A/N: Dear Lancelot, I am so very sorry for this fic…

Here there be whump like whoa. Warnings for torture, dehumanization, suicidal ideation, and just a lot of dark places before and after the rescue. But Team Camelot is going to very tenderly and lovingly help put their broken friend back together.

Post season 4, AU Lancelot lives and everyone now knows about Merlin's magic and he's court sorcerer. Season 5 doesn't exist.

Normally I stick to specific days to post chapters but since this fic is so long (14 chapters!) I'm going to update every other day. Less wait time for that rescue and the comfort parts. (Rescue's in ch. 6 btw; I spend more time on the recovery than the whump...though the recovery isn't without its own whump, heh.)

Chapter 1

Lancelot came to groggily, the surface beneath him lurching side to side and sometimes jolting upward as a wheel rolled over a rock or rut. A wagon, he was in the back of a wagon. Reaching a hand up to brace his aching head, Lancelot slowly sat up. An iron cage covered the back of the cart, of which he was the only occupant. His heart seized as he remembered Percival, and Lancelot twisted around to get a look out both sides of the bars, hoping his friend was being dragged along outside. But he wasn't. Percival had gone into the river during the fight. Lancelot had tried to run to his aid, but he'd been cut off and swiftly knocked out.

He rubbed at the back of his head where he felt a lump and surveyed his captors again. They were a rough looking bunch of men who barely glanced his way at his waking and simply kept going to whatever their destination was. They hadn't been very forthcoming when they'd attacked the two knights on patrol. Lancelot wondered whether Percival had escaped the river. The current was strong and swollen with the run-off from the melting snow in the mountains. He could have drowned or been dashed on the rocks…

The wagon jostling sent fresh spikes of pain through Lancelot's head, cutting off his catastrophic thoughts and bringing him back to his own predicament.

He shifted on his knees and grabbed hold of one of the iron bars to steady himself. "Who are you?" he asked with as much authority as he could muster for one in a cage. "What do you want?"

None of them responded.

"You've kidnapped a knight of Camelot," he went on.

That elicited a few smirks from the men, though they still didn't deign to speak to their prisoner.

The wagon lumbered on, moving into the shadow of a lone mountain. They made their way right up to a sheer cliff side where a massive stone gate slowly opened for them. Inside was a large cavern where the wagon finally came to a stop. The gate slid closed behind them, shutting out the daylight and leaving only the orange illumination of torches.

One of the men unlocked the cage and gestured for Lancelot to get out. There wasn't much point in resisting, so he inched forward. Hands immediately grabbed at him and yanked him out the rest of the way. He tried to shrug them off, but he didn't put much effort into it; with the gate sealed, there was nowhere to run.

His captors hauled him into an adjoining passage and down a tunnel lit with more torches. They passed several junctures before entering into a large chamber. Several shelves were mounted on the stone walls, each one full of various items and jars. It almost reminded Lancelot of Gaius's chambers. There was also a long table in the middle of the room with nothing on it—except for what looked like blood stains in varying shades of dark brown to still bright red. A man with long dark hair tied at the nape of his neck and wearing black garments came forward, stopping in front of Lancelot and roving beady eyes up and down him thoroughly. Lancelot tensed under the scrutiny.

"He's a knight," one of the men restraining him said.

"Garerrock should be pleased," the man in black replied.

Lancelot drew his shoulders back. "Who are you and what do you want?"

The man simply canted a considering look at him. "What is your name?"

"Sir Lancelot, knight of Camelot."

The man did not appear impressed. "You're not in Camelot anymore. You belong to Garerrock now."

Lancelot pushed against his captors in a show of defiance. "I belong to no one."

The man merely smirked and turned away. "Get his armor off."

This time Lancelot did struggle earnestly, but someone kicked out the backs of his legs, driving him to his knees, and fingers fisted in his hair, yanking his head back painfully. Once immobilized, the men began to wrestle his armor and chainmail off, until he was down to just his shirt, trousers, and boots.

"There are only two rules here," the man in black spoke as he stood at a worktable, mixing some ingredients into a bowl. "Obey, and don't kill any of your opponents."

