Thank you again to all of you who have been kind enough to review and follow/favorite this story. So sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. I really have no excuse other than life running away with me! For those of you who have not seen, I have posted the companion to this story, titled "Protecting the Prat." It will be updated whenever I want to give more insight into Merlin's thoughts in this story. Hopefully, it will answer some of the questions you might have about this story. At the end, Merlin mentions a plan to Gaius. That will be a later chapter, but I do not want to post it and give too much away before the story unfolds here.
As far as this chapter goes, there will finally be some action. I feel the beginning is a bit rushed, but I really was not satisfied with the expanded opening scene. There has just been so much of Arthur thinking about Merlin's impending doom already and not enough of anything happening yet, so I pulled the additional scene. It was really just a bit of knight banter and didn't do anything to further the story. I may alter it to come from Merlin's perspective for "PTP," though.
The next chapter for this is entirely written and just requires editing, so the wait should not be so long for that one.
Happy reading and please review!
Arthur, Merlin and the knights had not gone far before settling for a quick breakfast. Arthur had not forced Merlin to rub down the horses as promised, mostly due to his amusement at hearing the other men heckle Merlin about Adalind. Merlin had turned red all the way to the tips of his ridiculous ears when Gwaine had pointed out Adalind's obvious affections for him. The blush had remained all throughout the subsequent suggestions for courting the kitchenmaid and Gwaine's good-spirited jibes about Milly. No one had broached the topic of the mysterious Freya that Percival had mentioned the day before, though, and Arthur dared not be the one to intrude on Merlin's privacy regarding the unknown girl.
Once they had all had their fill and proclaimed Merlin's stew far superior to Percival's, they consented to Leon's suggestion to split into three pairs to investigate Nemeth's border. Most of the men agreed that it would be best in order to cover more ground and quietly slip in and out of Gedref unnoticed. Arthur was more concerned that it was the best way to keep Merlin away from him and harm's way.
Of course, Merlin quite predictably had to disagree with Arthur by refusing to leave his side rather than go with Gwaine as commanded.
"I don't want to," the servant protested.
"I don't believe I gave you the choice."
"Well, I didn't come out here to take your orders, Arthur."
"I am your king, whether or not you choose to pretend that you are out here on 'holiday.' You have to listen to me, regardless."
"I never do."
And so it was that Arthur was subjected to Merlin's idle chatter as they took the western route. Arthur felt hyper-aware of his surroundings, as if expecting Morgana to appear before them from thin air and kill Merlin.
Despite Merlin's prattle, Arthur noticed that his friend was also rather tense. The brunette's hand had reached toward the hilt of his sword multiple times upon hearing noises in the woods around them. Arthur noted the strangeness of the behavior. He had seen Merlin uneasy in the past and it was typically signified by uncharacteristic silence. The king did not know what to make of Merlin's anxious movements when Merlin was still so talkative. The behaviors did not fit together in any of Arthur's past observations of the man. He wondered if, perhaps, Merlin was trying to distract him from something with the uninterrupted conversation.
Somewhere in the middle of Merlin's rant about needing to teach the lazy knights—"Former peasants!" he lamented—how to properly cook a stew, Arthur found Merlin's voice fading and their surroundings shifting.
The scene that greeted him was a familiar one, something that occurred so regularly that Arthur could not even place the particular moment in time he was seeing. Merlin was moving about Arthur's bedchambers, tidying things as he went, while Arthur paced the room and rehearsed a speech.
As Arthur stumbled over a particularly wordy line—he should really tell Merlin to make these things easier to memorize—he caught his servant's shoulders shaking out of the corner of his eye. He was certain that the younger man was laughing at him, so he abruptly stopped reciting the speech and snatched the scroll up from his desk to reread.
"I'd like to see you try memorizing these godforsaken speeches and delivering them before all of Camelot," Arthur complained.
"It's work enough preparing them for you," Merlin said. "I assure you, I don't need to read any more of it to know every word."
"We should all be so lucky."
"You could always just write your own speeches." Merlin stopped working and grinned at him. Behind Merlin, a torn jacket was mending itself in the air. Arthur noticed for the first time that his armor was similarly being polished on the table and a lone brush was scrubbing at the floor on the other side of the room. "You really need to lighten up, Arthur. A break, perhaps?"
Arthur frowned at the armor. Something seemed wrong about the sight of it, but he could not quite pinpoint the problem. "I don't have time for breaks, Merlin."
"Why not?"
"Because once I am done practicing this speech, I have to figure out how to rescue my idiot manservant from a powerful sorceress."
"Two lost causes, then," Merlin said regretfully. "You may as well take that break."
"I don't accept that."
"You are going to kill me, Arthur."
Arthur frowned at his friend's nonchalance regarding his supposed fate. "I would never. I am going to stop this."
"But look," Merlin urged, "my blood is on your hands, Sire."
Arthur looked down to see a drop of blood fall from his hand onto the edge of the scroll he had been holding. Startled, he dropped the piece of parchment and stared at the bloody handprints he'd left on it as it fluttered to the floor. The moment it touched, Arthur heard the moving objects around the room fall to the ground as well.
"Arthur?" Merlin's voice was soft and weak.
The king's head snapped up just in time to see his servant topple, Excalibur deep in his midsection and his blood spilling in a puddle on the floor beneath him. "Merlin!" he cried.
"What is it?!"
