Nerovens and his squire Sagaul had eaten heartily. Platters lay before them, holding only scraps. Like Arthur's kingdom, the young knight thought darkly.

The ramshackle inn boasted the toughest mutton, the leakiest thatch and the smokiest common-room Nerovens had ever witnessed.

The inn seemed to reflect its patrons. A friar and packman in one corner talked together sadly. A group of farmers at a long central table wore long faces and spoke somberly, and a travelling Irish harper among them had caught their lugubrious mood.

No one spoke to Nerovens. Perhaps it was because he had laid his sword conspicuously across the table before calling for food.

Moodily, Nerovens relaxed into his depression. The table was broken. Arthur's Round Table, the greatest fellowship of noble knights the world had ever seen, was shattered and gone. Nerovens had joined it full of bright young hope, thinking it could be renewed. Of course there was trouble; many of the best knights had perished in the search for the Grail, but mortal men came and went; the great knightly order of the Round Table was immortal as the phoenix.

Well, the phoenix was now proved a foolish legend.

None of the reasons sprang to mind explained it. Mordred's treachery? Other kings had faced treachery and revolt from their brothers or heirs, and survived it. Lancelot's love for the queen (which it seemed she had returned?). Royal affairs occurred as often, without overturning kingdoms. One might condemn the Grail quest, but that of course was blaspheme. Although – only three knights had been successful, and they had withdrawn from the world.

Nerovens smiled darkly, and tilted the flagon. That, probably, was the crux. The world. Arthur's one error had been to create a standard of noble honor too good to last in this bloody world. Many a surviving knight had returned from his quest for the Grail, jaundiced by failure, ready to lapse into old, ferocious habits. The Table had rotted from within before it broke.

And Nerovens had had the bad luck to come in as it was ending …

The tavern's front door banged open. Nerovens roused with a start.

A soldier's voice barked, "Make room, there!"

Nerovens glanced through the smoky air. Two men stumbled into the inn, bringing drizzle and a raw wind-gust with them. Their mantles carried a design of blue, brown and silver interlocking spirals, too fine for a common hedge-knight's retainers. Their mail shirts shimmered blue. One supported the other.

Behind them walked a tall woman in a sky-blue cloak, the hood of which concealed her face. A maid accompanied her, shedding water from the edge of her wolfskin mantle and glancing worriedly at their men-at-arms, who brought up the rear.

Something clicked in Nerovens' mind. Silver chalice on an azure field.

Nimue.

The Lady of the Lake.

Nerovens' face changed as he lowered his goblet. He swept the platters to the rush-strewn floor.

"Sagaul," he said, "fetch a pallet and lay it on this table – swiftly now." As his squire departed, he called out, "Bring that fellow here and rid him of that byrnie. How badly is he hurt?"

"Perhaps to death, Sir Knight."

Nerovens saw that was true enough. The men-at-arms' mail shirts were of a style he did not know. Watching closely, he saw the wounded man's companion fumble at the embossed shoulder-pieces of his armor, giving each a lift and curious twist. They came away in his hands. The mail shirt spilled in a supple glitter down his body and pooled about his feet.

Nerovens picked up the shirt and examined it. Alight with a midnight-blue shimmer and silvery flashes, it ran through his hands like flowing water. The metal was neither iron nor any kind of steel with which he was familiar.

Squire Sagaul returned with a wool-stuffed palliasse, which he threw down on the table. The wounded man lay back on it with a shudder.

Throwing off her mantle, Nimue traced a complex symbol in the air above his wounded chest, then touched his forehead with light, massaging fingertips. In a moment he was deeply asleep, all signs of pain miraculously wiped from his face. The lady washed his wound with fresh water from a flask, applied salves and sewed it closed. Her maid finished the task by wrapping his torso in bandages of whiter linen than Nerovens had ever slept between. And he was ranked as a count in France.

"Noble lady," he said, bowing while she washed her hands, "I believe that I know who you are."

"And you would be correct," she said frankly. Her features were clear-cut, her eyes a depthless indigo, with dark smudges of exhaustion beneath them. Weariness made her mouth quiver despite her noble control.

