A/N: Thank you Buckhunter, GuestM, leyapearl, SnidgetHex, and Guest for reviewing!
Chapter 2
Merlin stood up woodenly and backed away from the body as more people began to arrive to investigate the commotion. Arthur pushed his way to the forefront.
"He's gone," Merlin told him. "There's no threat here."
Arthur frowned down at the man dead in his courtyard. "He looks familiar."
"He's the Keeper of the Unicorns," Merlin replied. "Or, he was."
Arthur's brows rose in recognition.
"He mentioned a sword forged in dragon's breath," Lancelot put in. "Does that mean…?"
Merlin nodded gravely. "Whoever stole Excalibur apparently used it to kill Anhora, and maybe a unicorn."
"Wouldn't that mean that they are now cursed?" Arthur said.
Merlin frowned. Anyone who went to the trouble of stealing one of the most powerful swords on earth had to know what killing a unicorn meant. Unless something about Excalibur negated the curse…
"I don't know," he said. He looked down at the body. "I should lay him to rest in the forest. As far as I know, that was his home."
"I'll help you," Lancelot immediately said.
"Me too," Gwaine put in.
Merlin nodded in gratitude.
The crowd failed to disperse until Merlin had procured a shroud and wrapped Anhora's body in it. Merlin felt secondhand discomfort for Anhora's dignity, since he was a stranger in this land and it wasn't that anyone was mourning him, just morbidly curious.
Lancelot and Gwaine secured the body over a horse's saddle and Merlin picked up the sorcerer's staff. Then the three of them set off for the forest.
There wasn't an exact spot that Merlin knew of to lay Anhora to rest, so he merely went deep enough into the woods to where his grave would hopefully never be disturbed. He picked a place near some flowering bushes and used his magic to draw the soil up into piles on either side. Then Lancelot and Gwaine lowered the body into the trench, and Merlin laid his staff on top of him. He then folded the dirt back over the grave.
"Thanks," he said to his friends. "I should look for the dead or wounded unicorn."
Without a word, Lancelot and Gwaine went with him. The forest was too vast to search every inch of it, but a cursory survey didn't reveal anything.
"Maybe it got away when that Anhora fellow was protecting it," Gwaine suggested.
Maybe, Merlin thought.
"What happens to the unicorns now?" Lancelot asked.
Merlin shook his head. "I don't know."
They headed back to Camelot. But as they exited the forest and passed by a field of crops, they pulled up short in dismay to find the entire field of grain had withered up and fallen over. It was exactly like when Arthur had killed a unicorn, but that didn't make sense; none of them had been responsible for a unicorn's death this time. Merlin wondered fearfully if it was because it was Arthur's sword…and the person who had taken it somehow knew they could transfer the curse to Camelot regardless of the hand that did the deed.
But without the Keeper of the Unicorns to put them through the trials, Merlin had no idea how to reverse it.
At least this time his magic was out and he could openly work on a solution. Not to mention there was another magic user in Camelot whose specialty was plants. So Merlin, Lancelot, and Gwaine hurried back to the city to report what they'd found, and Merlin asked Lily to come back out with him to take a look. Arthur and the knights came as well, and Merlin could tell Arthur was distressed by this development, even though it absolutely wasn't his fault this time.
They all lined up at the edge of the blighted field.
"Do you have any of that Lake water left?" Percival asked Lily.
"I don't," she replied regretfully. She took a few steps forward and crouched down, stretching out her hand to press her palm against the soil. Her frown deepened. "Merlin, come here."
He went and knelt beside her.
"I can sense the blight," she said. "It's definitely unnatural."
Merlin extended his magical senses and felt it too.
"We knew this was a curse," Gwaine said.
Lily pursed her mouth thoughtfully, and Merlin watched her concentrate as she pushed her magic into the soil to connect with the shriveled roots. He felt it reviving the plants and pushing the blight out. Gradually the stalks began to fill out and stand upright again. After several minutes, the entire crop was fully restored.
"Thank god," Leon said.
Everyone was obviously thrilled, but Merlin wasn't.
"What's wrong?" Lancelot asked him, noticing.
"If this was the curse of a unicorn's death…Lily's magic shouldn't have been able to reverse it."
"So what does that mean?" Elyan asked.
Merlin's mouth thinned into a tight line. "That this isn't random. That we're probably being targeted."
They all shared dour looks at that, but there wasn't anything else they could do at this point, so they went back to the city. Merlin returned to his books to try to find a way to track down the missing sword, but he still came up empty.
He woke the following morning to a harsh influx of bright light, and he bolted upright with a start, crinkling the page of the open book he'd fallen asleep on. Gwen gave him a sympathetic look as she finished tying the drapes back.
"You can't work yourself to death, Merlin," she said. "Excalibur being stolen isn't your fault."
Merlin rubbed at his eyes. "Kilgharrah entrusted it to me."
"And it was made for Arthur. Neither of you are to blame."
Maybe so, but that didn't make Merlin feel any better, nor erase the fact that they were facing a new, unknown enemy with significant power.
"Come have breakfast with me," Gwen insisted.
Merlin opened his mouth to protest, but she took his arm and hauled him out of his chair without waiting for his agreement. One didn't say no to Gwen, even before she'd become queen. So Merlin let her pull him down the corridors to her chambers where a platter of breakfast pastries were already set out. Arthur wasn't there.
Merlin took a seat and started picking out delicacies for himself. He noticed Gwen wasn't eating, though, and he arched a questioning brow at her.
She gave a half grimaced smile. "Morning sickness."
