these lands by your gifts, we shall wage good knights and
withstand the King Claudas' malice, for by the grace of God, an
we have need we will send to you for your <34>succour; and if ye
have need, send for us, and we will not tarry, by the faith of
our bodies. It shall not, said Merlin, need that these two kings
come again in the way of war, but I know well King Arthur may not
be long from you, for within a year or two ye shall have great
need, and then shall he revenge you on your enemies, as ye have
done on his. For these eleven kings shall die all in a day, by
the great might and prowess of arms of two valiant knights (as it
telleth after); their names be Balin le Savage, and Balan, his
brother, that be marvellous good knights as be any living.

Now turn we to the eleven kings that returned unto a city that
hight Sorhaute, the which city was within King Uriens', and there
they refreshed them as well as they might, and made leeches
search their wounds, and sorrowed greatly for the death of their
people. With that there came a messenger and told how there was
come into their lands people that were lawless as well as
Saracens, a forty thousand, and have burnt and slain all the
people that they may come by, without mercy, and have laid siege
on the castle of Wandesborow. Alas, said the eleven kings, here
is sorrow upon sorrow, and if we had not warred against Arthur as
we have done, he would soon revenge us. As for King Leodegrance,
he loveth Arthur better than us, and as for King Rience, he hath
enough to do with Leodegrance, for he hath laid siege unto him.
So they consented together to keep all the marches of Cornwall,
of Wales, and of the North. So first, they put King Idres in the
City of Nauntes in Britain, with four thousand men of arms, to
watch both the water and the land. Also they put in the city of