(A sample chapter from the Arthurian tale The Killing Sword.)
© 2011 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
IX. The Battles of Terrabil
WHILE THE FOGS ABODE YET upon the land the sun was weak and red, foretelling evil to men. Then Merlyn came privily to the pavilion of King Lot of the Isle of Orkney. The king had made camp the upon the seaside on the heights over Castle Terrabil. There he lay in dream. Over the king Merlyn raised his staff and said,
‘Awake, King Lot, and hear what I would say.’
‘Who are you that comes into my dream?’ asked the king.
‘I am one that knows you well, and all of yours. And I know the shame that burns your heart, and the future days of your sons Gawain, Gaheris, Agravain, and Gareth. Would you hear what their deeds will be and what fame they will win when they are grown men and knights?’
‘I will hear that gladly,’ answered King Lot. ‘For unless my heart lies, you are Merlyn and a fater born.’
So Merlyn bent over the king and began to weave for him the riddle of the king’s sons and what they would do, and it made a mighty tale, and held the king spell-bound so that he knew not the passing of the hours, and sent away all the men who came without his pavilion.
But in the meanwhile King Arthur made ready his host in ten battles and found before him King Nero ready in the field before the castle Terrabil with a great host. Nero also had ten battles he put into the field, and over each of them he set at least one king. And Nero had many more knights and men at arms than Arthur had. Arthur himself led the van of his battles with the greatest host.
Then Arthur gave command and his knights pricked their horses fiercely and drove against the rebel knights, so that the earth shook with the crash of arms and the cries of men echoed off the clouds.
In those battles Sir Kay the Seneschal fought valiantly, and it is said he was at his mightiest in this day.
And King Arthur slew that day a full score knights and maimed two score with his sword Excalibur. But King Nero had ten kings with him, and for all the deeds King Arthur’s knights might do, King Nero drew on his forces and sent more knights and men against them and yet held back men to spare. And Arthur could see no other end to battle on that day but defeat or withdrawal of his armies. Heavier and heavier grew their strokes, so that they might hardly hold their swords and shields before them.
That was the hour the Knight of Two Swords and his brother Balan entered the fray. For the first hours of battle they sat their horses under the trees upon a hill and watched how the combat went. And they saw to the breaks in their armor and their wounds that they had.
‘Well brother,’ said Balyn, ‘you see how the battles go. What do you think is best for us to do?’
‘I see nothing better than ride down and fight for Arthur,’ answered Balan.
‘We are well agreed,’ said Balyn. And they drove their horses down the hill as fast as they could go and broke into the battles. And they two did so wondrously that the king and all the knights marveled at them, and all that beheld them said they were sent from heaven as angels to redeem them.
First the brothers rode where King Nero and his knights drove back Arthur’s knights. Balyn himself overthrew the bodyguard of King Nero, and slew the king. And he raced his horse from there unto the Duke of Cambenet, and with Balan he cast down the Duke of Cambenet also.
But the poor knight Sir Brisance, Sir Kay’s spy, saw how Balyn the Wild fought and he quaked with fear. He went to Sir Kay and said,
‘I fear lest Balyn might know my face from when I informed on him; and he does so well in this battle that he will have the King’s great love, and he may challenge me. I cannot defend against so worshipful a knight.’
‘And so?’ asked Sir Kay. ‘What then, thou fool?’
‘I wish that you would grant me your protection, my lord Seneschal, for all I did was in your name and service, and if I was mistaken about Balyn it was an honest mistake, and I can yet be of service to you and the King.’
‘Be off with you, knave,’ said Sir Kay. ‘We have battles here to fight more important than your hide.’
And then the poor knight threw himself full into the battle, with a doom upon him and a fey look. He bethought himself, ‘As much as Balyn wins of praise, I must win as much or more. Then his claim against me will take no force.’ But he was struck in the head by a spear that drove through his helmet and into his ear. Then his brains came out around the spear-shaft and he died.
