Alaia Skyhawk: And here's part two. I'm going to have a fair bit of fun messing with this ep lol, and you'll see what I mean when you get to it XD
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
Music: N/A
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Chapter 52: Lamia ~Part 2~
It was by the light of a single candle that Merlin sat, reading through some of Liam's medical notes while he kept his turn on watch over the three ill men. Liam had taken the first watch, and now he would be on until an hour before dawn, when they would swap again and allow him to get a hour's sleep before they prepared to leave.
They needed Gaius for this, and at the least to get their hands on some of the books about magical creatures. Wondering just what it was they were dealing with was part of what helped him stay awake, but at the same time it also made him wary enough to flinch when a shadow passed over the cottage's tiny window.
Merlin got to his feet, frowning, and headed for the door, picking up a stick that had a fishing line tied to it as he went. In the middle of a village like this, magic was out of the question for defence unless an emergency, and his dagger wasn't something to flaunt either.
Out in the darkness of the night, he crept in the direction the caster of the shadow had gone, inching along the path between houses until he was almost bumped into by someone coming the other way.
Gwaine ducked with yelp of surprise when Merlin's stick almost clouted him in the face, and the warlock glared at him.
"What are you doing out here? I could have killed you."
The knight simply grinned, shrugging.
"Call of nature." He looked at Merlin's stick. "And you do realise that that's a fishing rod? If you killed me with that I'd never live it down... Sir Gwaine was slain by a fishing rod. That's the stuff of legends, eh?"
Merlin shook his head at the joke and tilted his head.
"Come on, let's get back inside. Something out here just doesn't feel right, and we shouldn't take chances."
The good humour was gone by morning though, when Merlin and Liam checked on the sick men and found no change. John, as the village elder, was not best pleased, on the verge of anger at them until Merlin spoke solemnly.
"This illness isn't normal, and bears the marks of sorcery of some kind. I've seen similar, although with different symptoms, in the past. We need to return to Camelot and report our findings to Gaius. With his knowledge we may be able to figure out what has caused this, and return with a cure. Until then you need to do your best and keep them alive as long as you can."
John now went very quiet.
"Sorcery... I feared as much. The other night, when I found Aldrif, I felt a... presence. An evil in the air."
Merlin turned to Liam, taking command of the situation.
"Go let Leon and the others know to prepare to leave immediately." The apprentice physician hurried out, and Merlin turned back to John. "And I suggest that you make sure everyone in this village stays indoors after dark, and that no one stays alone. If the source of this sickness is luring people out into danger, you need to take precautions to prevent that."
He strode out, John watching him go even as Gwen came and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Merlin is a good friend of mine, and you can trust his judgement. Magical threats are something he's had a lot of experience in dealing with. He and Gaius will do all they can to find a cure."
John was reassured by her words, nodding if a little gruffly and going out to start giving instructions to the rest of the villagers. He was still doing that when the group from Camelot rode out, making their way back to Camelot with all haste.
It was a journey that was supposed to be simple, but for Leon calling a halt barely an hour from the village when he saw the smoke of a camp-fire through the trees.
He raised his hand to signal everyone to stop, and dismounted right away.
"Dismount and muzzle your horses. Not a sound, any of you."
Liam and Gwen stayed with the horses, the rest of the group creeping through the trees until they could look down into the camp below.
It was full of men, stuffy and unkempt. They were clearly bandits, and the group were all set to just leave and go around them when the frightened scream of a woman drew their attention. One look at her being shoved around by some of the brigands, was all that was needed to sent Gwaine charging down the slope at them with a yell.
Everyone else followed, Merlin bringing up the rear and rolling his eyes. With that one noisy descent and his battle cry, Gwaine had succeeded in bringing every single bandit within earshot all running in their direction. The fight was fast and brutal, the knights making short work of the bandits even as Merlin stood there watching them and casually using his magic to knock any man stupid enough to attack him into the ground. And when it was over, it was Merlin who walked up to Gwaine and grabbed him by his ear and twisted it.
