I could see Guinevere standing in Prydwen’s prow with Ceinwyn just behind her. In the lovely evening light it seemed as though the hull was made of silver and the sail of finest scarlet linen. The long oars dipped and rose, dipped and rose, and slowly she came until a breath of warm wind at last filled the bear on her sail and the water rippled faster down her silver flanks, and just then Mordred screamed and charged, the swords clashed, shields banged, and Excalibur swept the grisly skull from the crest of Mordred’s helm. Mordred swung hard back and I saw Arthur flinch as his enemy’s blade struck home, but he pushed the King away with his shield and the two men stepped apart.

Arthur pressed his sword hand against his waist where he had been struck, then shook his head as though denying that he was hurt. But Sagramor was hurt. He had been watching the fight, but now he suddenly bent forward and stumbled down into the sand. I crossed to him. ‘Spear in my belly,’ he said, and I saw he was clutching his stomach with both hands to stop his guts from spilling onto the sand. Just as he had killed Loholt, so the Bloodshield had struck Sagramor with his spear and had died in that achievement, but Sagramor was dying now. I put my one good arm about him and turned him onto his back. He gripped my hand. His teeth chattered, and he groaned, then he forced up his helmeted head to watch as Arthur went cautiously forward.

There was blood at Arthur’s waist. Mordred’s last swing had cut up into the scale armour, up between the scale-like flakes of metal, and it had bitten deeply into Arthur’s side. Even as Arthur went forward new blood glistened and welled where the sword had torn through his armoured coat, but Arthur suddenly leapt forward and turned his threatened lunge into a downwards chop that Mordred parried on his shield. Mordred threw the shield wide to throw Excalibur clear and stabbed forward with his own sword, but Arthur took that lunge on his shield, drew back Excalibur, and it was then that I saw his shield tilt backwards and saw Mordred’s sword scrape up the torn silver cover. Mordred shouted and pushed the blade harder and Arthur did not see the sword tip coming until it broke over the shield’s edge and stabbed up into the eyehole of his helmet.

I saw blood. But I also saw Excalibur come down from the slcy in a blow as strong as Arthur ever struck.

Excalibur cut through Mordred’s helmet. It slit the black iron as though it were parchment, then broke the King’s skull and sliced into his brain. And Arthur, with blood glistening at his helmet’s eyehole, staggered, recovered, then wrenched Excalibur free in a spray of bloody droplets. Mordred, dead from the moment Excalibur had split his helmet, fell forward at Arthur’s feet. His blood gushed onto the sand and onto Arthur’s boots, and his men, seeing their King dead and Arthur still on his feet, gave a low moan and stepped backwards.