Parrying and blocking as quickly as he could Merlin fought his assailant until he struck him down and moved on.
Merlin's traveling party had been attacked well past the halfway point of their journey to Camelot.
Merlin had been traveling with a group of no more than twenty men from his small village of Ealdor when the bandits had attacked them.
Because all of the men were farmers or craftsmen they didn't last long against the bandits.
The bandits slaughtered half of the men in font of them and led the rest of them to a camp and tied the remaining men to trees at the east end of the camp.
Merlin could not sleep that night for the fear that he felt. When the sun rose the next morning, more men appeared on horseback in the camp.
A short, stocky man stepped off of the horse he rode and walked with one of the bandits to where Merlin and the men were tied.
He pointed at two of the farmers and seemed to be considering something before pointing at Merlin and then handing the bandit a coin purse.
More men on horses came forward and tied Merlin and the two other men to the horse's saddle by a medium sized rope that was tied around their wrists to the point of bruising.
After the horse began to move, Merlin was tugged along beside the two other men. They walked longer than Merlin could remember and settled down for camp. Merlin was tied to another tree, and, even though it wasn't very comfortable, he fell asleep immediately.