‘I give the Dolorous Stroke,’ Columbine said under her breath as she scrambled to her feet to face the Knight of the Ice. ‘I will be drawn in the quest of two in the matter of true love. My blade cuts the mountains’ bones.’ Nemone’s champion had outsmarted her on the horse, as none of her other opponents had. He had noticed that the weight of the lance on her untrained right arm unbalanced her, and turned that to his advantage. But now she had him where she wanted. She had the Dolorous Stroke in her strong left hand, and she had proved that it could shatter his icy weapons. It was only a matter of time before she plunged the blade through his armour and into his heart.  ‘My stroke shall revenge the best friend you have, and this blade shall be his destruction,’ she whispered, as the icy knight adopted a defensive stance.’ That was fine, she could wait all day for him to make his move. She was patient.  ‘His destruction. His destruction,’ she said to herself. ‘Come on, you bastard. Come and meet your end.’

The crowd fell silent as they watched the Knight of Ice search out the Knight Invisible. It was amazing that so many people, in such a cavernous enclosure, could make so little noise. Columbine thought they could probably hear each of the Knight of the Ice’s small shuffling steps as he tried to force her into revealing her position. He could listen all day; she wasn’t going to move a muscle until the time was right.

Her opponent took a step towards her. And another. One more step and his sword arm would be in striking distance. There. That was it.

She lashed out with the Dolourous Stroke, and hit him on the upper arm. She rejoiced as the sword penetrated his frozen armour, as no other weapon had done that day. With a deep creaking noise, a crack splintered through the ice, and a huge chunk of his shoulder and arm guards fell to the dirt and melted into water. She could see the flesh of his arm, revealed like the corpse of some animal discovered whole in the snows of the north.

As she had guessed he would, he used the information she had given him about her position to strike with his own blade. She neatly parried his blow, using the Dolorous Stroke to slice his sword an inch from the hilt. The crowd groaned as they saw their favoured knight disarmed. Columbine had him.

Or at least, she thought she had him. The Knight of the Ice had been fully expecting her to slice the blade. He used her moment of exultation to roll himself inside her guard. The crowd booed as he laid hands on her, and the bout disappeared from their view. It was just the two of them now, both of them within the spell of invisibility woven into the invisible knight’s armour.

‘Oh come on,’ shouted a man in the crowd.

‘No kind of climax, this. We want to see it!’

* * *

Sir Garlon was much smaller than Balin had expected. No one had said he was so tiny, and he hadn’t seemed so when he attacked them in the forest. No matter now, Balin was within his guard. It was a grappling fight, and a small man like Garlon was no match for the Savage of the Isles.

He pitched the two of them onto the ground, so that he was on top of the Knight Invisible, and concentrated on smashing Garlon’s sharp blade out of his grasp. He caught a glimpse of the sword in the Knight Invisible’s left hand, and with a start he realised it was the Dolorous Stroke. Garlon must have stolen it from Columbine when he kidnapped her. More than that: he must have forced her to draw it for him too. It was their sword. It belonged only to their quest. How dare Garlon use his and Columbine’s blade. Lord Jesus, the tiny bastard was wearing her pigeon cloak too, pinned to his shoulder guards.

Balin slammed Garlon’s wrist against the dirt. And again. With the second blow his opponent’s hand sprang open. He released the Stroke.

‘What’s that that’s just appeared there?’ shouted a voice from the crowd.

‘I can’t see anything, man, you’re imagining things,’ was the only reply.

Balin had two choices as he saw it. Even in the heat of the fight he felt weirdly solemn, his mind slow, much as he imagined a pagan priest felt before an animal sacrifice. He could get Sir Garlon’s helm off, and pummel his face all the way to the back of his skull, or he could scramble for the Dolorous Stroke and finish it with the magical sword.

The brief pause to consider his options was his most terrible mistake. Sir Garlon sensed his indecision, and with greater strength than Balin had thought possible in such a small man, used his legs to roll the two of them backwards. He felt boots in his belly, and lost sight of the Knight Invisible as he was thrown into the dirt two feet from the Stroke, icy armour and all.

‘There’s old icy!’

‘Is he alright? Has he lost yet?’

Balin scrambled for the bone-hilted sword. His fingertips were an inch from the hilt.

A foot came down hard on his wrist. He saw the knight Invisible again, standing over him. The other man snatched up the Dolorous Stroke –

* * *

– and she brought the point of the sword down on him. She pushed it through his chest, all the way to the hilt.

She had done it. Her revenge was almost complete.

She felt the cold radiating from the icy armour, released in gusts from the deep white cracks that spread around the Stroke’s blade. She relished the sight of those cracks bleeding red. With a series of creeping jagged ripples, like cold forks of lighting, the armour began to break apart. The Knight of the Ice’s free hand fumbled at the sword embedded deep in his chest.

A huge chunk of his icy breastplate fell apart, and immediately began to melt into the dirt. She heard him gasp. She smelled the chilled blood from his chest.

She should kick his hand away from the hilt and finish the job. Take his head and hold it up for Balin to see in the afterlife. Then she could go for Lady Nemone, and it would be done.

The cracks in the icy armour reached his helm. Half of his visor fell away. She saw the face beneath, twisted not in pain but by the effort of pulling the Dolorous Stroke out of his body.

Columbine stumbled backwards, overwhelmed by the horror of what she had done.

‘Oh bloody hell,’ said a complaining voice as the Knight of Ice reappeared to the sight of the crowd. ‘Sir Garlon’s won again.’

* * *

No he bloody well hasn’t, thought Balin. He may have done for me, but he won’t survive this either. He pulled the Dolorous Stroke out of his chest, and turned the bloodied blade round in his hand. He lashed out and caught Sir Garlon’s leg. There was a flurry of dirt as the Knight Invisible toppled.

