Taliesin sang to us. He sang his own song of Mynydd Baddon, and it was to that hard rhythm that we touched our shields together again. Our swords and spears were blunted and bloodied, the enemy was fresh, but we cheered as they came towards us. Prydwen was scarcely moving. She looked like a ship poised on a mirror, but then I saw long oars unfold like wings from her hull.

‘Kill them!’ Mordred screamed, and he now had the battle rage himself and it drove him onto our line. A handful of brave men supported him, and they were followed by some of Nimue’s demented souls, so it was a ragged charge that first fell on our line, but among the men who came were new arrivals who wanted to prove themselves, and so again we bent our knees and crouched behind our shield rims. The sun was blinding now, but in the moment before the crazed rush struck home, I saw flashes of light from the western hill and knew that there were still more spearmen on that high ground. I gained the impression that a whole new army of spearmen had come to the summit, but from where, or who led them, I could not tell, and then I had no time to think of the newcomers, for I was thrusting my shield forward and the blow of shield on shield made the stump of my arm sing in pain and I keened a sound of agony as I sliced Hywelbane down. A Bloodshield opposed me, and I cut him down hard, finding the gap between his breastplate and helmet, and when I had jerked Hywelbane free of his flesh I slashed wildly at the next enemy, a mad creature, and spun him away with blood spurting from his cheek, nose and eye.

Those first enemies had run ahead of Mordred’s shield wall, but now the bulk of the enemy struck us and we leaned into their attack and screamed defiance as we lunged our blades across our shield rims. I recall confusion and the noise of sword ringing on sword, and the crash of shield striking shield. Battle is a matter of inches, not miles. The inches that separate a man from his enemy. You smell the mead on their breath, hear the breath in their throats, hear their grunts, feel them shift their weight, feel their spittle on your eyes, and you look for danger, look back into the eyes of the next man you must kill, find an opening, take it, close the shield wall again, step forward, feel the thrust of the men behind, half stumble on the bodies of those you have killed, recover, push forward, and afterwards you recall little except the blows that so nearly killed you. You work and push and stab to make an opening in their shield wall, and then you grunt and lunge and slash to widen the gap, and only then does the madness take over as the enemy breaks and you can begin to kill like a God because the enemy is scared and running, or scared and frozen, and all they can do is die while you harvest souls.