Not long after Merlin returned to Camelot, reports came in of trouble on the border, where a particularly large and troublesome band of outlaws had taken up robbing villages.

The king rode out against them, followed by a dozen knights. Merlin, as always, rode just half a step behind his king, dark jacket standing out among the knights' billowing red cloaks.

"So, Merlin, sticking with that wild horse, are you?" Gwaine asked.

Merlin rubbed his mount's neck, shifting his weight automatically as the horse stepped over a rock. "We get along."

"Pilin sure doesn't get along with anyone else."

"Come to think of it, Merlin, when exactly did you become a decent rider?" Arthur put in.

"I ride fine!" Merlin answered defensively.

"How about that hunting trip, when you tumbled out of the saddle right at the gates, and all but landed on top of a guard?" The knights chuckled.

"That was eight years ago, and I'd never been on a horse before in my life!"

Arthur sobered. "You never told me you didn't know how to ride."

Merlin snorted. "You never asked."

Abruptly, Leon held up a hand. The group all reined in and turned to look, as a man, a young peasant, emerged from the forest a short distance in front of them.

The stranger took in the armored riders and bowed. Arthur rode closer and addressed him. "We are seeking bandits in this area. Have you seen them, or heard where they might be?"

The man shifted, pushing a rock aside with his toe. "No, m'lords, no bandits here. No trouble." He shook his head rapidly.

"Good day, then," Arthur said loudly, and gathered his reins with his right hand, facing the stranger. With his left, he gestured to the men behind him. They sat up a little straighter in the saddle and followed him a bit more closely as they moved down the road. Just ahead, the road curved, vanishing behind a hill. The knights rode around the curve carefully, but no ambush appeared. Still, Percival stared very hard at a copse of trees a short distance off. "Thought I saw something running away," he said softly.

"The bandits, afraid of our numbers, perhaps." Elyan offered.

"Or seeking reinforcements." Leon replied grimly.

Half an hour later, they came to a village, or what remained of one.

Once, it had been a thriving community of perhaps a hundred people, with a row of houses on each side of the road and a broad expanse of fields surrounding the houses. Now, everything on the south side of the road was burned up, houses reduced to blackened stone shells, and the whole village was dead silent. Even the chickens seemed to have deserted it.

Gwaine dismounted and touched one of the burned houses. "Still warm," he announced. "This happened yesterday. And if it hadn't rained so hard last night, the whole place would have burned, and maybe the fields and forest as well."

"Then they're fools as well as bandits, a forest fire could have killed all of them." Merlin said.

"It could have been an accident," Leon answered. "The confusion of the attack, a dropped torch, it happens sometimes."

"Dismount and search," Arthur announced, face hard. "Stay alert, they could come back. Seek survivors, bodies, or any clues as to who committed this crime."

The group searched up and down the road and around behind the houses, but no one was found, alive or dead. The unburned houses showed signs of damage, and the first one they looked inside had a broken chair, but the damage was not extensive.

"I think the people were all run off, or maybe taken," Elyan announced.

"I agree." Gwaine answered.

"Any way to tell which? Or where they went?" the King asked. "Tracks are always so muddled in a town, and the rain no doubt washed away half of them anyway."

Elyan dropped to a squat and began searching the ground for unusual tracks. Gwaine bent to examine the broken latch on a chicken coop, and Leon and Percival moved toward the west end of the village.

Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin saw movement at the upper window of a house, beneath the eaves, and looked at it more closely. Although the door was broken, inside the house appeared far less damaged than most of the village. The house was bigger and finer than the one he'd grown up in, but not much so. The lower floor was open, with a brick chimney built into the center of the house. A wooden table and chairs sat near the door, with the hearth facing the kitchen in back of the house.

Merlin stepped inside. The furniture was intact, and the dishes still sat on the table, laid out clean and empty, awaiting supper. A ladder in the corner led to a loft above the main floor of the house, which was no doubt where the family had slept.

Abruptly, something crashed down on him and everything went dark.


Outside, Elyan stood up. "There were warhorses here, but I can't tell which way they went."

"Warhorses?" Asked Gwaine.

"Definitely." He pointed. "Farm horses would never have shoes like these, and half of the farm horses aren't shod at all. And the feet aren't terribly big, but the tracks are very deep. A plough horse would have different feet, and nobody would be riding one through the center of the village. This horse was very fast and strong, and it carried a man in armor."

Arthur nodded and smiled behind their backs. Knighting a blacksmith had turned out well for many reasons, and this was just one of them.

"So the bandits were on horseback," Gwaine said.

"Yes, and they were better equipped than most bandits," Leon put in. He was carrying a crossbow. "One of them must have dropped this. It's excellent work, and nearly new."

Abruptly Gwaine turned. "Where's Merlin?" He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Merlin!"

The others looked up from the ground. Arthur drew his sword. "Search the village in pairs, quietly," he ordered. "Likely as not, he just tripped over a stick and knocked himself out." The King's voice was calm, but it did not sound as if he believed his own reassurances.

The knights searched the burned side of the road quickly, then looked through the intact houses. One by one, they were dismissed as empty. "He's gone, Sire," Leon said flatly. "He's nowhere in the village at all. And we still can't find any tracks leading away."

"Keep looking," Arthur ordered.

