14. Unfortunate encounters
Merlin held his breath while he watched Arthur, Antek and Merco. It wasn't easy, as anger and hurt still made him itchy all over from impatience and restlessness. Actually, lying still was a torment as he still wanted to fidget and kick and slam his fist against something.
"I reckon Blackrock is only two hours away from here, don't you think so?" Arthur had just said and only now the scales fell from Merlin's eyes. Of course. This was the way that led from the Llanfair stronghold to the old forest camp of Arenboarth's tribe! The new village was not so very far away from it, just on the Camelot side of the border.
"If Your Royal Highness says so" Antek replied truculently.
Merco murmured something and his Count pouted defiantly, but kept his mouth shut afterwards. Arthur rolled his eyes heavenwards and visibly gave up on them both.
The old healer, looking more like a weasel than before in his ragged brown cloak, shivered and crept closer to the little fire.
"Are you still cold?" Antek sounded genuinely concerned. "If you feel poorly….this is your fault, you merciless bastard, for dragging us here at this time of night" he accused Arthur passionately.
Merco made haste to avoid another fight between the two. "I'm fine. But perhaps Prince Arthur could tell us now what this is all about."
"I'm searching for something that belonged to your father, Antek. It is what these brutes who bought Merlin from you want to possess at all costs. We go to Blackrock, take it, bring it back to Arenboarth who will destroy it. It's simple enough."
"How dare you?" Antek flared up in an instant. "It's my inheritance you're speaking about. It's worth a King's ransom and I won't…"
"Quite right, you won't" Arthur interrupted him brutally. "You will not go for King Uther or for Merlin or for anybody else, just to lay your hand on some blood money even your father would have been ashamed to take!"
Merlin flinched when the thought struck him that his royal friend might be on this quest to abolish whatever danger was threatening all of them. The warlock had, however, only begun to feel slightly embarrassed, when he had to bite into his own arm to stifle a yelp of joy whilst he silently pedalled with his feet in the air behind his bottom. Count Llanfair had made the fundamental mistake to fly at the Crown Prince of Camelot in uncontrolled wrath.
Only a minute later Antek found himself on the ground with a bleeding nose, with said Crown Prince holding his head by the hair, hissing like an angered snake. "Now listen, matey, and listen carefully. Try that again and I forget that we've ever been friends, I swear I'll skin you alive. After what you've done, you should eat humble pie for the rest of your godforsaken life."
Merco slowly rose; his legs visibly shaking. "Arthur please…" he begged. "He didn't mean it."
"Yes he did. He meant every word of it." With a disgusted grimace, the Prince pushed Antek's face to the ground before he rose himself.
"Please, I beg you. For my sake. Leave him alone."
"All right. For your sake. And also for your sake I tell you this: As soon as I'm back home, I'll call in a sum of money that by right belongs to me alone and you can use it for the resurrection of Blackrock, as long as I never hear or see anything from the Llanfairs again, not now, not ever. Do you understand?"
Antek looked up while he held his nose. "How much?" he mumbled brazenly.
Arthur got ready to jump on him again and Antek pulled back, looking like a hurt toad from Merlin's point of view. Smirking evilly the warlock waited for the next impact of a princely fist on the Count's abominably handsome face, when Arthur all of a sudden changed direction and burst into the shrub that hid the young wizard from sight. As always in such dire straits, Merlin's magic wasn't good for anything. First, he couldn't use it against his Prince and second, Arthur was too fast for him any road.
"Ow, ow, let me go you big oaf. Ow!" Merlin yelped and kicked for all he was worth while a relentless Pendragon dragged him into the small campsite by the neck like a half drowned whelp. Once there, Arthur let his victim fall as if he were a lump of clay. Merlin tried to scramble back to his feet but was pushed back. Roughly enough to gather that he'd better stay where he was.
In a singular reaction of fear and shock, Arthur's stomach had climbed up into his throat while his heart had sunk into his boots. He could hardly believe that his warlock, this clumsy, stupid imbecile he had wanted to keep away from this at all costs, was actually here, before his very eyes, much closer to the accursed Blackrock rubble than he'd ever wanted him to be. As the royal wasn't used to being that terrified, his over-boiling emotions searched - and found - a way to relieve themselves.
