Chapter Two

Wounded

"So, Leon, if you don't mind me asking, who is Alissa?" I asked as we rode through the forest.

Leon seemed to debate whether to tell me or not before coming to a decision. "She's my cousin. We were very close growing up, my parent's looked after her when her own died."

"That must have been awful for her."

"It was, she refused to speak to anyone for a whole summer. But eventually she opened up to us." Leon smiled "We used to spar in this vey forest. We were both convinced that we were going to be knights. But, as she was a girl, she was not allowed to train to be a knight, but I was. Alissa wasn't happy, and after I left for the city we just fell out of touch. But I still care for her, and to be honest, I think she secretly trains herself if her determination is anything to go by."

Harry nodded enthusiastically. "Trust me, she's a tough girl. Don't tell her that I called her a girl, though! She'll punch me!"

Leon half smiled. "Why would she be angry?"

Harry grinned slyly. "Well, when you see her, they'll be a few changes. That's all I'm saying!"

"Right. Regardless, I'm sure she would never have stopped fighting." Leon sighed. "But now with an arm missing…" he fell silent.

I didn't know what to say. After all, what could be said after hearing that someone's lifelong dream had been crushed?

Merlin's P.O.V

Every sense was on edge, including my magic. Something felt wrong. But everything around me looked normal. The trees were still brown and green. The sky was still blue. There was nothing out of place. Everything was still, was quiet.

That was it! There was no noise! There were no wild animals to be seen or heard. I couldn't even see any birds! Not even the horses were making any noise. Only their ears flicked warily.

I tried to voice my suspicions to Arthur, even though he probably wouldn't listen, anyway. "Arth-" I was quickly cut off by the many war cries of men as they charged down a hill towards us. 'Why is it always a hill!?' I wondered randomly as I urged my horse into a gallop towards Arthur. Unfortunately, my horse had other ideas. It threw me and ran off skittishly in another direction. "Great, lousy horse! Who actually trains these things? They never stay still!"

I saw Arthur through the crowd of fighting men and terrified horses. He was fighting a mountain of a man who was trying to separate Arthur's body from his head with an impossibly big axe. I crawled on all fours towards them, dodging flailing limbs and weapons, wincing as I watched the two men battle fiercely.

The huge bandit reared his axe over his head, its sharp edge glinting in the patchy sunlight. It slammed down! Arthur narrowly avoided it by rolling out of the way. He scrambled to is feet and waved his sword in a deadly arc towards the arm that was holding the axe. He didn't miss. The bandit roared –yes, he actually roared- in pain and dropped his weapon as a huge red gash formed on his shoulder. Seeing an opening, I got up and ran towards Arthur.

"Arthur! Are you okay!?"

"I'm fine, Merlin, but let's hurr- Merlin! Watch out!"

I whirled around just in time to see a sword swooping down towards my chest. I jumped to the side, dragging Arthur with me. Instead of giving me a mortal wound across my chest, it gave me a most likely crippling injury on my left thigh. Fantastic, just when speed was important.

"Merlin!" Arthur cried. He wrapped his arm and held me just underneath my armpit. "Come on, we have to get you to safety."

We hobbled as fast as we could away from the fighting, thanks to a few well-placed arrows and Arthur's obliviousness.

"Ugh, Arthur…." I groaned. Arthur...? "Arthur!" I shouted, suddenly remembering all that had happened. I tried to sit up quickly, but I instantly regretted it when my head pounded. There was a sharp pain in my leg, but I could deal with it. Probably.

My leg wasn't my top wound right now. A couple of days ago, in yet another training session, Arthur had had the bright idea of making me the test dummy. Imagine fifteen knights attacking you with swords, maces and shields one after the other without breaks! Arthur claimed that because I was a wooden dummy I didn't need breaks. Pfft, I should have turned him into a real wooden dummy. Anyway, someone as clumsy as me would have of course gotten wounds. I have a particular bad one on my chest from a mace; I'm sure Percival hadn't meant to hit that hard. If anything, he was the knight who had been the easiest on me! It was just my bad luck that he was a giant and he didn't know what 'going easy' meant. I hadn't told Arthur, he would just roll his eyes and say I should stop being a girl. Hey, wouldn't it be funny if I turned him into a girl for a day? Hmm…

"Merlin? How are you feeling?" Arthur asked as he leant over me, a touch of concern lacing his voice. I struggled to ignore how close he was to me.

"Heh heh, better than you. You look worse than usual, prat."

Arthur let out a small laugh. "Then usual? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." My grin slowly faded. "What happened? Where are the others? Actually, where are we?"

