3.13 How They Saved Each Other
Each step thundered through Merlin, rattling shinbones up through his thighs, contradicting the echo of deliberate bellows-breathing – suck it in, push it out – and distant shouting, distorted and lengthened.
Everything felt slow, sounded underwater, felt like a nightmare in which he was running down the middle of a rubble-strewn Aravian street, somewhere in the middle of a line of hurried, harried soldiers all filthy-wounded-hungry. Natives curious and impassive drew back to watch them pass and he didn't know where they were going and he couldn't remember where they'd been except danger-failure-death and maybe they were surrounded and maybe heavy ordnance would begin to fall and detonate, punctuated by rifle-fire, any minute.
If it went according to his other nightmares, his companion-soldiers would begin to jerk and twist and crash to the ground, dead before momentum ceased, but he would struggle on alone and exposed. At some point he would realize he was bleeding, that he'd been shot and blood was soaking through his uniform in more and more places. Pain held at bay by adrenaline but that couldn't last, sooner or later his puppet-strings would be cut by the fates and then he couldn't… do anything to fix the failures.
The soldier in front of him veered abruptly to the right and Merlin stumbled, finding himself halted without intent, watching the short line of soldiers pounding away down a narrower street or alley, rifles awkward but ready in both hands, the weapons scouting the surfaces and breaks in flanking buildings.
Come on! what are you-!
Determination seized his jacket with an extra pinch of his shoulder, roughly propelling him forward on this new trajectory. Surprised, he turned his head to see another man's profile – bearded jaw clenched, rifle wielded one-handed since his other was fisted in Merlin's uniform. One of them was going to trip, trying to run like this. He had no air, but he was a choker so surely the-
Second-sergeant, by the rank badge sewn to his shoulder. Merlin thought about grabbing it to return whatever favor the second-sergeant was doing for him, but his forefinger was tangled inside his trigger-guard and he couldn't.
Trying to run while looking sideways bobbled his head on his neck, though, and rattled the helmet on his skull in spite of the padding. He turned his head forward just in time to notice the other running soldiers had halted themselves, bottle-necking at another alley-entrance to look back at him.
He tripped again, trying to inhale enough breath to call out, What! I don't know! What we should do!
"Think we lost the sniper?"
"Not for long, maybe – we need to keep moving-"
"We need a plan, is what we need, how are we gonna get outta this fu-"
"Quit panicking," ordered the profile of the second-sergeant. "Move – in there."
In there turned out to be a ground-floor flat they invaded through window-holes prickling with broken glass too old and weathered to menace their skin through tough uniform-fabric. His legs were too long, his boots too clumsy to fit easily through his window and he nearly fell to hands and knees once inside. The others still had their rifles ready, checking corners and clearing angles and disappearing down corridors only to reappear almost immediately.
"Clear."
"All clear, second. This one's uninhabitable, evidently."
"Well, we won't be moving in," the bearded man said, profile and shoulder-rank. "But we can take a breather, here – Martine, find us a back door. Everyone else, pick a window. Probably the kitchen has been scoured already, but we need to check for edibles and a comm-block connection, and if the water's still running we can-"
Merlin turned to the window he'd just scrambled awkwardly through, not really sure what he was supposed to do with his choice, and discovered her only inches from him. Beautiful and worried, training her rifle on whatever she saw out the window.
"Hello," he said, pleasantly surprised.
She met his eyes, and a smile sparked briefly – involuntary, swiftly suppressed. "Hi. We made it. For now... I think. Can you watch that way?"
A twitched shrug implied that she thought he should be doing what she was, from the opposite side of the window, so he obligingly raised the muzzle of his rifle.
"How's he, Douglas?"
"Functional?" she answered the speaker inexplicably. "I think he'll be okay."
"What'd he do, though? Back there?"
"Saved our asses, is what he did, you moron."
The alley outside the window remained deserted and strewn with rubble. Someone shoved a battered, unsteady table up to the wall behind him, aluminum and formica, and another pinch of his sleeve pulled him back to it. He stumbled a half-step so its edge hit him right below his butt, but it held his weight and instantly he wanted to melt into oblivion.
"Hey, Merlin, sit down. We all gotta rest – you've earned it, mate."
He turned his head – but not his rifle, watching incuriously out the window – and recognized the second-sergeant, straight-on.
"Gwaine," he said stupidly.
"Yeah," Gwaine said, giving a half-energy grin. "We're good for now. Plan is, get to the rail-station and jump a train the hell outta here-"
How, though?