"Didn't Lily have a remedy for that?" he asked.
"She does, and I'm sure I'd be far worse without it," Gwen replied. "But breakfast is still…delicate. Arthur keeps having the kitchen send up a wide variety hoping at least one thing will sit well."
Merlin looked over the very appetizing breakfast platter ruefully. "Nothing this morning, though?"
Gwen regretfully shook her head.
Merlin narrowed his eyes at her. "Did you bring me up here to empty the platter so Arthur will think you ate?"
"I'm shocked you would accuse your queen of such duplicity," Gwen said in mock affront.
He smirked and took a big bite of pastry anyway. It was delicious.
He had just finished eating his fill when a small black creature came streaking through the open window in a squeaking flutter. It immediately dive bombed at Gwen, who shrieked and nearly fell out of her chair as she flailed her arms. The bat followed her down, screeching and attacking her face.
Merlin grabbed the platter off the table, flinging the rest of the pastries everywhere, and swung it like a bludgeon, smashing the silver against the bat and sending it into the wall.
"Are you all right?" he asked Gwen urgently.
She nodded shakily, then her eyes widened. "Merlin!"
He spun as more bats came flying into the room and went straight for him. He swung the platter back and forth in an attempt to whack them away. The impact of their tiny bodies against the silver made the sound of a gong accompanied with pained squeals. Once they were all felled, Merlin ran for the window to slam it shut. Screams were echoing up from the streets below, and he could see a massive swarm of bats descending on the city.
Merlin turned and bolted out of the room and downstairs. Bats zoomed overhead, having gotten in through other open windows. People were running and screaming as the bats clawed at their faces. Merlin skidded to a stop and threw a fireball up near the ceiling. It caught several bats and sent them plummeting to the floor in flames.
"Merlin!" Gwen exclaimed, hurrying after him.
"We need to seal the castle!" he said.
She gave a short nod and started yelling orders to anyone within earshot. Merlin continued down the corridor to the main foyer where the doors were still open as people tried to get inside, but that meant bats were streaming in with them.
Merlin cast fireball after fireball at the air above everyone's heads, burning as many bats as he could until everyone had gotten inside and the doors were thrown shut. That still left dozens of bats flying around the castle as they found other ways to get inside.
The knights had drawn their swords and were slashing haphazardly, but the flying creatures were too fast to catch them with blades. Merlin turned toward the unlit torches in the wall sconces and lit them all with an uttered spell.
"Use fire!" he shouted.
The knights exchanged torches for swords and swung the flames around instead. But the bats were relentless, and for each few that fell, a handful more appeared to take their place. Multiple people were shouting to get doors and windows closed.
"Fireplaces too!" Elyan called out.
Merlin kept up his bombardment until the entire hall was filled with a smoky haze and the smell of charred fur. The assault seemed to go on forever, but finally the last of the bats fell dead and the castle became quiet. Everyone looked around tensely, chests heaving from exertion, their faces and hands scratched up and bleeding. Outside, the bats continued to swarm, plump bodies bumping against the window panes.
"Do a sweep of the castle," Leon ordered. "Every inch. And have everyone gather in the great hall."
Merlin headed that way, knowing there would be injuries. Most were just superficial, but already he could see people being brought in, bloodied hands covering an eye and wailing in pain and shock.
Gaius arrived quickly and immediately began triage. Merlin helped. So did Gwen when she came down.
Lancelot and Lily came in with the twins in their arms, and Merlin hurried over to them.
"Were the twins scratched?" he asked anxiously.
"No, thank goodness," Lancelot replied. He had a few scratches but nothing major.
Lily wordlessly passed Rhys to Merlin and went to help with the injured.
Gradually over the next few hours, the rest of the knights came through the hall after securing the castle. Merlin was relieved to see Arthur was all right, although he looked grim as he came to stand next to Merlin and surveyed his wounded subjects.
"Who could be attacking us now?" he said aloud in a subdued voice.
Merlin didn't answer; it was a rhetorical question, and he didn't have the answer anyway.
Lancelot found a chair out of the way and sat with a baby in each arm. They were lucky neither of them had been harmed. There were a handful of other people who'd lost an eye, and Gaius, Lily, and Merlin were busy treating them. The twins were fussy, not liking being held in one place and surrounded by pained moans and misery. Lancelot would take them upstairs if he couldn't still hear the bats shrilling outside and knew it was safer if they all stayed sealed in one location.
After everyone else had been seen to, Lily came over to treat Lancelot's scratches. He wasn't worried about infection, not with his wife's magical healing abilities that could make medicinal plants knock out any infection without issue. Rhedyn fussed and kicked against his leg. Lancelot leaned over to kiss the top of her head.
"You seem more worried than usual when we've faced worse," Lily said quietly as she picked their daughter up and rocked her on her hip.
"I've seen what Excalibur can do. And for it to be in the wrong hands…I really don't know what to expect."
He heard Elyan call Merlin's name and looked over to where the rest of the knights were gathered.
"Can you call the dragon again?" Elyan asked.
"The bats are so small, he'd nearly burn down the entire castle just to get at them," Merlin replied. "Plus, um, I really don't want to tell Kilgharrah we lost Excalibur."
"Why not?" Gwaine asked.
"It's complicated. But let's just say he can have a temper and that sword is a sensitive subject."
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
Merlin's mouth thinned. "I'll try to find something."
In the end, Merlin didn't have to find anything to use against the bats, as they departed at sunset. No one knew if they would be back or not, yet they couldn't stay locked inside forever either.
But how were they going to fight an enemy who attacked with magic from the shadows?
