If his royal blood was Arthur’s first revelation, this was his second: he was no figurehead, he was a warlord, a dux bellorum. He had only the most perfunctory training with a sword, but Arthur was a natural with a much more fearsome weapon, an army. He’d spent two years watching Merlin beat the stuffing out of the Eleven Kings, and not a second of it had been lost on him. He had the general’s knack for reading a landscape, creating mismatches and natural killing grounds. He had an instinctive feel for when to show his forces to the enemy and how far to stretch a supply line. He could chill
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