Excalibur

by Bernard Cornwell

  I screamed a challenge, took a horseman’s spear point plumb on the centre of my shield, raked Hy welbane across the horse’s rear leg to hamstring the animal, and then, as the horse tipped towards me, I swept Hywelbane hard into the rider’s back. He yelped in pain, and I jumped back as horse and man collapsed in a flurry of hoofs, sand and blood. I kicked the twitching man in the face, stabbed down with Hywelbane, then backswung the sword at a panicked horseman who feebly stabbed at me with his spear. Sagramor was keening a terrible war cry and Gwydre was spearing a fallen man at the sea’s edge. The enemy were breaking from the fight and spurring their horses to safety through the sea’s shallows where the receding water sucked a swirl of sand and blood back into the collapsing waves. I saw Culhwch spur his horse to an enemy and haul the man bodily from his saddle. The man tried to stand, but Culhwch backswung the sword, turned his horse and chopped down again. The few enemy who had survived were trapped between us and the sea now, and we killed them grimly. Horses screamed and thrashed their hoofs as they died. The small waves were pink and the sand was black with blood.

  We killed twenty of them and took sixteen prisoners, and when the prisoners had told us all they knew, we killed them too. Arthur grimaced as he gave the order, for he disliked killing unarmed men, but we could spare no spearmen to guard prisoners, nor did we have any mercy for these foes who carried unmarked shields as a boast of their savagery. We killed them quickly, forcing them to kneel on the sand where Hy welbane or Sagramor’s sharp sword took their heads. They were Mordred’s men, and Mordred himself had led them down the beach, but the King had wheeled his horse at the first sign of our ambush and shouted at his men to retreat. ‘I came close to him,’ Arthur said ruefully, ‘but not close enough.’ Mordred had escaped, but the first victory was ours, though three of our men had died in the fight and another seven were bleeding badly. ‘How did Gwydre fight?’ Arthur asked me.

  ‘Bravely, Lord, bravely,’ I said. My sword was thick with blood that I tried to scrape off with a handful of sand. ‘He killed, Lord,’ I assured Arthur.

  ‘Good,’ he said, then crossed to his son and put an arm around his shoulders. I used my one hand to scrub the blood from Hywelbane, then tugged the buckle of my helmet loose and pulled it off my head.

  We killed the wounded horses, led the uninjured beasts back to the fort, then collected our enemy’s weapons and shields. ‘They won’t come again,’ I told Ceinwyn, ‘not unless they’re reinforced.’ I looked up at the sun and saw that it was climbing slowly through the cloudless sky.

  We had very little water, only what Sagramor’s men had brought in their small baggage, and so we rationed the water-skins. It would be a long and thirsty day, especially for our wounded. One of them was shivering. His face was pale, almost yellow, and when Sagramor tried to trickle a little water into the man’s mouth he bit convulsively at the skin’s lip. He began to moan, and the sound of his agony grated on our souls and so Sagramor hastened the man’s death with his sword. ‘We must light a pyre,’ Sagramor said, ‘at the spit’s end.’ He nodded his head towards the flat sand where the sea had left a tangle of sun-bleached driftwood.

  Arthur did not seem to hear the suggestion. ‘If you want,’ he said to Sagramor, ‘you can go west now.’

  ‘And leave you here?’

  ‘If you stay,’ Arthur said quietly, ‘then I don’t know how you will leave. We have only one boat coming. And more men will come to Mordred. None to us.’

  ‘More men to kill,’ Sagramor said curtly, but I think he knew that by staying he was assuring his own death. Caddwg’s boat might take twenty people to safety, but certainly no more. ‘We can swim to the other shore, Lord,’ he said, jerking his head towards the eastern bank of the channel that ran deep and fast about the tip of the sandspit. ‘Those of us who can swim,’ he added.

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Never too late to learn,’ Sagramor said, then spat. ‘Besides, we’re not dead yet.’

  Nor were we beaten yet, and every minute that passed took us nearer safety. I could see Caddwg’s men carrying the sail to Prydwen, which was canted at the edge of the sea. Her mast was now upright, though men still rigged lines from the masthead, and in an hour or two the tide would turn and she would float again, ready for the voyage. We just had to endure till the late afternoon. We occupied ourselves by making a huge pyre from the driftwood, and when it was burning we heaved the bodies of our dead into the flames. Their hair flared bright, then came the smell of roasting flesh. We threw on more timber until the fire was a roaring, white-hot inferno.

