A/N: Thank you Guest, Buckhunter, Guest, Vanvdreamer, GuestM, SnidgetHex, and Guest for reviewing! Hehe, that's true I do often post every day. I just usually update multi-chapter fics on specific days and post one-shots/other fandom pieces on other days. But I finished my long-running Musketeers series so now it's all Merlin all the time. XD

Chapter 2

Lancelot shifted in discomfort, trying to resist the urge to rub at the burn on his chest. It had stopped hurting and now itched. Yvailf had returned from his fight, a little bruised but intact. Lancelot didn't see his opponent until awhile later. Then the guards came to his cell and opened the door.

Lancelot hesitated only a moment before resignedly getting to his feet. He didn't imagine defiance would get him anywhere. One of the guards grinned maliciously and reached up to touch a circular pendant around his neck. The sigil on Lancelot's chest suddenly exploded with fire, stealing the breath from his lungs and dropping him to his knees. Then as quickly as it started, it stopped, and he was left gasping for air.

"That was just a taste of what happens if you don't do as you're told," the guard sneered. "Now get up."

Lancelot gritted his teeth and swallowed a surge of truculence in response to the unwarranted aggression; it wouldn't get him anywhere either. He struggled to stand and shuffled out of the cell. The guards moved in to flank him, and he noticed each of them had one of those pendants. They directed him out of the dungeon and down the tunnels to a large hall hewn from stone, with rock columns supporting the ceiling. A large banquet table took up one end, with rough looking men sitting around it having a boisterous time. There was another crowd opposite them gathered around a large cage set in the chamber. It reminded Lancelot of Hengist's fortress. Not good times.

Lancelot was pushed forward and brought to stand in front of the dining table.

"Your newest fighter," one of the guards said.

The man seated at the middle of the table looked Lancelot up and down appraisingly. He might as well have been another Hengist, with his scruffy, grizzled beard and yellowed teeth. The man's mouth cracked into a leer.

"Let's see what you're made of, then," he said.

With that, Lancelot was roughly yanked toward the cage. The door was opened and he was handed a sword before being shoved in.

"Don't kill your opponent," a guard reminded him.

The crowd of spectators began to whoop and shout as Lancelot moved away from the edge of the cage. This ring was much larger than the one in Hengist's fortress, with several grates covering different tunnels that led away into darkness.

Cheers went up as his opponent was brought in. Mekin. Lancelot saw bags of coin changing hands as bets were made. Mekin was handed a sword and he stepped inside, and the cage door was shut behind him with a resounding clang.

Lancelot lifted his sword and circled his opponent warily. Mekin, on the other hand, attacked abruptly with a mighty swing. Lancelot darted out of the way and spun around, throwing his blade up to block the next strike. Mekin went at him with full fury, and Lancelot was forced to go on the defensive. He held his own easily enough, and he supposed his time fighting in Hengist's fortress helped him ignore the raucous clamor just outside the bars and the numerous eyes hungrily devouring the fight. It also made him want to put an end to the match all the more quickly.

He started getting in some offensive strikes, trying to force Mekin into a misstep so Lancelot could get behind him and simply knock him out. But then Mekin feinted left, and when Lancelot moved right to come around, Mekin twisted sharply and thrust his sword into Lancelot's stomach. The shock of the blow stole the breath from his lungs, and Lancelot blinked dazedly at the blade for a second before Mekin yanked it back out. Fire erupted through his abdomen and Lancelot collapsed to the ground as the crowd roared with delight. He fumbled shaking fingers over the wound as it gushed out blood and wryly thought so much for not killing one's opponent.

Mekin walked out of the cage and the guards came in. They grabbed Lancelot by the arms and hauled him upright. His legs and feet kept tripping over themselves as he was relentlessly dragged back down the tunnels, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His vision was going spotty but he recognized the sorcerer's chambers, and the next thing he knew, he was being manhandled down onto the table.

No one said anything, and Sagra barely gave Lancelot a second look as he came over with a sodden black mass of…something. Lancelot couldn't tell what it was, but the sorcerer pressed it over the stab wound and Lancelot couldn't hold back a cry. Then Sagra uttered a spell, and the pain amplified tenfold, glacial knives stabbing him from every angle. Lancelot screamed and the guards held him down as he shuddered and writhed on the table, his blood spilling out to mix with all the other stains that'd come before.

