for not surrendering and preventing all this needless bloodshed, but Ban and Bors took him aside and reminded him that it's just what kings do, them and their knights, they fight valiantly. Mister 100 and the other kings were all pretty valiant knights. Ban would go so far as to say that Mister 100 and the others were better knights than any to be found on the Continent, and if only Arthur and Lot and Mister 100 and the others could mend fences then England would be an unstoppable powerhouse of knightly strength and skill at arms.
"Yeah, well, they all hate me," said Arthur.
"Try to look at it from their side," said Ban and Bors. "Y'all are enemies. If we were enemies, I'd hate you too. It's only natural."
Meanwhile over the river and through the woods, Lot and Mister 100 and the others held one more strategy session. "So that plan I had a while back for splitting our forces in half and flanking them, that didn't work," said Lot, "on account of we couldn't get it together to try it. Here's my new idea: we ride around, hit and run, shock troops with the cavalry. It worked for Arthur's men when they started this battle, going on thirty blood-soaked hours ago. Now our big trouble has been our dehorsed guys and footmen; we keep trying to rescue them and getting them new horses and it's just throwing good money after bad, manpower-wise. So I propose, a guy gets dehorsed, he's on his own. I know that sounds callous, but listen. There's plenty of brambles and thickets and woods, a dehorsed guy can run into them, circle around, ambush; let's not run in rescuing one another. It's causing more trouble than it's fixing."
"Also," said Lot, "morale among the men is pretty low, so if you see anyone fleeing, cut him down, otherwise he'll start a panic and all the men will run."
"Aw man," said Mister 100. "Has it really come to that?"
But, yeah, it had really come to that. Lot and Mister 100 and the other kings all agreed to adopt these new rules of engagement, for the incipient battle. Which was really just Day 2 of the continuing battle.
That morning Arthur, Ban and Bors mounted up with forty of their best and least-dying knights, which number included the old firm of Ulfius & Brastias, Kay and the caterers, Ector, Lionses & Phariance, and a whole pile of other dudes. They gave a big cheer and morale was high and they hefted their spears and rode off at speed to hunt down Team Lot & Mister 100.
Team Lot & Mister 100 were ready and desperate, so they were mounted up by dawn, too. They charged Arthur's knights with their own host (what remained of it) and everyone whose name has been mentioned so far got all crazy-go-nuts and killed a mob of dudes.
Ban and Bors, at one point, exchanged glances and looked sidelong at Arthur and muttered to one another. They knew, coming in, they knew that Englishmen were bloody-minded violent thugs who speak the language of slaughter, but they hadn't realized just how loony and death-crazed Arthur and his men would turn out to be.
So slow-motion pan of Arthur and his best guys finally coming right at Lot and Mister 100 and their guys, and roaring of the soldiers and the spears coming up, truly, this would be the final and climactic exchange...
And boom Merlin out of nowhere, on Shadowfax a big black horse-shaped object! Merlin shouted "everyone! The fight is over! I declare it a draw!"
"What the hell?" asked Arthur.
Merlin shook his head. "Listen, you. The best estimate for the number who died on D-Day, 6 June 1944, is between fifteen and twenty thousand total on both sides. You know how many lives you and Lot and Mister 100 have ended in the last thirty-six hours? Two to three times that. Enough is, I mean seriously, enough. If this doesn't end right now, Kung Fu Jesus will come down from heaven and blast you all with force lightning because this is literally atrocious. It is an atrocity. These are war crimes."
"Well, they started it."
"Here what you do now. You go home," said Merlin. "Congratulate your men and give them out medals and everyone can feel good about being the violent-est thugs in all of Christendom."
"No contest," interjected Ban. "You guys are totes the violent-est."
"Go home," repeated Merlin. "And don't worry about Lot or Mister 100, I'm using my crazy Merlin powers to say that if you just leave them alone for three years, they'll leave you alone for three years, and by the end of that period the situation will have changed in ways you'll find amusing and surprising. Anyway, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have been invaded by Moors, so Lot and the others will have to take their five thousand or so surviving cavalry and deal with the forty thousand angry Moors. It'll keep them busy for a while."
"Wait, what?" asked Arthur.
