"How many of you are there?"

Sǣþrȳð was looking sick. "Half a dozen adults. Twice as many children. What do we do?"

"What's your strongest building?"

"Probably here," Beocca was wringing his hands like a Lady Macbeth tribute act. "Walls are pretty thick, but the doors won't stand up to a wizard."

"Let me worry about the wizard. Get everyone in here, then, and block up the doors and windows."

The group quickly left to gather up the rest of the village. I stepped outside to get the lay of the land. What I saw did not inspire me.

This is a shithole.

And it absolutely was. Apart from the smithy, the only other buildings worth the name were a few ramshackle huts. The whole place looked like one of those early episodes of Survivor where they're still in their pile-up-branches-and-call-it-a-shelter stage. This wasn't a village. It was collective homelessness.

Beocca had followed me out and caught the expression on my face. "I know. But we're in the middle of nowhere; the soil's too thin to farm properly, so we grow barely enough to feed ourselves, let alone keep any animals."

"But you have a forge. And you won't leave even with the certainty of impending death. What the fuck aren't you telling me?"

Beocca shook his head. "Not now."

I bet if I set his beard on fire, he'd tell you.

The blacksmith's eyes went out on stalks, and he looked around for who had spoken. I held my face still as if I hadn't heard anything. We could both play at the keeping secrets game.

"Okay. Well, if we're still alive at the end of the day, I look forward to hearing what's worth dying for here."

I wandered a little distance from Beocca and looked towards the direction from which I assumed the army would arrive. He chose not to accompany me, clearly thinking at least one of us was haunted.

I took up a position just to the side of the road and gave my best Luke-staring-at-twin-suns-at-the-start-of-episode-4 impression. Helpfully, the wind blew through my hair, streaming it behind me like a banner of flame, and - fuck it, in for a penny, in for a pound - I loosened my Qi control a little to let it bleed out my skin, giving my whole body a soft purple glow. To complete the image, I drew Drynwyn and held it down at my side. Sensing the mood, it helpfully burst into fire.

I am sure, to anyone who was watching, I looked absolutely EPIC.

Which was good because I had no idea what I was going to do.

Part of me, a giant pulsing massive section of my conscious thought, wanted to leg it as far away from the army as possible. But glancing back at the pathetic sight of this tiny, bedraggled community herding themselves into the smithy gave me pause.

These people were done if I ran. Who was I kidding? They were pretty much in the exact same situation if I hung around. But - and I am as surprised about this as everyone here - it didn't seem like I was the sort of person who could walk away and that desertion not seriously fuck me up.

"Drynwyn, I could use some words of advice here."

The burning sensation will go away if you ignore it.

"What?"

Sorry, force of habit. What sort of wisdom are you looking for?

"Is there any sort of tactical masterplan you could suggest that might get us all out of this alive?"

You're facing an unknown number of attackers - but the context suggests it will be a decent-sized war party. Spears. Archers. Probably, on past experience, a wizard. You have no allies upon whom to rely. Your combat experience to date is a wolf, a dragon and a boar. Oh, and you hid behind a shield whilst an army took potshots at you. You've gathered up all the non-combatants into the only moderately defensible building. And they won't leave.

Stolen novel; please report.

I waited for the advice. "And?"

There's no 'and'. You're fucked. Those people are fucked. Probably literally. The best-case scenario is it happens after you're dead.

"Seriously, no sunlit uplands at all here?"

Not unless you can bluff them that you're much more capable than we know you are. But they're not going to fall for that twice, are they?

And with those words, Operation Lucy-Removes-the-Ball-At-The-Last-Minute-Once-Again was born.

*

They'd left this hamlet until now simply because it hadn't been worth the effort to exterminate.

The fyrd had walked straight into their lines four days back: it had been a short and bloody confrontation, putting them ahead of schedule compared to the other war parties. So they had been in no rush to mop up the surrounding countryside. Certainly, there had been better prizes to be plucked than this sorry excuse for a village.

But, they'd received word that the other invasion parties were finally ready to push deeper into Uther's territory. So, for completeness, they'd come calling.

