Arthur was the first out the door and he was the closest to the man. He plunged Excalibur into the mercenary's chest. Arthur's men dispersed immediately to try to protect the women and children. Percival grabbed a three year old boy from in front of another warrior and handed him to his desperate mother.

Elyan, Leon, and Merlin were in the mix of a group of hirelings. A few of the townsfolk were armed now and fought back against the intruders.

Gwaine, Gaheris, and Gareth fought back to back, sword to sword. Merlin, looking over for a moment, almost mistook Gaheris for Gwaine. The younger fought with much the same style as Gwaine. Gareth also displayed many similar tactics, but with his blonde hair it made it hard for Merlin to mistake him for Gwaine.

The battle raged for a good fifteen minutes. These were well trained sellswords. Only a few women and children were lost, but five of the townsmen died. Once all the hirelings were killed or driven off, Arthur and the others regrouped.

"Anyone seen Fira?" Merlin asked, concerned.

They looked around for her. No one noticed the brown haired teenager.

"Wait a moment," Gareth blurted out, "I remember seeing a girl's body by the horses, under a man's."

Merlin tore off in the direction of the horses. The others were soon following behind him. When Merlin got there he saw two bodies. One was a middle aged townsman, and under him was Fira. She was covered in blood and he couldn't see her chest moving. Fearing the worst, Merlin knelt down and pushed the man's body away.

They were all relieved to find two things. One, the blood wasn't her own, but the man's. And second, a dart was sticking out of her neck. She was asleep!

"A sleep dart," Elyan confirmed, removing the sharp projectile.

Percival nodded, "Maybe they thought she was a lookout or something. Didn't want her warning the town."

They all murmured about how that would make sense. She seemed uninjured, besides the small pin prick hole from the poison dart. Once that was determined, Elyan and Percival hoisted her up between them and dragged her lamely to Hunith's. The others spread out to find and treat the wounded townsfolk.

There were few people who were uninjured. Two older teenage girls had lacerations on their arms, an old woman had broken her leg, and the men were injured in every way imaginable. Merlin wished Fira would hurry it up and wake so she could help him.

About twenty minutes later, he was relieved to see her come running out of the cottage with medical supplies.

"Gods, I'm so sorry Merlin!"

"Just glad you're okay."

"Good god," she breathed, surveying the battle ground, "how many did we lose?"

"Nine so far: two children and their mothers, and five men," Leon told her, overhearing the druid.

"Merlin! Fira! We could use one of you over here!" Elyan shouted.

Fira bolted over, her medicine bag clanging with her. She reached Elyan and Gareth leaning over a small body. It was a young boy, probably ten or eleven. His leg was bleeding badly from the thigh and he was crying.

She immediately reached for a clean cloth and some salves. She instructed Percival to hold the cloth tight against the thigh wound while she worked. Fira was worried that he was losing too much blood. They moved the child inside a stable with the other severely injured where Hunith, Merlin, and Fira tended to the wounded for the next several hours.

-*-

It was midnight in Ealdor. The others had gone to sleep, minus Leon and Percival who stood guard. Fira was laying in the loft of the barn, a lantern hanging above her and casting a soft light. She was listening to the labored breathing of the injured below her.

Suddenly she heard gasping for breath. Fira jumped up and slid down the ladder with the lantern. Searching for the source of the noise, she noticed that the boy from earlier was floundering around. Fira ran to him, and tried to get him to stay still.

Soon enough he was too still. Fira felt a tear roll down her cheek as the boy stopped breathing. She felt for a pulse but couldn't find one. Standing back, Fira nearly tripped over another injured person.

"You did all you could."

Fira turned around to find King Arthur leaning against the door frame. Fira gave a defeated sigh and pulled the boy's blanket up over his head.

"But it wasn't enough."

"It isn’t always," the king nodded, walking over the injured bodies to join Fira at the base of the ladder. "Mind if I join you up there?"

Fira shook her head and climbed up first. Arthur followed after her with the lantern. The two of them sat there against the hay piles in silence.

Arthur wasn't sure why but ever since that night on the citadel tower, he'd come to see Fira as a younger version of himself. She was naive and sometimes borderline rude and yet kind and considerate. Granted that was different than young Prince Arthur. But he saw the same questions in her eyes, the same mannerisms. She wanted to know about the world, but she expected it to follow her rules.

"Why are you here, sire?"

Arthur was taken off guard by the directness of the question. Recovering, he considered his answer.

"Well, I couldn't sleep. So I wanted to check on the injured. And then I saw you."

"Have you any idea who did this?" she finally spoke again after a few moments of silence.

Arthur shook his head.

"When we find them," she growled, "They'll regret it."

"Let's not do anything rash, Fira," Arthur warned, "We need to know what we're dealing with first."

She narrowed her eyes, looking out into the darkness. But she nodded ever so slightly in reluctant agreement.

"You should get some sleep."

Fira turned and stared at Arthur. He couldn't be serious?

"I have to stay up with these guys!" she gestured to the wounded men and women.

"What if I stay up here and keep guard. I promise to wake you if something happens," the king offered.

Fira hesitated before nodding in agreement. She pushed the sack cloth pillow she had brought onto a pile of straw and stretched out. Arthur took up his position near the ladder. He decided to move the lantern to the bottom floor, so it cast its light on the wounded instead of keeping Fira awake.