Arthur sighed. "We had to double back; we're now three days away from Camelot. Somewhere along the way you passed out, undoubtedly from exhaustion." My whole face burned at the thought of passing out in front of Arthur. 'Great, he'll never let me forget that.'

"I don't where the others are; I haven't heard nor seen any of them." I was about to retort with a sharp 'obviously', but I refrained from doing so as I saw the look on Arthur's face. He looked ashamed, and worried. I felt a pang of sympathy for him and struggled to my feet, the ground swimming around me. I blinked a few times and held onto a tree to stead myself. I would not let Arthur see how weak I was.

"Merlin, what are you doing? You can't possibly be able to walk."

I waved his concerns away. "I'm fine. Now, come on, Arthur, we have to go find the others."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "You're an idiot; you won't be able to find them in the state you're in."

"I said, I'm fine." I repeated firmly. "I refuse to leave until we find Sir Leon and the others! Besides, we're closer to where they were last then Camelot."

Sighing, Arthur nodded. "Alright, we'll go. But we're getting you help as soon as possible. At least you don't seem to be bleeding anymore."

I forced a grin. 'Yeah, I'm not bleeding, but that doesn't mean it's completely healed. Being in a forest with a recently open wound isn't what Gaius would recommend.' (AN- I have no idea what this sentence was meant to do. It contradicts what Merlin has just been saying. Oh well, you're the ones reading this.)

I tried to walk a few steps. I bit my lip to prevent myself from crying out in pain with each step. My chest wound also decided to act up now. 'I hope it doesn't bleed…' Eventually I fell into a painful, but bearable gait. Arthur must have noticed how awkward I was walking because I caught him looking at me with a raised eyebrow multiple times.

"Hey, Arthur, are you planning on staying behind me the whole time?" I called back.

"This is not a race, Merlin."

I snorted. "You're only saying that because you're afraid that you would lose."

"Hey, if I were to even stride I'd over take you for a mile."

"That's probably true." I paused to let Arthur become as smug as possible. "But that's because of all the food you've eaten. A lot of energy, but if you don't use it, a lot of weight. Why don't you try to use some energy, Arthur? Like maybe getting yourself dressed in the morning, or even bothering to get up…"

Arthur huffed. "I do use energy!" he paused, before speaking with a sly tone. "Fine then, Merlin, if you want to race, then let's race."

"Wait, no, I didn't say I actually wanted to race!" I said frantically before Arthur raced past me and disappeared past the next hill. I rolled my eyes and grinned. Wounds or no wounds, I was going to win.

Using my inner eye, I searched for Arthur. I found him not far ahead of me, but he wasn't running any more. He was just standing at the top of a further hill, staring desolately at whatever was at the bottom. Worry gnawing at my stomach, I started to run as fast as I could manage towards him. I reached the top of the first hill and paused, panting. My leg felt much worse, as well as the wound inflicted by the mace. I could see Arthur standing on the next hill, and I stumbled down mine towards him. I tripped and rolled down the rest of the way, scraping parts of my body as I did so. I winced at the graze on my face, and started to scramble on all fours to Arthur. 'I seem to be doing this a lot lately.' I grumpily reflected.

I stopped and tried to hide my gasping from Arthur when I reached him. When I finally regained my breath I stood and turned to Arthur. "God, you run fast. What's wrong?" Wordlessly, Arthur pointed at the bottom of the hill in response to my question. I nearly fell again when I saw what was there.

A slaughter yard; that was the only way it could be described. Littering the ground where the bloodied bodies of Camelot's knights and others that I could only assume to be the bandits. I'm not one for killing, but I couldn't help but feel savagely pleased to see that there were much more bodies of the bandits than the knights. Arthur slowly climbed down the steep hill and without being told to I followed him.

"Ten men." Arthur said in a hoarse voice. "Ten men of the thirty that road out are dead. I think it's clear who one here." He turned to me and I could see the anger burning in his eyes.

"Don't worry Arthur, we'll find them. We'll make them pay for the lives they took."

Arthur nodded. "Leon isn't among them, let's hope that they're all right." He moved among the bodies, collecting sticks where ever he found them. It wasn't until a few moments later than I realised how out of character Merlin was being. Make them pay? What did he mean by that? Merlin wasn't violent. But I didn't give myself much time to ponder it, we had to keep moving. "Come on Merlin, help me. We have to build a bonfire." I nodded and started collecting wood, too.

I made a horrible discovery as I collected the wood. It was Harry's cold, bloodied corpse. "Oh no, not Harry." I moaned. There was an axe wedged into the side of his head. It hadn't been a fair fight.

It had just grown dark when we burned the men. Neither of us spoke as we watched the fire consume the bodies of Harry Ashwood and the knights of Camelot.