"Just like choking a chicken," Guinevere reminded herself, stepping up behind the oblivious Saxon.
In one fluid motion, she was into his blind spot, reaching around to cover his mouth. At the same time, her right arm snaked over the Saxon's right shoulder, her right hand grasping her left wrist to secure a firm hold.
As he began to react, Guinevere squashed her chest against his back - right arm braced across his throat - and shifted her weight to her right leg, preparing to apply the necessary force. With a vicious jerk, she pulled her right arm back while pushing forward with her left.
She could hear her old trainer's words as she did so, his soft lisp oddly emphasising his words.
"If completed correctly, this movement will target the cervical vertebrae, where the spinal cord connects to the brain. The correct application of sudden torque, combined with the forward pressure, will thus disrupt the spinal cord's function. It's a manoeuvre which requires both strength - hence your morning press-ups - and precision and will dislocate the cervical vertebrae, resulting in immediate cessation of neurological functions and collapse. Now, select your chicken."
As she knew it would, there was a loud crack, the Saxon's body went limp, and Guinevere gently lowered him to the ground.
Checking his body, she once again cursed at the complete lack of any helpful gear these odd wolf-clad spearmen carried. Just on the law of averages, she'd have assumed she would have come across at least one with a bow and arrow.
But, no. It was all spears, spears, spears. Men and their enduring relationship with big pointy sticks.
Following her encounter with the maimed wizard, Guinevere had largely stayed ahead of a rather haphazard hunt for her. Something seemed to be up in the Saxon camp as - on more occasions than she'd have liked to think - a bit more thoroughness would have completely closed down her avenues for escape.
It was all the more odd as these Saxons in wolf furs were handy. Certainly, leagues more capable than those waifs and strays whose pursuit of her had been the initial cause of her quest plan for Arthur to unwind. That made their suddenly chaotic behaviour all the more noteworthy.
At the sound of horns blowing - and the responding howls of wolf calls - Guinevere pressed herself low over the body of her latest victim. Had they seen her?
But no. The sudden crashing noise of lots of running feet was going in the opposite direction.
However, it was more than just her relief at remaining unspotted that caused a smile to spread on Guinevere's face. A little band of three spearmen had just run past her hiding place, and she was sure she heard one of them say the words 'Bryttisc wīgend'. While Saxon might not be one of her stronger languages, she knew enough to make out these men were hurrying to face "warriors from Britain."
Slipping into their wake, Guinevere hurried towards what she hoped would be a sizeable British warband with whom she could link up.
*
"For fuck's sake! Where are they all coming from!"
Bors, Arthur and Merlin's-spirit-in-Melehan's-body had fallen back from Slaughterbridge to a small copse of trees. The Saxons had swarmed over the river to follow them and, annoyingly, had done so in such numbers that their intended routes for further retreat were largely cut off.
Arthur reversed his spear and smashed it into the forehead of a Saxon who'd misjudged how much cover his mates were willing to offer with Bors kicking ass and taking names on their other flank.
"Just keep pulling back!" Bors bellowed in reply, picking up the man opposite him and hurling him at the next approaching group.
"Wizard?!" Arthur shouted, "We could do with some help here!"
Merlin obliged with a fireball that initially burned a hole through the shield of an onrushing Saxon and then carried on straight through that somewhat surprised - if only briefly - man and then into and through his two fellows behind.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
"Thank you!" Arthur spun Rhongomyniad in a wide arc and continued to step backwards slowly. He had no real sense of the end goal here, but - for the first time in a while - he was comfortable with that.
For now, there was just the pure joy of the battle.
He had forgotten what this felt like. Ever since his injury, he had been unable to reach this state - neither with weapons nor a pair of tits in his hands - and it was astonishing to him how he had survived so long without it.
With a foe in front of him and Bors to his side, both under the watchful eye of a capable wizard, what more could he look for in life?
"Do not mention it, my dear, erm, my Lord," Merlin replied, sweat running down his face in rivers.
To his chagrin, the wizard was rapidly discovering the considerable difference between having a bottomless supply of Qi and being an ordinary cultivator. It had been so long since he had needed to ration his use of power that he had entirely forgotten that it was a thing.
