Then the knights of King Arthur’s party immediately drew their swords and they shouted aloud, crying, “Treason! treason! A rescue! A rescue!” And the knights of Sir Mordred’s party, upon their part also drew their swords and ran so to the defence of Sir Mordred. But King Arthur heard the outcry of those knights, and upon that outcry he thought that Sir Mordred had betrayed him, wherefore he cried out in a terrible voice, “Hah! Wouldst thou betray me?” And with that he catched Sir Mordred by the throat and as he catched him thus he drew his misericordia to slay him. But Sir Mordred tore himself loose from King Arthur, and he rushed out from the tent, crying aloud, “I come! I come!” [Sidenote: _The armies rush to battle._] Then King Arthur also rushed out from the tent and he beheld his six knights at battle with the six knights of Sir Mordred, and he beheld his army and Sir Mordred’s army rushing toward them. And the beat of the hoofs of those approaching armies was like to the sound of distant thunder ever coming nearer and nearer and louder and louder. And the cloud of dust behind those armies was like the smoke of a great conflagration rising up into the sky. And in the midst of those clouds he could see the flashing and blazing of polished armor catching the sunlight and flinging it off again as those armies rode rapidly down the slopes and toward them. Thus those armies came together with great uproar and thunder and a flashing like to flaming lightning in the midst of a storm. And King Arthur ran to his horse and mounted nimbly thereon, and he spurred back to meet his army, and an esquire who rode with that army gave to him a good stout spear of ashwood. So those two armies met with a shock that might have been heard a league. In that shock of meeting one recoiled from the other by the force of the assault it had itself delivered. And many knights fell in that first assault, and most of those that fell died as they fell. For the horses pressed upon them with their hoofs and many died beneath that pressure. And after the horsemen came the yeomen afoot, and these ran hither and thither and slew many who yet lived. Then those knights who were still a-horseback cast aside their spears, for they could not longer use their spears in that narrow pass, wherefore they cast them away and drew their swords. And with their swords they hewed about them from right to left, and from left to right. And so, in a while, the ground was littered with cantles of armor and with men lying dead or dying beneath the hoofs of the horses. So that fierce battle began a little before the prick of noon, and it continued for all that afternoon, and it continued through the twilight of the evening and until the falling of the night. [Sidenote: _Sir Mordred is defeated._]