XII. To Kill The King

Magic yanked Merlin from a sound sleep, drew him right up to sitting in his bed.

He rubbed the heel of one hand confusedly in his eye socket, feeling the chill of autumn midnight in his fingers and his nose, and wished to pull his blanket right over his head and go back to sleep. But there was… the magic.

He stumbled down the three stairs from his room to the main chamber, surprised that Gaius was still sitting up, leaning over the large tilted drawing-table, candlelight flickering over the sketches tacked on its surface, the page the old physician concentrated on. Gaius glanced up, his quill hovering, the book he was copying from open in his other hand.

"Can't sleep?" his mentor asked.

"Something woke me," Merlin said, almost tripping on the last stair; his attention was far outside the room, searching for the traces of a magic strong enough to reach him in his sleep.

Gaius put down his quill. "What?"

"I don't know," Merlin said. An insistent curiosity was beginning to grow; he sat down on the top stair and turned back for the boots he'd left by the door. "A feeling."

"What kind of feeling?"

"Powerful magic," Merlin said, stuffing his feet inside his boots. Where was his jacket? Oh, there by the workbench where he'd slung it negligently last – no, only a few hours ago. He stopped and concentrated – the sense of magic was fading, and he could not read an evil intent behind it. Not an attack, then, but still – "Here in Camelot," he added.

"And where do you think you're going?" Gaius questioned sternly.

"To Arthur?" Merlin gave his mentor the most engaging grin he could summon, and the old man humphed as he turned back to his task.

He was halfway down the tower stairs when he remembered that Arthur would not be in his bedchamber tonight; once a week he shared the guard duties for either first or last watch. The prince would be patrolling Camelot until two hours past midnight. Merlin froze on the landing – what if the magic performed had something to do with his friend? He cursed, leaping down the second flight of steps, reminding himself not an attack, not an attack…

Merlin sprinted across the courtyard, making no attempt to disguise his departure. The guards at the drawbridge stood and crossed their halberds in preparation to demand that he halt long enough to be recognized and state his business, but a shout rose from the square beyond them. "Is that Merlin? His Highness has demanded his attendance –"

He ducked between the still-crossed weapons and continued, meeting and passing the guard that had approached with the message. "Where?" he demanded, terse from being out of breath and in a hurry.

"The blacksmith's."

It wasn't far. The streets were deserted, this time of night, and Merlin had lived in Camelot long enough to learn his way around the lower town as well as the citadel. There was a guard waiting outside the open doors of the forge, clearly more alert to any possible threat than was normal for a patrol. He called into the blacksmith's shop, "My lord? Merlin."

He skidded to take the corner into the forge, somewhat reassured that Arthur was evidently still in a position of command. There were coals still glowing on the great hearth – unusual for this time of night, he thought – and Arthur, with his back to the door, perched on a table at the other end of the room, facing the blacksmith and his wife. The pair was huddled together in shock or fear; the rest of the room seemed uncharacteristically cluttered, as if a fight had taken place there and it had not yet been put to rights.

Arthur twisted to give him a raised eyebrow. "Well, that was fast," he remarked. "Would that you followed all my orders so –"

"What happened?" Merlin demanded, crossing to the table and giving his prince a cursory once-over for any injuries.

Arthur appeared unharmed. "That," he said, untroubled by Merlin's rude interruption, "is what I hope you will be able to tell us."

"I felt it," Merlin told him, looking once again around the room. Whatever that magic had been, whatever ritual performed with whatever intent, it had been here, but now was gone. Arthur straightened from the table, jerked his head in invitation for Merlin to follow him a few private steps away from the blacksmith and his wife.

"A little over a quarter of an hour ago," the prince told him in a lowered voice, "the blacksmith's wife came for the patrol. Someone had broken into the forge, she said. Evidently her husband tried to face the intruder himself." They both looked back at the couple, the blacksmith gazing around his shop bemused, his wife hovering in tearful sympathy. Merlin began to think in terms of what medical care might be required for the man. "We interrupted – something," Arthur continued grimly. "Tauren."

