Amata's envoy was a dour man, plain as porridge with a voice to match, and offering nothing that Arthur was interested in hearing. Thus far, he had insulted the wine (a fine red from Nemeth, and so not an insult to Camelot at all), and proclaimed that Blackheath was, in point of fact, an ancient Amatan holding and thus their occupation of the castle was merely the first step in reclaiming lands that were the Sarrum's by right. Never mind that Camelot had held Blackheath for the better part of three hundred years.

Arthur's fingers twitched on the arm of his chair. He fought to keep from drumming them against it, rolling his eyes, or committing any other petty offense that might derail the negotiations. 'Not that there are any real negotiations happening right now.'

". . . and so, Your Majesty, it stands to reason that, just as Nemeth has a claim to the lands of Gedref, so Amata has claims on the castle and lands of Blackheath. Claims that cannot be ignored simply because some bit of time has passed since they were stolen from us." How the envoy could speak at length without moving any part of his face above his upper lip was a mystery to Arthur.

"And three hundred years is just a small bit of time? I understand." Arthur nodded, letting his fingers drum against the chair arm twice. "By that rationale, then, we should evacuate the Five Kingdoms altogether and leave the lands to the Picts in the north and the Druids and Britons in the south- all of whom were here before we were. If three hundred years is such a short bit of time, and if the Amatan claim to Blackheath is so strong, then wouldn't their claims be that much stronger? They have, after all, been here since the beginning of time, or so they would have us believe." Arthur wished Merlin were there, if only to see that he had paid attention to his history lessons.

"To listen to the claims of tree-worshippers and men who live in caves and sacrifice goats to heathen gods would be the height of folly, Majesty," he gave Arthur a thin, oily smile. A direct insult this time, though the one the insult was meant for wasn't there. Arthur let it pass. "We are civilized men, sire. Surely we can find a civilized means of bringing this conflict to an end."

Arthur's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps your King should have thought of that before he left three dozen of my men butchered on the field before the gates. Civilized men would treat even their enemy's dead with the respect due to them."

The envoy licked his lips, "Sire, it was never-"

Percival burst into the tent with a blast of cold air, his eyes stony. He leveled a glare at the envoy before giving Arthur a cursory bow and leaning over to whisper in the King's ear. "Gwaine just returned from the old temple. He says they were attacked by men in Amatan colors and worse. Says he'll only tell the rest of it to you."

Arthur's stomach tightened. "What about Merlin and Lucan?" he murmured back to the knight.

Arthur drew in a long breath, held it to the count of three, and slowly released it. His glare never left the envoy's face as he spoke. "Leon, Elyan, escort the envoy back to the Amatan line. Make sure he gets there before I find out what has happened. I would hate for anything uncivilized to happen to him. It's customary not to harm ambassadors from other lands." The chair nearly fell over at Arthur's abrupt exit. He ignored the envoy's wide-eyed offence. Percival hurried to keep up. "Where is he, then? Where's Gwaine?"

"The healer's tent. They said he was upright when he came back, but he's been run through the wringer." Percival stumbled on a patch of ice. "No worse than some bar fights he's had. Should be back on his feet soon enough."

"But what about Merlin and Lucan?" Arthur quickened his pace. The icy air bit at his face and hands, but he ignored it, letting it cool his anger. Soon enough, he reached the healers' tent, flipping aside the door and stepping into the relative darkness.

"Arthur. . . " Gwaine began. His voice caught before he could say more. Squinting in the dim light, he found the knight sitting on the edge of a bed. Blaise knelt beside him, a needle and thread in hand and a bloody cloth on his knee. Gwaine started to rise, but the healer pushed him back down with a scowl. A red scrape marred Gwaine's cheek, and darkening bruises mottled his chest.

The attempt at respect tightened the knots in Arthur's gut. Gwaine was only respectful at the worst of times. With the well of guilt in his eyes, the knight's news surely beyond 'worst'. Arthur sat on a bed across from him. "What happened?"

