Torr Badon
Chapter 1: After a Decade
Merlin considered using magic to achieve his goal.
On one hand, the argument could be made that it would hasten his return to Camelot. He'd already been gone twice as long as anticipated, and while it didn't make his magic itch to be separated from his king as it would have when they were young, there was the constant awareness in the back of his mind that he didn't know.
On the other hand… it was only breakfast.
He crouched on his heels a short distance from his campfire, the ashy smear on the ring of stones a silent testament to the length of his stay, holding his arms around his chest against the early-morning chill of the first month of spring. He wasn't the first one in camp to begin preparations for the day, but most fire-pits were still cold, most tent flaps still tied shut. That he could see from here, anyway.
A watched pot never boils, he heard his mother's voice echo in his mind – and especially if it's got grain-cereal mixed in. Times like these, he sympathized with Arthur's penchant for sausages, first thing.
Perhaps if he focused on something else. But everything was already packed that could be, waiting with his mare, everything that wasn't needed for one last assessment of his patients, this morning before he said his farewells. The last few lines of summary for the records could be made when he was home. Any deeper study into the cause of the disease – and he knew he'd be doing that too, as soon as it was possible – had to wait for the opportunity of hours-long solitude and quiet.
Merlin reached to stir the thickening paste in his small pot, and movement from behind a tree maybe five yards past his fire, caught his attention.
He sat back, pretending not to notice, and after a moment a tangle of brown hair, smudged skin, and curious eyes edged into view.
The druid children were a funny mix. The older ones, who'd grown up hearing the stories – Pendragon and Emrys, prophecy and adventure – were shyly awestruck. The youngest ones, who'd no doubt been scolded by their mothers not to bother Emrys, blinked and hid from him also. The ones in-between, though… they'd watched for a few wary days before deciding that if he slept in a tent and ate right out of the pot and yelped at the temperature of the wash-water, he was just a person like everyone else. They'd teased and helped and asked questions and gotten in his way and listened and watched and learned and before too long, any lingering self-consciousness had faded from the adults' treatment of him as well.
This little one seemed determined to show nothing but face, and fingertips on the rough bark of the tree.
Merlin grinned, leaned forward, and blew in an exaggerated fashion on the coals under his cook-pot, puffing out his cheeks.
Tiny sparks blew, coalesced, and formed – a dragon that would fit on the palm of one's hand, if one didn't mind the burn. It crept delicately from the coals, unfurling glowing orange wings.
The child ventured to show half his body, brown eyes riveted to the tiny magic-creature.
Fanning wings of exquisite flame, the dragon launched itself up to soar – more slowly than its more corporal cousin could manage – in a wide arc around the clearing. Merlin made a show of ducking when it passed him, and the child giggled, daring a few steps closer.
He directed the tiny spark-figure land on the rim of his pot, dip the miniscule serpentine neck, walk a few paces, and investigate again, as if it were hungry and curious, both. The child walked three more steps, almost as close to the fire now as Merlin was, on the opposite side, fascinated by the magic.
And the tiny flame-dragon sneezed. Inaudibly but very obviously, even to the sparks ejected from its mouth.
"It must be the spice," Merlin said gravely. "I suppose I've put too much in."
The child giggled delightedly, clapping his hands.
A voice spoke from behind Merlin. "Still playing with your food?"
He didn't turn, though the child took exception to the company and scampered off; Merlin let the dragon dissipate and rise in a shimmer of heat. The voice was familiar, and the implications and friendly tone of the remark made him reasonably sure he knew the man's name, though it had been years, and both of them boys, since they'd seen each other. He let his smile spread.
"You can share it if you like," he said. "I'm not going to eat it all."
"Your mother's not here to scold me, is she?" the other returned, stepping over the log Merlin perched on, to straddle the end of it facing him, tucking his cloak around him with practiced ease. "I think she thought it was partly my fault, how skinny you were."
"I'm still skinny," Merlin said, grinning at his childhood friend.
Brown hair cropped short, chest filled out – belly filled out a bit more but only noticeable since Merlin was more accustomed to seeing the knights' fighting-fit physiques – eyes still round but with an owlish look of quiet wisdom and experience.
"But it looks like you've found someone's cooking that suits you." Merlin reached out his hand. "Hello, Gilli."
"Good to see you," Gilli responded, the solemnity of his face breaking into a slow smile. He dropped a bulging pack to the ground by their feet as he shook Merlin's hand.
