Mutilation is the most sincere form of flattery.
They had to stop once the sky had become dark again, they had rode hard for most of the day, but had had to stop when everything got a whole lot worse. The knights had been crossing a deep river when the ties holding Merlin onto Lancelot's horse had broken.
The first Arthur knew of it, was when he heard a yell of pain and then a splash, as Merlin toppled into the rushing water. They all stared in horror as Merlin began to sink beneath the surface. Arthur leapt from his horse and into the freezing cold water, he waded over to the half conscious servant and grabbed him, pulling him out of the river and onto the grassy bank.
The boy was shivering worse than before now, and Arthur knew that they would have to get a fire going to stop Merlin from getting sick. The other knights gathered firewood and set up a camp by the river as Arthur carried Merlin to a drier area, under the tree cover. He pulled blankets out of his pack and wrapped the shivering boy up in them, trying to ignore the desperate rasping sound of Merlin's breath. "Merlin? Can you hear me?" asked Arthur, concerned.
"Cccourse . .I .hhear yyou. . .pprrat." Merlin's chattering teeth slurred his words into a mumbling babble, but the king was still comforted by them slightly. Gwaine had gathered enough firewood by now and was lighting it with clumsy fingers.
"You alright mate?" he asked, flicking his dark fringe out off his eyes.
"Nnever bbettter." came the stuttering reply.
Gwaine chuckled in a slightly crazy way. "Nothing keeps you down long, eh Merlin?"
Merlin looked like he going to reply but then choked and coughed, a trickle of blood slipped from his pale lips. "I'm going to check your wounds, Merlin, this will probably hurt." Merlin made an odd choking sound that it took a moment before Arthur realized that was laughter.
"Ccan`t hurt mmore than it already ddoess." Arthur peeled back the already sodden blankets from the boy's chest and pulled up his torn shirt, careful of the embedded dagger and swore - it was clearly infected, yellowish whit puss was oozing from the wound, riding on a horse for a whole day after being imprisoned for three days couldn't really be hygienic.
"Merlin, listen to me. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to take out the dagger." Merlin nodded jerkily and Arthur place his hand on the dagger hilt. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he pulled. Merlin let out a short scream of pain and he paled even further. "Merlin?!" Gwaine came over and joined Arthur to kneel by the boy's side.
"Is . . .ok." panted Merlin, eye closed tightly and jaw clenched. Arthur began wrapping a bandage around the blood soaked hole in Merlin's chest, the dagger didn't seem to have pierced any organs - luckily. Looking down at Merlin, there didnt seem to be an inch of him that wasnt injured, the numerous lacerations over his face and chest were red and swollen, as was the stab wound. Not even mentioning his empty, bloody eye socket, it sicked Arthur to see it, just a gaping hole where his friend's eye used to be - how was Merlin going to handle living with only one eye? He was clumsy enough already.
"Hhe wasn't ggoing to hurt mme." Merlin whispered. Arthur and Gwaine exchanged confused and incredulous looks, Merlin must have a worse fever than they thought.
"Of course he was going to hurt you Merlin, he did hurt you. He cut out your bloody eye for gods sake - he stabbed you." But Merlin shook his head vigorously, eye still closed tightly.
"Hhe only did that ccause he tthought that you'd ccome more quickly." Merlin was shaking worse than ever. "I pprovoked hhim. wass my ffault. T`was a compliment rreally, mutilation is the mmost ssincerre form of fflattery after all."
Merlin's breathing evened out a bit and he fell asleep in Arthur's arms, the young king gently lowered him down to the blankets "Oh gods, what did Cenred do to him?" Arthur's whisper was so quiet and tortured that Gwaine didn't know what to say - he just went straight for his hip flask. Arthur joined him soon after.