A/N: This chapter is bad. I mean, really bad. As in bad stuff happens. And it is slightly longer than the others, too... - I apologize in advance and promise it'll get better!


Chapter 16 – Sudden Movement

I opened the door to the shed and upon entering was greeted with the by now familiar smell of goat and cow droppings, animal fur,hayand straw. The calm-looking, white goat (which in secret I called Percy), stared at me through its creepy, slit pupils, but by now I had gotten used to that, too.

While I started to milkPercy, I closed my eyes and wished myself to be somewhere else. Don't misunderstand me: Staying with the old, widowed farmer's wife, her cow, goat, and chickens was a huge step up from sleeping in the woods (or rather, not sleeping), but still, I wished – well, anything but this.

At least I was able to sleep near a fire in the night (I even had two blankets, a sure sign the woman was very fond of me by now), feeling safer than I had for months. But even though people in the small village were friendly enough to an 'orphaned' girl, more than willing to work for something to eat and somewhere to sleep in the night, I still feared for something to happen. I woke every night trembling after another nightmare. More often than not those included staff-holding figures, shadows moving in the dark, eyes flashing gold, mouths speaking without anything attached to them and dark caves full of cackling laughter, remembering me time and time again that I was a constant danger to everything, especially the townsfolk.

But I would've gone crazy if I'd stayed out in the woods for another day.

I carried the bucket, half-filled with Percy's milk, to the door and opened it. I made about three steps when something or someone knocked me over forcefully. I had a split second to think I'm going to spill the milk before I hit the ground and everything went black.


I awoke to confusion and a splitting headache. It took me several seconds to figure out how to open my eyes and even longer until I was able to process what I saw.

The house in which I had stayed for almost three months was burning. The shed was nothing more than blackened walls by now, and I vaguely wondered what had happened to Percy. The whole village was devoured by flames. I could see people running around, trying to extinguish the flames, dark figures against the red. They were obviously fighting a lost cause, though.

I sat up carefully and when there was no feeling of dizziness, I stood up, wondering what had happened and what had set the houses aflame.

It didn't take long for me to find out. The moment I was standing, I felt something which felt rather familiar pressed to my back. Someone hissed: "I wouldn't move now if I were you, girl."

Frozen with shock, I stayed where I was.

I heard people laugh, then the neighing of a horse, and then riders, I counted thirty in all, galloped in the direction of the people trying to save their houses. I saw swords, heard screams and found that I couldn't watch what happened, so I closed my eyes.

It felt like a long time had passed in which there was nothing but the smell of smoke, screams of terrified people running, screams of terrified people being captured, screams of terrified people being cut down.

Despite all what had happened to me in this world until now, this was the worst moment of them all, because I wasn't able to do anything. At least it's not your fault now, a tiny voice in my head whispered, making me feel even more useless, tiny and frightened.

In retrospect I guess I could've tried something. I had, after all, been a knight for quite some time, and had gotten out of worse situations than this before. It wasn't the first time someone held a sword to my back, either. But all I could do was cry, tremble, concentrate on not fainting and keep breathing.

And then finally it was over.

The men on the horses reappeared. Their faces were flushed, most of them were laughing. At least one of them was sitting on his horse like he was really drunk or hurt badly; one horse was riderless. But the townsfolk were, for all I knew, all dead.

I felt the sword-tip move, but before I could try anything (which would certainly have resulted in me being killed) the man holding the sword moved to stand directly in front of me. He was a head shorter than me, bald, with a shaggy beard, bad teeth, which showed because he was smiling greedily, and filthy clothes. The way he looked at me sent a shiver down my spine.

Before he could say anything, though, one of the riders, a tall man with his sword still dripping blood, walked over. It was obvious by the way shaggy-beard cringed before him that he was the leader of the gang and, as I realised in this moment, the only thing standing between me and... who knew what.

He seized me up carefully, keeping a straight face, taking his time, and then nodded at his minion. Shaggy-beard tied my hands in front of me and then dragged me toward the horses where, as I now could see, four other girls from the village were standing too. I felt the need to comfort them in some way, but couldn't think of anything. My insides had gone numb.