"Establish contact with Camp George first chance we get. Report in, update our orders-"
Someone interrupted with a rude suggestion of what the officers of Camp George could do with their orders. "They sent us right into an ambush, man, can't you see that? All because someone's gunning for that guy."
"Shut up, JT," the beautiful dark-haired girl at the window with him – Freya – retorted. "You'd be dead about five times over if it wasn't for this guy."
"Oi," said another girl, right at Merlin's elbow before he noticed her. She had a snack-bar in one hand, half-unpeeled, and offered it to him. "It's not much. But it'll help. Second, the water's drippy and brown in the sinks, you wanna risk it or what?"
Merlin didn't catch the answer. Those black bits mashed into a rectangle with the granola were probably chocolate – okay, maybe cranberry – but his mouth wanted to water anyway, so he took a bite and discovered it was half-gone.
He offered the rest to Freya, who took a minute to untangle her hand from supporting her rifle-barrel. She said exhaustedly, "Cheers."
"Love you too," he told her, slumped on the dusty old table, mouth full of tasteless granola.
And she smiled.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Several hours past midnight, the glow of the border station appeared beyond the taillights of Arthur's rented turf-bike in front of Gwen. She'd been wondering for several dozen kilometres, how exactly they were going to play it – two vacationing lovebirds weren't quite going to cut it on the border between Egypt and Aravia at quarter to three am.
The border guard were alert and suspicious in this part of the world like their counterparts hadn't been further north, as she moved from country to country, but they hand-signaled and carried their rifles like assured professionals, and-
"Hi," Arthur said with a charming grin, emerging from his helmet, slouched on the seat of his turf-bike. He ruffled sweat-dampened hair and tucked the helmet under his elbow, reaching to fish identification out of his pocket. "Great night, isn't it? Your lights here probably obscure a lot of it, but a night like tonight is perfect for viewing Canis Major, Canis Minor, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor – Leo Minor – and the Haffa Ridge just outside Janada will be perfect for viewing Saturn because it's brightest and closest to Earth right now and possibly we can catch the partial lunar eclipse if we're quick and lucky…"
Gwen rested her own helmet on her thigh, her braid falling over her shoulder, and gave the border guard a subtler sort of charm, inviting sympathy for someone complying with a companion's illogical obsession. "Provided we get there in time…"
"Why did you not travel yesterday, last night?" one of the guards demanded, as his companion scrutinized both of their identification. Both from Camelot, unrelated, unlikely to raise any red flags.
"Well, we would have," Gwen remarked.
"We'd planned to," Arthur added. "Except the conference in Alexandria ran over time, and then we got talking to Professor Lusharq and he offered to show us some of his research on the theory that Saturn's rings evolved from the shattered bits of ice-moons that collided two hundred million years ago because I said it couldn't have been that long, and-"
"And we were drinking," Gwen put in slyly, and Arthur twisted on the saddle-seat of his turf-bike to give her a scandalized look.
"Not that much!"
"Really?" she drawled, fondly patronizing.
"Well, I do have to pee now," Arthur said, kind of out of nowhere – weren't they in a hurry to be allowed to pass? – "but that's not because-"
Gwen rolled her eyes to the closer guard – both of them lean and chiseled, brown skin and dark eyes – and leaned like she was going to kick her leg over the turf-bike and dismount.
"Not here," the guard said immediately, pointing to the low squat building looming over the border-crossing. "Lavatories are located there."
"Can we go, then?" Arthur said, renewing the grin and meaning the double entendre.
"Yes, all right. You may pass."
Gwen squeezed the turf-bike handle to increase acceleration enough to follow Arthur off the road and into the lot which served a fueling station and a tiny cantina, mainly for the convenience of the border patrol. They were allowed to refuel, though they probably could have made Janada on the last half-tank, and headed for the inner door marking the corridor to the lavatories.
"See you in a bit," Arthur told her, heading down the hall that was narrow and yellow and grungy.
Something about his expression made her pause with her elbow on the scarred paint of the restroom door, avoiding direct contact with her hands, as much as possible. "Because you expect me to take my time?..."
Flash of private amusement lurking in the grin. "Because I might need a bit longer…"
She almost teased, Don't need to know that – except that he passed the second lavatory door and continued to the one blocking the far end of the hall. Leaning close, he eyed the space beyond through the small square window, testing the handle of the door with the clear intention of proceeding into unauthorized space.
