Warnings: Torture, gore

Chapter 8: Reunions

Morgause eyed at her visitor as she walked into the room, closely followed by Cendred behind her. Merlin was like the last time she saw him, lean, slim and gangly. He shook nervously as her subordinate Jarl held his jaw in his grasp. He was eyeing him like a hungry dog ready to attack. A wicked smirk was drawn on her face as she knew what his arrival meant.

"Hello Merlin." She said her eyes searching him. "Welcome home." She teased him.

"Home?" Merlin asked his eyes turning from Jarl to her blond figure. His face was stern and unchanged.

"Why of course!" She remarked walking closer dragging the long tail of her red dress. Jarl took a step behind allowing his mistress to take a look at him. "Surely after all this time you lived with us you can call it home."

"This is anything but a home to me." He spit back.

He earned a slap in his face. "Insolence has always been one of the things we couldn't break out of you." Her eyes travelled down to Merlin's bag whose hand was clutching it protectively. "Do you have it?"

"Where is my sister?" he demanded.

Cendred approached them, his boots tapping on the floor. He was in his normal form like most nights. Morgause didn't really appreciate the smell of wolf. "It seems to me, my love, that Merlin would like the old way of handling things."

"Perhaps you are right." She smirked and her eyes glistened under the light of the torches. She turned to Jarl and his thugs. "Bring his sister to me and bring Merlin's special shackles as well."

"No!" Merlin shouted and his eyes glowed gold for only a second. "This was not our agreement. I give you the book and you let us leave."

"You would dare use your magic against me?" She said dangerously. "You know the consequences don't you Merlin?" Merlin swallowed the lump in his throat.

"I want to see my sister." He said again carefully.

She chuckled. "All in good time, dear. First, I need to see if it is what I need and secondly, before you try using your magic against me, I will secure the danger of killing anyone of my own. So shackles it is."

Merlin swallowed. He remembered those shackles too well. When Morgause said "Merlin's special shackles" she meant it. Those iron manacles were created to cut off magic, preventing its use. Ancient runes decorated the width of them. He always wondered if it was her that created them in the first place. The clinging of the shackles came closer and closer and Merlin felt his heart thumbing with all its might.

Morgause looked at him expectantly pointing at the shackles, one of the guards held, with her eyes. Merlin's lips were pressed in a thin line and his eyes were almost pleading when they locked with Morgause's. It was as if he was asking of her not to do this again, but he knew that he wouldn't get his way. Disobeying meant putting his sister in harms way.

He dropped the bag on the floor by bringing one strap over his shoulder. He held his wrists out to him. The key was turned and he heard the click of the latch sealing his magic away. He could immediately feel the wearing effect it had on him. He felt weak and vulnerable. He took a deep breath and tried to compose himself.

"Search his bag!" she commanded the thug. He took the back from the floor and his impatient hands opened and almost ripped it apart. He took the book out and gave it to her. Her fingers traced the brown leathered texture. A faint smile proved that it was what she wanted.

Just then Jarl returned to the room dragging a girl from her raven hair by force. The girl stumbled to stay on her bare feet. Her skin was dirty with dungeon mud. Her long hair was unruly and sticky. Her wrists were tightly chained in silver shackles that matched their twin collar. There was blood dripping from the wounds inflicted from the silver upon her skin. She lifted her head and looked at her brother with her beautiful yet troubled green eyes.

"Merlin?" her voice was soft as she called him.

"Morgana…" The man remained with eyes gone wide by the shock her state caused.

"Merlin!" She rushed to his side and fell on her knees, her legs not strong enough to keep her up. Merlin kneeled down and before he could help her up, she raised her chained hands and put them around his neck. The chains clanged in the process. It felt so good to see him alive, he was so warm. Merlin would have hugged her back had it not been for his own damn shackles, so he simply clutched each side of her torn black dress bringing her closer him.

"You shouldn't have come." She whispered in his ear. She took his head in her hands and took a better look at his face. "You should have left me here."

Merlin had a faint smile. "I could never do that."

"Oh, family reunions are always so heartbreaking." Morgause said sarcastically to Cendred standing next to her. The man just laughed on her comment.

"You have what you want, please let us go." Merlin asked still holding his sister close to him.

"But I'm not done with you yet." She told him matter-of-factly. "Tell me Merlin, how many days were you gone?"