A day passed. Another one. Then a week. Another week. The gang was on the run, and they liked it. Whenever they found a village small enough, they attacked; preferably, as they did in the village I had come from, in the early morning hours when nobody expected an attack. Sometimes they took other women, sometimes they didn't. We had to walk on foot, guarded by four men with swords and bows. In the nights they tied us to trees, so tightly it was hard to sleep at all. Sometimes the leader came and took a woman with him. Sometimes she didn't return. More than once his glance passed over me and then moved on. It was always someone else he took with him, and I was glad about it. I knew it was disgusting to feel this way, even then, but I couldn't help it.

After a while I stopped counting the days and reduced my thoughts and my whole being to simply exist and stay that way till the next morning.


I awoke with a start in the middle of the night, feeling exhausted and cold. I tried to pierce the fogginess in my head to remember what had woken me. Then I heard the sound again: A soft tinkling sound, which was familiar, then a snap, giving me another hint. Then nothing for a few seconds. I sat up and listened concentrated, staring into the darkness with wide eyes, not wanting to miss anything. And then all hell broke loose.

The night was suddenly alight with torches and people yelling. The bandits were taken by surprise and I felt some kind of deep satisfaction in me that they got what they deserved.

The women around me were screaming in surprise or fear and tried to get loose, but I knew the knots were tied expertly and the ropes were too thick to damage them without a weapon.

I knew that from many a night's experience.

We were tied to trees some way off the camp, as usually, but after a few minutes I heard people coming. They had found us. The guards tried to flee, but were killed within minutes.

In the torchlight I saw swords glittering and chain-mail shirts. Then I saw a red cloak with a golden dragon emblazoned on it.

My heart skipped a beat and then started to beat wildly. I knew they were going to free us – but was someone with them I knew? Merlin? Arthur? Or someone else?

But I spotted nobody I knew. Coming to think of it, it was only logically none of them were on their way to free prisoners. They would be where the battle was thickest, naturally.


It wasn't hard to get away from the small group of wailing, crying women, expressing their thanks in wordiness or just sitting by the trees in shock. I slipped away at the first convenient moment, because I didn't want to run into any of my former friends. I couldn't bear to imagine what they would think of me if they found me here, like this. Getting imprisoned again to finally get executed would definitely be the option I'd rather chose than to see Gwaine's despising look on me.


I trekked for half a day to the south, brining as much land as possible between the Camelot patrol and me. I passed a landmark on the way and knew that I was in Nemeth now. My heart sunk at the thought of having left Camelot after all, but otherwise I was feeling better with every step I took. The exhaustion was gone, my headache bearable, and the pure feeling of freedom was enough to get over part of my past experiences and keep me going.

My subconscious would surely add new images to my nightmares, though, but still, I was free.

I reached a broad stream and after drinking until I was full, dipped my head in. The water was cold, but refreshing. I looked down at my ripped dress, shrugged and pulled it over my head to at least try and get some of the filth out of it. Then I washed myself and felt wonderful afterwards.

The sun was warm enough to dry off the dress within an hour, so I could pull it on again and took up my walk once more, this time following the stream.

When I ran across a bush with berries, I stopped and ate them, slowly, one at a time. They were sweet and juicy, and while I ate I was at the brink of tears just because they tasted so good.

I made camp at the side of the river this night and, despite having feared for nightmares, slept soundly through it out of mere exhaustion. The next morning I resumed my walk at a brisk pace while trying not to think about my lack of destination.

After an hour of walking, while I stopped to appease my thirst, I suddenly noticed movement on the other side of the stream. I jumped up, ready to start running – but stopped the moment I saw who had made the movement.

A number of feelings were crossing his face within moments after seeing me. In the end, he simply looked confused and unsure of what his own eyes were telling him.

"Will?!"

We stood like this for what felt like eternity – I on the one end of the stream, Merlin on the other.