But before even the sound reached us he was on me again. I had a knee under me and was dragging myself up painfully. Through the blood in my eyes I saw the blow coming, and tried to dodge, but his fist struck me in the throat, knocking me sideways with a savagery that spreadeagled me again on the wet turf with the breath gone from my body and the sight from my eyes. I felt myself roll and slip and, remembering what lay below, blindly drove my left hand into the turf to stop myself falling. My sword was still in my right hand. He jumped for me again, and with all the weight of his big body brought both feet down on my hand where it grasped the sword. The hand broke across the metal guard. I heard it go. The sword snapped upwards like a trap springing and caught him across his outstretched hand. He cursed in a gasp, without words, and recoiled momentarily. Somehow, I had the sword in my left hand. He came in again as quickly as before, and even as I tried to drag myself away, he made a quick stride forward and stamped again on my broken hand. Somebody screamed. I felt myself thrash over, mindless with pain, blind. With the last strength I had I jabbed the sword, hopelessly shortened, up at his straddled body, felt it torn from my hand, and then lay waiting, without resistance, for the last kick in my side that would send me over the cliff.

*   *   *

I lay there breathless, retching, choking on bile, my face to the ground and my left hand driven into the soft tufts of sea-pink, as if it clung to life for me. The beat and crash of the sea shook the cliff, and even this slight tremor seemed to grind pain through my body. It hurt at every point. My side pained as though the ribs were stove in, and the skin had been stripped from the cheek that lay pressed hard into the turf. There was blood in my mouth, and my right hand was a jelly of pain. I could hear someone, some other man a long way off, making small abject sounds of pain.

The blood in my mouth bubbled and oozed down my chin into the ground, and I knew it was I who was groaning. Merlin the son of Ambrosius, the prince, the great enchanter. I shut my mouth on the blood and began to push and claw my way to my feet.