"I need to get going," said Merlin. "But one last thing. Take all the plunder your men have gotten from the bodies of the fallen, and turn it over to Ban and Bors. It'll go a long way towards securing their friendship in the wake of this let's-take-all-of-our-knights-out-of-France-and-Benwick-and-bring-them-to-England-and-then-they-suffer-seventy-percent-casualties debacle."
"Yeah, okay," said Arthur. "I can just pay my surviving men out of petty cash."
"That's the spirit," said Merlin. He rode off to meet up with Saruman the White Bleise, his master. Merlin related to Bleise the story of the battle, and Bleise wrote it all down, and that's how Malory knows all this, and let's just say that everything else that happens in the book. Merlin told Bleise about and Bleise wrote it down, and that's how Malory knows all this stuff, and now that it's been said let's never bring it up or think about that ever again.
In which Merlin is a jerk, and Arthur retrenches
The next time Merlin visited Arthur wasn't until months later. Arthur was chilling in Sherwood Forest, of all places, when Merlin decided to have a little fun, and dressed up like a beggar/poacher/woodsman. He tried to get in to see Arthur, but Arthur was not inclined to meet a random beggar. "Go away, we don't want any."
Merlin, still disguised, got all playful. "Give me a present! I want a present."
"What? No," said Arthur, like you would. I mean, come on. This is not a very good prank, Merlin.
"Okay," said Merlin, "if you give me a present I'll tell you about some buried treasure that's right near here."
"What?"
Merlin-as-beggar clapped his hands. "Merlin told me about how there was buried treasure. Man, Merlin is so awesome Arthur you should just always do as he advises." Then he skipped out like the malicious little imp he was.
And this point the old firm, Ulfius & Brastias, decided that fun is fun but enough is enough; they'd recognized Merlin right away and filled Arthur in.
"Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Should I be angry, or apologize, or what?" asked Arthur. No one had any good ideas.
So in the meanwhile (that phrase is a direct quote from Malory), let me tell you about this gal Lionors, who was hot and lived nearby. She showed up at Arthur's place in the forest to congratulate everyone on having survived the bloodiest day in English history, and Arthur liked the look of her and next thing you know she had an infant son who resembles Arthur. Said son eventually grew up to become Sir Borre of the Round Table, so, good for him I guess? I also guess that this is the buried treasure Merlin was talking about, this hot forest girl who became the mother of Arthur's child.
At some point shortly after after Arthur had explained that he was married to Being King, but before Lionors gave birth, Arthur conveniently had to run off, because word came in that the King of North Wales (name of Rience, explicitly not a member of Team Lot & Mister 100) had decided to go to war with the King of Cameliard (name of Leodegrance; Cameliard is a purposefully ill-defined location somewhere near North Wales; Leo wasn't a member of Team Lot & Mister 100 either). Arthur decided to go to Leodegrance's aid, because King Rience was a total jerk.
Ban and Bors checked their watches and made noises about how they really should get back to Benwick and King Claudas and all that, but Arthur talked them into coming along for one more violent nutty English adventure. I'm not sure how, but despite being down to about ten thousand men after the slaughter of the last few chapters, and after sending back all the surviving French and Benwick knig
hts back to the continent to defend Benwick from King Claudas, Arthur and Ban and Bors managed to ride out with twenty thousand men to Cameliard. There they smashed up thousands of Rience's guys and drove Rience himself off back to North Wales.
This was also when Arthur met King Leodegrance's daughter, Guenever, whom (spoiler alert!) he later married. So bad for Lionors, who exits the story never to be seen again. Arthur didn't marry Guenever immediately, though. At this point he was merely struck with infatuation for her. Which is kind of funny, because (again, spoiler alert!) this is pretty close to the last time we get any hint that Arthur's marriage to Guenever was ever anything but political and entirely aromantic.
Afterwards Ban and Bors announced they were done. "That was the last adventure for this trip, now we're really going back to deal with Claudas."
Arthur said he'd come too, since they helped him.
Ban and Bors exchanged glances and gave a polite no thank you. Arthur'd already done plenty, and besides, he had all this stuff to deal with in England. So, no, it was back to France and Benwick for them. When they said their goodbyes at the beach in Dover or Sandwich or wherever, Arthur again offered to come with, but Ban and Bors turned him down a second time. "Nah, Arthur, buddy. It's cool, but we'll have to come back sometime. This was, well, not fun exactly, but