Balin heaved himself up, knowing that he was dying. He lurched forward and fell on Sir Garlon, stabbing down with the Dolorous Stroke, all of his weight on the bone hilt.

He saw the Knight Invisible as the sword made contact. It pushed through his breastplate with hardly any resistance.

Sir Garlon’s helmet had partially fallen off, revealing the neck and chin of the person beneath. There was no beard. The neck was not a man’s neck. Sir Garlon had sent a girl out to fight for him?

 The helm fell open a little further. The girl had an unreasonably wide mouth.

‘Columbine?’ Balin gasped.

* * *

The blood of the truest lovers then in Britain mixed in the dirt. The Dolorous Strokes were struck. King Evelake’s bone sword crumbled away in Columbine’s wound, as the one-armed hermit’s spell protecting the Spear of Longius was unlocked. The great underground basilica of Castle Spar-Longius gave a low rumble. Those spectators whose eyes were not fixed on the strange scene in the middle of the tilting ground, looked around for the source of the deep vibration in the rock.

* * *

Balin collapsed to his knees. It was almost impossible to breathe. Columbine’s stroke had damaged him beyond repair.

‘What do you think you’re doing, lass?’ There was blood in his throat; he could taste it, feel it warm and trickling out of his mouth.

‘Revenge,’ she croaked. ‘Lady Nemone… Ice.’

‘Not her...’ heaved Balin. ‘Garlon. Nemone was the Knight of the Ice.’

‘Both of them. Garlon killed Balan; Nemone... Lily. I killed Garlon. Revenged your brother. Now Nemone.’

Balin’s lifeblood was pouring into his marrow, he could feel it. The rest spattered the dirt.

The crowd were not paying attention to the end of the tournament.

‘What the hell?’ cried someone.

‘Big finish, this,’ nodded the elderly pedant, boyishly captivated by the spectacle of the trembling castle, even though it wasn’t strictly in the nature of the game.

Balin’s eyes were misting over. Up in the royal box he saw the face of Lady Nemone. Down by tilting ground an old crone was running towards the damned golden spear.

Columbine rolled onto her side. Blood was belching from the wound he had given her. Every beat of their hearts took them closer to death.

‘Look, Balin,’ she said. ‘See.’

Balin followed her eyes through the ring of torches to the spear. It was throbbing loudly, causing the whole basilica to shake. Its golden covering was cracking, crumbling away, revealing the simple wooden shaft below.

‘The quest of two…’ gasped Columbine. ‘Castle’s bones. Use it.’

Balin staggered to his feet, using every last shred of his strength. His icy armour had melted away completely. He was unable to stand properly. He stumbled forward, bent over his wound, trying to press his blood back into his veins.

The old crone was within the ring of torches, trying to pull the spear from the place where it had rested for centuries. It was not moving for her.

Balin staggered into the ring, and smacked the old woman in the face. She fell away, and Balin collapsed onto the shaft of the spear. Balin of the Isles, the Savage, the Knight with Two Swords, took the deepest breath of which he was still capable, and pulled the spear out of the foundation stone.

He tore free the spine of Spar-Longius, and the impossible castle, held together so long by the spear’s miraculous power, began to fall apart. There were screams of terror as huge cracks snapped through the ceiling and floor of the great basilica. A massive chunk of the roof fell like a great boulder, and flattened Sir Damas the Fratricide, King Pellam’s champion of the lower lists.

The spear was light in Balin’s hand. Its tip was covered in centuries-old blood, still as fresh and red as the day on which the soldier Longius shoved it into the side of Lord Jesus.

Balin stretched out one last time, holding the spear like a javelin. With all the strength that remained in him, he focused on his target, and hurled the spear towards the royal box.

He remained on his feet just long enough to see the spear of Longius fly through the air on the truest of curving arcs. He went to his knees as the spear penetrated the flesh of Lady Nemone of the Lake, and ran her through the heart. He fell to the earth in the ring of torches, as the life lights faded from that dread lady’s eyes.

It was done. It was over. 

* * *

Columbine crawled through the dirt, shedding the Knight Invisible’s armour. She made it to Balin’s side, and covered the two of them in her pigeon-skin cloak, the one made for her by a kind miller’s wife in the land of Vellion years before.

They lay there, the two of them, under that pigeon cloak.

The crowd tried to flee the spineless, crumbling castle. They crushed the ramps, fighting with each other for space. No king or queen, lord or lady had precedence in those moments of panic.

‘Does this mean we’re responsible?’ said Columbine, stroking Balin’s bloody cheek. There was nothing in the world but him and her. ‘Merlin told me that the person whose back the cloak found was responsible for killing for Lily and Balan. We’re the only ones who’ve worn it.’

‘Perhaps, lass, but those are a weasel’s words. Perhaps we were responsible for letting them loose, but we didn’t hunt them down.’

‘And now we’re revenged.’

‘We are, lass. I love you.’

‘I love you, my love. We’re dying, aren’t we? I wish we could stay longer.’

‘We have an eternity ahead of us, Columbine. And we get to spend eternity with them, with Balan –’

‘– And Lily.’

Balin laughed through his pain. Screams echoed around the basilica, but he could hear only Columbine’s faltering heartbeat, feel only her beside him, warm and dying in his arms. His eyes were already on the next world.

‘I can only bloody see them, welcoming us,’ he murmured.

‘They’re by a crystal river…’

‘And the sun is shining…’

‘Don’t leave me, please.’

‘I won’t. I couldn’t. Not ever.’

And so they died in each other’s arms, those two wild children of the north. They fell gently asleep under a pigeon-skin cloak.

The ruins of Castle Spar-Longius are their tomb. They lie buried deep in the wreck they made together; their love, like their revenge, complete.