"And you," she added, "are Sir Nerovens if that is your shield which hangs outside – the green springing stag on a silver field." As an afterthought, she added, "The youngest and latest knight of the Table Round."

"Before it cracked," Nerovens said bleakly. "Aye. Sir Lancelot dubbed me. Men say, Lady, that it was you who took him into your realm of the enchanted lake when he was a mere child, to protect him from those who would murder him."

"So long ago," Nimue said. "He was my foster-child. Not until he was seventeen did he leave me."

"He would wish that I serve you the best I can. Who attacked your retinue, lady? Common bandits, or robber knights?"

"They were neither. Their leader is not even mortal. But first, let me warn these innocents of the danger that might overwhelm them if they abide here."

Turning, she raised her arms, and the smoky air became a cool, eddying blueness that blurred one's vision like water. Nimue stood in a pattern of light resembling sunlight through a prism.

"Hear me," she announced. "I am Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. Enemies pursue me, and I fear for your lives if you remain here. Pray go to your homes, or lodge elsewhere, and at once. I have not neither time nor strength for more than one warning, as I may be closely followed. My foe is not a man. He is a demon, and leads men who are devil-spawn. I beg you to leave now."

Nimue seated herself again. There was an outcry of questioning, skeptical, fearful, and curious, with a heat of anger underneath that none dared express. Nimue, exhaustion in her eyes, made no answer.

Nerovens stood noisily. "Enough, you rabble! Pardieu! The lady is wearied, and said she has not the time nor strength for but one warning. Now begone!"

"Sir Knight, we'll be soaked outside," a farmer protested.

Nerovens, with a curse, rushed the man, and knocked him sprawling with a fist. He glared about at the other patrons.

"I have not all night to argue. Depart now or face the consequences of what may appear at the door ere morning." With a scowl, he strode purposefully to where the Lady now sat. "Tell me more of this fiend. If I am to stay, it is best that I know."

"His name is Arvaidh. He wears the form of a man, and a closed helmet with a ram's horns. He cannot be hurt, it is said, except in the top of his skull, and that is mere rumour. He commands some fifty men."

Nerovens glanced at the inn's patrons as they disappeared en masse into the fine sheet of rain outside. Smart men, those.

"Are they sure to follow?"

"'Tis impossible to say. I dare hope we threw them wholly off our trail, but I cannot be sure, and the sorcery I used to confuse them cost me hard." Nimue seemed to wilt before Nerovens' eyes. He blinked when Sagaul slammed shut and bolted the inn's heavy oaken door.

Nimue reached out and seized Nerovens' arm. "I must reach France at all costs. Not for my sake. For King Arthur's."

"King Arthur's?" Nerovens frowned.

"He is not dead in Avalon. Have you heard the news that three queens took him away to a realm where he might be healed of his dreadful wound?"

Nerovens felt his heart spring like the stag on his coat-of-arms with new, urgent hope. "Bedivere told me, in fact, and he swears he was a witness, that he saw the queens take Arthur away in a black funeral barge, after he threw Excalibur into the lake at Arthur's command."

"My country is found beneath that lake," Nimue said. "I took back Excalibur, against the day that Arthur will need it again. I was one of the queens Bedivere saw. But no one who travels to that region will discover a lake there now, even if they search all the country for miles around."

Nerovens looked skeptical.

Nimue said soberly, "Darkness and chaos rides high in Britain. There are those who would find where Arthur lies and destroy his body – destroy Excalibur – destroy the Grail. All three are hidden there by the same means. Sir Nerovens, they must remain so."

"And so they shall, I swear it," Nerovens muttered. "But what has your escape to France to do with keeping the king's refuge safe?"

"Everything."

The Lady's voice rang like chiming steel, with a tremor of desperation through it. Many things were said of Nimue. Certainly she was a law unto herself. The worst thing that Nerovens had heard charged against her was that she had entrapped Merlin within a living tree – or a stone, or a tower of air, depending upon which version one heard. They all agreed that Merlin, reaching his dotage and afire with senile lust for Nimue, had tried incessantly to bring her to his bed and refused to take no for an answer. If Nimue had wearied of it and put Merlin where he could no longer pester her, then in Nerovens' view he had brought his fate upon himself.

