The Bandits Arrow

Merlin, Arthur and his men were out on a trip. A strange beast, not unlike a dragon, had been seen attacking a village a good five days ride from Camelot, and so they had been sent by the King to find out whether this beast was a dragon or just talk among the grape vine.

They had been riding hard for five days now, and had finally reached the village. Merlin was to hang back while the knights scouted the area for the beast.

Arthur was off by himself, which was always a bad idea. He could get into all sorts of trouble by himself.

The village had been burnt to the ground there was bodies everywhere. But it seemed that, though all the villagers themselves were burnt to a crisp, that only one or two seemed to have been eaten which was strange, because creatures don't generally attack you unless they want to eat you or they feel threatened, and they knew that the villagers hadn't attacked, because the village here wasn't a hunting village, and therefore only had a few swords, maybe an axe or two, and no one was foolish enough to take on a large beast with only three sword and two axes!

Arthur heard a noise behind him; he turned bringing his sword around, to find Merlin behind him.

"What are you doing here? I told you to stay behind at the camp!" he hissed.

"Since when do I ever listen to what you say?" said Merlin.

"You-" began Arthur, but then he heard something behind him.

He saw Merlin's eyes widen, he turned around to see a bandit behind him with a sword pointed straight at his chest.

"Give us the sword, eh?" demanded the bandit.

"An' anythin' else of value you 'ave on you" said someone from behind Merlin, who turned around and saw a sword pointed at his chest.

Arthur looked around using his eyes and ears, he counted four bandits, bandit number one was front of him, bandit number two was in front of Merlin, bandit three was in a tree with a bow and arrow drawn and pointed at them and number four was a look out.

"I said give us the sword!" said bandit number one.

Arthur was about to tell them that he was Prince Arthur and that there were a dozen knights in the woods surrounding them, but before they could he heard a cry which made him look over to bandit number four.

One of his knights was attacking. He swung his sword down killing bandit number four, but then an arrow hit him straight through the heart. Arthur however, had not stopped to watch this as Merlin had. He had used the distraction to kill bandit number one, who dropped. He took bandit number one's sword and thrust it into Merlin's hands.

"Merlin! Snap out of it!" he said to the obviously shocked Merlin.

"What? Oh! Right" he said, pulling out of his trance and just in time too, because just then he had to block an overhead blow from bandit number two.

Arthur killed Merlin's opponent, and was just turning around when he saw an arrow heading straight for him; the man in the tree!

He dodged that one but another was heading for him straight for him! There was no way that he could dodge this one so he closed his eyes and waited for the arrow to strike home.

But it never came.

He opened his eyes to see the arrow hovering an inch from his face. He started and looked over to Merlin, about to ask whether he knew what this was, but what he saw answered his question.

Merlin's eyes were bright gold his hand outstretched towards him.

Merlin's eyes then turned back to their normal shade and he turned to the man in the tree who was gaping at him. Merlin's eyes flashed gold again and Arthur thought for a moment that Merlin was going to kill the man, but all he did was make him fall out of the tree, which wasn't even that far off the ground.

Merlin turned back to Arthur and he looked terrified.

"Arthur-" began Merlin but they both turned when they heard the other knights approaching. Merlin gave Arthur a pleading look that clearly read 'please don't have me executed', but Arthur was still in shock. He didn't know what to do. He had long thought that maybe not all magic is evil, but it was still against the law. And how could Merlin have kept this from him! He practised magic and Merlin had kept it from him all this time! Did he not trust him enough to tell him something as important as this? Or maybe he had told him and he'd reacted badly so Merlin had had his memory erased, could people even do that?

There was no more time to dwell because his knights had come and they could see that there had been a small battle of some sort.

"My Lord, what happened?" asked one of them.

Arthur looked at Merlin who was staring at his feet, and then he turned back to his men and said, "Bandits. Obviously they were looking for anything valuable in the village. Five men, attacked myself and Merlin who had followed me and they killed Morgensterk."

"I only see four bodies," said another knight, "what happened to the fifth bandit?"

"He fell out of the tree and ran," Arthur said and he could see Merlin sigh in relief.

"That was lucky," said the knight.

"Yeah," said Arthur, "come on there is nothing more to see here. Let's start riding back to Camelot."

They all made their way back to the horses they'd tied up some way away and Arthur began planning how he was going to confront Merlin about his magic without his knights getting in the way.

Please, please review! All you got to do is click that button that says 'Review' below this message.

Just so people understand the title, 'Burvju' is (according to the Google Translator) Latin for Magic.

Now I know and you know that it is most probably incorrect and all the translations in this story are most likely wrong as well, but believe me I did try to get as good a source as I could but I was limited to the internet as I know no Latin speaking peoples.

I will update as quickly as I can but I cannot promise you all a certain day as I share my computer with my two sisters and my dad who's on it constantly.