Chapter 13: Stawell to Badon

Half an hour until dawn.

Arthur readjusted the girth buckle he'd just tightened. Keeping his hands busy and his attention on this very small detail to better ignore the rest of the courtyard.

But then it was done. Everything was done that he could do. He stood leaning against his mount's side and closed his eyes, feeling the chill damp of early spring pre-dawn. Hearing faintly – thought maybe it was only his imagination – the sounds of the knights and soldiers of his army preparing, outside Stawell's high thick walls. Half an hour and he and Merlin would ride out with the first tenth of the army, forty men.

"Have you not slept at all?" Merlin's voice said. He was occupied adjusting his own saddle, a short distance away but close enough to speak to Arthur without raising his voice.

Arthur grunted, and didn't mention what sort of night's sleep he had. "I've been thinking."

And, to his eternal credit, Merlin didn't fire back the obvious insult. "What d'you think?"

Badon Hill and Camlann – one safe, one smart. His sister, and her sister, and Merlin, who'd been hurt by the blonde witch both times they'd been face to face. The first, when Morgause had hoped to prompt Merlin to abandon the Pendragons and join his power to hers. The second, when Morgause had almost succeeded in turning Morgana against them, and this time…

He sighed, and shook his head. And Guinevere. "This battle. No matter how I feel about it, Morgana's reasons for championing the idea, is it fair to the men for me to reject the idea of compromise?"

Merlin's expression hardened, just slightly, and Arthur remembered that his friend had already suffered loss in this conflict, the loss of innocents, no less. But when he spoke, it was gentle and compassionate. "No one could care more for their men than you do. To send them into battle is not a decision that you would make lightly, they know that."

"But," Arthur said deliberately, "was it the right decision?" Perhaps the dual visions had made war inevitable, but did it follow that it was right? "Shouldn't I, as king, set aside my personal feelings for the good of the kingdom?"

Merlin finished his adjustment and turned. "Perhaps it's true that you can't rule with your heart," he said. "But you ought not rule without it, either." His eyes slid past Arthur's shoulder, and his expression changed subtly. "Excuse me, sire?"

That startled Arthur from reverie to alertness. Merlin never called him that except in situations of either extreme – sarcasm or sincerity. Because they both knew it was a reminder that Arthur found uncomfortable, that his friend and a powerful sorcerer and not even raised a citizen of Camelot, chose to call him lord of his own volition.

He watched the younger man cross the courtyard and saw his reason – Freya waited there. Merlin quickened his last few steps and caught her up in his arms, she unhesitatingly returning the embrace. It brought to Arthur a fleeting sensation of loneliness and stupidity.

To shake that off, he stepped to his horse's head – and Freya's companions came into view.

Guinevere. Dressed in the dark trousers and light shirt and plum over-tunic he'd removed before their private farewell, the last night in Camelot.

It made the lingering stiffness in muscles and bones from sleeping on a spare blanket in a spare tent with the army last night, threaten to turn into permanent grouchiness.

Lord Lionel stood with them also. The older warrior wouldn't leave Stawell until noon tomorrow; Arthur was glad Guinevere would have her father a bit longer, as Freya would have her brother, til this afternoon – and Morgana, her husband. Lancelot was here somewhere as well, but he wouldn't lead his troops from Stawell for another twenty-four hours.

An ugly doubt surfaced. Should he leave Lancelot here, as he left Guinevere here. Never before had he doubted his wife's love and loyalty. And perhaps if he had not been feeling so raw and insecure after the nasty shock of Morgana's deception – an understandable choice, maybe, but still wrong – the sight of his knight and his wife, late and alone and lacking proper clothing, close and in confidence in the conversation he'd just caught the tail of, might not have affected him so.

But… the idea of his death, occurring at some unknown time at Camlann, so close and under such circumstances, brought another suppose. Which might ordinarily have been melancholy only – but now was fairly vicious.

What would she do if he died? His own mother had been in her family crypt less than a year, when his father accepted Vivienne's advances, and had conceived a daughter with her.

