12. Broken Down/Broken Bones
("Recovered" from The Artorius Blade)
Merlin focused first on breathing. It seemed to him that if he didn't intentionally will each breath, it might not happen.
His chest heaved with the effort, and his head pounded. Lights flashed, but he was pretty sure it was only against the backs of his eyelids. He heard noises, voices that were pained, frightened – but not raised in agony or inconsolable loss. That took the edge from his sense of urgency. A little.
Something pressed into his shoulder blade, something warm that moved with the rhythm of panting breaths. It was Arthur, to his left, Arthur alive and moving. Yes, as it should be.
He smelled jet fuel, and vomit. He reached out with an instinctive elemental power to extinguish any and all flames, to smother the plane's electronics so there was no chance of a spark. That magic scraped across raw nerves and senses, and he might have cried out before his consciousness withdrew again like a wounded creature to the depths of a cave.
"Leon's not responding. Can you work your hand free? We need Merlin."
"Gwaine." Merlin knew that voice, thick with pain as it was. Even though it did not speak his name, that voice called him forth, back from darkness to the twilight. "Give me a minute. Don't touch him, he–"
His sense of equilibrium was skewed to the left and down. It wouldn't matter until he tried to move… which he should probably do sooner rather than later. Find Arthur. He tried to say the name, but only managed a meaningless mumble.
"Merlin? You hit your head. I know it hurts, but – I need your help."
There were other voices.
"Is anyone seriously hurt? Who needs help? If everyone can please make their way to one of the exits, we can begin to provide first aid. No, leave your belongings, please. If you are able, help those around you who might have injuries."
Injuries. Moaning. I need your help.
He struggled to drag his eyelids up, and the first thing he saw were yellow oxygen cups hanging motionless from the overhead consoles – but not straight down. The light was dim, gray somehow – or was that just his eyes? Gwaine's face swam into view, drawn and grim, and then relieved.
"Merlin?" he said, and a ghost of a smile quirked his lips. "Can you hear me now?"
A spike of pain shot through his neck as he turned his head, downward and to his left. "Arthur," he said.
Arthur's eyes were open, the haziness of shock clearing to an alert determination. But there was still pain there, and it flared up as some movement of Gwaine's caused the seats the two of them were still strapped in to shift.
"Where are you hurt?" Merlin said to Arthur. Something dripped in his eye and he shrugged it off on the shoulder of his sweatshirt.
It took Arthur a moment to answer. "My hand," he said, the word turning into a moan that he bit off.
The light, Merlin realized, was brighter toward the right – toward the west – and he moved to shift his shadow away from Arthur. The hand nearest Merlin was clutching the armrest they shared between their seats, but the other – he saw that Arthur's left hand was trapped between the arm of the chair and the side of the plane. A dark smear of blood marred the smooth surface below the window.
Merlin reached carefully, gently, over and down, to wrap his fingers around the arm of the seat. Then he snapped it off with one swift jerk, Arthur letting out a choked cry and recoiling with the pain. He took Arthur's hand by the wrist, feeling his friend tremble violently. The gold of Arthur's wedding band glinted in the mess of wet red and gleam of white bone. Blood dripped down Merlin's fingers.
"Please move in an orderly fashion…"
Other voices sounded, near and far, questioning, directing, suggesting – Gwaine responded, and Merlin paid no attention to the words.
He whispered, feeling tears sting at the corners of his eyes, feeling the rough rasp of breath through his torn throat, the grating of magic forced through the channels of his being already abraded by the power he'd called upon to stop the plane crashing. It was meant to slide smoothly, naturally, like a stream from his soul – not explode with such raw intensity. Arthur's whole body shuddered, but Merlin wouldn't stop, wouldn't stop until the bones of Arthur's crushed hand were realigned and whole.
"Damn," Arthur whispered. "Oh, damn."
There was strength and stubbornness in Arthur's face, even as it swam out of focus in Merlin's eyes. He reached to unlatch his seatbelt, and as Merlin turned toward Gwaine and Leon, he blacked out for a single instant – not long enough to collapse against his wounded king, but long enough for him to notice.
"Merlin!" Arthur said, rather more sharply than he normally did, and Merlin fumbled at his own seatbelt, anxious to obey, to serve. Only – he was so dizzy. Vaguely he registered that the passengers from the rows behind them and the rows just ahead had all gone.
