Chapter 4

Merlin woke up, slowly opening one eye as the smallest ray of sunshine entered his tent. He wondered what had woken him, as it was clearly too early to. Even the sun outside had barely greeted the sky. He looked around, frowning at the king's bedroll which was missing a certain blonde haired royal. Grudgingly he got up, putting on his boots, ready to go and look for Arthur. Evidently, even if they're not in Camelot, he would still have to get up unnaturally early, usually due to one or another of Arthur's demands, although indirectly this time.

Emerging from the tent, he could make out the familiar outline of someone moving in the trees just up ahead from where they had been having dinner last night. He followed silently, knowing Arthur wasn't too far away. Passing the pile of firewood, he saw the smoke still rising from the last embers of the fire they had sat by. Merlin couldn't help but wonder how few hours of sleep he had been allowed to have, before having to follow the royal prat. Sighing, he picked up his pace, there was no way he was going to lose Arthur's trail.

Arthur had been woken up by one of his knights in the early hours of the morning, as he had previously requested. He had not wanted to risk being caught unawares again if there was going to be any sign of trouble.

The doubt in his mind, that this could be a trap, was growing, although he still couldn't say if he did trust this woman or not. He would have to seek her out and work out what exactly was going on. Right now, he had to find out where they were, and how far from Camelot they had come. When they had been ambushed, they hadn't been too far form his borders. By his count, they had maybe walked two or three hours to get to this camp. But which direction they had gone in, Arthur didn't know. Still, he would find out what he could. There had to be some sign or clue that would give away their location.

Arthur had gone only a little into the trees, before he heard twigs snapping not too far behind him. Drawing his sword, he wondered who could be following him. He took cover behind a tree, wide enough to hide him, but also allow him to see whoever would soon be coming his way. Listening to all the twigs that were being trampled on, Arthur knew of only one person who could make so much noise. His suspicions were proved correct as he saw his lanky servant push through the trees.

"Merlin, what are you doing?"

Merlin, to his credit, jumped only slightly as Arthur showed himself.

"Me? I was looking for you. What are you doing here at such an ungodly hour?

Sheathing his sword, the king just shook his head at his servant. He should have guessed that Merlin would have followed him. After all, this wasn't the first time. But at least this time, Merlin could be of some help. Two heads are always better than one supposedly. He wondered if the statement could be true when one of the heads belonged to Merlin, and was just full of air, as he sometimes suspected.

"I am trying to find out where we are. Why don't you make yourself useful Merlin, and see if you can find anything that can tell us where we are." Arthur said, turning away from him and scanning the trees again. "It was too dark last night but the daylight should help us."

Merlin stood there, taking a second to process what Arthur wanted from his sleep -addled self.

"So ... we are in a forest."

"Well done Merlin. Your intelligence astounds me. Now that you've clarified that we are indeed in a forest, don't just stand there. Why don't you have a look around and see what you can find. Move!." Arthur than repeated himself, a little slower this time. "We need to find something here, anything that can help us identify where we are."

"But there are only trees here..."

Arthur was doing his best not to let his frustration at his servant show. He took a deep breath before answering, "Yes, and that's why we have to distinguish between them."

Nodding his head, Merlin tried to look at what he could find out from the trees. "Ok, so we know they are tall … brown branches … green leaves … well that one has darker green, oh no no wait that's because it's in the shad- ow! What did you do that for?" he said rubbing his head where Arthur had just struck him!

"It is far too early in the morning, for you to be this stupid Mer -lin!"

"You're just saying that because you haven't had your breakfast yet!"

Arthur came to stand in front of Merlin, placing a hand on his should and said with a sweet smile, "Merlin, just because I may not have any goblets to lob at your head, don't for a minute, think I won't be able to find something here that would be more than adequate to do the job if you don't sh-"

"Shut up?"

"YES"

"OK!"

"Now, Merlin."

"ok.." Merlin whispered, as he moved away from Arthur, he certainly didn't want to accidentally goad the King into hitting him again. Definitely not before breakfast! But he couldn't help but mutter to himself about how likely Arthur could find something to use on him when he couldn't even find what he already been looking for, for so long.