When piggybacking on Morgan's supply, he had been limited to a minimal range of actions. The nature of his connection to her had been fragile and largely internal. However, since seizing control of Melehan's body, he had access to lots more goodies.
It turned out, though, that it might have been wise to have gone a bit easier on sampling from the candy store. He wasn't quite completely out of Qi - even habits long forgotten died hard - but he was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. As Melehan visualised his Qi as sand, this was a particularly uncomfortable experience.
And then they were out of the trees and in the open. Which meant the arrows started falling again.
"You see that?" Bors was pointing to something on their left.
Arthur quickly glanced that way, receiving a stinging blow that removed his helm for his moment's inattention. He drove his spear through the chest of the offender and flung him aside. "Fuck off, you twat! What is it, Bors?"
The big man had more immediate space than Arthur, all of the pursuing Saxons having decided that someone else could have the honour of engaging that particular deathtrap. "Looks like an old stone cottage."
Merlin shook his head, droplets of sweat going flying. "Dead end. We'd just get surrounded and trapped in there."
Bors took an arrow to the shoulder, swore, tore it out and impaled it in the face of a braver-than-average spearman who'd made a dash for him. This object lesson did little to encourage anyone else to try the same. "Better in there than out here."
Arthur nodded his agreement. He didn't miss that the magical shield protecting them from projectiles looked decidedly patchwork. The wizard was getting tired. "Look, let's not borrow trouble from the future. We can't keep this up much longer. We need somewhere to take a breather, and that place looks as good as any. On my mark, we leg it. Wizard, once we run, put everything you've got to buy us some space."
Although Merlin nodded Melehan's head enthusiastically, his stomach churned. There was barely enough sand on the beach to keep his weak barrier up, let alone anything else. But then he rallied. He was Merlin. He lived to do the impossible.
As Bors and Arthur broke into a run towards the cottage, he filled his hands with what little Qi he had left and brought them together in an almighty 'bang'. The explosion caused a blast of air to surge out, knocking all the Saxons who had emerged from the copse flat on their backs and flinging the others who had moved around to encircle them up and away.
Not stopping to watch the aftermath of the spell further, Merlin turned and ran after the rest of the group.
Although nowhere near having the athletic capabilities of a cultivator, Arthur and Bors had really shifted, and it took the wizard longer than he would have expected to catch up. They were just beginning to barricade the solitary window of the cottage when he arrived.
The tiny building's stone walls were weathered, colours blending with the earth. Its sod roof had seen better days but looked like it might keep the rain in a pinch. Besides the window, the heavy timber door was the only way in or out. Bors had put his foot through it to get in but had propped it back in the gap. As he moved past, Merlin pushed the last drop of his available Qi to the door, wedging it in place.
Inside, the single room was almost entirely bare, with any hints of its past life fading. Merlin assumed it had once been a shepherd's hut, but any sign of occupancy was long gone. The fireplace, stone like the walls, was cold and clearly unused for some time.
There was not much spare room with the three of them inside, but it would serve as a last-stand foxhole.
"Not sure I'm seeing this as an upgrade on our situation," the wizard said through pain-gritted teeth. Sand as Qi. What sort of masochist did that?
"Look, we're in here, and they're out there," Bors said. "It'll take more than just a few arrows to get through the walls, and if the door is secure," he raised his eyes at Merlin, who paused and then nodded, "then we've bought ourselves some time. Just need to tighten up on the window."
Arthur was trying to squeeze the remains of a broken cot bed into the small gap when a long-haired figure came crashing through, diving full length through with a spear in hand.
That form of suicidal attack took them so by surprise that none of them immediately reacted. Bors was the first, reaching down and pulling the figure to their feet. His fist had pulled back to launch a brutal punch when he stopped, his mouth falling open.
"Gwin?"
Guinevere smiled sheepishly and blew her hair out of her face. She nodded to each of the group in turn. "Bors. Improbably healed wizard. " - there was a moment's pause and a change of tone - "Husband."