Ealhhere took a pull from his wineskin as he watched the vanguard move slowly forward. They'd not come across much resistance at all, but there was no need to get sloppy.

He'd heard from his wizard that Pæga had taken some casualties and had needed to retreat back to the border, but his group hadn't seen anything like that. As far as he could tell, anyone who could run had done so, and those who had been left behind were simply placidly waiting to become collateral damage.

One of his men appeared at the side of his horse. "Our scouts report that the population have barricaded themselves in the forge."

Ealhhere's brows rows. Maybe this might be worth his time after all. "Must be a huge forge!"

"More a tiny population, I'm afraid."

"Fuck's sake." Ealhhere took another mouthful of wine and looked over to his wizard, Tata.

He didn't like him, but he didn't like anyone. He would admit the slim, dark-haired man had done his work soundly enough so far. The fireballs were hot, the healing was adequate, and the moaning was kept to a minimum. He'd heard tale that the High King had been pretty brutal in his manner of conscripting cultivators for this invasion. So, he'd expected no end of whining from the one assigned to his force. But the man had kept mainly to himself and done his business. You couldn't ask for much more that.

"If they're all in one building, Tata, can you just burn it down? Save us the hassle?"

Tata slowly shook his head. "If it wasn't a forge, sir, sure. But I'm not sure fire will have much impact there."

"Fuck's sake." Ealhhere repeated. "So be it." He signalled the attention of one of his men; he hadn't bothered to learn the names, but this one had seemed particularly enthusiastic about this sort of work. "You know what to do here. I doubt there's anything worth looting, but bring anything you find so we can have a look."

"And the women, sir?"

Ealhhere shuddered. The last few villages hadn't yielded anything with more teeth than eyes. "Place like this? I wouldn't risk it with someone else's. You're welcome to them."

The soldier grinned and directed a small group of spearmen to push forward to surround the forge. His chosen few had nearly made it to the door when Tata's eyes suddenly widened, and he started to shout a word of warning.

It was to no avail.

As if from nowhere, there was suddenly a knight in armour, holding a flaming sword, scything their way through some very surprised spearmen. There was something odd about how they held the sword; it was a technique none of them had seen before. It almost looked like they were clinging on to the hilt rather than directing its path. All very curious.

The noise the sword was making, likewise, was bizarre. It was something like a buzzing hum whilst also making a 'schwum' noise with each swing.

In a blink, four spearmen were down, and the knight was stood alone before them.

She, he could see it was a woman now, replaced the sword in its scabbard behind her back with a smooth movement. As it snapped into place, the buzzing hum stopped with a sound like the soft crackle of cooling metal.

The woman looked at him, red hair streaming behind her and spoke. "You can torture these people and burn their villages to the ground. But do you see that?" She pointed to one of the smouldering corpses of his spearmen. "Fire is catching... And if they burn... you will burn with them!"

The knight took a step forward, gesturing towards the forge. "Those people in there will not go quietly into the night! They will not vanish without a fight! They're going to live on! They're going to survive!"

She opened her arms wide, then, and it was as if her accent seemed to become more ... Celtic. "I am Morgan Le Fay! And I see a whole army of Saxons in front of me. You've come to fight as free men... and as free men, you will die. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight? Aye, fight, and you will die. Run, and you'll live... that I promise you. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell your enemies that they may take your lives, but they'll never take... YOUR FREEDOM!"

Ealhhere frowned then looked, bemused, round at his men. "I don't ... I don't think that made sense. It sounded like you stuck together three speeches you'd learned by heart. But they didn't really link together. And the last bit? That sounds like you're encouraging us to attack rather than to leave you alone. Did anyone else think that?"

There were quite some nods.

Told you that wasn't going to fucking work. I mean, I told you your bit wouldn't work. My bit went like a fucking dream. Even making those stupid noises you wanted.

"And I told you, if I'm going to have a flaming sword, it's damn well going to sound right. We'll work on getting the flames to go green. Right. No worries. That was always going to be a bit of stretch. Okay, let's move on to Plan B."

Which one was that?

And the world went up in flames.