Power – the promise of it and the desire for it – seemed to bring out the worst in people. Merlin reassured him that Arthur's natural disinclination for it, his acceptance of it as a duty to bear rather than an advantage to accumulate, meant he was the right man for the throne, and a very good king. He hoped so, if his reign had been foretold, that it would be a good one. A peaceful one, though sometimes peace had to be defended, and kept.

Guinevere lifted her head and met his eyes; her expression didn't change.

Who had betrayed whom, last night? He'd said, who else might I be wrong about? Would he begin to suspect his men, his knights – even Merlin? Who had once remarked to him about his own father, I think he creates enemies where none need be…

As a younger man, he might have avoided the connection of their gazes, the hurt and the guilt it brought him, might have turned to ignore her, to give everyone the impression of officious industry. A busy man, and a king who was never wrong, and never apologized.

That attitude and suspicion that had often characterized his father's decisions. Sometimes beneficial, for a ruler, sometimes detrimental. And sometimes damnably hard to tell the difference. It was true that queens betrayed their kings, that wives betrayed their husbands – and it seemed to him, each time the man in question might claim, not my wife. And be wrong.

How could he know? He couldn't. He couldn't see the future like Merlin or Morgana. He could only choose to trust. Or not, and possibly create enemies where none need be…

His queen crossed to him, and he didn't look away, and he rather wished he could do as Merlin had with his lady, and simply scoop her up. But there was this, between them.

She stopped, at arms' length.

"I don't want last night to be our last memory," she said, lifting her chin and setting her jaw – he recognized it had taken some emotional courage for her to come to him. And he admired that, even as it hurt that he had made it necessary.

"Nor I," he admitted.

"What you saw and heard and misunderstood," she said, deliberately as though she had rehearsed it, "I'm sorry, Arthur, truly. I would take it back if I could, I hate for you to ride into danger doubting me and us, and our love and –" her eyes glistened suddenly and she blurted, "Can I just – hold you a minute?"

He lifted his arms a bit, and one eyebrow. Wanting the same but – feeling a reserve. He reminded her, "You dislike that when I'm wearing armor."

She looked at him a moment longer, then stepped to him, her arms encircling his ribs almost uncomfortably tightly, her cheek pressing the metal links into his collarbone through the jacket beneath.

"I don't know if you'll believe me, but I love you and I miss you already and I can't let you leave without telling you that," she told the gold embroidered dragon on the red tunic. "I'm sorry abut last night, and I don't know why you said the things you said – it hurt and it wasn't true and I think deep down you know it – I think you treated me unfairly and then you stayed away, and if you knew how I worry when you're gone –"

He gathered her close, inhaling the scent of her hair, in a loose braid pulled over her shoulder. "I love you Guinevere, so much," he said, "so much it scares me sometimes – if you betrayed me, it would break me, I think."

"I haven't." She squeezed him fiercely, turning her face up to his. "I wouldn't – I won't."

"I'm sorry," he said. "There's been –" Oh. Damn him, if he'd been thinking straight last night, they could've talked about this then. "Listen, Guinevere, I haven't much time – we found out Morgause is with the Saxons, and she's been in contact with Morgana."

"Oh." Guinevere released him, absorbing the information. Queen and partner, and he loved her. "Does Bors know?"

Sir Bors would remain in Stawell to command the garrison; Sir Bodiver as well, to be Arthur and Merlin's communication with the outpost. "Yes, I've spoken to him already." All around him, the sky was lightening, the few men inside the gates mounting up; Merlin was already waiting astride his patient brown mare. "I think I've put a stop to it, and I don't know if Morgana thought any further than protecting her sister, but – be careful, anyway."

She nodded. "I'll tell Freya too, and Finna."

Alator, he knew, was planning to join them at Badon, with one of the later contingents, perhaps Lord Lionel's. So all three magic-users at Stawell – Bodiver, Freya, and Finna - would be aware of the possibility, however remote, of betrayal. Bodiver could alert Merlin also, if necessary.

