Stephen Lawhead - Grail

'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.