My helmet had a dent across its left side and a split at the base of the dent that went clean through the iron and the leather liner. When I eased the helmet off it tugged at the blood clotting in my hair. I gingerly felt my scalp, but sensed no splintered bone, only a bruise and a pulsing pain. There was a ragged wound on my left forearm, my chest was bruised and my right ankle was still bleeding. Issa was limping, but claimed it was nothing but a graze. Niall, the leader of the Blackshields, was dead. A spear had spitted his breastplate and he lay on his back, the spear jutting skyward, with his open mouth brimming with blood. Eachern had lost an eye. He padded the open socket with a scrap of rag that he tied round his scalp, then jammed the helmet over the crude bandage and swore to revenge the eye a hundredfold.

Arthur rode down from the hill to praise my men. ‘Hold them again!’ he shouted to us, ‘hold them till Oengus comes and then we’ll finish them for ever!’ Mordred rode behind Arthur, his great banner alongside the flag of the bear. Our King carried a drawn sword and his eyes were wide with the excitement of the day. For two miles along the river bank there was dust and blood, dead and dying, iron against flesh.

Tewdric’s gold and scarlet ranks closed around Aelle’s survivors. Those men still fought, and Cerdic now made another attempt to break through to them. Arthur led Mordred back up to the hill, while we locked shields again. ‘They’re eager,’ Cuneglas commented as he saw the Saxon ranks advance again.

‘They’re not drunk,’ I said, ‘that’s why.’

Cuneglas was unhurt and filled with the elation of a man who believes his life is charmed. He had fought in the front of the battle, he had killed, and he had not taken a scratch. He had never been famous as a warrior, not like his father, and now he believed he was earning his crown. ‘Take care, Lord King,’ I said as he went back to his men.

‘We’re winning, Derfel!’ he called, and hurried away to face the attack.

This would be a far bigger attack than the first Saxon assault, for Cerdic had placed his own bodyguard at the centre of his new line and those men released huge war-dogs that raced at Sagramor whose men formed the centre of our line. A heartbeat later the Saxon spearmen struck, hacking into the gaps that the dogs had torn in our line. I heard the shields crash, then had no thought for Sagramor for the Saxon right wing charged into my men.