The rattle of the lock woke him from uneasy dreams. Arthur rolled to his feet as the door opened to let in a crossbowman. Behind him, candle in hand, came the mercenary captain, 'The murderer.' Arthur refrained from launching himself at the man. He couldn't avenge Merlin with a crossbow bolt in his chest. "Who are you? What do you want?". He kept his voice steady, but couldn't keep the undercurrent of rage out of it.
"Your men still live. Choose one," the captain said. He sounded bored.
"I asked you a question first."
The captain raised an eyebrow, his eyes cold, almost reptilian as he regarded the prince. "Arrogant, stubborn, and rude. You're living up to your reputation, Arthur Pendragon. But I suppose it's no skin off my back to answer. Who I am, I will not say. It is said that dead men tell no tales, but I have seen the wider world and know that for a lie. Dead men can speak, and I don't intend to give them my name." The captain took another step into the room. The candle wavered crazily for a moment, throwing his eyes into deep shadow. "What I want is inconsequential. It is my employer's wishes that are key here."
Arthur kept very still. "And who is your employer?"
"A useful question at last." The captain's smile was devoid of any warmth. "Good King Odin wants your head on a spike, and I am going to bring it to him. Now. As I was saying. Your knights still live. Choose one of them."
"Why?"
"I only need one of them to carry your body back to your father, and I abhor leaving enemies alive behind me."
"Is that why you murdered my servant? Was he your enemy?" Arthur asked evenly, marveling at his own control.
"The boy in the clearing? No. He was no enemy of mine. He was a tool, nothing more. I am a practical man, and I use the tools that are put in my way. All my intelligence said you had an almost unnatural affinity for the boy." The captain's eyes roamed the length of Arthur's body, his lips twitching into a leer that vanished as soon as he locked gazes with the prince again. "'Slay his knights, and Prince Arthur will fight to the death', I'd heard. 'Slay the servant, and the mighty Arthur will lose all reason'. The tool fell into my hands, so I used it."
The memory of Merlin's eyes, wide and full of terror in his last moments, flashed through Arthur's mind. "You are a coward," he rumbled through gritted teeth.
"I am a practical man, Arthur Pendragon. Men of action often confuse practicality with cowardice. They claim that men like me have no value for life." The candlelight glinted in the captain's eyes. "But you and yours, your vaunted knights, value life no more highly than I do. You claim that your kills are made for the security of the realm, but your soul is steeped in as much blood as mine. The only difference between us is that I know what I am. A killer. You pretend to be something otherwise. But I am done with you now. If you will not choose which of your knights will live, then I will." The captain turned to go, then stopped and glanced back, silhouetted by candlight. "There is another difference between us. Tomorrow night I will still be alive, and you will be dead." He walked out, the crossbowman following, never turning his back to the prince until the door closed and cloaked the room in darkness again.
Odin… Arthur fell back against the wall and slid to the floor, burying his face in his hands. How much strife could be traced back to that foolish prince's challenge? Would this mark the end of it, or would Odin push on until Camelot lay in ruins? Uther was ill and unlikely to recover. Morgana's whereabouts were unknown. If Arthur died tomorrow, who would take the throne? Who would keep the kingdom from falling?
He curled a hand into a fist and beat at the floor, tearing open his already bloodied knuckles. All the plans he could conjure in his head were useless. If the mercenaries had the strength to overwhelm and imprison his knights, then they had the strength to kill them all. And Merlin was already dead, left for the animals in the mud of a lonely clearing.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, as though anyone could hear him in the darkness. Tears welled in his eyes for all that should not have been and everything that might have been, all of it now burning away into ashes in Arthur's imagination. All of it. Such a waste. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…."
