Chapter Thirteen

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

They got to the outskirts of Shrewsbury...which really wasn't far from the lake at all, on horseback...when Elen started hearing voices. Or one voice, specifically.

"It's a woman," she told Gwaine almost as soon as it started. "And she's in trouble…" Her gaze went distant. "It's so faint, her voice…'Help me, help me,' over and over…Whoever it is must have magic."

"Okay...either someone with magic is asking for help the only way they can, or it's some kind of trap. Or you're going crazy...I mean, with things like they are…"

"Shut up, Gwaine."

They agreed to tell the others, and did so the next time the group stopped to water the horses.

"Is she somehow familiar to you?" Lancelot asked. "Perhaps she's someone from your old life who maybe...maybe sensed you and needs your help?"

Elen shook her head. "People tend to sound the same out loud as they do in their head...at least when communicating like this...and I've never heard her voice before."

"And you think she's really in trouble?" Haralda said. "Not trying to trap other sorcerers or anything?"

"She sounds sincere." Elen shook her head in frustration. "She's pleading, desperate...and she won't stop talking."

Arthur looked thoughtful. "Do you know how far away she is?"

Clearly resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Elen replied, "Telepathy doesn't come with GPS, Pendragon."

"I suppose not, but if you had to guess…"

"She's somewhere to the east, I think...she can't be too far...maybe a day's ride or so? Extending one's mental reach over many miles is something that takes an incredible amount of power…"

"...and if she's that powerful," Gwaine said when Elen paused, "why not free herself?"

Tapping the hilt of Excalibur, Arthur looked around at everyone. "Well, I told the council we'd be looking for survivors. This woman, whoever she is, fits that definition. Is anyone up for a side quest?"

"I'm going," Elen said, "at least to check it out, because I won't be able to get her voice out of my mind otherwise."

Lancelot spoke up before she finished her sentence. "If a person needs help, we should all offer what we can."

"We've only been gone a few days," Leon said after a moment. "We can afford a few more."

"I'm alright with it," Percival said, and Haralda mumbled her assent.

"I'm going wherever my sister goes," Gwaine said.

Cleva took his hand. "I'm with my husband on this one."

"Well, that's a consensus, then," Arthur said with a smile. "Let's get going. Elen, you're in the lead."

It was the next afternoon when they finally pinpointed the source of the pleas...which had gotten louder and more detailed between periodic silences, according to Elen.

"I'm getting almost full sentences now...She and her son are being held prisoner by her evil cousin? Or maybe it's an evil sister. She's afraid to do anything herself because she's not strong enough and trying to protect her son...I keep getting glimpses of him; he's so young, poor thing...I've tried to ask her her location, to tell her that help is on the way...I'm not sure she hears me…"

They were skirting yet another urban area when Elen pulled up and cried, "Aha! Quick, where's the nearest intact castle?"

After a frantic scrambling in the saddlebags produced nothing, Cleva exclaimed, "We're just north of Tamworth! So the nearest castle would be Tamworth Castle. A tourist destination turned into someone's private fortress?"

"Given the world right now, not surprising," Leon pointed out.

Arthur took charge. "All right, anyone ever been there?"

Leon said, "Yes, on a school field trip when I was ten," at the same time as Gwaine spoke up. "I went there on a weekend date there a few years back, before I dropped out of uni and moved back home."

"Um…" Arthur blinked. "I'm guessing you, Leon, don't remember too many details from that long ago, no offense...Gwaine, I'm sure you had only eyes for your date…"

Grinning, Gwaine replied, "You know me too well."

Elen groaned. "Tell me it wasn't that awful girl Callie or whatever…"

"Her name was Cassidy, Elen, and no, it wasn't her, it was Jonathan. You liked him, remember?"

"Right, him. I met him once for five minutes, and it was enough for me to know that he was far too smart for you."

"Hey, that's..."

"Okay," Arthur interrupted, "all that aside, we need to head to the castle...can't be too hard to find, maybe there will be some signs left up...and we'll look for some place where they might have tourist maps of the place to fill in whatever Gwaine and Leon can't remember...Which I'm sure is a lot. In case this evil cousin-sister of our lady in distress is around...Let's exercise caution and leave the horses a distance from the castle itself."

As they turned south towards the rubble of another ruined town, Cleva rode up beside Gwaine. "So...Jonathan, hmm? And Cassidy? How many significant others from this life have we not discussed?"

"Well...quite a few." Gwaine ducked his head. "I'm sorry."

Cleva laughed. "Don't apologize; I had a few myself. It's not like we remembered being married." She glanced towards Elen, who rode nearby. "What about you, Elen? I'm sure you had plenty of dates to chose from…"

"If I did, I ignored most of them. But not all." Elen snorted. "Even Hayden dated before all this happened, which surprised me, actually. Ask him about Aaron sometime...apparently that's where Malachite came from...When they broke up, Aaron got the python and Hayden got the iguana."

"Huh," Gwaine said thoughtfully. "I'm kind of relieved about that...I mean, carrying an iguana across the country is one thing. A python would've been quite another."

"That's something that hasn't changed," Arthur called from ahead.

"What's that?"

"He means that your family is bizarre, Gwaine," Leon said, sparking a round of laughter.

