Author's Note: Hey, it's been a while. I just went on vacation and made it home today, so I'm just going to get this chapter out right away. This is the last chapter before the epilogue. So, read, review, and enjoy!
PS: I'm not the best at battle scenes, so I'm sorry if it's not all that you were expecting. I do the best that I can, however not good that is. Oh, and with the whole Emrys thing and the prophecy thing, he still has a destiny and all that jazz, but it's a little changed up. If I write the companion piece mentioned in the AN of last, I'll explain further then.
"Where are they? Shouldn't something have happened by now? What if they're planning something else? What if they know more than we think they know? Do you think they're already in the castle somehow?" Mordred opened his mouth to say more, but looking around at the others stopped him. They were all wearing identical expressions of horror. He grinned and ducked his head, saying sheepishly, "Sorry."
The two rows had been waiting in front of the Courtyard of the Gods for almost the entire day. Merlin had disappeared somewhere to go 'do something important' and he would evidently 'be right out'. Quite frankly, Arthur was getting really annoyed with all of the cryptic phrases and little hints right about now. The battle could start any minute and they still had barely any clue as to what was going on! It was ridiculous.
As if his mind had called him, the younger king walked through the courtyard at just that moment. James called out to him, "What took you so long?"
Merlin rolled his eyes and muttered, "Don't get me started, but on the bright side, they'll be here any minute."
The members of the Camelot party looked at each other before Lancelot asked slowly, "Who are they?" Merlin just smiled in response.
Nothing happened for almost ten minutes. They were starting to doubt Merlin's sanity when Arthur looked up and saw something horrible. There were two gigantic shapes flying towards them. As they drew closer, he recognized them as dragons. Real, live dragons. The king of Camelot reeled back in shock and drew his sword on instinct. In his mind, dragons needed to be killed and should never have really been born. The two of them swooped down and landed on the top of a tower and Arthur suddenly remembered Merlin asking Eryas to 'ready the landing pads'. This must have been why.
Merlin grinned up at the things and called out, "Kilgharrah! Aithusa! Glad you could make it! There are two known enemy sorceresses against us! They plan to shoot fire at the castle to distract my power! I need the two of you to either deflect the fire, or knock it out of the sky before it even gets to you! Can you do that?"
To Arthur's immense surprise and slight horror, the larger of the two monsters answered, "Of course young warlock. Not one will get past us. You know I would do anything I could to aid you. Except give you a ride. I'm not a horse, you know." Merlin smiled and Kilgharrah gave a dragon smile back as if they had shared some joke, which Arthur assumed they had.
Elyan stammered, "I-it… it can t-talk." He looked shocked, repulsed, and fearful all at once.
Warrior sent him a scathing glare and said, "Of course he can talk. He's a living being you know. By the way, Lancelot, they came because Merlin called them. He's the last dragonlord left alive." Lance blinked in surprise. Warrior had anticipated his question before he even got the chance to form the words. Gwaine just smirked at him.
Then, Sebastian called down to them, "The enemy approaches! In about a minute the first fireball will be flung. Be prepared!"
He was right. Before the minute was over, a fireball went sailing over their heads only to crash into the side of a pure white dragon. Joseph yelled out, "Woo! Go Aithusa! Take 'em down girl!" The Criladien knights laughed while those from Camelot chuckled weakly. Arthur was a little surprised at the easygoing nature of these knights while at war.
He didn't have time to ponder it any further before they heard the sound of thousands of feet pounding the earth in tandem. All of his knights pulled out their swords and he did the same. He readjusted his grip on the hilt a few times before he felt truly grounded. The king glanced around at his knights at the people of this foreign country. They were all so brave and so strong and he was proud to have known them all in this life time. He was under no allusions that this was going to be an easy battle. It was very likely that several of them wouldn't make it out alive.
Suddenly, before the army reached them, fireballs started flying out of the sky faster than before. Soon, it seemed as if a wall of flame was flying towards the castle. Kilgharrah and Aithusa were good to their word and not a single ball made it through them.
The enemy had just made it over the hill and was glaring menacingly at the small force gathered there in front of them. Then, someone screamed. It was a high-pitched, horrible sound that ripped through Arthur's ears and left him reeling. Merlin, however, just laughed and said, "Looks like we got them angry!"
Arthur and Leon shared a look before staring at the younger king. He was insane! He was having way too much fun!
That's when Morgause and Nimueh appeared in front of the group. They appeared directly in the way of their army, causing the soldiers to stop in their tracks. They offered no explanation, leaving them to instead glance at each other in confusion. Merlin's back straightened and his gaze grew cold. He smiled mockingly at them and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did my dragons upset you?"
Morgause snarled at him, "You think you're oh so powerful! You think that you can defeat us! We are high priestesses!" By the end, she was practically shrieking.
Nimueh put a calming hand on the younger woman's shoulder and looked at Merlin with her unnaturally blue eyes, "I see now. You are Emrys."
Mordred made a choking sound from near Arthur, "He's Emrys?!"
The elder high priestess turned her piercing blue gaze on the young druid and nodded seriously. Arthur was beyond curious as to what that meant, but Merlin was already talking, "Does that change anything? Will you surrender now?" Now Arthur was really curious about this whole Emrys thing.
Morgause, however, simply growled back, "We will never surrender! You cannot win this battle!"
Merlin narrowed his eyes at Morgause, but ultimately ignored her. He settled on staring straight at Nimueh instead. He asked her, "Will you then submit to a battle between the two of you and me? If I win, you and your army will turn around and never come back. By that, I mean that you cannot even employ a different army to come in your stead. If you win, you may do with Criladien as you please, however, you will allow those from Camelot to return home unharmed. Will you fight this battle on these terms?"
