Arthur was starting to learn that lesson. As darkness started to fall Halig lit the torches and attached them to brackets at the front of the cage and the man who had been walking, took another and walked in front of the cart. The prince watched the proceedings and realised, they had no intention of stopping unless necessary. The man sat next to Halig had gone to sleep and would presumably wake up and take over when it was time to change shifts. They could move at a steady relentless pace, which would bring down the time it took to reach Camelot. Probably not halve it, they would still have to rest the horses on occasion, but it was possible it could take only four or five days to reach the castle. Not a good scenario.

After that Arthur spent some time, pulling and testing the chains, until the man walking had obeyed a signal from Halig and lashed out through the bars with a short whip. Arthur snarled as it snapped across his back. He spun round, glaring at the man outside the cage, who gave him a feral grin in return.

"Stop making so much noise then."

"Give him something to eat," Halig grunted, nudging the other man who jerked away. He passed the reins over to him and pulled out a package, handing it to his comrade with the whip. He pulled out some bread, and cheese and tossed them at Arthur. They landed in his lap, they were fresh from the market in town. Arthur guessed Halig had stopped to pick up supplies and had just got lucky, seeing him in the tavern.

Halig settled back, bracing himself against the bars, folding his arms and stretching his feet out, looking like he was going to settle down to rest.

"Keep your eyes peeled, his little friends will no doubt be trying to find him."

"We should have just killed them at the tavern."

"Don't be ridiculous," Halig grunted. "That would have held us up with the authorities there, and we would have had to waste time explaining ourselves. One of them might have caught on to who the little prince actually was."

Arthur felt like kicking him, but instead he started to eat. It was the most sensible thing he could do, starving on principle wouldn't help him in the long run. Halig shifted on the seat and turned to glare at Arthur.

"I presume your little sorcerer servant is with you? Your father has got quite a price on his head. We'll see if he catches up, I can take his head back with me."

"He will catch up," Arthur assured him. "And then you'll have to take on him and four knights."

That didn't sound entirely impressive, but Arthur knew it was. Halig smirked and leant towards Arthur.

"While making sure they keep you safe at the same time. I think we have leverage."

"I think they'll manage," Arthur snarled. "Merlin had no problem saving Freya from you."

"Only for her to die by your sword. How did he feel about that?"

Arthur often wondered. He knew what had happened, but Merlin had rebuffed Arthur's attempts to find out his feelings on the subject. There was still one point he could bring up.

"Merlin's still with me, isn't he?"

"Not at the moment, can't manage too well without him can you. Caught out in a tavern brawl, not very impressive for Prince Arthur of Camelot is it."

"You started the brawl on purpose, or at least your goons did."

"Perfect distraction, a few extra coins to the tavern keeper and hey presto, they started it. Earliest they will be released is in the morning. We'll have some time on them by then."

"You've still got to get to Camelot," Arthur reasoned.

"All we need to do is get you as far as the kingdom's boarder, then it will be fine."

"You still have to get me to the citadel," Arthur said. Halig grinned at him. Arthur pulled back a little as the man's foul breath hit him.

"All we need to do is find a patrol, I'm sure they would be very willing to escort us back."

"They won't let you keep me in a cage," Arthur said.

"I think I can persuade them that for security, you really should stay in there, until they can get you to your father. I'm fairly certain no one will want to take the risk in case of losing you. Then your servant and four knights should have a little more to take on."

With that Halig turned around, indicating that the conversation was over. Arthur thought it was. Halig had proved his point, and a very valid one. Camelot's boarders were always carefully patrolled, and the roads monitored. There was a good chance Halig could get the attention of some of the soldiers and knights, and there was also a very good chance they would keep him contained. They would certainly be apologetic about it, probably quite horrified, but between keeping him with them, or risk having to tell his father they had lost him, they would probably go with the cage.

Arthur contemplated the thought, calculating which gate they might go through, how many people might see him. Taken through the citadel like a common criminal, or an unfortunate druid, Arthur had seen many of them. He could understand Merlin's reasoning, even for releasing Freya. Merlin hadn't known she was a danger at the time, and then she had just been an unfortunate victim.

It was not a pleasant thought returning to Camelot, and Arthur wouldn't have believed he was capable of thinking that. He took a deep, steadying breath. They had to get to that point, he reassured himself. The others could move faster, they were on horseback, and they could even travel at night. It was something they had done a few times, with Merlin lighting the way.