Merlin's attention was caught back to his friend. "Tauren?" he repeated incredulously. "You mean the –"

"The mercenary?" Arthur said. "The leader of a band of renegade sorcerers-for-hire? He escaped – again, my father's going to be furious."

"But what's he doing inside Camelot's walls?" Merlin said blankly.

Arthur made a thoughtful noise. "And what's he doing in a blacksmith's forge?"

Merlin shifted so that his back was to the smith. "He couldn't tell you?" he asked, lowering his voice.

Arthur shook his head. "That's why I wanted you here. Magic, he said, but nothing more specific."

Merlin returned to the blacksmith's side. "Are you all right?" he asked the man. "Are you hurt?"

"No," the blacksmith answered, meeting Merlin's gaze round-eyed. He'd spoken to him half a dozen times in passing, and had gathered that though the smith was strong and skilled, he was also guileless as a child.

"Can you tell me more about the sorcerer who came here?" Merlin asked, and when the man began to shake his head slowly with a look of confusion, he clarified, "Maybe you overheard a word of the spell, or maybe he used some external aid to his spell, an artifact or something? Was there any result to his magic that you noticed? Or did he leave anything behind?"

The man thought so long Merlin wondered if he might not have to repeat himself more slowly. "There was a stone," the smith said finally. "A stone he carried in a pouch. He was standing over the forge when I came in, mumbling about a furious gelding, and just before His Highness and the guard came in, he cooled something in the barrel there. He was just reaching it out when the door burst open. I don't think he left anything, he just turned and ran."

"The stone," Merlin said. "What did it look like?"

The smith shrugged. "It was orange?" he said.

Arthur – who'd crossed to check the cooling barrel - snorted, but Merlin smiled encouragement. "Would you allow me to do something?" he asked. "Just a bit of magic, it won't hurt at all, just allow me to see your memory of the stone?"

The smith glanced at his wife, who was watching Merlin; she looked back at her husband and nodded. Merlin reached out, slowly so as not to worry the man, held his hand vertically before his face, fingers only slightly outstretched. Then he closed his own eyes and concentrated, gently, on the visual images that had entered the man's memory through his eyes, the magic very similar to that which allowed him to see further physically.

He glimpsed himself for a brief disorienting moment, Arthur entering the forge in a brave rush of readied weaponry, the sorcerer-mercenary at the hearth, his back turned, his hand to the side cupping the orange stone. That instant's focus on the object Merlin gathered for himself, imprinting on his own memory, and released the contact with a breathless gasp.

The couple was watching him with wary fascination. "Did you get it?" Arthur said, his tone just short of condescending.

Merlin smiled again at the blacksmith. "Thank you," he told him. His knees creaked as he straightened, and Arthur's hand around his upper arm helped steady him as the prince hauled him out of the forge.

"Well?" Arthur said. "Please tell me you found something of actual use among all that drivel. Furious gelding," he scoffed.

"I won't know until I talk to Gaius," Merlin said.

…..*…..

Arthur pushed through the physician's door fully expecting Gaius and Merlin, but was surprised to see the back of a green silk gown and his sister's waist-length waves of black hair also bent over the drawing-table at the back of the room.

"Arthur," Merlin greeted him without turning, but both Gaius and Morgana straightened and faced him.

"Well?" he said, crossing the room to look over the shoulder of the young man seated on the stool. "Father wants me out searching door to door." He repeated Uther's words, "He slept somewhere; he fed somewhere – find out who helped him."

Merlin moved his hand – no quill in sight – away from a ragged section of parchment tacked to the slanted surface, revealing a intricately-detailed and colored depiction of an oblong stone. The drawing somehow managed to convey a crystalline quality of the object, as well as the metallic gleam of its setting – a six-pronged clasp of silver, fashioned into delicate claws, three at each end of the oval. "You never," he said, with a teasing punch of his friend's shoulder, "told me you were an artist."