He brusquely swept these thoughts aside. "Lady, when you began this journey, how large was your retinue? Before this fiend Arvaidh accosted you?"

"Eight strong knights. Forty men-at-arms."

Thunder of God! And now four men-at-arms remained, one of whom was miraculously recovering from a mortal blow. Nerovens rather wished he had asked this question before he had pledged his service.

"A pity Lancelot isn't here instead of repenting in a monastery," Nerovens said dryly.

"Even Lancelot is young no longer."

"Aye. But enough of this talk, now. You should sleep. I see well that you and yours are all weary. My squire and I will keep watch."

"Thank you, Sir Knight."

Nimue picked up her cloak. Nerovens at once noticed some square hard object within its misshapen fabric. Despite the fact that Nimue made a show of holding the blue cloak negligently, it clearly weighed something.

Exhausted, hunted, with more than forty brave retainers dead, Nimue still kept this object close and held it precious. It wasn't long enough to be Excalibur, Britain's great sword of kingship. Besides, Nimue had said that Excalibur lay before King Arthur and the Grail was kept in the same place. What if the thing she guarded so closely served as a key to that place? It might even be the only means of entry!

And now there was no one to guard it but himself and his squire – a true man, thanks be, and one of great prowess. Nerovens showed the Lady and her maid to the inn's most secure chamber. Listening as the inner bolt was drawn, he decided to keep watch from outside, near the stable and his war-horse. Nimue's men-at-arms would soon be sound asleep, and lie like dead men for hours, belike. Despite their odd appearance, they were normal to that extent. Nerovens expected no immediate help from that particular quarter.

Clad in full mail and a conical helmet, he kept a silent vigil, all the while fingering the haft of his axe, drawing some comfort from its touch.

Who commanded this demon called Arvaidh? Mordred, the king's traitor nephew, was dead, but Arthur's implacable sister, Morgan le Fay, lived and was powerful. If she knew Arthur's wound had not been fatal, she would use her considerable might to see him dead once and for all. A sorceress of note, she might well be able to control a lesser demon.

Lesser! Well, no earl or baron of Hell could be sent on a manhunt through the rain, surely, but even a lesser demon was more than any mortal man would willingly face.

Nerovens stretched miserably within his mail shirt. Rain hung across the country like a blanket. The gloomy afternoon wore on and deepened into night.

Sagaul interrupted Nerovens' morbid thoughts. "Better they weren't within the tavern, chevalier," he said, looking towards the long gabled building. "If a half hundred riders surround it, 'twould become a hopeless trap."

Nerovens hawked some phlegm and spat it into the liquid night. "They're weary to dropping," he answered. "'Twouldn't matter where they be surrounded, they would surely perish. No Sagaul, until they are fit to travel, we can but watch over them."

The time before midnight, dark and wet, dragged even slower than the afternoon. More than once Nerovens heard a noise that proved to be his ears playing tricks. But finally his warrior instinct made him tighten his grip on his axe.

This new sound sounded very like saddle-leather creaking, or was it some branch rubbing another, and nothing more?

The doubtful sound recurred. And a slight dull thudding like hooves wrapped in sackcloth, grew, waxing swifter, rushing through the dark, its nature undoubted now. For one frozen second he pictured every demon from his childhood nightmares; then, with a snarl, he caught his charger's mane and sprang to the saddle. His battle-axe hung ready beside him.

Riders in coats of mail or hardened leather came down with a preternatural surge on the shabby inn. Nerovens met them with a shout of "Arthur!" in his throat.

Sagaul appeared beside him, and together they charged amongst their foe. One brigand galloped at the knight, swinging a broadsword. Nerovens caught it on his shield and struck a smashing axe-blow in return. The brigand shrieked as his arm broke. Other men took his place, spurring past him, and suddenly Sagaul went down, for a reason impossible to see in the struggling dark.

Nerovens hit out fiercely with his axe, toppling one man from his saddle, then glimpsed Sagaul lurching to his feet.

Sagaul held up his hand. Nerovens caught it, helping the squire to mount behind him, and nearly falling himself in the process. Spurring for the heavy inn-door, he dropped to the ground, hammered for ingress on the oak timbers, then turned to ward of their attackers.