"Blast you, you hare-brained nitwit, which part of 'stay back and protect my family and yourself' you didn't understand this time" Arthur roared. When he was angry enough – and Merlin was cursed with the talent to provoke him such – his voice and the glare that went with it could be extremely intimidating. "Damn your bloody obstinacy, you couldn't do as you're told if your life depended on it. Must I tie you down and lock you in before I can have a moment's peace from you?"
"I… I wanted…. I thought…"
"No, Merlin you did not think at all. You just wanted to get your way, as always. That loaf in your skull is good for nothing but causing me headaches."
The wizard cowered on the ground and made himself small, his own anger and resentfulness momentarily forgotten under the violent onslaught of this unrestrained fury. And yet his old insolence already stiffened his neck.
"What did you think you were doing, huh? Damn it, answer me!" Pendragon wasn't done yet.
"You just said that I can't think." The defiant repartee was out before Merlin could prevent it and for a second he was sure Arthur would hit him.
Instead he whined in shock when he was dragged upright by his neckerchief, what at least saved him from talking any more provocative nonsense. "I'll tell you what you're going to do" the Prince raged on, "you're turning back this instant, and if you're not in the village, at my father's and Arenboarth's command, by this evening, I'll give you hell before I chuck you out of Camelot for good! Understood?"
Merlin silently denied that, but he wasn't sure that Arthur could see it as he was shaking the warlock mercilessly, until Merlin was fed up with it. "Let go of me. I can go where I want. You do it all the time, no matter how much you hurt people."
The Prince paled and let go. "Merlin, for the last time: Go away. I mean it" he said dead seriously.
Antek, jolly glad that he had been ignored by both of them so far, laid a protective arm around Merco's shoulder. The healer had been tending to the young Count's broken nose, leaving Prince and warlock to their quarrels.
"Arthur!" Llanfair said urgently.
When the Prince didn't hear him, he repeated it louder. "Arthur! Turn around."
"I'd rather Your Highness stayed as you were" a derisive voice said in the Prince's back.
Ignoring that, Pendragon spun around while Merlin jumped to his side in the blink of an eye. Alas, the wizard's stomach cramped when almost twenty armed men left the tree line's shelter, ready to fight. A quick look over his shoulder told the Crown Prince that other men had emerged from the forest in their back. They were surrounded.
The royal couldn't believe it. Arthur Pendragon, the great warrior, had been caught like a bloody greenhorn with his pants down!
Briefly he glared at Merlin, his eyes telling a clear and concise message: "This is your fault. If it hadn't been for you, I'd heard them coming an hour ago!"
However, there was no time for due repercussions right now. "What do you want?" he asked commandingly.
"Your warlock friend and something that belongs to young Count Llanfair here" the leader said warily. "Give them to me and you and this old scarecrow can go where you please."
Before Arthur could reply something a small, fidgeting man appeared at the sturdy warrior's side, with a slimy grin on his face, and both Prince and warlock felt their jaws fall down. "Trickler?"
"I say we take them all" King Alined's official Court Jester and unofficial Court Sorcerer squeaked, his voice trembling from agitation. "His Majesty will know what to do with them."
"You're welcome to try" Arthur snarled, sword ready and in a defensive stance.
"C'me on lad" the soldier's leader said calmly. "25 against four, one of you an old tottering crock and your sorcerer a mere whelp. Give it up while you can still walk."
"Arthur, perhaps…" Antek began to say, his worried gaze glued on Merco's pale and frightened face but that was as far as he came.
"Merlin" Arthur yelled and reflexively, as if they had trained it for years – which, in a way, they had – he and the wizard turned back to back, Merlin's eyes flashed in an intensive golden light and the whole line of soldiers in Arthur's back were blown into the forest. They wouldn't be back soon, as Merlin knew for sure. Some of them would never rise again.
Trickler retreated into the shrubs behind him with a frightened whimper, but the majority of the remaining fighters roared furiously as they came for the Prince and Llanfair, who, in his despair, raised a branch to defend his defenceless friend. Over his dead body they would come through to old Merco!
Arthur's blade whirled through the air, disabling two of the attackers in the first minute, but what use was his mastery of the sword when he was the only able fighter against all the other trained warriors?
Only that they weren't as many as they had been before by the time Arthur brought down a third, then a fourth man.