It took Arthur a moment to realize that the rush of green and brown around him meant he was no longer in his chambers but in a forest. And rather than collapsed to his knees beside his fallen friend, he was riding a horse on a patrol of Gedref.
"Arthur? Arthur, are you alright?"
He turned to see Merlin riding the horse beside him. His eyes were wide with worry as he watched Arthur.
"What's wrong?" Merlin asked urgently.
Arthur looked back down at the mane of his own horse and took a deep, steadying breath. Merlin was not dead. He was alive and well and fussing over Arthur as always.
"Arthur? You are starting to worry me."
"It's nothing," the king mumbled.
"You yelled out my name," Merlin argued. "Yelled it like you were terrified."
Arthur didn't respond. This situation with the visions was beginning to get out of hand. It wasn't enough that Arthur had to suffer visions of Merlin's death each night? Now he had to have waking visions that tainted his simplest memories of Merlin.
Arthur's hand shook and he gripped his horse's reins tighter. Somehow he knew that the change in these visions did not bode well for Merlin. The warning from his dreams felt closer, as if it was looming over their heads, ready to befall his unsuspecting friend.
The enchanted objects in his vision created an additional level of unease for the king, who could not fathom what it meant. He'd felt oddly unconcerned about them at the time, as if they were commonplace. Was Arthur's newfound aptitude for magic going to grow? Would it contribute to Merlin's death?
Arthur's stomach burned when his thoughts turned to his companion, the only other person who had been present in the vision. The objects had been enchanted to do his chores. Could Merlin—
"Arthur, are you even listening to me?"
"No." Arthur heard a strange noise and strained his ears. It sounded like there was a struggle and people talking ahead of them.
"Are you going to tell me what just happened?"
"Would you please just shut up, Merlin?"
"Arthur, I—"
The king threw out his hand and hissed at the other man to be silent just as a woman's scream broke through the air.
It was followed by another voice that made Arthur's blood run cold. "Don't let her get past!"
"That sounded like Morgana," Merlin said fearfully.
Arthur quietly signaled for Merlin to dismount his horse and follow him as he crouched through the brush to hide behind a group of bushes. From their hiding place, they could see about twenty of Odin's men. Princess Mithian was held tight against the chest of a knight large enough to rival Percival while another bound her wrists in front of her. Tears tracked down her cheeks as she attempted to pull away. The villain of Arthur's nightmares stood not two meters from the princess, a smug smirk on her pale lips.
"Mithian!" Merlin gasped, and Arthur quickly covered his mouth. He gave the servant a sharp look that indicated he should just observe.
"What did you think you would do?" Morgana asked Mithian with obvious amusement. "Run to Camelot and ask them to rescue Nemeth?"
Mithian struggled against the knight's hold. "Let me go!"
"As if that could save your father now," Morgana continued. "You're fortunate that I'm feeling so generous today. I should just kill you where you stand, but Lot and I have other plans for you. You'll be seeing King Arthur soon enough. And you will even have the chance to help us take his throne."
"You're insane," Mithian spat. "I will not help you."
"As if you have a choice." Morgana nodded to the knight, and the entire company began moving back into Nemeth.
Merlin rushed to stand but Arthur grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down. "Are you really that big of an idiot?" he hissed. "You can't go rushing in."
Merlin tried to tug his arm from the king's grasp, but the hold was too firm. "Arthur, it's Mithian."
"Yes, I know," Arthur said darkly. "But Morgana herself is too dangerous for just the pair of us to take on, and we would have to fight twenty of Odin's men to get to her. Clearly they have formed some sort of alliance. This is not something we alone can handle."
Merlin tugged again and reached for the sword that haphazardly dangled from his belt. "We have to do something!"
"And we will after we have regrouped with our men and formulated a plan." Arthur gave him a shove and stilled Merlin's hand on the hilt of the sword. "You are not a knight, Merlin. Even if you were, there are only two of us. What help do you expect to be to Mithian by running out and getting yourself killed or captured? There is nothing you can do right now."
Merlin's eyes blazed and he opened his mouth as if planning a retort before snapping it shut. He looked back regretfully to where the last of the group had disappeared with the struggling princess. "I don't like this one bit Arthur."
"Neither do I, but—" Arthur cut himself off as a twig snapped behind him. Both he and Merlin quickly turned to find that six of Odin's men, having been on their way to rejoin the larger ground, had discovered them and were coming with swords drawn.
"Think you can handle that sword without stabbing yourself?" Arthur asked as he unsheathed Excalibur.
"Pointy end goes in the bad guys, right?" Merlin asked, drawing his own just in time to block the first blow.
"That's the basic idea." Arthur blocked a sword and kicked out at his assailant, forcing the man onto his back. His sword was quickly engaged with the next man's. He pushed back and deftly stabbed the knight in the stomach.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a knight impaled by Merlin's sword. "You're getting it," he joked and pierced the heart of the first man he'd defended against.
"If you can do it—" Merlin ducked to avoid the sword that had been swung at his head "—I suppose anyone can."
Arthur easily dispatched the next knight who came at him and was surprised when he heard Merlin cry his name. He turned, expecting to see Merlin injured, but instead found another man fallen to the ground and the last of the knights mere inches from sinking a sword into the king's midsection.
"Forþ fleoge!"
The attacking knight suddenly flew ten meters through the air and landed in a heap.
Arthur found himself looking into the eyes—gold quickly fading from them—of his horrified manservant.