Merlin couldn't understand were she was getting at. "Nineteen, I think…"

"Nineteen…" She said skeptically, she looked at Jarl again. "Nineteen lashes for Merlin…"

"No!"

"… and put more silver on that sorry excuse of a vampire, while I study the contents of this book." She looked at Morgana pitiably not caring that she was the one that created her.

"With pleasure!" Jarl snarled "You! Take her!" He prompted one of his men. "I'll deal with this little shit." He took Merlin from his hair, making him wince. "You two!" He shouted at two other men. "Take him." He ordered them not bothering with laying a finger on carrying him.

"Morgause please! I gave you everything that you asked. I came a day before you told me to. Just let us go and you'll never see us again in your life."

Morgause looked at his begging face. "But I like keeping you around." Her reason was pathetic.

He left the room taking the corridor to the right while Merlin was dragged to a different one. He was shoved around the place passed the cells were he was once held. The other prisoners looked at him with eyes full of fear and sadness. Some of them whispered his name in surprise. Some because they vaguely felt sympathetic towards him, others because whatever hope they had to be granted freedom was now crushed to pieces. When Merlin left these cells they hoped their turn would come but those dreams were in vain.

He glanced at the cell Morgana was thrown in, wishing that they would somehow be merciful. But he was soon disappointed by the clinging of silver metal, the scorching of flesh and his younger sister's screams. He desperately tried to get out of the guards' grasp but the chains drained not only his magic but his energy with it as well. The guards' hand painfully around his arms made things no better. He was next brought in a room he recognized. They threw him down on the cold floor and went on to rip his jacket and thin shirt off him, revealing his bare back. He didn't try to move, he didn't beg, he didn't oppose to this. Maybe because he was stupidly brave enough, or tired, or because he knew all too well there was no use in arguing.

The first lash came upon his back, over his old scars, carving a new mark on him. He did not utter a word. He clenched his teeth together and remembered he had to breathe steadily to make the pain flow away easier.

The second lash crossed upon the other and now blood was running in small rivers, one river from where the lines met and a second from the end of the first. He could hear the guards or Jarl's heavy breathing behind him.

The third lash came quicker than the second. His torturer was getting impatient to see more blood on his skin. Merlin's eyes watered but he refused to let the tears to escape his eyes.

The fourth lashed its way on Merlin's back almost the same second the third did and the poor man found himself bending forwards from the pain.

The fifth lash came just as quick and started making him dizzy. He was not able to keep the small wince that escaped from his mouth. The pain was too great.

The sixth was on his lower back that wasn't hit yet and he felt like it hurt the most. He had to breathe, he remembered. He forced himself to take a shallow breath.

The seventh lash hit him vertically on the long of his spine. He arched his back on the odd lash he never received before, with a moan seemingly heard by the laughing guards. It was a bad move because he fell all of the scars lining across his back. He hunched back down again on the floor.

The eighth lash made him dizzy and he could not focus his gaze on anything. He forgot to breathe and he didn't remember to, making the fuzziness worse.

The ninth slash crossed the sixth he was given on his lower back. His tears betrayed him.

The tenth was higher than the previous one reaching his shoulder.

Eleven slashes and Merlin hoped he could die then, though he would never ask for it. His screams now filled the room and tunnels of the caves.

The twelfth lash made him wish he was somewhere else. Somewhere were no pain existed or cruelty.

The thirteenth brought him the face of Arthur. He was crying now, he felt so disgusted by the sound of his crying. He cursed himself for not being brave, for not holding his voice or tears back. How he wished Arthur was here.

Fourteenth lashes by now and Merlin was brought back to reality. He wished Arthur would never find him, never see him like this. For he was weak and nothing without his magic.

With fifteen he realized his hearing was going bad. He could faintly hear the whipping on his back, the laughing of cruelty and his sister screaming his name among other curses for the men around him.

Sixteen lashes it took to make him have no energy to keep his body upright, or control his breathing. He fell flat on his stomach and felt the coolness of the floor against him. He vaguely wished it could cool the heat on his back as well.

When the seventeenth came he wondered if there was any space left for scars on his back.

He didn't feel the eighteenth.

And by the nineteenth he was already into a fainting darkness.

He could briefly feel only the same hands on back on his arms, his feet sweeping the floor, the metal door of a cell open and thrown onto a moist, dirty floor. He let himself fall to sleep, allowing the sweetness of slumber take his pain away and his lost pride with it.

…..

