Author Note: Right, so this huge mistake I've made regarding Gwaine...I was watching the episode 'Gwaine' today and discovered that I'd got it completely wrong concerning which King supposedly destroyed Gwaine's family. I thought it was Cenred, and that Gwaine was from Ealdor. Turns out he's actually from Caerleon, and it's King Caerleon who refused to help his mother. So, I've tried to remedy this mistake in this chapter, but for those who may be a little confused, I'll give a brief summary now.
Gwaine was born in Caerleon six months before his father was killed. His mother went to Caerleon to beg for help, Caerleon refused so Gwaine's mother moved him and his sister to Essetir instead, following the advice of his father's close friend Lord Ector, who happens to be Dante's father. That's how the pair of them met.
Because Gwaine's mother was left penniless by his father, she was forced to work as a seamstress to provide for her children, so when he was old enough, Gwaine went to Cenred, begging him to help them return to their noble lifestyles. Cenred also refused, prompting Gwaine to lose all faith in nobility completely and go off on his own, becoming the rough ranger that he is when he meets Arthur for the first time. Dante believes he has left her because of her status as nobility, and takes his lack of faith personally, along with the fact he was engaged to her and broke it off by running away - hence why she was so bitter with him to begin with.
Hopefully that kind of covers for my mistake, and makes sense...and if it doesn't...well, who cares? It's fanfiction after all. I can write what I want :P
Oh yes and...sorry about the cliffhanger ending, but I just couldn't resist, mwahahaha!
...
By late afternoon, the group had finally crossed the borders into Essetir, and Gwaine and Dante glanced at each other, smiling slightly.
"Home again, home again, to go to rest," Gwaine recited, a common children's nursery rhyme.
"By hearth and heart, house and nest," Dante added with a knowing smile. Merlin, who'd been riding just a little ahead of them, glanced back with pleasant surprise.
"You know that rhyme?" he asked, slowing down to ride beside them.
"Doesn't everyone?" Gwaine replied and Merlin shrugged.
"I don't know. I mean, I wasn't sure if anyone else...I thought it was a rhyme my mother made up for me."
"Oh, we're sorry," Dante apologised. "Maybe she did? Maybe hers was different to the ones our mothers used to tell us?"
Merlin shook his head doubtfully, but he wasn't bothered by the possibility. In a strange way, he was glad that Dante and Gwaine also knew the rhyme - glad that it was a common gift from mothers to their children.
And glad, especially, that Dante and Gwaine at least understood the significance of the rhyme. It was clearly special to them, too, and reminded them of home, just as it reminded him.
He watched as Dante and Gwaine trotted their horses up a small embankment away from the group, coming to a halt so they could survey the scenery.
"As lovely as I remember it," Gwaine nodded, a contended look on his face. "I wasn't born here, but it was as much a home to me back when I was a lad as Camelot is to me now."
"I remember you back then," Dante grinned. "All gangly and scrawny...and clean shaven too!"
"Come on admit it, you love the beard," he laughed, stroking them. She laughed too.
"Makes you look rugged and manly."
"And my muscles have nothing to do with it?"
"What muscles?" she teased. He feigned insult then.
"Hey, you take that back young lady!"
"Gwaine! Dante!" Arthur's voice carried up to them breaking the moment. Gwaine held up a gloved hand to show that they'd heard and would soon be on their way. Then he turned back to Dante, who was still staring out wistfully over the lands beyond. Unlike Gwaine, this WAS her home. She'd been born here. He'd only moved here when he was very young, after his father's death and Caerleon's refusal to help his mother.
"Do you ever think about coming back?" She asked quietly.
"Sometimes," he admitted, his voice equally as quiet - as if they were afraid of being overheard. "But then I look at what I have in Camelot, and I think to myself, why would I give all that up?"