Sagaul stood gamely at his right flank and the wall covered their backs, but none of that made the odds any more possible.

"In God's name, open!" Nerovens bellowed. He cleaved one fellow's skull in twain, then had to boot the man in the chest to dislodge him from the blade. They die as any man, Nerovens thought grimly. But where was their fearsome leader, anyhow?

He appeared upon the thought, a powerful knight in brass mail, wearing a closed helmet decorated with gilded, curving ram's horns. He carried a beaked war-hammer and rode a chestnut horse. Nerovens moved away from the door, dodging a fearful blow, and struck with his axe at this – alleged – demon's thigh. With a whinny, the horse reared high. Nerovens' axe flashed under its belly, missing.

"Sir Nerovens!" Sagaul yelled. "Quickly!"

But Nerovens' blood was high. He swung his axe in a wide arc for a second chance, but something in Sagaul's tenor made him think of Nimue's safety before his Honour. He backed up at that thought, and the door slammed shut on a half-dozen snarling faces. Nerovens heaved a great wooden bar across the door and slammed it down into its iron brackets. Outside, the brigand leader reared his horse again, smashing its forefeet into the door so that it quivered from top to bottom.

Nimue's men-at-arms had by now gathered their wits and wrestled a long table into place against the door, then stacked it high with benches and barrels.

Nerovens pitted his weight against the table but gave up soon enough. The door was booming like a drum, and the barricade was trembling in answer.

"Even if it resists, they will enter elsewhere," Nimue said coolly. She had appeared in the smoky rushlight, and even though deathly fear showed in her eyes, she was nowhere close to panic. "Or perhaps burn the inn."

"It won't burn," Nerovens spoke above the thrumming door. "Rain has been drenching this thatch for days. The walls too. But aye, they will break in, Lady."

"Then we must leave."

"Leave?" Knightly courtesy to women, and awe for sorceresses too, had its limits. Nerovens glared at her. "Those heathens out there are thirsting for our blood and will show us no quarter, Lady. This inn is the last place we will see."

"No, Sir Knight." The Lady beckoned her maid and she came to her bearing a bronze casket enameled in blue spirals – a square shape that Nerovens knew had earlier been hidden within Nimue's cloak. Now she opened it.

Within lay a radiant silver chalice rimmed with purple gems. Its light rose to the rafters. The cup seemed filled with light, and between the silver flashes swam ripples of purple and deep-water-blue. Nerovens looked away, his eyes almost shut against the chalice's white glow, and yet the light held cool restful healing for body and soul.

Nerovens was dimly aware of quiet oaths from those others gathered in the room; was aware that some had dropped to their knees in supplication.

He said hoarsely, "The Grail."

"It is both the Grail, and the Lake," Nimue said serenely, now bathed in its aura. "It is my realm, the sweetest refuge this side of paradise for those weary of hate and evil, and it is our savior from this place, Sir Nerovens. Although I would never use it lightly, as a convenience, this is no light trouble we now face."

Nerovens listened to the tumult outside and agreed.

"If Arvaidh finds the Grail, he will destroy it," the Lady continued. "Then Arthur will surely perish."

"What must we do?" Nerovens said thickly.

"Look into the chalice. Only look into it. The wounded and weak first. Ah, here is – "

Nerovens missed the name. The injured man-at-arms came into the shimmering light, leaning on a comrade. At Nimue's command, he gazed into the cup. Nerovens did not see what happened next; he turned his back on the scene and watched with narrowed eyes the door as it vibrated to a crashing assault. Damn their souls to Hell!

Well, if Nimue spoke the truth about their leader, that was where they would surely go ...

The door began to burst from its hinges. The bar-housings loosened. Nerovens crouched behind his shield, sweating. It wasn't only that he dared not look away from the menace in front of him. Something in his soul shrank from looking around and seeing what transpired behind. This was the Grail, sacred, awesome – and what had Nimue meant when she said that the Grail was the Lake? Nerovens had always heard that it was the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper.

The barricade shivered, shattering Nerovens' thoughts of spiritual mysteries. One of the benches bracing the big table toppled over.

"We are done, here," Nerovens barked loudly.