"Sire, the sun is setting, and there's no trace of him. We can't track in the darkness, the bandits could return at any time, and we need to set up camp someplace more defensible than this."

Arthur pressed his lips together. "All right. We'll camp on that hilltop three miles back, from there at least we'll see the enemy coming."

They returned to the burned-out village at dawn the next day, but, though they searched for hours, the only clue they found was a small pool of blood on the floor of one of the houses, just inside the doorway.

Percival stared at it. "This wasn't from the bandit attack, it's too fresh," he declared.

"It could be Merlin's." Gwaine agreed. "It's not enough blood for a fatal wound, but there's no trail leading away from it. I think someone attacked him, bandaged the wound, and carried him off unconscious."

"Which means it was a deliberate kidnapping." Elyan said.

"All right. Nothing's changed," said Arthur. "The person who kidnapped Merlin may or may not have been the bandits who attacked the village, either way, they will be found and brought to justice."

He straightened. "First, we'll ride on to the next relay post and order more men, including sentries in the neighboring villages. Then, we need to speak to the locals in a way that won't frighten them. Perhaps two of us should go in alone, without armor. Mount up!"

With many a backward glance, the Knights of Camelot rode out of the half-burned village.


Merlin woke in darkness and pain.

Beneath him was something hard, probably bare earth. His head ached so badly the pain stretched out through his limbs. He tried to roll onto his side, hoping to see something, but the moment he moved, white fire appeared in front of his eyes. He lay absolutely still and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the bright flashing lights to stop.

Head wound, Merlin realized. Probably very bad. Nausea rose in his chest, and he moaned softly, which only made his head hurt more. He heard something move nearby, and he jerked away in response. At that, the flashing lights started up again, and he lost the battle with his stomach.

As he retched, someone turned his head gently to the side. A voice murmured very softly, and it sounded kind. "Sleep, now," Merlin thought it said.

When Merlin woke again, his head still hurt, pain unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Carefully, trying to stay perfectly still, he opened his eyes. Grey dimness had replaced the black darkness, and he lay on a packed earth floor, looking up at a wooden ceiling. Faint light trickled between the planks, probably daylight. From where he lay, he could see three walls, also packed earth, reinforced with wooden beams, and the room smelled of any number of unpleasant things. He was in a cellar, or more likely, an underground cell.

Someone moved, off to his left. "Stay still," a voice warned him.

Merlin had no intention of disobeying. "Where are we?" he asked. His tongue seemed too thick for his mouth, but he was fairly sure the words got out.

The owner of the voice moved closer and sat down beside him. It was a young man. "A cell."

"Why?" Talking hurt. Thinking hurt, too, but Merlin needed to figure out what was happening and get out of the cell.

The man shrugged. "I don't know. I've been here three days, and every day they open up a little hatch in the ceiling and toss down some food, usually bread. Sometimes they drop a waterskin. And then yesterday, they dropped you. Ah, I'm called Gili, by the way. And you are?"

"Merlin. Pleased to meet you." Merlin laughed briefly, then shut his eyes again to try to block out the pain.

Gili's eyes popped, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. "Merlin? The Merlin? Camelot's sorcerer?"

"Yes," Merlin answered shortly. He wasn't particularly surprised that this man had recognized his name, and was far more concerned with not vomiting again.

"I have a little magic, not much though, and they caught me by surprise, but how did they catch you?" the young man asked, awed.

Merlin tried to remember. It would probably help if Gili wouldn't talk so fast. "Something about bandits?" But fighting for memory made the colors swirl in front of his eyes again, and he let it go. "My head?" That was probably important. They couldn't get out of here until Merlin could sit up without vomiting or passing out.

"Somebody bandaged it, not very neatly, but it's not bleeding anymore. Still, it looks bad."

The neat black lines from one of Gaius's books appeared in Merlin's memory as clear as day. How to treat the wound on the outside, to prevent infection. The herbs that would slow bleeding both outside and inside the skull, to keep him from dying of it and let the brain heal itself, the others that would ease the pain and settle his stomach. He'd mixed the potion many times, but none of Gaius's books told him how to treat a wound like that on himself, lying on the cold hard dirt in a dark cell without even the most basic supplies, without even clean water and bandages. Men had died from wounds like this, even with treatment. Merlin had seen it himself. Some who lived were never the same again, but some healed quickly enough.

Of course, Merlin's own book suggested one option. He whispered a spell, the simplest healing spell he knew, and waited for the surge of power.

Nothing happened. Even when he'd first learned magic years ago, and had to fight to master the more powerful ones, there was always something there, whether the spell succeeded or failed. This time, nothing at all, no sense of potential. In desperation, he picked up a small stone from the floor, tried to lift it with his mind. Nothing happened, not even a twitch.

Merlin began to breathe faster. "What's wrong?" asked Gili.

"My magic. I can't…"

Gili put a hand on his arm. "Calm down. It's just the head wound, your magic will be fine once you heal a bit more. Lie still, or you'll make yourself sick again."

Merlin's chest shook with panic, and then the cell went black.

The third time he awoke, memory came back more quickly, and with it the horror. His magic was gone, probably blocked or erased by the head wound. Merlin was a prisoner in a hole in the ground, and he didn't even know where. Until his skull healed, there would be no magic. Without magic, there was nothing he could do to treat his wound or try to escape, nothing but lie still on the floor and wait to see whether he healed or died.