But that also left Merlin drained. He would have to be up to a fight to get him out. They might have to stop to let Merlin rest, and what if they did have to wait for Gareth and Rupert to be released.

Arthur shook his head, Merlin wouldn't wait. As soon as he knew, he'd be after him. Unless he wouldn't find out until Gareth and Rupert could get out. What if they were locked up for longer than a day? Arthur's mind started to fill with increasingly panicked thoughts, and he forced himself to take another calming breath.

It was fine, he told himself, Merlin would find out, Merlin would move the heavens to try and get to him. That was the only thing Arthur needed to know.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

"We should have caught them by now!" Merlin snapped.

They pushed on as soon as it grew light, running the horses, taking the roads towards Camelot, they had stopped in a couple of the villages, asking for information. Both times the route Halig had taken had been confirmed. He was heading directly towards Camelot, with a long enough stop in one village to negotiate an exchange of horses. The villages didn't argue with the bulky bounty hunter, or his companions. They rode out with a sturdy, strong gelding, leaving the tired out pony behind.

Now they paused in the forest, while the sun moved over to the west. It was mid-afternoon, there was no way Halig could have travelled as far as they had.

"Yes," Jonas agreed. Rupert dismounted and crouched down, prodding the ground, and some of the mud in a small puddle.

"What are you doing?" Merlin snapped at him. Rupert looked up, a trace of nerves in his gaze but he answered calmly.

"Looking at the tracks, Halig's cart has wheels rimmed with metal, and they are reinforced with bolts to carry the weight of the cage. Since the ground has been quite dry recently, it's probably one of the few carts that will leave tracks. And they are distinctive."

"And?" Jonas asked.

"I can't see the tracks here, it looks like he didn't come this way."

"But he had to have done!" Merlin yelled, stress seeping into his voice. "Which other road could he have taken?"

"Merlin calm down," Jonas said. Merlin glared at him.

"How can I calm down, we're getting close to the boarder, it's going to be harder to get to Arthur if he's on Uther's territory. Halig won't make any effort to avoid the patrols."

"More than likely he'll look for one," Gareth said, ducking his head as Merlin glared at him.

"Isn't there something you can do, a search spell or anything like that?" Jonas asked Merlin.

The question jolted Merlin out of his temper. He bit his lower lip, the façade changing as he suddenly looked vulnerable and worried. His brows creased into a frown and he thought.

"I could try something with one of Arthur's possessions, and see if I can conjure something that I can send to him, so we can track him. I'm not sure though."

All of them blinked. This was the person who could summon a dragon and make their armour insubstantial and he wasn't even sure if he could search out Arthur.

"I think you probably can," Robert said. "You're so connected with Arthur you won't be able to help it once you start."

"Maybe, we need to find somewhere to try it. Perhaps I could do it while we're still moving," Merlin pondered.

Rupert turned his head and stood up. The others looked around as round the corner of the track a horse and cart lumbered along.

"On the other hand, we could try asking first," Rupert said. "Excuse me!" he waved his arm. The man on the cart didn't slow his horse, instead he loosened the reins in his left hand and put his right on the hilt of the sword by his side. There was a flicker of movement as a child scurried to the back of the cart, hiding under the cover. The man eyed them warily. He was forced to pull to a halt, since the knights were blocking the path.

"We haven't got anything of value," the man warned.

"Sorry," Merlin said. "We just wanted to ask if a cart passed you, going the other way. A bounty hunter."

The man's face hardened, and he eyed the group in front of him. Merlin winced. It wasn't going to be easy. No one would want to get involved in the situation. One look at Halig and his goons would make sure of that.

"I haven't seen anyone."

"Please, this is important," Merlin begged. He was starting to worry, he wanted to find Arthur. And then yell at him, extensively.

"I said, I haven't seen anyone," the man snarled, his grip tightening on the hilt.

"They must have gone another way," Robert said. "Let's try…"

"They might have taken the other track," a woman's voice announced.

"Valena!" the man hissed at the woman as she popped her head out from the cart. She gave him a stern look.

"I think if they were intending to rob us and ravish me, they would have done so by now," she announced. There was a giggle from the back of the cart. Valena turned her head. "Hush. And I'm fairly certain bandits don't shout out 'excuse me' either."

"Other track?" Merlin asked. "We didn't see one."

