"To arms! lords and knights, to arms! The enemy is upon us! To arms! to arms!"
On like a wave of war came the force of Arthur, Ban, and Bors. The tents were overthrown, and all the valor of the eleven kings was needed to save their army from defeat. So fiercely went the assault that by day-dawn ten thousand of their men lay dead upon the field, while Arthur's loss was but small.
By Merlin's advice, while it was yet dark the forces of Ban and Bors had been placed in ambush in the forest. Then Arthur, with his own army of twenty thousand men, set fiercely on the overwhelming force of the foe, and deeds of mighty prowess were done, men falling like leaves, and many knights of tried valor staining the earth with their blood.
Fiercely went the combat, hand to hand and blade to blade, till the field was strewn with the dead, while none could tell how the battle would end. But when Kings Ban and Bors broke from their ambush, with ten thousand fresh men, the tide of battle turned against the foe. Back they went, step by step, many of their men taking to flight, and hundreds falling in death. King Bors did marvellous deeds of arms. King Ban, whose horse was killed, fought on foot like an enraged lion, standing among dead men and horses, and felling all who came within reach of his sword. As for King Arthur, his armor was so covered with crimson stains that no man knew him, and his horse went fetlock deep in blood.
When night approached, the hostile force was driven across a little stream, the eleven warrior kings still valiantly facing the victorious foe.
Then came Merlin into the press of struggling knights, mounted on a great black horse, and cried to Arthur,—
"Wilt thou never have done? Of threescore thousand men this day thou hast left alive but fifteen thousand, and it is time to cry, Halt! I bid you withdraw, for if you continue the battle fortune will turn against you. As for these kings, you will have no trouble with them for three years to come, for more than forty thousand Saracens have landed in their country, and are burning and despoiling all before them."
This advice was taken, and the defeated kings were allowed to withdraw the remnant of their forces without further harm, while King Arthur richly rewarded his allies and their knights from the treasure found in the hostile camp.
Thus was King Arthur seated firmly on his throne. But who he was he knew not yet, for the mystery that lay over his birth Merlin had never revealed. After the battle Merlin went to his master Bleise, who dwelt in Northumberland, and told him the events of the mighty contest. These Bleise wrote down, word by word, as he did the after-events of King Arthur's reign, and the deeds of his valiant knights. And so was made the chronicle of the great achievements of arms, and the adventures of errant knights, from which this history is drawn.
Of some things that Merlin further did we must here speak. While Arthur dwelt in the castle of Bedegraine, Merlin came to him so disguised that the king knew him not. He was all befurred in black sheepskins, with a great pair of boots and a bow and arrows, and brought wild geese in his hand, as though he had been a huntsman.