"Ah," Merlin couldn't help saying, feeling the tingle of magic, and turning his friend's hand instinctively to see the large flat-topped ring on the third finger. "Sorry – curious."
"It's all right," Gilli said with a smile, slipping the piece off easily to hand to him for a closer look. "I'm not surprised you noticed."
"That's the mark of the Old Religion," Merlin noticed, tracing the rune inscribed on the ring. It was the rune for fustrendel. Focus. Such rings, he knew, were rare – he'd heard of them but had never seen one – they acted as a conduit, a channel for magical powers. "Where did you get it from?"
Gilli accepted it back and slid his finger slowly through the ring before answering. "My father. He left it me when he died."
"I'm sorry to hear," Merlin said. He didn't recall Gilli's father well – when they spent time together in camp as boys, it was before Hunith's fire, not with Gilli's family. But considerable gifts were required to wield such a ring as that; he supposed that each of them had things to learn about their fathers, the last time they spoke.
"It's been many years," Gilli said easily. "It was a fine gift, though – without it I would not have had the magic or the control necessary to find my position among our people… And the girl whose cooking suits me just fine. They told you I joined Ruadan's clan?"
"Yeah, Iseldir said." Merlin poked his breakfast again, giving a quick wider glance to the early-morning activity of the rest of the camp.
"We're ranging on the edges of Mercia, north of the mountains of Isgaard, now," Gilli went on. "I married his daughter Sefa five years ago." Merlin remembered her distantly, an impression of a kind, shy smile – mostly because of what he'd been involved in with her father, afterwards.
"Mercia, huh." Bayard was still king; he kept his four – or five? – sons jockeying for the title of crown prince. Merlin left it to Arthur to keep track of which one was in favor, any given month.
Gilli answered obliquely, mistaking the point of Merlin's interest – perhaps by design, perhaps not. "Yep. Five years, and a babe for every year."
Merlin gave his old friend a glance at once skeptical and congratulatory, and reached with a stick to snag the handle of his little breakfast pot, pulling it from the edge of the coals. "Here, share with me."
Gilli put a hand into the mouth of his sack and pulled out a wooden spoon. "She loves it," he went on, happily wistful. "Loves the kids… loves carrying them…" He shifted on the log and his grin took on an unexpected maturity. "Loves making them…"
Merlin coughed a laugh, narrowly saving his own spoonful of porridge from spattering in the dust.
"What about you?" Gilli said, shrugging one rounded shoulder to where the child had been spying on Merlin when he arrived. He lifted his own spoonful to test the temperature, and added, "Do you have any children?" before gingerly taking the bite.
"Yes," Merlin said, feeling the same smile spread that he always wore when talking about his family. "My wife is an herbalist from Lionys. We met ten years ago – when King Arthur was supposed to find a bride, if you heard that story – we've been married now eight years. Our daughter will be seven next month."
"Just the one?" Gilli said, his attention focused on shoveling porridge into his mouth.
"Did you just get in?" Merlin asked, sliding his boot toward Gilli's pack.
"No – last night, but it was late. And I'm not staying." He paused for as long as it took to take, chew, and swallow two bites. "They said you were asleep – I guess it's been a rough couple of weeks."
Merlin snorted his affirmative. His return to Camelot was not so vital or urgent that he couldn't take an hour or so to catch up with his friend – but there was more to it than that. He had the feeling Gilli had come to the camp to see him. And that it was important.
"The healer for our clan took me as apprentice, when I transferred," Gilli went on. "He's been… vague, this past year, so mostly it falls to me. I'm nothing special, sometimes the magic's a bit rough, if that's what's needed, but we get along."
Trying to figure out if the reason for Gilli's trip was the same reason he himself was in the druid camp, Merlin said, "If you came because you heard – Gilli, I'm sorry if you expected –"
"No, no, nothing like that." Gilli blinked at him, unperturbed. "If Iseldir decided this illness needed Emrys, who am I to try my rough skill? No. I just – well, who would have thought it, when we were young? That you and I would both grow up to practice the healing arts?"
"Not Ari, that's for sure," Merlin quipped, remembering the tiny symbol for basic healing magic included in the tattoo on his left forearm. He gestured his willingness for the other man to finish the breakfast. "They're on the mend here, now – no new cases this week, and the last one turned a corner to the road to recovery day before yesterday."
Gilli nodded, chewing and swallowing placidly. "I saw you're all packed up this morning. Back to Camelot, then?"