Lancelot gritted his teeth as he was kept on his knees. He watched the man in black pour what looked like blood into the bowl, then heard him utter a spell. The contents made a small pop and a plume of smoke puffed out. Lancelot went utterly still as he realized the man was a sorcerer.

He picked up the bowl and a small iron stamp and brought them over. The hands holding Lancelot immediately tightened again, and someone ripped open the laces of his shirt and pulled the fabric apart, exposing his chest. He instinctively tried to wrench away, but their grips were too firm. He could only watch in growing trepidation as the sorcerer dipped the iron stamp into the bowl. When he lifted it out again, a circular emblem with strange whorls was covered in a gooey, viscous substance.

Lancelot's heart was thundering as the sorcerer leaned down and pressed the stamp to his skin, right in the center of his sternum, and held it there. He uttered another string of strange words, his eyes flaring gold. And then the cold unguent began to heat up, rapidly increasing in temperature until it was scorching. Lancelot screamed as it seared his skin and the acrid odor of his own burning flesh filled his nose.

The sorcerer finally lifted the stamp, and Lancelot's chin dropped forward, his whole body shaking as he gazed down at the brand on his chest. Puckered red and raw edges instantly smoothed out into a perfectly blackened sigil.

The sorcerer set his implements on the table. "Welcome to your new life."

Lancelot was still in too much pain to muster a retort. He was hauled to his feet and dragged out of the chamber and down several winding passages before they arrived at a dungeon lined with cells made of iron bars. Many of them had occupants. Lancelot barely got a look at them before he was tossed into his own cell, the iron door clanging shut behind him and clicking with the turning of the lock. He crawled to the back rock wall and slumped against it, sucking air through his teeth as he raised shaking fingers to the burn on his chest. He wondered with dread what it was for.

After taking several minutes to collect himself, he began to look around at the other prisoners. No one was even looking his way, each of them sitting in a despondent slouch in their respective cages.

Lancelot turned his attention to the adjoining cell on his left, which was marginally closer than his right, and called out to the prisoner inside. "What's your name?"

The red-headed man shot him a dark glower and scooted away.

"I wasn't told talking was against the rules," Lancelot muttered, lolling his head against the rock wall behind him in pained exhaustion.

The man snorted. "There's no point in getting friendly with the people you're going to be cutting down in the cage."

Lancelot furrowed his brow. "Are we here for cage fights?"

The man gave a brusque nod.

Lancelot frowned. He'd made his living for a while participating in cage fights, though he'd never had the sickening displeasure of encountering a slave-run one.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Long enough to know that any life you knew before this is gone," the man spat. "You're nothing more than an animal for sport now."

With that, he shuffled over to the other end of his cell as far from Lancelot as he could get.

"Where are you from?" the prisoner on Lancelot's right spoke up, and he turned his head toward a man with lanky, sand-colored hair.

"Camelot. I'm a knight for King Arthur."

The man hummed ruminatively. "That will serve you well in the cage. But Mekin over there is right; we're nothing more than animals here." He nodded toward Lancelot's chest. "That brand is a magical seal, makes it so the wardens can keep us in line, cause us crippling pain if we try to resist. So don't resist."

Lancelot didn't think he could submit so easily. "What's your name?" he said instead.

"Yvailf."

"How long have you been here?"

The man shrugged one shoulder. "There's no way to keep track. Garerrock's 'entertainment' runs nearly nonstop, and we're so deep inside the mountain there's not a window to the outside to be found anywhere." Yvailf's brows knitted together. "What season is it out there?"

"Spring."

"Hm. It wasn't yet winter when I was taken on my way back from a hunting trip." He turned his gaze to the floor and lowered his voice. "I don't know if my family survived the winter without me."

Lancelot's chest constricted in sympathy. He couldn't imagine being trapped here so long. "My fellow knights will be looking for me," he said. "When they come, they'll free everyone here."

Mekin snorted loudly from his cell. "You're a long way from Camelot," he said scathingly. "No one is going to find you here."

"Don't mind Mekin," Yvailf interjected, but he didn't contradict the man's statement.

Lancelot shifted, grimacing as the movement tugged at the burn on his chest. "These cage fights, they're not to the death?" He seemed to remember the sorcerer saying something about not killing one's opponents.

