Hey, all! My sincerest apologies for the unexpected delay. I meant to post ages ago, but a fat orange rabbit had other ideas. He clearly thought I should be playing with him instead of my laptop, so, naturally, he took matters into his own teeth and chewed through my power cord...
Little git.
Chapter VIII
Gwaine let out a string of curses so vulgar Lucan tried to cover Kay's ears, only to get a slap upside the head for his trouble.
"We should attack as soon as possible, before they have time to prepare." Arthur said as he searched for any sign of the cult.
"I would agree," Gwaine said angrily. "If we actually knew where they were."
"There." Elyan interrupted, pointing at something in the valley.
Arthur followed the finger, but couldn't make anything out in the dying light. "I don't see anything." He admitted after a moment.
"It's a cave!" Alymere suddenly said when he spotted it. A second later Arthur saw it too.
It was a small opening, just barely wide enough to allow two men to walk through side by side. Arthur couldn't see any light or movement from within. Despite their enemy's apparent knowledge or their presence, the valley remained completely still and silent.
"This reeks of a trap." Kay said, voicing Arthur's own thoughts for him.
"My favorite." Gwaine said, dismounting and drawing his sword. The quiet fury Arthur had seen burning in the knight's eyes the last few months was now obvious and there for all to see.
Arthur put a hand on his shoulder before he could run of and do something stupid on his own. "We don't know if that's the only entrance."
"So? It's an entrance. That's good enough for me."
"It's also an exit. If there are more we don't know about and we all run in there, they could slip out the back and escape. If Merlin is in there, they could take him away and we'd be back where we started."
"We don't have time to search the whole valley, Arthur!"
Arthur nodded. "I know. Which is why Elyan is staying hidden here to keep watch."
"Wait, what?" Elyan blurted clearly not liking this plan. "Arthur, I─"
"─am wounded." Arthur interrupted reminding the knight of the burn on his side. "It will hinder you and you know it. I'm not saying you'll get in the way, but you aren't at your best, either. I need someone to watch in case they take Merlin out another opening and I also need my best men with me."
He looked directly into Elyan's eyes before continuing. "And I also need someone to report back home if we don't come back. I will not leave Guinevere waiting for nothing." That, and he didn't want to risk leaving her without her husband, best friend, and brother all at once.
Arthur could tell that Elyan wanted to argue, but the knight sighed and nodded his head anyway. Arthur was grateful. He didn't have time to argue.
Arthur clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. "Stay out of sight. If someone does come out do not engage them. Watch which direction they go and report to me when I return. If they have Merlin, follow, but keep your distance and mark your trail so we can follow you."
Elyan nodded again and Arthur turned to his other knights and his...sorceress, all of whom had dismounted by now and had their swords at the ready.
"If the ward alerted them to our presence they ken we're here. They have nae come out yet though, so we have to assume they are waiting for us inside or nae one's home." Gail said, and Arthur agreed.
"Let's go."
The group scrambled down the crumbling hillside with relative ease. Before entering the cave Arthur paused to listen, but the lightless tunnel was just as silent as the rest of the country. He turned his head to look back to where they had come from and noted with approval that Elyan was nowhere to be seen.
Arthur took a deep breath and stepped into the dark, Gwaine at his side and the rest at his back. He wasn't entirely comfortable with an armed sorceress walking directly behind him, but there was no way he was going to be able to convince Gwaine to be in the second row. He would just have to trust that she really did want these people dead and believed he was the one to give her that.
The tunnel wound and twisted through the hill for at least a quarter mile before the cave finally opened up. They had to go slowly, what with it being pitch black inside. No one could see their hands in front of their faces, and more than once Arthur started to turn his head and nearly yelled at Merlin for running into him, only to remember that it was just Alymere or Gail.
He spent the entire walk in silence.
The new "room" was it by some sort of blue glowing crystals that adorned the walls. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high and the room about the same distance across. There were two other tunnels set in the walls, one on the left and one dead ahead. The air smelled of water and stone, which was a nice change from the stench of the last several lairs they had stormed.
However, it was none of these things that caught Arthur's attention. Instead it was the row of a dozen hooded soldiers, all dressed in black leather armor with the Faileasach Dàn's sigil stamped in silver over their left breast in silver. Each man held a broadsword with the tip of the blade resting against the ground, their gloved hands clasped serenely on the pommels. For a second Arthur wondered if they were merely statues, but as Arthur's men filed into the room to stand in a line on either side of him the soldier in the center spoke.
"You shall not interfere with Destiny's Mirror." His deep, monotone voice echoed eerily throughout the chamber, but Arthur wasn't intimidated.
"If that's what you wanted, you should have stayed away from my friends and home." Arthur said, taking a step forward and raising Excalibur before him challengingly, his tone drenched in all the authority he possessed. "Stand aside."