Dante remained silent. She had no answer for that, and didn't even attempt to think of one, either. Gwaine was right. Camelot was their home now. Whatever she'd once felt for Essetir, was slowly dying away, to be replaced by the splendour and beauty of her new home. Essetir held nothing but bad memories for her now - memories she'd rather forget. Like the disappearance of her mother, and the deaths of her brothers. Maybe one day she'd come back again. But not now. Now, she was only here because she had to be, and thinking of this made her heart sink.
The whole ride so far, she'd managed to put it out of her mind. But there was no escaping it. Treason and murder lay just over that next ridge, in the village of Ealdor, and there was nothing she could do about it without signing her own death warrant.
"Come on Vixen," she sighed, tugging lightly on the mare's reins, to set her off down the embankment after the others again.
"Vixen?" Gwaine asked as he joined her. And then he grinned. "Kay used to call you that."
"Yeah," Dante also grinned, glad to be given an excuse not to think about what was to come. Instead, she allowed herself to think back on what had already been. "Just seemed appropriate, somehow."
"Can't think why," Gwaine laughed as her mind wandered to some far off place, way back when she was just seven years old.
Cailan, her brother (or Kay as he'd insisted everyone call him, because he hated the fact that his name was Cailan Quincailan) had once give her the nickname Little Vixen, because she'd been a very sneaky child, as cunning as a fox, with a brilliant mass of flame red hair to rival that of any fox's coat. As she'd grown older, the flames had died down and the mahogany had replaced it, but her nickname had stuck, never-the-less.
Now she'd been given this beautiful chestnut mare - who's glossy coat of fur was almost the exact shade of red that she'd had as a child. Vixen was a name that seemed only fitting for her, and it brought a smile to Dante's face each time she spoke it, simply because it reminded her of her past, and her happy childhood - before everything had gone all screwy.
...
About an hour later, Arthur called the group to a halt in a small wooden area, giving them plenty of shelter and cover from anyone using the main road into the village.
"Right, I'm not liking the fact that since we crossed the borders, we haven't seen anyone," he told them quietly, as they all slid from their respective saddles and gathered closer so he would not have to raise his voice.
"There aren't even any patrols or scouts or watchmen," Leon added.
"Exactly," Arthur nodded. "Which is what's worrying me. We should have at least seen someone by now, so I want everyone to be on their guard from now on. If we're walking into an ambush, I want us to be prepared - take away their advantage of surprise."
"Agreed," the other knights nodded. Merlin glanced at Dante, then back to Arthur.
"What about us?"
"You're coming with us," Arthur started, and as Dante opened her mouth to argue, he held up a hand to silence her. "It's far too dangerous to leave you out here alone, unprotected, Milady. I would much rather keep you with me so that we can see you and protect you."
"But I told you I wasn't interested in fighting," she protested when he finally allowed her to speak.
"Yes, and I agree that you should not, under normal circumstances, join us in combat. But these are not normal circumstances and regardless of where you are, you will be in danger. If Lot's men stumbled upon you alone out here, I do not need to describe what manner of things they may do to you, the most merciful of which being a swift death." He let that linger for a moment, noting Gwaine's fists clenching tightly and Dante visibly shuddering in undisguised horror. Even the other knights and Merlin looked visibly sickened and Arthur knew, just from their reactions, that his argument was won.
Eventually, Dante was the first to speak with a resigned acceptance that quickly turned into a mischievous grin. "Alright then. Something here isn't right... Let's go and poke it with a stick!"
Despite the supposed gravity of the situation, the others found themselves laughing regardless. They quickly remounted their horses and started off through the woods that ran parallel to the road, the thick trees giving them a relative amount of cover from any prying eyes who may be watching the roads into the village.
...
"I don't like this," Merlin muttered as they rode into the silent village about quarter of an hour later.
"Quiet," Arthur hissed, holding up a hand to indicate that the group should halt. They obeyed immediately, each feeling as uncomfortable as the next as they sat and listened. There was not a single sound at all. No birds in trees, no chattering of villagers, not even any wind to rustle the leaves of the few trees scattered here and there. It was unnaturally, eerily quiet. Too quiet.