"Yes."
The solution, the remedy, the cure, was only half the job. He still didn't know what had caused the outbreak, and when it was magical in nature – the strongest ones were the hardest hit; that connection was what prompted Iseldir's call for his help a month ago – it couldn't be left an unexplained mystery. He just wished Gaius…
"You don't mind having company for the road, do you?" Gilli's glance was round-eyed, unblinking. "At least a few miles?"
Merlin didn't have to say, you mean you? And didn't bother questioning him more closely; he'd caught his friends' disinclination to discuss. Merlin's tent was on the edge of the camp, but they weren't alone, by any means, even out of earshot. And druids – even children, maybe especially children, sometimes – were notorious for moving quietly in the woods. Whatever he had to say, he didn't want to chance being overheard.
"Come and welcome," Merlin said, scooping a handful of leaves for a quick scrub of the inside of the pot, then pushing upright to attach it to one of the strings on the saddle of the mare that waited, readied to go before Merlin's breakfast was.
Gilli shouldered his own pack, and passed his fingers gently over the brand on the mare's hip marking her a member of the royal stable of Camelot, without comment.
"Iseldir knows?" Merlin said. About whatever had prompted Gilli's visit.
"I talked to him a bit last night," Gilli said. A simple, but comprehensive answer.
Merlin loosened the mare's lead. "Let's find him to say goodbye, then."
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Arthur eyed the eager youth before him, scratching gloved fingers through the short beard he wore on chin and jaw.
"You know Merlin will make my life hell if anything happens to you, don't you," he remarked. "Sir Bodiver."
Bodiver said nothing, but his eyebrows shot up hopefully. Because Arthur hadn't said no.
Wind gusted between the men standing in counsel, past them up the bare hill that separated them from the bandits who were their quarry. Who outnumbered them – which was their advantage – and who didn't yet know the knights were there.
Which was Arthur's advantage. He needed to lure them into an ambush, where surprise would overwhelm numbers. And in a place where more men would be a disadvantage, and Arthur could take them with a minimum of bloodshed.
"I think the plan is sound, sire," Gwaine put in from Arthur's right.
"It was your plan, Gwaine," Arthur said, allowing the edge in his voice to be amused and disapproving at once. "Of course you think it's sound."
"My plan," Gwaine said innocently, ready to protest.
"I saw you." Arthur sighed, rubbing his forehead on the fine black leather of his riding glove, over the first knuckle of his fist. "This morning, before breakfast. The foot races."
Gwaine grinned, unrepentant. "It's still a good plan. This boy runs like the wind."
"Sire, if –" Bodiver's interjection was hesitant – "if anything goes wrong… There's always your standing orders to fall back on."
Standing orders, for Bodiver, were unique. And the reason Merlin would give him hell if anything happened to the new knight.
There were a few who'd earned the title and rank of a knight of Camelot, who were also capable of magic; another innovation of Arthur's that his father would not have approved of. Knighting commoners, treason – knighting magic-users, sacrilege.
Bodiver's talent, the one which placed him at Arthur's side in Merlin's absence, was the single capability of long-range mental communication. From one end of the kingdom to the other – they knew because they'd tested it – he could hear Merlin, and Merlin could hear him. Arthur's call for help, if Merlin's magic was needed and he wasn't there.
Mostly, Arthur claimed, for his friend's peace of mind. Because Arthur could take care of himself – and the knights who accompanied him everywhere outside the citadel could take care of everything else.
Once, they'd used it. Correction, Bodiver had used it. A lunatic sorcerer had surprised them in an outlying village on a boring mid-summer tour of the peaceful border to the southwest. So boring and so hot they'd dispensed with chainmail. The sorcerer had not posed – Arthur still maintained – an insurmountable threat, but simply an intriguing tactical puzzle to solve. But a series of fireballs – tiny but fast, and not to be taken lightly in a dry summer and a peasant village – had driven Bodiver and Arthur apart. And when the young knight realized he could neither see nor hear the king, he'd called for help.
Merlin. Always willing to help so freely – and yet, so many asked. It made Arthur pause, often, to think, before he asked. Made sure, in the time they spent in each other's company, that he was offering Merlin as much support and encouragement and advice in his struggles – medical, magical, whatever – as Merlin always gave him.
"Standing orders," he repeated to the freckle-faced young man. "This time, be sure I'm in significant danger before you call Merlin. A clan of sick druids is more important than an out-of-sight warrior."
