Worth Fighting For

by Arisentactica

Connected to Xabiar's XCOM Trilogy. Arthur son of Uther son of Pendragon dreams of glory. He dreams of slaying great evil dragons, and saving beautiful princesses. But that is all they were, dreams. But when dreams come real, what then? Then there is only one thing left to do. Hold his sword, raise his banner, and fight, because he has something worth fighting for.

4. Arc 1 Chapter 3

Most of this one was written by King, but we finally managed to pull this one together. Please enjoy!
- Onyx

---

Beholder of the Sword

3

Location: Forest, two days ride north east of Glywssing

Date: Nineteenth day of the fourth moon, Anno Domini 501

The campfire crackled, sticks snapping and smoke billowing black in the wind. Merlin's staff lay against his knee, the orange light of flame shadowing his face. His closed eyes and slow moving chest showed he had fallen asleep while sitting, and was unbothered by it.

Lancelot's whetstone sang against his sword as he sharpened it. Morgana was leaning against his shoulder, her eyes red, dark circles beneath them from a sleepless night.

Mordred sat across a log, gaze towards the fire, peering far away from now, from here.

The whetstone made another pass along the blade.

Morgana hiccuped, and Lancelot rubbed her back. She nestled into him.

Arthur's trembled, bruises thumping against his flesh. His head pummeled, nails in his skull, scraping away into his head. He tried to wet his dry lips. He couldn't. His teeth closed in a grinding, gritting, motion.

The memory played over in his head, over and over.

His hands clenched into fists. He forced himself to uncurl his fingers and try to take a slow breath. He couldn't. Instead, he heaved, inhaling and exhaling through gritting teeth.

One moment.

Another passed.

His body shook, his muscles straining to follow their master's command.

The swing of the sword, the rolling of the head.

The campfire crackled.

The whetstone sang

He stood up, breathing heavily, pacing quietly. Shoulders rolling, he was hot. He was burning inside and outside. Flaming oil flowed through his veins. He was alight. He dug his feet in, closing his eyes and turning his head up, towards the sky. His breaths were choking shudders.

His fists curled, uncurled.

The sound of the whetstone.

The burning wood cracked.

He flinched, teeth set back to gritting.

The embers crackled.

Arthur's hands curled into fists again, nails digging into his palms. His heart thundered in his ears. Sweat ran across his forehead, rolling down his neck and soaking his back.

Reece's voice. Reece's face. Reece's eyes. His vision blurred, and the memory came alive right before his vision. Clear as day, he saw that sword swing. His hand gripped his chest, he felt his heart beating against his ribcage, demanding to be let out. He opened his mouth, trying to breathe in.

The memory played across his vision.

The idea took root.

It was his fault.

The sound of the whetstone.

The burning wood cracked.

His mouth shut again, teeth slamming against each other,

The sound of the whetstone.

The burning wood cracked.

A red haze fell over his eyes, body twitching.

The sound of the whetstone.

The burning wood cracked.

His roar ripped itself out of his mouth, he rushed at Lancelot, tearing the whetstone out of his hand. Morgana shrieked, Lancelot flinched back. Arthur whirled around, hurling the whetstone into the campfire.

Yelping, Mordred leapt back as the campfire exploded into a cloud of sparks and embers. For a moment, the area was drenched in darkness as the fire spluttered back to life.

"Arthur?" Mordred murmured, snapping out of his funk.

Morgana swallowed, rising up. "Arthy? Are you okay?"

Arthur heaved and stomped over to a tree, roaring and screaming and crying, his fists curving in and out. Punch after punch, cast without regard, elbows and head and knees, bark shattering, the sounds of impact echoing in the night.

The tree broke and fell over, shattered.

The scream that wrenched itself from Arthur's mouth wasn't human, the wail drowning the formerly silent forest. Until his throat ceased to make sound, until his breath ran out, he shrieked. He didn't want to speak, to acknowledge, to let the idea out.

"Arthy?" Morgana said, quietly.

Arthur said nothing, back turned to Morgana.

Mordred growled, pulling Arthur to face them. "Stop being an-"

Arthur's face was twisted and cracked. Tears streaked a path down his cheeks, whimpers ripped themselves out of his throat. Arthur refused to speak, to let the words out.

Morgana rushed at him, pulling him to her. Burying his head into her embrace, arms wrapping around him. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," she said over and over.

"It's my fault," Arthur's voice murmured through tears. "Mine, mine, mine, mine! Mine! My fault!"

Mordred froze. In disbelief; in realization. Then he pushed Morgana away, and slapped Arthur. The loud snap of knuckle on cheek echoed.

Morgana gasped. "Mordred!" she yelled. "Stop-"

"Shut it!" Mordred barked, the force in his voice silencing her.

Hands on the hem of her dress, Morgana bit her lips.

Mordred pushed her away further, before he pulled Arthur head up. Forcing him to look at his brother. Eyes locked with Arthur's own. Two pairs of brown eyes. One glaring, the other wet with tears.

"It was my-"

Mordred slapped Arthur again.

"I-"

He slapped his brother again.

"Don't. You. Dare," Mordred growled. "You did what none of us could have done. You took action, you fought the murderers, you made them quiver in fear. Your fault? Your fault, you arrogant idiot?!"

"I could have stopped it! Before it happened!" Arthur yelled.

Mordred slapped him again. "And you didn't!" Mordred pushed Arthur, making him stumble. "You didn't know, you were hurt, in pain, in need of help. And you dare, you dare suggest that father's death is your fault? Yours?! You arrogant shit!"

Arthur nodded, snot and tears and trembling lips dominating his face.

Mordred exhaled through his nose, dragged his brother close, and hugged him. "You didn't know. You couldn't have known. You're not at fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

Arthur hugged him back. The whimpers quietened. Hard and tight, he hugged his brother. Feeling the warmth, hearing the sound of the second heartbeat. Calm. Quiet. Mordred pulled Morgana in, hugging the both of them just as hard as they hugged him.

"It's not your fault Arthur, none of it is," Mordred muttered, fire in his eyes. "We didn't start this. We didn't do a damned thing. They did. Never, never let me hear you say those words again."

Arthur nodded quietly.

Mordred broke away the hug, back straighter than before. "You two need to sleep."

Morgana interlocked her fingers with Arthur's. Pulling him close to her. "I couldn't sleep alone Arthy, do you want to sleep with me?"

Arthur nodded, wiping away his tears with his forearm. She laid him down, settling next to him and wrapping her arms around him. She pulled him close, covering them in a blanket.

"Lancelot," Mordred called out. "I'll need you, come for a bit. Bring both swords."

He heard the two of them walk away from the camp.

Arthur drifted off to eyes shuttering, distant sounds of sparring swords far off. He nuzzled into Morgana, safety dulling away the hurt, the ravaging hole in his heart.

Before his eyes closed, he saw red eyes and grey horns. The spectre sitting beside him. 'Your brother speaks the truth. You did no wrong.'

I let him die.

'You did,' the spectre replied. 'You knew not the future. You did no wrong, and you lost. For you never stood higher than your own shadow, taller than your weakness.'

Arthur drifted off to sleep.

'Rest, warrior. Rest your sorrows. Let tomorrow's light sunder today's shadows.'

---

Location: Hutching's Keep, Towy

It took days of riding by horse. They travelled only by day. By night they set up camp, sleeping, eating, and, as dawn came, they were riding once more. They passed over a narrow, rocky valley, filled with wilting flowers, over a large, freezing river, and across fields of farms and orchards. Arthur carried his armor over his back, wrapped in cloth and rope, creating a makeshift sack. The armor was so heavy that even Arthur could barely carry it over his back.

The exertion of travelling day in and day out forced his body to its limits. Muscles grew, his stature rose. His sorrow dimmed, stuffed into the back of his mind.

"We'll stop here, for now," Merlin said. "Let the horses rest, I'll go scout forward. Lancelot."

"Mhmm?" Lancelot hummed.

"You're in charge," Merlin stated, spurring his horse and riding off.

Arthur dropped, sack falling off his back. He let out a long breath.

"You need help?" Morded called from atop his horse. "You look tired, Arthy."

He stretched his shoulders, wiping away sweat from his brow. "You can't carry it."

"I'm sure I can," Mordred murmured. "I can carry half."

"Mordred," Arthur winced, his shirt soaked in sweat. "It's too heavy for you."

Mordred scoffed, hopping down from his horse. "Yes, yes, yes. You're so strong and powerful now. We get it." He opened the sack, grabbing the gauntlets and boots.

"See? Easy," Mordred said, teeth clenched, muscles strained. "Now give me-"

Arthur pushed him slightly with a finger.

Modred fell over, wheezing as the armor pieces fell atop his guts. "...Why?" he gasped.

"You said it was easy," came the smug reply.

"Arthur, be nice. Mordred, stop being you," Morgana cut in. "Why don't you guys split it three ways? Lancelot, don't you want to help?"

Lancelot's gaze met the sack as it started sinking into the dirt, before looking back towards Morgana. "Do I have to?"

Morgana smiled sweetly, her eyes glinting. "For me?"

The boy let out a long, tired breath. "Fine."

Arthur pushed the boots, greaves, and cuisse to him. Lancelot wrapped them up, grunting as he hauled them over his back. He gave the sleeves and gauntlets to Mordred. The rest he carried himself.

"Is that Merlin?" Morgana asked, pointing at a score of three riders.

Arthur stood up, sack over his shoulder. His eyes focused, and he saw with clarity even through the distance. "It is," he said. "I don't recognize the other two."

Mordred tensed, reaching for his sword. "Merlin?"

"He looks calm," Arthur replied. "They're bearing a banner. I don't recognize the emblem."

Lancelot did. "Hutchings," he said, pushing Mordred's hand away from his sword.

The riders stopped, Merlin at their head. They gave no introduction, and Merlin simply told them to ride their horses and follow. They rode gently, and reached their destination in no time.

Wooden walls stood high, stacked, one next to the other. Tightly wound rope bound them together, and a long walkway afforded cover behind the walls. Men stood atop the walls, bows around them.

At the gates, an older man with a banner at his back smiled at them. Behind him, a small town thrummed with life. The banner, bearing a bird on a branch, fluttered upon a pink field.

The horses stamped their feet, slowing down to a stop. Merlin disembarked first.

"Merlin!" the man boomed, marching up and squeezing Merlin into a hug.

Arthur winced at the pop of bones.

"Let go of me Pryderi!" Merlin wheezed. "By all that is sacred, let go of me!"

The man squeezed him tighter, harder. "And let you escape me? Nay, I will hug you until you die!" the man laughed. He broke from the hug, his smile utterly infectious.

"And who's the pretty lady?" he asked, his gaze turning to Morgana. "She looks similar to Morgause."

Morgana preened. "Why thank you."

Arthur and Mordred snorted.

"Mordred, Morgana, and Arthur, sons of Uther-" Merlin started.

"-Sons of Pendragon," Pryderi continued, then paused. His gaze pierced Merlin, simmering with unreadable emotion within, before it sharpened further, sweeping across their faces.

"There's much you need to know, but, for now, Felgrad has noticed us," Merlin said. "We'll need to hide and escape his attention until he grows bored of us and we can return to our lives."

"Anything you need, old friend," he said. "Come, come!" He ushered them inside.

He gestured towards the two rides that came with Merlin. "Argun! Take care of their horses. Vargun! Tell the cooks to prepare a meal, I'll not have my guests sleep hungry."

"Come," he encouraged them softly. "Come and see the home of my people!" He spread his arms around.

A small collection of huts and shops lined the clean roads. Men carried lumber for the coming winter, women cleaned clothes, children played in the streets. He took them across a seeming tide of chaos that wasn't, leading them up to his great keep.

Banners hung from its wall, the insides carpeted in simple weaves. They entered into a large hall, filled with long tables and chairs. Merlin sat at the head, right besides Pryderi. Mordred, Morgana, and Lancelot sat side by side.

Arthur moved in to sit next to them.

"Not you, boy!" Pryderi Hutchings yelled in good humor. "Come!" he patted a chair next to him. "Come and sit here!"

Arthur hesitated, looking to Mordred.