"When was the last time you saw her?" Arthur asked Gwen impatiently.

"Maybe a century ago, I don't really remember. She was off travelling with a werewolf named Cendred. Apparently she had some sort of affection for him."

"Where?"

"I don't know, I think up North in Northumberland."

"Gwen I need you to remember!" he yelled.

"I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can!"

"Gwen please you have to-"

Arthur stopped when he felt a cold feeling washing over him. The hair on his spine electrified, the vision around him darkened and he found himself in need of air. He sat down, or more like fell, on the couch and felt his head spinning with the darkest and most worrisome emotion. He could hear Merlin hurting, crying. He was in pain.

"Arthur, are you alright?" Leon asked him putting a hand on his shoulder.

"They are…" he felt the need to swallow. "… torturing him. I can feel him hurting."

"Can you feel where he is?"

It was hard listening to them. His senses seemed to focus only on Merlin. He shivered when he felt his pain intensifying. His teeth clenched and he gripped the texture underneath him. Merlin screamed again out of agony and mentally gave Arthur a feeling of where he was located.

"East. He is east from here." He stood up and was ready to go. "I'm going!"

"Arthur please!" Lancelot exclaimed. "It will be dawn in two hours. You can't possibly find him in just that little amount of time."

"Arthur it's too dangerous!" Percival said next.

"Then what do you expect me to do?" he yelled at them. "Sit here, sleep the day until they torture him to death?"

"Then what will you do?" Gwen shouted back. "Run into the daylight and kill both of yourselves before you can even get a chance rescue him? You have to think this through Arthur!"

"I can't just stay here." He said once more this time calmer.

"I know…" She said patting his arm. "I know how much you care for him but you have to be reasonable."

Arthur just sighed.

…

"Merlin?" A soft, sweet voice called.

Merlin was brought back to consciousness. He felt the coolness of the cold, damp, hard floor on one half of his face that was pressing against him. He tried to open his eyes, the black of his vision fading away. There wasn't much light apart from the little iron grid above him that served little other than giving fresh air and only a tiny ray of sun.

He tried to move, trying to let the blood flow back to his limb body. He grunted in pain when he felt the stinging on his back. "Damn!" he cursed.

"Merlin?" The kind voice asked again.

Merlin shook his head lightly and grunted again trying to see where the voice was coming from. A young girl looked at him with beautiful sparkly eyes, her face reflecting her innocence and fear of her cage. Her hands clutched the bars that divided their cells.

"Freya?"

"Are you alright?" She asked him, her voice shaking.

Merlin tried hard to smile. "Not really."

"Your back stopped bleeding an hour ago. I think you should be better as soon as they give as some water." She informed him.

"Are we that lucky today that we will get water?" he joked and she sighed a small laugh.

"You came back, most of us here thought you wouldn't."

"I couldn't just leave my sister here! Where is Morgana?" He asked her while trying to sit up against the wall. He brushed the dirt off his face.

"She is asleep, Sefa told me." Merlin looked at the cell next to Freya's to see a poor little Sefa curled on the floor, the way she avoided lying in the sun indicated she was asleep. She had the cell opposite Morgana's, because Jarl thought it would have been better to separate the siblings.

"Did they hurt her much?" He knew that they did hurt her, he just wanted to know how much.

Freya didn't reply, she just looked at him with a troubled face. Even she was in a state as bad as the time Merlin left.

"Has no-one escaped then?" Merlin asked pointlessly. "Has anyone died?" he wasn't afraid to ask.

"Sefa has been in a bad way, after her father tried to escape." She explained. "They killed him."

"But I thought her father worked for Morgause, as a guard or something. He was even trying to convince Sefa to work as a night guard, right?"

"Yes, well, he decided that hurting his daughter was not a noble cause anymore and he tried to take her out of here. Cendred tracked them down with his pack of wolves and they tore him in pieces. They brought her back here. They had silver on her ever since. She barely talks, she barely moves. I hope she will get through this." She told him worriedly.

"How have you been?"

"I missed you." She admitted. "I was hoping that you would have left this place or even find a way to get your sister out." She looked away. "I even hoped for a second that you would come for all of us at some point and free us, but that's just too selfish." Embarrassment was evident in her voice.

Merlin leaned in closer to her. "I will get us out of here Freya. All of us." He looked down at his shackles. "Once I get out of this shackles there won't be anyone standing alive here." His voice was dark and his heart full with the need for revenge. "I don't know why I gave in into chaining me again in the first place. I'm an idiot!" He declared.