It was less than a minute she spent in the bathroom, in spite of and because of his warning. Finish and be done and get out – check that the dusty lot was still empty save for their turf-bikes. Ears perked for any sound of disturbance in the interior of the building, alarms or rushing boots, because if there was trouble, they were going to have to-
A shadow moved across the small square window and Arthur burst through, glancing over his shoulder as she held the exterior door open to the night and the buzzing yellow lot-lights. Her heartrate calmed incongruously at the sight of his expression – even though he gestured to hustle her outside, he wasn't fleeing pursuit.
"You're not going to-" she suggested, giving the lavatory brown-painted doors a wave.
"We can stop off the side of the road in a while," he said, pushing her back toward her turf-bike. "Right now I'd like to get some distance between us and…"
She swung her leg over the saddle-seat moments after he did, booting the stick-stand out of the way and palming her helmet at the same time, ready to slip it on. "Between us and…"
"Their armory." He flipped the faceplate of his helmet down and faced forward, cranking the engine to pull back onto the Aravian road to Janada.
The tail of his lightweight button-up shirt, tropical tourist-colors bleached in the dim light, flapped in the wind generated by the increased speed just enough to give her a glimpse of the drawstring waistband of his loose cotton trousers – and a slice of an unmistakable black pattered grip.
She knew him well enough not to wonder how he'd gotten into the armory at the border crossing-station, or to waste any worry of whether they'd be discovered because of carelessness or a mistake. Extra ammo weighing down one or both of his pockets, maybe?
And now they were armed.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Freya felt herself on a full-second delay, most of the night. She'd gotten maybe three or four hours of sleep, all told. Partly because instincts had her jolting adrenaline-awake even when it was quiet, and partly because she knew it was her particular duty to keep track of Merlin.
He had his moments of complete lucidity. When he checked his weapon without prompting and prowled out behind JT with clear and active intent; when he jerked upright and listened like the rest of them to the distant and aborted emergency-vehicle signal let off in another part of the city.
But then there were moments that he slept – or something – so soundly that his fingers remained lax even when she took his hand in hers and cuddled up to him in the dark, awkward because of body armor and helmets and rucksacks and rifles. Moments when he gazed into the air and maybe saw and heard nothing as minutes dragged into hours…
Or, maybe saw and heard everything.
Had that really been him? The second explosion of one of their troop transport trucks? But how – because psychic couldn't do that…
Maybe he could. Probably he could. Maybe it didn't matter.
Twice more their squad of soldiers moved position in Janada, before first light. The first time was the fault of a solitary human-shadow, creeping furtively down the alley next to the hollowed-out flat only to hesitate, halt – then retreat.
"Some guy trying to visit his girlfriend and afraid her husband's lying in wait," Charlie suggested to Freya, with a yawn that she couldn't help duplicating.
But they moved anyway, to the open-air second floor of an abandoned shop whose thick stone walls had been aerated with missiles sometime during one of the earlier decades of heavier fighting. There was enough debris from the collapsed roof to provide them interior cover, and of the two flanking buildings, one had no windows and an inaccessible domed roof, and the other was a single story. Escape across, or jump a short distance down to a rubble heap in the back. Gwaine and JT took turns covering the exposed stairway, and they stayed til a trio of Aravians with a single torch between them – apparently singing drunken ballads – staggered down the road in front of the building.
"They never saw us," Hector muttered rebelliously, grouchy as a teenager at the whispered order to move out.
But, just to be on the safe side.
A dozen blocks away, and no sign that they'd been noted, they'd broken into another shop with a single solid shove. Fringed rugs stacked and folded and stacked again, overlapping each other where they hung on the walls for display.
The rug store was comfortable, with buildings on both sides and front and rear easily guarded, and they managed to scrounge some packages of jerky and boil tea so thick it was almost soup. But first light was eventually undeniable, and then Gwaine loomed sudden and quiet to kneel beside her and place a hand on Merlin's knee.
"Hey, Merlin," he breathed, voice rusty with exhaustion and stress. Without waiting for a response, he cocked his helmet slightly and continued to her, "How's he doing?"
"Hey, Gwaine," Merlin responded, in much the same tone. "I'm fine. I'm better."
Gwaine made a sound like he remained unconvinced, and slapped Merlin's knee lightly. "We're taking turns in the shop's lavatory," he told them. "Then we'll move out to the train-station."
"Do you know-" she began, struggling up to an elbow and finding that Merlin needed to reclaim one of his arms from around her to succeed.
"Yeah," Gwaine said, not needing to hear the end of her question. "Three blocks north, is all. That'll take us to the west side of the station complex where the road crosses the tracks. Entrance is at the east, but-"
She knew. This wasn't the time for respecting locks or following posted signs for pedestrian safety.
