Ch. 2

Merlin woke up and, by all that was holy, why did he have to wake up at all? The respite, it seemed, was over. His body was tired of being neglected, and it was now letting Merlin know it with a force just bordering on sending him back to that happy oblivion but not letting him. It seemed it didn't matter in whose hands he was in – friend or foe – the torture wasn't going to end.

A hard gust of wind cutting through him like a knife agreed. As much as he didn't want to, Merlin forced his eyes open only to slam them shut against an assault of stinging snow.

"Bloody blizzard!" he heard Gwaine shout above the howling wind. "If I knew a sorcerer was nearby I'd say this wasn't natural."

Merlin stiffened, searching himself and the familiar warmth of his activated magic. Gaius had said he could be a little... "magic" twitchy when ill or bone-deep tired. But he remembered the manacles like ice against his wrists and felt no new pains. This wasn't his doing.

Gwaine's arm tightened around his shoulders, bracing Merlin against his chest. "It's all right, Merlin. We'll find a way through this."

Merlin hunkered down into the cloak that had been cocooned tightly around him, but no amount of huddling would fortify him against this blizzard.

"Arthur, are you near!" he heard Gwaine call. Merlin popped his eyes open wide, searching the near-solid white for the king.

"Here!" he heard Arthur call. Then Merlin saw him, a dark, hazy shape through the snow veering closer toward them. "I see lights ahead! Look!" A dark splotch roughly the shape of an arm pointed. Both Merlin and Gwaine looked ahead. Sure enough, lights flickering like fireflies hovered just ahead of them.

The horses plowed through the rising drifts toward the lights, and Merlin fervently prayed those lights weren't willow-th'-wisps. One of Gaius' many books of mythical creatures had talked of them, of how they resided in the worst places and came at the worst possible times, when travelers were lost, desperate and willing to follow anything.

But the lights grew larger, as well as numerous when the horses skirted around the foot of a hill blocking the worst of the winds. The lights were close, now - so close Merlin was tempted to reach out, touch them and absorb their warmth.

The horse suddenly stopped, snorting in derision and skipping a step back.

"Easy there, my lad," Gwaine said, patting the horse's neck. "Looks like Kessey's found our salvation." Gwaine turned the horse enough to press his hand to a wall, a stone wall, the biting cold of it seeping into Merlin's shoulder.

"Follow the wall. Find an entrance!" Arthur shouted.

Gwaine did so by slapping along the mortared stones until the next slap became a thump.

Gwaine laughed. "Got it! Must be our lucky day. Feels to be open."

"Who the hell leaves their gates open in a blizzard like this!" Arthur griped from behind.

"Why don't we ask them once we get inside," Gwaine said. He chuckled. "If this isn't a trap and they don't kill us on the spot."

Merlin gulped audibly but it was lost to the wind. Gwaine steered his horse through the entrance. It was like crossing a barrier into another world, the wind dying and the snow thinned out to swirling flakes tumbling over the high ramparts. Merlin braced himself for the worst – arrows, swords, men shouting.

The only sound was the wind and the crunch of powdery snow.

"Good news. No one's waiting to kill us," Gwaine said.

Arthur steered his horse up beside them. "I can see that." He squinted up at the walls, then the courtyard itself. It wasn't a large structure, at least compared to Camelot. It was more the size of the ruins of the Isle of the Blessed but far more simple.

"Does something strike you as odd?" Arthur asked, still looking around and still with the terse expression normally seen when he believed the enemy was close at hand.

"You mean other than the door being left open?" Gwaine said. His tone, however, was far from jovial. "I don't know. The lack of any guards on the wall is rather bothersome. I'd say they were in the guard towers except no one's tried to take a shot at us."

"They couldn't see us in the blizzard?" Arthur suggested.

Merlin felt Gwaine shrug. "Towers look in as well as out. They would have seen us by now. And, again. Door. Open. Never mind the guards, I've got enough problems with that."

All the same, they urged the horses deeper into the courtyard.

"Hello!" Arthur called. "Is anyone there! We mean you no harm. A snow storm has taken us by surprise and we have a man injured and in need of urgent care. Is it possible to ask for sanctuary?"

Their answer was a gust of wind buffeting against them.

"I'm really not liking this," Gwaine muttered.

"I'm liking it even less. But we can't continue in this storm," Arthur said. He led the way to the nearest door, a large set as big as the gates. Arthur hopped from his horse and tugged at the ornate handle. It moaned open. Arthur stuck his head inside.