"What part of the concept of attacking stealthily, hasn't sunk into that head of yours? Did it ever occur to you I could have put them all to sleep?"
He released the knight's ear, leaving Gwaine stood there rubbing at it until Percival's call brought them running over to him.
The knight had the woman and was cradling her protectively. She was limp and pale.
"It looks like we were too late."
Merlin reached out and put a hand on her head, feeling warmth and able to sense she was alive, and also a hint of something else he couldn't identify.
"No, she's-"
She opened her eyes, screaming in terror as she looked at him and kicking him away as Percival held her tighter trying to calm her.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's all right. It's all right, we're knights of Camelot. You're safe now. You're safe.
What's your name?"
He was staring into her eyes, the woman staring back with her face inches from his. If not for her hands being bound, it would have looked more like an embrace of lovers than of a knight trying to calm a woman he'd just rescued.
She seems to think over his question, still tense with fright.
"Lamia. My name is Lamia. I was travelling home when the bandits took me. They-"
Her words were cut off by sobs, Percival holding her close as she trembled against him. Merlin noted then that her hands were badly scraped, the fingertips bloodied and torn and the nails chipped and split.
"Your hands. Did they do this to you? Let me clean them for you."
He reached out, but stopped when she practically spat at him.
"No!"
Leon put his hand on Merlin's shoulder in signal to leave it for now so she could calm down, but even so his eyes were locked on her face.
"Are you strong enough to ride? We have a spare horse." She nodded mutely. "Then let us get out of here, before the remainder of the bandits return."
Percival picked her up and carried her back to where Liam and Gwen waited, Lamia seeming uninterested in Gwen and at best reluctant to let Liam clean her wounded hands. But Merlin was the one person she refused to allow to touch her or get near her, and while admittedly Liam was the one man here who wasn't carrying a sword, she hadn't been bothered by the knights being around her so it couldn't be that Liam was unarmed while he was.
It was something that left him bemused through the rest of the day's much slower ride. They'd covered barely half the distance back to Camelot, something they'd crossed in a single day going the other direction. But when Leon called for them to camp for the night, no one argued, everyone spreading out to start setting it up while Merlin decided now might be the time to try smoothing things over with her.
He offered her his hand to help her down from her borrowed horse, but she flinched away from it and her gasp prompted an immediate and completely out of character response from Percival.
The knight glowered at Merlin, coming right up to him shoving him.
"Hey! Get away from her, Merlin! ...And stay away."
He lifted her down, something she showed no objection to him doing, and carried her to where she could sit against a tree. Merlin was now staring at him, as were Liam and Gwen, the latter reassuring him.
"Merlin, he didn't mean it. They're just tired, that's all."
She moved away to start getting food out of their packs, Liam helping her while Merlin made a circuit of the camp to lay down some basic wards. Maybe she was right, maybe Percival was just tired...
But it didn't come across like that a few hours later, when Merlin disturbed him comforting Lamia a short distance from the camp in the dead of night. He'd seen her creep away, heard her sobbing, and gone to her but had not approached her. He'd then stood and watched from behind a tree, having ghosted through the shadows in the fashion of the Druids, as silent as if a part of the forest itself. He'd then deliberately stepped on a twig, when he felt that the 'helpless' and 'frightened' Lamia seemed to be wrapping Percival around her fingers.
The knight lurched to his feet and drew his sword, eyes searching the darkness until Merlin came out from behind his tree.
"What are you doing out here?"
Merlin remained solemn, almost disapproving.
"I could ask the same, I marked the boundaries of the protected area well. You're both well outside it, and it's not safe out here. All three of us should return to camp."
Percival reluctantly sheathed his sword, still glaring at Merlin as he assisted Lamia back to her feet. The pair then started back towards the camp, her eyes flicking to the warlock and narrowing ever so slightly. That was the moment when a faint chill on her wrist roused Gwen to wakefulness, just as the same roused a certain king half a day's ride away in Camelot.
Arthur went immediately to Gaius, waking the old man gently yet firmly and waiting until he'd sat up before speaking.