Dante shifted ever so slightly in the saddle, and the creak of leather sounded like a whip crack in the silence. She froze immediately, eyes wide in horror.
"Sire," Leon dared to be the first to break the silence after a very long pause. He leant towards the king slightly, unwilling to raise his voice even above a quiet murmur. "We shouldn't be here."
"I know," Arthur replied equally as quietly. "Something's going on. But if there are people in trouble, it's up to us to help them."
Sitting up straighter in the saddle, he turned his horse on the spot so that he was facing the others. "We leave the horses here and go by foot from now on. In pairs. As soon as you find anything at all, I want to know."
There was a chorus of 'Yes Sire's as they all dismounted, tying their respective horses to the nearby fencing. Then they split off into pairs, Arthur and Merlin heading north, Elyan and Tristan heading east and Percival and Leon heading south. This left Gwaine and Dante to take the west side of the village.
They started off in silence, Dante sticking much closer to Gwaine than she perhaps should have done, but he wasn't complaining, and if she was being brutally honest, she knew exactly what they were walking into, and she was scared. Morgana had warned her that she may meet her doom here today, but until they'd reached the village, this hadn't truly registered in her mind. Now, however, she was finally beginning to realise the danger she'd knowingly placed them all in, and it terrified her.
Reaching up behind her, she pulled both short swords out with a deafening ring of steel, and Gwaine jumped, spinning on the spot with lightning reflexes even as he drew his own sword, fearing an ambush.
Seeing Dante's embarrassed expression as her cheeks coloured, however, he let out a sigh of relief.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't scare me like that," he hissed back as they continued on through their section of the village, searching every room of every building with growing tension. They should have been relaxing, considering they had so far found nothing, which would suggest that in fact there was nothing to be found. But neither of them exactly believed that, and if anything, they became more and more skittish as more and more of the buildings turned out to be empty.
By the time they'd met back up with the others in the very heart of the settlement, Dante was literally jumping at shadows. And Merlin wasn't much better. Even the knights and Arthur looked visibly troubled.
"You're sure your mother said it was here?" Arthur asked at last, rounding on Merlin.
"Arthur, look around you," Merlin retorted, throwing his arms out to indicate their surroundings. "This is Ealdor. My home! You've been here before. You of all people should know that it's always thriving with people!"
Arthur couldn't argue with that and frowned, truly stumped. What the hell was going on?
"Where are all the animals?" Dante suddenly wondered aloud as she glanced around.
"Forget the animals!" Merlin snapped. "Where are the VILLAGERS?"
"No, Dante has a point," Arthur said, holding up a hand to silence Merlin. "Lot could have taken the entire village as slaves, or had them all killed. But that doesn't explain why there are no animals. Where are the pigs? The cows? The chickens, even?"
"Maybe he took them for his kitchen?" Merlin exclaimed. "How should I know!"
"That's not like Lot," Dante protested. "He's never had any desire for the livestock before. Just the humans who could be turned into slaves."
"Spread out, check everywhere again," Arthur commanded.
"What are we looking for this time, Sire?" Leon spoke up finally.
"Anything to explain where the animals have gone. Track marks, footprints, anything. A whole village and its livestock can't just vanish into thin air."
As the others spread out once again, Arthur paused when he caught sight of Dante. "You alright?" he asked her, noticing that her hands were still trembling.
"No," she admitted as with a silent hand gesture by Arthur, he and Gwaine swapped partners. The Knight and Merlin headed off to the east this time, leaving Dante and Arthur to go west. "I should have stayed with the horses. Why did you make me come into the village?"
"It's alright to be scared," he reassured her as they started off, side by side, Dante still clutching her short swords tightly - so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
"To be scared is to be human," Arthur continued as he crouched down beside a pig pen to examine the dirt.
