Chapter Nine
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
In-depth greetings and explanations had to wait until Gaius had patched up Hayden with the medical supplies he had in the abbey. There were also people in there: a middle-aged married couple with two young daughters, a teenage couple, three older uni students , and a retired man. Most were friends or former patients of Gaius's. M onths ago they had been avoiding the widespread fires in York and found the stone model abbey to be a relatively safe place to winter . Recently they'd been attempting to spread out, to find more people and supplies, but just days earlier the wyverns had arrived and driven them back to their refuge.
"We barricaded ourselves in; we don't have any weapons worth speaking of," the middle-aged man, James, told Gwaine while Gaius and Elen tended to Hayden and Everard and Leon were off fetching the rest of their group. "Those...things wouldn't let up for a second."
The younger of James's two daughters, who looked about eight, detached herself from her mother and sister and came over to cling to him. He stroked her hair. "It's okay, Emma. The monsters are gone. Our new friends got rid of them ."
The little girl squinted up at Gwaine. "How'd you do it?" she said shyly.
He smiled down at her. "Practice," he said, adding, "We've...met some of those creatures before."
"I just wish we knew where they came from." The teenagers had been listening in, and the taller, darker one of the two spoke almost bitterly. "Nothing makes sense anymore. Lizards don't fly."
"Ruby…" her girlfriend started, but Ruby shook her head.
"You know I'm right, Amelie. None of this should be possible!"
"Not according to what most people believe," Gwaine said. "But I think everyone's just going to have to revise what they believe. Not saying it's going to be easy."
I feel bad for all of them, honestly. I can remember a time of myth and magic. They don't have that; they're just being thrown headfirst into it.
Because, as Gaius quietly told him and Leon while handing them bowls of thin canned soup for dinner, " From the wyverns, among other things, i t's clear that m agic is returning...and I fear that includes both the good and the bad."
They all spent the night in the rather crowded abbey; Hayden regained consciousness briefly before nightfall and managed to say, "I still like wyverns, darling," to his wife. According to Gaius, he did have a badly broken arm, a concussion, and a lot of nasty bruises, but would make a full recovery in time.
The abbey group hadn't heard about the Isle of Anglesey, and were definitely intrigued. Whispered conversations between twos and threes went on late into the night.
Unable to sleep, Gwaine went for a walk around the abbey after everyone's voices had died out. As he came back around to the front door, he found Gaius sitting on the front step. "See anything of note?" the physician inquired.
"No. All quiet; the wyverns are still dead." Gwaine sat down next to him, grateful for modern fleece-lined coats on chilly nights. "We'd hoped that Merlin had found you."
"Leon said as much earlier." Gaius sighed heavily. "I wish he had."
They sat in silence for a minute, then the older man said, "Elen told me about your parents, your aunt and uncle, your cousin Aldwyn . I am so very sorry for your loss."
"Yeah, well…" Gwaine looked up at the scattered clouds and stars. "Sometimes I have to tell myself to stop wishing they were here. 'Cause they're not, and never will be." No miracles, not this time around. Not for Father, Mother, Harlan, Aldora, Aldwyn...Who even knows about Haralda...
Pause. "It is a great gift, I suppose...being able to live twice," Gaius said, "But at the same time...we've all lost so much." Another sigh, then, "It's too cold for my old bones out here. And I'm sure you need to rest."
The uni students didn't want to leave York, for various reasons, but everyone else was glad to join the group headed for the Isle of Anglesey. For them, even the hope of some kind of sanctuary was better than staying in one place, surrounded by the thousands upon thousands of ghosts.
Gwaine, Leon, and Everard fixed up some more bamboo spears and gave the three people staying at the abbey some pointers in how to use them, in case more wyverns made an appearance. Other than that, there was little to do than divide up medical and food supplies and start the long journey ahead; they left York only four days after their initial arrival.
They avoided towns but used the roads littered with abandoned cars and luggage as often as possible. This made it easier on everyone, at least until they came across areas where the roads had been shredded by earthquakes.
"This would happen even off the roads," George, the second-oldest person in the group and an old friend of Gaius's in this life, said when Gwaine apologized yet again for the rough going. "Damn quakes screwed everything, didn't they?"
Otherwise, the trip went as smoothly as could be expected in a post-apocalyptic England. James and his wife Mary actually knew much of landscape between York and North Wales and were a big help with navigation. Their daughters, Emma and ten-year-old Ellie, were almost no trouble at all despite their ages and soon became fast friends with Heidi. Ruby and Amelie had a knack for ferreting out more supplies when the opportunity arose. When weariness set in among the travelers, George would start telling long, rambling stories that were usually hilarious and kept everyone going a few miles longer.
Gaius, of course, was as invaluable as he had always been in Camelot. Hayden, left arm in a sling and moving slower than normal, submitted to being checked over twice a day by the physician while continuing to be perpetually glum. He was the only person who never laughed at George's stories, and he rarely smiled at anything else or even spoke . As days passed, Gwaine sensed even Elen was beginning to lose her patience with him.