"And we're still clear?" Merlin said, rolling to a sitting position behind her.
"Far as we know," Gwaine said grimly.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Shouldn't there be more lights?
Arthur's head felt hot and heavy under the turf-bike helmet, in contrast to the cool night-breeze flowing over his skin that they were generating with their speed – a bit slower, since they'd turned off half an hour ago to follow the rail-tracks rather than the road, clear enough under the wan blue light of early morning.
Saturn and its rings somewhere up there, he assumed. Partial lunar-eclipse or not.
No time to procure a street map of Janada, if such a thing could be trusted for accuracy, after all the turmoil it had seen. How often did they update city-maps, and would a vendor toss out half a dozen outdated ones or continue to sell them. No time to study a map anyway, no matter what edition it was.
Good thing he enjoyed improvisation anyway.
He could make out the square shapes of Janada against the vague expanse of distant desert, though, dim through the helmet's faceplate. And given the size of the city, in spite of the wretchedly-early hour… shouldn't there be more lights.
Unless that whole shitshow, as Cartwright put it, was worse than reported.
Usually wasn't. Reporters did like to embellish the sensational stuff, and if they needed to correct themselves, it was done after the outlet had sold copies and readers alike on the sensation, first.
But his hand tightened around the turf-bike's acceleration and he pushed, as he rarely did around his home estate, riding for fun. And there was enough of an engine-echo to reassure him, Gwen was keeping pace.
Several more kilometers, and the city filled the landscape, the rail-tracks revealing themselves all the way inside Janada. Did they do trolleys? Was there more than one stop, for people to ride the train from one end of the city to the other? Hospital in the southeast quadrant, wasn't it?
Movement caught his eye as Gwen maneuvered abreast of him – she pointed, turning her helmet far enough to see him acknowledging her warning.
Low diffuse cloud-haze over that southeast quadrant. And… that was not from some small pipe-bomb strategically placed by small-time troublemakers. That indicated massive, maximum, intentional destruction… as in, there wasn't an international-nondenominational hospital in Janada, anymore.
What the hell were troops from Camp George doing all the way up here? Were any of them left?
Arthur eased back to half-speed as they approached the first structures forming the outskirts of Janada. And despite its population and its size, it really felt more like one of the smaller Aravian villages. Nobody sauntering down the street toward an early start at work, nobody clustered on the corners to engage in friendly debate with neighbors over the day's first cup of tea. No delivery bikes snaking their way to their destination, no children kicking a ball according to their own nonsensical rules.
No sun lifting a ray over the horizon, yet.
A sole frightened dog slunk away from the low noise of their engines; it was probably unnerving in otherwise pervasive stillness and instincts tingled to distance himself and Gwen from the distinctive sound. A curtain lifted at an upper window had the hairs climbing the back of his neck and he shifted in his seat astride the bike's saddle to remind his lower back of the Weston tucked in his waistband.
No one showed at the windows; no one exited the doors. Possibly behind them; he left it to Gwen to glance back covering their six, as he visually scouted forward so she wouldn't have to.
And, the rail-station. Tracks an obvious and expected jump-down from the passenger platforms, extending a hundred meters or more in a slight curve. Absolutely unoccupied as far as he could see – and the hulking black shapes of the train engines and rail-cars just visible in the yard on the far end.
He didn't like it. Didn't like it one bit. He felt watched – exposed, and only sat the turf-bike with his boots on the ground for a moment before he cut the engine. Didn't want to ride through the open space pinpointed by the noise which would cover anyone else's movements, and complicate what his hands needed to do.
Gwen cut her engine moments later, slower to tug the helmet off. She wiped her hair back tiredly, fuzzy tendrils defiant and damp, he was aware even as he studied the distances and hidden spaces of the rail-yard. No workers evident, no noise indicating the presence of other people at all.
He walked his turf-bike into the corner where passengers would enter through a currently-closed gate and take the stairs to the platform, glass-walled office on the corner above them. It smelled like fuel, as all rail-stations did, and heated metal. The rubber of the turf-bike tires ground the gravel beneath him as he shifted, booting down the stick-stand, then dismounted.
"What do you reckon?" Gwen said softly.
He didn't answer, and she didn't need him to. She could figure out as much about their situation as he could – but the lack of emergency sirens or the noise of weapons discharge, in this neighborhood at least, was as reassuring as the lack of activity in the station was concerning.
Leaving the bikes cooling, he prowled up the concrete steps that led to the office and the platform, bounded on the outer side by an ancient metal hand-rail with rusty weld-joints. She followed him, still watching the directions he didn't; it felt marginally safer that way, to him, because the air was too still. Maybe the incongruity of a big-city rail-station so abandoned was alerting instinct like a subaudible warning, but he did not like their position.