"No," Yvailf said grimly. "Garerrock likes to get the most out of his fighters as possible. Good ones are hard to come by."

"Garerrock is the sorcerer?"

"No, that's Sagra. He's in Garerrock's employ. Don't cross him," Yvailf added in warning.

Lancelot looked down at the brand on his chest, wincing at both the remembered agony and the residual stinging.

"Might as well tell you now," Yvailf continued, "you won't find escape in taking your own life. That sigil prevents it."

Lancelot frowned at him.

"Some have tried," Yvailf explained. "Something in the spell makes it impossible to turn a blade against yourself."

Lancelot had no intention of ending his life, but he didn't know whether to take this information as disturbing or not.

Their conversation was interrupted by guards tromping down the aisle. They stopped in front of Yvailf's cell and unlocked it. Yvailf tugged his shirt off as he stood up and went with them without protest, as did another prisoner down the row. To the cage fight, Lancelot supposed.

He laid his head back against the stone wall and closed his eyes. His heart clenched with thoughts of home, and a whisper in the back of his mind wondering if he would ever see it again…

.o.0.o.

Percival fidgeted on the patient cot, trying and failing to suppress the cough that punched its way up out of his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned as the force of the movement barraged his broken ribs.

"Here, try holding this," Gaius said and handed him a rather stuffed pillow.

Percival took it and hugged it against his chest. His ribs still ached when he coughed again, but the pillow provided a bit of support.

"I know it hurts," Gaius went on, "but it's important you don't fight those coughs. We don't want pneumonia settling in your lungs."

Percival buried his face sullenly in the pillow. Pneumonia was a real fear after nearly drowning, which was why Gaius was keeping a close eye on him, even though Percival wanted nothing more than to have his ribs bound and to get out of there. The old physician wasn't having that, though.

The door opened and Merlin and Arthur came inside, their heads and shoulders damp. Percival sat up straighter, biting back a groan as his ribs protested.

"Did you find him?" he asked urgently.

Arthur shook his head regretfully. "The recent rain washed out any trail the bandits or Lancelot might have left behind."

Percival swung his legs over the side of the cot. "I want to be out there helping."

Arthur held up a staying hand. "I've sent out patrols to scour the area. As soon as they find him, you'll be one of the first to know."

Percival gritted his teeth. He hated just sitting here, unable to search for his friend. After he'd managed to drag himself out of the river, he'd been half frozen and every breath felt like a pitchfork in his chest, and he was so far downstream that he'd chosen to make his way to Camelot instead of backtracking to where he'd last seen Lancelot. He shouldn't have left him.

"You won't help anyone if you go out there and one of those ribs gets dislodged and punctures a lung," Gaius chided, coming over and nudging him into lying back down.

Percival relented.

"You two should get dry before you catch a chill," Gaius directed at Arthur and Merlin.

Arthur nodded and solemnly left. Merlin grabbed a towel from a shelf and rubbed it vigorously over his hair, then went to sit by the fireplace.

Gaius leaned over Percival and adjusted the pillow in his arms.

"It was my fault," he confessed. "I slipped."

"You can't blame yourself for that," Gaius said sympathetically. "Lancelot certainly wouldn't."

Percival shook his head. "I've always had his back. We traveled together for a good while before coming to Camelot. We depended on each other. It didn't take long to become like brothers. We just had that, you know?"

Gaius put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "A whole kingdom is out there looking for him."

"I'm going back out tomorrow," Merlin spoke up, eyes alight with fierce determination.

Percival nodded. If he couldn't be out there searching, there was no one better than his friends.

Another cough brutally punched its way out of his chest, and he curled over the pillow in agony as Gaius pressed a bracing hand against his back.

"Merlin," he called.

Percival couldn't draw in enough air, but then Merlin was there and taking the pillow away so he could press a hand to his chest. With an uttered spell, Percival felt magic loosen the tightness in his lungs, and he sucked in a large gasp.

"Easy," Gaius cautioned, and when Merlin was done, they eased him down against the pillows stacked behind him.

"I wish I could do more," Merlin said.

Percival weakly waved him off. He could breathe again; that was enough. He closed his eyes in exhaustion and murmured, "Find Lancelot."