He indicated his armlet, and set the physician's hand on it so he could feel the faint chill that still remained.
"Something magical, something dangerous, is near Merlin. They should have been back by now, they were only meant to ride out, check, then come back. And yet they're not here." He gritted his teeth. "Gaius, is your work on the sweating sickness done?"
Gaius, still a bit bleary from being woken up, nodded.
"The rate of new cases has fallen right back, so yes, I'm sure this incidence of it has passed."
Arthur got back to his feet, heading for the door.
"Then we leave for Longstead at first light."
~(-)~
Dawn came thankfully soon for Merlin, who had remained in only the lightest of slumbers since the incident with Percival. Gwen had spoken to him quietly upon his return, telling him of the reaction of her bracelet at around the time when Lamia had narrowed her eyes at him. It couldn't have been the angry Percival who had caused it, which left only her. Lamia possessed some kind of magic, and if he were to hazard a guess it seemed to be affecting the knight's judgement.
...That is, him and the other three as well, as was confirmed when Leon made an announcement when it was time to leave.
"Pack your bags. We ride east with the rising sun."
Liam turned and frowned at him in confusion, an expression matched by Merlin and Gwen.
"But Camelot is west of here."
Elyan, seeming quite reasonable, explained it.
"Lamia has asked that we take her home."
Merlin came over now, not liking this.
"No, we need to go get Gaius and take him to Longstead."
Gwaine spoke now, totally unconcerned for the fact that in the village three men were currently laid dying.
"Gaius can wait."
Liam stared at him, aghast.
"We were sent to help the people of Longstead. Their lives depend on us."
"You dare to question our judgement? You are not a knight! You're not even a true physician, you're just an apprentice!"
Liam stumbled backwards when Leon stormed over to him, Merlin imposing himself between the two of them with an angry expression directed at the knight.
"Stand down, Leon." He glanced at where the other three knights stood protectively around Lamia, before turning his regard back to Leon. "If you insist on this, I'll permit you to escort her one day's ride in the direction of her home. We will then camp for the night, and then send her on her way while we make haste back to Camelot. The victims at Longstead should be able to hold out as long as it would take for us to get Gaius to them at that point, and Lamia will have been brought safely closer to her home... Accept this compromise, Leon, because I won't take no for an answer. And you know I can drag every single one of you back to Camelot by force if need be. Don't push me."
The glare he got in return from them was icy, but all four of them nodded even as Lamia once again narrowed her eyes at him. He ignored it, knowing there was no point now in hiding that he was the real authority here. Considering that he, Gwen, and Liam were unaffected, it was likely accurate to guess that whatever her ability was it only worked on men, and only if they didn't possess at least a limited degree of skill with magic. She'd distrusted Liam, but he was no real threat to her so she'd permitted him close. But for Merlin, who was both powerful and skilled, she was using the knights to create a wall to keep him at a distance.
They set off ten minutes later, heading east, Merlin laying down an enchanted mark every so often. He had a sinking feeling that getting them to turn back tomorrow morning wasn't going to be easy, and if Gwen's bracelet had been reacting, then Arthur's armlet would have been too. The king was likely already on his way to Longstead, and if he had any sense he'd look for such markers after learning they weren't at the village.
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Unbeknownst to Merlin, Arthur was indeed already on his way to the village having passed Agravaine into the 'care' of the Storm Clan in the early hours of the morning, to keep him out of trouble. In fact with the hard pace he'd set he'd be there well before nightfall. Or at least he would have been if not for something discovered along the way, at a place where the birds had gone silent with fear, and all the world had seemed to stop in horror.
An entire caravan of men, and an overturned prison-like wagon. They lay scattered about around it, dead and cold, and eyeing them the king waited until Gaius was beside him before he spoke.
"Does anything strike you as being odd about these bodies?"
The old man nodded, grim.
"Yes, Sire. There's not mark on them. Not so much as a scratch."
"Over here, My Lord."
One of the knights called the king over to the wagon, Arthur murmuring as he walked over.
"Southron slave traders by the looks of it. It looks like they must have been transporting some kind of animal."