"How right you are, Arthur," a voice cut through the silence like a knife, and Arthur shot bolt upright, drawing his sword in one fluid motion as he and Dante spun on the spot, searching desperately for the location of the voice. They both knew exactly who it had belonged to.
"Show yourself Morgana!" He called out, as he moved to stand back to back with Dante. Then he lowered his voice, glancing quickly over his shoulder."Stick close," he told her quietly.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere," she replied, raising her weapons and holding them in front of her defensively.
"Come out and face me you coward!" He called again after a long, tense minute of silence. Footsteps approaching from the left warned them of Percival and Leon's approach. Immediately the two knights fell into place on either side of Arthur and Dante, forming a square. Merlin, Gwaine, Elyan and Tristan arrived not long after, and the eight of them formed a tight circle, facing outwards, weapons drawn.
"Where is she?" Arthur hissed to the group as they all scanned their surroundings furiously. "Where is she?"
The other knights began grumbling to themselves as they looked everywhere for any sign of even the slightest movement. But Morgana was well concealed, wherever she was.
"I knew she wasn't dead."
"I don't see her."
"Keep looking. She's got to be around here somewhere."
"Morgana?" Arthur called out again, and finally he was rewarded with an answer.
"I'm here, Arthur," she spoke calmly as she appeared, seemingly from nowhere to stand in front of him. "Oh look at you, trembling like a leaf. Did I scare you?"
"What have you done with the villagers?" Arthur growled through gritted teeth as he raised his sword into a defensive pose.
"All in good time, brother," she smirked.
"Arthur," Percival hissed from somewhere to his left, and glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small group of bandits advancing from the trees. Then he glanced to his right and saw even more emerging from the trees on that side, as well. He didn't need to look behind to know that they were surrounded.
"Prepare for combat," he instructed the group, and he felt them all tense and shift as each man fell into their familiar defensive pose. From somewhere to his right, he also saw Dante settle into a half crouch, one sword reversed along her arm whilst the other was held out across her front. It was an unusual yet effective stance, he realised. She could defend with the blade reversed along her arm, as if she were wielding a shield, whilst at the same time she could attack with the other blade.
Morgana merely laughed as she watched them all. "Brave, but foolish brother. You're impossibly outnumbered."
"I don't think so," Arthur countered. "One knight of Camelot is worth at least a hundred of your dirty rabble."
"You sound so confident. But you forget, not all of you are knights."
Arthur's blood ran cold as he remembered Merlin and Dante. They weren't warriors. They had experience wielding swords, but not nearly enough to save them against this number of opponents. They didn't stand a chance, and he'd insisted on them coming her in the first place. He'd doomed them to certain death.
But he couldn't falter now and let Morgana see his weakness. Besides, he was a King now, and he knew that Kings often had to make sacrifices, whether they liked it, or not.
"Merlin and Dante are just as good as you or I, Morgana. Don't let their appearances fool you."
"Dante?" Morgana asked, delighted. "You've brought the Lady Dante with you? Oh Arthur, shame on you, putting her in such danger! What were you thinking?"
"Leave her alone!" Arthur growled as Morgana advanced on her secret acolyte. Dante tensed, not knowing what Morgana was going to do. She wanted to believe that Morgana would not let any harm befall her, but in a scenario like this, that would simply not be believable.
"Such a pretty thing," Morgana smirked again as she reached forward and took Dante's chin with one hand, tilting and turning her head in the pretence of examining her. Dante knew that the others would be expecting her to do something - lash out at Morgana perhaps, whilst she had the chance. Morgana was well within range of her blades, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.
But she couldn't do it.
She physically couldn't bring herself to hurt her mistress, regardless of how easily Morgana would find it to wound or even kill her, if she so desired. She decided that if she ever survived to tell this particular tale, she would claim that fear had a fierce grip on her, and she'd been unable to move in that instant.
