"All I'm saying is that there's two ways of looking at the situation, and you are picking the single most negative interpretation."

As they were riding in single file, Bors had been monologuing to the back of Arthur's head for some time. "Could we have reached Isca Dumnoniorum faster if you hadn't wanted to spend an evening with the blonde with the long legs? For sure. No argument there. You're bang to rights on that one. We were delayed at least half a day by the time we'd rescued you and paid off her father."

They'd reached the end of the easily passable parts of the trail, and Arthur pulled on Llamrei's reigns to bring her to a halt. Bors took the opportunity to kick his horse forward so that he sat alongside the prince. One glance at his face showed that his mood had not improved.

"But this is where I think you need to look at things differently. Think about it. If it weren't for your nighttime dalliance, we'd have been behind Isca's walls when the attack happened."

"Do you think that helps, Bors?"

"It should do, yes, my Lord. Because - and take it as read that I'm speaking with all due respect, yada yada yada - in your current wallowing pit of self-recrimination, you seem to be forgetting that those walls simply aren't there anymore. Like, at all. Like, they've been blasted out of this realm of existence."

Arthur turned and met Bors' eyes. "What's your point?"

"You seem to think us being there might have made some sort of difference. What I'm telling you is that your cock is the only reason we're all still alive." Arthur didn't answer, so Bors pressed on. "They blew the place out of existence, my Lord. None of us have seen anything like it. Not since Merlin last took to the field. If we'd rocked up on schedule, we'd have been just two hundred more corpses amongst the ash."

"But at least we'd have fallen with my people!" Arthur fired back with a snarl.

"For fuck's sake, my Lord! You need to snap out of it and stop moping around. At the time, were any of us happy with the delay? Of course not. We were riding to save Isca from the Saxons! None of us signed up to sit and play dice outside a haybarn whilst you plucked some farmer's daughter. But we all saw what was left of the town, and not one of us doubts we're only alive because we were late. If you're saying you're keen to spend time wishing you'd have died alongside them rather than plotting how to hit the bastards back then, with all due respect, can you fucking give up command and let someone with a working set of balls take over?"

Bors and Arthur momentarily looked at each other before turning to regard the diminutive knight who had spoken.

"Balin. That was ... unusually blunt for you." Arthur's voice was tight.

"I know, my Lord, and I'm sorry to speak out of turn. But we've been picking our way through Saxon sentries for a while now like a maiden at her first orgy, and I think I speak for most of the boys when I say, by your leave, I'd quite like to off a few of the fuckers with extreme prejudice. You know? To relieve some tension."

Arthur turned away from the smallest of his men – four feet tall If he was an inch - and looked out into the distance. He could still see the smoke climbing from what was left of the settlement he had sworn on his honour to protect.

Isca Dumnoniorum. Gone.

How many of his and Uther's schemes had been built around having that fortress as a bulwark unto which to retreat? Nearly every plan they'd devised had the Saxons razing the borderlands as much as they liked, but then their rising tide would crash against Isca's solid walls and fade away to nothing.

That had been British military doctrine for generations.

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Well, that strategy was going to need a rework.

He still struggled to comprehend the scale of the devastation inflicted by the Saxon wizards. Every section of the stone walls had been destroyed, taking the majority of the town within with them when they . . . melted. If there had been any survivors after whatever spell had been cast, none remained by the time Arthur's warband had ridden through the smoking ruins.

He knew - of course he did - how lucky they were to have been delayed. Had they made the expected progress, Uther's kingdom would now be without both its heir and its two hundred, most storied warriors. With that single fiery blow, the war would have been over in a stroke.

Of course. It may still be if he didn't find a way to slow the pace of the Saxon invasion.

"Sir, if I may -" Bors began.

"It's fine. He hasn't said anything the rest of you aren't thinking. Sir Balin, you are absolutely right." Arthur raised his voice so that everyone around him could make out his words. "He's right, and I apologise to all of you. This isn't the time to dwell on personal failings. I'm being self-indulgent, and this isn't time for that. It isn't even the time to honour our fallen people, as much as I might wish it were. No. It is not yet time for that. And do you know why? Because it is time for something else. What is it time for, boys?"

Balin and Bors exchanged a glance. "Is it time to kill some fucking Saxons, sir?"

Arthur drew his sword. "It is absolutely time to kill some fucking Saxons."

*

It was child's play for Arthur's war band to begin isolating Saxons around the fringes of their advance. I mean, obviously it wasn't. Any child playing a jolly game of vicious guerrilla warfare needs to spend more time playing football in the garden with an appropriate adult. Instead, let us say it was a straightforward thing to achieve.

Nevertheless, however we might choose to describe it, over the next few days, there were quite a lot of fucking Saxons killed as they meandered their way inland.

In many ways, the Saxons had become victims of their own success in having such big numbers of soldiers. There were so many different war parties all mixed together that Arthur's men were able to slip in and out of sentries with ease - particularly once they'd looted a number of cooling corpses and availed themselves of some pretty snazzy disguises.

This wouldn't have been too disastrous - in the grand scheme of things, it was only a few hundred very capable warriors picking off people at the edges of a massive, advancing column - had the leadership of the Saxons been able to agree on any sort of coordinated response.

However, just as having lots of little war parties, all with their own commander, had been a tactical masterstroke in causing efficient chaos along and across the British border, it was now an administrative nightmare since all of these commanders had come together after the fall of Isca.

When everyone is in charge, no one is.

And when no one is in charge, no one can agree on how best to stop the constant predations on their numbers. Indeed, such was the level of distrust, back-biting and paranoia that had settled over the leadership of the army that four days after the destruction of Isca, the invasion had simply ground to a halt near the port of Topsham.

"Team meeting. Now." Arthur whispered as he walked past each of his men's fires in the growing gloom. Bors waited several beats, yawned, and excused himself from his new Saxon friends. "I'll be right back, lads. Need to water the daisies."

No eyes followed him to the edge of the camp - why would they? - and in moments, he and all the others who had made similar excuses were lost to the dark.

It was just a short walk into the woods until the small group of soldiers directing Operation Stab-as-many-of-the-fuckers-as-you-can-in-the-dark had reconvened.

Arthur had learned the art of codenames from Merlin.

"Any trouble?" Balin had risen in status since his motivational talk to Arthur a few days earlier.

"Nah. As best as I can tell, they've got so many spears, the higher-ups just aren't arsed about looking into all those going missing. The men on the ground are getting pretty pissed about it, though. Morale is low. But it's all just 'acceptable losses' at the moment. They're pretending its desertions, not that anyone believes it."

"So, we keep killing them. Maybe crucify a few of them. Hard to spin that as anything other than a pretty determined form of desertion. Eventually, they'll need to do something about us. They've stopped advancing, after all. That's got to mean something." Balin's words got approving nods from the other knights.

"No. The halt is not to do with us. They're just figuring out a pecking order. Once King Shit of Turd Town floats to the top, they'll be off and marching again. And it'll be different. With someone calling the shots, they'll tighten the whole thing up, and we'll start losing people." Arthur's tone cut through and stilled the others. "We've probably got one more day and night of working like this, and then we'll have to cut and run to Uther."

Bors and Arthur had discussed how this meeting would go, and it was time for him to do his part. "So how do make best use of the time we have left, my Lord?"

"Glad you asked, Sir Bors. We're going to catch ourselves a wizard."