Unfortunately, fanatics were rarely much for self-preservation. As one, the line of soldiers spun their swords around to hold them upright before them.
"I was hoping you'd say that." Gwaine said from Arthur's left.
"It does nae make a difference to me what they say." Gail snarled from his right, her voice drenched in hate. "The end will be the same."
The center soldier stepped forward and Arthur mirrored him, their swords clashing. Gail and the knights spread out on either side of him to challenge the others. Arthur deflected the first blow easily, though he could feel the power behind it. It jarred his shoulders and made his old leg wound ache, but he pushed past it, spun Excalibur around and feinted for the soldier's left side before switching to slice up at his shoulder.
Arthur's blow pushed the enemy soldier back and blood poured from the wound, but the soldier didn't seem to notice. He merely stepped forward again and struck out at Arthur's neck. Arthur dodged the blow easily with a sidestep, then thrust his sword forward into the soldier's stomach.
Still, despite the wound that should have been agonizing, the soldier continued to try to fight. His grasp became weak and the blade slipped out of his hand, but he reached up to try to wrap his fingers around Arthur's throat. Arthur simply stepped back, pulled Excalibur free and let the man fall dead to the floor.
With no time to ponder the man's strange actions, Arthur took a couple of steps towards where Gwaine was taking on two attackers at once and quickly dispatched one of them with a hard blow to the neck, nearly decapitating the man.
"Aim to kill!" Gail called out from behind him. "They are enchanted and do nae feel pain!"
Ah, that explains it.
Arthur heard Lucan's grunt of pain, immediately followed by Kay's cry of anger, but had no time to turn and check on his men as two more soldiers advanced on him and Gwaine. It was easy to push aside his concern for his men, however. He knew Kay had Lucan's back and together the pair were a formidable force, despite their teasing. The pair could handle themselves...and each other, which is more than most can say about Lucan.
Arthur gutted one of his opponents and had to quickly duck under a blow from another that nearly took his head off. He deflected a second blow and managed to land a deep cut on the soldier's arm, but like his predecessor, this man didn't react. He swung his sword for Arthur's side, but Arthur easily deflected that one too and drove his elbow into the soldier's face out of habit, forgetting that that would do little to stop him.
Sure enough, the soldier was merely knocked back a step, not dazed as a normal opponent would be. He swiftly thrust his sword towards Arthur's gut, forcing the king to sidestep out of the way. He was just a touch too slow to avoid the blow completely, and the sword sliced across his ribs, cutting through his tunic but merely glancing off the chainmail hidden underneath and not doing any harm aside from a slight bruise.
Nonetheless, the soldier laughed in triumph at having landed a blow. Unfortunately for him, his elation distracted him enough for Arthur to flick aside his sword and drive Excalibur through his throat.
The giddy laughter turned into a desperate gurgle as he fell to join his comrades on the cavern floor.
Arthur turned away from the corpse, ready to face his next opponent, only to see Gail gutting the last man standing and Percival pulling his sword from a body on the floor. He let the tip of his sword sink towards the floor and looked around at his men in the dim light, happy to see that they were all still on their feet.
"Report." He ordered, stretching the aching, scarred muscle in his calf with a wince.
"Luc's hurt." Kay said, sounding like...he was trying not to laugh?
"I'm fine." Lucan said, sounding like he was trying not to cuss.
"Lucan." Arthur said, eyes narrowing.
"Someone stuck him in the arse." Gail said helpfully, producing a snort of laughter from Kay.
"Barely. It's not even bleeding anymore."
Arthur cleared his throat in annoyance. "Is everyone else alright?"
"We're fine, Arthur." Percival answered, clapping Lucan on the shoulder. Arthur saw a trickle of blood running down the knight's arm and wondered yet again what the man had against sleeves, but it was a small cut so he didn't comment.
He nodded and turned away from the rest of the group again and scowled at the two tunnels. This cult was dangerously full of surprises. He didn't think they could afford splitting up, but the thought of aimlessly wandering the tunnels for hours ─ possibly giving the cultists the chance to escape or call for reinforcements ─ made him feel ill.
A sudden spark of inspiration flared to life in his mind, followed instantly by now-familiar feelings of guilt and disgust with himself. His father would be ashamed of him for what he was doing.
But his father was not here. He was dead, and Arthur had decided long ago that he would do almost anything to keep Merlin from following his example.
"Gail," He said, his voice even, betraying nothing of his inner turmoil. "Which way, do you think?"
The sorceress sheathed her sword, shook a tiny braid away from her face and stepped over to the tunnel on the left. She put her hand against the wall of the tunnel and closed her eyes. Barely a second later she recoiled with a gasp, snatching her hand back and pressing it against her chest.