Morgana huffed and smacked Arthur's shoulder; Merlin gave him a quick grin and swiveled on the stool to watch Gaius cross to the open book on the desk. "Petrology," the old physician explained succinctly, turning pages without seating himself. "In this case, a compendium of stones, crystals, and gems known to the records of sorcery." He paused, then lifted the book, pacing back to them. On the right side, a small dingy copy of the rendering Merlin had done.

Each of them leaned forward – Morgana to trail her fingers over the drawing, Arthur to try to make out the words. He couldn't read the runes, but Merlin translated, "The Mage Stone."

"Wonder of the ancients," Gaius pronounced, turning the book around to gaze down at the pages. Merlin stood and circled to read over his shoulder, pinching his lower lip thoughtfully. "Lost for a thousand years or more."

"Where's it been, and how'd he find it?" Merlin breathed.

"What does it do?" Arthur said pointedly. The younger sorcerer met his eyes over Gaius' shoulder and gave him a sheepish grin.

"Theoretically, it could give the bearer the power of transformation," Gaius said, still reading.

Transformation. Arthur rolled his eyes – how very uselessly vague.

Merlin said suddenly, "Arthur – in a forge – furious gelding. Ye gods… Gaius, he must've said Ferian aet gyldan…"

The old man looked up, startled. Morgana said, "What?"

"Lead to gold," Merlin answered, stunned. "The power of alchemy."

"But alchemy's impossible, isn't it?" Arthur said. Hadn't Merlin explained to him before that though the illusion of change was fairly simple, the nature of a thing could not be permanently altered?

"It has never been publically proven to succeed," Gaius said, reluctant as he often was to make a definite statement.

Arthur growled a curse. "I don't believe for a minute that Tauren intends to manufacture a private fortune and retire," he said. "He has the stone – and probably a chunk of gold fished from that cooling barrel – He knows it works. If you could have seen his face, the moment we broke through that door… He's surely up to something bigger. "

And the minute he told his father this news, the search for any trace of the rogue sorcerer would intensify dangerously. And remain as fruitless as it ever was. Sorcerers of Tauren's ability and cunning, his criminal ingenuity and planning, were nearly impossible to catch.

"What can we do?" Merlin said. Arthur paced to the door, rubbing his forehead. They'd been over the question of the younger man's magic aiding the search, but unfortunately, it required Merlin to be within a dozen paces of the intended target for any of the options – spells, potions, whatever – to allow them to successfully track a fugitive using magic himself to escape. He turned and paced back; any clue-gathering of the more esoteric type – scrying, say – required the caster to have a level of familiarity with the subject.

Arthur stopped, staring at the incredible, intricate depiction of the Mage Stone tacked to Gaius' slanted drawing table. Which Merlin had created from an image remembered by the blacksmith.

He opened his mouth and said, even as the hinted possibility grew and took form in his mind. "I have an idea."

…..*…..

The Darkling Wood at sundown. Merlin trod the paths soundlessly, a ghost of a shadow though he'd declined a druid-like cloak. Declined also Arthur's suggestion of a weapon one sorcerer could wield against another – one of the two sidhe staffs kept under lock and key and magic in the vaults below the citadel. He wanted and needed to be as innocuous as possible, if this was to work.

It was why he'd come alone, as well. That chafed Arthur, as had his rejection of the idea of arming himself any more than magic already did for him. Tauren had set the time and place of their meeting, which meant he'd likely be watching Merlin as long as possible, to be sure Merlin had indeed come alone – a pair of guards or the crown prince discovered trailing along was likely to stop this plan before it had a chance to begin.

"Stop right there." A voice sounded on his left, though no one was visible.

Merlin obediently halted, and waited. His senses, attuned to the sounds of a forest from an early age, and honed hunting with Arthur, told him there were three of them. One, he thought, had been following for some time, the other two simply waiting for him to reach their position before stepping out.

"He's alone," the one behind him reported.

He stood still and didn't say anything, simply watching them. One had long greasy brown hair, one had black hair tied with twine at the back of his neck, and one a shaved bristle of a lighter shade, but they were all the same. Furtive and greedy-eyed, bold in numbers. The magic he felt from them in close proximity, like reflected shadow, was edgy and selfish, small and dangerous and unpredictable.