"They knew we were coming." Gwaine winced as Blaise dug into his arm with the needle. "A half a dozen or so men. Most with Amata's colors, the last with different ones. A black raven on a field of red. Arthur, he was-" he broke off and looked away, searching for the right words, "He was Morgana's. And she was there with the lot of them. Appeared out of the air, right in front of Merlin while he was distracted. Took him out in a heartbeat. Then the soldiers were on us. The Amatans were of no account. Just fodder. But Morgana's man must have been like those warriors she set on us last spring, with magic and all. He was so fast. . . Lucan turned on him while I was dealing with the last two Amatans."

"Gwaine," Arthur waited until the knight looked him in the eye again, "Where is Lucan?"

He followed Gwaine's gaze to a bed down the row and the too-still figure under a dark blanket. Arthur's breath went out of him as if he had been punched hard in the gut.

"Lucan. . . " he whispered. Gruff Lucan, the weapons master, spy, and ranger. Arthur's favorite teacher, who had taught him how to swing a sword and draw a bow; who had accepted Merlin without question. Lucan, who had seemed indestructible. Now he was dead. "What happened?" Arthur whispered.

"Morgana's man, an old white-hair, magicked his way past Lucan's defenses, and. . . and ran him through. He didn't fall, though, Lucan didn't. Grabbed White-Hair's arm and plucked a dagger right out of his sheath. Jammed it home in his throat. Then he pulled the dagger out and chucked it at Morgana. A second earlier, and he would have had her, too." Gwaine pressed a hand to his eyes and brushed his hair out of his face. "She was doing something to Merlin. I couldn't see what. She stood up at just the wrong time and caught that dagger with her magic. Flipped it right back at him. Caught Lucan in the chest with it. Then she said some spell and they all vanished- her, White-Hair, the Amatans. . . and Merlin."

Arthur's fingers dug into the blanket beneath him. "Morgana. . . And she's allied with the Sarrum. How can that be? He hates sorcery. Hates it even more than my father did." He looked from Gwaine back to the bed where Lucan lay. A pit seemed to open up in his gut. Morgana was allied with the Sarrum. Morgana took Merlin. The Sarrum had Merlin. He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat at the implications of it. "He saw this," Arthur breathed. "Merlin saw something terrible was coming, but he didn't know what it was. This must have been it. And now the rules have changed."

He pushed to his feet and paced away, pausing at the mid-point between Gwaine's bed and Lucan's body. He took a long breath and straightened his shoulders. His grief and fear could come later, while he stared up into the shadows in the deep darkness before the dawn. Right now, his people needed their fearless King.

Merlin's voice whispered out of memory, 'He's trying to make you angry. Don't let him win.'

"He's already made me angry. But I'm not going to let him win." Arthur turned back to the other men. "Percival, find Kay, Lancelot, and the others. Gwaine, come when you can, but not before Blaise says you're well enough. Morgana's being here has changed everything. If we are to defeat her and the Sarrum, we need a decisive plan. We can't afford a long siege. Not now." He stalked toward the door, his mind already awhirl with nascent battle plans. He glanced over his shoulder at the knights behind him, "And spread the word to shoot every crow you see. One less spy for Morgana is one more chance we have."

Two frantic hours later the news had spread throughout the camp, and it had not been taken well. The day had taken a dark turn, but Arthur found more reason to take pride in his men, for though Morgana's presence was known, they were not afraid. They wanted vengeance for Lucan's death, and there were more than a few murmurings about Merlin's abduction. The sorcerer, it seemed, had more friends in the army than he knew about. It had brought a faint smile to Arthur's face as they gathered in his tent to discuss their plans.

". . . with the siege tunnels collapsed, Blackheath's weak point- the one we can reach, anyway, is here," Kay pointed at a spot on the map where the lagoon met the eastern wall, "There's a drain for the old sewers. It's been underwater and unused of late, but the water usually recedes a bit in winter. My father and I discussed bricking it up last summer, but once Amata showed up on our doorstep, we left it alone."

"With the enemy knocking on your door, why wouldn't you go ahead with your plans?" Leon voiced the question in everyone's minds.

"Because the drain's hardly big enough for a man to get through, and with it being underwater most of the year, trying to get through would be suicide. The only time it's open is in winter, and until now, no one had ever attacked in winter," Kay said. He marked the spot on the map with a stone chip.