Guinevere turned her brown eyes on him, suddenly clear. "Is that why you –"

"I shouldn't have," he interrupted. "I'm sorry." He bent for his stirrup – the turned abruptly, cupping her round cheek with his gloved hand, and kissing her. Maybe a bit roughly, but deeply. "We'll talk," he promised. "I love you."

"And I you," she said, bravely managing a smile. As he swung up on his gelding and pulled toward the open barbicon, he heard his wife speak to Merlin. "You will take care of him?"

"On my life," Merlin answered quietly, and Arthur repressed a grim shudder.

Both, or neither would return. Join the key... Not much use separated, are you?... I'll come with you.

Pendragon and Emrys.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin's place, habitually, was half a step behind and beside Arthur. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times when he'd been in the lead.

Down the dark tunnel into Dinas Emrys in search of Kilgarrah, first. Into the cave where the Questing Beast lurked, another.

And now. Even though Arthur was barely a horse's length behind him, it counted.

Merlin sat his saddle, reins loose in his hand, sub-consciously guiding his mount, his attention divided between his mind's eye – searching out the path ahead, his knowledge of it gleaned from one of Lancelot's scouts that morning – and his sixth-sense warning of inimical magic.

Without knowing what Morgana might have told Morgause, he had to proceed on the assumption that the witch might have left surprises for her enemies, which had included them for more than a decade, anytime between her venture into the White Mountains with Cenred – and most of his men, probably – til now.

It was not the sort of thing Aithusa could scout for. Any trap that was perceptible to a flying dragon would scream warnings at Merlin himself from a mile away. And maybe the enemy hadn't anticipated discovery until they burst into Camelot past Dinas Emrys – though Kilgarrah's death could not be expected to go unnoticed – maybe they hadn't anticipated this sort of straight-north rough-terrain strike toward Mount Badon rather than a whole-group march up the road through the pass at Camlann… but maybe they had.

So he ignored the mild headache and the chill in the breeze from the few peaks yet snow-topped and the ache in his thighs and lower back from constantly leaning up or down as his mare picked her way along the invisible track, Arthur and his forty men strung out behind them.

All day they expected this to take. And while he and Arthur, at other times in their youth, had bickered and insulted each other to pass the time, today they rode in silence.

Perhaps Arthur was respecting Merlin's need to concentrate, though he hadn't found any trace of danger on their route yet, or maybe it was because he was busy and burdened with his own thoughts – the battle, his half-sister and hers, maybe even the prophecy. Arthur naturally resisted any hint that he wasn't the master of his own course, but news of one's own death could never be an easy thing to carry.

"Merlin," he heard from his king. "Stop here for a break."

Or possibly, he thought, as he reined in at the summit in response to his king's command, "Maybe it's because you've gotten too old to think of any new witticisms," he said aloud. No reply. "All that training, then? Knights bashing each other about the head, all that clatter of swords-on-helmets has driven all your best quips – though there weren't many – out of your head?"

Wind whistled, and voices rose faintly behind him. He turned to see Arthur some ten yards away, just turning from the pair of knights who were marking their path for the next troops departing from Stawell, staggered so any disaster might have limited casualties, and because smaller groups could move faster through the terrain.

"Or maybe I'm just talking to myself," he sighed.

"What's that, Merlin?" Arthur called.

He didn't raise his voice. "One of the first things to go, in old age, your hearing."

Dammit, he was determined Arthur would be so old he'd be deaf, when his time came. Even knowing he couldn't prevent a preordained death – it could be tomorrow, it could be fifty years from now. He sighed. Perhaps Arthur's fate was to die first… and his fate was to have to accept that.

"All clear, ahead?" Arthur asked, striding up next to Merlin's knee.

"So far." He thought, if he dismounted, he might be too stiff and sore to get back up again without difficulty. Why was it he never felt like this no matter how long he flew with Aithusa?

Arthur tore a strip of dried venison in half and handed one of the pieces up to Merlin, though he had his own rations packed on his saddle. "Is that Badon hill?"

