Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

Chapter Six

"The nightmares started about a week and a half ago, I suppose," Alena said. "My son, Kelson, was the first to have them. No one thought anything of it at the time; sometimes six-year-olds have nightmares. It was hardly anything to note. But then…" the woman took a deep breath, the fear clear in her eyes.

"It's all right," Arthur said, making a point to keep his voice gentle. "Take your time."

He and Merlin were sitting with Alena in one of the undamaged homes. Outside, the knights were helping the villagers put out the few remaining fires.

"Then my friend Lois," Alena gestured to the woman sitting beside her, "said that her husband, Theald, was having nightmares, and then another neighbor mentioned that she was having them too. I guess there were four or five people total who were having them in the end."

"What were the nightmares?" Arthur asked, dreading the answer.

"There was a monster," a small voice said from the doorway, and Arthur turned to see a child standing there, eyes wide with fear. His face was pale, and he had dark shadows under his eyes. Alena opened her arms and the child scrambled over to her, climbing into her lap. He huddled there, eyeing Arthur nervously.

"Kelson, this is King Arthur," Alena said comfortingly. "He came to help."

"You're going to fight the monster?" Kelson asked uncertainly.

"I am," Arthur said, forcing a quiet confidence into his voice in a way that he hoped was reassuring. "Can you tell me about what you saw in your nightmare, Kelson?" Kelson's eyes got wider and he drew even deeper into his mother. "I know it's scary," Arthur said. "You'd have to be brave to tell me, like a knight."

Kelson glanced toward the door, undoubtedly thinking about the knights outside. Then he turned back to Arthur. "It was black," he whispered. "It scratched me with its claws and it burned me with its fire."

It was hardly a poetic or terrifying description, but Arthur didn't need it to be colorful or detailed to understand the horror that accompanied it.

"That's helpful. Thank you, Kelson. You are very brave."

The boy smiled shyly and turned his face into his mother's chest. Arthur shifted his attention back to Alena.

"What happened next?"

"It was just the dreams until last night," she said, then she shuddered. "Then in the middle of the night last night, I heard screaming. From outside…" she trailed off and looked at her friend. Lois was pale, her hands trembling on her lap.

"I woke up when I smelled the smoke," Lois whispered. "I got up, and then I turned to shake Theald. Our babies are all grown now, so it's just me and him. But when I saw him…he was covered in blood. I don't know where he was hurt, because his body was soaked in it. I grabbed his arms and tried to drag him out of the burning house, but…" she broke off, her whole body shaking now, and Alena put a comforting arm around her.

"She passed out from the smoke," Alena whispered. "But her screams woke the neighbors. Her son lives next door, and he went in and pulled her out. Theald was…it was too late for him."

Lois buried her head in her hands.

"By the time I got outside," Alena continued the story, "there were two houses on fire in addition to Lois's, and there was a…" she looked down sympathetically at her son. "There was a monster. It had multiple heads and sharp claws, and it breathed fire. Some of the men tried to attack it. They chased it into the woods, but those who didn't burn were met with his claws. Six men died in total, although we have a number of others who were wounded or burned."

"How did you get rid of it?" Arthur asked, and Alena shook her head.

"We didn't. When the sun came up, it just disappeared."

Arthur nodded and took a quick inventory of his expression. He made sure it looked calm and confident. "Anything else you can think of that we need to know?"

"No," Alena replied softly. "Do you truly think you can kill it, my lord?"

Arthur smiled at her. "Of course we can."

Merlin saw straight through Arthur's smile. There was a tugging around his eyes and a stiffness to his jaw that meant he was lying. He was worried.

So was Merlin.

What bothered him most was the unpredictability. They couldn't track the beast. They couldn't lure it anywhere. It could pop out of a dream at any time. At least none of the knights had complained of nightmares, to his knowledge. Hopefully that meant they had some time before they were at risk themselves.

"Arthur," Merlin said in a low voice as they left Alena's house. "I'd like to see what I can do to help treat the injured."

Arthur nodded. "Do it. But Merlin," he added as Merlin walked away, "remember the rules."

Merlin met his eye and nodded.

No magic.

Most of the injuries were simple, and required little more than cleaning and bandaging. In fact, after the third patient, Merlin was surprised at how minimal the damage seemed to be. It wasn't until the fourth patient that he understood why.

