Because of the angle from which I had made my unwitting approach, it took me some time to realize at first that the slope I was ascending had an unnatural-looking edge against the sky, but as I drew closer, it became plain that there was no more land ahead of me, that I was ascending a hill that had been sheared off at some time. I ended my ascent on the edge of a cliff that dropped straight down" to a rock-strewn beach far below. The tide was out, exposing a long, narrow belt of steeply shelving sand beyond which the sea stretched empty and endless, but after the first wondering glance at the enormity of the vista, my eyes were drawn to a broad swath of hoofprints churned into the wet sand far below and disappearing into the distance to my right. A large party of horsemen had passed below this point only a short time before. Their passage was plain, but the evidence of it in the sand was chaotic, and I was too far away to discern with any certainty the direction in which they had travelled. Individual tracks flanked the main body of the passage on both sides, and I could clearly see in these where flying hooves had thrown scatterings of sand behind them as they went, but it was equally clear that these individual riders, whoever they were, had ridden hard in both directions. I could see for several miles westward, and there was nothing except the broad path dwindling into the distance. I felt instinctively that the signs led east, to my left, but my view in that direction was blocked by the swell of the next headland, and beyond that I could see the crest of another, this one set back so that its top rose above the flank of the one between us. The coastline obviously curved inland to form a bay, and as the coast receded the height of the cliffs dwindled drastically.
I cast one last glance westward, seeing nothing there but the empty shoreline, then I touched my spurs to the big black and rode downhill, angling my descent to take the straightest line to the eastern inlet.
As I regained the edge of the escarpment by the sea I saw bright colours in the far distance, three or more miles away on the beach on the far side of the sweeping bay that now came into view. A band of horsemen—I estimated about a score at first glance—milled in confusion there, almost at the water's edge. The cliff below me was still perilous, although not one-quarter as high as it had been before, and my view to the left was still obstructed by the lie of the land, but the ground was shelving rapidly downhill to my left, the terrain changing from rocky cliffs to enormous, grass-crowned dunes, and I saw that I would soon find a way down. I swung left again, this time keeping to the edge of the clifftop, and as I rode the scene below unfolded. A second party of riders, half again as large as the first and hidden from me previously, now streamed into view, from beneath the cliffs that had hidden them from me. They made their way ponderously through the yielding sand, struggling inexorably towards the first party. Uther's great red war cloak with its blazoned dragon was unmistakable at the head of this second group, even from this distance. Pursuers and pursued.
My heart in my mouth from the excitement of my discovery, I reined in briefly to consider my options. My horse was still fresh—I had not been aboard him for an hour and he had not been exerted. I could see even from where I was that Uther's horses were exhausted. He and his men were only now beginning to approach the first curve of the bay's end. Slightly more than a mile, I guessed, Separated them from their quarry across the water, but they would have to ride more than twice that far to reach them. And now I could see that the far party were fighting to drag a boat to the water's edge. It was & big, cumbersome vessel and the ebb tide had left it stranded high on the sand. They seemed to be making little headway.
Again I looked to Uther's group. Their progress, too, was painfully slow. The sand where they were now was deep and dry. I was a good mile behind them. I could descend to the beach soon, but the yielding sand would hamper me, too, whereas the ground here, above the beach, was firm. By staying high, I could make far better time, but would have further to ride to catch up. I let go the lead reins of my two extra horses and sank my spurs into the big black, keeping him on the high ground and letting him find his own way at his own speed. He was ready to run, and his great hooves devoured the distance along the clifftop. As I overhauled Uther's party and passed them on my right, my mind was working frantically, trying to determine who the people in the other group might be. From the bright colours of their clothes, I already suspected that some of them might be women, although many of the Celts I had seen, especially the Hibernian Scots, loved bright, patterned clothing. But if there were women among this group, who were they? Lot was dead, and his wife was Uther's mistress, so she would not be attempting to escape him.
I had arrived, very quickly I thought, at the point beyond which geometry negated speed. Riding further on my present path would take me further away from my target with every stride, so I swung hard to the right and my horse slithered and slid its way to the bottom of the cliff, which was now no more than a steep, sandy shelf above the beach. Now I found myself galloping between high dunes of sand that hid the activity ahead of me, but grateful that the ground was still firm enough to present no problem to my wonderful horse.
It seemed to take me an age to emerge from the dunes by the water's edge, and long before I arrived there I had heard the sound of baying voices announcing the beginnings of a fight. The deepest point of the bay now lay to my right and I was still more than a mile from the brawl ahead of me. I saw a scattering of riderless horses that told me immediately how the struggle would go. The heavy boat lay abandoned at the end of a deep score in the sand, its bows awash, but the men who had been struggling to launch it had been caught before they could either free the boat or remount to meet their attackers. Now Uther's men swirled around them, some of their horses actually in the water so that light flashed from the splashes they made and from their sweeping blades as they hacked and slashed at their quarry.
And yet the fight was far from over. The men afoot were fighting well although barely holding their own. Armed with the bravery of desperation they had formed a line of defence in front of the brightly clothed members of the group who, as I had suspected, were women, and were now huddled in and around the boat. A new core of resistance formed even as I watched, however, and it was an amazing sight to my distant eyes. Half a score of men, seeing the inevitable failure of their efforts to launch the boat, had scattered and apparently fled from the main action, but only to reform in a tight group, ranked in a close formation on the side of a low dune. Now, armed with what looked to me to be Pendragon bows, this group began pouring a concerted, lethal stream of well-aimed volleys into Uther's mounted troops, smashing them from their horses like straw mannikins.
What nonsense was this? And where were Uther's own bowmen? As these questions sprang into my mind I felt my great horse falter and check beneath me and I knew he could not continue much longer at this speed, fetlock-deep in yielding, clogging sand. And even as I leaned forward to. encourage him, everything changed in the fight in front of me.
In response to a summons from Uther, many of his men broke away from their individual struggles and reformed into a solid wall of horses that they used to smash their way through the defenders, trampling them underfoot, to reach the women in and around the boat. In moments after that each mounted man had hauled a struggling, fighting woman up in front of him, holding her close around the waist or the neck and using her as a living shield against the bowmen. As soon as the last woman—there were eight of them—had been subdued, Uther himself led the group in a concerted charge against the bowmen on the dune. I watched in disbelief, seeing all of this unfolding the way a sleeping man watches a scene of horror engulf him in a nightmare, powerless to change a detail of his dream and knowing that it will only grow worse as it progresses. My horse was barely moving now, and I was still four hundred paces from the boat, five hundred from the dune. I screamed Uther's name, feeling my voice break at the peak, but no one heard me.