Merlin looked where Arthur pointed, leaning forward over his mare's withers as she shifted and stamped beneath him. From this height they could see the lower rounded tops, Badon little more than an outcropping – from this distance – of a taller row of steep-backed mountains, with the faint ribbon of the road fractionally visible. "Yeah, I think so."

"And that – Camlann?" This time Arthur didn't point, but it wasn't hard to pick out the gap of the pass, sheer rocky cliff walls that would put a quarry to shame, a bit here, a bit there – it wasn't a straight shot, but bent and wound.

Merlin shivered. A helluva place for a battle. Someday.

"Something occurred to me, Merlin." Arthur tipped his face up and gave him a familiar half-grin, the mountain breeze lifting and stirring fair hair off his forehead. "If I know I'm to die there, then I also know I won't be killed anywhere else, isn't that so?"

Merlin hated that about prophecy and vision. The inclination to make assumptions that weren't guarantees. "Theoretically, yes," he said cautiously. "But you could be injured somewhere else and end up in Camlann somehow and then die."

"You're telling me, I won't be invincible at Badon Hill, then?" Arthur goaded him slightly.

He grimaced, wanting to return the joke, something about a king's ego, but it tangled in his throat with a rash vow to make his king, his friend, invincible anywhere, everywhere. So in the end he said nothing. I can't promise. All ye gods at once, Arthur, I can't promise.

Arthur turned, at once youthful and mature, stern and light, king and common warrior. "Mount up, men, and push on! We've a ways to go before nightfall." He moved back to his mount, the nearest man making some jest about camp in the mountains, the dark and the cold. Arthur scoffed in response, "Haven't you ever seen Merlin's magelight?"

Merlin straightened. And as he pressed the heels of his boots to the mare's flanks to begin moving again, he noticed a flicker of motion in the sky, in the general vicinity of Badon – the white dragon, soaring the highest air currents.

Aithusa, he said involuntarily. Thought it wasn't wise to chat like this when he had to watch the step for all of them, literally and magically.

I see you. You will reach Torr Badon tonight, I think.

He broke the contact without response, without offense. His white-scaled kin seemed older and sterner also. Now that he was the last of his kind.

A long history they had together. More than half of his life, and most of Aithusa's, they'd spent together. They hadn't spoken of it specifically, when the white dragon had met his master's mate – before Merlin knew such a thing was possible for him, far less that he intended a proposal of marriage to Freya – Aithusa's approval of this female for his heart-brother. When such a thing was so blatantly impossible for the dragon.

Many things were different for dragons – far more solitary than humans, by nature. Mating was probably one of them. But Merlin couldn't help but wonder if his cold-blooded friend was ever lonely or bitter about that. That he would never find a female and sire young.

It occurred to Merlin, leaning back in the saddle as the mare trundled down a steep descent into a narrow gash of a valley, perhaps this was why he and Freya had Marya, only.

Kilgarrah had fulfilled his destiny, and died at Camlann. Arthur had fulfilled his destiny – at least in part – and would die at Camlann. Perhaps soon, perhaps not.

Perhaps this would be the only battle. An epic struggle and rivers of blood shed and few left untouched on either side, forever grim and marked and shadowed by the carnage. Arthur intended to try for peace and Merlin didn't grudge him that one bit, was proud of him, rather. Bucking the cosmic signs to follow his conscience. But they would fight; it would come to it, somehow.

Perhaps, if it were a complete rout, an overwhelming victory that stopped the Saxon incursion into Albion for a hundred years or more, Aithusa's destiny would be fulfilled also, and he would follow his older kin in the glory of battle-death. A pyre of sorcerer's fire, and his bones resting for eternity where he'd slept for forty years as a hatchling.

And, what need was there for a dragonlord, without a dragon? And that was why Merlin didn't have a son. Would never have a son.

Maybe they all rode to their deaths. He and Arthur – I'll go with you, we'll do it together. Or flew, in Aithusa's case.

Or maybe he just needed to cheer the hell up.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…

Badon Hill, just as the last sliver of sun disappeared over the peaks to the west.