"You have to know it coming from the direction you did," Valena said. "It's a little way back but the track has over grown a bit, but it evens out later on. More rough going though, but manageable. He may have gone that way. If you head straight through the woods, you should meet the track before nightfall, and there's a small stopping place just past that."

The woman paused and peered around for a moment, trying to assess her position.

"At least I think so."

The five of them looked around at each other before the knights nodded at her and turned their horses. Merlin gave a sigh of relief and smiled at the woman.

"Thank you," he said sounding, to Valena, immensely grateful. Merlin turned and trotted the mare after the others, as they picked their way through the trees. He heard the man complaining at her.

"Honestly, Valena you should be more careful."

"Oh, don't be so untrusting, that poor little boy looked so worried."

Merlin smirked in resignation at the reference, and then spurred his horse on as he heard her add.

"I'm sure I've seen him before."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Arthur had panicked, at some point during the day, when Halig had suddenly seemed to leave the road and head off into the woods. The cart lurched over a bump and rocked violently. Arthur grabbed onto the nearby bars to steady himself as the heavy vehicle lumbered down the incline. Arthur had a vision of the whole thing just pitching over.

None of his captors seemed very concerned. The man driving held the reins tightly, steering the horse carefully. Arthur stuck his head out of the cage, the bars were wide enough to allow him to and he looked down at the ground. Much too late he spotted a tree root, and as the wheel ran over it he jerked upwards cracking his head against the bar above him. Halig lashed out with the whip he was holding. Arthur recoiled back, rubbing his head and glaring at the bounty hunter.

"Wouldn't want you to get hurt would we?" Halig said.

Arthur glared at him. "Where are we going?" He was slammed around the cage again and he was forced to grab hold of the chains to keep himself steady, until he could anchor his hands on the bars.

"A little detour, the track will even out in a while, it's less known that the other roads, since it passes over the boarder."

Halig sounded smug as he talked. Arthur looked around. He didn't know about this. He hadn't travelled through Alined's kingdom that often and he had always used the main road. Arthur had no idea about this, which meant that Merlin and the others would have no idea either; which was probably why Halig was using it.

And Arthur discovered that although Halig wanted him getting to Camelot in good condition, that didn't rule out bruising. Although the track improved, and carts obviously used it on occasion, the deep ruts were not even. The driver, after a while struggling to stay in the seat, got down and tying up the reins just led the horse along the track. Arthur still got bounced around the cage. In the end he just wrapped an arm around one of the bars, pressed himself as close as he could and tried to relax his body into the uneven rhythm.

His arm ached, his body was roughly jolted but since there was nothing very serious about it he didn't moan, he just looked around, trying to find any signs of when they passed the boarder of Camelot. It wasn't something he knew about, which meant that none of the patrols did.

"Don't you think it's a bad idea to take me this way?" Arthur asked, trying to prevent his teeth from clanking as he talked.

"Why's that?" Halig asked.

"I've never known this way into the kingdom before, when I get back, I'll have to tell my father, and the patrols will take a greater interest."

Halig smirked in amusement. "I'm sure they will."

Arthur frowned, but Halig just walked away from him, and the journey carried on. They eventually paused in a small clearing. The horse was panting and heaving, making the cart rock with each breath the poor beast took. They were going to have to stop, and Arthur watched the proceedings as the men set up, lighting torches and a fire. They were pausing for a meal and again Arthur didn't see the point of fighting that. He ate what was offered and as a water skin was passed through he took it and drank, he had been doing so every time it was offered it to him.

After taking several deep swallows his paused and as he gave a light cough he blinked. Arthur could feel himself swaying and he jumped as the container fell through his fingers and dropped into the straw. Arthur tried to pick it up, blinking slowly, grappling as the sight swam before his eyes. He jerked as a hand flashed into his vision and the water skin was removed. Arthur looked up and then slumped, banging his shoulder against the bars. His head would have connected as well, but a well placed hand protected him and he was guided down as he slumped onto the floor of the cage.

He tried to flinch and struggle, but his limbs just wouldn't co-operate. In contrast his mind was alert, running with scenarios, and wondering what the hell had been done to him. He tried to lift his hand but it seemed to weigh so much and it flopped back down into the straw. Arthur felt hands on him, turning his head and his eyes met Halig's, as they regarded him carefully.

"I do apologise Sire, but I think it's best for now, we keep you docile."