Returned from the Otherworld, Collum and his companions find themselves on a battlefield outside Camelot. King Rience has marched south with rebel forces from the Old North, and Constantine has hastily mustered an army of lordlings, farmers, and emptied prisons to meet him. The knights, refreshed from their fairy feast, recognize the situation immediately, while Sir Kay sits dazed in the grass. Dinadan identifies the rebel banners, and they find Constantine commanding effectively alongside Nimue, his stutter banished by the urgency of war.

Constantine assigns positions: Palomides to the left cavalry, Bedivere and Dinadan with Percy on the right, and Collum to the front infantry line. Collum, frightened and weaponless after losing his sword in the Otherworld, is given a borrowed blade by a gruff older soldier. The two armies face each other, neither wanting to charge first, until Camelot's archers begin sniping forward and provoke Rience's cavalry into a reckless charge that drags the entire enemy line into motion.

The battle dissolves into brutal chaos. Collum loses sight of the line, kills several men in close press, and is nearly overrun when Rience's cavalry shock-charges Camelot's left flank. He fights through panic into a battle rage, killing efficiently and rallying nearby Camelot soldiers with cries of "Camelot!" and "The Table!" Palomides's cavalry arrives to stabilize the flank, and Bedivere appears beside him as Camelot pushes forward.

Just as enemy reinforcements emerge from the woods and threaten to envelop Camelot's line, Nimue strides onto the field and unleashes devastating magic: explosions, lightning strikes, the earth swallowing horses and men, and a searing beam of light that incinerates Rience's troops. The rebel army breaks and flees. Camelot wins the battle.

Exhausted and wounded, Collum feels hollow rather than triumphant, haunted by visions of the drowned fairy city and Morgan's words. Scipio and Dinadan gallop past, laughing, riding down the fleeing stragglers.