The sunset that day was gorgeous, red like blood and wine and fire. From the window Arthur couldn't see the army yet, but he doubted it would be long now. He felt, rather than heard, Merlin slide up next to him.
"They're slowing down," the sorcerer observed quietly. To him the army was a black line, distant, strangely vibrating as they approached.
"But not stopping."
"No," Merlin turned away from the glass. "Not stopping."
"And the temple..."
The sorcerer shook his head and there was a silence between the two men. Both had much to say. Neither had the courage to say it.
"I'll put it off as long as I can," Merlin finally said.
"Merlin-"
"There's no other way." Arthur looked over at the sorcerer and saw his jaw was clenched, his eyes trained on the opposite wall. His expression was agonized. "I wish... I wish there was."
"Merlin, what we talked about... I can't."
Merlin nodded, his face tight. "I know."
The light was fading in the sky, fading fast.
"I love you," Arthur said suddenly, his voice low. Merlin finally looked at him and a flicker of surprise passed over his features, which he hid with a smirk.
"I thought I was useless." The humor was a little forced but it was necessary, desperately so, and Arthur played along.
Pretend that we're just like we used to be.
"Oh, as a servant, completely. But that's my fault," he patted Merlin's shoulder with a pitying grimace. "I gave you the wrong job. You ought to have been the court ass."
"I heard the job was already taken." The impish smile might have been real, and for a moment things really did feel like they were, not so long ago. But his smile faded, his gaze returning to the window, and to the army which was now visible to Arthur as well. "I love you, too."
The sky was now a bruised purple. Stars were appearing, and Arthur took a deep breath. It was nearly time.
They herded the women and children into the castle, where they would be best protected. Every man who was able to hold a sword was given one, and Arthur was filled with fear when he looked at them. There were boys who looked no older than 15, and old men who ought to have been sitting by a fire with their families. Everyone could see the army now, and the streets were silent, save for the Druids who still worked on the temple.
War had come to Camelot.
High on the parapets, archers watched the shades' approach with fear. It was eerie. They marched in a legion of at least 500, and yet they were silent. There were no torches among them, no banners. They could only make out swatches of darkness between the trees.
The men readied their arrows, dipping the tips in oil and lighting them on fire. Their faces were cast in orange and they waited for the signal, holding their breath, arms trembling in anticipation and in fear.
"Fire," someone shouted, and a volley of light arched over the castle walls to meet the strange half-men spilling out of the forest.
It was only somewhat effective. The most sharp-eyed of the archers were at first pleased, then horrified; the body parts that were hit by arrows were torn away, besieged by flame, and seemed to vaporize into red embers and ash, but the rest of the creature simply continued, some crawling, some headless. The ones whose torsos were lost were simply absorbed by their fellows, seeming to donate their limbs to those who had lost their own, or else joining with the nearest shade to become a freakish monster. It was these that frightened the archers the most. They had two heads, and their limbs seemed tacked on, awkward and broken but still usable. Some of them loomed above the others with borrowed torsos stretching out their own.
"Again!" The cry was sounded and another volley was prepared and fired. Some men, taken by fear, missed their targets and patches of grass caught flame, and yet the shades cast no shadow. Volley after volley was scattered into the approaching army, and they ought to have been decimated, but there were still too many. The order was passed down that every non-Druid man be given torches. Those that knew magic silently recited their fire spells. The soldiers all waited just inside the outer wall, in careful formation, and not a man among them believed wholeheartedly that they would survive. The younger men cried silently, but their hands were full of torches and swords, and they could not wipe away their tears.
They could not hear the shades, but they heard the archers cry out in fear and suddenly tendrils of darkness began ebbing under the stone of the walls, strange two-dimensional hands which floated across the dirt, dragging the rest of the bodies, flattened and twisted, behind. They rose from the ground like children under blankets, and some were cut down immediately by the men nearest the wall, but those body parts which were not touched by torches simply joined into other, newer shades.
A boy was the first to die.
He froze, his torch dropping from his hands as a group of shades approached. He had become transfixed, horrified, staring into the black hollows of their faces. They made no noise and yet he heard them, groaning, squelching like mud as they reached out to him. His mouth opened in a silent scream and one of the shades seemed to slide its hand past his jaws, down his throat. Another shade came closer, embracing the boy, passing through him, and it lost its shape as inky stands, like cobwebs, sidled up from its arms and began to cover its victim. He simply disappeared beneath it and the trio- boy and two shades- became one giant mass, hulking, its jaw hanging down to its chest.
Then men were doomed from the start. They simply couldn't kill the shades fast enough, because every limb left unburned became another soldier, and every man killed joined the shades. Even with jets of fire from the Druids, it was clear they would be overrun. And yet, forgotten, the handful of Druids in the temple continued their work.
Elsewhere, Hunith sat bolt upright, the blanket pooling around her waist. She had been dreaming of Merlin. She dreamed of him often but this was different. Dark. She suddenly felt afraid, so afraid. Something terrible was going to happen, and the mother in her knew she had to go to her child. So she began to pack a bag, taking only food and water; there was no time for anything else. It was dark outside as she mounted her horse. The moon itself seemed eclipsed, and so she didn't see the white dragon as it soared overhead.