Mordred subtly nodded. Arthur nodded back and sat next to the boisterous man, who grinned at him. Arthur swept his gaze all around, seeing the unfamiliar faces who were gathering. The two riders, Vargun and Argun, he recognized. There were another two, as well - an older man and a girl of Morgana's age.

Pryderi noticed him looking, and leaned in close. "Those are my boys, Argun, and Vargun. The joys of my life. That there," he pointed. "Is Ganther, my steward and right arm in all matters. And that sweetheart is his daughter Lynda, little trouble maker."

Ganther glanced around, and clapped his hands. "All of us are here. Serve the food."

Servants lit candles, bringing in plates of newly cooked, and freshly slaughtered, livestock. Chickens, cows, an array of vegetables. Soup. All set upon the table. They started eating, quietly, at first. Then conversations broke out.

"Spirits alive, you look just like him," Pryderi said, with a nostalgic look. "The eyes, the soft features. That sharp look. The stature and posture. You're his living reflection."

A servant walked by, pouring red wine for the two of them and Merlin.

"He does, doesn't he?" Merlin muttered. "The spitting image."

"Who?" Arthur asked.

"Pendragon," Pryderi said. "Ah Pendragon, that old damned fool. If only he was around. Everything would be better."

"As if," Merlin scoffed. "Without him, Felgrad would have never kept his throne. Our biggest mistake."

Pryderi looked downcast, mouth curled down. "The throne was his by right, Merlin," he said, a hint of reproach in his voice. "Felgrad was the heir. I remember him, Merlin, laying there, dying, the air thick with sickness. That...steel. That fire in his eyes. The throne was his, and nothing would have changed that."

Merlin said nothing.

The Hutching patriarch shook his head, his smile rekindled. "But oh, oh Pendragon, how he answered the call. You should have seen him, in his first ever battle duel against a rider. Cut off the horse's legs and threw his sword into the man's throat; two moves, and his opponent fell. What a monster among men he was."

Arthur swirled the wine in his metal cup. Unsure if he should speak.

There was a long, drawn out chuckle. Merlin's. "You know full well he was simply warming up."

"Aye," Pryderi winced. "That damned fool took on thirty men at once. At once. Killed them all to a man. Broke six swords and four spears. You should have seen how he looked. Covered in arrows, blood, and surrounded with a circle of broken weapons, the dead, and the dying

"Never could wash out the blood," Merlin murmured. "Viviane always washed it for him."

Pryderi chuckled humorously. "Rammed fear into their hearts. Each and every battle. Without exception. Every duel offered, he won in a flash of glinting iron. Always at the first line, always the first into the charge, the last in the retreat."

Merlin drank deeply from his cup. "Do you remember the last battle against the Imperials?"

"I couldn't forget if I wanted to," Pryderi said, his gaze far away. Lost in memories long past, yet known as if the events happened yesterday. "They looked like an ocean of metal shields and spears. By everything sacred, they out fought us all. They wanted Felgrad to submit, they'd seen the weakness of his rule."

"What did grandfather do?" Arthur asked.

Pryderi looked at Arthur - through him, almost. "Cut the head off the snake. He and his men hunted the Imperial commanders, beheaded them one by one. With every head he took, he would yell, 'Your leader is slain! Your leader is slain! Your banner has fallen! Your banner has fallen!' as he waved the head around."

The man stopped, drinking from his cup. "Another commander would take charge. Pendragon would do it again. And again. Four times. Four times. Until they lost nerves and routed."

Arthur imagined it.

The horses. The ranks of men. The banners. The swords. The spears. The mud. The blood. The blood. The gore. The cries. The screams. The pain. The sadness. The lives. The deaths. The tears.

Pendragon, a nightmare of flashing swords and glinting spears, cutting through men.

"Was it…" Arthur swallowed his fear, his hesitation. "Was it worth it? All that fighting and killing?"

Merlin raised a brow, gaze focused on Arthur. "Of course it was, it would be chaos without it. Imperials in their fortresses, the houses fighting, the tribes raiding. We fought, and we won."

"We won," Pryderi nodded slowly. "We won Felgrad his crown, we won our lands' safety, we won our honors and glory. All of that, we won by the blade. It was either us and our families, or them killing and pillaging us."

"Father said-" a lump clogged his throat. Hurt, raw and savage, gripped his heart. Arthur pushed it away. "Father said grandfather wasn't happy. That all the death and hurting of others, he didn't like it."

For a moment, both Merlin and Pryderi were quiet.

Merlin spoke first. "He was happy, happy that his son and daughter were safe, that the people were secured, and that the wars were won."

Pryderi snorted. Then chuckled. Then burst out laughing, the wine in his goblet spilling out. Small tears slipped out of his eyes.

"You're so like him, that heart, those eyes, that gentleness, it scares me. It scares me like only your grandfather did," Pryderi said to Arthur, looking into his cup. "No, no. He was never happy. He hated it all. Hated the killing and bloodshed. Hated every iron sword made. His hate, you could see it, feel it, breathe it. In every swing and thrust and breath. You could see it in his eyes. We all could see it. Pure. Vivid. Hatred."

Arthur didn't understand. "Then why?"

"Why was he so violent? Why did he become dread upon the battlefield?" Pryderi shivered, a thin smile of dread and sorrow on his lips. "To end it, and go back to peace. If he had to become a demon, a monster, among men, so be it. Pendragon welcomed it, he thrived in it. And he etched fear and sowed death upon those who opposed him."

"Did he succeed?"

Pryderi closed his eyes, leaning back in his ornamented chair. "There are no more raiders on our shores. The Imperials have been cast out. The crown rules, and the houses do not fight. Our people do not fear war, the lands give us plenty."

"Felgrad succeeded," Merlin stated, drinking down the rest of his goblet.

"He did, and his success brought us peace and prosperity," Pryderi said. "All beneath the grey shine of his violent, thunderous gaze."

Arthur did not know what to say, so he did not. He merely thought. Felgrad. Felgrad, king and ruler. Killer and murderer. The meal ended, and they were led to rooms. The question did not leave his mind.

Did Pendragon succeed?

He feared knowing.

He feared what did not want to know.

---

A wolf without fangs dies a starving husk, Reece stalked. Steps paced, eyes narrowed, gleaming with focus.

Full wagons emptied their loads, broken armor clattering across dirt. Intricate, immaculate of make. Weapons alongside them, warped, broken, fragmented. Beyond the wildest dream of the greatest blacksmith to make. All the same, destroyed and useless to him. His soldiery glanced towards him, seeking the last point of approval.

Reece motioned for them to begin. They obeyed.

Jormund grunted in approval, barrels full of fluid behind him. He rounded his shoulders, hammer in hand. Jormund's son was by his side, nervous, shuffling on his feet. Ready to aid his father.

"I don't like this, Pa. I don't like him," Osric finally said to Jormund.

The father looked at his son for a moment, searching for something he wasn't sure was there. "Lord Felgrad is a man to be trusted, Osric. We must trust him and his cause," he said after a moment. "To keep the peace. To stop a war." His eyes flickered. "We must do this."

Reece nodded as he paced, hands clasped firmly behind his back. His eyes searched for defiance, but found none. He nodded again, this time in approval. "All must serve. All must give their duty. There's no return now, is there, Blacksmith?"

"None, my lord."

Reece waved a hand. "Then begin."

The process began, the weapons and armors taken out. Dipped into the barrels of the fluid, wetted, and taken out. Placed upon the heat of the forge, he felt it, wafting like the breath of a wrathful titan.

Jormund and Osric took positions side by side, and they began. Paced to one another's motions, they hammered the armor into pieces, breaking it, fragment after fragment shattering. They threw them into a bucket.

Step, by step, Reece paced. This is how it starts, he knew, there's no going back on this day, on what will happen now.

A blade, cracked in two. Hammered into pieces and cast to the barrel. Spears. Axes. Long barreled weapons, warped and broken. One after another they were shattered, hurled into the barrel. They kept at pace, sweat and heat sweltering the forge.

Breath, by breath, Reece mused. No escape, no pause, no choices, he knew, fate has come howling.

Barrel full of metal fragments, Osric scooped buckets of the fluid, and started filling the metal fragment barrel. The fragments shining in the fluid, a swirling gold-blue he'd never seen before on metal. He saw them droop, softening like candle wax.

Jormund exhaled, his breath hot mist. "You've something to say? Lord Felgrad?"

"That what happens never, will never be unmade," Reece's cloak fluttered in a soft breeze that swept into the forge. "Every sword made, every armor created, every bow and spear and arrow and lance and shield. Each and every one. From today, to when we die, they'll haunt the battlefields."

"Aye," Jormund agreed, eyes not on Felgrad, but on the liquefying metal. "All us smiths can do is ensure that our craft have long lives. That they are of good quality, and that they are worth the payments given for them."

Reece let slip a bitter smile. "You know full well what I do, what this will unleash. What we'll unleash. You know what will happen once you're done, once your duty is fulfilled here."

Jormund warred to keep his face neutral. "Each to his duty, I to mine, you to yours, and to our parts. Allow us to continue our craft and I will raise no complaint."

"I've been told that I am a cruel, hideous creature," Reece said. "But you, you are far worse than anything I have ever done, or could do. King Felgrad would delight in your presence."

Jormund said nothing, pulling out metal, placing it upon his forge. His eyes were hard steel and his face a cold facade. He prepared his hammer. "Continue in your service to the King, Lord Felgrad," Jormund considered him. "And we will do our part. In both letter and spirit."

Reece glanced up, at the clouded skies. "Accursed letter and thrice damned spirit, it is."

"Aye, it is," Jormund murmured. "It always is, my lord, and it shall be forever more."

Redneghast cradled his injured hand, moving closer to Reece. The colossus was quiet, somber, unlike his typical irreverent self.

Jormund breathed one last breath, paying them no heed. He had weapons to make, armor to form, and a force to arm.

His finest work awaited, and he would not let it slip from his fingers for anyone. His duty, unchanging, forbade it. Osric filled a mold with the liquefied metal. After letting the metal take shape and harden, Osric flipped the mould, letting the still semi-molten metal fall to Jormund's anvil.

Jormund raised his hammer.

"To a new age," Reece quietly muttered.

The hammer fell, and the metal flattened. Shoulder and arm and hand, symphony in the mind, a rhythm of beating hammer upon heated metal. Sparks flashed, lighting up his face, reflected in his eyes. Every blow sent sparks dancing like firelights.

Metal took form. Long and magnificent. Dazzling orange-hot from heat. Every beat flattened it further, formed it further, made it from metal to weapon. Jormund ceased, and raised the finished blade, it glowed gold-blue, enchanting to behold.

"To a new age," Jormund replied to him.

He dipped the finished blade into fluid, it came out steaming, vapor wafting from it. Wooden hilt came next, hammer, pommel and hilt.

Blade first, the newly forged weapon was placed into a barrel. More followed. Spears and spears and spears. One after another. Until the barrel had finished, and they'd made enough to arm all his men.

"And yet, this is not what your master craft of the day is," Reece circled the blacksmith. "Mere spears and simple weapons are not what you dream of, is it?"

"If my lord wishes his finest equipment to be without defect," Jormund said. "I request his silence until the forging is done."

Jormund paused, head hanging low, sweat dripping from his face and upper body. Osric filled a second barrel full of fragments for him to use.

"That armor," Reece brushed a finger against the edge of a spear. His finger came away dripping blood. "You've seen it, before we did, before we knew of it, that's what you're wishing for, what you cannot unsee, nor replicate."

"They say silence is a virtue, my Lord Felgrad," Jormund replied sharply. "If you wish to have serviceable armor, I ask you to practice it."

Reece smiled at the audacity of the smith, but did as he was bid.

Talfryn Armway strode towards him, aggravation in his every step. "Lord Felgrad," Talfryn whispered. "We've found someone, someone that needs your attention. Someone you'd recognise."

He glanced at Talfryn. "Would I, now?" he asked. "Who?"

"Viviane," Talfryn said.

Reece's eyes narrowed. "She died years past."

"We've found Ban and Pendragon's blades, Lord Felgrad," Talfryn replied, his face grim. "One of the men recognized her face, there's no else she could be."

He signaled to his men to leave the inside of the forge. "Fate enjoys mocking me," Reece exhaled. "Bring her to me, drag her if you must. And give the men their new spears."

