Grail

THIRTY-SEVEN

'Bring Bors,' I commanded. 'Tell him to prepare for battle.'

'Bors is ready,' the big warrior said, taking his place beside me as three more enemy warriors joined the first three already advancing towards us across the clearing. More were coming from the thorn hedge.

Within the space of six heartbeats, we were surrounded. There must have been twenty or more foemen, each armed with a spear and a shield; some wore pointed helms and others the metal shirts of Saecsen men, but most were naked to the waist, and I could see the pallor of their flesh as they advanced into the half-light of the clearing.

If it was not bad enough that we were woefully outnumbered, we had but two swords between us – Bors' and Gereint's – and I had only a knife. 'Two blades and a dagger are not much against twenty,' I observed, wishing I had not lost my spear.

'This blade is yours, lord,' replied Gereint, delivering it into my hand.

'Keep it, lad,' I told him, but he would not hear that.

Darting forth, he ran a few paces into the clearing, stooped, snatched something from the ground, and returned, bearing the sword we had taken from the false Peredur. 'It is a good weapon,' said Gereint, swinging the blade to get the feel of its heft and balance. 'It will serve.'

'Good man,' commended Bors approvingly. Turning his attention to the advancing warband, he said, 'Shoulder to shoulder, brothers. Keep your backs to the chapel, and do not allow any of them to get behind us.'

Silently, silently, they advanced, shield to shield, forming a bristling wall around us. Then, without so much as a whispered command, the spears swung level and they prepared to attack.

'Now!' I cried, and we three sprang forward as one, slashing with our swords and shouting. I was able to cut the spearheads off two shafts with as many chops; Bors and Gereint fared just as well. When we broke off our foray, six of the enemy had lost the use of their weapons.

If I expected the loss of their spears would daunt them, however, I was sadly mistaken, for they came on regardless, holding their headless spear shafts as if the lack of a killing blade were of no account.

We waded into them, three Cymbrogi, undaunted, united in heart and mind. Shoulder to shoulder we stood to our work, and the bodies toppled like corded wood beneath the woodcutter's axe. Time and time again we struck, the steel in our hands pealing like the ringing of bells. The enemy now clambered over the corpses of their kinsmen to reach us, and still we cut them down… and still they came.

'It is no use,' complained Bors as the enemy regrouped for another assault. 'They will not break ranks.'

'Perhaps we can change their minds,' I suggested. Scanning the enemy ranged before us, I saw where several advancing foemen carried the shafts of spears from which the blades had been lopped. 'There!' I shouted, pointing with my sword. 'Follow me!'

With that we all three ran for the spot I had marked. The foemen stood their ground, apparently unconcerned that their spears had no heads. They held their ground, but since their weapons were blunt, it was an easy matter to cut them down. Three fell without so much as a murmur, and we were rewarded with a momentary confusion as the enemy jostled one another to repair the gap in their shield wall.

Hacking hard to my right, I was able to kill another enemy warrior, and Gereint yet another. We then turned to help Bors, who was struggling to fend off two more. These went down under a frenzied attack by Gereint, who rolled beneath their shields and stabbed them as they tried to loft their spears to strike.

Thus we suddenly found ourselves standing alone as the enemy fell back to re-form the wall once more.

'This is the calmest battle I have ever fought,' Bors observed. 'I have never been in a fight where I was not deaf from the clatter.'

It was true; even in a small skirmish the sound is a very din, and in most battles it is a deafening roar. The shouting of combatants, the clash of weapons, the screams of the wounded and dying – it all melds together to produce a distinctive clamour which can be heard from far away, and which, once heard, is never forgotten.

But these foemen stood to their grim work in utter silence -no shouted commands, not even a curse or cry of pain when a blow landed. Whether they were attacking or dying, the only sounds to be heard were the swishing rustle of their feet through the long grass and the dull clanking of their shields where our swords struck.

Moreover, the enemy was curiously lethargic. Their actions were the lumpen, clumsy gestures of bodies with no force behind their movements. Their faces – when I glimpsed them from behind their shields – were grim and grey, but expressionless, betraying neither rage nor hate. Tight-lipped and dull-eyed, they seemed to be performing a laborious and tiresome chore, and nothing so dangerous or desperate as battle. Indeed, they lurched and lumbered like men asleep, heavy on their feet and slow to react.

Even as I turned to offer this observation to my companions, Bors muttered, 'I do not believe it.'