"What is it?" Arthur demanded.
Gail didn't respond right away. She stepped away from him and hesitantly brushed her fingers against one of the glowing crystals set into the walls of the cavern. "Those bastarts!" She cursed, pulling her hand away. "They are...binding the magic of the earth. Trapping it in these crystals."
Arthur blinked, not quite understanding why that was a bad thing. Other than the bit about the cultists having a giant collection of power sitting here in the cave, anyway.
Gail frowned at his expression, clearly seeing his confusion. She began to try to explain, her voice dripping with venom. "It is nae the way of the world. The world is meant to flow one way, and they are forcing it to go a different way. They disrupt the cycle with this abomination. This is a foul perversion of what sorcery is supposed to be.
"They are nae merely storing it. They are attempting to enslave it. They are changing its very essence. This can nae end well, for anyone."
"Can you release it?"
Gail reached out to touch the crystal again and as her eyes glowed gold the crystal glowed brighter along with them. She gasped again and staggered away from it, shaking her head. "Nae. I am nae powerful enough to free it. I do nae think any one sorceress could, nae all at once. Perhaps a group, or even Emrys. If I tried by myself I would likely get trapped in the spell and drawn in myself."
"You could get trapped in there?" Alymere asked incredulously.
"My soul could. To try to release the magic I would have to...entwine myself with the spell that is pulling the magic in, then pull in the opposite direction to break the connection. I am nae strong enough. I would be trapped and my soul pulled in."
"I thought it just traps magic."
"Souls are magic, Alymere." Gail said with a roll of her eyes at the knights' ignorance. "Blimey, ye lot do nae ken a thing, do ye? Where are ye from?"
"Is there no other way to break the spell?" Arthur cut in.
She nodded. "Aye, I'm sure there is. But I do nae ken how, so it does nae help us, does it?"
"Yeah yeah," Gwaine interrupted impatiently. "All this is very terrible. Where are the bastards?"
She glared at him, but then turned and pointed at the tunnel straight ahead of them. "The strongest concentration of power is that way. 'Tis my best guess."
"Then we're going that way." Arthur said, stepping into the tunnel.
Getting through this tunnel was faster than the previous one had been, mainly because there were several crystals along the walls that allowed them to see. The next room they found was similar to the previous one, but a little smaller and, much to Arthur's dismay, had at least a dozen other tunnels rather than just two to choose from. They could twist around in any direction, and some may be mere dead ends. A vague direction like Gail could give them wouldn't be enough.
This cave is a damn maze. He thought bitterly.
This room had only four soldiers. Arthur ducked under the first swing of a sword, popped up and drove Excalibur up under the soldier's armor into his gut all in one smooth movement. On his right, Gail was swatting away her opponent's sword and on his left, Gwaine had already absconded with another one's with his signature move and ran him through with it.
Arthur turned his sword towards the fourth. The soldier's dark eyes darted behind him, towards Gail, and Arthur heard a body hitting the floor. The soldier immediately dropped his sword and thrust his hands into the air.
"I surrender!" He cried.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. This wasn't the typical behavior of a fanatic.
"I n-never really wanted t' join the army," The "soldier" continued, as if reading Arthur's mind. "I'm a farmer! I h-hardly even know how t' use a blade. I just wanted t' eat, ye know? They offered me food and sh-shelter."
Arthur raised the tip of his sword so it was inches away from the man's large nose. "Tell me where they keep the prisoners, and I might let you live."
"P-prisoners?" The man stammered, caught off guard. "There ain't no prisoners here, s-sir."
The tip of Excalibur pressed against his nose, drawing a single drop of blood. He tried to step back further, but his back was against the wall. "I swear! I don' know of any prisoners! T-there was one 'ere months back, but he's long gone now."
"Did you see them take him out? Which way did they go?" Gwaine demanded, stepping closer.
The man flinched. "N-no, I never seen 'em leave."
Arthur felt a cold pit settle in his stomach.
"What makes you think he's gone, then?" Gwaine continued.
"W-well, I..." The main trailed off, glancing between Gwaine and Arthur. Arthur knew he could read the fury in Gwaine's eyes and the dread in his own, and he clearly didn't want to feed either emotion.
Gwaine poked the man with his sword. "On with it!"
The man swallowed hard and glanced between them again. "I ain't 'eard any screams in ages."
What is this? A long delay and a cliffhanger? I know, I'm terrible. I can't help myself. I tried, I really did. For at least three whole seconds!
Don't worry though, Jasper isn't allowed near my cables anymore and I already have 1,600 words of the next chapter written, so it shouldn't take too long.
In other news, y'all reached two and a half thousand views during my absence?! Whaaaat? Have a great Friday Thirteenth, y'all!