Now all the rebel battles were in turmoil, and some were fled already. But even yet eight kings held the rebels fast, and where the Knight of Two Swords did not hold the field, King Arthur’s forces must give back. And though the middle of their battles where King Nero and his men had fought was now broken, yet the two wings of the rebel battles came ahead.
Balyn turned to the left, and pricked his horse against where King Brandegoris of Stranggore fought, and there Balyn slew King Brandegoris. And Balyn turned his horse fiercely to the right, and pricked on against where the King of the Hundred Knights fought. And the King of the Hundred Knights was a mighty man like to a giant, and he gave Balyn back as great strokes as he got. But in the end Balyn with the sword of the Naked Damsel cut out the legs of the king’s horse and the horse fell atop the King of the Hundred Knights and broke his leg and his backbone.
And Balyn again heard a great cry behind him on the left flank of their battles. There King Uriens of Gore and King Idres of Cornwall fought side by side and threatened Arthur’s knights with defeat.
‘Come then brother, this needs two hands,’ said Balyn, and they turned horse that way, and challenged King Uriens and King Idres. Balyn wounded King Uriens of Gore and threw him to the earth. Then he came to the aid of his brother and they struck their swords together at one stroke through the body of King Idres of Cornwall and laid him under.
And King Arthur said, ‘These two are the best knights that ever I saw, for they give such strokes that all men wonder at them.’
But there were yet upon that field five more rebel kings, and they also saw what deeds the Knight of Two Swords did on that day. Three together joined their men, and the knights swept Balan back apart from his brother, and Balyn rode alone with none but enemy knights around him, before and behind.
‘Come and fight then,’ he challenged them, but the knights hung back.
Then the three kings, King Agwisance of Ireland, King Nentres of Garlot, and King Carados, broke the lines of their own men and came at Balyn all as one.
‘This is shameful, for three to set on one,’ said Balyn, ‘but I will take the doom that God ordains me even so.’ And he lashed out to the right hand and the left.
With two strokes he crushed the hauberks of King Nentres of Garlot and King Carados and then King Agwisance of Ireland was upon him in his face. And it was all Balyn might do to ward off those strokes, so full of rage was King Agwisance and so swiftly did he strike.
But so furious a storm held but a score of strokes, and then King Agwisance of Ireland felt his arm wax tired.
Balyn saw his chance and he lashed out with the sword with both hands, and the blade cut through King Agwisance of Ireland’s helmet and his skull and tore away his head above the jaw-bone. And at this the knights around him faltered, and were unsure, and their horses turned from Balyn. So a way opened up for him.
Now there were none but two rebel kings left in the battles of Terrabil, but they were King Cradelment of North Wales and King Morganore, two strong knights that now fought with despair. For they feared for their lives should their battle be lost. Already they saw in their minds their graves gaping to receive them and they pulled back all their knights into a deep comb that made a fast defense, with only a strait mouth where Arthur’s knights could get at them.
But Balyn pricked his horse on as fast as that horse might go, and he hurled himself against the rebel knights. Their spears gored and slaughtered his good horse, but Balyn, though his armor smoked and burst, was yet whole enough to stand his ground and pitch himself through them.
He fell and tumbled like a hedge-hog into the midst of them, and when he rose up he stood face to face with King Cradelment and King Morganore. They aghast hailed him and said, ‘Be you an angel from Heaven or a devil out of Hell?’
And he answered, ‘I am the Knight of Two Swords, and two swords are enough to face down two kings and send them unto either place as God shall choose for them.’ And he struck at them and killed them both.
And then the rage went from him with his blood through the breaks in his armor, and he staggered on one knee. But there was not a single knight among the rebel army that dared to come within a spear’s length of him.
