"Holy water cannot help you now
See I've come to burn your kingdom down
And no rivers and no lakes, can put the fire out
I'm gonna raise the stakes; I'm gonna smoke you out"
- Florence + The Machine, Seven Devils
IYîYîYîYI
Messages from Lost Friends
There was a quiet little clearing in the woods. The grass was brushed by a gentle breeze, birds were singing in the distance and the sunlight sifted down through green leaves.
It was absolute carnage. The grass glistened with blood. Merlin counted six lifeless bodies. It was hard to be sure – not all of them were in one piece anymore. The body of Sir Ewan could only be identified thanks to the chainmail and the red cape. Merlin didn't recognise the others, but he had a guess there wouldn't be any more complaints of robbers from this part of the woods. Although whatever had caused this was probably not preferable to a bunch of dirty highwaymen.
"Good God," Arthur whispered. He was still seated on his horse. None of the knights had dismounted either. Lancelot, Gwaine, Percival, everyone seemed frozen to the spot. "If Sir William rode away from this alive he is either much braver or much more of a coward than I have given him credit for." A bit louder he added: "We will have to bring Sir Ewan's body back to Camelot. Give him a knight's burial. Check the other bodies, if these are the robbers they might still be carrying the money they've stolen." Percival and Leon got off their horses and walked towards the fallen knight. Arthur dismounted and began to look around. Merlin and the others followed.
"Looks like Gaius was wrong," Arthur said to Merlin. "It wasn't the robbers, 'cause I'm assuming this is them. Ewan and William couldn't have killed all of them, and they definitely wouldn't have done it so ... brutally. It must have been a sorcerer or some magical creature."
"What about a normal animal? There are wolves in these parts."
"No wolf or bear could do this, Merlin! A pack of wolves might be able to wreak this kind of carnage, but they don't attack like that, and not during the middle of the day, and, these were armed men, there would be dead wolves lying here too. What could do this, Merlin? Look at Sir Ewan's horse!"
Merlin followed Arthur's glance. What he saw made his stomach turn. He wouldn't even have seen that it had once been a horse if Arthur hadn't pointed it out.
"God, that's disgusting!"
"You look a little pale there, Merlin," said a voice from behind them. "You're not going to faint on us, are you? 'Cause I'm telling you, I'm not picking you up like some damsel in distress!"
"Glad to see you find this amusing, Gwaine" said Arthur, rolling his eyes. Merlin on the other hand swallowed his pride and actually grabbed on to Gwaine. Arthur glared at him, but Gwaine hardly seemed to notice.
"Sorry, Sire. If I'm honest, I can't really bring myself to be upset because I can't believe it's real. I've never seen anything like this. And I've seen some things that have made bigger men than Merlin faint dead."
"I was just saying the same thing."
"Sire!" Lancelot called out and came walking towards them. Merlin quickly straightened up and let go of the arm he'd been holding on to. Gwaine smirked at him.
"What is it?" said Arthur, taking a step towards Lancelot. The knight held out a white envelope.
"It was lying on top of Sir Ewan's body, sire. White as snow, in the middle of all this blood."
Arthur opened it. He turned it around.
"It's empty. Someone's left an empty letter on a dead body in the middle of the woods? What is that, some sort of cruel joke?"
"I have no idea."
Merlin went to stand next to Arthur.
"Can I look at it?"
"Here, look all you want. It's just blank paper."
Merlin reached out and took the envelope. The moment his fingers closed around it, the world went dark and his head was filled with a familiar sound.
Hello Emrys. The voice was darker than the last time he'd heard it, but Merlin would recognise it anywhere. I said I wouldn't forget you, didn't I? I hope you like our friend's work. We will come to see you soon.
IYîYîYîYI
"Merlin!" Merlin blinked at the sunlight. "Merlin, can you hear me?" The first thing he saw was a pair of wide open blue eyes staring down at him. Arthur. And then he became aware of strong arms holding him up. Gwaine.
"Are you alright?" Gwaine asked. "I was just joking, I didn't think you'd actually faint!"
Merlin tried to squirm out of his grip.
"I'm fine. I'm fine! Don't worry."
"Don't worry?" Arthur scoffed. "You just swooned over a little bit of blood, you girl!"
"Are you sure you're alright, Merlin?" Lancelot asked. Merlin looked at him. He knew the unspoken question: was it magic? Merlin nodded. When he looked around he saw that several of the other knights were looking at him. He felt a blush creep up on his cheeks. He also saw that Leon had his hand on Arthur's shoulder, looking more concerned about the King than the fainting manservant. What was that about?
At the other end of the clearing, a couple of knights went back to turning over the corpse of one of the robbers. For a second, Merlin thought he saw something move underneath it. Then it sprang upon them. It looked like black smoke rushing through the air at first, but quickly turned more solid, taking the shape of a wolf, larger than anything Merlin had ever seen or heard of, with eyes like glowing embers. It flew through the air straight towards Arthur.
"Look out, Sire!" Lancelot yelled and ran out in front of the king drawing his sword. The wolf opened its jaws wide and dived. Merlin sprang into action. Taking the chance that everyone's eyes would be on the creature he muttered a spell. One moment the wolf's jaws closed around Lancelot's shoulder. The next it dissolved into smoke again. From its appearance to its disappearance, there couldn't have been more than ten seconds.
Lancelot fell to his knees clutching his bleeding shoulder. Arthur ran up to him.
"Lancelot! Are you alright?"
Lancelot nodded. "I will be fine."
"You're bleeding quite bad. Here."
Arthur pulled off his cape, gave it to Lancelot and helped him to press it against the wound. Percival joined them and helped Arthur raise Lancelot up again. Arthur turned to look at the other knights.
"What was that thing? Where did it go?"
"No idea," said Gwaine, "but I think we know what happened to these guys."