"He's not upset about the wyverns, is he? Or maybe he's still in a lot of pain? I know you've been slipping him painkillers..."
"I doubt it's the wyverns. He was always reasonable about wild ones dying if it was necessary…" Elen scowled at nothing. "Honestly, he's been a bit like this since I met him...this time around, I mean."
"He's remembered his past life ever since you met him."
"I know. But that means I have no other frame of reference…" Elen stopped speaking as Mary approached with a question about the evening meal.
And that was the other awkward thing. Gwaine, Elen, and the twins had all given their "second life" names in order to maintain secrecy for their new companions and Heidi. Mixing up "Hal" and "Hayden" didn't cause any noticeable stir as it seemed to be accepted that the former could be a shortened version of the latter. Leon just went with his "unusual" name as he had been. Gaius was lucky enough to have been named the same thing twice.
But it was getting harder and harder not to slip up. Personally, Gwaine felt less and less like Garth Barclay by the day, as decades more of old memories started taking precedence over his newer ones. Elen kept casting small spells far to close to people who weren't supposed to know about magic, and the twins kept stumbling over their names whenever they spoke to each other. Heidi started complaining about weird dreams again.
Naturally, things all came to a head when a group of bandits attacked.
Because of course they did.
They were deep in Wales, traveling along a winding seaside roadway and enjoying the sunny day and lovely view when at least two dozen armed men and women descended from the rolling bluffs, blocking the road in front and behind the travelers.
Let's see...our knives and a couple makeshift spears against spiked clubs, larger knives, and a couple firearms. Doesn't seem like good odds.
Gwaine had once enjoyed playing worse odds, but he wasn't willing to with innocents on the line. Turning to Elen, he said, "You got this?"
Eyes widening, she glanced behind them at the rest of the group; everyone had weapons out and most looked terrified. "You mean…"
"Look, they're gonna find out someday. Might as well be while you're saving all our lives."
"What are you talking about?" James demanded, immediately echoed by Ruby.
The bandits started shouting warnings, and Elen let out resigned sigh. "Fine. Forbearnan! "
In front of them, fire leapt into being upon the line of bandits. As their threats dissolved into screams, Elen spun around. " Ástríce! W áce ierlic! " Bodies went flying back, writhing through the air.
Among the bandits set on fire, Gwaine saw one raising a gun. No way I'd reach him in time... "Elen! Behind you!"
Whirling, she saw what he did and shouted, " Scildan! " as a gunshot rang out. The bullet, along with the two that followed it, clattered harmlessly to the cracked pavement. Elen's eyes flashed gold once again. " Swilte! " The man collapsed.
The few bandits on either side that hadn't been incapacitated or taken off running or been incapacitated yet rushed forward, only to be met by Gwaine, Leon, and Everard, who, faced now with mere hand-to-hand weapons, had little trouble subduing them.
Gwaine did see Everard stumble, almost overwhelmed by his opponent, but the man staggered back a moment later as Elwin threw a dagger into his chest with impeccable aim. And, suddenly, it was over.
Standing in the near-silence, surrounded by bodies, Gwaine looked towards those who hadn't been involved in the fight, who didn't know the distant past, and saw even more fear than before.
"What. The. Hell." Ruby whispered.
"Who are you people?" James said shakily. "And what...what…" He pointed at Elen. "What is she?"
"I'm a sorceress," Elen said calmly, brushing off her jacket. "Magic is real, those 'monsters' that trapped you in the abbey were wyverns, and while we are looking for a safe place to live, our eventual mission is to find a supposedly-immortal sorcerer who might know why the world seems to be ending. Any questions?"
"You couldn't have phrased that more delicately?" Gaius said after a stunned pause. "I would've thought Ela had at least taught you a bedside manner."
"Tact was Father's specialty," Elen said. "And he wasted it on Gwaine."
"Wouldn't call it a waste," Heidi said from over by the road's railing. She had her arms around Ellie and Emma, but her attention was entirely on the adults. "Gwaine was pretty tactful by the time he came creeping home from Camelot."
"I did not creep!" Gwaine protested without thinking. Then, Oh, shit. It finally happened.
The twins exchanged looks. "Hertha's back," Elwin said cheerfully.
Everyone other than the Barclayns, Hayden, Leon, and Gaius looked more dumbfounded than ever. "All right," Mary said, taking charge like the mother she was. "We are staying right here until someone explains what on Earth is going on!"
"It's a long story," Sir Leon said in his best "I'm the reasonable person here" voice. "And you might not believe it."
"Right now, I think we're ready to believe anything," Amelie said.
No one had an argument for that. Except…
"Can we just move away from all the burning bodies?" Hayden said. "They smell. My wife really does get carried away sometimes."