  ‘A ghost fence might deter the enemy,’ Taliesin remarked when he had chanted a prayer for the four burning men whose souls were drifting with the smoke to find their shadowbodies.

  I had not seen a ghost fence in years, but we made one that day. It was a grisly business. We had thirty-six dead enemy bodies and from them we took thirty-six severed heads which we rammed onto the blades of the captured spears. Then we planted the spears across the spit and Taliesin, conspicuous in his white robe and carrying a spear shaft so that he resembled a Druid, walked from one bloody head to the next so that the enemy would think that an enchantment was being made. Few men would willingly cross a ghost fence without a Druid to avert its evil, and once the fence was made we rested more easily. We shared a scanty midday meal and I remember Arthur looking ruefully at the ghost fence as he ate. ‘From Isca to this,’ he remarked softly.

  ‘From Mynydd Baddon to this,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Poor Uther,’ he said, and he must have been thinking of the oath that had made Mordred King, the oath that had led to this sun-warmed spit beside the sea.

  Mordred’s reinforcements arrived in the early afternoon. They mostly came on foot in a long column that straggled down the sea-lake’s western shore. We counted over a hundred men and knew that more would be following.

  ‘They’ll be tired,’ Arthur told us, ‘and we have the ghost fence.’

  But the enemy now possessed a Druid. Fergal had arrived with the reinforcements, and an hour after we first saw the column of spearmen, we watched as the Druid crept near the fence and sniffed the salt air like a dog. He threw handfuls of sand towards the nearest head, hopped on one leg for a moment, then ran to the spear and toppled it. The fence was broken, and Fergal tipped his head to the sun and gave a great cry of triumph. We pulled on helmets, found our shields and passed sharpening stones amongst ourselves.

  The tide had turned, and the first fishing-boats were coming home. We hailed them as they passed the spit, but most ignored our calls, for common folk all too often have good reason to fear spearmen, but Galahad waved a gold coin and that lure did bring one boat which nosed gingerly into the shore and grounded on the sand near the blazing balefire. Its two crewmen, both with heavily tattooed faces, agreed to take the women and children to Caddwg’s craft, which was almost afloat again. We gave the fishermen gold, handed the women and children into the boat, and sent one of the wounded spearmen to guard them. ‘Tell the other fishermen,’ Arthur told the tattooed men, ‘that there’s gold for any man who brings his boat with Caddwg.’ He made a brief farewell to Guinevere, as I did to Ceinwyn. I held her close for a few heartbeats and found I had no words.

  ‘Stay alive,’ she told me.

  ‘For you,’ I said, ‘I will,’ and then I helped push the grounded boat into the sea and watched it slowly pull away into the channel.

  A moment later one of our mounted scouts came galloping back from the broken ghost fence. ‘They’re coming, Lord!’ he shouted.

  I let Galahad buckle my helmet strap, then held out my arm so he could bind the shield tight. He gave me my spear. ‘God be with you,’ he said, then picked up his own shield that was blazoned with the Christian cross.

  We would not fight in the dunes this time because we did not have enough men to make a shield wall that would stretch right across the hilly part of the sandspit, and that meant Mordred’s horsemen could have galloped around our flanks, sur
rounded us, and we would have been doomed to die in a tightening ring of enemies. Nor did we fight in the fort, for there too we could have been surrounded and thus cut off from the water when Caddwg arrived, and so we retreated to the narrow tip of the spit where our shield wall could stretch from one shore to the other. The balefire still blazed just above the line of weed that marked the high-tide limit, and while we waited for the enemy Arthur ordered still more driftwood to be heaped on its flames. We went on feeding that fire until we saw Mordred’s men approaching, and then we made our shield wall just a few paces in front of the flames. We set Sagramor’s dark banner in the centre of our line, touched our shields edge to edge and waited.