"Sire," Bodiver said, giving him a wide grin.
"The ravine down there?" Arthur added to Gwaine, who followed his gaze with a cursory confirmation.
"Tristan's down there scouting ground now," he said.
Arthur nodded, eyeing the terrain again. It was a good plan. "Sir Bodiver, give us half of an hour to set the trap. Then you bait it."
"My lord." Bodiver twitched halfway through turning to obey. "Ah – is the loss of the horse acceptable?"
"Take Tristan's," Gwaine suggested, turning slightly into the wind so his longish hair would not obscure his vision. "The oldest one we've brought, and he's been complaining about its temper this whole trip."
"Very well." Arthur nodded to the youngest knight, who bowed again before departing.
"Such respect from the youngsters," Gwaine said humorously; Arthur snorted. "Just think how bad it would be if you did something to actually deserve it."
"Too bad you'll never experience it," Arthur shot back.
"Thank the gods." Impish grin.
"Let's go." They understood each other well enough not to waste time they didn't have with verbal sparring.
He double-checked his gear, glanced to the handler and picket-line of their waiting mounts, then started off slantwise, up the side of the hill toward the ravine gashed between this hill and the next. Behind him, he heard Gwaine start up a lively but low-voiced argument with Ecter about whether or not Bodiver's training with Merlin should have produced more or less respect for Arthur than the other new knights.
It was windy, and overcast. A raw early spring morning. Tiny pale yellow primroses shivered among the faintly-green-tinted tall-grass of the bare hills.
If he was leading twenty men to steal and burn – well, if he was leading twenty men with an honorable mission – he'd have scouts ranging on high ground on either flank, a front- and rear-guard. This bandit leader obviously felt comfortable enough in the strength of his numbers and proximity to a hostile border to dispense with such precautions.
All three envoys Arthur had sent to King Caerleon in the southeast, ruling a kingdom between Lord Lionel's small province and the territory still controlled by Cenred further north, had been denied entrance at the border, firmly but fairly. Once as prince regent, twice as king after Uther had passed in his sleep, nearly nine years ago; you couldn't treat with a king who refused to listen. They patrolled the border, but any incursion at all would constitute an act of war – and Caerleon was a man who relished conflict, by all accounts.
Tristan met them at the edge of the hill. One minute he wasn't there, the next he was. Arthur noticed he'd left his scarlet cloak with the horses; they all had. Great for full frontal assaults and cavalry charges, impressive for show and intimidating to most outsiders. Terrible for clandestine missions and secret ambushes.
"Well?" Arthur said as he reached the knight.
Lean as a deerhound, his light hair fading toward white in faint streaks, face too narrow for more than a few deep grooves, Tristan smiled in satisfaction.
"It's perfect, sire, it dead-ends in a ten-foot pocket, we'll have them on three sides." He glanced over Arthur's shoulder as Arthur scanned the hillside – again – for any hint of a scout's figure. Though any scout worth his salt would hardly allow himself to show, on the skyline. "I see Gwaine talked you into letting Bodiver run?"
"Let's just hope he doesn't panic and scream for Merlin's help," Arthur said.
Tristan grinned. They all knew Bodiver's courage – and the only reason Merlin had blown into that village with his wispy gray there-in-an-instant magic was fear for the king's wellbeing, not his own.
"All right." Arthur let his crossbow drop from his shoulder to a more firing-ready hold, checked the thumb-trigger. He glanced over his shoulder at the ten – no, nine without their youngest – knights. "Let's get into position. Oh, and Tristan –" he added, as the men began to spread out around the pocket formed at the end of the ravine behind trees – "you'll need a new horse when we return to Camelot."
The tall man grimaced in cheerful resignation. "Thank you, sire."
They didn't have a quarter-hour to wait past Bodiver's instructed time.
To check and double-check line of sight, firing mechanisms, bolts at the ready. To feel the first tentative rays of early-spring sun touch the links of their chainmail-armor – heavy and cold and unpleasant in the winter, heavy and hot and unpleasant in the summer. And as king, he rarely left the citadel without it. Unless he was in the mood for an argument, and there was a long line of people willing to give him one. Beginning with Merlin, and Guinevere.
He sighed and shifted against the tree trunk, relying on his hearing to alert him to action when the time came. Removing his gloves, he tucked them through his belt, the easier to handle his weapons.