The one on his left, with the queue and a scar across his nose, said to him, "You the one tried to scry Tauren?"

He'd taken the image from Arthur's mind the way he'd seen the Mage Stone in the blacksmith's memory, though his first attempt to scry the sorcerer-mercenary hadn't revealed much before Tauren was alerted and shielded himself from Merlin's magic. But with the renegade sorcerer's aspect now known to him, he'd been able to send a message – Morgana's contribution to this plan.

Merlin nodded. "He's not here?" he asked. That meant the plan changed – without Tauren present, he would not be able to surreptitiously lay a spell on some object about the man that would allow him to be followed and located at Arthur's convenience.

The one behind Merlin snickered through strands of his greasy hair. "Why," he drawled sarcastically, "should he trust you? You live at the palace, in the lap of luxury…"

"If you think that," Merlin said over his shoulder, "than you do not know Uther Pendragon at all. I'm the apprentice of a man the king provides with room and board, the supplies needed to serve the royal purpose. I haven't two coins to rub together, and it's use your magic for this and can't your magic do that, and do I hear one word of thanks?" He let his voice get bitter. He was unhappy with this part of the plan, but showing that attitude could only help his believability. He hated to be speaking in innuendo and half-truths, and hoped they wouldn't ask him pointed questions about his prince. Lying would come far harder to his tongue, then.

"So," the leader on the left said. "You asked to meet with us. What have you got to say?"

Merlin met his eyes. "I know what he has," he said. "I know what he can do with it. I want a share of the gold."

The man laughed in his face. "The gold is not to line our own pockets with, boy," he said. "It is a means to an end. With enough wealth an army can be raised to overwhelm the knights of Camelot. And without its king and its army, the land is ripe for the picking." He cupped his hand, mimed plucking fruit from a tree.

"That doesn't make sense," Merlin said. "If you already have the ability to create a fortune, why turn on the Pendragons?"

The man shrugged. "It's tiresome being an outlaw," he said. "Tauren wants more than wealth – he wants a title and an estate, time and opportunity to study –" he exchanged a grin with the short-haired man on his left – "other aspects of magic."

Merlin felt the back of his neck prickle; they were being very free with their information. Which meant either it was false – he didn't think so, somehow – or they didn't intend on allowing him the opportunity to pass it along.

The short-haired man rubbed a dirty hand along the stubble on his jaw, eyeing him. "You want a share?" he said. "What are you offering, your silence? Because we can ensure that without spending a single –"

Merlin held up one hand, feeling his magic rush to defense. The short-haired man took half a step back, the leader laid his hand to the hilt of the sword at his side. And Merlin moved two paces to the side, to see the greasy-haired man that had been behind him tugging at the knife that had been frozen in midair, inches short of Merlin's back. He met Merlin's eyes and let go the hilt of the weapon; Merlin reached out to pluck it from the air.

The leader exchanged a look with his short-haired fellow. "Perhaps we underestimated you," he said cautiously. His glance dropped down to the knife in Merlin's hand. "What are you offering?" This time the tone of the question was serious.

"I'd like to make my terms with Tauren," Merlin tried.

The leader smirked. "Not so fast, boy. Not without some proof that your switch of loyalty is genuine."

Which led them, Merlin noted with approval if not with pleasure, right into Arthur's plan. "What do you want me to do?"

The three of them held some unspoken conference; Merlin guessed that they had not expected this meeting to have progressed thus far. The leader finally said, with the air of a man determined to start the bargaining as high as possible, "We need access to the king – you help get Tauren into Camelot, and out again when he's assassinated Uther, and you'll have your gold."

Merlin shook his head. "I can't," he said. "Not that. Getting past guards is one thing, but the king is no fool and doesn't trust me anyway. It's too risky. But," he paused, pretending to think, "I can get you the prince. If his heir is killed, Uther will be broken, and taking Camelot will be easy."