Gwaine, balanced against the tilt of the plane – it wasn't just Merlin, then – hovered over Leon, checking his pulse, supporting his weight as gravity pulled the older knight down toward the aisle. As Merlin clambered out of Arthur's way, he saw that the seat ahead of Leon lay tilted, bent backwards, pushing his left leg down.
"Gwaine?" Arthur said from behind Merlin.
"He's alive, his pulse is strong," Gwaine reported.
A dark stain spread on the tan material of the leg of Leon's trousers, below the seat pinning him down. Merlin stumbled and Gwaine caught him by the elbow as his hands reached Leon, squeezing out reluctant magic, healing with a rough efficiency of first aid care rather than a surgeon in a sterile operating room, finally sinking into a panting crouch on the slanted aisle.
Gwaine reached for Leon's seatbelt, paused and looked down at Merlin. "Can you help me carry him?" he asked. Merlin nodded, though it caused his vision to bob alarmingly for several moments after. Gwaine unlatched Leon's seatbelt, caught the older knight as he began to slide out and down.
Merlin simply adjusted Leon's arm around his neck to stand – and promptly went down again on one hand and knee in the aisle.
"You okay, Merlin?" Arthur said hoarsely.
Merlin concentrated on the rubber ripples of the aisle tread under his fingers – blood on his fingers. "Just – dizzy," he mumbled, pushing himself up.
"Let's go." Arthur's voice sounded stronger, more collected. "There's no one left behind us."
Merlin stumbled first, dragging Leon behind, his vision's version of up fighting his body's perception of gravity. Gwaine came just behind Leon, supporting him under his other arm, with Arthur more steady in the rear, cradling his bloody hand in the wrapped hem of his shirt.
There was no one left in front of him, either, though he could make out some movement in the far dim front of the plane, as other passengers scrambled or stumbled to and through the front exits.
There were no bodies left behind in any of the seats.
By the time he emerged to the fresh air from the hatch exit over the wing, he was gasping with exertion, drinking in the pungency of Virginia oak rather than the salt tang of Seattle. Below him dark figures moved over the ground; there was some moaning, some low conversation. The baby was crying somewhere in the dim twilight. But there was no screaming.
The wingtip, he observed lightheadedly, was slanted downward, buried in the earth at the end of a long dark scar, a furrow plowed for hundreds of yards.
Merlin slipped and sat down hard on the wing. Gwaine yelped, and Leon mumbled something, stirring. Merlin maneuvered himself back under Leon's arm, to help both knights in a controlled slide down the wing to the ground. There was an empty few yards of ground, and Merlin copied Gwaine's movements to place Leon gently down.
"Arthur?" Merlin turned to his king, and the movement unbalanced him enough that he sat down right where he was, rather than risk staggering wildly over some injured passenger.
Arthur squatted down next to him. "Take it easy, Merlin," he said.
Beyond Arthur's shoulder he could see figures moving among the majority of seated passengers – two flight attendants, by their uniforms, and two young passengers with military haircuts. He caught a few words – "Anyone badly hurt? We have a first aid kit, a few blankets…"
Gwaine plopped down on Leon's other side and began to remove his shoes. Merlin watched him, disconcerted, still aware that Arthur used his shoulder to brace himself as he sat down on the ground also. Once both Gwaine's shoes were off, he pulled off his socks as well, and – sitting there barefoot in the waning twilight – used one to bind Leon's knee. Then he flopped the other at Merlin, and held out his left arm, scooting closer.
Merlin took the sock, staring at the knight.
"Right here," Gwaine said, pointing to the inside of his elbow. "Nice and tight – but don't cut off my circulation."
Merlin obeyed. The knight put his shoes back on, then pushed himself up. "I'm going to see if there's any way I can help," he said. "I guess anyone with a phone in their hand already called 911. Probably little to do except wait for the paramedics – but there might be some first aid necessary."
"I can help," Merlin mumbled, trying to push himself to his feet. The world swirled crazily in muddy browns and grays around him, except for the golden gleam of Arthur's hair which remained stationary on his right. And then the ground crashed into his shoulder and hip, and he grunted.
"Merlin, be still," Arthur's order cut through the throbbing in his head that was very nearly audible.
"I need to help," he insisted. "Need to make sure – no one dies. No one dies."
Gwaine said to Arthur, "Why don't I go check on things, and if there's anyone who needs – special attention, I can come back for him?"
"Yeah," Arthur said, putting pressure on Merlin's shoulder to keep him from trying to get up.
He rolled on his side, his knees against Leon's body, Arthur sitting against his back, and closed his eyes. He fumbled til his hand felt the texture of Leon's shirt material, then sent a trickle of magic into the older man.