Merlin had dodged a sword blow by a hair's breadth and now muttered another spell rapidly. Some of the remaining attackers let go of their swords and screamed when the hilts began to bite into their hands, as the warlock had turned the blades, together with the remaining knifes and weapons, into living snakes. The men got mad and frantically thrashed around on the ground as the ugly, venomous looking beasts crawled all over their bodies.
"Antek!" a panicking Merco yelled, when his beloved Count was hit by a sword from behind that brought him to his knees. But there was no need to worry. "Forbearan!" Merlin said, and the attacker ran off at top speed as a column of raging fire rose between him and his victim.
Panting heavily, the warlock turned to see how his Prince was faring and a relieved grin spread on his face, as in this second the attackers' leader commanded "fall back. Retreat!"
"Merlin, watch out!" Pendragon screamed.
Not for the life of his the wizard knew what this warning was about. He was surprised as he suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees. Astounded, without any idea what was happening he stared at the end of the arrow that stuck in his chest. "Arthur, what….?" But he couldn't finish his question. Blood sprang from the wound, much blood, much more than one would have thought could come from such a tiny cut. Suddenly the pain was there, jumping on him, biting, as if it were something that came from outside his body, like a ravenous animal.
Merlin's sight became blurred; he had difficulties to keep his eyes open. Through a haze he saw Arthur ran towards him, shouting something he didn't understand. When three arrows hit the ground before his feet, the Prince halted.
"Give it up, My Lord. Before somebody else gets hurt."
Merlin's lids fluttered and closed. The rest was a stream of senseless noise until he stopped hearing altogether. The pain went away and he fell, fell softly and slowly into a world of cosy warmth and darkness.
How very much he would've liked to stay where he was, but after what might've been a lifetime or a span of five minutes the world called him back. Or rather, an angry voice. Antek of Llanfair's angry voice, to be precise. "I tell you, I've no idea where the damn thing is. If your idiot guard hadn't knocked Arthur around the head, he could tell you. I'm sorry but you'll have to wait until he comes to!"
"But you're sure it's hidden somewhere in the rubble at Blackrock?"
"Trickler" Merlin thought reflexively. "So many people got killed in Uther's purge and this whining, cowardly, arse-crawling excuse for a magician had to make it to Alined's door step! Fate and Providence, you're both imbeciles, that's for sure!" Only afterwards he noticed that he had no idea who 'Trickler' or 'Uther' might be.
"No, I'm not" Antek replied, frustration plain in his voice. "Arthur is. That's all I know."
"That stiff necked young rascal will never talk" a grumpy, hoarse voice spat. Belatedly Merlin identified the attackers' commander. "If Pendragon hadn't struggled like a madman even after he was disarmed and defenceless, I'd had no need to knock him out."
"He will talk. His little pet sorcerer is at your mercy. That's all you need." Antek sounded definitely murderous now. "There's no need to further hurt the Prince himself. Your King wouldn't take a shine to the trouble it could bring."
The soldier snorted "Arthur knows that we want the magician alive. Thanks to your and your so called physician's foolishness."
"That's as maybe. Merco and I will leave you now. I trust you've got everything you need."
"Hold up a minute, Your Grace. You're going nowhere until we've got what we want."
"But I'm useless to you now."
"Pendragon hasn't dragged you along for nothing. After all you say he already knows where to look. So you stay until we're done and there's an end to it."
Merlin would never know what Antek had wanted to say to that as a panting soldier came in. "He's come to, Sir. The Prince, that is. Royally pissed, if I may say so." The man chuckled amusedly about his own joke.
Unfortunately his superior was not amused at all. "Bring him here!"
Merlin had the distinct feeling that this should mean something to him but no idea what or why, so he just laid still and tried to figure it out.
A moment later he heard some shuffling and pushing, an angry snort or two and then another very familiar voice. "Take your hands off me, you dirty pig!" This had to be Arthur; that much was obvious.
The sound of a slap, a muffled gasp and Merlin thought it might be time to open his eyes. With some effort he did so and stared at a piece of dirty canvas above him for a long minute before it occurred to him that he could turn his head a bit.
