never! Who’d want to fight men like us twice?”
“The Blackshield Irish would,” Sagramor growled and he jerked his head towards the hillside where the ghost-fence had held our flank all day. And there, beyond the magic-ridden posts, was a war-band with round, black shields and the wicked long spears of Ireland. It was the garrison of Coel’s Hill, Oengus Mac Airem’s Blackshield Irish, who had come to join the killing.
Arthur was still fighting. He had torn one-third of his enemy’s army into red ruin, but the rest now held him checked. He charged again and again in his efforts to break that shield-line but no horse on earth would ride through a thicket of men, shields and spears. Even Llamrei failed him and all that was left for him to do, I thought, was to thrust Excalibur deep into the blood-reddened soil and hope that the God Gofannon would come from the darkest abyss of the Otherworld to his rescue.