Arthur stopped walking, his feet tired and sore in his boots, his mount's head bobbing low beside him. He squinted up into the lessening light at a rounded shoulder of a taller mountain to the southeast, the lower part maybe half as high as Dinas Emrys, where he'd walked captive with Vortigern's men, and didn't know that Merlin already waited at the summit to sacrifice himself.

Now, Vortigern's son was somewhere beyond the hill, and he could see Merlin clearly at the summit of Mount Badon – that far ahead of them he'd gotten on the track – standing motionless. Watching back for them, and forward for their enemies. Arthur read in his relaxed stance that the road was clear.

A bit of relief. They'd gotten here first.

He glanced around; the track of higher certain footing dropped down a greening sward to the series of springs that made the narrow valley impractical, and the road over Badon Hill necessary. He could see the welling pools, half-hidden by rushes and other water plants – last year's brown tinged with this year's green, low to the ground.

"Here," he said, turning to face the forty knights who'd followed him. "Front lines at the top of the hill and the earthworks. Here we'll picket the horses and bring the casualties for evacuation, back to Stawell." Hopefully there wouldn't be many, not with Alator and Gilli coming. And Merlin, of course, but Arthur rather preferred him to save his strength for battle emergencies, if at all practical. "Klaudin and Wolfram, you've got the herd. You'll be relieved in six-hour rotations – and look for Sir Leon midmorning. Everyone else, the rest of the way on foot."

The top of the hill looked mottled brown and gray in the waning light, probably not much forage; Merlin's hobbled mare was already grazing placidly. Arthur left his mount as well, though probably none would even think to complain if he rode – shouldered his own pack, and led the way up the hill, a quick and steady hike.

Another quarter of an hour, nearly, and Merlin was a solid outline against the dark blue sky – and a few stars – by the time Arthur reached them, a twinge beginning to develop in the knee he'd injured, and Merlin had healed.

"They're not in sight yet," Merlin told him without preamble. "The road curves, a hundred and say twenty yards, to the north around that mountain, upwards of the springs. Aithusa says there's a plateau to the east of the road – don't worry about the dark, you can't see it from here anyway – that the main body of Saxons could reach a few hours after dawn. He offered to delay them."

Arthur made a noncommittal sound, breathing evenly as his heart-rate slowly returned to normal. Of course in the morning it would look different, but he could visualize it fairly well in deep twilight.

The springs down below on their left, to the north. Badon's head hiding stars on the right. The track had been only a few yards wide, coming up, even if it was twice that descending to the northeast, they could hold it, especially with the advantage of high ground, the Saxons having to attack upward. The curve of the track would be just beyond bow-range even for the longbowmen; there was no problem with that.

"Where is he?" Arthur asked Merlin.

"On the northern slope of that peak." He sensed Merlin point further down the passage-route that was most sensible for a thousand-man army. "They're aware of him, so he didn't want to draw attention to Torr Badon."

"Good man," Arthur said approvingly.

Beside him, Merlin shifted as if to look at him, and his voice held a note of humor. "Man? You insult him."

"Whatever. You know what I mean." Arthur found Merlin's shoulder and gave him a shove. "You should aspire to that insult, you big –"
"Girl's petticoat," Merlin said at the same time. "You really ought to think of some new ones, Arthur – I sometimes think your sons are more imaginative than you in that regard."

"I am king, Merlin," Arthur said loftily, trying to keep the smile from sounding in his voice, as he felt the tension of the day ease. "Haven't got the time to sit around and come up with new insults to impress you with."

"Keep trotting out the old ones, then," Merlin said, affecting a longsuffering sigh. "I guess I'll have to make do."

"Where's Tristan's earthworks, then?" Arthur said, as the last few stragglers gained the hilltop, clumsy in the gloom.

"This way." Arthur's sleeve was taken – Merlin didn't seem to have a problem with the dark, and led the way confidently. "There's two entrances I've seen so far, toward either side of the hill – hidden of course –"

"Of course," Arthur said. Smugglers, after all.