"Come, Harth," the Lady said. Her last man-at-arms left Nerovens' side. Looking over his shoulder, the knight saw with astonishment that her entire retinue had vanished.

"We three will now go together," the Lady said in that too-calm voice, while her eyes looked at the cracking door and showed fear.

Nerovens thought, Go where? Go how? Well, there was nothing to do but place trust in Nimue for that. He fixed his gaze one last time on the door and gripped the axe-haft. Demon or not, if Arvaidh needed to wear mail, he wasn't as invulnerable as repute made him.

"Come now, Sir Knight, Squire Sagaul," Nimue said. "Join hands with me."

They went to her, sheathing their weapons. Nimue was standing before the chalice, holding her arms out. The three of them linked hands around the cup of light.

"Gaze into it," Nimue told them. "Look at nothing else, think of nothing else."

Difficult advice, with that door breaking, Nerovens thought grimly. Yet, staring into the silver chalice, he found his eyes caught and his very spirit drawn in so swiftly that he almost resisted its urgent tug.

Rippling, pulsing indigo, deep and restful ... flashes of bright silver, pure as the godhead ... Here was cleansing rest without sloth, peace of soul from a pulsing fountain of energy, intoxication without drunkenness.

Nerovens stared more closely. Those deep-blue depths seemed to increase as he looked. Was he sinking into the chalice, or was it overflowing toward him, surrounding him and his companions?

Nerovens heard, as though far away, the door as it finally gave in to its hammering. He felt that he should take his axe and spring to their defence, but Nimue's handclasp never faltered.

Nerovens heard a muffled shout of scarcely human rage. Perhaps it was not human, at that, if it came from Arvaidh's throat. Feeling giddy and light, he looked down.

There was emerald moss beneath his feet. Tall feathery plants swayed as though caught in watery currents. The air all about was a deep dusky shimmering blue. Instead of a flat world under a dome of sky that came down to meet the horizon, such as he had always known, he saw the reverse. This strange land curved gently upward in all directions like the inside of a bowl, to meet a flat sky that rippled between peacock and purple, with dazzles of molten light – very much like the surface of a lake seen from below by a swimmer.

Nerovens felt lighter, as though buoyed by water, yet he was not wet. Whatever magic held him thus did not restrict his movements any more than air.

Nimue's four lake-warriors were all nearby. Her maid greeted her in huge relief. Nimue herself stood there, and it seemed to Nerovens that even she trembled a little at their narrow escape. She held the flashing chalice between her hands.

"Where are we?" Nerovens asked thickly.

"Within the Lake, thanks be," Nimue answered. She laughed now. "And you, Sir Nerovens, are not the first to ask that! And the lake ... is within this chalice."

Nerovens felt the comforting haft of his axe. That and the presence of Sagaul were the only things that held true to him right now. "It cannot be! You are holding the chalice."

"Yes," she agreed. "It is a very great marvel, and now you see how it is that the Lake can appear anywhere – how I manifested it in France when Lancelot was young."

"Lancelot was raised here?" Nerovens looked about him.

"Raised and trained for knighthood," Nimue said, "and now his lord Arthur rests here, until his wound heals and he is needed. Come. We had better go at once to his sepulchre. That is the place Arvaidh will seek."

"Haven't we escaped him?" Sagaul plainly meant to ask casually, as though it meant little to him, but his success was incomplete.

"Not wholly," Nimue said. She pointed upward. "Above that sky, in the world we left, my Lake is there for anyone to see. Arvaidh and his fellows have only to descend into it. Some, of course, will not dare. They will desert him first." She smiled then, and Nerovens saw how easily she would have cast Merlin into durance for all time. His flesh grew chill.

"Others," she added, "will live to reach my Lord Arthur's tomb, and Arvaidh will most definitely be among them. He cannot survive within the Lake indefinitely – but long enough to fulfill his pledge to his mistress."

"Who is?" Nerovens asked bluntly. "Queen Morgan Le Fay?"

"Naturally," Nimue confirmed. "He will be under orders to shatter the chalice and destroy the Lake before it destroys him. Then the king's tomb will exist only in your world. His wound will not heal there and he will surely die."

Nerovens swallowed hard. "That will not happen, Lady." He threw up his axe and caught it. "I will cut this demon into as many pieces as Judas received in silver!"