Couldn't think of Merlin, far to the north on his physician's errand. Couldn't think of his wife, her clear brown eyes and smooth warm skin and soft curves covered and accentuated by the lustrous silks of a queen… For the love of Camelot, Arthur, concentrate. It's been ten years with her, and four days without!
He focused his thoughts on Bodiver, head craned to the left to see the line of the hill, broken by the trees of the valley between that and the next to the north. Tall and slim and proud, the chainmail and resplendent embroidered red cloak on the young knight would shriek Camelot across the wild moor. A single scout. Separated from a remote patrol.
An easy target.
The bandits would give chase.
That was part of the reason Arthur was here, to subdue this border decisively. This particular band of thieves and cutthroats had no respect for the law-keepers of the kingdom. They hadn't the decency to scatter and fade and take a month or more to regroup, to leave stragglers behind who would spill their guts at the first hint of clemency, providing information that led to more captures. The golden dragon stitched to the back of their cloaks might well have been a pair of concentric circles, as far as this particular group was concerned.
They were afoot; by choice, Arthur suspected. Which meant, they'd get Bodiver off the horse first. That sparked a memory, and he smiled at the fleeting thought of defending a village against forty such men, mounted, with pitchforks and Morgana and Merlin.
Today, though, defense was not the object.
He pictured the youngest knight of their company pounding through calf-length field-grass, away from the screaming horde of –
Arthur's ears pricked. Tristan, the next man down, straightened slightly, adjusting the grip of his crossbow. He glanced at Arthur; the trap would not be sprung without the king's signal.
A flash of red. Bodiver scrambled down the ravine to the sloping pocket at the end, panting, the wood-ax in his hand a surprising incongruity. Where had he gotten that? Arthur wondered with a fond grin to himself. Resourceful of him.
Bodiver gave a single desperately-exasperated glance round the rim of the pocket – by his expression, he wasn't able to visually confirm their presence, in that brief moment. The young man turned, ax raised, as the first half-dozen bandits rushed into the bottleneck.
Hairy, unwashed, half with head-scarves and the rest in dire need of a haircut – two years ago. A motley collection of soldiers' weapons to stolen farm implements, an even wider range of scrounged armor, mostly leather. Though Arthur was pleased to note among the mismatched clothing, scraps of over-the-border indigo rather than Camelot scarlet.
They paused in place, seeing Bodiver trapped. He balanced himself, menacing them as a group with the ax, and said nothing, clearly ready to sell his life as dearly as he could. And… they waited.
Arthur waited, scraping the print of his thumb across the trigger of the crossbolt. Hold… hold…
The bandits separated to let one man through. At first glance, indistinguishable from the rest. At second glance…
The only man with decently-trimmed hair, dark and beginning to gray, though his beard was a startling near-white. Fifty, maybe, give or take. His armor a breast-piece of woven leather strips, wrist-guards with a bristling fringe of fur still in place. This was the leader Arthur had been waiting to identify.
He sauntered between his men; Bodiver shifted a half-step back and crouched in readiness to fight.
Arthur aimed.
"Trapped, are we?" the bandit leader sneered in a thick accent.
Bodiver glanced up again, and Arthur stepped around from behind his tree, keeping the arrow trained on the base of the man's throat, followed closely by the rest of the knights, and just as silently. Bodiver's teeth flashed white in a grin, though Arthur read relief in the way his narrow shoulders relaxed.
"That's the idea," he informed the bandit, almost cheerfully.
The short-haired man looked up first, a scant second before his followers began to realize the vulnerability of the position.
"Throw down your weapons and surrender, and you might leave here with your life," Arthur said clearly.
The bandits looked to their leader, who sent a piercing scowl around the arc of knights who nearly surrounded him and his men. One thing Arthur hadn't considered, til right this very moment, seeing the arrogance and barbarity of the man who commanded - they wouldn't surrender. They wouldn't first lose a man to each one of the initial flight of arrows, and then surrender. These men wouldn't scare at losing two-thirds of their number to the arrows of Camelot; these men would require brute force to subdue, they and their leader would go down fighting. These men had more brawn than brain, more pride than plan…
That wouldn't matter to Arthur, if they chose death before surrender, if not for Bodiver. In the seconds it took to shoot down the bandits' numbers, each man – and especially the leader – would fight back. The vast majority of their weapons hand-to-hand. And only Bodiver within reach.
He glanced down. No quick, easy way to the bottom. He'd have to jump, then, and aim for one of the enemy to break his fall. No time to give the order to another, and because he'd approved the plan, the responsibility was his.