The two of them had stopped at the open door of the wagon, Gaius shaking his head and pointing to scratch marks on the inner surface of it.
"No. These marks are made by humans. And whoever they were, they did anything they had to to get out."
Their conversation was interrupted by a pained groan, one of the supposed dead men actually alive. Arthur rushed over, checking the man as Gaius arrived at his side.
"Can he be treated?"
"I can try, Sire, but I'll need time and somewhere to work."
Arthur stood up, frowning.
"Then he comes with us. We'll make Longstead in a matter of hours."
~(-)~
The day wore on for Merlin, riding at the rear of the little convoy of knights and their dear Lamia. The four men seemed oblivious to what was going on, as much as the two sorcerers and Gwen were all too aware that something serious was going on. But until he knew more about how they'd been enchanted, Merlin didn't want to risk harming the woman in case it had some unforeseen ill effect on them.
It left him in a grim and dark mood, something that made any attempt to talk to him almost as frightening as trying to talk to the knights.
It was nearing time for them to stop and rest for midday when Liam at last plucked up the courage to do so, his words quiet so the knights wouldn't hear.
"I think Gwaine's not as enchanted as the rest. He keeps glancing back at us, or shaking himself like he's trying to bring himself round. He's not acting exactly like the others."
Merlin blinked at that, eyes flicking to observe the knight in question and witnessing Gwaine frown ever so slightly then blink and shake his head as if slightly confused. It was small, subtle, but now it had been mentioned to him it was plain... And it made him smile, if a little grimly.
"We he is the most magically resisted of the four of them. Besides Arthur, he's the only one that's been able to moderately control his resistance to magic. While he's nowhere near as good, he's good enough that maybe it's interfering with Lamia's effect on him."
Gwen glanced at him too, solemn.
"I hope so. If he can break free, then maybe the others could too."
Merlin grimaced.
"Don't count on it. He's had some extra training that they haven't, since he kept pestering me to spar with him down in the training wards in my workroom. He can bat aside fire spells when he puts his mind to it, even if he still gets a bit scorched."
The possibility remained in their minds when they stopped to rest. All seemed calm at first, until an argument broke out between Gwaine and Leon, when the latter went to offer Lamia a drink from his water canteen and the former tried to take it from him and offer it to her himself.
"Why don't you watch what you're doing?"
"Why don't you learn to watch your damn tongue?"
"You'd do well to learn some manners!"
"There's nothing I can learn from you, Leon."
"We'll see about that!"
Within seconds both men had their swords drawn, and then proceeded to clearly try to kill each other with them. Merlin actually stood frozen for an instant, before shoving Leon face down onto the ground and trying to do the same to Gwaine.
The dark-haired knight made a slapping motion with his left hand, disrupting the warlock's grip on him enough that he was able to lift his sword ready to stab the downed Leon with it. But failing the direct approach, Merlin took an indirect one...
Since grabbing Gwaine with magic was proving a little problematic right now, he grabbed a branch instead and whacked him over the head with it.
He went down like a sack of coal, even as Elyan and Percival dragged a swearing Leon away from him. Even enchanted as they were, they had sense enough to step in and help stop the fight, leaving Merlin and Liam to tend to the mildly concussed Gwaine.
They dragged him too to a safe distance, keeping him prone when he came to enough to try sitting up. After the third attempt, he swore.
"For gods' sake, Merlin, let me sit up... and tell me why the heck I just tried to take Leon's head off?"
Both Merlin and Liam went stock still, the former staring at the knight.
"Wait, you don't know why you were fighting him?"
Gwaine grimaced, holding a hand to his head and shaking it slightly.
"I know why I was... But what I want to know it why I suddenly decided that Lamia was worth trying to kill one of my friends."
Merlin was still staring, a slow smile starting to come to his face.
"And it seems that, for once, I've literally managed to knock some sense into you."
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Alaia Skyhawk: Hehehehehe! Yep, I've brought Gwaine into the equation! Besides the gag at the end of this part, you'll see why I did it in part 3 XD