Then it was over and he was left panting and shaking. Without another word, the guards hauled him off the table and took him back to his cell, tossing him inside like a rag doll. Lancelot lay on the ground for several long moments, then finally managed to muster the effort to roll onto his back. He lifted a trembling hand to his stomach, but instead of brushing against a gaping wound, he felt a raised bump. Looking down, he saw the stab wound had been healed and a fully formed scar was in its place.

A snort from the next cell broke through his muddled thoughts. "You expected to die."

Lancelot pushed himself into a sitting position and shot Mekin an incredulous look.

"You'll wish for it soon enough," the man went on. "But our masters won't allow it. Not until we've been used up and broken past that dark cur's ability to save." With that, he turned his back on Lancelot again.

Grimacing, Lancelot scooted backward until he could recline against the wall.

Yvailf was sitting close by on his other side, and the man spared him a look of sympathy. "Winning is the best way to avoid a lot of pain," he said. "Sagra heals any major injuries in the fights but it's not pleasant."

"So, when they say don't kill your opponent, they mean…?"

"No instant death blows. Everything else is fair game."

Lancelot ghosted his fingers over the scar, which was still tingling with residual pain. He was wrong; this wasn't anything like Hengist's cage fights at all.

Later, a guard brought him some food which was shoved through the bars and left on the ground, so that Lancelot had to get up to go retrieve it. It was a meager serving and he hungrily scarfed it down. He knew he'd feel hunger soon enough under such rations, and his stomach clenched at the mere memory of when he'd lived like that, not knowing where his next meal would come from and sometimes going days without much to eat. He'd been alone then, no one to care where he was or what he was doing. That wasn't the case now; his friends would be looking for him.

He just wondered whether there was any hope they'd actually find him in a place like this.

When it was time for him to fight again, he went along with it. He wasn't going to test the guards merely on principle; he needed to bide his time until an opportunity presented itself. But the fights were strictly regulated, and the absolute control the guards had over those sigils burned into each fighter's chest made it difficult to even attempt to fight back, even if a few of them might risk banding together.

But cooperation and alliances didn't seem to be something anyone was interested in. Lancelot watched two prisoners being returned to the dungeon after their fight, and one of them spat something derogatory at his companion, who then lunged and was able to throw three rapid, successive punches before the guards activated the sigils on both men, leaving them writhing on the ground for several long seconds. Mekin muttered they were fools.

As much as Lancelot didn't want to antagonize the guards, he loathed the barbarity of the cage fights, and now that he knew what his opponents were capable of, he started aiming to knock them out as swiftly as possible, thereby defeating them without causing significant injury or prolonging the fight. The first time he succeeded, there was a chorus of disappointed boos from the audience, their bloodlust left wanting.

And then he kept doing it, so that when he was brought out for a fight, the spectators immediately jeered at him. Not that Lancelot cared. He had no intention of giving these brutes a show. His opponents were equally irritated with him, as though sparing them a gruesome loss was somehow disgraceful in this entire repugnant operation.

As yet another opponent was dragged unconscious from the cage, Garerrock stormed over to block Lancelot's exit.

"You think you're being clever, don't you? Fine, let's see how you like this match." He yanked Lancelot's sword out of his hand and slammed the cage door shut, leaving him inside alone.

Lancelot watched the warlord warily as he signaled to one of his men, who went to some levers on the wall and started cranking one. Iron and gears creaked, and Lancelot whirled toward one of the grates as it slowly rose up, opening the way to the tunnel behind it. Lancelot wasn't sure what was supposed to happen, but then someone blew a high-pitched whistle that made him flinch. A few moments later, he heard scuffing sounds coming from the tunnel.

Lancelot went rigid with fear as a wilddeoran emerged from the tunnel, nose sniffing wildly as it swung its head back and forth. The hairless rodent-like creature was blind, but its sense of smell was impeccable, and Lancelot had nowhere to go.

At first it seemed to be orienting itself; no doubt the mixed scents of sweat and grime permeated the entire hall with the throng of men surrounding the cage. But then it snapped its head straight at Lancelot and charged.

He darted out of the way, scrambling to the other side of the cage. He made the mistake of getting too close to the bars, and several hands reached through to grab and hold him in place. He wrenched away from them, circling as the wilddeoran spun to follow, its nose tracking his exact movements precisely. With no way to defend himself, Lancelot was forced to evade the creature for as long as he could.