Sagaul drew his own blade with like passion. "So swear I!"

Nimue gave commands, and one of her men-at-arms blew on a horn that sent strident echoes through the forest. They rang in the air for some time. Before they had quite faded, servants in Nimue's livery led horses into the clearing, enough for the entire party. Nimue's own mount was a milk-white mare, harnessed in purple leather, the stirrups, buckles and ornaments all of silver, a great amethyst flashing on the brow-band. For Nerovens and Sagaul there were war-horses, a brown and a roan, the saddles and bridles grass-green, the metal of the harness enameled bronze. They set out at once through the purple-blue sky.

No one spoke on the way. Urgency rode with them. It occurred to Nerovens that if the Lady could call servants so handily, she must have other men-at-arms and even knights to do her bidding, here in her own realm. Or perhaps not. Nerovens had plenty of room for doubt. At this moment, they could be riding to do battle with the demon and his disciples. If Nimue desired him to know, she would tell him. In the meantime their task was to reach this chapel quickly.

The forest grew deeper, the trees with their dark-green feathery foliage taller. To Nerovens they seemed to descend through shadowed paths, down to the Lake's misty bottom, riding with the sort of skimming lightness a man knows in dreams. Once a unicorn moved through a glade before them, like a living shadow. Far above he saw an eagle drifting.

Then they were clear of the forest. Before him, Nerovens saw the crumbling walls of an ancient, empty castle, and within the nearest breach, one structure that remained whole – the chapel. Friars in deep-blue robes kept watch before it.

"Depart, all of you," the Lady ordered. "One is coming against whom you cannot win."

"If Arvaidh is a demon, Lady, he surely cannot go near holy things or enter a chapel," Nerovens opined.

"He can in his sorcelled armor," Nimue answered, pale. "All depends on you. Come within, my knight, and see what is at stake."

Nerovens followed her into the chapel. Candles burned on the altar. Before it, shrouded on a bier, lay a majestic figure with its head bare. A terrible sword-wound had bitten deep through the skull into the brain-pan – but the wound had not mortified. Its edges were a new, fresh pink, even though it had to be months old.

Nerovens fell to his knees, struggling not to weep. It seemed to him that the kingly chest in its winding sheet rose very slightly, though that could well be a trick of his blurred vision.

Beside the king lay a shining royal sword, dragon-hilted, with letters incised on the blade. Nerovens knew what they said.

Brazen racket rose outside, intruding on the moment. A voice Nerovens had heard before cried curses. Folk shrieked and fled. Nerovens reached for his helmet, feeling a quiet, deadly resolution fiercer than anger. Nimue moved to his side and buckled the helmet down. Nerovens faced the doorway, axe and shield in hand.

Arvaidh swaggered into the chapel. Laughter rang from his brass helmet. He carried a plain red shield without any device. His surcoat hung in rags, and in his right hand he gripped an eagle's head, half a yard long, monster-huge. It hadn't been severed; that ragged neck had been torn by brute force from the parent body.

"Nimue, thou harlot!" the demon knight addressed her. "My brethren lie dead in the forest or by the malachite cliffs, and all but a few now contend with what's left of thine. But your creature still failed to stop me. See! The head of your gryphon that dared to strike at me." He flung the thing scornfully to the chapel floor. "Its claws could not pierce my mail."

"Then my blade shall," Nerovens said harshly. "Your presence here defiles and your intrusion blasphemes. Yet I'll permit you to live if you go from here at once. This is not mercy, Arvaidh; I would not do sacrilege by fighting in a holy chapel, that is all. Begone."

The demon knight laughed louder. "Come, then! Thy squire will die outside and thou in here. Whelps of the broken Round Table, I have been challenged by better men than thee."

Nerovens moved against him, axe lifted to slant back over his shoulder, shield held high for defence. The leaping green stag of his house seemed to promise new life, like the king's sleeping face and the crucifix above the altar. The blank redness of Arvaidh's shield spoke of blood spilled without sense or justice, fire that destroys.

What in Heaven's name? Nerovens became transfixed. Arvaidh's shield had become a whirlpool of billowing gases. Demon redness shone from its depths and Nerovens felt himself being sucked into its very maw.