Office also empty, as he paced past the door, testing to see if it was locked – and it was. His hand gripped the Weston at the back of his waist-band under the loose cotton tourist-shirt.
"Comm-block connection?" Gwen suggested behind him; he couldn't quit scanning the corners and edges and seeing nothing didn't set him at ease. "See what I can get from local law enforcement about the current situation?"
"Yeah," he said distractedly. "If our troops were attacked at the hospital they'd have moved and kept moving." And, if Janada authorities were tracking those troops at all, better to know that than wander about the city listening for gunfire.
"Troop transport back across the desert to Camp George," Gwen suggested. The angle of her voice and a set of soft metallic sounds suggested she was picking the locked door of the office.
"Vehicles are a target," he answered vaguely. "Long-range missiles. Take a hit before they know it's coming. But if they stay in the city…"
"Civilian casualties," she said.
"Assistance from law enforcement," he reminded her.
"And maybe the Isyad, if it's them, hesitate to open fire in Janada neighborhoods…" She trailed off, rising behind him as the door to the office swung inward.
But they blew up the hospital, he didn't add.
"You call," was what he said. "I'll be on the roof." Rail-station was, after all, an obvious secondary means of transportation, and if it occurred to them, if it occurred to the surviving troops of Camelot, it would occur to anyone still targeting them, too.
The shelters protecting the platform passengers from rain or sun were simple sheets of corrugated fiberglass, tipped so the runoff angled away from the tracks. Old wooden benches backed up to horizontal planking that rose chest-high, giving an abbreviated view of the alley behind the rail-station and the buildings across. Stand on the bench, worm out over the highest plank, grip the edge of the fiberglass, and hoist himself up.
He wasn't being particularly stealthy about gaining the top of the roof – until he noticed the prone figure of a man at the far end of the platform roof – utility pants and military boots and a sareq on his head… and the obvious end of a weapon over his shoulder.
A hundred paces distant, at the opposite end of the platform. Maybe a gren-launch jury-rigged to the rifle, he'd seen that before – fairly light explosives, but still could do some damage.
Clearly lying in wait. Possibly – probably – not alone. And if Arthur moved toward him at any kind of speed, sooner or later he'd feel the vibrations through the material of the roof he was spread out on.
He and Gwen hadn't been noticed yet, having entered the opposite end of the rail-station, which suggested the sniper didn't have any friends watching in their direction, at least.
Arthur took three light steps toward the higher edge of the roof, crouched and risked cuts and scrapes on his hands holding the rippled fiberglass to swing down and slow his landing as he dropped back down to the platform. It was concrete to the end and he could sprint the length of it and arrive before the sniper alerted to his presence – maybe even snag a glance of whatever street or square the man was watching.
The Weston slipped from the back of his waist-band comfortably into his grip, and he thumbed the safety, taking three running steps-
BOOM.
The explosion's power rippled through the air, through the concrete, thunderous echoes of destruction at just enough distance to convince Arthur that the sniper had launched a grenade-
Dammit! My fault!
That felt like more than a grenade.
Arthur sprinted.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
The sun wasn't up yet. And they wouldn't see it right away anyway, behind the buildings of Janada. When they reached the rail-station, it would rise into its uninterrupted shape, down the empty tracks.
Fast-thudding steps down the dusty uneven road, sore feet in sore boots and weary arms handling rifles familiarly and efficiently, weary eyes blinking again and again for elusive clarity. The street was quiet at the moment, and Merlin was not quite rear-guard. Behind Freya, who was behind Martine, and JT behind him. Gwaine somewhere, and the rest, rifles watching windows and roofs and-
The abandoned truck they were passing, rusted or burned-out, lacking tires and windows, exploded in a fireball flash that flung all their bodies like broken dolls – flat into walls, tumbling over jagged rubbish heaps.
Merlin lunged, flailing, but missed catching Freya. She fell heavily and didn't move, blood coating her skin between jacket-collar and helmet.
He waded through glue and shouted underwater – "Look out!"
And blinked at Freya, glancing over her shoulder in live and loving concern, before he tackled her screaming to the dust in a quiet street where a burned-out truck waited just past the alley-
She didn't quit screaming. "Cover covercover!"
His hip ground on cobblestones below the body-armor. Broken glass, too. Elbows bruised and knuckles bloodied and the rifle-strap was too tight over his collarbones and… He hadn't felt it coming, after all.