"As you command, Lord Felgrad."

It didn't take long, mere moments before they dragged the old woman before him. Reece didn't deign to look at her. His eyes were mesmerized by the sight of the forge, of an era of bloodshed in the making.

"Give her a chair," he commanded.

They obeyed.

"Ah, the great Lord Felgrad?" Viviane asked, mocking sweetness in her tone. "There's plenty of Lords Felgrad, as many as rats in a sack of rotten grain. I've lost track."

"Not as plenty as the heads that will roll today," Reece said, the forge fire dancing in his vision. "All because one old man could not meet his end. Now others will pay for his crime."

"Oh spare me your horseshit Reece," Viviane scoffed. "Your father was an ambitious traitor, and Felgrad took pity on you. I told him to off you, the shite never listened to me. At the least he offed your mother and brothers when I told him."

Reece's lips curled into a smile. "You will not get under my skin.'

"I was there when he fed her to the wolves," Viviane chuckled. "Your mother screamed like the wench she was. Not as much your shite of a father, begged for his life to the end. Aras Felgrad never was much of man."

"I pity you," Reece said. "A trapped little animal, no more than bark, blind and scared and alone. I truly pity you. Perhaps too much."

"Your older sister," Viviane gestured as if trying to remember. "Her name escapes me. The older whore? The one that kept holding you as you cried."

The memory flashed across his vision.

I'll be fine, Reece, his sister said, hugging him. She pinched his nose. It'll be fine before you know it, you little brat, so stop crying, okay?

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to focus on the now, not the past, not the memories. But the now, the present.

"Quin, her name was Quin," Reece's right hand shook. He gripped it still with his left. Sounds faded, slowly, as his vision narrowed down. "My sister's name was Quin."

Viviane nodded slowly, smiling with missing teeth at him. "She didn't sell for much. Neither did the rest of your sisters. The dress I wore that day was worth more than...all of them, actually."

It rose in him, burning him alive. Hot and heavy. Coiling and slipping its leash. His face twisted in anger. He turned away from the forge, facing her.

"Your son screamed as Felgrad gutted him alive," Reece hissed. "Begged for his life. Cried for his mother who left him, for his mentor who betrayed him, for his friend who'd long, long passed."

Viviane rolled her eyes. "A little boy playing a game with his elder," she scoffed. "Not that you'd know how to play games, Felgrad never had much room for games. Only servants. How many times did he lash you, before you understood that you were a slave by another name?"

"You always watched the lashings," Reece hand covered his eyes, he could hear the whips. Feel his blood, warm, and hot, across his back. "Always there, always with your mocking smile."

"Silly boy, I ordered them," Viviane softly laughed. "You got on my nerves, you and your idiot father, wench mother, and whore sister-"

"Sisters," he grit his teeth. Forcing himself to calm.

"Slipped my memory, hard to remember the difference between whores, " Viviane nodded in mock thanks. "You and your whore sisters. I always wondered if I should give them to the men, ask you to come watch."

"Shut up!" Redneghast yelled at the woman. "Stop being mean to Reece."

"Ah, and the creature you picked up," Viviane laughed. "Little animal finally learned to speak. I was tempted to have it killed when you found it eating rats, I suppose pity stopped me. Two wretched things together? Couldn't find a better image. I still have to admit, it was entertaining."

The colossus moved, dust scattering in his wake. His fist slammed her, launching her off of the chair. Redneghast raised his foot, ready to crush her skull. Viviane grinned at him.

"Stop," Reece commanded with a growl. "Talfryn, start rounding up the villagers," he commanded. "I've changed my mind, I want it done now."

Talfryn frowned. "You've said you want it tomorrow, after all the forging is done."

Reece gripped his face, reeling him in. Until they were face to face. His nails dug into the man's face.

"When I command you, Talfryn of Armway," Reece whispered. "You obey."

Facing paling, expression trapped in fear, Talfryn nodded slowly, unable to muster even a whimper.

"Now obey me!" Reece roared, sending the man away from him with a shove that sent him reeling. "Now! Gather them!"

Talfryn ran to obey his orders, screaming and yelling orders. His men started to herde the villagers, to pull them from their houses and chores.

Viviane broke out in chuckles. "Felgrad killed your father, fed your mother to the wolves, sold your sisters off as whores, beheaded your brothers right before your eyes, and you spread your legs for him. Like the wench you are. You'd do anything to avoid his wrath."

Yells and screams of fear rose up, the gathering of villagers clamoring, questioning, asking.

The hammer of the forge was still ringing.

"As if you were any better," Reece felt the anger die, die whimpering like his father died. "You were scared of him, flinching every time his eyes landed on you. So afraid, you dared not deny him your daughter as mistress."

"Neither did you deny him your sisters," Viviane smiled.

Reece unsheathed his sword. Gold-blue metal glinting in sunlight. "Viviane Felgrad," he let every drop of hate and unquenched rage slip out in that name. "My one and only offer of mercy, tell me who you sold my sisters to."

Slowly, surely, her lips rose up, her face brightened. Earnestly, and utterly, she smiled at him. "Ah, but they're all dead. I made sure of that."

His face went blank.

His sword whistled through the air, slashing through neck, cutting her head off. Blood gushed out, pumping in the dying beats of her heart.

Reece Felgrad screamed at the rolling head, boot slamming into it. He screamed and kicked and screamed and kicked. Ruined red pulp coated his boots when he was done.

The hammering of the forge slowed down. Osric and Jormund froze, gazes locked at the scene. Jormund clicked his tongue. "Hammer on, boy, hammer on."

"Pa?" Osric asked.

"Hammer on."

Reece Felgrad raised his arm. The spearmen surrounded the villagers pointed their weapons.

"Pa! Pa!" Osric threw aside his hammer, shaking his father, begging. "Pa! Edsel and Lynette and Jonus! Pa! Pa! Pa!"

Jormud ceased hammering. "Lord Felgrad, I've a request to make," he yelled, hammer in hand.

Reece turned to the smith. "I'm in no mood for your late sense of remorse, smith."

"Three children."

Reece bared his teeth at the man. "You. Do. Not. Request of me. Smith."

"Then it's a demand, or else you'll have no smith for this metal," Jormund met his eyes. "Three children."

He clenched his hands to fists, letting out a shuddering breath. "Take them."

The three were children taken out. The villagers bayed like animals, screaming, shouting at the wall of spears. His men skewered the loudest, closing in, spears dripping blood. Waiting the fall of his hand to act.

Edsel, Jonus, Lynette, and Osric were pulled into the forge by Jormund, crying and asking for their parents.

"Ma! Ma!" Jonus yelled and cried, fighting against Jormund holding him. "Damn you! Leth my mo'thur go!"

His mother said nothing, holding onto her husband with her head buried in his shoulder, and her husband grit his teeth, eyes wet with tears, voice killed by fear.

Reece's anger flared, the memory played across his eyes, him yelling, crying for his father. It rammed into him, clawed at him. His heart clenched. His throat clogged. His vision fogged with anger. Anger. Fury.

Let them go! the words were on the tip of his tongue.

Let them go! The words crawled up his throat.

Crown gleaming gold. Gem shining red. Ring glinting silver. Eyes the cold of nightmares. Whip dull brown. His sister marched off in chains. 'Serve or be made to serve.'

Anger curled to fear, heart beat skipping, breath hitching. The words died strangled in his throat.

He lowered his hand.

---

Location: Glywssing

Date: Thirtieth day of the fourth moon, Anno Domini 501

Cold wind blew, Reece's hair fluttering from the gale. Winter was descending, already the rains were falling more often, and soon enough, ice and hale would be on them. Soon, too soon, it would be too difficult to marshal an army.

The sickness, the hunger, the exposure, the exhaustion, the factors were measured in his head. Too much, for too little.

The eyes of the boy flashed across his vision. The hurt. The anger. He could see them on the face of another boy, another small child.

Angry and hurt.

Asking why.

All around him, ashes drifted by, carried by wind, falling down in gentle drizzle. Grey flecks that refused to cease haunting him.

Reece stilled his shaking hand, hiding it beneath his cloak.

Idly, he rubbed his tired eyes, feeling the bags under them. A growl escaped his throat, irritation and exhaustion bundled in one. Every time he blinked, closed his eyes for a second, sleep would crawl in.

Voices would seep in.

Faces would flicker in the shadows.

He covered himself tighter with his cloak, shivering. For a breath, a brief respite, he closed his eyes. He snapped them open, forcing himself to stay awake.

Reece froze at what he saw through blurry eyes. Utterly and completely. His heart skipped a beat. His eyes went wide.

It was a man of broad stature. Built like a God of the Romans. Chiseled of features, shoulder length of black hair, striking clear blue of eyes. He stood with a lazy lean on a hammer, a smile on face, a twinkle in his eyes.

"Vortigern?" he whispered.

His sanity caught up with him, realization crept in. So he laughed, he laughed a quiet, demented laugh. A hallucination, Reece knew, the lack of consequences of sleepless nights.

What else was an explanation for seeing the dead?

"An animal, bound by leash and whip, made to please his master, for fear of displeasure," the hallucination said, not even looking at him. "What a cage that fear makes, of those too cowardly and too weak."

Reece said nothing, he controlled his breath.

"You've not finished the task," Vortigern drawled. "You've left a survivor. A child. A boy. A man who will come with a grudge and a blade to sink in your throat. Who will return the blood spilt upon you, and your family."

It was nothing but a hallucination.

Nothing more.

All the same, Reece clenched his fists.

"What, after all, is the survivor of a slaughter who returns for vengeance, if not a hero?" the hallucination smiled. "Destroy your enemies, or be destroyed by them. End what you have begun, or be ended by it."

It was nothing but an illusion of the mind, a trick of his spread thin senses and overtaxed body.

"Care nothing for that which you have no reason to care for," Vortigern walked up to him, until they were eye to eye, face to face. "A warrior is a carpenter, your tool the blade, your wood meat and blood, your mastercraft the task at hand."

He could almost believe it, almost believing it was Vortigern himself. Vortigern, who turned around, blade in hand, to take down the dynasty that had ruled for decades. Vortigern, who turned thirty loyal men into a thousands strong rebellion.

Vortigern, who put Felgrad to bed with toxin and treachery.

Vortigern, who convinced Reece's father to rebel and take the throne.

Reece grit his teeth, his heart rumbling in his chest. A bellowing, angry, and hurt drum beat. The anger died when he remembered it was an illusion.

He looked up, exhaling, shrinking in on himself in his cloak. He let the cold bite into his face, let the chill numb the hurt.

"Let the faces of those you've never known, never loved, and never cared for flow by, seen, but unremembered. Heard, but not listened to," Vortigern mused. "It is a poor craftsman who is inept at his craft."

Reece closed his eyes, he felt a heat breath tickle his ears.

"Strike. Strike without remorse. Strike without respite. Strike without stop. Strike without end. Strike until your enemy is bone and dust. Strike until you are victorious, or you are dead."

He opened them, and Vortigern was gone.

In a daze, he walked back into town. He walked past the burnt bodies, the smoke stack of their sizzling flesh rising high. The smell drowning the now quiet village, the ashes wafting by with wind.

There were more men around, dozens, enough to outnumber his warband. From a dozen houses and a dozen leaders.

Pryce was standing by his tent, anxiously waiting.

"Are they here?" Reece asked.

"Ye-"

Reece didn't wait for him to finish the word. "Redneghast," he called out. He didn't look, he didn't need to check. Redneghast returned by his side, shivering from the cold, sadness on his oversized face.

He took off his cloak, throwing it on Redneghast's shoulders. The colossus stopped shivering, an idiot smile in his face as the thick cloak warmed him.

Inside the tent, they sat waiting for him with their expressions of confidence, and demanours of power. He could see it in their eyes, ideas of demands, of concessions, of haggling.

Between them, the large, round wooden table felt too small.

His cousin, Reagor Felgrad, eying his position. Claude Granborne, thinking of ways to earn more land. Desmond Andergor, shifting glances left and right. Attie Stonehall, calculating in his dagger stare. Hasval Armway, half his face sagging, while the other half frowned.

