to make a funeral shroud for the dead I bring you.

Hear and obey! I, Myrddin Emrys, command you!

I screamed and my scream was terrible to hear. I laughed, and my laughter was more terrible still.

Alone, I flew to meet the Saecsen host. Alone, I hurtled towards them, bereft of sense and feeling…

Insane.

The tall horsetail standard which the Saecsen carried into battle loomed before me: a cross on a pole bearing a wolfs skull on either end of the crosspiece, with a human skull in the middle, and the three fringed with horsetails of red and black. I drove straight towards the thing with the point of my sword.

I do not know what I thought, or what I intended to do. But the force of my charge was such that upon reaching the battle-line the first enemy I encountered were simply swept beneath my steed's pummelling hooves and I was carried well into their midst as I made for the standard. The standard-bearer, a tall, muscled chieftain, dodged to the side. My blade came level and, with the momentum of my charge behind it, neatly sliced the solid pole in half, as if it had been a dry reed.

The Saecsen battlechief – an enormous brute with pale yellow hair hanging in long braids from his temples – stood beneath the standard with his House Carles around him, staring in amazement as the emblem sank like a stone. The cry of outrage reached my ears as a mild and distant sound, for I had once again entered that uncanny state where the actions of others were as languorous and slow as those of men half-asleep.

The flying, careering warhost became a massive, lumbering thing, heavy-footed and dull, without speed or quickness, overcome by a languid torpor. Once again, as in the battle at Maridunum, I became invincible, dealing death with every well-calculated blow, hewing down mighty warriors with effortless strokes, my movements perfect in their deadly grace.

The clash of battle reached my ears like the sound of water washing a far-off shore. I moved with elegant precision, striking boldly and with vengeance, my sword a living thing – a streaming crimson dragon spitting doom.

The enemy fell before me. I carved a swathe through their close ranks as if I was the scythe and they the corn standing for harvest. I struck and struck, and death fell with every stroke like judgement.

The battle surged around me. Gwendolau's charge had succeeded in driving through the enemy the first time, but the second charge had bogged down. There were simply too many Saecsens against us, and we were too few horsemen. Even when a man killed with every stroke, as my men did, two more barbarians leapt up to drag him from the saddle before his blade was clear of the dead weight.

I did what I could for those closest to me, but my charge had carried me into the centre of the Saecsen warhost, out of reach of most of my warband. All around me I saw good men dragged down and hacked to death by those wicked axes. There was nothing I could do about it.

The battlelord, a fair-haired giant, rose up before me with an enormous hammer in his hand. Slavering with rage, he bellowed his challenge to me and planted his feet, swinging diat hammer, thick-sinewed shoulders and arms bulging with the effort. He stood like an oak tree as I urged my horse towards him. Sunlight glinted in his yellow hair, his blue eyes clear and unafraid, taunting me, the hammer in his hands dripping blood and brains from the skulls he had smashed.

I spun towards him and waited until he swung the hammer up for the killing blow. My first stroke ripped low across his unprotected stomach.

A lesser man would have fallen, but the golden giant stood his ground and swung the hammer down with such force that his wound burst. Blood and entrails gushed forth, and I laughed to see it.

The hammer swung wide; and as his hands came down to grab his belly, I plunged the point of my sword through his throat. Dark blood spewed out over my hand.

He stood a moment, his eyes rolling up in their sockets, then collapsed. I jerked the blade free, laughing, laughing, roaring with the absurdity of it.

I had slain the Saecsen battlechief! He had murdered my wife and unborn child, and I had felled that great brute with a child's trick. It was simply too absurd for words. I wept with laughter until I tasted the tears in my mouth.

When their war chief went down, the barbarians fell into confusion. They had lost their leader, but not their heart. And none of the cold-blooded ruthlessness, either. They still fought with crazy courage. If anything, losing their leader inspired them to higher, more reckless valour. Now they fought for the honour of accompanying then: battlelord into Valhalla, the great Hall of Warriors in their wretched Otherworld.

So be it. I helped as many as possible earn that privilege.

But my sword brothers were not so fortunate. Too many of them were driven down that day. I remember turning as the tide of battle receded from me momentarily, turning and looking out over the field to see only a small handful of my valiant warband still holding their own against the barbarians. So few… and they were all that was left.

I made to ride towards them, but the gap closed again and they were lost. That was the last I ever saw of them alive.

A dreadful earnestness stole over me – a murderous fury. I slashed and struck with all my strength, as if my heart would burst. I killed and killed again. I began to fear that there would not be enough enemy to slake my thirst for blood. I gazed about me and there were more dead now than living, and I despaired.

'Here I am! Here is Merlin, take me!'

Mine was the only voice on the field. The barbarians stared at me with cow-stupid eyes, mute before my righteous rage, the strength going out of their hands.

'Come to me!' I cried. 'You who exult in death, come to me! I will cover you in glory! I will give you the delight of your hearts! Such a splendid death I will give you! Come! Receive the doom you deserve!'

They looked at one another with wide and staring eyes. There must have been seventy or more of them left to face me. Oh, the fighting had been cruel.

But I blazed, Ann was; I blazed with a fierce and righteous fire and the enemy quailed to see it. Their courage flowed away like water.

They stood staring and I raised my blade and called upon heaven to witness their destruction. Then I put spurs to my mount, and that spirited animal responded, though its head drooped and its nostrils streamed blood, it lifted its hooves and bolted straight towards the barbarians.

The sun itself was dim compared to the brightness of my blade as I hacked and hewed through them. Seventy men, and none could lift an axe against me. They fell like toppled oaks, going down into death's dark cavern clutching their wounds and crying.

Blood soaked the soil beneath their feet, staining the turf the colour of wine. They could not stand up for the blood. I chopped with my sword, cleaving their unprotected heads from crown to chin. They dropped dead to the blood-wet earth.

The slaughter was appalling.

In the end, the few who still lived threw down their weapons, turned and fled. But even these did not escape my vengeance. I rode them down from behind, galloping over their stumbling bodies, turning upon them again and again, until not one remained in the world of the living.

Then it was over. I sat in my saddle and gazed out over a hideous carnage. Saecsens lay thick on the ground and I screamed at them:

'Get up! Get up, you dead! Take up your arms! Arise and fight!' I taunted them. I challenged them. I screamed at them and cursed them even in death.

But there was no longer anyone to hear my taunts.

Five hundred Saecsens lay dead upon the ground and it was not enough. My grief, my hate, my rage still burned within me! Ganieda was dead and our child with her, and Gwendolau, Custennin, Baram, Pelleas, Balach, and all the brave men of my warband – all the quick and bright, their hearts beating and breath in their lungs, alive to love and light, now were stiffening corpses. My friends, my wife, my brothers were dead, and the blood price I claimed that day, mighty though it was, could not pay the debt.