29. Futile Efforts


Summary: "What do you think you're doing," I say in what comes out as a hard tone, ignoring the fast pace of my heart. But it's clear he doesn't have a ready explanation, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.


I stare at the pale corpse of the recruit Gilli with bile in my throat. There's a roaring in my ears, which I numbly understand is my own blood, rushing in time with my heart. My fingers shake.

Merlin meanwhile, weak-stomached as he often is, retches. His eyes speak of horror even after he recovers, round and wide not just at the body – but at the thick, black coil at its neck. Where the claim took it's claimed, on to the grave.

I've heard countless times that when a guardian dies, their recruit suffers the same death. But I'd never imagined it happened like this.

I shake away the pounding sound against my brain and stand, ignoring the wreckage around us. It's time to move. Merlin in turn ignores me, silent when I reach him. "Let's . . . we need to go." I hesitantly put a hand on his thin shoulder.

Merlin flinches away like I've stung him.

We won't be able to move unless I resume carrying him. He must realize that. And yet, when I forcefully grab his hands, pull to hoist him up again, Merlin realizes and starts fighting. Wrenching away, kicking like a child. "Merlin!" I shout, trying to jolt him out of this; his eyes are wide, not mouse-like as with Gilli. Doe -like. Blinking at me like I've blinded him. "Merlin! Snap out of it!"

A cuff to the head finally manages to knock away that lost expression and somewhat return him to his wits - though after I've struck him he considers me like I'm about to do worse. I ignore it. "We need to get out of here. I don't know how many of these ruffians are dead and how many are merely unconscious, but we don't have much time before some kind of trouble will find us again. We need to leave, now."

It doesn't matter if not a word of that reached his ears, because the second I hear myself say it the last of the dull roar in my head fades.

The rest of the night is spent walking; interchangeably pulling Merlin along or carrying him along. I can't decide which is worse – the one side of me that he doesn't lean on freezing when we walk, or the sweat that cools almost to ice down my back and over my brow after so long when carrying him. Winter has arrived, and without Merlin's feverish heat from the night before we are quickly chilling to the bone.

"Merlin," I grit through my teeth as dawn slowly approaches, refusing to stutter through my shivers. We're taking a rest, and his back is to me where we sit on the icy roots of an old tree. His arm is moving, doing something. "We should keep going. We can't be far from the river now."

He doesn't answer, which isn't surprising at this point. "Then we'll be close enough to the Outer Ring," I continue muttering anyway, "scouts will spot us. W-we'll be sent help."

His right elbow jerks back in a strange way, and I stare in confusion as it does so again. And again, like he's pulling at something, almost.

I rise, walking as quietly as I can to see past his hunched shoulders. His right arm jerks back just as I do so, giving me a clear view of what exactly his hand has been doing.

His nails are poised against the skin of his other wrist, and his arm jerks back once more – hand clawing at the markings the claim has put on them. The skin should be red, irritated and hot by now; perhaps it would be, if the sheer amount of thick black lines didn't cover almost every inch where he has his sleeve pulled up. I watch numbly as he claws down yet another time, the profile of his face frozen and expressionless.

But when his eyes suddenly flicker to a nearby, jagged stone, and his hand reaches for it, curls it around his fingers sets it against his skin presses down

My sharp inhale halts Merlin's motion; he looks at me like I've appeared out of nowhere, eyes blinking and throat bobbing.

"What do you think you're doing," I manage in what comes out as a hard tone, ignoring the fast pace of my heart. But it's clear he doesn't have a ready explanation, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. I'm to him in an instant, pulling his struggling, skinny frame up roughly by the wrists. He keeps his eyes down; but this close it's easy to catch how his jaw clenches as I wrench the rock from his grip and throw it out of sight. "That – that won't do anything, Merlin – "

"You think I don't know that?" he cuts back in an icy tone, eyes just as cold as they abruptly rise, bore into mine. The first thing he's said in hours. Since "Arthur, please."

"Then what kind of foolishness is this?" I hold up his left wrist, and like I expected it's warm to the touch.

He wrenches out of my grip, glaring.

"Oh, Arthur, don't tell me you care?"

A vicious, rhetorical question, and I could throw a whole battalion of cursory insults back; they line up in my head, waiting. But I remember Nimueh's words, explaining the futile efforts of the recruits who'd attempted to get rid of the claim. And the gruesome consequences. A scare tactic perhaps, but it was an effective one, at that. At the time I'd felt my stomach flip from the last description, and Merlin seemed nauseated for a good two hours after.

Yet I fear, now, that that's not actually what Merlin wants to get rid of.

"We need to keep going," I say yet another time, realizing I've been silent too long.

In any other situation I'd walk off and leave him to follow till we reached the river, spend some needed time away from his dark mood. But Merlin is still weak in body if not still in mind. He's here, and if I leave him he won't be able to follow – having him use magic in an attempt to heal himself will do nothing but add to that weakness, after using up probably every reserve of energy he owned leveling the camp and saving our lives.

So without preamble I pull his arm over my shoulder again and practically drag him along.

My knee hurts. My head pounds. Numbly I think I still feel a burning at my chest, and at one point look down only to stifle a gasp: there's a spot on my clothes, just where my heart is, that looks blackened. I don't say anything to Merlin, who is throwing waves of hostility at me so blatantly I can't just be feeling it because of our connection. I don't feel like asking him what this means - what he did, or I did, or what the claim didn't.

I ignore it all for now, focused on keeping one foot in front of the other. And mercifully the river eventually is visible, a couple hours later. Merlin actually breathes out a sigh of relief, and I inwardly do so as well. The Outer Ring is perhaps an hour away at most, now.

We stop at the bank of it, me eyeing its frozen state in speculation. The middle can't be too much better than when our group cut across, but there's little time to be picky about where we're crossing. The first step feels like hard ground still anyway, and my confidence grows as we near half-way point and Merlin hasn't so much as slipped.

"Almost there," I grit through my teeth. My whole body is practically shaking with cold, and Merlin's as well – the wind is worse without trees to buffer it. But we've practically made it when it happens.

A groan, followed by a pop and a crack, stops us in our tracks. Merlin's eyes widen at me. "MOVE," I shout, practically carrying him by the arm as I make a break for the other side of the river. The ice groans again beneath us, moves beneath our feet.

I feel it the second Merlin slips, his weight dropping and hanging against me for a second before we're pulled apart. Then the icy air hits my right side in his absence, as forceful as any blow. There's a splash. I stagger and can barely keep my feet under me, shouting "MERLIN!" as I whip around to find the idiot. But there's no sight of him.

He's slipped beneath the surface.


A/N: Thanks for reading and for all your lovely comments! They make my day. You are wonderful people. I'd also like to shout out to all the awesome new followers: HIIIIIII. Welcome, and good to have you here :)

catherine10: Lol Thanks! Or if you mean Gilli, yeah I would agree that's one way to try and take back control of your fate. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

Guest: Great, I'm glad the scene was good even if it was technically rather horrible, heehee. And Uther plus others will be antagonists, just not the overarching one like the claim really is. Thank you and I'm so glad you liked it :D