"I've heard," the leader said thoughtfully, "that you and the prince have an – understanding. How do we know you're not setting us up? I think you need to give us the princess as well. Uther childless will be an easier target yet."

Merlin considered. Morgana had volunteered for this eventuality, though Arthur would not be pleased with him agreeing to it. However, enchanting some object to be able to follow one of these three men would simply not be sufficient. There was no guarantee that any one of them would be with Tauren at any given time, and if one were captured, the transitory nature of the life of the mercenaries would immediately render any information he might give them useless.

"Fine," he said finally. "The day after tomorrow, Lady Morgana is journeying to her mother's estate in the south. I know that Arthur is planning on accompanying them for half a day's distance. The princess dislikes a heavy escort; there will be only two or three guards with them."

"And you?" the greasy-haired man challenged.

"I'm to remain in Camelot," Merlin said, and he thought of the leech-tank to make his lips twist with the right expression of disgust. "Chores."

"No pay until after the Pendragons are dead," the leader warned.

Merlin nodded. "I'll send another raven, and Tauren can reply with time and place for another meeting." He flipped the knife in his hand and gave it a throw, to stick quivering in a nearby stump.

…..*…..

The day was raw, dawn passed without any indication. The clouds were low and gray, blocking any color or warmth of sunlight, the wind cutting and persistent. It was not a day Arthur would have chosen to ride out, even to accompany his sister on her journey south. It was not a day Morgana would have chosen to begin her journey south.

She rode at his side, the hood of her dark green cloak up over her head, held in place by one hand at her chin and throat.

"You see," he said to her conversationally, "we could have put another on your horse, in that cloak, and they would never have known the difference."

Morgana glared green fire at him. She'd insisted again that morning on her inclusion in the plan – not to allow anyone else to risk themselves by posing as the princess on a ride toward an expected ambush – arguing that such a ruse would throw their quarry off. She did have rather distinctive looks – but that was mostly negated by the need to keep covered against the cold.

"If I'd told Father about our plan, he wouldn't have let you risk riding out, either," she said.

"Not without twenty knights as guard, at least," Arthur agreed. Which would have made the whole venture useless; Tauren and his sorcerers probably wouldn't have risked attacking even the prince and princess with that kind of protection.

He glanced back at the red-cloaked guard behind them, his expression hidden by the nose-guard on his conical helmet, but his discomfort visible in the hunch of his shoulders against the edge of the wind. The one who rode ahead of them was similarly lacking in knightly posture. Ah, well, the illusion of inattention would probably draw the renegades to attack.

Morgana drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "I don't know about you," she said, "but I'm about to get down and start running with Merlin. I bet he's warm, anyway."

Arthur stopped another instinctive backward glance. Even afoot and off the path, he believed the young sorcerer was well able to keep up; they set a slow enough pace, anyway. Not that he'd be able to see Merlin anyway if the young man raised a druid did not want to be seen – and their plan rather hinged on that – but looking for him might give away the fact of his presence to anyone else watching.

"You think he'll forgive me?" he said to his half-sister in a mostly-joking tone.

He and Merlin hardly ever argued, but they had argued over this. Merlin wanted to be disguised as one of the escorts and ride along with them, able to guard them with his magic and stay within ten paces at all times. Arthur, however, was highly uncomfortable with the thought of his young friend facing three or four other sorcerers – and Tauren evidently strong and skilled enough to accomplish the magic of alchemy – unarmed. Gaius and Morgana had to interrupt the secondary argument that threatened at Arthur's use of that word.

He didn't doubt Merlin's ability to employ magic successfully against Kanen's forty men, or the handful of bandits they occasionally ran into. But another magic-user was something else entirely – and Merlin would be outnumbered. Even the best warrior might fall to an inexperienced attacker if forced to divide his attention in battle. Arthur had insisted that Merlin "borrow" one of the staffs left on the shore of the lake after Aulfric and Sophia's disappearance, kept safely locked in the vaults below Camelot's citadel, and Merlin had finally submitted. However, the staff could not be disguised as part of a knight's or guard's ordinary equipment, which then required the younger man to follow the party unseen.

