'It is nothing – a scratch.' Let me up, God love you. I can stand… '

I pressed closer and glimpsed a shock of red hair. Cai.

The Boar of Battle was lying against a stone, his legs splayed out before him. He seemed to be struggling to rise, but no one would help him. I wondered at this and then saw the wicked gash in the battlechief s thigh.

'Rest you a moment,' one of the men said. The Emrys should attend you.'

'Then let me up!' Cai said. 'I will not have him find me flat on my back. I can stand.'

'Your leg… '

'Tie it up with something. Quickly! I must go to Arthur.'

One of the men was already working to bind the wound with a bit of cloth. I backed from the throng and ran stumbling over the corpse-strewn battle ground to the Emrys, whom I found at last, binding a warrior's broken arm. 'Wise Emrys!' I called. 'Hurry! Cai is wounded! Please!'

He turned aside at once. 'Take me to him!'

I led him to the stream where the group waited with Cai. The Emrys hastened to the place; upon reaching it, the crowd parted to admit him and closed again. I pushed in after him and thrust myself to the front in time to see Myrddin stooping over Cai, whose face was now pale as a winter moon.

'I can stand, God love you!'

'Cai,' the Emrys soothed, 'it is bad.'

'It is but a scratch,' he protested, but his protest was weaker now. 'The heathen slashed wild. He barely touched me.' The great warrior made to push himself up, he grabbed at the Emrys, who held him. Blood pooled on the ground.

'Easy, my friend,' said the Emrys in a low, commanding tone. He tightened the strip of cloth around Cai's leg just above the knee.

'Are you telling me I am hurt?'

'The wound is deeper than you know, Cai.'

'Well, bind it then. I must go to Arthur.'

The Emrys glanced up quickly, saw me and said, 'Bring Arthur at once.' Distracted by the change in Cai's appearance, I hesitated, but only for an instant. 'Go!' Myrddin urged. 'For God's sake, hurry!"

I turned and ran without thinking, saw the gleam of the red-gold dragon standard, and made for it, dodging among the crowds of jubilant warriors thronging the glen. 'Please, my lord,' I gasped, pushing my way through the press around Arthur. 'Cai is wounded,' I blurted. 'The Emrys said to come at once.'

Arthur turned. 'Where is he?'

I pointed across the glen. 'Over there by the stream. The Emrys is with him.'

The lung mounted the nearest horse, slapped the reins, and raced over the field. By the time I returned to the place, Cai was unable to lift his head. He lay cradled in the crook of Arthur's arm, and the Pendragon of Britain smoothed his brow. 'I am too old for this, Bear.' 'Never say it, brother,' said Arthur in a choked voice. 'Na, do not take on so. We walked the land as kings, did we not?'

That we did, Cai.' 'What man needs more?'

Tears glinted in the High King's eyes. 'Farewell, Caius ap Ectorius,' he said softly.

'Farewell,' whispered Cai. He raised a trembling hand and Arthur clasped it to him. 'God be good to you, Bear.' His voice was little more than a breath on the wind, and then that, too, was gone.

Arthur Pendragon knelt long beside the body of his friend, their hands clasped in a last pledge of loyalty. Cai stared upward into the face of his king, the colour already fading from his deep green eyes. A small, satisfied smile still lingered on his lips.

'Farewell, my brother,' Arthur murmured. 'May it go well with you on your journey hence.'

Then the High King laid the body gently down and stood. 'Bring a wagon. We will take him to the shrine. I will not see him buried in this place.'

The Pendragon ordered Cai's body to be sewn in deerskins and placed on the wagon. As this was being done, Bedwyr appeared, ashen-faced, leading his horse. A body was slumped across the saddle. I took one look and sank to my knees on the ground.

Arthur met him and without a word gathered Gwalcmai's broken body from the saddle and lifted it down. The bloody stub of a broken arrow protruded from his chest just above the protecting mail shirt. His face was smeared with blood, as were his hands where he had tugged in vain at the arrow, succeeding only in snapping it off.

'Where is Gwalchavad?' asked Bedwyr gently. 'I will tell him.' Then he saw the wagon, and the men arranging the body there. 'Blessed Jesu! Cai!'

Bedwyr walked stiffly to the wagon and stood with eyes closed before it. Then he took Cai's cold hand in his and held it to his heart. After a long moment he turned and walked away.

I stayed to help with the wagon, and a little while later Bedwyr returned with Gwalchavad's body across his saddle. Gently, Bedwyr lifted the body of his sword brother and placed it beside that of Gwalcmai. Bitter were the deaths of these champions, whose lives the hateful Medraut had claimed as his blood-debt.

Arthur stood looking on in sorrow as we wrapped the corpses in deerskin. Myrddin returned, noticed the blood on the Pendragon's war shirt, and told him, 'Sit down, Arthur. You have been wounded. Let me see to it.'

'Peace,' replied Arthur, 'it is nothing. Care for the others.' He turned his gaze to the battle ground once more. 'Where is Gwenhwyvar?'

Arthur found the queen clinging to the body of her kinsman, Llenlleawg. She raised tearful eyes at her husband's approach. 'He is dead,' she said softly. 'Protecting me.'

Arthur knelt down beside her on the ground and put his arm around her shoulders. 'Cai is dead,' he told her. 'And Gwalcmai and Gwalchavad.' He regarded the queen's champion with sorrow. 'And Llenlleawg.'

At these doleful tidings Gwenhwyvar lowered her face into her hands and wept. After a time, she drew breath and composed herself, saying, 'As dark as this day is to me, it would be a thousand times darker still if you had been killed.' She paused, put a hand to Arthur's face and kissed him. 'I knew you would come for me, my soul.'

'I should not have gone away,' the High King said in a voice full of regret. 'My pride and vanity have caused the death of my most noble friends. I will bear their deaths as a weight upon my heart for ever.'

'You must not speak so,' Gwenhwyvar scolded lightly. 'Medraut is to blame and he will answer to God for his crimes.'

Arthur nodded. 'As I will answer for mine.' 'Where is Cai? And the others – where are they?' 'I have ordered a wagon to be made ready. They will be taken to the rotunda and buried there as is fitting,' he answered. 'I cannot bear to leave them here." 'It is right,' agreed Gwenhwyvar, and then noticed Arthur's wound for the first time. 'Artos – my love, you are bleeding!'

'But a scratch,' he said. 'Come, we must look after our dead.'

Of Medraut's hostages, only myself, the Emrys and Gwenhwyvar remained; the others died in the fight when they attacked Keldrych. These were brought to a place on the hillside below the fortress. A single massive grave was dug and the bodies of our sword brothers carefully placed in it. The Emrys prayed and sang holy psalms as we raised the gorsedd, the burial cairn, over them.

The corpses of the enemy we left to the wolves and ravens. Their bones would be scattered by the beasts, with never so much as a single rock to mark the place where they fell.

A little past midday, the Pendragon assembled the war host. Rhys sounded the march and we began making our slow way back to Caer Lial, moving westward along the Wall, each step heavy with grief and slow.

The bodies of the renowned battlechiefs were carried to Caer Lial where they were placed on torchlit biers in what remained of the hall of the Pendragon's palace. Much of Arthur's beloved city lay in ruins: the Picti did not restrain themselves in any way, but freely destroyed all they touched.

The next morning we departed for the Round Table. Out of respect for the holiness of the shrine, and the secret of its location, only the lords of Britain and Arthur's subject kings – the Nine Worthies – were allowed to attend the funeral at the shrine. The Emrys bade me accompany him, through no merit of my own. He required someone to serve him, and since I knew well the location of the rotunda it would save entrusting another with the secret.