"And would you look at that, Aras' bastard squirt comes in," Reagor spat. "Look at that-"

Strike, the word rang in his head. Strike without remorse, it chanted in his skull. He obliged. His knife slipped out of its sheath, severing Reagor's pinky.

Blood splashed.

The severed digit rolled.

He didn't allow him to scream.

Reece kicked Reagor off of his chair, dragging him by his collar, and pulling him until Reece's hot breath and glare made the man pale. Shivering, scared, the man barely held back tears.

Without a word, he pushed the man away. All around the table, the lords stared at him with blank shock.

"By right and by crown, all of you owe fealty to Felgrad," Reece said, voice low. Too low. Too controlled. Too even. "All of you, owe your lands, owe your lives, owe your safety and trade and wealth to King Felgrad."

"King Felgrad," Reece pointed to a gloved finger. "Who sent me, as his sword, as his voice, as his word, to finish what all of you have failed at. To put to grave Pendragon's spawn, to put to sword Banoic's line. To feed to the wolves Merlin of Bangor."

"And instead of finding them destitute, forsaken wretches cast to the forests and hills, I find them fat and suckling on Andergor land, upon the land King Felgrad granted you," he hissed.

Desmond Andergor opened his mouth to reply.

Reece hammered the table, cracking it. "Your worth is now in doubt, prove it or suffer the consequences," he locked eyes with Desmond Andergor. "Or shall you be punished for your transgressions of inadequacy against the crown?"

"Who in the spirits name do you think you are?" Desmond Andergor said. "To dare insult our family-"

"Redneghast."

Redneghast grabbed the man, slamming his face into the table. It broke in two. Reece bent down, grabbed the man by his hair, and pulled his head up.

"Lord. Felgrad. You will not address me any other way," Reece hissed. "And you will gather the best of your riders, and you will do so without delay. Then you will return to me, or you and your kin will suffer the consequences."

Desmond slapped his hand away, spitting blood. With a face twisted in humiliation, the man nodded.

"All of you," Reece said, standing back up. "All of you will gather your riders, and join me."

Claude Granborne spoke up first. "And upon whom will we descend?"

"The Hutchings," Reece replied. "And upon every last village and town and child and woman and babe and sheep who bears their name. All who dare stand against King Felgrad."

He headed out of his tent, stopping only to say. "To whomever gets the head of Merlin of Bangor, will be a third of the Hutching's land. To whomever bring the heads of Pendragon's spawn, a third. To whomever kills Ban Banoic's heir, Lancelot Banoic, a third."

The lords rushed out of the tent, screaming and yelling orders. They charged out the town, a storm of hooves, propelled by lust and greed.

Let slip the swords to sever the necks.

"Reece, Reece," Redneghast gently poked at him.

Let loose the arrows to darken the skies.

"What is it?"

Let the horsemen fill the air with fear.

Redneghast pointed. "Your eyes."

He reached up towards his eyes with a gloved finger. It came off wet.

Tears?

---

Location: Ruins of Glywssing

Date: First day of the fifth moon, Anno Domini 501

Reece stood alone, biting winter chill grasping at him. The campfire was barely enough, and the village was little more than smouldering piles of wood.

No living left, no houses left. All was laid to ruin.

By his hands. By his command.

He shut his eyes. Calming the endless stream of thoughts, focusing, focusing on the memories. The smile of his wife, the laughter of his daughters, his body relaxed.

Reece breathed out, calm and even.

Soon, it would be over. In the coming nights of blood and fire, he would fix it all. Felgrad would be pleased, he would be home. Safe. Sound. Happy and warm, free of winter's bite.

He would finish the task.

He would end what he started.

No heroes, no rebels, no tales to be told, only reminders to be whispered of. He would destroy them, and when all was done.

When all was done, he would be free.

Reece looked up as his cloak was returned to him. Laid gently upon his shoulders. A small smile slipped from him.

Redneghast sat down beside him, the colossus swaddled in blankets used for horses. He wiggled closer to Reece, an honest smile on his face.

Reece gave him a dull stare.

"Cold," Redenghast said, by way of explanation.

Despite himself, he snorted at that. Despite himself, he moved closer to the colossus.

Redneghast blinked.

"Cold," Reece said.

Redenghast smiled wider.

Pryce, covered in his own cloaked and shivering, marched towards him. "We have a problem, Lord Felgrad."

Irritation rose, but he smothered it down. "Explain."

"I won't take credit for what was not mine," Pryce said, jerking his chin towards Talfryn, marching towards them, Jormund in tow, held at swordpoint. "Talfryn was the one who found it out."

"Armway," Reece said. "Explain."

"This bastard lied to us," Talfryn growled. "He lied to you. He thought he was clever, cleverer-"

"Smarter," Reece whispered.

Talfryn paused. "Pardon, my lord?"

"Smarter, not cleverer," Reece said.

"I knew that," Talfryn hissed, kicking Jormund to a kneeling position. "He thought he was smarter than you, than us. I followed him, I followed to find what he was hiding. What he was secreting away."

Reece met Jormund's eyes.

"What is it, that is so terrible, blacksmith, that you fear me possessing it?" Reece asked.

"He is lying to you, Lord Felgrad," Jormund replied, not a hint of fear. "He is lying, to steal that which I own, to make you punish me, and make himself look good."

"Talfryn, would you lie to me?" Reece asked.

Talfryn paled, swallowing. "Never."

"I ask you again, and for the last time, if you lie to me, I will kill your son," Reece stood up, leaning down the eye level of Jormund, holding his gaze with a cold unrelenting one of his own. "What is it, that is so terrible, that you fear me possessing it?"

Jormund said nothing, mouth clamped shut.

"You will not say?" Reece's voice was monotone. "Then I will find out for myself."

"Talfryn," he said. "Lead the path."

Talfryn led them, weaving deftly through trees, branches and maze-like forestry. As if he had been born there, Talfyrn unerringly led them forward.

Forward, toward it.

A pillar of metal so impressive, awe-inspiring even. Frozen in disbelief, he simply stared at it. Beneath a coat of silvery sheen, gold-blue metal gleamed by the tons. Enough to equip a small army twice over.

Reece burst out in laughter, his eyes sharpened daggers. "The armor," he laughed and kept laughing. "There's more of it? There is, isn't there?"

Jormund said nothing, but he didn't need to.

The look of horror on his face said it all.

Without hesitation, he stepped inside the pillar. It was a wreck. Shards and sections of the walls were on the floor, leaving holes and vines of metal hanging from the ceiling and walls. Marks, blood that had dried over, holes in walls, cuts from blades, it only enhanced the majestic feeling of this once-grand construct.

What opulent kingdom had it come from?

How had it ended up here, broken and mangled?

What secrets of power and wealth did it hold?

Reece didn't know, not now, but he would. He would pillage it, he would take everything it held, and more. So much he would gain from it, but nothing, nothing made him smile further than the piles.

Piles of armor, empty of what had once been their bearers. On the armors were large black beetles, glowing softly with a blue-ish tint. Their jaws were bigger and heavier than other beetles he'd seen, but- were they eating the metal surrounding the armor? They were.

Gnashing, shredding, and biting into the metal. Relentlessly cutting into it. Stripping it into segments, and throwing them aside.

They were also working together. Carrying bits and pieces, leaving others. Reece's eyebrow rose when several flew off, crawling into dark corners of the tower. While others deposited bits and pieces for ants to carry off.

Ants, which were swarming the place. Gathered in thick clusters to carry off things, and dig into others.

He blinked and stepped back, refusing to grab a beetle to take a closer look, instead choosing to look back at the blacksmith.

"Why now?" Reece asked, glancing at the armor sets throughout the room. "Why start hiding them now?"

"The insects," Jormund said, slowly, wincing. "They had infested the place, begun eating into these mastercrafts. I have found them everywhere, they have even carried off chunks off this place. Boards of metal, components and pieces. I had to safeguard what I could. I had to carry things out. As much as I could. I had to."

"And you lost track of yourself, and of time," Reece mused.

"I had to," Jormund repeated. "I couldn't leave it alone."

"And now, your own greed led me to the last place you wanted me in," Reece turned to Pryce. "Call the men. All of them. I will want this place emptied of everything of value, not once, not twice, but thrice over."

He turned to Talfryn. "Find me workers, find me miners, find me everything we need. This place will be our gift to Felgrad. Our salvation for our failure here."

Talfryn nodded, hope and awe plastered across his face as he turned and ran out of the room.

Reece turned back to Jormund. "Show me everything else there is in this place, and I will consider sparing your life."

Jormund nodded, a glimmer of dread in his eyes.

"Jormund, let this be your first and last warning," Reece nodded slowly. "Any other games, and you, and your son, and his friends, will burn, like all the rest."

He turned, Redneghast by his side. The smith flinched, as Reece walked up to him. "Show me everything. Now."

Jormund swallowed. "I-"

"You do not." Reece and Jormund were face to face. "You. Do. Not. I do, I command, I choose, and you obey. You," Reece gripped Jormund by the throat. "Obey."

The smith obeyed.

Everything was shown to him.

Everything.

Reece, son of Aras, Lord of the dynasty of Felgrad, smiled.

Eyes glinting like daggers, arms spread wide in welcome, he smiled. It was a wide, cold, smile.

Jormund stared, the scene before him blurring with another, he froze in the memory, the memory he could never forget.

The memory of the day King Felgrad declared war.

The Hutchings' guards led them to the open fields. Where the boys, and the men, were playing, training, and practising their fighting skills. All of those present bore the Hutchings' resemblance, except for two men, idling by.

Arthur, Lancelot, and Mordred followed closely behind Merlin. Almost huddling, their eyes piercing, and their stances wary.

One of them had his chin on his fist. Eyes half closed, playing with a leaf in his hands, and every so often looking up. Only to sigh, and go back to playing with the leaf.

The second was humming, a knife in his hand, and a piece of wood in the other. Slowly, he carved at it. There was a soft curve to his lips, and a serene posture to his presence.

Merlin stopped before them, and smiled. "It has been some time. Tristan, Galahad."

Tristain's hands froze, knife trapped in the wood. Black, white streaked hair shone in the sun. Soft, kind features marred by scars and age. Azure blue eyes shone brightly. He blinked, and leaned forward, checking if his eyes were lying to him.

Tristan cleared his throat. "To be clear, this is not your ghost haunting me?"

Galahad opened his eyes. Ginger brown, scraggly hair, and sculpted, unscarred features demanding attention. Green eyes calmly, boredly, regarded them. "Annoying." He mumbled, before going back to his leaf.

"No, I am not yet dead." Merlin replied. "I am surprised that the two of you are not, as matter of fact, dead."

"No thanks to you," Galahad grumbled, flicking the leaf in his hand up.

Tristan clicked his tongue at his companion. "Your impromptu escape from the court certainly did not help. But we managed it." He glanced at Galahad. "We just broke a few dozen spears doing so."

With a long, aggravated sigh, Galahad stood up. In one, singular, step, he marched on Merlin. Face to face, Galahad leaned down. His imposing bulk, all muscle and sculpted limbs, loomed.

Arthur flinched, talking a step back. Lancelot swallowed. Mordred moved forward, standing besides Merlin. Head high, physique bared back at Galahad.

"What do you want, Merlin?" Galahad breathed out, bored contempt on his face.

"Behind me is Arthur, son of Uther, son of Pendragon. Besides me, Mordred, son of Uther, son of Pendragon, and lastly Lancelot, son of Ban," he declared, tapping his staff on the ground.

Something indecipherable flashed across Galahad's eyes. "Pendragon," he muttered.

"Ban and Pendragon's kids," Tristan was smiling. "What a pleasure to see you with my own eyes."

"Train them, both of you," Merlin demanded.

Tristan raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"

Galahad exhaled hot mist, moving his arm in stretching motion. "Which of them is strongest?"

"Arthur is," Merlin stated. "Lancelot second, and Mordred third."

Mordred glared at Merlin. "I am not the weakest."

Galahad pushed him aside, Modred yelping as he fell to the ground. Galahad brushed shoulders against Merlin, and all but stomped Lancelot out of his way, before slowing down only before Arthur. Green eyes devoured Arthur alive.

"Him?" Galahad craned his neck, staring Merlin in the eyes.