Save for the scramble-and-shout of their troop reacting to Freya's warning, the street was serene.
He panted for breath.
In his arms, Freya panted, tense and wide-eyed and expectant, but…
He hadn't felt anything. Except a bit ridiculous, now, and that tired dusty shell of a delivery truck-
Exploded in a snarl of white-hot fire and evil-black smoke, ripples of reaction and debris crushing him, smothering her beneath him as it rolled over and past.
High-pitched ringing filled his ears. Someone far away was shouting urgently and the whole world was an endless flat expanse of dust and the impression of mountain-shapes very far away.
Boots thudded down, slow and deliberate, sending tremors quivering through him. His body rocked away from one rough shove after another; he wasn't sure why he should try to rise or act or react. Through the incessant keening that deafened him, he heard one thing-
"Rail-station."
Visualized an empty stretch of track, two bare concrete platforms watching each other, minimally protected by angled fiberglass roofs, abbreviated and yellowing.
And, no.
He was lifted, sagging down into the front of his uniform, carried forward on the shield of his body-armor, boots dragging and head lolling on his chest. The air was choked with dust and the acrid smell of explosives and a sense of vital urgency.
But, no.
" 'S'a trap," he mumbled between the black spots looming over his vision and the thick coppery tang of blood on his lips. "Not… the station. S'what they want…"
We're all going to die today, aren't we?
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Wasn't her thought. Wasn't her words. Freya resented psychic and sometimes so strongly she hated herself…
Today she had never been so thankful for it.
The look on Merlin's face, that last rote glance she'd cast over her shoulder – sheer horror. He'd leaped for her, rifle dropped to dangle from the shoulder-strap, and she had scant seconds to squint and brace before his body slammed her into the ground.
Almost knocked the breath out of her.
Except she was screaming involuntarily for everyone to take cover – what? why?
The explosion that buried them immediately under an avalanche of noise and smoke and raining shrapnel was smaller than that which demolished the hospital – but close and cruel.
Merlin wasn't really moving, his weight pinning her down, though she could tell breathing and not in pain. But soldier's instinct warned – there was a time for keeping still and small, to weather an impersonal barrage and not make oneself a target… and there was a time when one was already a target, and the need was to move.
For a moment she flailed, trapped under Merlin and all the bits that pattered down heavy or hot or sharp struck him and not her. Then Gwaine was there – rifle in his off hand, the other grabbing the strap sewn into the back collar of Merlin's flak-vest to lift him up.
"You all right?" he demanded, tracking their surroundings. "Is he all right?"
Rhetorical – she didn't have a chance to answer before he was bellowing orders to the rest of the troop.
"Get to the rail-station! Go, go-go!"
Freya scrambled to her feet, her own rifle banging uncomfortable bruises around her knees and ribs, ducking under Merlin's nearer arm as he swung lethargically from Gwaine's grip. Gwaine let her balance his weight long enough to adjust his rifle and hook Merlin's other arm around his neck.
"Come on," he begged breathlessly – to her, or to Merlin, or to JT covering them from behind. "Come on – we're exposed-"
A subtle, hollow sound intruded on the ringing in her ears and she scuttled heavily forward, pushing Merlin into Gwaine just as another explosion rocked the street behind them, the stone and brick of two- and three-story walls flying outward, sliding downward, stinging flakes biting unprotected skin and adrenaline meant she wouldn't feel worse wounds til she slowed to stop.
Dammit. Gren-launch. And they'd been lucky so far – everyone she could see still on their feet - but they needed to get to the rail-station because otherwise-
"We're all going to die today!" she blurted desperately to Gwaine.
"No, we're bloody well not!" He pounded forward, dragging Merlin whose weight tugged her following. All of them twice as heavy and awkward as normal, Gwaine's rifle and JT behind them their only cover.
Hector and Charlie on point in a crouched rush turned into the station ahead of them, aimed rifles scouting the way.
We are damned sitting ducks. They guessed we would come here and they waited for us to expose ourselves and-
Car bomb to panic and scatter. Couple of grenades launched to the rear like the crack of a whip behind a horse, and we all rush more or less blindly into…
Ambush. Again.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
The second explosion, hard on the heels of the first, changed Arthur's mind. The first had been something else, something bigger like an improvised bomb – but the second was definitely a grenade, fired by the man lying prone on the rail-station roof.
And he couldn't let that happen again.
Skidding to a stop near the end of the platform, he dropped to one knee, bracing joints to lift-support-aim.