It was there. He wanted to use it. No matter that it felt like drinking hot coffee after burning your tongue on the soup. No matter that it felt like gripping the handlebars of your bike after wiping out and scraping all the skin from your palms. Like trying to hold raw egg or read when the lamp was turned out, or remember something that… constantly… slipped.
"No casualties at all, Arthur," Gwaine said. "Scrapes, bruises, broken bones, mostly. The emergency vehicles should start showing up soon."
It was darker, now. Either that, or his vision was seriously failing. But even that didn't matter. He scrunched himself around so that he could push away from the ground, and felt Arthur's hand trying to restrain him again.
"Dammit, Arthur, I need to do this," he panted hoarsely. "Please let me."
Arthur wordlessly positioned himself at Merlin's elbow, Gwaine holding his other arm. "Come this way, then," the knight said.
Merlin couldn't see straight, couldn't think straight. He smelled blood and he heard pain, and he focused on that, his hands shaking as they hovered over injuries – gashes, breaks – Arthur and Gwaine explaining, excusing, sometimes turning aside to arrange for some minor comfort for someone else.
At some point, Merlin blacked out again.
He was aware, briefly, of Arthur's shoulders under one arm, felt him struggling and panting. Sorry, Arthur – he tried to make his feet move, but they obeyed his commands so slowly it didn't help. Gwaine was still at his right, swearing under his breath. He saw Leon, up on his elbows, the sock tied around his knee reddened in the center, watching them come closer with a look of concern on his face, opening his mouth on a question.
The darkness was absolute. Voices swooped and faded. He head hurt so badly he retched, and then it hurt even more. A great weight on his chest made him struggle to breathe – he was buried alive? the magic crushed from his body, the vessel emptied. He was – a toothpaste tube, flatted and twisted like – like wreckage.
An aircraft, somewhere in the glass and concrete was Arthur's broken body because Merlin hadn't been strong enough, and he couldn't move. He sobbed his king's name.
"I'm here, Merlin. I'm here."
12. Part 2: Broken Bones
("Stay" from Revelations)
The floor of the cave disappeared. Gravity disappeared.
Reality disappeared.
The knights shouted surprise-shock-fear. If Arthur's voice was among them, Merlin couldn't pick it out.
Light disappeared. Or maybe he only had his eyes shut, anticipating–
The ground slammed into him, rock-hard. Maybe he bounced. Or maybe one of the others landed on him.
All the air disappeared also – maybe being used up by the men who were still yelling, cursing, flailing and kicking.
Merlin dragged shaking fingers through the loose dirt beneath his face, all the way to bedrock, to make sure that was down. Because any sense of direction – as well as his stomach and lungs – had been left up there. Wherever they had fallen from.
"Is everyone all right? You fellows? Anyone hurt?" One of the knights. He didn't know who.
He couldn't breathe – still upside-down, disoriented – and his magic. Must have been left behind, or disappeared, also. He felt shaky and empty, inside; he'd never felt like this, like he was drowning. Gaping like a fish out of water. Submerged in the wrong medium or deprived of his medium or…
"Anything broken? And no, Gwaine, a bruised backside doesn't count for any sympathy…"
He'd been in a cave before, not so very different from this, but vastly opposite. Crystals thrumming with life, sparkling with a million points of light, overflowing with images of experience. Confusing in its riches of sensation – more more more – pastpresentfuture…
This cave was dead-dark. Nothing to be sensed, nothing to be touched. No magic. He spooked a little, trying to lash out – it was dark, no one would see, no one would hear his voice out of the babble of others–
Arthur? Sire? Where's Arthur? He's here – My lord, are you all right?
Five spells, he knew. After once being trapped in a tomb of stone in the bowels of Camelot by troll magic, he knew spells to get out of places like this, but.
There was no magic. There was no magic. There was no–
"I'm all right."
Arthur, with that little catch in his voice that made Merlin alert to the fact that the king's body was in contact with his, along the backs of his legs in the darkness. And all right wasn't all right. He scrambled toward his king-
up or down, over or under were they all suspended in midair or stuck to a cave ceiling like stalagmi- no, it was the other one, stalactites –
He scraped knuckles and grazed his head against rough wood - a thick solid upright beam he pushed away from in turning to find his master.
"Arthur," he managed. "What's wrong? Where are you hurt?"