The man had a sizeable gash on his arm and a number of burns, the result of a wall collapsing in one of the burning houses. But something about the wounds wasn't quite right. There wasn't as much inflammation as there should be. The wound looked just a little bit too healed.

Merlin wasn't trying to use magic, but he couldn't help sensing it. There was magic in the man's body. Not his own, but something working its way through his injuries, speeding the healing process.

Merlin felt the same thing on nearly every patient he saw. Each injury wasn't quite as bad as it should be, and each one had a thread of magic in it, helping it to heal.

"Do you think it will come back tonight?" Elyan asked around a mouthful of stew.

"I don't know," Arthur admitted. "The reports didn't mention whether the attacks only occurred once in each village or if they occurred multiple nights in a row." He hesitated for a moment, then made the confession he had been dreading. "I've had the nightmares," he admitted. "Several times over the past week."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Leon asked, eyes wide with horror.

"I thought they were just nightmares." Arthur shrugged. "But they match what I heard described today."

Glancing up, he caught the look on Merlin's face. Unlike the knights, who all looked concerned or nervous, Merlin's eyes were blazing. He looked angry and determined. Despite himself, he felt a pang of gratitude that Merlin was with them. He had a feeling they could all use his obnoxious optimism.

"You all set up camp here," Arthur said, glancing around the small clearing just outside the village. The villagers had insisted on providing the king and his knights with beds and shelter, but Arthur was unwilling to impose on them in the current circumstances. They had people whose homes had been burned and people who were injured; others needed the beds more than he and his men did.

"What do you mean, 'you all'?" Elyan asked with a frown.

"I'm going to set up about a hundred yards that way," Arthur replied, pointing. "In case," he hesitated, trying to phrase it gently. "In case the maera is born out of my nightmare tonight. I don't want it to appear right in the midst of you."

"Don't be ridiculous," Leon scoffed.

"You're the king, Arthur," Elyan said. "It's our job to keep you safe. We can't do that if we're not with you."

"There's no point putting you in danger unnecessarily," Arthur argued. "I can't risk it wiping us all out before we even have a chance to fight it. We're the best shot Camelot has at getting rid of this thing, and it doesn't make sense to jeopardize that for my safety."

"We'll take the risk," Percival insisted. "If the maera appears, we'll deal with it."

"I will not endanger Camelot's safety to protect my own," Arthur insisted stubbornly. "I will sleep over there. You will stay here. That's an order." He said it with as much finality as he could, and although he could tell they weren't happy, the four knights didn't argue further.

It felt a little bit strange as he laid down by himself. Even as a child, he'd always had guards with him. The knights were near, but he felt disconcertingly isolated and vulnerable.

Which might be why he jumped so high when he heard footsteps approaching him. Fortunately, he composed himself before Merlin came into view.

"What part of 'you stay here' did you not understand, Merlin?" he asked wearily.

"I need to talk to you. About a couple of things, actually." Arthur thought Merlin looked nervous, but it was hard to tell for sure in the dark. And Merlin hadn't entirely stopped looking nervous since he'd been freed from the dungeons.

Arthur sighed. "What is it?"

Merlin sat down a few feet away, hunched over with one arm wrapped tightly around his torso. It was, Arthur noted, a posture that Merlin had adopted several times that day.

His ribs, Arthur realized suddenly, and felt a pang of guilt.

Merlin fidgeted for a moment before blurting out, "I sensed something today. I didn't do magic, I promise. It just kind of happened."

Arthur sat up. "Sensed something? From the maera?"

Merlin shook his head. "No." He took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

"Spit it out, Merlin."

Merlin grimaced. "For the record, I really, really don't want to tell you this. But I said I wouldn't keep secrets from you, and I'm not going to. Just…" he sighed. "Just don't hurt anyone who doesn't need to be hurt, okay?"

"Excuse me?" Arthur blanched. "I'm not in the habit of hurting people for the fun of it, Merlin." He regretted the words as soon as he said them; Merlin's bruises were still visible in the moonlight. Of course, he hadn't inflicted them for fun, but one could certainly argue that they'd been unnecessary.

"I know," Merlin said hurriedly. "It's just…there's someone here with magic. In the village. They don't know much about how to properly clean and bandage wounds, but he – or she – knows how to use magic to treat them. I could sense the magic in the people I treated today, working to help them heal."