  We were eighty-four men and Mordred brought over a hundred to attack us, but when they saw our shield wall formed and ready, they stopped. Some of Mordred’s horsemen spurred into the shallows of the sea-lake, hoping to ride about our flank, but the water deepened swiftly where the channel ran close beside the southern shore and they found they could not ride around us; so they slid out of their saddles and carried their shields and spears to join Mordred’s long wall. I looked up to see that the sun was at last sliding down towards the high western hills. Prydwen was almost afloat, though men were still busy in her rigging. It would not be long, I thought, before Caddwg came, but already there were more enemy spearmen straggling down the western road. Mordred’s forces grew stronger, and we could only grow weaker.

  Fergal, his beard woven with fox fur and hung with small bones, came to the sand in front of our shield wall and there he hopped on one leg, held one hand in the air and kept one eye closed. He cursed our souls, promising them to the fire-worm of Crom Dubh and to the wolfpack that hunts Eryri’s Pass of Arrows. Our women would be given as playthings to the demons of Annwn and our children would be nailed to the oaks of Arddu. He cursed our spears and our swords, and threw an enchantment to shatter our shields and turn our bowels to water. He screamed his spells, promising that for food in the Otherworld we would have to scavenge the droppings of the hounds of Arawn and that for water we would lick the bile of Cefydd’s serpents. ‘Your eyes will be blood,’ he crooned, ‘your bellies shall be filled with worms, and your tongues will turn black! You will watch the rape of your women and the murder of your children!’ He called some of us by name, threatening torments unimaginable, and to counter his spells we sang the War Song of Beli Mawr.

  From that day to this I have not heard that song sung again by warriors, and never did I hear it better sung than on that sea-wrapped stretch of sun-warmed sand. We were few, but we were the best warriors Arthur ever commanded. There were only one or two young men in that shield wall; the rest of us were seasoned, hardened men who had been through battle and smelt the slaughter and knew how to kill. We were the lords of war. There was not a weak man there, not a single man who could not be trusted to protect his neighbour, and not a man whose courage would break, and how we sang that day! We drowned Fergal’s curses, and the strong sound of our voices must have carried across the water to where our women waited on Prydwen. We sang to Beli Mawr who had harnessed the wind to his chariot, whose spear shaft was a tree and whose sword slaughtered the enemy like a reaping hook cutting thistles. We sang of his victims scattered dead in the wheatfields and rejoiced for the widows made by his anger. We sang that his boots were like millstones, his shield an iron cliff and his helmet’s plume tall enough to scrape the stars. We sang tears into our eyes and fear into our enemy’s hearts.

  The song ended in a feral howl, and even before that howl had ended Culhwch had limped out of our shield wall and shaken his spear at the enemy. He derided them as cowards, spat on their lineage and invited them to taste his spear. The enemy watched him, but none moved to take his challenge. They were a tattered, fearsome band, as hardened to killing as we were, though not, maybe, to the war of shield walls. They were the scourings of Britain and Armorica, the brigands, outlaws and masterless men who had flocked to Mordred’s promise of plunder and rape. Minute by minute their ranks swelled as men came down the spit, but the newcomers were footsore and weary, and the narrowing of the spit restricted the number of men who could advance into our spears. They might push us back, but they could not outflank us.

  Nor, it seemed, would any come to face Culhwch. He planted himself opposite Mordred, who stood in the centre of the enemy line. ‘You were born of a toad-whore,’ he called to the King, ‘and fathered by a coward. Fight me! I limp! I’m old! I’m bald! But you daren’t face me!’ He spat at Mordred, and still not one of Mordred’s men moved. ‘Children!’ Culhwch jeered at them, then turned his back on the enemy to show his scorn of them.

  It was then that a youngster rushed from the enemy ranks. His helmet was too big for his beardless head, his breastplate a poor thing of leather and his shield had a gaping split between two of its boards. He was a young man who needed to kill a champion to find wealth and he ran at Culhwch, screaming hatred, and the rest of Mordred’s men cheered him on.

  Culhwch turned back, half crouched, and held his spear towards his enemy’s crotch. The young man raised his own spear, thinking to drive it down over Culhwch’s low shield, then shouted in triumph as he thrust down hard, but his shout turned into a choking scream as Culhwch’s spear flicked up to snatch the youngster’s soul from his open mouth. Culhwch, old in war, stepped back. His own shield had not even been touched. The dying man stumbled, the spear stuck in his throat. He half turned towards Culhwch, then fell. Culhwch kicked his enemy’s spear out of his hand, jerked his own spear free and stabbed down hard into the youngster’s neck. Then he smiled at Mordred’s men. ‘Another?’ he called. No one moved. Culhwch spat at Mordred and walked back to our cheering ranks. He winked at me as he came near. ‘See how it’s done, Derfel?’ he called, ‘watch and learn,’ and the men near me laughed.