There was light, he realized, a dim glow far above them – the effect where they were was not unlike starlight with no moon. Shadows and impressions the eyes strained to resolve. Arthur was seated, his back to the wall, legs partially stretched in front of him. One of the others crouched at his other side, as Merlin lifted and arranged his own limbs to kneel beside the king.
"My shoulder. My chest. Probably just bruised–" Arthur shifted, and hissed involuntarily.
Merlin rose to change the angle of his examination, to ease his fingers past the neckline of Arthur's chainmail, and of a sudden experienced the sensation that his movement would cause him to keep rising into the air – into the ether - and drift away. He clutched at Arthur in momentary panic.
"Ow – damn – keep off if you're going to be clumsy about it!" The king reacted pained-annoyed.
"Sorry." The sensation passed and Merlin continued, making an effort to be more gentle. "I told you, you shouldn't have come, you shouldn't have followed me and Gwaine here to Kemeray."
"And I told you, when my physician leaves in suspicious circumstances and my manservant and a knight who's supposed to be on duty–" Arthur cut himself off, inhaling swiftly through his nostrils.
Merlin had found the injury. "This is it, nowhere else?" he said. "I think your collarbone is cracked. Here."
He fumbled under the edges of his jacket – too hot, take it off – to unfasten his belt. His stomach rolled uneasily, which was odd, but he focused on tying the strap of leather around Arthur's opposite shoulder, and under the elbow of the arm on the injured side.
"Try to keep from moving too much," he said, "and this'll help with the pain, stabilizing the bone."
The others kept moving, shuffling, boots in dirt. The sound magnified til it filled his ears like water and he gritted his teeth against the raw irritation.
"There's no way out," Gwaine reported. "No door, just these timbers making a cell…"
Someone's knee jammed into Merlin's back, and he arched involuntarily away from the unintentional contact, his gut churning with nerves.
"Could we climb them?" Percival suggested.
"Arthur can't," Leon pointed out.
"Maybe if Elyan stood on Percival's shoulders, he could climb–"
"…Get out –"
"Get back to Camelot for help –"
It was too dark to see properly, but Merlin felt the weight of Arthur's gaze, accusing him of making the wrong choice when the sorcerer who'd abducted Gaius caught them in his spell, before dumping them all down here with a collapse of the cave floor. Should have gone for help. You're not a fighter. You can't do anything against a sorcerer… He'd heard it all before, in some variation.
"I'm not leaving you," Merlin whispered. Whether Arthur heard him or not. It was his life, his destiny, in four words.
"Maybe we can use our swords to hack through a beam or two–"
"No, don't," Elyan said from the corner opposite Merlin – what a tiny space, it was so hot. "These are mine timbers. That means the moisture that soaked into them would have contained the dust of the iron ore – they're nearly stone, themselves. You'll shatter your blade and barely nick them."
Iron ore… that might explain the emptiness he felt. Iron blocked magic, sometimes.
"Maybe if we dig…"
The tall shadows of the knights swooped downward and the scuffling, scraping sounds of gloved hands and belt-daggers at the timbers and in the stone of the floor swirled around him. Over him, through him – he was spinning again in every direction at once, weightless and lost and crushed and hollow…
He managed to spin away from Arthur before he vomited what little dinner Gwen had made him eat, however many hours ago it had been.
Not once. Not twice. But again, and again – spitting his mouth clear and trying to wipe drool from his lips and cold sweat all over his body and – his muscles all wrenching backwards to vomit again.
And then, when his stomach and throat constricted, nothing came up, and he swallowed reflexively. Again.
Reached a shaky hand to scrub his mouth with his sleeve. Collapsed to sitting before thinking about the slope of the ground and where the liquids which should have been inside him might have run to–
Awkward silence. And fiery-hot shame. He yanked his kerchief over his head to blot sweat awkwardly from his face.
"Merlin?" someone said.
He didn't know who; it sounded like his ears were full of moving air or water, a subtle rushing noise filled with purposeless urgency.
Someone else said, "Did he hit his head? Sometimes if you hit your head too hard–"
"I didn't," he said aloud. His voice sounded strange, as if his mouth had forgotten how to talk, and was only good for spewing out what it shouldn't. "I'm all… right. It's just…"
Medical explanation failed him – the ability to fabricate failed him – and exhaustion crashed down like the ceiling, like the floor, again. Weariness whirled around and through him and he thought – oh no, not again.
"Going to… lie down for a minute. Arthur. If you're okay?"
"Yeah. If you… need to." He could tell by the sound of the king's voice, the expression on his face.