So Balyn checked and quelled the rebel hosts. But in the meanwhile the Orkney and Lothian knights fretted from where they stood in their camp and overlooked their allies, slain by the Knight of Two Swords. And at last Gawain, who was a boy still, came to his father’s pavilion and shouted through the tent-wall, ‘Father, King Lot, wake you and heed my words. While we tarry here, King Nero is destroyed and slain with all his folk.’
At that his son’s voice, King Lot was shaken from the spell-binding of Merlyn’s words and saw the day was spent. And he smelled the blood in the air of the corpses in the fields.
‘Alas,’ said King Lot, ‘I am ashamed. By my default there is many a worshipful man slain. For if we had been together, no host under Heaven had been able to have matched us. This fater with his prophecy has mocked me.’
‘It had to be,’ said Merlyn. ‘For I knew well, King Lot, that had you joined in that first battle, then King Arthur had been slain, and all his people destroyed. Well I knew that one of you twain should die this day, and I wished not that either of you should be slain. But of the twain I had rather you be slain than King Arthur.’
At this King Lot’s men would have set upon Merlyn, but King Lot told them, ‘Let him be! We do not use arms against unweaponed men. And doubt not but that this fiend’s son has some curse or treachery ready at hand. Let him go and do what he can, he has already undone twelve kings on this day.’ So they let Merlyn leave.
‘Now what is best to do?’ asked King Lot of his knights. ‘Would it be better for me to treat with Arthur or to fight? For the greater part of our people are slain with those eleven kings that the Knight of Two Swords has destroyed.’
‘Sire,’ said a knight, ‘set on Arthur now. For they are weary and played out, and we are fresh.’
King Lot nodded and stroked his beard that was shot through with silver. ‘As for me,’ he said, ‘I would every knight would do his part as I will do mine.’
And then his son Gawain set King Lot’s foot into the stirrup and handed him his spear. And King Lot looked on his son for the last time and said,
‘Doubt not, Gawain, that when you are become a man you will do great things and be the best knight born of all these islands. And you will avenge me upon the knight who will end my life. Farewell.’
He rode then, and his men advanced banners and rode against King Arthur’s knights. The hosts smote together and all burst their spears with the heavy assault, and many mothers’ sons went down into the dark that evening, and the sun sank bloody on a reddened field.
Even yet they fought on with torches in the dark, and their cries brought forth the wolves that eat the slain. But in the bitter weary hours of the night Arthur’s knights with the help of the Knight of Two Swords and his brother Balan drove King Lot and his host back.
But yet King Lot held himself ever in the van and did marvelous deeds of arms so that all his host was borne up by his hands, for he abode all knights.
So strong and fierce was King Lot in that night-war that not even the Knight of Two Swords might overmaster him. Again and again Balyn went against King Lot and King Lot beat him back.
But there was a knight that was called the Knight With the Strange Beast, although his right name was Pellinore. And he was a man of such prowess that he fought by Balyn’s side and matched him stroke for stroke. Balyn cast down King Lot’s foremost men that guarded his flank, and King Pellinore smote a mighty stroke at King Lot. And though Pellinore failed of that stroke, it struck the horse’s neck so that he fell to the ground with King Lot underneath. And with that Pellinore raised up his great sword and smote him a killing stroke through the helm and head unto the brows. And when they beheld that stroke, all the host of Orkney fled for the death of King Lot, and there fell many mothers’ sons.
So the Knight of Two Swords that day and night slew eleven rebel kings, and on that night also King Ryons in King Arthur’s camp died from the wounds that Balyn gave him the night before. But King Pellinore bore the weight of the death of King Lot, wherefore Sir Gawain revenged the death of his father ten years after he was made knight, and slew King Pellinore with his own hands.
In the battles’ after-peace some men came to Sir Kay the Seneschal with the poor knight’s body. ‘For we had heard he served in your train, my lord.’
But Sir Kay looked down on the corpse of Sir Brisance with a weary sneering look and answered, ‘Nay, I know the fool not. Let him be stacked with the rebel knights if you will. He won’t offer you any grief for it.’