"Arthur," Morgana answered, lightly scolding, "he already has." The hood covered her black hair tipped slightly sideways. "Although, if your plan doesn't work, he won't let you hear the end of it."

"If my plan doesn't work," Arthur said, striving to keep his tone light and not allow any grim note to enter, "Merlin's complaint will be the least of our worries."

They rode for a while in silence. Arthur was glad for the gloves which covered his hands, and the padded jacket under his chainmail, and hoped the moisture that threatened would remain above them in the clouds.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" Morgana asked. "I mean to say, he can't exactly practice sparring with another sorcerer the way you can with your training."

"He'll be all right," Arthur said, but didn't bother trying to explain further. He only half understood the things Merlin and Gaius discussed of Merlin's second nature, but knew that his friend's instincts were quick and accurate, his power uncanny. He glanced over at his sister. "It's a bit different than Ealdor, right?" he said. "Being the one to ride into an ambush, and knowing it?"

Morgana shivered and rubbed her cheeks gently with her gloved right hand, the left being occupied with the reins of her mount. "Do you think we can get them to quit waiting, and just attack?" she added, her spirits only sharpened by the weather. "We've been riding for an hour already."

Arthur made a noncommittal noise. The southern road rose over the bare-topped moors for several leagues; there was little cover apart from the bend and ripple of the land itself, the trees single and massive and far from the track. Even with Merlin keeping them mostly in view, he didn't think they had to worry about arrows. This wasn't the land for that tactic, and they faced sorcerers. But after an hour, he was starting to agree with Morgana. If Tauren's band intended to follow through on Merlin's information at all, they were either waiting for an opportunity, or for the party to grow weary and negligent.

"Well," he said, reining in. Morgana copied him, and the guard in the rear hollered to his fellow at the head. He grinned down at his half-sister. "Perhaps we can make ourselves a bit more tempting, hm?"

…..*…..

Merlin decided that he hated running.

The southern road, usually free of roving bandits for the simple reason that the area lacked cover, was also for that reason a perfect place to stage an ambush. It wouldn't be expected.

But if he wanted to stay within view of the two Pendragons, he couldn't slow to the walk of the horses. He had to dash and duck, keeping below the curve of the land – up to his knees in the mud and muck and freezing-cold water of the streams which criss-crossed the land – waiting to catch his breath and search out the next section of his unseen route. And watch Arthur and Morgana ride sedately to the edge of his sight, chatting comfortably, while he prepared to jog another mile at half-crouch.

Perhaps it would have been better to agree to lure them into the citadel with promises of his aid in reaching Uther – but there were so many more people around, always. If you could catch a snake in the field, what point in bringing it into the house to kill?

The butt of the sidhe staff in his hand caught in a tangle of wet roots, lurching from his grasp. He cursed the thing, wishing he'd never explained its origin and use to the prince, wishing he'd hurled both of them into the lake the morning they'd woken on the bank. He wanted to leave it behind, now, but didn't quite dare Arthur's wrath if and when he discovered Merlin's disobedience. He untangled the faerie weapon with numb fingers and risked a glance over the southern bank. Then he cursed again – for some reason, Arthur and Morgana had chosen to dismount and leave their horses with the two guards next the road. The bright red cloak and the deep green fluttered at the edge of a small grove of trees, then left his sight.

Merlin didn't immediately move. Presumably the guards kept their eyes on the royal pair, and he needed to map out his approach. The rivulet soaking through his boots seemed to curve a little further to his right than he would have liked, but he thought it connected eventually to the grove.

He was half right. He splashed and waded downsteam until the boot-chilling trickle met another and continued toward the southeast, and it was this second that entered the grove. He paused for a moment of breath and a handful of the numbingly cold water, then crept up the bank for another perusal of the situation.

Both guards were down, soundlessly, in a crumple of gray armor and red cloak.

Oh, damn.

