CHAPTER 6
Blotches of crimson and gold swarmed across Arthur's vision, like thunderclouds roiling over a horizon. The bright imprints of sunlight on his vision seared his eyelids and transformed the world into winking fragments of colors and clusters of leaves over which dripped and erupted the sunshine. Arthur pressed his fingertips into the aching flesh of his eyes and blinked till the world sharpened and its forms became clarified. Arthur gazed up at the sky of overlapping leaves, each wrinkled and drenched in vibrant colors. The leaves draped and fell from the aged trees, their branches reaching up to the morning sky. Craning his head upwards, Arthur realized that he lay on his back, amidst a pile of fallen leaves. After the realization came the pain. What felt like hundreds of scorching sunbursts exploded inside his skull, forming individual packets of fresh pain. Wincing, Arthur staggered to his feet and surveying the clearing saw each of his carefully trained knights unconscious on the forest floor. Galahad, Gawain, Lancelot, and Tristan, his chosen men, and the other knights dispatched for this mission, all seemingly sleeping underneath the sunlight. Arthur's physical pain was overridden by a tumult of disbelief, outrage, and fury. A flash of sunlight on metal drew Arthur's gaze to where his sword lay, discarded; its shining blade concealed by the crumbled forms of dead leaves. Arthur lifted it, curled his fingers around its hilt, wiping the dirt from its blade. Holding the sword in his hand, Arthur strode over to Lancelot's side. He lay on his back, a large welt surrounded by a purple bruise on his forehead, partially covered by Lancelot's dark curls. Lancelot's tawny colored hair, nearly black, brought to Arthur's mind an image of the two boys, one dark haired like Lancelot, the other with locks as golden as Arthur's own. The two boys, standing in defiance, their weapons glinting, the two boys moving with skill beyond their years, fighting, striking his men down, but not killing them. Not taking their lives when Arthur had held his sword to the fair-haired one's throat. When Arthur would have been willing to take his life, the fair-haired spared him. These realizations were like barbs in Arthur's mind, the more he considered the deeper they burrowed and the more they bled, leaking ugly clotted thoughts into his mind that could not be erased or extracted. He had thought the boys a rose, just petals to be bent or crushed. But he had discovered thorns. Arthur replaced his uncomfortable ruminations with anger, reaching down he gripped Lancelot's breastplate and bellowed,
"Wake up!" Lancelot's eyes snapped open; one hand went to his sword belt, the other rose to defend himself. Seeing Arthur, his arm dropped, his brows knitted in confusion, then glancing about him shock appeared in his dark eyes, the color of a passing shadow. His lips moved but no sound emerged. Arthur didn't want for Lancelot to speak, instead shouting,
"Now awaken the rest of the men, I want them on their feet, now!" The reality was coming back to strike Arthur again and again. A pair of woodland boys had bested him, the thought was inconceivable, and again he considered the battle in his mind, identifying his fatal mistake. Arrogance and assumption. He had assumed the boys too awestruck and frightened to strike a knight in armor, and too cowardly to carry through on their defiance. And Arthur had been arrogant enough to believe that assumption correct. Lancelot had awakened the remainder of the men by now, some expressing shock, others furry. The sunlight swarmed over the sharpened angles of their faces, marked in shadows of dirt and weariness. They stood, Arthur's chosen men and the other knights of this mission, watching Arthur, unsure what to anticipate. Arthur raked them with his eyes and realized they were missing a man. Turning, at the far edge of the clearing he sighted a figure clad in a peasant's brown clock laying face down in the grass. Having discovered a second outlet for his anger Arthur strode to Merlin and gripping his tunic, slung Merlin to his feet. Merlin's eyes snapped open and he wavered for a moment on his feet before claiming his balance. By then, Arthur was already shouting,
"My men were being beaten by a pair of scrawny boys last night and you choose to hide like a coward in side of stand and fight like a man! What are the use of those godforsaken special abilities of yours when we meet a fight and your hiding in the bushes!" Merlin's face collapsed, as if was attempting to cave in on itself, his voice was panicked but firm as he answered,
"I was following your orders! You told me I am not a soldier, I don't belong on a battlefield, and I would get in your way. I was following orders. And I kept the dark-haired one with the daggers from killing you as well. And that's not even the extent of what I did." Arthur sighed in exasperation, tapping his fingers on the hilt of his sword. Merlin continued, a note of pride in his voice,
"I discovered that those two boys are in possession of a great deal of magic between them." Arthur froze, and then recoiled, those boys were magically gifted, unnatural creatures? If they had such power why didn't they use it? It was inconceivable, why would they battle hand to hand when they could manipulate the world with their minds?
"How did you come by this knowledge?"
"Both of them had strong mental barriers up to prevent their magic from being detected, but when I fled after the battle," seeing Arthur's face Merlin quickly added, "so that I could return at a later time and ensure all of you were alright, the fair-haired one knocked me to the ground. And when we collided her mental barriers dropped briefly as her focus was jarred and I could read her power. Also, the dark-haired one I think tore a branch from a tree with her mind and used it to strike my head, knocking me out. They must have dragged my body back to the clearing." Arthur's voice lowered,
"Is their magic as strong as yours?" Merlin considered the question, and then nodded slowly.
From behind Arthur he heard Gawain's voice, deep and echoing in the clearing,
"What do we do from here, my Prince?"
Arthur turned and measured each of them with his eyes, his men standing to attention, daring him to challenge them with weakness or lack of courage. Arthur declared,
"The boys are of no consequence to us. We pursue the stag. If we encounter the lads again however, we will fight." Arthur paused and his voice hardened, sharpened on those thorns clutching his mind, "And unlike them, we can draw blood."