Time stood still for those moments. Mesmerised by that other-worldly aperture, Nerovens felt himself being inexorably drawn to it, felt its hellish texture as it bit into him. He staggered under its embrace.

"Nerovens! Beware trickery!"

Nerovens collapsed, a searing pain scrambling down his left arm. Then a bright light swept the room, cleansing it of all false colour.

Nerovens rolled to one side, felt the brush of air as Arvaidh's war-hammer thundered into the floor.

"By all that's Holy, you will pay for that!" Nerovens swore. A quick glance toward Nimue told him she had collapsed under the strain of that last bit of magic.

Nerovens moved smoothly, as though Nimue's white light had rekindled his strength. Keeping his balance in armor as Lancelot and others had taught him, he struck hard with his axe. Arvaidh's head was supposed to be his one vulnerable spot. Nerovens fought as if he did not know that, deliberately aiming for the hip, the knee, the knee again, striving to make Arvaidh bring his guard down to protect these parts. The demon's beaked war-hammer came back swiftly to answer each swing of the axe, crashing down on Nerovens' shield with jolting power.

Had it not been for Arvaidh's battle-wearied condition, Nerovens knew for a fleeting second that his doom would now be met.

For a moment the hammer and the axe locked together. Nerovens pulled away, hitting downward with his shield towards the demon's shin. The gilded brass greave that protected it broke, and its buckles burst apart. The greave rattled across the floor and trailed behind Arvaidh's foot, still held by one tough leather strap.

God, Nerovens prayed, let him stumble on it, just once!

Panting through the breathing-holes in his snouted helmet, the demon attacked with doubled fury. His hammer-beak dinted the knight's shield from chief to base. Twice it reached Nerovens' mail, punching through to gore his flesh. Worse than the punctured wounds were the impacts that seemed to bruise all the way to the marrow, stealing power from his limbs. Arvaidh's cunning seemed to guard his head without fail, also.

Now the axe-head notched the red shield deeply, and stuck. Nerovens hauled hard against the demon's fearful strength, and though he stood fast, the red shield moved, leaving his mailed side open. Nerovens brought his own shield across in a smashing blow against Arvaidh's hip, striking truly home at last, hearing bone crack through mail, leather and padding.

Arvaidh howled in fury. His war-hammer came down, breaking one of Nerovens' shoulder-pieces, but the knight wrenched his axe free and struck powerfully, shearing a whole weakened corner from Arvaidh's red shield. The axe went on to split brass mail over Arvaidh's arm as well.

Nerovens seemed to feel no pain or exhaustion – the Lady's divine intervention? All he felt was the craving to destroy this hell-spawn, this thing in brass armor, and keep its foul hands from Nimue – the chalice – from Arthur in his healing trance.

Again he smashed his shield-base down against the ungreaved shin, and this time, at last, Arvaidh lowered his own shield. Not even he could give battle if his legs would no longer hold him.

The brass helmet was exposed to be hit. Nerovens swung his axe in swift desperation. The back-spike caught Arvaidh's casque just behind one of the ram's horns, gouging in between two of the plates, and Nerovens twisted hard. The entire back of the helmet came away, falling with a clatter. Its absence exposed hair like tight red wool, the natural colour, unstained by blood.

Nerovens' axe had not reached the head, it seemed – and the professional part of his mind wondered why Hell's armorers had forged that helmet to come apart in two pieces so easily. Well, the back of Arvaidh's skull was bare to further blows.

I have him now.

He trod on something solid, yet yielding, that slid greasily beneath his foot. It was the gryphon's head.

Taking advantage, Arvaidh rammed him with shoulder and shield. Nerovens tumbled backwards. As he did so, Arvaidh numbed his arm with a kick that sent his axe sliding across the floor. The demon knight raised his war-hammer with an inhuman howl of triumph.

Nerovens swept his shield-arm in a scything arc. The iron edge struck his enemy behind the ankles. Bone snapped; a tendon burst. Arvaidh grunted as his own world crashed about him.

Nerovens caught the front half of his casque in a gauntleted hand. The rear part had already gone. Now he tore away the visor and metal snout together in a surge of raging strength.