Arthur felt his breath come short, the full presence of the man pressing down on him. Boredom and utter disappointment overcame Galahad's features.

"Him," Merlin reiterated.

"Follow me. Tristan, take the others," Galahad's voice was demanding. The man was already moving. Expecting Arthur to blindly follow him.

"I-"

"Arthur," Merlin's voice brokered no argument. "Follow him."

He took a long breath, and followed the man. They walked into a courtyard, a large tree at its heart. The place had been tiled with stone cut by hand, and an arsenal of weapons hung from racks.

Galahad took a long whip, wrapped it, and placed it on his belt. Then he waited, eyes half closed, bored.

Arthur quietly stood, opening his mouth, and closing it on second thought. He expected….an order. Instructions, something, anything. There was nothing of the sort forthcoming.

Then he understood it, then he hesitated.

He didn't feel it, the urge, the desire to fight. He had no desire to hurt this man, no wish to see him injured. Arthur had no will to bare his fists, to raise his sword.

Within the shadow of the tree, blackness gathers and coalesces. Red of eyes, horns grey in the light, daunting of size.

'When the cub of the predator is born, it plays with it's siblings.' It spoke, demanding his attention. 'Fang and claw, pouncing and leaping. For the hunt, they train, they learn their animal weapons.'

'Kill your hesitation.' The spectre commanded. 'Prepare for the coming hunt.'

What if I hurt him?

'You are the cub.' A clawed hand rose, single claw pointing at Galahad. 'He is the predator'

Arthur felt a chill across his skin. His hair rose on end. There was nothing about Galahad that made him stand out, he seemed bored of it all. He was not the collosal size of Redneghast, nor that razer honed clarity of Reece, he was the quiet intensity of his father.

Nothing stood out.

Yet the words rang in his skull.

He was a cub in the predator's den.

Arthur's hesitation fled.

From it's wooden sheathe, Arthur's sword was drawn. His breath misted across the cold air, and the sun's ray shone across its length. Something in him reacted, when before it did not. He felt himself and the blade, he knew of it like he knew of his beating heart.

As if a missing part of him had grown back, a limb he never knew he had, returned.

'Our living sword, we were first to tame it. It's temperament left it abandoned. It held no name, before then, ' The spectre said. 'Our first swing that tamed became its name.'

Then Arthur saw change come across the blade. Long calligraphy glimmered across the flat of it, it's name spelled out, almost ethereal in how it reflected the light, hypnotizing in how it caught his eyes.

He did not speak the language.

He knew the words.

The two of them spoke its name in two languages.

'A heavy cleave.' Like embers in the wind, the spectre evaporated away.

"Excalibur," Arthur whispered.

"Finally." Galahad stretched his neck, joints popping. His other hand drawing his whip, letting it fall uncoiled to the floor.

Arthur exploded into motion, dust whipped into the air. Excalibur's metal glinted blue-gold, the air whistled, parting to shearing edge.

He expected surprise.

He expected fear.

Galahad took a long, bored sigh. He fell flat against the ground, swing missing him utterly. One leg kicked out, sweeping Arthur's feet from under him. Spinning with the motion of his limb, Galahad sprung to his feet.

Before Arthur's back hit the ground, Galahad's foot came down on his throat.

Crack.

His windpipe collapsed, blood gurgled in his throat, his vision darkened. His hands clutching at his throat, trying to force oxygen in.

"Weak and useless," Galahad murmured, and kicked Arthur's face in. His nose snapped, skull hitting the hard cobble. Arthur's skin broke, and blood splattered. His foot still on Arthur's face, Galahad started grinding it against his broken nose.

Arthur's hand reached to grab Galahad's foot, the man sighed again, and smashed his hand to pieces with a stomp.

"You bore me," Galahad drawled, and repeatedly stomped on Arthur without pause. Relentlessly, ceaselessly, foot on face, bone crushing impact after another.

The stone shattered, and blood coated the ground.

Galahad paused, letting out an aggravated breath. "Dead. Great," he looked around, grumbling. "Need to get rid of it," he kicked Arthur's body in the ribs.

{AMALGAM-BEGIN?ASSAULT|HOSTMIND-PREPARED|ACTIVE}

{AMALGAM-HOSTBODY? RESTORATION|HOSTBODY-WEAVE-MEND? ACTIVE| INCREASE? 100%}

His windpipe snapped back into place, hot steam wafted off of cherry red, damaged skin. Bone cracked and reformed. Arthur forced himself upright, a blanket of heat hazing around his skull and throat.

{AMALGAM-HOSTBODY? RESTORATION|HOSTBODY-WEAVE-MEND? HALT| DECREASE? STANDBY}

Arthur growled, his skull rang, dull throbbing headache receding by the second.

Galahad tilted his head. "Alive?"

"That. Hurt," Arthur forced out through clenched teeth, he flourished Excalibur, every step a march, his last step broke the ground, a leaping, two-handed thrusting pounce.

Galahad opened his eyes fully, face emotionless as stone. "Alive," he muttered, his whip corded and wrapped back around his belt.

Hands slammed around the flat of the blade, Galahad stopped the thrust. Arthur dropped one hand, fist hurtling for Galahad's face.

He then heard it. He then saw.

A chuckle. A glint of the eyes.

Galahad dropped to his back, pulling Arthur backwards with him. He raised Arthur to the air with his feet, and kicked. Smoothly rolling backwards to his feet, he cast aside Excalibur.

Arthur hit the ground. The air forcefully left his lungs. He gasped for air.

"Pendragon's scion," Galahad spoke aloud, almost tasting the words.

Arthur roared, standing back and storming Galahad. Punching in a flurry, fists comets, teeth bared in bestial fury, the snarl almost inhuman. Left and right, step by step, Galahad dodged them all. His wrist flicked out, whip in hand now.

A leer broke on Galahad's face, his whip lashing out. He all but spun with his whip, as it pulled a weapon off of the rack to him. Spear landing in his hand, Galahad attacked.

Butt end to the chin, a sweep to the left of the forehead, kick to the chest.

Arthur swayed on his feet, coughing for air, blood streaming down his face.

"Is this all you are?" Galahad's voice was heated, alive. His eyes were wide open. His stance was brimming with power. "Another boring, dull, weak sheep? Content to idle their days and die as worthless as the day they were born?"

He thrusted his blade at Arthur, the sharp blade drawing blood, cutting across Arthur's palms as he gripped. As he slowed the strike to a half. With one hand he broke the shaft.

With another, he threw the broken pieces at Galahad.

"This is it, that hunger," Galahad murmured. "That bloody desire for violence."

Arthur rushed for Excalibur, grabbing it off of the ground, and meeting Galahad. Three slashes that turned the spear to scraps.

"This speed!" Galahad breathed, whip flying and grabbing a sword.

In a flurry of steel and limbs, they struck one another.

"This strength!" he laughed, his sword shattered beneath Excalibur's swing.

Arthur's swing almost cut his throat open. A red line leaked blood, his own broken sword cutting across Arthur's face. The droplets of blood danced in the air.

"This resilience!" he pushed against Arthur, throwing his sword aside.

Weapons shattered and broke. Spears were rent in half, blades turned to broken pieces, fists and legs, daggers thrown and blocked aside by Excalibur, parries and strikes made to kill.

"Magnificent, magnificent, you are," Galahad had tears in his eyes, and teeth bared in grateful hope. "Yes, yes, you are a Pendragon. Another Pendragon. Another one alive in this world of the living dead!"

Galahad pulled a bow to his hand, throwing a javelin to push Arthur away. He loaded three arrows, firing them at once.

One pierced Arthur's thigh, sending him falling to the ground. Another his feet, ripping into his heel. The last striking his wrist, forcing him to drop Excalibur.

"You," Galahad said, a grin that was all teeth on his face. He loomed over Arthur. "I acknowledge your right to live."

Sweat dripped from Arthur's brow, his gasps and pants barely drawing enough oxygen to feel alive. He could barely move, everything was tired, and the arrows throbbed in dull, distant pain.

"Can you feel it?" Galahad spread his arms, the sun shining on him. "That war drum beat of your heart, as your mind pushes, and your heart feels, and your body breathes. How the flesh comes alive?" he laughed.

"This joy, thrumming in your veins. This blistering realization of what it means to live. To see your enemy broken before you," a foot impacted Arthur's side, sending him rolling across the ground. "To feel the air fill with fear, the ground shake with hooves. To drive those who oppose you and baptize the lands red with their life."

A whip wrapped around Arthur's hand, pulling him up, dragging right into a hurtling fist. Arthur felt every tooth in his mouth shatter. He slammed into the ground. Hard.

"To rob them of everything they ever loved and held and wanted. To kill or be killed, to control or be controlled, to rule or be ruled, to either be a slave or slave master," Galahad sidestepped a strike, ramming a dagger into Arthur side, stabbing him over and over with it, and kicking him to the ground.

"To see their faces drenched in tears, as they realize, in absolute clarity, their wealth is yours, their wives and daughters yours to enjoy, their sons your slaves to serve, their elders your winter kindling," Galahad breathed in, smile wide on his face. He was laughing. "To be alive, with no aggravating pretenses of false civility. To be free, to be human."

His laughter ceased, and his grin widened. "Pull those arrows out now, or I'll end you."

Arthur growled, tearing the arrows out of himself. He threw them away with disdain, his flesh steaming as it raced to patch itself up.

"Every day I'll wait for you here," he stated. "If you don't come, I'll kill you in your sleep. If you're late, I'll come for you with my sword drawn. If you hide, I'll hunt you down."

Arthur opened his mouth to protest, but soon closed it when he found no words.

Galahad's brow rose, then he nodded to himself with a big smile. "I won't give you a breath of mercy when we fight. I won't hesitate to kill you. If you die, you weren't worth caring about."

He threw Arthur a staff to use as a crutch.

Then he walked away, steps light, a cheery song under his breath. He left Arthur lying there, without a second thought. A predator, unconcerned about his prey.

When his injuries healed, Arthur walked to the sanctuary.

---

The spectre's red eyes haunted him, shining in the corner of his vision. He ignored it, sitting atop the branch of a tree, quietly watching the bright moon above.

It seemed strange, that heavenly body of light, white and pure, giving illumination to the night. The moon gave him comfort, for the night to have light cast upon it, gave him comfort. In the night, he found solace, and in the moonlight, he found peace.

"You're a strange kid, you know that?"

Arthur flinched, almost jumping, before his mind caught up with him, and he placed voice to face. He looked down from his branch.

Pryderi smiled wide, amusement glinting in his eyes. "Merlin's put you under Galahad, I see."

Without thinking, Arthur rubbed his now healed bruises and cuts. "Yes."

"He shouldn't have," Pryderi settled against the tree trunk. "But Merlin has never cared much for what he should do, only what he must do. He thinks you're a natural born killer."

"I'm not," Arthur said quietly.

"No, you're something far, far worse, kid," Pryderi chuckled. "You're something that scares Galahad, enough that he's interested in you, and Galahad is interested in very little. Blood, steel, whores, gold, and glory, and the fearsome are what he cares for."

"Me?" Arthur blurted out, staring at Pryderi in non-comprehension. "He thinks I'm...fearsome?"

"He does not think that, he knows that," Pryderi put down a goblet on the grass, and took out his wine bottle. "He thinks that you're holding back, that you're not showing your true self on full display."

Arthur slowly shook his head. "I'm not my grandfather, I'm not the great warrior, the slayer of men, the breaker of armies. That's not me, and I don't want it to be me."

The specter flickered, fading from one shadow to the next. Staying in Arthur's vision, never letting Arthur forget it's existence.

"Liar, vengeance is in your eyes," Pryderi stared back into Arthur's eyes. "Hot like a fire, sharp as a dagger. You want blood for blood."

He looked away, back at the solace and peace of night and moon. "I want it, but I won't go and take it...there's no point. It won't change a thing."

'Weakness is death,'the specter hissed. 'Hesitation defeat, respite demise. The hunt has begun, will you be hunted?'

"No, it wouldn't," Pryderi stated. "Blood begets blood that begets blood. The blood feuds last generations, and the fools who think they're honorable, brave, and courageous, carry them out. The hatred spans generations, ends generations, and starts generations." 'Or will you be what you can, what you are, what you should be,' the specter flickered from behind a tree, to besides Pryderi. 'The hunter.'