Merlin clambered over the edge of the bank, less worried now about drawing Tauren to definite judgment than the protection of his friends. The greasy-haired mercenary-sorcerer crouched on his heels at the side of the road, holding the reins of the four mounts – he saw Merlin and straightened, raising his hand and opening his mouth. To shout a warning or to incant an attack, was not clear. Merlin didn't hesitate; he raised the staff to fire a bolt of jagged blue lightning.

Arthur had been right about bringing it. If they lived, he would have to admit it, and never hear the end. He'd been reluctant to think of ending someone's life with the swift brutality that had been necessary with Arthur already beneath the surface of the lake of Avalon – but this wasn't really so different, was it? He didn't have the time to block attacks and attempt to incapacitate another magic-user, when there was four of them, and Arthur and Morgana's safety in the balance. But unlike the sidhe in human flesh, the greasy-haired sorcerer did not disintegrate in fiery flutters – he stiffened, terror frozen on his face, and toppled.

Merlin's foot slipped on the wet grass and he dropped closer to the ground to prevent himself sliding all the way back to the stream – and the rock just beside his left foot exploded in flying shards. Flying away from him, as luck would have it. He raised his head and the staff, aiming with a breathless spell, "Acwele!" and the short-haired sorcerer was knocked motionless to the ground.

How many moments had passed since he'd seen Arthur and Morgana? His pulse thundered in his throat and behind his eyes as he scrambled over open ground to reach the grove.

The third sorcerer he'd met in the Darkling Wood turned from his place of cover behind the trunk of a tree - Merlin was still downhill from the grove, and couldn't see into it – he gasped out the spell. As the bolt of blue lightning leaped from the crystal at the head of the staff, yet another figure dressed in the concealing brown of a bandit or mercenary moved into Merlin's view, just beyond and to the left.

He directed the stream of energy from the sidhe's weapon past the falling sorcerer to the fourth – Tauren, clear in that instant with eyes sunken and fanatic, hair and beard a dirty smear of stubble – as the leader of the renegades lifted his hand.

Orange flashed, caught the blue from Merlin's staff. Mage Stone, he thought, in one horrified instant transformation – and the killing blue light reflected from the crystal, back upon Merlin.

Once his magic had formed a shield just over his heart to save his life from the power of the staff's crystal. This time his hand shifted the staff itself into the stream of deadly blue-white fire – it shattered violently, flinging fragments. He was thrown backward into darkness.

…..*…..

As a precaution, Arthur drew his sword from his belt and stuck it into the ground close at hand, then knelt on one knee by a shallow pebbly patch of the stream running through the grove. He yanked off his glove to scoop a handful of fresh water to his mouth, his teeth aching at the cold of the liquid. Morgana tucked her skirt around her knees and crouched on her heels, her eyes uneasy, and made no move to join him in a drink.

"What is it?" he said to her, ready to tease her from apprehensive nerves if he had to. She didn't answer, and suddenly Arthur's instincts were on edge as well. He twisted in his crouch to glance back the way they'd come, and could see three of the horses' heads, not fifteen yards away beyond the trees of the grove.

"Arthur," she said suddenly, looking back that way also. "Something's – not right. I can see – no, I can sense –" Arthur watched her, disturbed; his sister was never at a loss for words. "There's – ouch! – Arthur, look out!"

He tumbled to the side, off his feet and onto his back, raising his arm in blind defense. The glinting blade slid down the chainmail protecting his arm, plunged into the earth next to his shoulder. He flung one hand out, but the hilt of his own sword was a yard distant. He heard Morgana scream again – a sound more of rage than fear – then yelp like she'd fallen.

Arthur kept rolling – a calculated risk – onto the grounded blade at his shoulder, bending it sideways, depending on his armor to protect him from injury. The weapon's owner – he glimpsed fiery, sunken eyes and a manic grimace – grunted, trying to keep his grip as Arthur's weight wrenched the sword horizontal. Tauren, Arthur remembered with a tiny clear space of his mind, released the hilt and in the space of a heartbeat flung himself on top of Arthur – on top of the only weapon within reach – with a dagger.