And looked into the face of a demon ram. Yellow eyes with hazel pupils glared from Arvaidh's beast-visage. A black tongue lolled, dripping. The gilded curved horns were not ornaments, they were his own, growing out of the misshapen head through a cap of tight crimson wool. Nerovens saw now why his helmet had been forged in two distinct parts – to fit around them.

Arvaidh jeered at his enemy's horror. Heaving him off, he advanced against Nerovens, shield and hammer held ready. "Enemy mine, now meet your maker!"

My Lady. The chalice. Arthur! All that I hold dear – come undone. Excalibur...

Excalibur! He had no weapon now. Unless he dared ...

Turning, he sprang to the king's bier and snatched the sword, half expecting to burn to ashes for touching it. Instead, it flashed as though energized. Excalibur dazzled like white fire in his hand.

Arvaidh hesitated briefly, but recovered. "But how well canst thou fight with it, pup!" he mocked.

His voice sounded hoarser. His face, exposed to the holiness of the chapel, looked sunken in spite of the swagger. Nerovens moved forward to meet him.

Arvaidh swung his hammer. It crashed through Nerovens' battered shield. In that moment, Nerovens struck with the sword from the lake, and Arvaidh raised his shield to intercept it.

There was not quite enough of it, and he raised it a little too slowly. Excalibur's edge came down between the curling horns, down on the boneless patch between them where only wool and skin covered brain so filled with hatred.

The demon's head split to the teeth.

He fell and died before the king's bier.

Nerovens stood, breath rasping in his throat, while the demon's blood pooled. He stared unbelievingly at the great sword that dripped in his hand.

Nimue moved slowly and placed the Grail on the altar, then came towards him.

"Sir Nerovens, you have done a mighty deed." Her voice was paper-thin. "This was one of the champions of Hell. You withstood him and slew him. You have held Excalibur and shown that you are worthy. You saved the king. You saved tomorrow's hope."

Her eyes said, And you have saved me. Sorceress, almost a goddess, she was a woman withal, and she had heard the demon's repulsive threats.

Nerovens could find nothing to say but the inane, "Now Excalibur needs cleaning. This blood befouls its majesty."

His hand began to shake.

"Yes," Nimue said wearily. "Clean it well, thrice. Once with white sand, once with fine oil, once with silk. Dedicate it on the altar. Then ... return it to the king."

Nerovens looked at Arvaidh's hideous carcass.

"Is this the end of it, now that it is dead?"

"The chalice survives. The Lake remains, a refuge against evil. Before Queen Morgan discovers it and sends another agent, the Lake will have appeared in France. But someday, at the proper time, it will return to Britain, and so will Arthur, bearing Excalibur – because of you. Sir Nerovens, I am forever indebted to you."

"No, Lady, it is I who am indebted to you ... I. To know the king lives. That his rest and healing are with you."

Maybe he had been right about Camelot. That its light had burned too bright to last. Still, it had burned and it was not quenched out yet. He had assurance that when things were darkest in the future, it would blaze again, and the king return. Oh, it might not burn long then, either, might still be too pure. But it had to be kept, had to be lit. Men could see it for a long way. There would always be some that chose to be guided by it.

A movement behind Nerovens startled him. He turned to see Sagaul walking awkwardly, dragging his left leg behind him. His mail and sword ran red. For a moment he stared speechless at Arvaidh lying in his unnatural blood, and he crossed himself.

"You slew him!"

"With some difficulty, aye," Nerovens answered. "What happened out there?"

"Some half score of his men survived with him to reach this chapel. There are none now." Sagaul sadly turned to Nimue. "Your men died as bravely as they fought."

Nimue acknowledged her loss silently.

Nerovens swayed in reaction. So many good men dead. But it was finished, then, so far as practical matters went. Finished. As for matters less mundane – he could scarcely believe he was the same man who had sheltered in a squalid inn such a short time ago, witlessly drowning in self-pity.

The legend of the Round Table would live, and not fade to mere legend. The Lady had assured him Arthur would return, and she certainly knew. Besides, Nerovens had seen him; taken Excalibur in his own hands and fought in Arthur's defence.

He wouldn't despair again.