Arthur was unsure what to do. Morgan had been asleep—if that is what it was—for the whole second day of their imprisonment.

A number of the Fae had come to check on her during that time, and each had refused to answer any of his questions about her well-being. Neither would they tell him how the rest of the men were nor what was planned for them at the end of the third day.

He was not taking this as an especially good sign.

Corys had made a few appearances, usually led around by Allavan. When he'd first seen the smug, satisfied look on the King of Dehuebarch's face, he'd wanted to reach through the roots of his cage and choke the man to death. But then, he reflected, was the man acting all that much different from how he had for the last ten years?

Have cock, will fuck.

"She's alright," Owain said for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Unless we've got fortunate," added Beric.

Arthur ignored them both. He needed a plan. He had been so sure that the destruction of the goblin armies would have been the Step of Faith. Everything he knew about the Fae was that they felt a powerful sense of honour over such things. He could not believe they would not acknowledge they now had a debt over removing that threat to their land.

What had his father done to piss them off so much?

But then he was shaken out of his reverie by Tresaith's approach.

"My Lord Arthur," the Fae said in his musical voice.

Arthur just glared back at him. Deep down, he knew Tresaith was not responsible for their current plight - indeed, he had argued vociferously against it - but he was not feeling especially charitable this day.

"I understand your anger. Once again, I apologise on behalf of my people who find this action to be distasteful. We have no history of misusing the guest privilege in this way."

"So glad that we can give such ancient beings an opportunity to experience something new." Mark's voice was harsh. Of all of them, with his excessive girth, he was suffering the most in the tiny cage; Arthur was almost - very almost - feeling sorry for him.

Tresaith's extraordinary eyes flashed Mark's way. "Should you not so fully reject your son, you would not be in this position. Unless you wish to offer apologies for your words and make amends?"

Mark, slowly and painfully, shuffled around so that he faced away from the Fae.

The story of Tristian - Mark's son - and Isolde was one Arthur was reasonably familiar with. If only because he had tried to bed that exquisitely beautiful woman himself and been shot down. With the intensity of a fiery meteor shower. Then, of course, Tristian had shown up and tactfully made it clear that if Arthur looked at Isolde twice again, there would be repercussions. Arthur had looked into that young man's eyes and knew there was no fighting with the scorching intensity of true love.

He'd heard a rumour that the two had killed themselves in the sort of self-indulgent act of childish monomania that he did not think suited either of the people he knew. If you loved someone as much as those two did each other, you didn't take your own life. And the way the Fae were talking about Tristian was very much in the present tense . . .

"How are the men?" Arthur dragged his thinking away from beautiful women with green eyes and intense young men in shining mail. He had an army to think about.

Tresaith's face went through a range of complex emotions before settling on something that was an approximation of rueful. "That's what I'm coming to you about. We may need a little help on that front . . . "

*

Lancelot stood amongst the shattered remains of his cage and ripped the bars off the one next to him. He'd been doing this constantly for the last forty-eight hours, and he could sense the Fae were beginning to get a touch pissed off with him.

At the very least, he knew he was taking a toll on their Qi reserves because a different old, old Fae had been repairing the damage he had been causing since the sun came up. It was the smallest of victories, but - as his dear mother always said - no one ever fucked a walrus by fiddling with its whiskers.

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That had felt more relevant in his head. He was really quite tired.

Arthur's men had caught on to what he was doing almost immediately. If there was one thing spearmen understood, it was the value of being irritating. Led by the tall, tattooed quartermaster - Karl - they had begun systematically destroying their root cages in shifts.

Lancelot, though, was not interested in any downtime.

"For fuck's sake! Will you guys quit it? You're going to get us all killed!" One of Cory's men - the only group who hadn't bought into making constant escape attempts - hissed at him.

Lancelot walked over to that man's cell and ripped the door off. "Well done," he shouted so that the exasperated Fae running to - once again - rebuild the prison could hear. "Your plan is perfect being. Keep it up I will. Thanks to you for the sharing." He freed another few men of Dehuebarch and turned to confront the approaching Fae.

