Bors had no idea what to make of it all.

He'd been on more battlefields than he cared to remember and had, in his own words, seen some shit. But he couldn't make head nor tail of the scene around Vortigern's castle.

There was a dead dragon.

He felt it was wise to start with the things everyone would be able to get on board with. He'd not seen so many of them to be blase about it, but neither was it a wholly remarkable sight. Some people dedicated their whole, by their very nature, shortened lives to taking down these giant lizards. Like that lunatic, Rhyddrech Hael. Now there was someone who lived by the maxim if you can't eat it or fuck it, you'd better kill it.

Thus, in his time, he'd seen his fair share of dragon bodies. So he was pretty surprised at how tiny the corpse lying at his feet was ...

He'd last seen Vortigern's dragon some years back. As was his practice, Merlin had thrown one of his apprentices at it to see what would happen, and Bors had been charged with overseeing the clean-up detail. It was not one of the more prized duties, but - provided you made it clear you were no threat - it would usually pass without too much unpleasantness.

This last time, the dragon had decided to be a twat and had hovered over the top of them the whole time they were ash collecting. Being under that massive shadow - particularly when it started to muse aloud on how each of them would taste - had not been one of the more restful experiences of his life.

Looking at the shrivelled, headless body of all that now remained, Bors was unsure how he felt. The dragon had been a fucking terrifying presence in this part of the world, but, well, it had been pretty magnificent in its stomach-churning way. To see it like this was ... sad.

But, more than that, he couldn't understand why it was in its 'normal' size. The whole area stank of Qi, so it had definitely been a cultivator that had taken it down. Likewise, there was no chance anyone strong enough to rip the head from its shoulders had just 'snuck up' on a dragon this old and wily and caught it unawares.

So, what? Had an unknown wizard of unusual strength and capacity somehow inhibited its battle state? If so, someone with the skill to forcibly shrink down a dragon was precisely the sort of magic the kingdom needed right now.

And he guessed that was the story. A serious cultivator of unknown orgin had taken down the dragon. Tick. File that one as solved. That made some sense, and whilst there remained some pretty troubling questions about 'who?' and 'on whose side were they?', they were problems for later on. Bors was very much a punch-the-problem-in-front-of-you-in-the-face-and-then-think-about-next-steps,’ kind of guy.

Moving forward, then, Bors tried to make sense of what had happened next.

A decent-sized war party had shown up and taken up a competent attack position around the ruined castle. The horse manure he found was considerably fresher than the dragon's body - sadly, he'd needed to taste to check - so he figured these guys had rocked up a little while after the unknown cultivator beheaded the dragon.

That felt like the first bit of good news for a while. He'd been worried that it would turn out the Saxons had bought some serious dragon-slaying talent with them. That these two events seemed separate was a positive.

Bors made his way down towards the gatehouse, almost missing the two halves of a Saxon commander that had been left lying on the ground. As far as he could see, this appeared to be the only casualty, other than the dragon.

This body was sliced neatly down the middle, but there was no blood whatsoever.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He settled on his haunches and ran his hands down the inside of both the halves. He had a glamorous life, sometimes.

Utterly cauterised.

So, a flaming sword. And wielded by someone strong enough to bisect a fairly substantial enemy combatant. That vibed with his image of a powerful cultivator suppressing down the aura of a dragon and then pulling its head off like a popping a ripe plum.

But why were there no other casualties? Everything he saw pointed towards something approaching Merlin-levels of power. And he wasn't known for restraint when encountering enemy armies.

There should be bodies everywhere. Not just one neatly halved soldier.

What the fuck was going on here?

His confusion wasn't improved by the fuckton of arrows scattered halfway between this body and the gatehouse. The Saxons had opened up on someone coming out from behind the gatehouse. That much was clear, but as he drew closer to the site of that confrontation, not much else was.

Bors picked up a shattered arrow. It, and hundreds of its fellows, had hit something solid and turned to matchsticks. Again, the whole area stunk of Qi, so was it some sort of shield spell? He hadn't seen one of those in years.

"A ridiculous waste of Qi," Merlin had said when asked to use them over Uther's army. "Nothing burns through energy as quickly as protective spells. It's more efficient for me to kill the people shooting the arrows than waste Qi protecting your men. Both of those resources are replaceable, and one is much less hassle to get more of than the other."

Merlin could be a dick at times.

He followed the signposted path into the dragon's hoard and finally felt the pieces start to fall into place a bit more. The cave had been almost entirely cleared out. Rumour had it that Vortigern's dragon had been one of the more obsessive collectors of artefacts in this part of the world. That all was left were some crappy swords helped make more sense of what had happened.

The speed needed for this type of operation would have called for a team of wizards working together to cram everything possible into their soul spaces. Thinking back to what he had seen further up the hill, it seemed clear there was really only one story here that made sense.

He needed to get back to Arthur as soon as possible.

*

"A cadre of expert, treasure-hunting cultivators are sweeping through the land, exterminating dragons, Saxon war parties and stealing valuable treasures."

"Yes, my Lord."

"They suppressed the dragon's aura and pulled its head off. Then, they looted the hoard, at which stage the war party showed up. They weathered enemy fire using an insanely overpowered shield spell, chopped one single combatant in two, at which point the Saxons pissed themselves and went running back to the border."

"Yes, my Lord."

"And then, a short distance away, they stopped, for no apparent reason, to conduct some sort of unholy ritual using a boar and a local woodsman. The result of which is that they consumed both bodies and carried on their merry way towards Isca Dumnoniorum."

"That's what I found, my Lord."

"Well, that sounds like the sort of shitshow we would want Merlin to deal with, doesn't it?"

"It does, my Lord."

"And it is in no way suspicious or coincidental that such a team of cannibalistic super-wizards appear just at the moment we have no clear way to defend ourselves against them."

"It does seem rather sus, my Lord."

Arthur rubbed a hand across his face. The stories of Saxon incursions across the border were increasingly alarming. There was seemingly wholescale extermination of any Britons for the length and breadth of the border villages.

Only around Vortigern's castle was there any sign of the invasion being repelled, and it turned out whoever had managed that was a whole headache all on their own.

"Latest reports are that the Saxons are marching to Isca Dumnoniorum themselves, right?"

Bors nodded. "As far as we can make sense of things. It's what I would do if I were them."

"Okay. Two choices. We cross our fingers and hope that we have Saxon Invasion Force against Unknown Treasure Hunters Round 2 outside its walls. Maybe we get lucky, and they wipe each other out before we need to get involved. How are we feeling about that?"

"I think I'd like to think we could come up with more of a plan than 'let's see what happens,' to be honest, my Lord."

"Second choice, then, is that we gather up everyone that we think will follow us and hightail it out there to see what we can bring to proceedings."

"I do like a good hightailing."

"Agreed. So, if you could run and tell the King that's what we will be doing, that would be lovely."

"You mean the King who has expressively forbidden you to leave the castle?"

"That's the one. You might want to wait until I’m a few hours out so that he can't stop me. He will probably lose his shit over it, so best of luck."

"And you didn't want to do it in person, yourself, because?"

"Once and future king, card, dear boy."

"Fuck's sake."