And, maybe guessing that an action as expected and anticipated as yanking his own sword would be met with a bolt, the bandit leader twisted, snatching the sword from the man nearest him. Whirling to attack Bodiver, who blocked the strike with the long handle of the ax.
Arthur's thumb moved.
The long-haired bandit second to the leader's right jerked, cried out, and dropped. Bolts from the other knights' crossbows whistled, struck, and cries of pain filled the air.
Arthur drew his sword, bellowing the signal, "On me!"
And launched himself flying into the mass of bandits, determined to fight beside and protect the youngest of his knights, trusting the others to cover them as they fought.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Merlin's journey home took him first southeast, obliquely toward the pass guarded by Dinas Emrys, out of the foothills of the mountains of Isgaard to the west of the White Mountains, before he could turn south-south-west on more level ground. A bit out of the way, but Merlin wasn't a crow flying straight, and it saved time from climbing up ridges and down gullies half a day.
Gilli kept good pace beside him, but didn't seem keen to broach whatever topic had brought him from Ruadan's clan to Iseldir's. Merlin let him take his time, but the longer they walked silent and the further they got from the camp, the more significant the news became, it seemed to him.
"He still there?" Gilli asked, when they hit a bit of an open rise, nodding toward the northeast. "Your dragon, the red one? We used to catch glimpses, maybe once a season, after the battle. The white one, not so much. Once a year maybe – only he's harder to see, too, in the air. But we haven't seen the red one in – over a year?"
"He's not my dragon," Merlin remarked in mild protest.
"More yours than anyone else's."
"Kilgarrah's just – old," Merlin said, and snorted a gentle half-breath of air through his nostrils. "He's been old for a long time. He's fine. And yes, still there." His feet had slowed and stopped of their own accord, he noticed, as he gazed off to his left toward the hill he'd put behind him, now. The mare took two more steps, nosing the hand that held her lead.
At Dinas Emrys fiery core, the ancient magic sleeps no more…
Kilgarrah?
Emrys, came the response. Bringing with it that half-second of relief, the same as he felt whenever Gaius responded with clarity, these days. You return to Camelot, finally?
The plague has been stopped, those afflicted are recovering. My place is with Arthur.
That is correct. But do not make the mistake of thinking that the labors of this month are ended.
He'd spoken to the elder dragon twice that month, trying ineffectually to discover the cause of the rapidly spreading and usually fatal illness, then to formulate a magical antidote to contain and cure. It reminded him, actually, of the days of illness in Camelot before they discovered Nimueh's afanc in the water. But he didn't have Gaius to research cause and effect while he used his magic to heal, this time. Still, only three had died since his arrival, which was much better than the eleven who'd succumbed before Iseldir had called for his help.
I know. But that would have to wait til he was back in Camelot, with time and space and resources of information available.
Merlin opened his eyes to Gilli's patient curiosity, and said, "He says hello."
Light blue eyes widened in shock. "To me? He did not!"
Merlin grinned, and Gilli nudged his shoulder as they continued walking, the rising sun on his left side rising toward a mostly-cloudy sky. Light and high and white, but lined with a gray that promised another spring thunderstorm within the week.
"Have you heard the name Lochru?" Gillia said conversationally.
Merlin had heard many names, but, "It's not familiar."
Gilli made a noise between a hum and a grunt, watching his feet as they walked – not to cover ground, now, but for something to occupy their bodies while their minds traveled elsewhere. "He's an old man in my clan," Gilli went on. "A seer, and a pretty powerful one, I gather."
Merlin almost stopped walking. Kilgarrah hadn't said anything. But evidently this Lochru's vision was important or specific enough – unless Gilli had only come to confer with Iseldir, not Merlin.
He was aware that he was mentally grasping for straws.
Gilli noticed his reaction, and gave him a sideways glance.
"I have –" Merlin cleared his throat – "heard prophecy. I have seen visions in a crystal. Highly unpleasant, Gilli, and almost I could say that I wish it had never happened. Foreknowledge is dangerous. And uncertain."
His friend nodded, his gaze round and steady. "And yet, it has been given to us anyway. And the elders have decided, it should be given to you." He spread his hands. "There were times, Merlin, when we were children, that I envied you. We sat side by side on a log and I said the words over and over to myself – and aloud – and Ari flicked my ear and corrected and corrected –"
Merlin almost smiled. He remembered that; more than one snide comment had been made about the side of the target their instructor had on the sides of his head.