"...I don't understand it," Arthur leaned his head against the tree. "Why's everyone so eager to...play along? To act as if it's not so wrong?"

"Is it wrong?" Pryderi glanced up at him, opening the wine bottle. "You kill the enemy, you take their women for yourself, you take their gold for yourself, you take their fertile land, their houses, their sons for slaves, and then you rule, knowing that you and yours are safe, from those who would do the same."

"I can't like that, I can't accept that, as if it's correct, as if it's the right way to live," Arthur replied. "The enemy had a father, a son, a wife, a daughter, a name, a family, a life. I could have known them, sat with them, laughed with them, smiled with them."

"You could have," Pryderi said. "But why would you care, when the coffers are full, your bed is warm with young and fertile girls, and the fields fill your belly?"

"I don't need that. I don't want that. If that means theft? Rape? Fattening myself in their misery," Arthur said. "Doing to them pain they did not deserve, suffering them horror, and tragedy and bloodshed, just for… for these things? I can't. I can't. So why can everyone else do the things I can't?"

"You're a silly boy," Pryderi laughed, he looked at Arthur with love. "Such silly things come out of your mouth. There are things only silly people like you can do."

Arthur glanced away at that. "Such as quietly avoiding the violence?"

"End the blood feuds with peace," Pyrederi said, with not a hint of mockery. "End the violence with good nature. End our beastly idiocy with kind silliness. These are things you can do, that nobody else can. Harsh justice has its place, the honor and indignity serves its purpose. But it must be reigned in."

"By the likes of me," Arthur's voice lost emotion.

"Only the peaceful can remind us of peace, in our throes of war," Pryderi mused. "Only the kind can remind us of kindness in our throes of rage. Only those who see otherwise, who seek beyond, make take us beyond."

"That isn't me," Arthur said. "I don't even know where I'm heading, where I'm going, what I'm doing in life, who am I? What am I? All I know is what I don't want to be."

"And that is why you scare Galahad," Pryderi replied. "Why you scare me."

"You?" Arthur asked. "I scare you?"

"Because what happens when you know?" Pryderi wondered. "What will happen then, hmm? I can feel it in my bones, when I see your eyes, when I catch a glimpse of something asleep in them, and I dread what it will be when it awakens."

Arthur closed his eyes, controlling the quaking beat of his heart. "There's nothing I'm hiding."

'You're simply ignoring it,' the specter was on the branch besides him. 'Stirring in you, waking up, rising with every heartbeat.'

He felt his mouth go dry. He swallowed, calming himself with a breath.

Pryederi poured himself his wine, swirling it in his cup. "Your grandfather did the same. He was quiet, lost, lacking in discipline, in focus and guidance. He spent his days drinking and whoring. Trying, in vain, to avoid waking up. Dulling his senses with pleasure."

The image was incongruent, so much so Arthur could simply not imagine it. Pendragon, a hedonist? Washing away the time with frivolities and sins. For some reason, it made his lips curl, it made him smile a tiny, barely there, smile.

"His father had died in war with Danes," Pryderi took a swig from his goblet. "And all he had left was his mother, his mother, who could not control him. And that was when Pendragon, thirteen years older, met Felgrad. Felgrad, who was sickly of breath, weak of stature, and third in line to the throne."

Pryderi stopped, peering into the wine, lost in a memory. "They were inseparable. And Pendragon became solemn and quiet. Still lost, still something in him, deep down, slept, waiting to wake. Then a Christian missionary struck up a relationship with your great grandmother, and she embraced the faith."

"So did my grandfather?" Arthur asked.

"He did not, so she sent him to the monastery of Saint Abaccus," Pryderi smiled. "Saint Abaccus, Saints of Blades, and in his monastery where the mad, outlawed, criminal, and the monstrous dwell. All of whom found redemption in Saint Abaccus' teachings. There, he learned discipline. He learned piety. He learned peace. And that thing, deep and sleeping inside, awoke."

Arthur shivered in realization. "He learned to kill."

"He learnt zealous hunger," Preyderi murmured. "He learned of resolve. He learned the ways of the sword. He had always been the animal, the monster, the beast, waiting to be let out, to be given the chance out of its human skin. It was only a question of how, not when, it came out."

"I'm not like that," the words slipped out. "I'm not like that," Arthur repeated. "I'm scared, I'm terrified, I'm weak, I'm a coward to war, I'm a stranger to killing and bloodshed. I'm not like that, I'm nothing like that."

"Then why are you trying to convince yourself, more than me?" Pryderi downed his cup. "Maybe I am wrong, maybe I see in you what I want to see. But I know, I know inside my heart, you're the same."

Arthur didn't reply.

"Merlin hasn't told me what happened to you, but I don't need to know," Pryderi said. "I know him, and I know his ways. And I know, I know, Pendragon would not have wished anything but the kindest for you. So tell me, which do you want?"

Pryderi raised one hand.

"Vengeance for what was taken."

He raised a second.

"Peace for what remains."

Arthur laughed. He laughed, for this was no choice. "I want solace and peace. I want clarity, instead of this confusion. I don't want enemies to kill...I want strangers to greet."

Pryderi smiled. "A Dane Earl is a dear friend of mine, he will take you, and your sister, and your brother, and give you the lives of safety and solace you want. You will be safe. Treated as family, and you'll live well."

"Family," Arthur muttered, heart clawing at his chest. "Why would you do that for me, for us?"

The Patriarch of House Hutchings stood up, his bottle of wine half empty, he left the goblet equally empty. He winked at Arthur.

"Because silly boys deserve to have their silly dreams," Pryderi said. "Because I want to meet you, one day, and see there's nothing to fear. That thing inside is an illusion, a little apparition I dreaded, and that you, you're more than I saw."

"Thank you," Arthur said.

"No, thank you, boy," Pryderi said, walking away. "Your silliness was enough to make me smile. So should everyone see your silliness and smile. The world should be more like you, and less like us."

"..Less like grandfather," Arthur said out loud, what was unstated.

"Less like the monsters that should not live with us," Pryderi replied, at the edge of the clearing. "Less like things of nightmare, fear, and dread. And more like you, silly things of hope, kindness, and a better tomorrow."

Pryderi gave him one last long, loving smile, before walking away. His steps echoed in the silent night, Arthur's ears easily picking them up until they were too far away. Then the clearing was devoid of any but himself.

"No monsters," Arthur murmured, looking up at the star filled night sky. "No nightmares. No spectres waiting in the night." He looked up into the star filled sky and let himself wonder.

No more monsters, no more dealing with Felgrad. The spectre gone, the armor kept away from him in a secure armory. His siblings safe, with him and away from danger. From Reece Felgrad and his band of murderers.

No more vengeance, no revenge for wrongs, slights, and petty things. It was just within his grasp. All he had to do was reach out and grab hold of it, pull himself towards it. The life he could have had-could still have.

'One meets his fate on the road to avoid it,' the specter sat besides him. Red eyes cast onto the heavens. 'Surrender your illusions, give up your delusions, fate will strike you down, if you do not strike it down.'

"You keep pushing me, manipulating me, directing towards your means, uncaring of me," Arthur said. "I'm not your puppet, nor your slave. Still you keep expecting obedience. " He shook his head. "I know where your path leads, to violence and bloodshed. I won't follow that, I won't risk losing what I still have."

'Your hubris knows no bounds. Your arrogance knows no limits, and your weakness has no barriers,' the specter said, tone solemn. 'Cast aside your past. Cast aside illusions of peace, and a life now gone. It is gone, and will stay gone. Now you must carve the future, with a sword in hand."

"I decide that," Arthur growled. "I decide that, not you. You are not my master, teaching me how to live. You are a shadow, a ghost of a failure that leapt on the chance to throw your burden on someone else. A naive boy that you thought you could mould into your perfect successor." Arthur shifted his now heated gaze to the Spectre's own glowing gaze. "I am not that boy, and I will decide my path, no matter what you say or do to me, and it will be mine."

'You delude yourself into a mirage of control,' the specter turned to him, joy in its eyes, form disintegrating like ashes in the wind. 'You no more can decide this, than you can decide your name, your face, your gender, your family, your world and homeland.'

Arthur saw the spectre glare as it faded away. 'The fish of the river no more choose their path, than can you as you are,' it pointed a slowly fading, clawed finger. 'Relinquish false illusion, and attain true perception. Cease your resistance, become a living sword, the blessed and cursed instrument of power.'

It's voice turned to hissed whisper. 'I will grant you eyes, that you may see. In blinding clarity, in searing certainty, how sharp your edge truly is, that you may cut with it the cogs of fate into splinters.'

Arthur's gaze became a full glare. "Leave. I will not repeat myself."

'You are within the river's tide,' the spectre's said. 'Escape its motions, or be hurled over the waterfall.'

The spectre drifted away, like embers on the wind, and Arthur was alone.

"I won't let that happen," Arthur whispered fiercely. "I will do anything before I let that happen, or I will die trying."

He would see his dream come true. He would see it happen or he would die trying.

---

Morgana, Mordred, Lynda, Argun and Vargun played in the hall. The cheers were grating on his ears, the joyful nature of it aggravating his sense of the tenuous nature of affairs. He kept it under control.

What harm was there in letting the children be happy?

"You have that look on you," Pryderi said, sitting on a carpet, forsaking his chair. A pitcher of wine, and a cup, beside him.

Merlin scratched his beard, disheveled hair hanging over his face. "Morgause tends to have that effect on me," he paused. "Have you ever thought of giving up the drink?"

"Have you ever thought of slitting your own throat?" Pryderi hissed, he froze. Regret washed over his face. "Apologies, that was uncouth."

Many times.

"The memories still haunt you," Merlin said.

"The fields of the crucified," Pryderi whispered, hand covering his eyes. "The heads on pikes, the families, dragged by cattle until they died. The fear, Merlin, the terror he cast into their hearts. Felgrad's eyes, I see them look back at me in the darkness."

"He's just a man, no more," Merlin said, still watching the horizon for banners. "All the fear, all the dread, all the terror, and behind it is a weak, coughing, man. He bleeds like all the rest."

"So why does that give me no comfort?" Pryderi asked. "Why, Merlin, does a chill creep into my bones when his name is mentioned. Why can he commit such cruelties, such evils, and be obeyed utterly?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "You're losing sight of the forest for the trees. Self-interest is what motivates it, it's no mystical aura of power. Self-interest keeps that crown on his head, and self-interest retains it."

The same interest and greed that will cast him down, he knew. Your own sword of greed and power, Felrgad, shall be your damocles.

"A part of me wants to believe that," Pryderi glanced up at Arthur, quietly on a chair, eyes distant and haunting. "But that boy is an omen. The same omen Felgrad's return from near death was, the same omen Vortigern was, that Pendragon's return from the monastery was."

"Aras Felgrad was an idiot," Merlin said. "And was twice the fool for following Vortigern. Pendragon simply had a talent."

"Aras Felgrad was a good man," Pryderi said, quietly. "So was Vortigern. Felgrad's reign was rotten, corrupt. The wealth of the Goldmours ever rising, the raiders of Granborne ever pillaging, Andergors sacrificing children, the Sweetcolts and their vendettas, the Armways and their endless skirmishing."

"And what did they solve?" Merlin raised a brow. "Only Felgrad solved it, but putting aside idiot notions of peace, of cooperation. Vortigern had done what had to be done. The necessary evil, his only mistake was taking it too far."

Pryderi stared up at Merlin. "Necessary by whose account, Merlin? By whose account?"

My own, Merlin didn't say. "Why did you invite her?"

"For her daughter's hand in marriage," Pryderi said. "To meet the boy, and to take him to my friend. He will be safe there, safe and happy. Content in living right."

"The boy belongs here," Merlin said, controlling his tone. "This fight cannot be avoided."

"Maybe," Pryderi admitted. "But the sins of the father are not for the son to bear."

"Are you sure I cannot convince you otherwise, my friend?" Merlin asked.

"No, Merlin," Pryderi said with a sad smile. "Nothing can change my mind. I will not have the innocence of children be tainted with blood."