"Hello? Anyone?" Even from the outside Merlin could hear the way his voice echoed. Arthur tugged the door wide enough for them plus the horses to get through.

"By the gods, it's beautiful," Gwaine breathed. They had entered a great Cathedral of a chamber with a vaulted roof supported by towering pillars of amber glittering with bits of quartz. There were no chairs, only a wide open marble floor covered in a red and black rug so intricately woven with impossible Celtic knots that Merlin had a hard time believing magic wasn't somehow involved in its creation. At the other end of the chamber was a dais with a plinth, and behind it a great stained-glass window of red, gold, white and black.

Arthur, however, was more interested in the door across from the entrance. It was smaller, but still a struggle for Arthur to open. Gwaine, in the meantime, steered his horse to the plinth and swiped a finger across it.

"Clean." His eyes strayed to the many candles dripping wax all over their sconces. "Very clean. Must be some sort of monastery. In which case I doubt whoever lives here would appreciate us defiling it with muddy hoof prints."

"If there is anyone here. Come on," Arthur said. He grabbed his horse's reins and led it through the door. Gwaine urged his horse to follow.

"You doing all right, there, Merlin?" Gwaine asked.

"F-f-f-fine."

Gwaine chuffed. "You know you'd be easier to believe if your bones weren't rattling together."

Arthur took them through a wide corridor deeper into the citadel... monastery, whatever it was... and still with not a soul to be found.

"They must have fled while they had the chance," Gwaine said. The hallway was lit with torches, some of them guttering down to stumps. "Before the storm hit. They must have been mad or desperate to leave in the middle of winter."

"If it was a matter of being under attack this place would still be occupied but by the enemy," Arthur said. "That it's not is even more worrisome."

It took a bit of searching, going from wide halls to narrow halls back to wide, but they eventually found the wing dedicated to housing whoever had lived here. There were plenty of rooms to choose from, sparse save for a few books, some candles and bedding. The candles weren't lit, which for some reason made Merlin feel better – as though these rooms had not yet been touched.

Whatever the reason for this place's abandonment, it didn't deter Gwaine and Arthur from wasting no time in getting Merlin settled. They had chosen a room with a fireplace, the wood already in the hearth waiting to be lit. Gwaine got a cheery blaze going while Arthur pulled the little wooden bed a little closer to the fire.

"We'll need some water and something for bandages," Arthur was saying as he wrapped Merlin in blankets. Finding the needed supplies would take time, time Merlin could use to warm up. Gwaine was right, Merlin was shivering fit for his bones to knock together.

"I'll go," Gwaine said, getting up.

"Melt snow!" Merlin said.

Gwaine paused, eying him oddly. "Eh?"

Merlin swallowed, moistening his aching throat. "Unt-til we kn-know why n-no one is here w-we should b-be careful. N-not eat or d-drink anything f-from here."

Arthur sighed, scraping his hand down his haggard face. "Merlin's right. We've been through having our water tainted and though it didn't leave Camelot abandoned it was not for wont of trying. There's too many possibilities as to why this place looks like it's just been emptied."

"I'll still need something to carry snow in," Gwaine said.

"If anyth-thing was tainted," Merlin said. "It w-would be the f-food and wat-ter only. N-not p-p-pots and p-pans. M-much easier."

Gwaine nodded once and left, sword in hand. Arthur seated himself at the foot of the bed next to Merlin and stared into the fire. Shadows danced across his face.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Merlin looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "What f-for?"

"For not coming sooner."

Merlin thought back to the day he had been taken, so many weeks ago it was like a dream to him, now – a persistently bad dream, but dampened by time and all the things that had followed. He furrowed his brow. "You were injured, w-weren't you?"

Arthur rubbed his shoulder as though the reminder had brought back the pain. "An arrow to the shoulder. The knights searched for you but slavers know how to cover their tracks. And even with Cenred no longer ruling, his lands are still dangerous for anyone in Camelot to enter. We knew our only choice would be to infiltrate the auction itself."

"And you c-came yourself. Arthur, th-that auction is d-dead center of C-Cenred's land."

"Hence the disguise," Arthur said with exasperation like it should have been obvious, his hand sweeping down himself.