He gripped the man's wrists desperately, the point of the ten-inch blade another two from his neck. His gloves slipped a fraction; Tauren threw all of his weight behind the knife, grinning into his face, sure of victory. There was no time to plan, there was no space to try.

The mercenary-sorcerer jerked, his face blanking of emotion. His eyes widened briefly, then dulled, as his hand slipped from the hilt. Arthur, confused, looked at the point of a sword emerging from the center of the renegade's filthy clothing, the blood dripping down onto his own armor – then beyond him, at Morgana's disheveled black cloud of hair and stormy green eyes, as she released the hilt of Arthur's sword.

He shoved the attacker to the side even as his body slumped with his last exhalation, and panted at the insensible gray clouds overhead.

"Are you all right?" Morgana asked, bending over him, then offering her hand in its fine leather riding glove to help him to his feet.

He allowed her help. "Are you?" he asked, glancing around to make sure they were safe. For the moment.

She gave him a pale version of her saucy smile. "Well," she said, "it's not every day a girl gets to save her prince…" He laughed and pulled her under his arm for a rough embrace. "He's dead, isn't he," Morgana added, looked at the man blank-eyed and bloody at their feet.

Arthur didn't answer the question; it didn't need an answer, anymore. In the dewy grass just beyond the corpse's limp fingers lay a silver-bound stone of a dull orange color. Morgana stepped around to pick it up as Arthur retrieved and cleaned his sword; it gleamed in her hand and she gazed at it fascinated.

"You probably don't want to handle that too much," Arthur advised, shoving his sword back into his belt. He plucked a small leather pouch from the dead sorcerer's belt and holding it out for his sister to drop the artifact inside. "I don't see any others," he added, looking around them for the band Tauren had been said to lead. "And where the hell is Merlin?"

…..*…..

He could feel his heartbeat, only his heartbeat. Erratic as a wild bird caught indoors somehow by mistake, it fluttered panicked, then flopped back and twitched. He wasn't worried, not really. He felt no pain, no urgency of time passing; he could afford to wait on the calming of his heart.

He heard his name, and memory began to return. A plot against the life of the king – he sighed, there was always a plot against the life of the king, would it be any different when Arthur was king? When Arthur was…

His eyes flew open, and he felt again. He felt as if he'd been smeared on the hillside like preserves on a hard crust of bread, his feet left to soak up the achingly frigid water of the stream.

"Merlin," Arthur repeated, stepping across the rivulet at the bottom of the little gully. Morgana was close behind, gathering her skirt in one hand to join them if needed.

"Tauren?" Merlin said, that urgency suddenly blossoming hot in the center of his chest.

"Dead," Arthur answered, coming to kneel beside him. "The other three?"

He felt, now, a smile pull at his lips. "Dead," he answered. "Tauren – he didn't use magic on you, did he?"

"No, only steel," the prince answered, laying one hand negligently on the center of Merlin's chest. But his eyes were keen, and looked Merlin over thoroughly. "Probably wanted to savor his triumph as close and as long as possible." Morgana snorted and rolled her eyes. "You?"

"A bit," Merlin allowed, with another smile. Arthur moved the staff away from Merlin's hand; it seemed to stick, and sting, for a moment, Merlin's fingers unresponsive. The prince lifted one end of it to show him the shattered, charred end, the crystal destroyed.

"You know, if you can't take care of your toys any better than this, Merlin," Arthur said lightly, teasingly, "you won't be allowed to have them anymore."

Merlin tried filling his lungs, and was able to manage it without the pain he expected. His heart had settled now like a trained falcon on its perch – wary and with only a brief defiant agitation of wings. "Good," he told Arthur. "Damn thing's bad luck, anyway." He lifted his hand and Arthur clasped it to raise him.

"Ready to get up and go home, then?" Arthur steadied him on feet that felt like wood and a hillside that tilted treacherously under him.

He gave his friend a quick upward glance, a pleading grin. "Could I ride this time, please?"

A/N: Obviously, this ep was the most a/u of all, so far… hopefully you were all pleased with the result…