Sadistic kings

Merlin knew that something was wrong from the moment he opened his eyes. It wasn't the fact that he was back in his cell, it wasn't that his whole body was screaming at him in pain or that he was chained up, hanging from the ceiling - no, it was that he couldn't feel his magic anymore. He couldn't feel its warming, comforting glow anymore and he knew that he wouldn't be using it anytime soon.

Merlin glared up at his manacles, and as he had guessed, there were magical symbols carved into the metal. He recognised them from his magic book that Gaius had given him, they were powerful and were difficult to come by. Cenred must have spent a lot of gold on them, Merlin wondered why he would have gone to so much trouble to keep him captive. What was he planning?

As if on cue, Cenred strode into the room, resplendent in his usual black leathers, he walked over to the chained warlock - grinning his evil grin. "Don't you have any other clothes?" asked Merlin with a tired smirk. "Cause they really don't look that practical - you get too hot in the summer and too cold in winter and they must be a real pain to wash? Or don't you wash them? That would explain the smell, worse than Arthur before bath day-" Merlin's babbling was cut off by another blow to the stomach from one of the guards.

"Don't you ever shut up?" asked the irritable king with a look of mild frustration on his face.

Merlin stopped coughing long enough to say "Nope, I couldn't if I tried." Another blow struck the grin from Merlin's pale features but it came back just as quickly - taunting Cenred was a good distraction from the pain flowing through his whole body. "Arthur hits worse than that!"

Cenred was clearly at the end of his tether, he growled in anger and gestured to one of the guards, who pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket and approached the chained boy. Although Merlin tried to lean backwards, away from the guard, he simply grabbed Merlin by the hair to hold him in place and tied the cloth around Merlin's mouth. Once the gag was in place, the guard took hold of the chain that was holding Merlin up and tugged on it until the boy's feet were dangling about a foot off of the ground.

"Leave - I want the pleasure of breaking him myself." ordered Cenred, who hadn't taken his eyes off of the suddenly not so cheerful manservant. Cenred slowly walked towards him, drawing a short, sharp dagger, he pressed it against Merlin's chest - he sucked in a breath. "Not so smart are we Merlin?" said Cenred with a nasty smile. Merlin would dearly like to have replied with something along the lines of "At least you and Arthur agree on something", but he was a bit preoccupied by the fact that Cenred was now cutting through the royal red shirt he was wearing.

Merlin bit down on his lip as the dagger jabbed into his chest, it went in about halfway up the blade, Cenred - obviously annoyed with Merlin's resilience, twisted the dagger further into the boys chest. The pain was excruciating as Cenred twisted the dagger around inside him, but Merlin was determined not to give any signs of pain if he could help it - he just gnawed on his cheek till that too began to bleed, occasionally letting out small whimpers that escaped through his barrier of pain. Cenred continued to cut deep into Merlin's skin for more pain filled minutes, painting the pale skin with slices of brilliant crimson.

"Well, I think that's enough for now." grinned Cenred, the last two words punctuated by two more slashes with the blade, he let out a muffled cry. Merlin thanked the gods that Cenred had stopped when he did, the warlock didn't think that he could have stopped himself crying out if it had gone on much longer. "I'll leave you here to lick your wounds and consider your pitifully short life."

Cenred tugged on the chain holding Merlin up and then released it with a nasty smile. Merlin only realized what had happened when he suddenly dropped the foot to the stone floor, he hit the ground on his side and couldn't hold back a yell of pain as he felt his wounds sear with pain and felt the crossbow bolt shift in his leg. Merlin lay on the floor, breathing hard and let out another groan of pain as Cenred left the room. I should probably get that bolt out thought Merlin dazedly. He moved his chained hands over to wrap his hands around the arrow shaft. He took a deep breath and yanked the bolt out. Merlin was unconscious before his head even hit the floor.