Best to keep quiet for now. After all, he did not want to be the one responsible for the vein in Arthur's head bursting. Knowing his luck, he would probably be the one to have to clean the sorry mess Arthur would leave behind. Even in his death, Merlin could trust his King to make his life a misery.

But Arthur was right about one thing, it was far too early for this. Yet, Merlin moved further, hoping to find something whilst wishing he was elsewhere. He could only think of his own bed, limp and thin as it was, waiting for him to crawl into, when he got back.

Arthur had tried his best to not let his simple minded fool of a servant distract him from the task he had set out to do. He had tried, and failed. And now, not only had they made no progress in finding out how far they were from Camelot, he couldn't even tell how far away from the camp-site they were. He couldn't even guess which direction to head back in. if they got lost, Arthur was most certainly, without a doubt, going to blame his servant for it.

It was all Merlin's fault anyway. He had been the one to swoon at the pretty little lady and then insist they follow her. And apparently the first thought that popped into the idiot's head when he woke up was, "Oh why don't I go find Arthur and annoy him. Not like he could be doing anything important."

If his unwelcome servant had not come trampling Arthur's way, then they king would not have been distracted and he surely would not have lost track of where they were. Of course he could trust his pathetic excuse of his servant to make a bad situation even worse!

They were lost. Merlin knew it. The way Arthur was stalking the same trees over and over again, Merlin suspected that Arthur knew too, or at least would be coming to that conclusion very soon. Knowing it would not be wise to repeat the warning they had been given about not going off on their own, he kept his mouth shut. A 'told you so' was the last thing Arthur would want to hear right now, even if it was itching to get off his own tongue.

Merlin cast his magic, subtly he hoped, as Arthur was too busy grumbling a little away. He could sense some sort of a magical barrier. Maybe this was one of camp's defences. So as not to allow just anyone to find the location of the camp. He could probably use the source of the spell to find their way back. If he did manage to find a direction to lead them in, Merlin hoped that Arthur would follow, despite their earlier interaction. He cast another spell, more powerful this time to momentarily dismantle the magic that he suspected was keeping them out.

Caledi hadn't been able to get to sleep, and not for lack of trying. Every little sound was forcing her to become alert and sit back up. Even after she had checked on everyone in the camp, and doubled the protection spells she had placed around them, Caledi still wasn't fully comfortable.

It was no surprise really, after all it was the King of Camelot and his knights that she had allowed to sleep only a few feet away from herself.

She had heard him to be a man of principle, but with the shaky ground magic puts people on, Caledi could not remove the fear in her heart that she had managed to put her people in danger. Surely the king would not be thinking of any attack against them. Caledi knew he didn't trust her but they had given them food and shelter.

Fortifying the spells that separated her camp from the King's, she felt a little better in the knowledge that no one from either side would be able to cross without her permission. The energy the spells had taken to cast made her very tired and Caledi felt herself falling asleep, with thoughts of the day swimming in her head.

With all the time and trouble it had taken for her to fall asleep, Caledi was quite peeved, to say the least, to have been woken what could have only been too few hours later. But upon realising the reason she awoke, Caledi didn't hesitate a second longer to get up and out of her tent. She had to wake to others and warn them.

Someone was using magic to break into the camp!

From what she could tell, it was very powerful too. Using her own magic, Caledi cast some spells into the earth beneath them in an effort to offer some safety to her people and secure their site for as long as possible. Hoping it was not futile and her spells would hold as long as necessary, she ran off into the direction of the disturbance with the two men she had signalled, flanking her on either side. Drawing on her magic once again, Caledi cast one of her strongest spells that would hopefully disarm their attacker.

Arthur was getting more and more annoyed. They had been trying to find their way back for the better part of an hour and yet they couldn't even find the tracks they had only made five minutes ago. On top of it all, Merlin had decided to go off in the complete opposite direction to him, whilst muttering nonsense to himself. Arthur was sure that Merlin's sole purpose for doing this was just to annoy him! He was about to move further to his left, when he heard a cry of pain, followed by a loud thud.

What had that clumsy idiot done now!

Turning around to where he had seen him moments earlier, Arthur couldn't immediately place Merlin, until he saw a body lying at the bottom of a tree.

"Merlin!"

A/N: Thanks for reading!

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