"Half a minute, I'll give you a light where they can't see it, if the Saxons have any scouts on the heights – Aithusa thinks they have 'em, and they hide from him – watch your head – here."

Arthur ducked and stepped through what looked like a wide crack in the rock that rose above the shoulder of the hill where the track wound. And Merlin's blue magelight winked into existence, five feet ahead of the sorcerer – and behind him, as he turned to wait for Arthur.

He turned himself to see that the glow was dimly visible on the hillside – but probably not any further – and the knights and soldiers were gathering to follow.

As he followed Merlin and the light – bright but still distinctively blue. "Ay gods, Merlin."

"I know," his friend responded. "This again. Our lot in life, right? Caves and tunnels."

It was uneven footing, though more natural, he supposed, than the man-made tomb of Lother or the magic-made tunnel of Dinas Emrys. He hoped there weren't any sudden deep cracks like the cave in the forest of Balor where the morteaus flower grew.

A warren. Though it may be, they'd learn it soon enough. Niches and widenings, tiny chambers and alcoves, the floor earth and rock, up and down, the ceiling at nose-height, then soaring beyond reach.

Merlin stopped. "I think the second passage comes out down there." The blue light cast strange shadows across his angular features. "I'll have a look first thing in the morning, so we can't be surprised."

Arthur nodded, and turned to his men. "Two guards, at each entrance. Everyone else, pick a comfortable spot to eat and sleep. Tomorrow won't be as easy as today." Shuffle, rustle, and clink as they began to obey, to spread out and explore a bit, claim a section of floor for their own.

"Are you all right," Merlin asked him, when they were more or less alone again.

Arthur barked a laugh. "One more goblet of wine, why don't we have, before we change and wash and get into bed with our wives and sleep the sleep of the peaceful carefree?"

"Give it a week or so," Merlin returned. "Something to look forward to, when we get back."

"Yeah."

"Want to get out of your chainmail, at least?" the sorcerer suggested. "After the Saxons arrive, you might not want to chance it again."

Arthur grunted, then sighed, casting about him for a smooth-enough stretch of earth – then dumping his pack. "I suppose so," he said, and Merlin moved to help with the straps and buckles.

"This is why I never wear the stuff," Merlin said lightly, dropping the first piece to the side, not without care.

Arthur took a deep breath and let it out. Hoping his friend didn't have cause to regret that, when battle was joined.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

It was well past dawn, when Arthur emerged from the east passage of the earthworks, and Merlin was glad. He hadn't slept well, and had risen himself over an hour ago, leaving pack and bedroll neatly beside his sleeping king.

Arthur glanced over the hilltop – first, almost unconsciously toward the bend in the track to the northeast; empty, Merlin had been watching it as well – and made a noise of impatient exasperation.

"Right here," Merlin said, and grinned as Arthur spun, a bit fast.

And grimaced at him, stretching his body thoroughly in a methodical way; his jacket was open over the thin tunic underneath, and he hadn't wrestled into the chainmail again. "What," he drawled, "makes you think I was looking for you?"

Merlin shrugged, shifting in his crouch at the base of the boulder that blocked the passage from view. "Aren't you always?"

Arthur grunted. "I'll settle for breakfast. Do I have time to take some men down the hill and see that some of the tents are set up properly?"

"Yeah." Merlin squinted into the sunrise; he could only see Aithusa because he knew where to look. "It'll be a couple of hours, yet."

It was good ground, and maybe forty men could hold two thousand Saxons here for a few hours, before Leon's troops would arrive to relieve them, and maybe… he shivered a bit, with the tension of the uncertainties of approaching danger.

It wouldn't be enough simply to protect Arthur. Or to shield the forces of Camelot from Morgause's magic. They had to prevail, here. He would not retreat to Camlann, but he would be lying to claim that he wasn't afraid of what keeping that resolution would require him to do with his magic. Almost he wished he could simply pull a mountain down to bury the Saxon army.

