I was going to put this up sooner but it didn't work very well, hope you didn't mind the wait. Reviews are greatly appreciated

Chapter 9

The soldiers Uther had sent out found Arthur by following his footprints and the sound of the sword fight with Alik. At first the soldiers refused to take Merlin back with them, they were sure that he would soon be dead and who cared? He was just a servant. But after a lot of ordering and a little bit of begging, Arthur managed to persuade Uther's men to take Merlin back to Camelot.

The journey to Camelot was quick because the soldiers had brought horses with them, but to Arthur the journey seemed to last an age. The thought of Merlin dying now, just as he was going to get help was slowly eating away at him from the inside, and every jolt that the horse Arthur was riding made created searing pain across his stomach, where Alik had wounded him in the fight.

When the soldiers returned to Camelot they took Merlin to Gaius, Arthur was about to follow but one of the soldiers stopped him:

"The King said he wanted to see you as soon as you get back to Camelot." The soldier said in a gruff voice.

Arthur knew that the first thing his father was going to do was to go into a blind rage and start raging about how Arthur never listens to him and needs to obey his orders. Why should any of that matter when Merlin was dying, and it was all his fault? But Uther wouldn't care; no one seemed to care.

"I'm sorry, the King's just going to have to wait, I'm going to see Gaius." Said Arthur, but the soldier grabbed his arm before he could walk off.

"I have to follow my orders and so do you, I'm sorry my Lord, but you have no choice."

With a heavy sigh Arthur didn't protest any more, and allowed himself to be escorted to Uther, dreading what was going to happen. Last time he disobeyed his father he was put in prison for a week, and because of it Merlin had almost died, he certainly didn't want that to happen again.

Uther was in the great hall, talking to Morgana, they both looked up when Arthur entered, Morgana looked very worried about something, but Uther didn't look as angry as Arthur thought he would.

"Thank you Morgana," Uther said, "would you please give me and my son some privacy, I wish to have a word with him."

Morgana nodded, but before she left she walked up to Arthur and whispered:

"I'm glad you're back, how's Merlin?"

Arthur shook his head sadly, "he's with Gaius." He replied.

Morgana looked even more worried than she had before, she nodded again and hurried out the room, the guards standing at the door followed her out and closed the doors behind them, leaving Uther and Arthur alone.

There was a long, and rather irritating silence as Arthur wondered if his father was actually going to say anything at all, he seemed to be thinking hard about what to say.

"Morgana has just told me everything." Uther said suddenly.

"She has?" Oh no, thought Arthur, this can't be good. "What did she say?"

"She told me about how it was she who told you that you should leave the castle and go and find the sorcerers, but you refused and said that it would only make things worse. Morgana then explained how the sorcerers managed to break in, they used magic so that no one would notice them, and they drugged your guards and tried to kill you, threatening to take over Camelot. I asked Morgana how she knew all of this and she told me that she heard the conversation between you and the sorcerers and when she went to investigate they ran away, but you chased after them."

"Oh," was all Arthur managed to say. Wow, it's not like Morgana to make up such a lie, and place the blame on herself.

"You seem surprised." Said Uther, he seemed to be reading Arthur's mind, and Arthur certainly felt like he was by the way his eyes were staring at him.

"I just thought you would be angry with me as I disobeyed you orders." Arthur confessed.

"I am disappointed that you did so," said Uther. "But you were left to protect the Kingdom, and I am glad you did, if not, who knows what might have happened. They sounded like very powerful and dangerous sorcerers. What happened when you went after them?"

"I chased them back to their camp, where it broke into a fight, I managed to kill one of the sorcerers, but…things didn't go as I had hoped." Arthur said eventually.

Uther glanced down to see blood still slowly dripping from Arthur's clothes from the wound he had sustained.

"You should go and see Gaius." Uther told him.

"Thank you father." Said Arthur, and without caring what his father might think of him, he turned and ran out the hall.

Merlin was lying on a bed, motionless. Gaius and Morgana sat next to him, Morgana looked like she had been crying, both looked up to see Arthur standing in the doorway, he suddenly found that he was unable to enter, as if he was afraid of the horrors that he might face if he did.

"It's alright Arthur, you can come in," said Gaius, who seemed to know what he was thinking.

"I should be going," said Morgana, standing up.

"Thank you for not telling my father the truth," said Arthur, as Morgana reached the door.

"You're welcome." Morgana tried to smile, but something stopped her, she hurried out the room.

Arthur sat where Morgana had been sitting, and looked down at Merlin. He was in a terrible state. His clothes were stained maroon with blood, surely he had lost too much blood, it seemed to be everywhere. His face was as white as a sheet; he was shivering but was sweating at the time. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow, the only good thing about Merlin was that he no longer had a knife sticking out of him, instead it was lying on a table a few feet away, stained with blood. Arthur put his face in his hands and could feel himself start to shake, he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Arthur, but there's nothing I can do, Merlin survived having the knife taken out, but he hasn't woken up. It's up to him now, I've got potions to help him keep up the fight, but that's all I can do. All we can do now is wait."

"You did your best." Arthur heard himself saying in a low, expressionless voice. "Do you think he's strong enough?"

There was a long silence, which seemed to answer Arthur's question before Gaius replied:

"I don't know, we'll see."

"It's all my fault Gaius." Arthur said suddenly, he could feel something inside his erupting like a great volcano, in the very pit of his stomach, is veins were burning and bubbling with rage, and for the first time in his life it was rage towards himself. "It's me who deserves to die, not Merlin." Arthur said, his anger seemed to be taking over, he stood up as if wanted to shake it off, but found himself pacing up and down angrily.

"It's not your fault Arthur."

"Yes it is! Don't you see what's happening? Merlin's dying and I did nothing to prevent it from happening, I shouted at him, I hurt him, then the brothers came and took him away because of what I had done and he spent the last few days of his life alone. I tried to save him but I ended up making things worse."

"You can't say that Arthur—"

"I can! It's the truth and you know it! What have I done?" Arthur strolled over to the knife and picked it up, staring at his reflection in the blood. "It would have bearly made any difference if I was holding the knife! I've killed Merlin!" Arthur roared, throwing the knife across the other side of the room.

Gaius was now on his feet, he didn't know what to do, he had never seen anyone so angry like this, he wondered if he should go and get someone who would be able to calm Arthur down before he hurt someone.

Then there was a strange sound behind him, like a long groan. Gaius and Arthur turned around and looked at Merlin, the sound of Arthur's voice seemed to have brought Merlin back from the staring eyes of death. Merlin groaned again, moving his head slowly from side to side. Arthur was sure he saw his eyes open for a few moments, before they closed again.

"Merlin?" Arthur ran over to him, the rage and anger seemed to have disappeared as quickly and sudden as it had appeared. He gripped Merlin's hand, he no longer felt as cold and he wasn't shivering, as Arthur clutched Merlin's hand he felt Merlin's fingers tighten a little around his in response.

Arthur looked up at Gaius, wondering if this was a good thing or not, maybe it was his last few moments of life before he died, but there was a twinkling in his eyes and a smile on his face that explained everything.

Merlin was going to be OK.

Arthur let out a long, deep sigh and sat back down in the chair.

"I think you should take back what you just said about yourself Arthur," said Gaius, "because you may have been the one that saved Merlin's life."