  Prydwen was floating now, her pale hull shimmering its reflection on the water that was being ruffled by a small western wind. That wind brought us the stench of Mordred’s men; the mingled smells of leather, sweat and mead. Many of the enemy would be drunk, and many would never dare face our blades if they were not drunk. I wondered if the youngster whose mouth and gullet were now black with flies had needed mead-courage to face Culhwch.

  Mordred was cajoling his men forward now, and the bravest among them were encouraging their comrades to advance. The sun seemed much lower suddenly, for it was beginning to dazzle us; I had not realized how much time had passed while Fergal cursed us and Culhwch taunted the enemy, and still that enemy could not find the courage to attack. A few would start forward, but the rest would lag behind, and Mordred would then curse them as he closed up the shield wall and urged them on again. It was ever thus. It takes great courage to close on a shield wall, and ours, though small, was close-knit and full of famous warriors. I glanced at Prydwen and saw her sail fall from the yard, and saw too that the new sail was dyed scarlet like blood and was decorated with Arthur’s black bear. Caddwg had spent much gold for that sail, but then I had no time to watch the distant ship for Mordred’s men were at last coming close and the brave ones were urging the rest into a run.

  ‘Brace hard!’ Arthur shouted, and we bent our knees to take the shock of the shield blow. The enemy was a dozen paces away, ten, and about to charge screaming when Arthur shouted again. ‘Now!’ he called, and his voice checked the enemy’s rush for they did not know what he meant, and then Mordred screamed at them to kill, and so at last they closed with us.

  My spear hit a shield and was knocked down. I let it go and snatched up Hywelbane that I had stuck into the sand in front of me. A heartbeat later Mordred’s shields struck our shields and a short sword flailed at my head. My ears rang from a blow on my helmet as I stabbed Hywelbane under my shield to find my attacker’s leg. I felt her blade bite, twisted her hard and saw the man stagger as I crippled him. He flinched, but stayed on his feet. He had black curly hair crammed under a battered iron helmet and he was spitting at me as I managed to pull Hywelbane up from behind my shield.
I parried a wild blow of his short sword, then beat my heavy blade down on his head. He sank to the sand. ‘In front of me,’ I shouted to the man behind me, and he used his spear to kill the crippled man who could otherwise have stabbed up into my groin, and then I heard men shouting in pain or alarm and I glanced left, my view obscured by swords and axes, and saw that great burning baulks of driftwood were being hurled over our heads into the enemy line. Arthur was using the balefire as a weapon, and his last word of command before the shield walls clashed had ordered the men by the fire to seize the logs by their unburned ends and hurl them into Mordred’s ranks. The enemy spearmen instinctively flinched away from the flames, and Arthur led our men into the gap that was made.

  ‘Make way!’ a voice shouted behind me, and I ducked aside as a spearman ran through our ranks with a great burning shaft of wood. He thrust it at the enemy’s faces, they twisted aside from the glowing tip, and we jumped into the gap. The fire scorched our faces as we hacked and thrusted. More flaming brands flew over iis. The enemy closest to me had twisted away from the heat, opening his unprotected side to my neighbour, and I heard his ribs snap under the spear’s thrust and saw the blood bubble at his lips as he dropped. I was in the enemy’s second rank now, and the fallen timber was burning my leg, but I let the pain turn into a rage that drove Hywelbane hard into a man’s face, and then the men behind me kicked sand onto the flames as they pushed forward, driving me on into the third rank. I had no room now to use my sword, for I was crushed shield to shield against a swearing man who spat at me and tried to work his own sword past my shield’s edge. A spear came over my shoulder to strike the swearing man’s cheek and the pressure of his shield yielded just enough to let me push my own shield forward and swing Hywelbane. Later, much later, I remember screaming an incoherent sound of rage as I hammered that man into the sand. The madness of battle was on us, the desperate madness of fighting men trapped in a small place, but it was the enemy who was giving way. Rage was turned into horror and we fought like Gods. The sun blazed just above the western hill.