Concern and ignorance and mild annoyance at both feelings. What do I do. I don't know. But I'm supposed to know… When that happened, there was default to just… being king.
So Merlin hitched himself round – wary of putting a hand in his own vomit in the dark, and curled up on the ground, his back against Arthur's leg on his injured side. The contact felt comfortable, rather than the reverse, and Arthur didn't try to scoot away as if he thought they both needed space between them.
He closed his eyes against the incongruous vertigo. Listened to the knights lower their voices, but question-question-question when the only one with answers was that enigmatic bald sorcerer who'd captured them…
Darkness beckoned, and he accepted with reckless gratitude.
12. Part 3: Broken Bones
("Truth and Freedom" from Refined by Fire)
The door of the interrogation chamber was not locked, and Gaius remained respectfully two paces behind Arthur as they entered. The two soldiers on duty to the inside – faces obscured by the nose-guards of their helmets – both jerked to attention.
One said – in relief? – "Oh, sire."
Aerldan the questioner, dressed in a black smock, lifted his head in surprise and retreated respectfully toward his seat at the desk by the wall. But Arthur had not come to see him.
Merlin was in the prisoner's chair, facing away from the door, his head dropped down on the high back in exhaustion or unconsciousness. Arthur didn't look away from him as he spoke to the questioner his father had sent for, to scrutinize the implications of Arthur's manservant using a spell to disarm a bandit attacking the patrol. To save his life.
"I've come on the king's authority to observe your results for myself," he stated.
Aerldan said nothing, but gestured, as genteelly as any lordling inviting Arthur to a feast.
Arthur might have gone on, had the arm of the prisoner's chair not been in his line of vision. A thick strap held Merlin's wrist and forearm to the arm of the chair, but there were streaks of blood visible at the far end, some darker, some brighter. A single drop fell as his eyes lit on the sight, to splash among a dozen others, on the floor… and the seat of the chair… and the side of Merlin's trousers.
His call for Gaius died in his throat, as the blue-robed physician shoved rather rudely past, to round the other side of the prisoner's chair. Arthur watched horror flash through the old man's expression, before he bent to give attention first to Merlin's face, speaking the boy's name soft and gentle. Merlin's head rolled on the back of the chair, lifted slightly, and Gaius caught Arthur's gaze.
"He's asking for you, sire."
Arthur moved closer, as fast as he was able, and still incredibly slowly. He felt he was caught in some terrible dream, knowing he must act, knowing the shock of what he would discover would increase, but resisting discovery would not change reality.
Merlin's hands were covered in blood. Thick, fresh, scabbed, smeared. His arms purpled with bruises, the skin of his chest carved and smudged with some macabre drawing. He thought of the few spots staining Merlin's shirt during the trial, then the old physician shifted and Arthur nearly vomited – only just controlling the reflexive gag by clenching his teeth and swallowing several times.
A small metal frame clamped Merlin's left hand to the chair. Arthur had seen one before, but never in use. And this one's screw was fully extended, pinning Merlin's fourth or fifth finger – he avoided looking too closely – to the wood of the chair-arm.
And not only that. Arthur noticed the silver glint of some sort of pin or peg – more than one – interrupting the bloodied fingertips. Jammed right up under the nail-bed.
Merlin's head lifted a bit more, his eyes opened – the blue deep and exhausted and pure in his face, gaunt and deathly pale beneath his bruises. Arthur was on his knees in a rush, crowding into Merlin's knees to catch his friend as he leaned forward; the boy's skin felt both slick and grimy where Arthur touched him.
"You don't have to move," Arthur breathed. "You don't have to–"
Merlin sobbed once, letting Arthur's shoulder support his head, turning his face blindly into Arthur's neck. "I told him… the truth," he moaned. "Just like you asked. Everything, I swear. He has to stop, Arthur–" Merlin gulped and a shudder ran through his whole body – "you have to make him stop."
He seemed quite lucid, in spite of what Uther had read of Aerldan's report. Coherent, and well aware of where he was and what was going on, who he was with and why. Arthur was glad, and then a bit sorry Merlin hadn't escaped to some hidden and insane haven of the mind.
"No more." Arthur spoke to Aerldan without turning. "You're done. The king can base his judgment on your results so far." You're lucky I'm unarmed, and too honorable to kill someone like you – diseased and defenseless.
"He is broken anyway," Aerldan commented, creeping closer and clasping – rubbing – his gloved hands together. "I was almost sorry to do it – I've never seen hands like his."