So Merlin not only had magic; he could sense magic in others. Interesting.

"Who is it?" Arthur asked.

"I don't know. I kind of made a point of not trying to figure it out, to be honest with you." Merlin fidgeted nervously. "They're just trying to help, Arthur. They're not using it to hurt people. And normally I wouldn't even dream of saying anything about it, because there's no reason for this person to suffer just because they helped people. But I agreed to no secrets. And this is me not keeping secrets."

Arthur took a minute to process this. Someone was doing magic. Which was illegal, not to mention evil and corrupting. But they were using it to provide healing to their neighbors in the aftermath of a tragedy, and even Arthur could acknowledge that it seemed unfair to punish them for that.

"We're not here to chase down locals who do a little bit of magic," he said finally. "We're here to stop the maera. We'll keep focused on our priorities."

He saw some of the tension drain out of Merlin. "Thank you."

Arthur nodded. "What was the second thing?"

Merlin immediately tensed again.

"I'd like permission," he said uneasily. "The maera could appear tonight. I'd like to enchant your swords. All of you. I don't know if the enchantment will work, but I can at least try."

"No," Arthur said immediately. "I will not even consider having you do magic unless it's absolutely necessary, and it's not necessary yet. We can beat the maera without it."

"If you believed that, you wouldn't have brought me along," Merlin pointed out quietly.

Arthur didn't respond immediately. Merlin was right. But even knowing that, he couldn't bring himself to cave and let Merlin do magic just yet. It was literally Merlin's first day out of the dungeons. Arthur felt like if he let him do magic this soon, it would be like saying that magic was okay. That he and Merlin were okay. And Arthur wasn't quite ready to move on yet; he still hadn't decided for sure that they would move on as opposed to Arthur trying Merlin for his crimes and punishing him.

"How about a compromise," Merlin suggested after a long silence. "What if I just enchant your sword, and you give me permission to enchant the others' swords during the battle if it looks like you're losing?"

Arthur shook his head, "I'm not going to have you enchant my sword and not the others." He would not afford himself protection that he refused to grant to his men. And he had to admit, the magic would offer some protection. He made a face, hoping that the night was dark enough that Merlin couldn't see it. "But I'll agree to the second part. If we fight the maera and it looks like we're losing, you can enchant the weapons then." He glanced sideways at Merlin. "You can do that? Enchant a sword mid-fight?"

It was hard to tell in the dark, but he was pretty sure Merlin smiled. "Yes, Arthur. I can do that."

Arthur was impressed despite himself. It wouldn't do for Merlin to know that though, so all he said was, "Huh."

"It might give it away though. They might see me doing the enchantment, or they might feel the magic. If I enchanted them tonight while everyone was asleep, there wouldn't be that risk.

"We'll take the risk," Arthur said firmly. "No magic unless it's absolutely necessary. Now you should get some sleep. I should too. If the maera returns tonight, we might not have time for much sleep before the fight."

Merlin nodded. "Goodnight, Arthur."

Arthur laid back down, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground. "Goodnight."

It took Arthur a moment to realize that he didn't hear Merlin leaving. Opening his eyes again, he looked over and saw his servant trying to get situated on his own piece of ground.

"Merlin." It came out as an exasperated sigh. "Go back with the knights."

Merlin didn't say anything, but he didn't move either.

"What part of 'that's an order' was unclear to you? I'm the king. I'm telling you to leave."

"You need someone nearby to protect you," Merlin said matter-of-factly. "If you won't let the knights do it, that leaves me."

"Have you lost your mind?" Arthur asked, irritated. "After the past week, you would disobey a direct order from me?"

"I'm not lying or keeping a secret," Merlin pointed out.

Arthur stared at him incredulously through the dark, and then finally laughed. He almost said, 'You really are an idiot, aren't you?' but stopped the words before they could roll off his tongue. It would have been too much like a joke. Too much like their normal banter.

He reminded himself that the man beside him, as familiar as he might seem, was in many ways still a stranger. This was a man who had lied to him and betrayed him. And if he couldn't trust him, he didn't want to joke with him.

But he couldn't deny, it was a comforting piece of normalcy to have Merlin near.

So Arthur didn't say anything.