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Chapter 1: Arthur's Bane

Nine years later...

Several weeks ago, Sir Gwain led a group of knights off to Ismere, but it had been long since anyone has heard from them. So Arthur decided they should go take a few men and search for them themselves. Merlyn had protested, fearing something bad might happen, but Arthur's decision was final. He would bring reinforcements to go find them and rescue them if necessary.

It took nearly a week's travel, but they were getting close now. A few days ago, they had just left Annis's land. There Merlin's fears only became worse. She and Arthur learned that for sure Morgana had taken up residence at Ismere. Before it had only been rumor, but now it was confirmed.

Then not only that, but as they were traveling they came across a ruined druid village. Merlin had no idea what happened to the village, nor did she really care to know. The aftermath already gave her a pretty decent idea of how awful all their fates had been.

However it wasn't the village or the brutally butchered people there that were haunting her thoughts right then. It was the vision given to her by one lone druid just before he died in front of her. In it she saw the future she had been trying so hard to avoid. There was a great bloody battle with fire all around. Then right at the end of it, Arthur was killed by a man she did not recognize.

The man was almost as tall as Arthur with curly black-brown hair and steely blue eyes. He looked young, barely just out of boyhood from the look of him, but his eyes held an eerie darkness to them that no young man should ever have at his age. Just thinking back on it unnerved her.

At the moment they were resting for the night somewhere in the woods just west of Ismere. Merlyn couldn't bring herself to sleep with the recent vision still burning the inside of her eyelids. So instead she decided to grab some mead from Arthur's pack and hoped it would help calm her nerves. She sometimes did this when she was sure he wasn't looking, knowing full well how angry he'd be if he ever caught her.

She was only half way to his horse when she noticed she couldn't find any of the guards that were supposed to stay up and keep watch. There were supposed to be three of them and they were all supposed to stay nearby in the camp, but none of them were in sight. Merlin was just about to brush it off, thinking it was just too dark for her to see anything at that time of night. However, her tune changed when she starts to hear the wrestling of leaves around her, much more than just three knight were capable of.

She looked around for the slightest hint of where the sound might have come from. At first she found nothing and started to think perhaps some knights were playing a joke on her. Then suddenly something flew by her ear and land right in the tree next to her. Her blood ran cold.

It was an arrow.

At the top of her lungs, Merlin screamed, "We're under attack!" and used her magic to push back whatever was in the trees around her. She was confident it was too dark for anyone to see her.

The whole camp erupted into chaos as people came flying out of the woods around them. Merlyn nearly got shot again, but she managed to use her magic to knock it aside. She had to find Arthur. She'd be damned before she let him die in a mediocre raid like this.

She searched frantically for him until she heard, "Merlyn! Merlyn!" She looked back and saw him slashing through one cut throat to the other. "Damn it, Merlyn! Where are you?" He yelled.

"Arthur!" She screamed and thankfully it was loud enough to catch his attention. However it caught the attention of a few of the Saxon soldiers as well. One came at her sword in hand ready to slice her opened when suddenly, he tripped and fell on his face.

Merlyn stood for there for a second confused. There was nothing on the ground for the man to trip on, so why did he fall over? It didn't make sense. That is, until she felt a familiar pull tugging at her very core. She looked off to right and there at the edge of the battlefield stood a figure dressed in black. He was staring at her.

Her eyes widened. It was the blue eyed man from her horrid vision and unbelievably also the child she saved all those years ago. "Mordred..." She whispered.

"Hello Emrys." She herd his voice in her mind.

Merlyn froze. She couldn't believe it. After all these years, the one being she feared the most was standing right in front of her. She tried to command her limbs to move or to at least make some response, but nothing happened until suddenly she saw his face twist into terror.

"Emrys! Look out!" He screamed in her mind. That woke her up. She quickly spun around and saw another soldier coming at her with a mace. She managed get out of the way of his swing, but fell over and lost her footing in the process.

Vulnerable on the ground, the enemy soldier reared back to attack her again. She thought it was over for her, but then Arthur's came into view and blocked his attack. The king easily disarmed the man and ended him with a fatal blow to the chest. Once his was done, he argily turned to her and pulled her to her feet. "Damn it, Merlyn! What the hell are you doing sitting on the ground like that for? Come on! We have to get out of here!" He gripped her by the arm and the two of them started to run. Merlyn looked back once to see if Mordred was still standing back there, but he wasn't.

She guessed she shouldn't have been surprised.

A/N: Hi everyone, sorry its been forever, but between school and work, it's been hard trying to find time to write anything for my fanfictions now a days. Thank you to everyone who favorited, followed and reviewed my story. I appreciate it alot. I will be updating this story, It is not dead, but it might take some time depending on my schedule.

Also I apologize for how short this chapter is. It must be a bit of a let down after waiting so long. I'll write more and I promise most of the future chapters will have more that just a 1000 words and move the plot forward a lot more. I just felt I should give y'all something to know that I'm not done with this.

Please feel free to review once you finish reading. I love hearing all your feedback.

P.S. As for catherine10's question, a beta is basically fanfiction's version of an editor. The fix spelling, help develope story plots and characters, and just make your writing better over all.

And no, I have no one yet still. But I will fix that. Eventually.

Again, thank you everyone for reading. Until next time. Happy Halloween guys!