He was looking at the place where the first combatants had fallen. I turned, too, and saw the slain warriors rising from the ground. Like men throwing off sleep, they simply arose with a start, climbed to their feet, and joined their mute companions.

The weird, silent foe shuffled forth once more. Despair, black and bleak, yawned before me like an open grave as the realization broke over me: we could cut them down, but we could not kill them.

'God help us,' was Bors' terse reply. He had no time to say more, for the foemen renewed the attack, and we were quickly engaged in trying to regain the small space we had carved for ourselves.

In the confusion of the next attack, Gereint succeeded in getting hold of one of the enemy shields. This he used to guard his left, affording both of us better protection on that side, for he made it a virtue to stay close to me. We fought side by side, and it put me in mind of the times my brother, Gwalcmai, and I had laboured together in all those battles against the Saecsen host.

The attack – as poorly conceived as the others – soon foundered and the battle settled into a sluggish, lumpen rhythm. Thrust and chop, thrust, thrust and chop… I found it absurdly easy to strike them down, for the slowness of the foe and their dull reactions quickly told against them. They fell as they fought, without a sound, readily collapsing and expiring without a murmur – only to rise again after a small space, and join in the fight as if nothing had happened.

This made Bors frustrated and angry. He railed at the enemy, filling the dull, dreadful silence with taunts and challenges which went unanswered. He hewed at them mightily, slashing with powerful strokes. Once, he lopped the arm off one hapless foeman – the limb spun from the wretch's shoulder in a bloodless arc, still gripping the spear shaft in its dead hand.

The enemy fell and Bors let out a whoop of triumph. But the unfeeling creature merely picked itself off the ground and came on again – even though it could not longer wield a weapon.

This provoked the big warrior so much that he beheaded the creature next. 'Shake that off, hellspawn!' shouted Bors, thinking he had at last succeeded in removing at least one combatant from the fight.

Alas, he was wrong. The headless torso lay still for a time, only to rise and resume the attack, a gaping wound on its shoulders where its head had been. As before, no blood spewed from the wound, and it brought no diminution of persistence; the corpse stumbled forth, reaching with empty, clutching hands.

Unfortunately, we had not the stamina of the undead, for though they could fall and rise and fall, only to rise again -though we hacked the weapons from their hands, or severed the hands themselves, or heads! – we could not. Our hands and arms were growing weary, and our wounds bled.

'They do not mind dying,' Bors observed, deftly striking the fingers from a hand stretching too close, 'because they are dead already. But when I lie down, I will not get up again so easily, I think. What are we to do, brother?'

There was no stopping them. Despite the practised efficiency with which we dispatched the foe, we received only the smallest respite before they awakened and rose to fight again.

I could feel the strain in my shoulder and arm. My fingers were cramped from gripping the hilt, and the blade seemed to have doubled its weight. Bors, too, was labouring; I could hear his breath coming in grunting gasps as he lunged and thrust time after time after time. Gereint's blade struck again and again from under the near edge of the shield, but even his youthful strength could not last forever. No doubt that was their sole tactic: to wear us down until we could no longer lift a blade to defend ourselves, whereupon they would simply overwhelm us and tear us limb from limb.

We had no other choice, however, but to stand our ground and fight. Thus, I raised the sword again, and again, and again, slashing and slashing while the undead warriors stumbled ever and again into our blades. Sweat ran freely down my neck and chest and back, mingling with the tears of exhaustion welling from my eyes and spilling down my face. Jesu, help us! I prayed as I cut the arm from the wretch before me. The warrior shambled ahead, pushing his shield into my face. Sidestepping the clumsy lunge, I brought the sword blade down sharply on the back of his neck and he sank like an anvil, falling against my legs and throwing me off-balance. I tried to kick the body aside, but could not shift the dead weight and fell.

Two enemy warriors bore down upon me. Squirming on my back, I kept my sword in their faces and tried to regain my feet as they woodenly jabbed at me with their spears. I shouted to Bors for help, but could not see him. I shouted again, and dodged a spear thrust; the stroke missed my chest, but I got a nasty gash in the side. Seizing the spear shaft with my free hand, I flailed with my sword and succeeded in getting to my knees.

Clutching the hilt in both hands, I whipped the blade back and forth, desperate to gain a space in which I might climb to my feet. But the blade struck the iron rim of a foeman's shield.

My fingers, long since numb from the relentless toil, could no longer hold the hilt and the sword spun from my grasp.