Meanwhile the situation in the middle of the makeshift shelter had definitely worsened. A writhing Prince in the hold of two men, a definitely non-friendly knife at his throat. "It's easy enough" the foreign soldier explained to his captive once again. "Either Your Highness most graciously deign to tell me where we will find this book my King wants or I'll have to use other means of persuasion. The kind you wouldn't like."
The warlock pondered the question why someone would be idiotic enough to ask somebody a question whilst somebody else had clamped a hand over the other man's mouth, but then he was distracted. Instead of nodding or struggling, the prisoner tensed the muscles of his jaws and the man who held him yelped. "Damn the brat, he's bitten me."
"We're not making any headway My Prince" the commander sighed sadly. "Gareth, cut one of Merlin's fingers off, just for a starter."
"Don't you dare touch him or you'll die!"
"I'm sorry, Prince Arthur, but you're not in a position to threaten anyone. Tell me what I want to know or Merlin will suffer the consequences. Naturally we could start with his face instead his hands, if you prefer that. A lip, maybe? His nose? Or would you rather I took an ear?"
Arthur didn't look too happy about the situation, the warlock decided. Besides, the unfortunate Prince couldn't be comfortable, not with his hands bound behind his back, a formidable bruise on his forehead and another one just forming on his cheek.
The wizard pondered. Maybe that required some kind of response? There was some math to do in a situation like this, he knew it. Arthur + danger = spring into action at once? Was that it? If only he knew who that Merlin-fellow was. He seemed to be important, too. Where was he?
"Your Highness? Time is running out."
What now? Uncomprehendingly the warlock stared at this ugly little man who grabbed him by the hair and wielded a –goodness, was that a kitchen knife?
"Leave him alone, Trickler!" That sounded not as angry as before. More desperate. And scared. Now, this was surely wrong. Wherever this Merlin guy was wasting his time right now, one thing was certain, Arthur couldn't be scared, it just wasn't right.
Magic pooled inside the wizard, ready to lash out, his eyes flashed golden and he grinned menacingly as – absolutely nothing happened.
He tried again – nothing.
"He's awake" Trickler said. "He's looking at me. I think his magic is struggling against the restraints. Well, Merlin, what an unpleasant surprise, is it not? Not so powerful now, eh?"
The warlock realized three things at once. He was Merlin, his magic wasn't worth a shit right now and Arthur was in trouble of the potentially lethal kind.
Strength – what he would call 'strength' anyway – shot back into his muscles and joints, he reared up to wrestle the knife from the unsuspecting hand with the definite goal to cut the damned toad to pieces – …..
Or so he thought.
The ropes that very effectively bound him to the cot he was spread on thought otherwise and they won the day easily. The only effect he achieved was that his head rose from the pillow while Trickler's knife stayed exactly where it was, which meant that the wizard got himself his cheek cut open before he realized it.
He screamed in shocked surprise, only to find that he was also gagged. Now he was scared, and no mistake!
"Let him be and I show you where the book is. I give you my word."
"That's better" the soldier said. "For both of you. We can go at once, if it pleases Your Royal Highness."
With a kind gesture, the commander made way for his prisoner but Arthur dug his heels in. "Whatever healing spell Trickler used, Merlin almost died from your arrow. Let Merco tend to him again while we're on our way."
"As Your Grace wishes."
The last thing Merlin saw of his friend was Arthur's worried gaze before he was dragged out. It was obvious that Pendragon tried to lay some reassurance into it, but all Merlin saw was fear and not so much for the Prince himself.
The warlock struggled hopelessly against the ropes and the still unknown restraint that held his magic captive when Merco, a minute after he had come to his patient, decided that this did him no good. The healer unfastened the gag only to force some liquid down the young man's throat and Merlin's sight blackened, his muscles relaxed and all he could think before darkness took him once again was "Arthur is right. I am an idiot sometimes!"
When Merlin had opened his eyes again it had been to see the walls of the prison he was now in, freezing, hungry, thirsty and most of all frightened. He had no idea what had happened, what had become of his friend or what was to become of him.
The only thing that had become clearer with every minute of his reminiscence was that Llanfair's evil spirit could not be very far away. He could smell it, almost taste it.
If it had been Alined and Trickler who had brought him here, where were they? And why was a dead man the only one he could think about?
And no sign of Arthur, of anyone.
Forgetting all self-esteem and appearances, Merlin curled up even tighter and whimpered in the dark.