“I would not care, Gorfyddyd ap Cadell,” Merlin said, ‘if the land opened and swallowed Arthur and his army. Nor if it engulfed yours as well.”
“Then we fight!” Gorfyddyd shouted, and he used his one arm to drag his sword free of its scabbard. “These men’ he spoke to his army, but pointed the sword towards our banners ‘are yours. Their lands, their flocks, their gold and their homes are yours. Their wives and daughters are now your whores. You have fought them this far, would you now let them walk away? The Cauldron will not vanish with their lives, but your victory will vanish if we do not finish what we came here to do. We fight!”
There was a heartbeat of silence, then Gorfyddyd’s men stood and began to beat their spear-shafts against their shields. Gorfyddyd gave Merlin a triumphant look, then kicked his horse back into his men’s clamorous ranks.
Merlin turned to Sagramor and me. “The Blackshield Irish,” he said in a casual voice, ‘are on your side. I talked with them. They will attack Gorfyddyd’s men and you shall have a great victory. May the Gods give you strength.” He turned again, put an arm around Nimue’s shoulders and strode away through the enemy ranks that opened to let him through.
“It was a good try!” Gundleus called to Merlin. The King of Powys was on the threshold of his great victory and that giddy prospect had filled him with the confidence to defy the Druid, but Merlin ignored the crowing insult and just walked away with Tanaburs and lorweth.
Issa brought me Arthur’s helmet. I crammed it back on my head, glad of its protection in these last few moments of battle.
The enemy re-formed its shield-wall. Few insults were shouted now, for few men had energy for anything other than the grim slaughter that loomed on the river’s bank. Gorfyddyd, for the first time all day, dismounted and took his place in the wall. He had no shield, but he would still lead this last attack that would crush his hated enemy’s power. He raised his sword, held it aloft for a few heartbeats, then brought it down.
The enemy charged.
We thrust spears and shields forward to meet them and the two walls crashed with a terrible sound. Gorfyddyd tried to thrust his sword past Arthur’s shield, but I parried it and cut at him with Hywelbane. The sword glanced off his helmet, severing an eagle wing, then we were locked together by the pressure of the men thrusting from behind.
“Push them!” Gorfyddyd shouted at his men, then he spat at me over the shield. “Your whore-lover,” he told me over the battle’s din, ‘hid while you fought.”
“She is no whore, Lord King,” I said, and tried to free Hywelbane from the crush to give him a blow, but the sword was trapped fast by the pressure of shields and men.
“She took enough gold from me,” Gorfyddyd said, ‘and I don’t pay women whose legs don’t part.”
I heaved at Hywelbane and tried to stab at Gorfyddyd’s feet, but the sword just glanced off the skirts of his armour. He laughed at my failure, spat at me again, then raised his head as he heard a dreadful screaming battle cry.
It was the attack of the Irish. The Blackshields of Oengus Mac Airem always charged with a ululating scream; a terrible battle-cry that seemed to suggest an inhuman delight in slaughter. Gorfyddyd shouted at his men to heave and cleave, to break our tiny shield-wall, and for a few seconds the men of Powys and Siluria struck at us with a new frenzy in the belief that the Blackshields were coming to their aid, but then new screams from the rearward ranks made them realize that treachery had changed the Blackshields’ allegiance. The Irish sliced into Gorfyddyd’s ranks, their long spears finding easy targets, and suddenly, swiftly, Gorfyddyd’s men collapsed like a pricked waters king
I saw the rage and panic cross Gorfyddyd’s face. “Surrender, Lord King!” I shouted to him, but his bodyguard found space to hack down with their swords and for a few desperate seconds I was defending myself too hard to see what happened to the King, though Issa did shout that he saw Gorfyddyd wounded. Galahad was beside me, thrusting and parrying, and then, magically it seemed, the enemy was fleeing. Our men pursued, joining with the Blackshields to drive the men of Powys and Siluria like a flock of sheep to where Arthur’s horsemen waited to kill. I looked for Gundleus and saw him once among a mass of running, mud-covered, bloody men, and then I lost sight of him.