The long spears drove down upon me. I threw myself to one side, rolling in a desperate effort to escape. One spear jabbed at my head and grazed my cheek. Seizing the spear shaft, I tried to wrest the weapon from my foe, but his grasp was like stone. As I struggled, another spear thrust at my side, and I felt my siarc rip as the blade sliced through the fabric, narrowly missing my ribs.

Lashing out with both feet, I kicked the nearest in the leg and he staggered back. I jumped up quickly, and was just as quickly surrounded once more. Three more warriors had joined the first two, and all pressed in on me, spears level, aiming to take me in the chest and stomach.

Just as they prepared to make their final lunge, I glimpsed what I thought to be a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and heard Gereint cry out in a loud voice. Taking the shield by the rim, he spun around and flung it into the foremost of my attackers. The iron rim caught the luckless wretch as he turned; his face crumpled and he collapsed, taking two others down with him.

Before I could struggle to my feet, Gereint was over me, half lifting, half dragging me from danger. Bors cleaved the skull of another in two, and the enemy, beaten back for the moment, retreated to regroup and attack again.

'You are hurt, Lord Gwalchavad,' Gereint said, seeing the blood flowing freely down my side.

'I lost my sword,' I told him, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the pain in my side began to bloom like a flame taking hold of dry tinder.

Ignoring my protests, Bors examined the wound and said, 'I do not like the look of that one. Does it hurt?'

'Not so much,' I told him.

'It will.'

'Just help me bind it up before they come at us again,' I said.

'Let us wash it at least,' Bors suggested doubtfully. 'Here, lad, help me get him to the well. I could do with a drink myself.'

They bore me to the well between them, and sat me down on a rock at the pool's edge. Gereint dropped his blade to the ground and fell face-first to the water and began drinking noisily.

'I think we must abandon the field,' Bors said, raising the edge of my siarc to splash water on the wound.

'We are pledged to the fight,' I insisted, squeezing my eyes shut against the shock of the cold water on my hot wound.

'I will die before I run from a battle,' Gereint maintained staunchly. He lowered his face to the pool again and cupped water into his mouth in great gulps.

'Did I say we should give up the fight?' growled Bors, tearing a strip from my siarc to bind around my waist. 'I only meant that we should retreat into the chapel. The entrance is low and narrow – they will not find it easy to get at us in there.'

I recognized this as the last desperate tactic of a warband forced to the extreme. Once we were inside, there would be no coming out again. But at least we would die on holy ground, protecting the Blessed Cup we were sworn to defend.

Bors tied off the binding, regarded his crude handiwork, and said, 'There – that is the best I can do for now.'

'I am certain it will serve,' I told him. With difficulty, I turned and leaned painfully down to drink. I cupped water in my hand and raised it to my mouth, spilling most of it before wetting my tongue.

Gereint, having drunk his fill, was looking across the clearing to where the enemy, much mutilated and ravaged, was yet again re-forming the battle line. 'We must fly,' he informed us, 'if we are to reach the chapel.'

I took a last gulp, then leaned low over the well to splash water on my face. Bors stepped beside me and reached down a hand. As I made to stand, the dull gleam of a submerged object caught my eye.

In truth, I do not know how I saw it at all: the pale gloaming of a moonlit night lay upon the chapel clearing, and all around us bristled the deeper darkness of the forest. But I saw what I saw – the faintest glimmer of gold in the shape of a cross.

My first thought was that I had found the altarpiece. Of course! It must be the cross which had adorned the chapel's altar. In the desecration of the altar, the cross had been taken and thrown into the well. And now I had found it, and could restore it to its rightful place.

'See here!' I said, my heart leaping at the thrill of my find. 'I give you the missing altarpiece.'

To my companions' amazement, I reached down into the pool. My fingers closed on cold metal, and grasping the topmost arm of the cross, I drew it slowly out. The expressions of astonishment on their faces were wonderful to see, and caused me to forget for a moment the fiery pain burning in my side. Indeed, I was so enjoying their amazement, I did not myself see the object until I had pulled it from the water.

'A curious altarpiece, that,' observed Bors. Gereint, wide-eyed with the strangeness of it, nodded.

Only then did I look down to see that I held not a cross, but a sword. A mass of vines and weed wrack dangled from the long, tapering blade – the weapon had been wrapped in the stuff to disguise it, I reckoned – still, I would have known the weapon anywhere. How not? I have seen it nearly every day for the past seven years.

'That was well done,' enthused Gereint. 'You have got yourself another sword.'

'Not just a sword, son,' I told him, clutching the hilt tightly in both hands. 'This is Arthur's sword.'