Arthur looked at Fira grimly. She was breathing slowly and he wasn't surprised she was already asleep. Letting her rest was the least he could do to repay her for all the help she'd given them in the past year. And anyways, he had some thinking to do.

What was this symbol the mercenaries were wearing? Whose crest was it? It didn't belong to anyone that Arthur recognized either from experience or word of mouth. The predominant color was green, thought of varying shades. Why were these mercenaries attacking Gwaine's brothers? Or Ealdor for that matter!

-*-

Fira woke up and found that the sun was shining brightly in through the wide open doors. She sat up so quickly that her head hurt. After taking a moment to steady herself, Fira stood up and walked down the ladder. She was surprised to find that only three men remained inside. Merlin was there, tending to one of them.

"Good morning," she murmured, still looking around.

"Good afternoon, you mean!" he grinned, "Arthur didn't want to wake you."

"Where'd everybody go?"

"They've been released from our little prison," he joked.

"And the boy?"

Merlin's face fell, "He's been moved to where the other casualties are. The town plans on burying them later tonight."

Fira nodded and asked if anyone else had died that night.

"One only," Merlin told her, "An older man, the one who'd been stabbed."

As he finished rewrapping a wound, Merlin's patient spoke saying, "I owe you one, Merlin. And just so you know, I'm sorry for how my sister and I used to tease you."

"You're forgiven, Carsen," Merlin told the man, "We were just kids."

"Still," Carsen shook his head as he sat up, "Edeva and I shouldn't have done it. I only realized later."

"But you did realize, and that's what matters," Merlin assured him, "You're free to go now."

"And if Edeva was still alive," Carsen added bitterly, turning around at the door, "I'm sure she'd say the same thing."

"Your sister and Braden died defending their son. I'm sure she wishes it could have been different, but it was a noble death."

"And Bridget and I will raise Robyn alongside our son Malin as well as we can."

Merlin smiled encouragingly at him before turning and tending to the next wounded man.

Fira decided to go find the others.

There were children running around and playing tag as if nothing had happened yesterday. She supposed it was their way of coping with the tragedy, but it put her a bit on edge. Parents were sweeping away debris from a house that had caught fire. Fortunately no one had been killed from that and the flames hadn't spread as no doubt had been the plan. A teenage boy was comforting a crying younger boy while sitting on the steps of a porch.

Fira caught of sight of Gwaine and Elyan walking out the main rode and she jogged over to them.

"You’re finally awake!" Gwaine teased her.

"Yes. Where are you off to?" she asked, noting that they were both carrying a bundle of firewood.

"Gaheris and Gareth just finished removing the last of the mercenaries' bodies outside of town. We're bringing wood for burning," Elyan explained.

"Ah. Mind if I tag along?"

They had no objections so the trio continued on towards the pile of enemy corpses. It was far enough from town that it wouldn't disturb anyone. When they did reach it, Gaheris and Gareth were hoisting the last body up onto the stack.

"There you are!" Gaheris exclaimed.

"You're welcome," Gwaine scowled. He dropped his bundle of wood down in one of the last two spots. Elyan's bundle completed a full circuit of firewood around the corpse.

"Fira," Gwaine asked, "Care to do the honors?"

She raised an eyebrow and indicated towards his brothers. Gwaine shrugged.

"Forbærnan."

The wood caught on fire and soon the bodies began to burn. Gareth and Gaheris turned in amazement from Fira to their brother, demanding an explanation.

She heard whispers and turned to Gwaine.

"What did you say?"

The others looked at her in confusion. Gwaine told her that no one had said anything to her.

"Just my imagination then."

Fira turned away from the pile and went to join the small group when she heard whispers, louder this time. But she was still unable to make out the words.

"Did you hear that?"

"No. Nothing," was the common consensus.

Suddenly Fira heard a piercing scream. She covered her ears in pain and fell to her knees on the ground.

"Fira!" Elyan shouted in surprise. He caught hold of her as she fell and kept her balanced.

After a few moments she slowly uncovered her ears and opened her eyes. Fira looked at them and they shook their heads. None of them had heard a thing.

"It was so loud and full of pain," she described to them, as Elyan helped her up, "and just so loud."

She continued hearing whispers all the home but didn't mention it. Instead Fira focused on trying to decipher any information from the whispers that she could.

When the company got back to the village, Fira went to go find Merlin. She found him inside his house, talking to his mother. No one else was there.

"Merlin, did you," she began, but he cut her off.

"The scream? Yes."

"She has magic?" Hunith all but shouted in surprise.

"I was born with it, like Merlin," Fira explained.

"It’s too complicated to get into, mum," Merlin shook his head.

"What about the whispers. Have you heard them too?"

"Whispers? No. When did they start?"

"After I cast a fire spell onto the enemy corpses," Fira told him.

Merlin considered this carefully, "Perhaps the corpses were enchanted?"

"It’s possible."

Suddenly another wave of whispers hit Fira and she shut her eyes.

"Whispers again?" he guessed.

She nodded, "All I can get from them is 'the green knight and his lady'."

"Interesting. You should find Arthur and tell him."

"Good idea."