Yes, that would be a feasible enough excuse. Fear can do all sorts of things to people, after all. So, going with the 'frozen in fear' excuse, she glared at Morgana, hoping that she would be forgiven.
"Back off, witch," she spat, not really needing to try all that hard in order to project fear into her voice as well as hatred. Morgana's eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments and Dante quickly tried to convey with her own eyes that she meant nothing by the comment. It was all part of her act.
But she needn't have worried, because Morgana seemed to understand. She laughed again, pushing Dante's head back roughly and causing her to stagger backwards a few paces.
"Well well, she's a feisty little thing, isn't she. No matter. She'll soon be just as dead as the rest of you."
Morgana backed off then, motioning to the bandits with a nod and another one of what had by now become her trademarks - a malevolent smirk.
The fight began immediately, the whole village echoing with the clashes of steel and the screams of the dying and wounded.
Percival and Gwaine moved straight towards Dante, meaning to protect her, for which she was grateful.
"Are you alright?" Gwaine called, above the crashing of metal, even as Dante got stuck in and they began to work together as a pair.
"I've been in worse situations than this," she retorted, trying to sound braver than she felt as she slashed at the man who'd just leapt on Gwaine from behind.
"Ah yes, I forget you're a target for trouble," Gwaine grinned, returning the favour by punching another man who'd suddenly grabbed her round the throat.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
...
From a safe distance away, Morgana watched the battle with great interest, noting how Arthur's claims about his knights weren't actually that far from the truth. All around them lay the bodies of the men they'd already defeated, whilst so far, not one of the knights themselves had fallen.
Even Dante and Merlin were doing well at defending themselves. Those lessons were a good investment, on Dante's part, Morgana had to admit. Though the price she had to pay for them was something of a concern for the witch. Was Dante getting closer to Gwaine than she should be?
She suddenly winced, breaking out of her reverie as she saw Dante sent flying through the air by Percival, who'd been knocked backwards by three charging bandits and had thrown his arms out for balance. Smashing her in the face with his huge elbow, he'd caught her with such force that she'd been lifted right off the ground and literally thrown backwards a few feet.
Morgana wanted to intervene then, call a halt to the fighting and allow Dante to find her footing once more, but she needn't have worried, because Elyan and Tristan were already running towards their vulnerable companion, dragging her back to her feet as Gwaine and Percival continued to hold off the wall of attackers.
When Dante - blood now gushing freely down her face - raised her blades again, apparently none-the-worse for the ordeal aside from a potential broken nose, Morgana breathed a bit easier.
But only for a moment. Because Dante had foolishly darted back into the fray again, apparently eager to prove her worth. She was no battle-hardened, seasoned warrior, but thankfully she now wasn't an exactly unskilled combatant either.
The other knights and Arthur fought gallantly, but they were tiring quickly, and now Lot's more skilled soldiers - clad in garbs bearing his symbol - had joined in too, turning the tide even further against Arthur and his group.
...
Elyan was the first to take a hit, staggering as one of the bandits got in a lucky strike with a dagger to his thigh. Percival was next, taking a crossbow bolt to the shoulder. Then Tristan fell, walloped unconscious by a shield to the face.
"Limited choices Arthur. What do we do?" Gwaine breathed as the few of them left standing moved to create a protective circle around their injured comrades.
"We fight," came the reply as the bloodied King continued on valiantly, despite the exhaustion.
"It's no good," Dante gasped. "There's too many of them."
"Arthur Pendragon!" Morgana's voice rang out then, and suddenly all movement stopped - the bandits and Lot's men retreating out of range, before closing their ranks to surround the small group. Morgana's expression showed that she had truly enjoyed the spectacle of the battle. "Surrender, and your lives will be spared."
"I will NEVER surrender to you, Morgana," Arthur replied without the slightest hesitation.
"Then I'm sorry, brother," the witch replied, in a tone that didn't sound at all sorry. "You will have to be destroyed."