Except that would be wrong. He couldn't explain it, otherwise. But he felt a conscience was a very unwise thing to ignore. Only in the case of Arthur's life or death.

"Maybe our luck will hold," Arthur remarked, "and Leon will get here first."

Merlin's turn to snort. "Our luck," he said sardonically.

"You coming?" Arthur tossed over his shoulder, turning toward the track. "Or are you just going to sit here brooding like a –"

"Dragon?" Merlin quickly supplied, pushing himself upright and stretching his own legs to join his friend.

"I was going to say old hen. Dragons don't brood," Arthur scoffed.

"You want to make a bet on that?" Merlin returned.

Arthur delivered the gem of logic that always concluded his arguments triumphantly. "Shut up, Merlin."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Midmorning. Arthur knelt shoulder-to-shoulder with Merlin, facing southwest as the sorcerer faced northeast. Motionless, they wouldn't stand out on the hilltop, wouldn't draw the eye to pick out the red of Arthur's tunic or the blue of Merlin's.

Some of the men were busy inside the torr, enlarging chambers to accommodate more of the men at the front line. Some were sparring at the base of the hill in a desultory manner, to keep muscles loose and warm; they could be at the summit long before the enemy, at a signal. Some were spread out on the rutted dirt track and hillside below Arthur. Simply waiting.

He straightened, leaning forward over his knee. "Leon's here," he mentioned, seeing the first horseman of the second contingent emerge from the trail they'd taken, the previous day.

"Good. I see their scouts."

Arthur balanced himself with a hand on Merlin's shoulder, turning to see. It was more of an advance party, twenty or thirty men, mounted. The risks of being first into unknown and unseen danger, paired with the privilege of a hasty retreat – to carry the warning back to the main body and its commander.

They had the advantage of surprise. The trick was knowing the optimal moment of springing the trap. Losing that advantage by revealing their presence at the moment when they'd cause the most havoc. Too soon, and the enemy could retreat to safety with minimal damage. Too late and the Saxons' own men would block retreat, probably resulting in a renewed attack of desperate necessity – the sort of thing Arthur preferred to delay provoking until he had more of his men there to defend against it.

"Will you ask Aithusa to see if he'll harass their lines, slow them down, maybe even split them up a bit," he said. "If those scouts are far enough ahead of the main body, we'll let them over the crest here, take them quick and fast with their fellows none the wiser."

Merlin turned to look back down the track toward their picket lines and base camp. "They're going to get to this point, see us, and turn tail to report back."

Arthur grunted agreement. And they were mounted; he didn't fancy asking his knights to take on men on horseback, even on two-to-one odds. All it took was one rider and horse to bolt, and the element of surprise was lost. So, how could they get the scout party to the bottom of the hill? Merlin was right, they wouldn't draw sword and charge down – especially with Leon's reinforcements joining Arthur's men as he watched.

"Can you manage some kind of concealment?" he said. "Make everything look ordinary and unsuspicious til they get to the bottom? Half our men and Leon's there, and the rest here hidden in the torr so they can't retreat."

Merlin thought a moment, squinted around them, overhead. "I can use the springs," he said. "Make a fog, or mist to hide our men. It won't be natural, obviously, but hopefully not abnormal enough to alert them – hopefully it'll look like it rose from the water and it's lingering in the lower-lying area before the sun's rays can disperse it. They'll have the noise of their own mounts to cover whatever they might hear from ours, too."

Arthur signed to the closest knight resting on the hillside. "Wolfram," he said. "Take the men on the lower half on the hill to the bottom. Merlin will provide a fog-cover, and you are to attack the Saxon scouts as soon as you're discovered. Find Sir Leon, explain the situation to him and give him the command. The men on the top half of the hill are to enter the torr and wait for myself and Merlin."

"Yes, sire," Wolfram said, and moved at a swift half-crouch to begin relaying the orders.

"As for us," Arthur added to Merlin, "Let's get off the skyline, hm?"

A/N: Some dialogue from ep.4.5 "His Father's Son."

And, the Battle of Badon Hill has begun!