"Day after day and nothing and nothing." Gilli paused, and there was a faint wry smile on his face. "And you'd try it once like you'd been speaking the old language all your life and the spell would be perfect and powerful… and for a moment, I would be so jealous of what you had and what you could do." Merlin noticed he was twisting the ring on his hand absently, lost in thought. "But there was Alvarr, and then Dinas Emrys, and… I envy you no longer, my friend."
"Lochru has told Ruadan the vision, and he sent you to pass it on," Merlin guessed quietly. He took a deep slow breath and let it out; he did not want to be pitied, either.
"To you, Merlin Emrys, to pass on to your king," Gilli said; his solemnity had a youthful quality that Merlin was tempted to envy. "Lochru has seen war. Here in the White Mountains. He has seen the red-and-gold emblem of Camelot. And he has seen the white dragon spewing fire over the battlefield."
Aithusa and battle could only mean one thing. "Saxons?" he said. Gilli shrugged. "Do you know when, or where, specifically? Any detail to tell the time of year, or –"
"I can only tell you what was said to me," Gilli told him apologetically. "But Ruadan is pulling our clan further into the mountains to the west; I think he means to seek sanctuary for us within Olaf's kingdom."
"Thank you," Merlin said, reaching to take Gilli's hand. It wasn't much to go on, but at the very least, Arthur wouldn't be caught unprepared. "I wish you luck, then, and your family safe."
"Yes… I… won't be going with them." He glanced at Merlin, flushing a bit self-consciously. "I'm not a killer. I haven't got great magic, or… skill with healing, but… if there's going to be a battle, perhaps I can help. A bit." He shrugged and tried to make light of it. "Heal a few wounds, save a few lives."
Merlin grinned at his friend, gripping him now by the shoulder; he was suddenly proud of the other man. Because behind the lines with the wounded was not a guarantee of safety, after all, it took courage to commit the way Gilli was doing.
"You're staying with Iseldir, then?" Merlin said. If Ruadan's clan was moving west, he didn't know of any other druids in the neighborhood.
"For a while." Gilli nodded. "I mean, if – things stay peaceful – well, my clan does need me to. Can't wait for years and years, you know."
"A day and a half east is a town called Ealdor," Merlin said.
Gilli smiled and nodded. "I've heard of it."
"It's on Camelot's side of the border now, and the village elder is a friend of mine. If you can get them the news, they can pass it to the next town on the border. Someone will get a message to Sir Lancelot; he holds that border against Cenred."
Vortigern's son had been very quiet the last few years – deceptively so? – refusing official representatives but making no overt moves into their territory, not contesting Camelot's appropriation of the few neglected border villages. But armies meant scouts, and an invasion force would be stupid not to gather information wherever they could. And probably ruthless enough to gather it however they could…
"It was good to see you, Merlin," Gilli said, angling his body to begin the trek back to the druid camp.
"And it seems we may see each other before too long, again," Merlin commented, turning to mount his mare. "Stay safe, Gilli."
"You as well!" his friend hollered after him, lifting a hand in farewell.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
The battle was over quickly, and Arthur's knee was telling him it was a damn good thing.
He stood at the lowest notch where the ravine cut through the hillside as three of his knights handled wounded and prisoners and two more dealt with the dying and the dead. He stood nonchalantly, his weight on his left leg, hoping no one would notice.
Gwaine stood next to him; he'd taken a reckless leap into the gorge as well to fight, the three of them together – he, Arthur, and Bodiver – as the others fired their crossbows, until the ranks of the bandits were so decimated, and the short-haired leader knocked out, they'd thrown down their weapons. The most reckless of Arthur's knights – still, though there were plenty newer knights who occasionally gave him some competition for that distinction – said nothing.
He didn't have to. The little voices in Arthur's head – which sounded quite like Merlin and Guinevere, actually – were saying everything for him.
Of all the stupid things you've ever done… that was Merlin.
Brave, he argued back. Courageous. Noble.
Merlin-in-his-head wouldn't back down. Stupid, firmly.
What were you thinking? You're king, and not as young as – no, that wasn't what Guinevere would say. She would say, you're only as young as you feel, love, with a sweet smile. And he'd limp to the bed, his knee throbbing, and ease himself down on the edge of it, groan, and say, then I'm way too old for you. And she'd get that twinkle in her eye and set about proving him wrong…
"Think we can be home by nightfall?" Gwaine finally said, and Arthur looked at him sharpish, hoping to high heaven his expression hadn't given him away to Gwaine of all knights, who delighted in saying the most provokingly absurd things, true or not.