"Merlin there is nothing you could have done. You wanted to protect your sister."

"I could have fought! I was a coward!"

"It's alright to be afraid." She told him gently.

"I shouldn't be!" he bursted out furiously.

"HEY! SHUT UP!" One of the guards yelled across the corridors, probably on watch but sitting bored to death.

…

The party of vampires rode out of the coven, earning some curious glances from the rest of the people who were still recovering from the night before. Some of them even approached them asking if there was any trouble, anxious that the war was not over. They assured them that there was no need to concern themselves further and that they could rest knowing they are safe. Arthur explained quickly that there was some business they needed to take care of.

They rode on horses to the nearest village to the east. The thing with vampire speed is, it is fast but not as fast as their horses. So they rode in the contained time they had. That was the only curse a vampire had, time. They would live an immortal life but they would never see the sunlight again. Therefore, they had the specific time from sunset to sunrise.

They reached the village in two hour's ride (it took Merlin almost a day on foot). They slowed their horses down as they entered, trying to catch any suspicious movement.

"Is he here?" Lancelot asked.

"No, if he was I would have felt it." He said in disappointment. Then a strange sense came to him, tingling under his skin. It was Merlin's smell. "He was here though." He rode closer to the center of the village following the familiar scent. "Follow me."

Arthur tried to ignore the curious glances of the strange people that lurked in the night. Maybe some of them knew what they were. Some might even share the same fate of a vampire. They would never know which of this stares were plain curious or suspicious. They could be even witch hunters and witch hunters you can never trust.

The scent brought them to a place that would seem unlikely for Merlin to enter. Then again Merlin wasn't the innocent little man they thought he was. They got of their horses and entered the stinking pub. They looked around a bit disgusted by the sight of drunkards and men indulging into gambling.

"Are you sure he's been here?" Gwen asked under her hooded face.

"Yes, his scent is stronger here."

"Are you sure?" Percival said with a frown. "I can't smell anything other than ale. If that is what I'm smelling."

"I'm sure." He breathed in again to find that the trail laid to the rooms upstairs.

They found the stairs ignoring the people that crushed on them caused by their dizziness. The owner cared little about the suspicious looking people that entered his pub as he was otherwise occupied with a beautiful young woman. They barged into a room to find a brunette man currently pinning a young lady on the wall, kissing her deeply on the lips. Fortunately their clothes were still on.

Arthur grabbed the man away from the woman and smashed him on the wall his hand tight around his neck. The girl screeched and made her way passed the vampires and out of the room.

"She never said anything about a husband." Gwaine calmed and looked at the face of his attacker better. "Certainly didn't mention he is a bloodsucker."

Arthur slammed his head against the wall. "I'm going to ask only once." He warned him. "Where is Merlin?"

"Aaaah… Arthur is it?" he gave him a smile. "He mentioned you. Never said you were that old though." Gwaine was of royal werewolf blood, for a vampire to be able to overpower him, he must have been as old as their bloodline. Or more in Arthur's case.

Arthur's grip tightened around his neck. "You are trying my patience dog!"

"I don't wish Merlin any harm! He came here yesterday! Said he had unfinished business with a vampire."

Arthur let him go. "You are Gwaine, aren't you?"

"How nice of Merlin to mention me!" he said with a childish tone in his voice. "Is he in trouble?" he asked serious this time.

"Yes. Do you know where he went?"

"He never said."

"Would you know a werewolf named Cendred?" Gwen asked from behind Arthur.

"Aye. I know him. Don't really fancy his company though." He told them with his eyes eyebrows furrowed.

"Do you know where he is?" Arthur asked.

"He lives in an underground refuge. It was used by vampires some centuries ago, or so I was told. He keeps shifters, vampires and werewolves captive there. I don't think Merlin would ever go to such a place."

"Why?" Leon demanded.

"Are you people daft? Who would want to be mistreated and chained?"

"Apparently he did!" Arthur exclaimed. "That idiot! Going into a place like that!" he shouted. "You!" He pointed a finger at Gwaine. "You are coming with us! You'll show us the way." he ordered.

"Aye, I'm coming with you." Gwaine agreed strangely. "Not because you asked me, but because I care a great lot about Merlin." He added.

Arthur sucked the last comment up and they all headed out.

A/N- I hope you liked the twist.