And so the gates of the stone redoubt at Medbourne swung wide, and out of that black mouth rode Sir Gorboduc the Fiend, demon-got and terrible to look upon. His harness was blackened as a thing drawn out of a smith's fire and never cooled, and upon his head he bore a helm wrought in the likeness of a hound's skull; and from the nostrils of that helm there issued a slow smoke, as from a banked hearth, and within the eye-slits burned two red coals that were his eyes. Sir Cerdic looked upon him and felt his heart turn in him, and it took the whole of his courage — every part of it, and nothing left over — to set his lance and hold his ground. With him stood Ser Cwenhild and Dame Tamura; and with them Mabon, son of King Madog, who had gone a year and a day in the seeming of a white fairy horse and now put off that shape to take up arms as a man beside them.

Then Mabon fell upon the Fiend's remaining lieutenants and held them all at swords' length, that his companions might have their enemy alone. But the Fiend was stronger than any of them had reckoned. First he beat down Ser Cwenhild with such a stroke that she lay senseless in the trampled corn and knew no more of that day. Then he turned upon Sir Cerdic, and struck him likewise out of the fight, so that he lay unmoving and the field was lost to him.

So it fell that Dame Tamura stood alone against Sir Gorboduc, with no shield at her side and no help coming, and she did not give back one pace. Right hardily she fought him, and long, and alone; and at the last he struck her down as he had struck the others. Yet in that same hour Mabon had made an end of the lieutenants, and he came upon the Fiend and slew him, and the demon that dwelt in that blackened harness went out of the world for ever.

Then Mabon did a passing wondrous thing. He cast aside the shape of a man and took again the form of the fairy horse, and they laid Dame Tamura across his back; and he ran as no horse of earthly getting has ever run, over field and ford and through the failing light, unto the nearest chirurgeon in that country. All that night the leech laboured over her by candle and by prayer. But her hurts were past the craft of mortal hands, and before the cock crowed Dame Tamura passed out of this life — she who had faced the Fiend alone when both her companions lay fallen. May God assoil her.

Now the fellowship is but two, and grief rides at their stirrup. Yet the road runs on into the nighted boughs, and Sir Cerdic and Ser Cwenhild have set their faces toward Castle Sauvage, to stand before King Madog himself and learn what may be mended and what must be ended.