She raised her hand, ready to give the signal again, when Dante, exhausted, dirty and bloody, stepped forwards. Knowing that there was no way any of them would survive another round of fighting, she decided that enough was enough. If anyone could make Morgana listen, it was her.
"You want a hostage, Morgana? Take me and let them go!"
"Dante, no!" Gwaine and Arthur cried out immediately, even as Morgana shook her head in amusement.
"You're a nobody. Why would I want you when I could have the great Arthur Pendragon instead?"
Dante had no answer for that, but it turned out that she didn't need one, because there was a crack of thunder, coming completely out of nowhere, the clear skies suddenly clouded over and a streak of lightning ploughed into the floor between Morgana and Dante, throwing them both backward, off their feet.
Merlin smiled ever so slightly as his plan worked the way he'd intended it to, and he was glad nobody had heard his muttered incantation. Dante's distraction had proved an invaluable one and given him the opportunity that he'd been seeking - to use magic right in front of Arthur's nose without him realising. Now the fighting had begun again, and everyone was too focussed on fighting each other to even bother considering where the lightning and the sudden lashing rain had even come from in the first place. So even as he continued to swing the sword at any bandit who came too close, he also took advantage of this fact, constantly summoning more of the lightning to aid them.
...
Dante staggered backwards, away from the last soldier she'd just killed, and gasped for breath. She was bleeding from several minor cuts, and one pretty painful one to her cheek - the blood from this particular gash dripping into the collar of her chainmail shirt and mingling with the blood from her mangled nose. Mind you, now that the heavy rain was hammering down around them, the blood had become severely diluted and there was not an inch of her that was not now soaked and weighed down by the sheer mass of rain that her clothing had absorbed.
She felt faint from the unending exertion of battle and this sudden extra weight that she was carrying. Her head swam violently, threatening to unbalance her, and she staggered again, shaking her head to try and clear her blurred vision. Raising a bloodied, dirty hand, she contemplated wiping the rain and grime away from her eyes, before deciding against it, considering how dirty her hands now were. Desperately she blinked the rain away instead, knowing that she was still in danger. A thought that was confirmed, seconds later, when a sudden glint of movement out of the corner of her eye dragged her back to her senses.
There was a sudden flash of silver again – the same flash that had caught her attention, just seconds before, which she had mistaken for another bolt of lightning - and then a rush of air like she'd taken a long, deep breath, followed by the taste of iron, as something flooded her throat, threatening to choke her. Exhausted and weak, she'd seen the attack from King Lot - who'd finally decided to join his men in combat - too late to do anything about it.
Letting out a gasp of stunned surprise, she collapsed like a crumpled flower, the dagger protruding from her chest, having been forced through both the leather and the chainmail, and a single thought flitted across her mind that this moment should be terrifying or agonizingly painful or perhaps even just terribly sad. But it was none of those things. Dante experienced it all with a kind of detached, numb acceptance, even as she coughed up great mouthfuls of crimson blood, the short swords dropping from her hands to land with a loud splash in the puddles slowly gathering around her feet.
So this is death, she thought to herself, before falling back and looking up through blurry eyes, even as she noticed that Lot was standing over her now, one foot on either side of her prone body. But Dante did not want, in her last seconds of life, to have to look at the evil visage of the man who was to be the cause of her demise.
Instead, she turned her eyes to a place beyond the King, up to the fast moving black clouds, floating majestically in the wind above the rooftops. Every now and then the sky would light up with another bolt of lightning, and the rain stung her eyes like a thousand bees, making it even harder for her to keep them open.
And then, very slowly, the world darkened around her and she felt like she was sinking or falling, being pulled towards the darkness. The sounds around her faded into the distance, her body felt numb as all feeling drained away, and as she coughed and spluttered one last time, tasting the bitter, metallic taste of the blood in her mouth, she had one last conscious thought.
And it was one of relief.
She would rather die here, now, than live and have to watch Arthur and Morgana destroy each other over the crown of Camelot.