For a while after that, the group remained lighthearted, though it was morbid to think that most or all of the people they'd dated before the apocalypse were likely dead, and Elen started to look more pained the further into the town they went. "She can hear me now, but she's frantic...She's saying her sister's leaving soon on a short trip...That may be our chance...She wants us to be careful…"

"So now that we're trying to save her, she wants us to be careful." Gwaine swung off his horse; they'd found a large park with plenty of grass and trees to keep the horses occupied and safe. The castle was less than a mile away. "She's still not familiar?"

"Not really." Frowning, Elen added, "I think...I think her son's sick. All she wants is to protect him."

"Parental instinct. I'd say we know it well," Cleva said, patting her mare's neck.

As Elen tended to her mount, Cleva followed Gwaine around his horse. "I've been thinking...We came back and found each other, didn't we? Despite all odds. What if...what if we could get our children back, too? Eventually."

"You mean...have them again?" Gwaine reached out and took her hand. "I don't dare hope. But...It would be wonderful, wouldn't it? To have them back."

"It would." Giving his hand a squeeze, Cleva went back to retrieve some things from her saddlebags, leaving Gwaine in thought.

Caldwell...Holly. Alive. With us. I think I've had some amazing dreams where that happened...Cleva probably has, too. Maybe, someday, when things settle down…

And, if he were honest, he'd have to admit that the idea of having more children that weren't his son and daughter from before wasn't an unpleasant idea at all. If we win whatever war we're in now, and things get better…

They set up camp for the night, not making a fire in order to maintain cover. "No fire means an excuse to cuddle more, right?" Gwaine whispered in Cleva's ear, earning a giggle and a light slap as they curled up under a blanket together.

In the morning, the group set off early, crossing the twisted train tracks that ran east to west and continuing on, occasionally splitting up but not straying far from each other.

Percival managed to scrounge up a basic floor plan of Tamworth Castle from somewhere, and everyone gathered to peruse it and come up with a strategy. "Elen, do you know where the woman's being held?" Arthur asked.

"Has to be the dungeon...any glimpses I've gotten from her show that. But there will surely be guards...she and her sister aren't alone in there."

The sister wasn't there much longer, anyway; soon afterward, the would-be rescuers watched, hidden behind a row of trees as a group of people rode away south from the fortress set on a hill. One of the riders appeared to be a woman with long golden hair. However, no one was able to get a good look at her face.

Guards remained at the main gate, yet sneaking up and through a damaged section of the western wall and into the old kitchens proved relatively easy. Crossing the courtyard to the watchman's house, where they hoped to gain access to the dungeon, proved harder as a pair of black-clad guards emerged from the central part of the castle at the same time.

"They have actual armor!" Haralda shouted as she hurled one of her battle axes, recently forged by Elyan, towards the nearest opponent. "That's not fair!"

"Fair or not, we have our hands full now!" Arthur bellowed as more guards came rushing around a corner. The air rang with the sounds of weapons being drawn. "Elen, get to the dungeons! You might need magic to break the prisoners free!"

"What the hell do you think I'm doing?" She was already at the watchman's door, Lancelot and Percival right behind her. Pausing, she looked towards Gwaine.

Knowing there could be more enemies down there and realizing with terror that he was too far to follow her without running into some of the ones up here, he concentrated and thought, Stay safe, sister.

He just heard her You too, brother, echo in his mind before she disappeared into the building with the two knights in tow.

Then there was no time left to think.

Gwaine, Arthur, Leon, Cleva, and Haralda were locked in nonstop battle for what felt like hours. The masked men, between ten and twenty in all, surrounded them easily, backing them into the north side of the courtyard, and didn't seem to struggle for more than a few seconds when stabbed or slashed through their armor. They didn't bleed a normal amount, either. The only weapon that made them drop after one direct blow was Excalibur.

"There's something magical about them!" Gwaine yelled when he realized that.

"Try to take off their limbs and let Arthur finish them!" Leon shouted. He followed it up with something garbled about skeletons that Gwaine didn't quite catch.

With a strategy, they fared better. Cleva and Haralda worked as team, the former stabbing and being a distraction with her long dagger as the latter put her axes to good use. Leon and Gwaine found a similar rhythm, while Arthur seemed to be everywhere at once, his legendary sword skills put to a true test for the first time in centuries. Within minutes, over half of the guards had fallen and didn't rise again.

A couple more came charging down from the east battlements, and Gwaine almost laughed. Come and get us!

These men had spears, but one dropped right away as Arthur threw Excalibur into his chest and swept up a fallen enemy's blade. The second man stopped, hurling his spear with near-superhuman force. The king dodged it; several paces back, Gwaine twisted his body to do the same. The weapon soared past him.

And right into Cleva's chest.

Time seemed to slow as she collapsed back against the wall of the castle kitchen, dagger falling from her hand. For a fraction of an instant, her brilliant gray eyes met Gwaine's. Then the light in them went out.

His scream tore through the courtyard, followed by a wave of uncontrolled magic that flung back anyone and anything in its path. Windows shattered, raining glass down on the cobblestones. Anything wooden in a twenty-foot radius erupted into roaring flames that flickered to nothing in seconds.

Through it all, Gwaine saw nothing but the guard who had thrown the spear, struggling to rise. The man never made to his feet.

Battered bodies, scattered across the courtyard. And fire, burning through his blood, wanting to consume everything, everyone, everywhere.

Yet the battle was over, and Elen, Lancelot, and Percival were emerging from the building across the courtyard, Percival carrying a child and Elen supporting a pale, dark-haired woman who Gwaine knew the identity of the moment he laid eyes on her.

Cleva just died for her?

And without another thought, Gwaine lunged forward to kill Morgana Pendragon.