Merlin chuffed, his shivers on the decline. "You c-came all the way deep into Cenred's land, d-dressed like a servant while Gwaine got to be a lord. For m-me." He eyed Arthur askance. "You d-do know that this means you can never say you d-don't c-care about me. And don't say it was because my replacement was rubbish at p-polishing your armor."

"No, actually," Arthur said stiffly. "He was rubbish at everything else."

Merlin laughed. It hurt but he didn't care. "You are..."

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

"... far less of a prat than you would have me believe," Merlin finished fondly.

Arthur cuffed him across the back of the head, but as light as he had tried to make it, it was like the first stone of an avalanche, or stepping on a tail in a room full of spooked cats, the pain rippling through Merlin's body until he was curling into himself.

Arthur was immediately in front of Merlin, his face tight and gaunt with worry.

"Merlin?"

"S'all right. S'passing," he gasped.

Arthur cupped his hand to the back of Merlin's head and held it there, but looked at the door. "Where the hell is Gwaine with that water?"

~oOo~

Gwaine was already starting to miss being a lord. Well, a lord over Arthur since technically he was a lord and wasn't exactly fond of it. So what he really missed was lording over Arthur – he chuckled to himself at the pun. Once in Cenred's lands – or former lands, however you wanted to look at it – they'd had to keep up appearances, and it had been fun. He didn't even care that Arthur was going to put him through one hell of a pace during training once they were home, the image of Arthur stumbling through the woods gathering firewood was worth it for the mental entertainment value alone.

But he had to give his royal whiny-ness credit where credit was due – no other king would have done what Arthur had done, not for a servant. Gwaine might not be a fan of nobles but, damn it, it was hard not to respect Arthur. They'd gotten Merlin back like he'd promised, and they had even got a bit of a skirmish out of it.

Gwaine retraced their steps, having spotted something like a kitchen halfway to the living quarters. Low and behold, there it was, just on the other side of a wide arched entry, its heavy doors opened flushed against the wall. It was a nice kitchen, Gwaine had to say. Nothing fancy like Camelot's kitchen but it had what they needed and then some if they didn't have to worry about tainted food.

Gwaine frowned as he rummaged through the many cupboards and drawers. The larders were decently stocked, not to mention neatly arranged. Gwaine wasn't an expert on fleeing a permanent home on a moment's notice (an inn or tavern, yes, but then that's why he carried little with him) but he was quite sure that if one were fleeing as a matter of avoiding capture, then one would leave the kitchens a bloody mess trying to grab what food they could before anyone else.

That was the real problem with this place – not that it was abandoned, but that it didn't look abandoned. It looked like everyone had stepped out for a bit of fresh air and got lost, all at the same time. A chill went down Gwaine's spine like the tip of a knife.

An airy whisper behind him made him go rigid. Gwaine's grip tightened on his sword. He rose, slowly, from the cupboard he'd been rummaging through. He backed up a step, put weight on his heel and pivoted sharply around, sword raised.

There was no one there.

Gwaine relaxed with a snort. "Great. Not even a half hour in this place and I'm already going mad." He wasn't normally one to make a hasty retreat – not if he could help it - but in this case he would make an exception. He found a good sized pot and grabbed it. There were two small, wooden doors in the kitchen, one that opened to the pantry and the other rattling against the wind. Gwaine went through the one rattling and smiled to see a nice pile of snow gathered against the wall outside. He pulled on his gloves he kept tucked in his belt and used the snow to scrub out the pot, lifting his head every so often to glance into the courtyard, because empty didn't equate safe. Usually the opposite, from his experience. He noted what looked to be some kind of barn not far from the door and made a mental note of it. Maybe the human food was tainted but he couldn't imagine why anyone would go to the trouble to poison animals.

Although maybe it was best not to test that assumption.

Pot as scrubbed as his cold body cared to deal with, Gwaine filled it with snow and lugged it back inside.

He just shut the door when he heard it – that airy whisper like someone trying to catch his attention. Gwaine stilled, straining his ears.

"Hello?" he called.

No one answered. The whispering had stopped.

A shadow flitted across the kitchen entrance. Gwaine ran at it even with his hands still occupied by the pot. He leaped outside hoping to catch the source of the shadow before it vanished.

The hallway – the very long hallway – was empty.

It was time for another retreat. Gwaine hoped this didn't become a habit.

TBC...

A/N: Apologies for Ch. 1 coming and going. I'm not sure what was up with that and there didn't seem to be anything I could do other than wait for to get it's act together.