"The choice won't be yours in the end," Merlin replied. "Tyranny cannot be cast down without power, power in blood and steel and swords."

"The choice was always ours," Pryderi said, looking away from Merlin. "In all its suffering, in all its virtue, in all its sin. The choice, and consequences, all ours," the man stood up, clapping Merlin on the shoulder as he walked away. "If you still have your head after you're done with her, send her to me. Good luck, and hopefully she doesn't have her men violate you."

Funny, Merlin swallowed, keeping his hand on his staff.

He took the children with him, except Arthur. Arthur, who quietly pulled a chair to sit beside Merlin.

No more cheers. No more sound of laughter.

"Why didn't you leave?" Merlin asked.

"I didn't want to leave you alone," Arthur quietly said. "You're tense, too."

"I am," Merlin didn't take his eyes off of the door. "Whatever happens, stay quiet. Whatever I say, know I say it for a good reason. Trust me."

A nod.

The door to the hall opened.

Banners were carried over the shoulder. Frankish in symbols, made of birds of prey and crosses. They came into view, men of long hair and axes. The sons of the Merovingi, bearing a princess of black hair and green eyes.

Quin stepped into the room, cleared his throat, and yelled. "Princess of the Merovingi, Wife to the Merovingi patriarch of Neustria, Byrevulf son of Meroving. Morgause Pendragon Merovingi. By her side, the prince of the Merovingi, brother of Byrevulf, Syrebul son of Meroving."

She walked in, four men at her back. One man holding her arm, his long, braided hair flowing over his back. She was dressed in a brocaded coat, and silken dress. Her veil, thin, black and embroidered, covered her face.

For far too long, she stared at him. Long, clean nails moved aside her veil, pushing it behind her hair. She withdrew her hand from the man holding her- Syrebul- and folded them atop one another.

Syrebul, dressed in fine tunic and pants, drew a chair, reversed it, and sat with his legs spread to the sides of it. Sharp blue eyes, small smile, and long blonde hair, gleefully expressing angular, sharp features.

"He doesn't look like much," Syrebul said. "This old man is the patriarch of Hutchings? You look weak, old man, very weak, and where is the food? I see no food. What is this hospitality? Weak and rude, not very good, eh?"

The rest of the Metrovingi men took chairs, languing in their seats. "Aye," they said with mocking jeers.

Arthur stared in confusion, unable to understand a word. Merlin understood every word. Every letter of their harsh, Germanic tongue.

"Syrebul?" Morgause said, voice low.

Syrebul raised a brow. "Yes, sister by marriage?"

"Stop your needless jabbering," Morgause hissed. "Not a word unless I tell you to."

He raised his hands in the air, giving her a mock surrender.

"Morgause," Merlin greeted. "It's been a long time."

"Merlin," Morgause hissed, switching languages. "Not. Long. Enough. I will fucking slice your throat if you don't give me a good reason. These idiots would obey me."

Arthur waved at Syrebul, his eyes flicking between Merlin and Morgause.

Syrebul waved back, not understanding a word Morgause said.

"Hutchings would reply in kind," Merlin said. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"I'm weighing it," Morgause's eyes burned with raw fury. A gesture, and a chair was dragged for her. "Asking myself how much it's worth. You wretched vermin."

"Please, be polite," Merlin smiled at her.

Morgause's face twisted in hate. "Do not smile at me. You and that little lookalike beside you."

"I made you a princess," Merlin replied, nonplussed. "Pendragon gave you a royal husband. All the dresses you ever wanted, all the wealth you ever lusted for. All the vanity and glamor, he gave to you, on a silver platter."

"He sold me," Morgause said, suddenly calm. Too calm. A frosty, violent, calm. "Cast me off, to a brutish man, to an alien people, to an ugly land away from my mother, away from my brother, away from Vortigern. Like I was whore, a slave girl, to be sold away and fucked."

Idiot girl.

"And?" Merlin dragged a chair with the crook of his staff. "What difference does it make?"

"What difference does the pain I suffered all those years? Alone? Confused? Scared? Estranged? Used?" Morgause whispered. "Only to hear that my brother, Vortigern, was killed by our own father?"

"Yes," Merlin leaned forward. "What difference? Hmm? What does your hate change?"

Idiot girl, who thought herself in control.

As if the stakes were so low, he'd waste time arguing with that idiot woman.

She laughed. "I despise you, utterly."

"And Pendragon loved you, utterly," Merlin mused, lost for a moment. "He had one chance, to give you everything you could have ever wanted, and you scorned him for it."

"I wanted my family," Morgause spat venomously. "My. Family. My brothers, my mother. Instead he kills Vortigern, throws Uther into that monastery of his, and sells me off. All with your help."

No, this was an opportunity. A conference of fate and circumstance, to which he'd use.

"Uther is dead," Merlin said.

Morgause recoiled like she'd been physically struck. "...Uther?"

"Igraine is lost," he continued. "And now his children are orphaned."

Her eyes grew wet, her gaze locked on Arthur. Utter hate and sheer empathy warring on her face. Tears started slipping out.

"He looks like him," she said, tone between contempt and pity. "Like he did."

"Who?" Arthur asked.

"Like father," she muttered, taking a shuddering breath. "I'm...I'm tired," she stood up. "Syrebul, I'm tired, I will find a room to rest in."

Syrebul stared in confusion. "What grieves you so, sister?"

"My brother is dead," she said.

"Ah," was the reply. A hand signal, and the Metrovingi men stood up. They all but marched off deeper into the building.

Hooked on the snare, idiot girl. A smile slipped into Merlin's face. Always so clever, except where it hurts.

"Grandpa," Arthur muttered beside him.

"Yes?"

"Why are you smiling?"

The smile was gone. "Oh, simply happy to see her again."

Silence, for a breath.

"Merlin," Arthur's voice shook.

"Yes?"

"Why does she look at me like that? With so much hate. Isn't she family? Did I ever wrong her?"

"She's a bitter, angry woman," Merlin told the boy. "Selfish, arrogant, vain, entitled, and hurt. It's not your fault, it's hers."

Because you're a reminder of everything she ever hated, Merlin did not say.

Because you're the reflection of a nightmare of swords, a revenant of a spirit, of the dead returned.

Because when you were born, she was there, she was there to see the eclipse.

Merlin smiled.

---

Arthur opened his eyes to a burning city. Its main street led up to a set of stairs, one several thousand steps high, up towards a temple the size of a small mountain. The charred stench of meat hit him.

He beheld the dead, piled in hills, orange hot embers flaking from their skin. Ash fell down like snow, and the fire bathed the night in eerie glow.

The glow made the silver armor of the warrior shine.

"I gave you my answer," Arthur said, steel in his voice. "It hasn't changed."

'I am the storm, the tornado and hurricane and rain,' the warrior held his helmet in the crook of his arm, eyes ablaze. 'Your answer is nothing to me, a mutt barking to the winds of nature's forces. Powerless and worthless at once.'

Arthur began to circle the warrior. The warrior did the same, the two circling like caged animals.

"As if," Arthur laughed out. "You're a spirit, a possession. You want to control me. But you can't, not unless you break me."

'Control is an illusion made from blinded sight,' the warrior held his helmet in the crook of his arm, eyes ablaze. 'I have no use for things made of illusions, nor for blindness. I have no use for you as you are.'

"And I have no use for you, Spectre!" Arthur yelled. "All you have for me is vague words, petty insults, cryptic hints that mean nothing to me, and you, you! You. Mean. Nothing to me. You think you can keep beating me down? That you have any hold over me? You think you scare me, dead thing forsaken from the afterlife that you are?"

The warrior smiled, his cheek to cheek teeth white. 'How brightly your steel now shines. Not enough, you have yet to bear true majesty, to display true strength.'

"We've played this game before," Arthur hissed. "You and I fight, you hurt me, kill me. And I wake up. I'm not afraid of pain. I'm not afraid of you."

'You will beg me for a return to that,' the warrior threw him a beam saber. 'For now, you are in place beyond time and space. Here, a second is an eternity, and an eternity lasts a second. You will not awaken, for you never slept.'

His heart plummeted into his guts. Absently, he caught the metal cylinder. "I'm asleep," Arthur said. "You can't lie to me, I know how this works. This is a dream."

'No, this is a waking nightmare,' the warrior drew his own beam saber. 'It will not cease with death. It will not cease from pain. It will not cease, until you kill me, until you reach the highest tower of the temple, or...'

Arthur swallowed his fear, thumb over the saber's activation switch. "Or?"

'Or the sun rises, you return to the waking world, for a time, until you close your eyes,' the warrior placed his helmet on. It hissed, pressurizing as it locked. 'And your nightmare continues, endlessly, day in and day out, until you reach the highest tower of the room, or you kill me.'

He activated his beam saber, smiling wide. "I'll take you on that offer."

'A joy to find agreement, warrior.'

It was a breath, no more, no less. One breath. One swing. One flash of the beam saber. Arthur's head was bisected, grey matter bursting, blood exploding into crimson mist. His body stood dumbly, stumbling. It collapsed, contents of his destroyed skull spilling over.

Arthur trembled like a leaf, still alive, staring in horror at his dead body. A mere few steps from him. Comprehension dawned on him.

There was no escape.

There was no exit.

There was only the fight.

He whirled around, activating his beam saber and locking beams with the warrior. The warrior's faceless helmet stared down at him. Washed in the glow and heat, he felt his skin burn as the warrior's steel shone.

'The Touched come in four blessings,' the warrior spoke, waist twisted impossibly into point black kick. His foot flashing up into Arthur's jaw, shattering it in one move. 'You have been blessed with two, all knights are. The psyno-circuits that run in our steel-flesh grant us capacity beyond all others.'

His beam saber slipped from his hand. He fell, blood and bone and teeth dripping out of his mouth. He flexed his hand, and the saber flew back into it. Gasping, growling for breath, Arthur charged.

They met in three exchanges, sabers sparking against one another. Arthur lost the fourth exchange, his hand severed in an implosion of flash boiling blood. Tears streamed down his eyes, screams drowned to a gurgle.

He fell.

He tried to stand up, to move. He couldn't. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt and hurt and it hurt and hurt. His mind was drowned in pain, shaking and sweating and trying to move. To move. To move dammit it all, but it hurt.

He cried, broken, smashed, teeth grit in the face of mind blanking pain.

'You have been Touched as Shifter, controller and modulator of the fundamental force of motion, of energy, and a Ravager, bringer of other-worldly flame and storm and unmaking light,' the warrior said. 'As you were Touched, so was I.'

The warrior snapped his fingers. Arthur felt it like a hundred small shrill shrieks, rippling across his skin and fat tissue. He barely managed to raise on foot, his body was too heavy. Everything was too heavy. The pain. The fear. The exhaustion.

'A Shifter is a controller and modulator of motion. Heat is vibration that releases energy, vibration is motion, and you rule motion,' the warrior said, malice dripping out of his voice. 'You, by consequence of what you control, control heat. You control the flames and pyres.'

Arthur's skin and fat tissue immolated, he wailed and flailed, his throat became ash, his eyes popped like squeezed grapes. He died, screaming with no voice, crying with no eyes.

Then he returned, as if nothing had ever occurred.

He gasped and wheezing for breath, cylinder falling from hand, as his mind reeled. "I won't," he gasped, weak, shaking. "I...I..."

With a flex of his power, the cylinder flew back into his hand. "You won't break me." He took a breath, and activated it. All around them was smoke, embers drifting in wind, and smog choking the night.

'Motion,' the warrior said. 'Has no vectors it needs to obey.'

Arthur was thrown into the sky, he gripped himself with his own power, trying in vain to control his ascent. A beam saber, spinning in the air, bisected him in two. His two halfs bouncing off of the ground in wet splat, organs splattered as they fell out of him.

'Motion,' the warrior said. 'Has no objects it cannot interact with.'

His knees buckled, breathing ragged, demented. Thoughts in disarray, heartbeat in discord. The beam saber tumbled from his nerveless hands. He felt it, then, clawing, quietly scratching at the back of his mind.

He tried to stand up.

He fell back down, screaming as his head shook. Ringing and ringing and ringing, deafening sound driven like nails.His whole body was vibrating. His vision blurred, he held his head, trying to block the ringing.

It kept growing louder.