The two priestesses stared at each other and seemed to have a silent conversation with their eyes. Eventually, Nimueh raised her chin and smiled at Merlin, "Yes, we accept these terms. Let the battle commence."
With a sweep of his thin, but muscled arms, Merlin pushed the knights back, almost into the courtyard. A storm cloud gathered on the horizon and Arthur swore that he could feel the magic in the air. The three magic users circled each other, every one of them looking for an opening of some sort.
Eventually, Morgause whispered a spell and the earth started to shake beneath Merlin's feet. His eyes widened and he jumped up just before the ground opened. Arthur cried out, afraid that he would plummet to a death deep in the bowels of the earth. Merlin, however, simply called out a spell. A huge cloud of air formed beneath him, misting around his legs and cradling his feet. Morgause growled at him, but before she could react, Nimueh shot a ball of fire at Merlin.
This one he wasn't fast enough to deflect. It hit him square in the chest and Arthur cried out again as he watched Merlin fall down, covered by the fog of his personal cloud. Less than a minute later, the young king stood back up, wincing as he did so. Arthur could see a six inch wide circle of burned skin on his front. The older king winced in sympathy.
Merlin glared at the sorceress. From his other side, Morgause formed another fireball. She threw it at him. He whipped his head around just in time and caught the ball in his hands. His eyes glowed golden and the ball grew until it was larger than him. Then he swung it in a circle before releasing it back at the younger sorceress.
This time Morgause's eyes widened as she threw her hands out and yelled a spell. A nearly invisible shield appeared in front of her, blocking the ball of fire, but even Arthur could see that she was losing ground. The ball continued to inch towards her. Nimueh gasped in concern for her apprentice and threw her own spell into the mix, strengthening Morgause's spell. For a second, Merlin's larger ball of fire started to go back towards him, but Merlin, with beads of sweat rolling down his neck, pushed his arms out, causing the fire to go back towards the blonde haired woman.
Both sides continued to push and push and push until, eventually, the shield shattered. Merlin wasted no time in flinging the fireball into Morgause. It engulfed her and Arthur could hear her scream a single time before she was burned into ashes. Nimueh screamed in grief, causing a wild wind to pick up and carry leaves and bushes around them in a whirlwind. Arthur noticed offhand that the storm had come to be right above them during the time of the battle.
When Nimueh finally looked up, her hair was a crazed mess and her eyes were dark with grief and anger. She snarled at him, but Merlin continued to stand on his cloud above her and stare at her with cold eyes. Arthur could tell that he had not wanted to kill Morgause, but he had given her the choice of surrender. She was at fault here, not him.
Nimueh sent a barrage of fireballs at the young warlock, each of them propelled by the strength of her forceful wind. He caught every one and extinguished them. The king of Criladien shouted to be heard above the storm, "You can still surrender! This is your last chance to live! Surrender now!"
Her response was to send a wave of power crashing at him. He shook his head and snarled back at her. The high priestess opened her palm for another fireball, but Merlin raised his arm to the sky. What happened next shocked Arthur to the core. A thick, bright fork of lightening pulled itself from the sky to wrap around Merlin's arm. It illuminated his face and made his golden eyes glow even more. He moved his arm to point at Nimueh and the bolt, which was even hotter than the surface of the sun, fled fluidly from Merlin's finger tips to wrap around Nimueh. It curled around her until all Arthur could see of her were some flyaway strands of black hair.
After a few minutes of that treatment, the lightening flew back to Merlin and then into the ground, diffusing quickly. All that was left of the two sorceresses were two burn marks on the ground. Merlin leapt gracefully off of the cloud and landed on the ground, stumbling. He turned back to the shell-shocked army, "This is your last chance! Leave now and you will survive! Stay and you will face certain death!" His voice boomed like it had in the throne room that one day.
The army fled. A small portion of it stayed behind like Merlin predicted it would. The only problem was, "That is a lot more people than we planned for. We didn't think that many would stay." Stone was the one who pointed it out.
Merlin frowned and then turned to Warrior. She, however, already had her eyes closed in anticipation. When they opened, they were the colors of someone possessed by Eryas. Eryas said, "Should I employ the Courtyard of the Gods security measure?"Merlin nodded and Eyras left Warrior's body.
Merlin turned to the others and said, "Don't worry; the security measure will come any moment now. Knowing my luck, it'll probably begin when we're already fighting. Are we all ready?" Everyone nodded to him solemnly and then turned to face the oncoming horde.
The battle began. Even with the drastic cut in enemy soldiers, it was still a seven to one fighting ratio. They were not good odds. The people of Camelot and the people of Criladien fought side by side, working with each other's strengths and weaknesses and helping each other with particularly difficult opponents.
In a slight lull in the battle, Arthur looked around him. He swore he had heard the sound of stone shifting, but he didn't see anything. And then he saw it. There was stone shifting! It was in the Courtyard of the Gods. With a start, he realized that every single statue was straightening up and grabbing weapons from within the flower beds, or behind trees. They marched out and engaged the enemy in battle. All of those from Camelot stared, openmouthed, as thirty odd statues came to life and started battling humans side by side with the knights of Criladien.
Percival was the first to shake off his paralysis. He shook his head, shrugged, and then launched back into the battle with renewed spirits. They now outnumbered the enemy three to one. It was an easy victory from there.
Arthur later found out that every single person had gone to the little medical alcove where the girls were set up except for himself and Merlin. He watched as all of the statues positioned themselves back in their gardens after hearty thanks from all of the knights. Merlin also thanked the dragons for their help and sent them on their way. The city folks were sent home and went back to their day to day life. Everything was, for a moment, perfect. Everyone had someone to love, whether that love is romantic or friendly. There were few casualties despite the original size of the army. And most importantly, the battle was over.