He fired three times – fourfive – at the supine shadow of the man's shape on the roof, little more than a faint suggestion in the inadequate light of early-morning. Instinct was certain that a soldier of Camelot would wear a helmet, not a sareq under any circumstances-
Not with military boots and utility trousers like an Isyadi-
The shadow jerked, crumpling into a dark liquid puddle ringed with spatters on the translucent fiberglass, while runnels sought the lower edge of the corrugated trenches, ready to drip crimson.
Rifle fire erupted in the street past the corner and Arthur's whole body tensed as a corpse tumbled from an upper window – out of his range of vision above the edge of the fiberglass roof – to the dusty ground in a lifeless heap. Half a second later, two soldiers darted into view from the street adjacent, crouched behind readyready rifles.
Arthur reacted instantly, pointing his Weston sideways and upwards, showing his other hand empty to identify himself as an ally. "Camelot CPO!"
"Get down!" they shouted, not listening – one male, one female, both intent. "Drop your weapon! Get down! on the ground!"
"Camelot CPO!" he bellowed back, letting the Weston tip off his finger and clatter onto the concrete of the platform. "Camelot! CPO!"
They paused for breath, finally hearing him – professionally not glancing away from him to check for each other's response. The female labeled Charles looked back down the road at a hailing shout; the male – Hector by the stenciled name-patch on his jacket pocket – circled further onto the tracks, keeping the rifle ready to eliminate Arthur as a threat, if he proved one.
No other shots fired. Arthur side-stepped slowly, keeping the Weston he'd dropped in sight, and stealing that glance around the end of the platform's wall-planking.
Five other soldiers prowled up the street, as haggard as the first two – blood and ash-smear, torn uniforms and dingy bandages. Three of them were together, two flanking a worse-injured third with his arms crooked over their shoulders, proceeded and followed by the others in a protective diamond formation that Arthur approved of. The soldier in the rear backed toward the rail-station, effectively covering their collective six.
Given the sniper's position and that of the upper-window shooter, Arthur checked the likeliest points of further support – that second-story window, that roof of the building behind the station – and saw nothing.
"Camelot CPO," he added, addressing the rest of the troop as they drew closer.
"This our backup, Charlie?" the second female – Martine on the pocket-patch – joked hoarsely, gesturing to him with the barrel of her rifle.
"Let's see some ID," Charles – Charlie, then - suggested to Arthur.
"Are you kidding?" he answered lightly, keeping his hands up while watching windows and roofs that overlooked the last corner before the rail-station provided its own cover. "We don't travel with our actual ID."
Hector, the first point-man, grunted, coming closer to the waist-high edge of the concrete platform. "Keep your hands up and kick your weapon over here."
"Prefer to keep it?" Arthur said pleasantly. "If you boys have been under fire since the hospital blew, that's what – thirty-five or thirty-six hours going, now? Also I have a partner in the rail-office, she's unarmed."
Probably. Maybe there were weapons there for station security use?
Hector and Charles – Charlie, they called her – immediately diverted their attention; he was impressed at the professionalism at this point in their mission. And figured that any questions about losses and casualties would have to be posed very carefully.
The two flanking the injured – unconscious? – soldier were physically disparate. The bearded male toiled grimly under the greater share of their comrade's weight, while the petite female staggered in mute determination to assist.
"Reinforcements, Second," Martine called.
The bearded male responded to the informalized rank-label, lifting his head to mark Arthur – who recognized him at nearly the same instant surprise cleared some of the exhaustion from the second sergeant's expression.
"Gwaine, isn't it," Arthur said, with a half-grin. "What are the odds?"
Something wrong with that. He'd think about it in a minute, when they were all safe.
"Smith," Gwaine grunted, lurching under his heavy burden to the edge of the hip-height concrete platform. "Or Jones?"
"Something like that," Arthur said, stepping forward and crouching down. "Is this one bad off?"
"Turn him around, we'll get him up on his back," Gwaine directed the petite girl, surnamed Douglas by her pocket-patch. "Don't think so," he added to Arthur, but he sounded as ominous as he looked. "But after that explosion-"
"After both the explosions," Douglas added breathlessly, helping Gwaine maneuver their wounded fellow.
Arthur gripped the handle at the back of the flak-vest collar, helping to lift the unconscious soldier up to the platform, all three of their rifles clattering awkwardly in the process. The girl Douglas hoisted herself up immediately, following as Arthur dragged the soldier to his full length and Gwaine boosted his knees and boots up from ground level.
"Quite a coincidence," Gwaine commented shortly from lack of breath. "You here. Might'a thought he was one of yours…"
Douglas unbuckled the chin-strap of the helmet even as Arthur lowered the soldier to his back - and without Gwaine's remark and his own inclination to gather names and ranks offered by the uniforms, Arthur might have continued oblivious.