Across his blurry vision, the warrior watched him. He raised a hand, snapped his fingers.

Arthur's brain turned to mush, his bones to powder, his lung exploding. A wheezing gust escaping dead lips as pressure drove the air out.

'All that exists is prey to motion, prey to the fundamental interactions of particles and their motion,' the warrior spoke, flourishing his saber. 'Gas, solid, liquid, plasma, sound, pressure, heat, vibration, movement, all are motion. All are the domain of the Shifter.'

Returned, again.

Arthur roared, picking up his saber as his mind blanked. He flushed it, drowned his thoughts, focused it all. He flexed his power, and motion obeyed. He gripped himself and hurled himself at the warrior.

He thrust.

The warrior moved to parry it, Arthur gripped himself again, his motion became a blink, a flash, as he shifted his thrust into a slash. Two beam sabers met, blasting off of one another.

Arthur and the warrior backed off, circling, considering one another. He moved first, using his power to weave into the warriors guard. Arthur knew there wasn't enough distance to swing well.

He didn't need distance. He shifted the motion of his swing, amplifying the speed of it, the force of it, he gripped his whole body, and for a moment, he left an afterimage. His own eyes unable to keep up with the speed.

The strike would land.

The strike would hit.

He would cleave the warrior in half.

'The Ravager needs no such comprehension of reality, no such depths of thought, no such ranges of perception,' the warrior's voice sent chills down Arthur's spine. 'They are the brutality of will. The singularity of intuition. The ceaseless, merciless, relentless assault of the end of all things. Made a terrible vista of yawning maws and herculean storms.'

Arthur's swing never hit.

The strike never landed.

Inside his torso, a focused storm of ethereal flame erupted and ripped it apart. Flesh and bone devoured by violet blaze. His limbs fountained blood, falling over, as his disconnected head rolled, the warrior stomped it to red paste.

Once again, he returned from death. Aware of every second of pain.

Arthur's throat let slip a sob. He flinched when the warrior stalked towards him. He backstepped, heart rumbling in his ears.

'The Ravager is war manifest,' the warrior rolled his wrist, curling his fingers and uncurling them, as he holstered his beam saber. He swept his hands, fingers curling in a motion. 'One who masters war, and understands it is not brute violence. It is sundering edge and piercing thrust. It is tactics and strategy. It is the devouring stream of that otherworld, given cogent form. Directed. Controlled. Tempered.'

Orbs, orbs of contained, amethyst power, came into being around Arthur. A word came into his mind, mines. He ran away from them, almost tripping over himself as he ran into a building. More mines blocked his path, moving him left and right, through one building and another.

Too late, he realized he had been herded.

The warrior raised his hand, took a stance, and an amethyst spear of contained, quaking power, rippled into reality. He threw it, cutting apart everything in its path. It impaled Arthur through the leg, and burst into a storm that devoured both his legs.

Blood pumped out as Arthur feebly, mewling and growling, tried to crawl away.

He saw an after-image, and looked up, and the warrior's helmet looked down at him.

"Stop," Arthur begged. "Stop…"

'The Ravager is contained, directed, focused, annihilation made manifest,' the warrior intoned, a fistfull of raging, violet fire in his hand. 'They are the instance between hope, and mind shattering despair. One blink, and what was once there is now nothing, not even dust.'

The warrior thrust out his hand, and the bolt of fire disintegrated Arthur's head to nothing.

Once more, he returned. His mind snapping into blind, irrational fear. The warrior caught him like a rat, crushing his skull by shifting motion vectors like a vise grip, squeezing it until it popped.

Again.

When his sanity returned to him, he fought, copying the tricks the warrior showed him. Barely, by a shadow of the concept of competence, fighting back. The warrior simply shift-pushed him into a ravager mine, blowing apart his legs, and then slashing him to bits with his saber.

Again.

Arthur's saber flashed in every direction, parrying a hurricane of thrusts, cuts, and slashes. The warrior blurred, palm on Arthur chests, as he fired a point-blank beam of power, disintegrating Arthur's upper body.

Again.

With finger gesture, the warrior created a pressure boom, deafening Arthur, and crushing his eyes. Then with one, single, strike, beheaded him.

Again.

Tiny bolts of power, in their hundreds, waved in between every strike, striking in concert with beam saber slashes. Ripping him to pieces without him able to respond, or react.

And again.

Kicked into a ravager spear, the construct impaling him with ease. Before the warrior manifested another, and then another, repeatedly manifesting spears, and casting them at him. He died impaled by a dozen ravager spears, blood pooling around him.

And again and again and again and again.

His blood vibrated until it boiled him inside out.

One death became a dozen.

The building he hid in was ripped apart by a ravaging storm.

A dozen became a hundred.

His lungs crushed inside of him, leaving him to die gasping for breath, as darkness claimed his vision.

Arthur lost count after four hundred.

The sun rose, as Arthur's heart was ripped beating out of his chest, and he awoke. His eyes dead, devoid of life, the colors of life bleached.

Arthur laughed, and laughed and laughed. He laughed to hide the wrenching pain, he laughed at being so far, he laughed at a nightmare he could never out fight.

His laughter did not cease, until his throat ceased to make sound.

---

Preyderi had kept his belongings, his room in the sanctuary going untouched. Including the locked chest beneath the bed. Gingerly, he slid in the key, and brought out the items within.

Robes, his robes.

It had been a long time since he'd seen them. Too long. A slow smile broke on his face, as his old fingers caressed the weave.

One of the last possessions he had acquired during his time in Felgrad's court, and one he deigned to keep even after all that had happened, they were made of the finest silk, dyed in sky blue, and weaved with golden threads.

He brushed his finger across a hole in the priceless fabric, one where the Felgrad banner once was. One where a new one would soon be weaved.

Merlin drew his robes over his shoulders. Slowly buttoning up the old robe. It felt as if he'd never taken it off. He glanced at the hat, he flicked it away with his staff.

There was a knock on his door.

"Please," he called, his bones creaking as he sat down on a chair. "Come in, I'm free."

A serving girl walked in, head bowed low. "Patriarch Hutchings asked if you'd like me to clean your room, if it pleases you milord?" she said demurely.

"Go ahead," Merlin gestured, leaning back. "It is rather dusty, is it not?"

"That it is, milord," she agreed. "I will remedy this quickly. My deepest apologies for the room's condition, milord."

"Have you thought much of how the realm is, of late?" he asked, going for his water pitcher. "I personally can't stop thinking of it. What of you?"

She pursed her lips as she dusted the table. "I have, milord, quite often," she said slowly. "But which parts of the realm does milord think of?"

"All of it," Merlin mused, dark amusement curling the corners of his lips. "I fear for all of it, instability threatens innocents lives, and that I fear. The death of innocents, more than anything, is horrendous. Do you not think so?"

She glanced at him quickly before moving to the window sill. "I do, milord," she said, her tone starting to become more confident. "The peace of the land, when threatened, will always bring about death and misery."

"Your name, girl?" Merlin asked.

"Aerona, milord."

"A nice name, a pretty name," Merlin said, his eyes flashing for a moment. "A fitting name. Do you know who I am, Aerona?"

"The disgraced advisor to the King, Merlin the Fool, milord."

"So they say, but this fool has plans," Merlin smiled at her. It wasn't kind. "As of now, Galahad the Armsmaster is training Arthur of the line of Pendragon. Tristan aids him, Preyderi and the house of Hutchings is caught in the crossfire, certainly bound to me."

He slicked his hair back, a lock of silver refusing to budge. His eyes glinted. "Mordred, Arthur's brother, learns too how to fight, while Lancelot is being forced out of his shell. And I have two candidates for a throne I will take. Mordred and Arthur, whomever is worthier, I will place upon that throne."

"And of all things, Morgana, has proved herself to be more useful than I ever expected," he rested his staff on his lap. "A fine diplomat in the making, and her soon to come marriage to Lancelot, ensures a warrior of few equals on my board."

"Milord!" Aerona protested, her wide eyes turning to him and revealing the terror she felt. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because a Granborne rat like you cannot hope to stop me," Merlin leaned forward, his sword slipping from the staff. His eyes glowed amethyst as the tip of the blade rested on her throat. "And I will not have Preyderi and his pacifism ruin that. So I must thank you for solving that problem for me."

A knife fell down from her sleeve, clanging across the floor.

"They played this game, but I live it, and I will die on it, King Felgrad doesn't understand this, none of them do," Merlin laughed. "And Reece? That eternal comedy. Unable to attain power, a slave in all but name, his failure of a father's teachings far too ingrained in him. They think I've lost my edge, that my claws have dulled. They have not. I've dreamed of this in my sleep, and imagined it every waking moment."

"How?" she whimpered. "How could you know?"

"It's what I would do," Merlin smiled. "And I've long learnt to spot assassins. It's simple. The Hutchings are too large to go down without a fight, and they will never give us over. So slitting their throats at night was the best option. How else does Felgrad know so much of every house? Maintain control of every corner of the realm? How else does he cut the head of every snake?"

"I-I...I can't begin to," she stuttered before her face twisted into fear and hate. "He knew. He knew from the start. He simply wanted...used us? He's used us as a test? He knew, he's killed us. He's killed us with his games. Curse him. Curse him to Hades."

She stared up at him in defiance. "I'm not going to beg for my life, finish it."

"He didn't know, my dear Aerona. That's why he used you, to know," Merlin hummed. "If you succeeded, then all was well. If you failed, then he'd wait. Wait and prepare something more certain. But don't fear. I have so much use for you alive, more than dead," Merlin said, eyes shining amethyst.

Show me. Everything.

He broke into her mind like a hammer striking glass. She could not resist. Her eyes went blank, her body rigid, and he could see everything that she was. Everything she had seen, knew, and felt.

Her childhood. Her memories. Her thoughts.

He used his will on them like a whip, lashing obedience into her.

Blood dripped out of Merlin's nose and ears when he was done. His eyes twitched, and his temples pulsed.

"Here's what I want you to do for me, girl," Merlin breathed out. "Find Preyderi," he handed her back her dagger. "And please, bury this dagger in his neck. Make sure you run out before you're fully recognized. I'll have further use for you."

Aerona Granborne smiled at him, kneeling. "It will be done."

"Excellent," Merlin cracked his neck. "Preyderi and his talk of escape, of peace. It was starting to grate on me."

One problem solved, now onto the others. He swayed as he stood up, dizzy for a breath. But he held on, every step after bringing focus and clarity. He knew every other assassin, all of them, and he left his room humming.

The first one to cross his path, he rammed his blade clean through the neck. "One down," Merlin muttered, feeling his body ache. "Now if only I was as young as I used to be," he mumbled.

Ten more to go.

Casually, as he walked across the large building, he lashed out and sliced the throat of another. Confused, the woman slid across the wall, hands on throat as she tried to stop the flow. Fear in eyes, as her words came out gurgles.

Red handprints marked the walls, as she tried to stop herself from falling.

Merlin rolled his eyes, walking away and flicking the blood off of his sword. In a few moments, he felt her mind blink out.

Nine.

Outside, he heard the screams and calls for water as fires broke out in the sanctuary. Yells and shouts blaring across the building. The shrieks of woman and children, as dead bodies were discovered.

"Let's dance, Felgard," Merlin's voice was a whisper. "Let's dance, until one of us drops dead. For I will not accept anything else, for I know, neither will you."

One by one, he picked them off. Without pause, without hesitation. A trail of bodies following him, his sword dripping red. He found the last three at the sanctuary hall, the dead bodies of Quin and his family around them. Quin's head was removed, and nailed onto the central pillar of the room.

Freeze.

The three assassins stopped moving, eyes blank. Faces turned towards him.

Cut your throats.

Their daggers flashed as they sliced their own throats. They toppled down into pools of their own blood. Their faces expressionless as they died.

To Ganther's severed head, a message was nailed. The bleeding stumb of his head leaking gore. His wide open, scared eyes staring into nothing.

'By my name and my reign and my crown and my sword,' the message started. 'I am King Felgrad, monarch, regis, and lord of all. Defy me, and pay the price. Obey me, and be spared the cost. This is my only offer. Accept, or be slaughtered.'

"Let us dance, Felgrad," Merlin said. "For I will have the throne."