But the roguish knight was focused a bit absently on the work of his fellows down the ravine. Arthur allowed himself a slight smile; Gwaine was a married man, too, although with his wife eight months expectant, he probably had different reasons for the concern. Arthur remembered that concern with such a delicate and important process that he had absolutely no control over – it didn't get any easier with subsequent children, either.
"If we ride hard," he allowed. "By midnight, perhaps."
"Your Majesty!"
Arthur turned – slowly, to put no stress on his aching right knee, to betray no weakness to his enemies or his men. Sir Ecter, a short, compact man with small dark eyes, short gray hair and a bristling moustache, was charged with this season's patrol of the border, the reason Arthur had come himself. The senior knight was strong and solid, but held back by his own inability, or reluctance maybe, for daring initiative, creative strategizing, or clever gambling. Which today, had paid off. Ecter would have chased this band all season, each whittling indecisively at the other's numbers. Camelot had suffered no casualties this day, and only minor injuries.
"Look what we have here," Ecter declared, pushing the leader of the bandits – sullenly silent, bearing a single trickle of dried blood on his cheek to mark a shallow cut as his only wound. Unimpressive, yet in accomplishing his unconsciousness, even momentarily, it might have hastened his band's surrender.
"He comes with us," Arthur said. He wanted the leader interrogated, but was not willing to camp out on the high moors many more nights to achieve that. "Gwaine and Tristan are with me," and Bodiver of course, that went without saying, "the prisoners are yours, Ecter."
Execution was by royal order only, and ransom seemed an unlikely possibility for this rabble. The prisoners would therefore be used as forced labor at the garrison captain's discretion; Arthur would set the length of the sentence following the leader's trial.
"I fear," Ecter said, almost gleefully, pushing the man down on the slanted hillside, "that this is no ordinary prisoner, Your Highness."
The man's hard gaze darted to Arthur's face, which Arthur held expressionless. He saved the crown for unavoidable state affairs; the man had not known who he was fighting, til that honorific from Sir Ecter. But then, what intrigued Arthur more, the man darted uneasy glances around at his chainmail-clad companions – looking for what? Arthur thought – before relaxing down into his sullen stupor.
Ecter grabbed a large metal ornament from the man's breastbone and yanked to snap the links of the chain holding it around his neck. Arthur left the puzzle of the man's reaction, knowing what the ornament was before Ecter passed it into his hand. He controlled his own visible response, making a show of studying the piece carefully, almost suspiciously.
"What's that, then?" Gwaine said, looking over Arthur's shoulder.
It was silver, though so tarnished it looked half its value. A crescent strung by its horns, a pair of tiny silver balls attacked at each point and the center of the inner arc. Arthur tipped the piece to match what would show on the indigo banner – the crescent moon and six stars. Six for each of the old king's sons. Which one was this man? Perhaps birth order didn't matter, if only one prince survived young adulthood – Bayard's kingdom seemed built on the same principles – though those events had occurred before Arthur's birth. It might not be fair to judge him on such an old rumor.
However, Arthur could – and was required to – judge him on more recent actions and choices that had taken place on his kingdom's soil and involved his citizens.
"This," he said evenly, mostly addressing Gwaine's question, "is the royal crest of Caerleon."
And as such, only one man would wear it. One man of this man's generation, anyway – if he had sons they also had the right to bear its replica upon livery, as Camelot's knights did upon their cloaks.
He added, "Is it not, Your Highness."
The man growled, and Arthur sensed rather than saw Gwaine's hand move to the hilt of his sword in clear warning that Caerleon ignored. Arthur took his eyes from the other's furious dull-iron gray gaze, and gave Ecter a wintery smile.
"Make sure you get names," he instructed the senior knight. The list of dead or captive would be included in the missive to Caerleon's queen. Then repeated, "He comes with us."
A/N: Thanks to shelle-ma-belle for advice on topography!
Also, if anyone finds themselves confused about who married who, or which kid goes to which parents, etc. please let me know and I can include a cast list…
Hope we've made a decent start. Next chapter, the wives – and maybe Arthur&Merlin…
Oh. And some dialogue from ep.3.11 "The Sorcerer's Shadow", ep.4.5 "His Father's Son".