Merlin's hands. Roughened from scrubbing Arthur's floor, discolored on occasion from the polish used for Arthur's armor, quick and sure as he fitted and buckled him into his protection during training, or a tournament, light and gentle afterwards when Arthur was sore… all ye gods together, Merlin's hands.
He reached to pull a silver pin from the bloody ruin of Merlin's left thumb – and froze as Aerldan gasped, gliding swiftly forward.
"The hands are so sensitive it hurt him so much," he said, nearly babbling in his eagerness. "He asked for you and called for you and cried for you – sire. Do it. To see you his master causing such pain to his hands – extraordinary hands–"
Arthur gritted his teeth and growled in his throat; a helpless whimper escaped his servant, and he held still with an effort.
"Let me, Arthur," Gaius said, and began a low soothing murmur. "We have to remove these now, Merlin, be strong, hold very still…"
Merlin shoved himself back into the chair with sickening vehemence; Arthur surged to his feet, rounding on the questioner. Aerldan took a startled step back again and Arthur pursued him, crowding him back to his little desk and chair, keeping his eyes on the deformed features of the questioner and not the gruesome extraction taking place behind him.
"Are these barbed?" the physician said, raising his voice to address the questioner. Arthur swallowed his nausea once again at the thought, but Aerldan inhaled, straightening as his eyes brightened.
"What a fabulous idea! I must ask a silversmith–"
Arthur shoved his fist into the torturer's face. "Be quiet, or lose your tongue," he threatened darkly. Aerldan's eyes widened, and he bit what remained of his lips together.
Gaius' constant reassuring mumbling continued behind Arthur; Merlin loosed an occasional pained grunt or whimper or moan that made Arthur's nerves freeze and his stomach clench. He heard a faint chime, as one of the metal shards hit the stone floor.
"No, Gaius–"
"I have to, my boy, you know that."
"Give me a minute, please I can't–" A low cry… rising… choked off. Another piece rang lightly on the floor.
Arthur could not keep the look of incredulous disgust off his face. Aerldan dropped his gaze, his bowed shoulders lowered pleadingly. "Exceptional hands," he mumbled. "And he felt it so keenly."
"Not another word," Arthur said coldly. "Or I will remove your own."
The questioner's gloves shuffled together between them, as he spread his hidden fingers for his own absent-minded examination.
A shattering scream rose, hoarse and brief, muffled into a desperate repetition of Gaius' apology for causing additional, unintentional pain. Arthur wheeled round – the physician met his eyes, disregarding the wet tracks down his cheeks.
"Three are dislocated, sire, I apologize, he may lose some use of them if I don't… immediately."
"He won't need them where Uther will send him," Aerldan murmured.
Arthur very nearly backhanded the man as hard as he could, in spite of his infirmity. And maybe he didn't care a bit if his hands were chopped. Ignoring Aerldan, he moved back to join his friends.
Merlin braced himself in the chair, head back and neck corded with tension, every muscle standing out on his bony frame, right hand clenched in a fist below the strap around his wrist that was still in place. Gaius twisted, and Merlin's body jerked – there was blood on his lips.
"One more, my boy," the old man said, before he looked up. "Sire, I think it may help if you hold him – I will have to unscrew the apparatus before trying to re-set the dislocation."
Behind him, Arthur heard the questioner repeat Gaius' words in an insidiously delighted hiss.
He knelt over the body of his friend, pressing against his knees, leaning his forearm though lightly across Merlin's collarbones. "Hold on," he said in a low voice that pinched his throat abominably. "We've got to hurt you to help you."
His response was a heart-wrenching whisper. "Gaius get him away from me before–"
"Hold on," the physician urged. "One moment more."
Squeak.
A shock of sympathetic ice shot through Arthur's nerves; Merlin squirmed underneath his hold, turning his head as if in denial.
Squeak. Oiled or not, the mechanism was probably clogged with drying blood.
"No!" Merlin gasped. "Stop! I can't–"
Arthur swore, shifting to hold the slender frame in place. An arrow at least could be yanked. A wound from a weapon in combat was generally inflicted too fast for thought or realization til it was done. He couldn't imagine how excruciating–
Squeak.
"N- Aaaaagh!"
A great blast of hot air shoved Arthur's entire body. He had a brief moment to realize he was airborne – Gaius tumbling in the other direction, a silver instrument glinting in his hands – Merlin's bonds at wrists and ankles ignited – before he slammed into the stone wall.
Pain spiked through his skull in reds and yellows and he felt the unyielding stone below and behind him.