"Blackheath's nearly impenetrable, but even the greatest fortress can be taken with a small force attacking from the inside. We proved that with Camelot not so long ago," Arthur forced as much confidence as he could manage into his voice, locking gazes with each of the knights in turn. "If we defeated an immortal army then, we can defeat a mortal one now." The faint light of hope sparked in their eyes. He took advantage of it, pressing on before that light went out.

"I want three of you to infiltrate the castle through that drain," Arthur said. "Insinuate yourself into the army and get yourselves into a position to man the gates. In three days, I will meet with the Sarrum. We will negotiate for a cessation of hostilities, and we'll fail. I won't allow him to stay, he will refuse to leave. At dawn on the fourth day, we'll attack. The critical point is our having someone in the gatehouse to open the south doors. Without that, we'll just be throwing ourselves at the walls for no good reason."

But whoever chooses to go must understand how dangerous it is. If you're caught, we won't be able to save you. And we've all seen what happens to the Sarrum's enemies." Arthur pushed away the imagining of Merlin's head on a spike above the gates.

"And what about Merlin?" Gwaine asked. The guilt hadn't left his eyes. It probably wouldn't for a long time.

"If you can find him and free him, then do it. But if the gates don't open on the fourth day, this is all for nothing. Will any of you go?"

"I will," Lancelot spoke up first.

"So will I." Behind the guilt, a cold fire was building in Gwaine.

Arthur regarded him for a long moment. "All the Amatan soldiers who came for you are dead, yes?" Gwaine nodded. "All right. Morgana knows all our faces, so there's no hope there. Just keep away from her. And keep your temper. More lives than one are riding on this. I need one more."

Percival and Elyan moved forward as one, but Percival was the first to speak. "I'll go."

"That's three, then. Kay, you have a day to get them familiarized with the castle's layout. You'll leave at tomorrow at dusk. Leave any trappings of Camelot behind. The fourth day, remember, at dawn. Two can open the gates while the third keeps watch on the door and keeps anyone out. Whatever you have to do to hold the gatehouse that morning, you do it. Understand?" They all nodded. "Then get to it."

They filed out, flush with purpose, save for Leon. Arthur collapsed in his chair, burying his face in his hands. "We're walking on a knife's edge with this one. So much is riding on so little."

"We've faced worse." Leon sat across from him, eyes on the map without really looking at it. "I don't want to doubt Merlin, Sire, but he has been privy to sensitive knowledge about Camelot for a long time. He knows as much about the kingdom's workings as you. What happens if- if they. . ."

"If they break him?" Arthur's voice was rough. "I draw the line here, Leon. The Sarrum will not move south of this valley, and he will not keep Blackheath. Whatever information they manage to drag out of him will do them no good."

Leon nodded. "But what about Merlin? Why take him?"

"Morgana knows us, and she knows how to hurt us." He sank against the chair, his unfocused gaze on a candle's flame. He remembered his last sight of Merlin, and the brilliant smile that had graced the sorcerer's face. "All I had to do was tell him no, he couldn't go to that temple. Tell him that it was too dangerous, that there was too much work to be done. Just one little word and this wouldn't have happened."

"Sire?"

"He's still a servant, despite the fact that he doesn't do much actual serving these days. He had to ask my permission to take a half day off. All he wanted was to observe his own holy day. I should have told him no. We're at war, after all. But he's been denied his faith for so long. I didn't have the heart to. And that's where Morgana hits us. In the heart, when we're least expecting it." Merlin had been so happy to latch on to whatever tiny bits of freedom that Arthur and circumstance allowed, like a starving man being given a crust of bread. "It's possible he's already dead, that she killed him with that first blow. Or else. . . If he were awake and able, he would be able to get away. He escaped Pynell and his dogs. Why not Blackheath?" Arthur closed his mouth to keep the rest of his descending thoughts from spilling out. A quick death was the kindest thing that could happen to Merlin in the Sarrum's clutches. His mind shrank from the other possibilities.

"We'll find him, Arthur." There was an unspoken promise in Leon's words, and he clung to it. "We'll find him, and we'll make them pay for Lucan."

'He's trying to make you angry,' Merlin's voice whispered again in memory, 'Don't let him win.'

"He won't win," Arthur made his own unspoken promise. "He won't win."