Because – Emrys. It was Merlin sprawled unmoving on the concrete.
Coincidence be damned.
Arthur shifted, tipping his head to see the soldier's face better because how impossible was it that-
Merlin lay here unconscious, filthy and scratched and bloodied like the others. Almost literally having been through the wars, and looking it. Still bleeding sluggishly from nose and ears.
"Oh, damn," he exclaimed, dropping to one knee. His fingertips dove for a pulse in the side of Merlin's neck – shifted the helmet-strap further, slipped in blood oozing from his ear – didn't immediately find it. His own heartrate tripped, stuttered – then, no… there it was.
Present and accounted for. But Arthur couldn't quit checking the rest of him for dark damp patches that would give away significant bleeding beneath the tough material of the uniform. Couldn't find any – couldn't reassure himself that meant it wasn't there.
"Is he one of yours?" Gwaine said with audible surprise at Arthur's reaction.
The girl Douglas watched Arthur – watched his face, not his hands. Not Merlin. She said, "You're the brother."
Distracted, Arthur's assumption went immediately to Morgana – You're the brother – then skipped to, what Merlin might have said about that relation and situation, what rumors might have followed his disgraceful demotion from CPO to regular troops.
Involuntary glance to Gwaine's face showed the sergeant also watching, as he leaned against the concrete platform. Oh of course Gaius would have arranged to send Merlin to someone he trusted.
You're the brother…
Arthur looked back at Douglas and knew she meant something else. Different inflection... Accusation.
Closer than a friend, more than a partner – her reaction wasn't just recognition of a new acquaintance's prior relationships. It was the understanding of how it had… gone so wrong.
Her eyes were dark and steady in spite of his unexpected presence, but her comprehension completely disregarded his psychic walls.
You're the brother… who betrayed him. Who caused this. Who didn't protect him, but offered only complete rejection.
Arthur hadn't seen Merlin since his arrest at the hotel. Sitting in cuffs and an undershirt, scratches from Morgana's nails reddened on his pale skin, desperation and hopelessness in his eyes. He'd acted deliberately to abandon Merlin to circumstances and Gaius' decision because he couldn't have anyone thinking that he'd embarked on a mission to prove a greater conspiracy, to prove his trust in Merlin the Essetirian psychic.
The former Essetirian.
Arthur sat back, retreating from the unconscious body of his friend. Yeah. My fault. I don't deserve…
"This is all that's left of us," Gwaine said, climbing to the platform and gaining his feet, every movement betraying weariness and lack of energy. "We meant to exfil by train if we could…"
Arthur pushed himself upright, retreating and bending to claim the Weston. "I'll watch this flank," he said, indicating the eastern end of the station, where the last squad member was still silently covering the road. "My partner's in the office using the comm-block, she can help get things moving, official or not. And we'll travel with you, if you like."
"I don't think-" Douglas started to object.
"Freya," Gwaine interrupted her, "help me get Merlin back to the office. Maybe they've got a first-aid there. Scout Jones, we appreciate your support."
It wasn't quite the casual teasing of their contact, before and after the Urhavi mission. Which said to Arthur, Gwaine was taking Merlin's side, even if he was being professional about the situation.
He didn't mind. In fact, he approved.
Arthur assumed his volunteered post. As far from the office which would become the temporary center of ops this morning as one could get, and still be within the rail-station. Not likely there would be any further attack, though, by his estimation – a concerted effort to ambush made sense; if there were more enemies present and organized in Janada that intended to try again, they'd regroup for numbers' sake and try to take them by surprise, not straggle after Camelot's troops one by one to be picked off by the well-trained soldiers.
But he couldn't help a watchful look at Gwaine and Freya Douglas positioning Merlin on a pair of rail-station benches outside the office structure, readying themselves to care for him.
There's no way, Arthur thought. If he survives… The pang of reaction to the involuntary thought flashed like a burst of shrapnel through Arthur's chest. No, he would survive. He had to. Never mind Camelot – for the immediate present Merlin's safety and the rescue of the troop were priority one.
And afterward? There was no way Merlin was going to want to help him. Not after what Arthur had done to him. Necessary and expedient, or not.
Once they got back to Camelot, Arthur was going to be on his own.
A/N: Sorry to cut the Arthur&Merlin reunion so short! Unsatisfactory. But, means more to come!
Mersan, thanks so much for letting me know your favorite line of the last chapter – I love it when readers do that!