But the beast wasn't unintelligent and quickly learned what he was doing. It lunged one direction and he went the other, only for the creature to spin around and snap its jaws around his thigh, buck teeth biting down to bone. Lancelot cried out as the wilddeoran yanked his leg out from under him and tossed him across the cage. He rolled into the back wall, and the giant rodent came charging after him.

But then Sagra was there, standing at the edge of the cage and uttering a spell. The wilddeoran squealed and then retreated into its tunnel. The gate was lowered behind it.

Lancelot gasped as he clutched at his leg. Guards strode into the cage and seized his arms, hauling him to his feet, never mind that he couldn't put weight on his injured leg. They simply dragged him out, legs trailing behind him, out of the hall and to Sagra's chambers. The sorcerer followed them in and went to his work station as Lancelot was hefted onto the table. He fought to control his pained moans as his body jerked from the agony and shock setting in.

Sagra apparently wasn't in a hurry to heal him, and when he did appear standing over Lancelot, it was with a knife and empty jar in his hands. One of the guards grabbed Lancelot's arm and yanked it out straight and rolled up his sleeve. Then Sagra sliced the blade across the inside of his forearm. Blood welled up and poured down his arm and into the jar the sorcerer held beneath it. Lancelot could only watch in sickened horror as Sagra collected his blood. He was afraid the sorcerer might be using it for another spell on him like with the branding sigil, but the man merely capped the jar and set it on a shelf with other containers full of dark liquid. Then he retrieved a similar black mass like the last time and brought it over to press against Lancelot's leg.

The ensuing spell of healing tore a scream from his throat as splintered bone snapped back into place. Lancelot couldn't breathe, and then Sagra was repeating the spell on his arm, which felt like the limb had been plunged into ice water. He was numb when the guards dragged him off the table and back to his cell. Once there, Lancelot inspected both his leg and arm. The arm had a thin scar from the clean knife slice, but his leg was a mesh of gnarled scarring from the wilddeoran's teeth.

"It's better to fight with dignity than be fodder for the beasts," Yvailf commented next door.

"There's no dignity in any of this," Lancelot murmured. He turned over and curled up on his side to try to sleep.

.o.0.o.

Arthur stood over the table in the council chambers, maps spread all across it. It'd been two weeks since Lancelot and Percival had been attacked and there'd been no sign of Lancelot. There hadn't been any kind of ransom either, so Arthur didn't think this was a political attack. Maybe slavers. Which did not bode well.

"Sire," one of his advisors spoke up. "How much longer are you going to keep up the search?"

"As long as it takes," he replied. They'd scoured half the kingdom, but there was still more ground to cover, and Arthur wasn't going to rest until they had checked every last corner.

"It's a waste of resources," the councilor went on, looking to his fellow advisors for support.

"You're all dismissed," Arthur said tersely.

The Council shared wary looks before making their exit. Merlin entered as they were leaving and arched a brow at their retreating backs.

"Have they been particularly irritating today?" he asked glibly.

Arthur scowled. "They think I should abandon the search."

Merlin's eyes widened. "You can't," he blurted.

Arthur raised a hand to cut him off before he went down one of his rambles. "I'm not," he assured him, then turned his attention back to the maps and sighed. "But I'm at a loss here, Merlin. We've found nothing so far." Arthur straightened and turned to his former manservant. "Can you use magic to find him?"

Merlin's shoulders slumped in clear defeat. "I looked into it, but I couldn't find a spell for it. I'm not giving up, though," he added staunchly. "I even sent out the two dragons to look for him."

Arthur shook his head; he'd had a year to get used to Merlin having magic, but the dragon thing was always a bit of an unsettling reminder.

"I'm going to ride out with the patrol again tomorrow," he said.

"I'll go with you," Merlin replied.

Arthur nodded; that was never in doubt.

"How's Percival?" he asked.

"His fever broke. He's on the mend and still insisting he should be out there helping. I think Gaius is going to start drugging his soup."

Arthur's mouth quirked faintly at that before turning downward again. "I can understand how he feels. But he'll just have to trust the rest of us to handle this."

Merlin nodded in agreement, but his expression reflected Arthur's in its despondency. For the longer they went without success in finding their missing friend, the more likely it seemed he might be lost forever…