He had observed that it was only the really old ones that could create the root cells. The Fae who came charging each time he broke free were much younger - it was all relative, of course - and had obviously been told to restrain the prisoners as peacefully as possible until the slower-moving big guns arrived.

It turned out there was quite a lot of chaos he could wreak in that time gap, especially against opponents who weren't allowed to cause him any significant damage.

He'd freed enough of the men now and knew they would concentrate on freeing their fellows. There was no point in them trying to take on the Fae; regardless of how gently these beings were taking it, no normal mortal could hope to hold their own.

Lancelot, on the other hand, was treating the whole thing as an exciting training opportunity.

He ran straight at the nearest Fae and made to punch her in the face. She jerked backwards in shock and surprise at his uncanny speed, but not as much as the male Fae next to her, who was the one Lancelot actually clocked.

In a blink of an eye, he'd taken the unusually thin blade from that falling sack of perfectly proportioned bones before any of the others could react. And he was sweeping upwards to eviscerate the Fae arriving on his left a heartbeat later. It was only the superhuman grace of the thing that let it pivot on one foot and avoid the flashing sword.

Lancelot winked in appreciation of the move and headbutted him instead. Good in all realms, a classic nutting was.

There were four of five rather concerned-looking Fae left. None of them were old enough to bother him. Wasn't this going to be fun?

*

"You're complaining my men are not acting fair?"

Tresaith grimaced. It was humbling enough that he was needing to ask the question, let alone explain why. The only reason he'd agreed to make the request was that he thought it might be more readily accepted coming from him. It turned out to have been a miscalculation.

"We are not allowed to hurt you while you have guest rights. Your men are taking advantage of that." Even to his own ears, those words sounded hollow.

"You've locked us up, lad," Owain said, the tone of his voice disbelieving. "You can't expect us to sit calmly and wait for the clock to rundown until you're allowed to hurt us!"

"But it's dishonourable!" Tresaith tried again. "We expected more . . . "

Arthur's laugh was bitter. "You speak to us of dishonour! Five Kings of the Britons are on a holy quest. Your reaction to this is to prostitute one of us, place the rest of us in cages and then complain when we do not meekly accept this treatment. The legends of the Fae are many and various in our lands. Some are good, and some are dark, but none of them are of you proving so false."

Tresaith bared his teeth in an entirely alien expression. "So, you will not help to restrain your men?"

Arthur spat at the Fae's feet. "You present to give us guest rights whilst imprisoning us, waiting for the moment you can slaughter us with a clean conscience. Fuck you and your request for calm. In fact -" Arthur knelt next to the sleeping form of Morgan and drew Drynwyn from its sheath- "I'm ashamed at not following their lead. Sword, light it up!"

With fucking pleasure.

*

It took the arrival of every member of the Council to restore a semblance of order. They were significantly less concerned with not hurting the Britons than the young Fae, and it was a relatively short amount of time before the root cages were restored.

Orwyn and Tresaith stood at the edge of the treeline, watching the finishing touches be added to the prison. Despite the cost in Qi, the Council had ordered a substantial increase in the density of the enclosing roots: there would be no further breakouts until the clock ran down on the third day.

"You know what will happen," Orwyn said to her son. "Murrayin will announce their death."

"If the Council wills it, who are we to question?"

Orwyn shook her head. "I raised you better than that."

"We can't trust them! You've seen the chaos they've wrought this day. And they knew we could not fight back. That was not the act of those I would consider as allies."

"You're looking for an excuse to do nothing. Two roads lie before you - one an easy stroll through light and fields and the other filled with orcs and thorns. There is no shame in wishing for the easy path, but there is in following it."

Tresaith watched as the man who would be the Pendragon hit the bars of his cage impotently. He knew his mother was right. He knew others amongst the Moonglade Clan were likely uncomfortable about this abuse of the guest privilege—let alone what all assumed would happen when the sun set on the third day.

"What would you have me do, mother?"

"Show a little faith, my son."

Although, alone in his cage, Arthur could not hear the Fae's conversation, he certainly made out the swelling choral music that suddenly announced itself in the grove.