28. Hunting Season
("We Daren't Go A-Hunting" from Something Completely Different)
It lacked an hour til sunset. The world beneath the canopy of dying leaves - surrendering to the season and the subtle insistent pull of all things downward to the earth - glowed golden-brown. Brittle detritus underfoot, naked underbrush around, chill breeze making everything rattle just a little bit.
Normally that would please Arthur, since he could move swiftly and downwind of potential prey, getting close without giving himself away. Behind him, though, Merlin was grumbling under his breath, tramping carelessly through the underbrush.
The complaining Arthur didn't truly mind. Merlin was fine as long as he was talking. It was when he stopped talking that Arthur knew something was wrong.
It was the tramping that annoyed him, just now.
"You do remember why we're out here, don't you?" he tossed over his shoulder, tucking his crossbow in the crook of his elbow. There wouldn't be any shots to take for half of an hour or more, til Merlin saw fit to move more quietly and the wildlife in the area settled from their wariness. And he never obeyed an order from Arthur to do so; he'd much rather feign ignorance and maintain clumsiness and bicker about it.
Grumble, grumble. "…Out here… freezing cold… wasting time…"
Arthur didn't bother actually paying attention, knowing it would irritate his manservant in turn. Instead he declared what Merlin already knew, with forced cheerfulness. "It's a holiday. That means-"
"A day off work? Oh, no, not for the prince's servant, never for the prince's servant…" Merlin slipped into Arthur's sentence with a complete lack of respect, even though he knew and intended that Arthur should hear him.
"A feast," Arthur carried on as if he hadn't heard. "Which means-"
"Even more work…"
Arthur ignored him. It was like a game, when there was no wild game to be shot. "Extra food. And you'll notice we have nothing of the sort to return to the kitchens with-"
"Too late for them to properly prepare what we bring anyway-"
"And that means," Arthur finished through his teeth, despite his resolve to remain unperturbed by the younger man's mood, "that we've got to keep going til we actually have something to show for this hunting trip, and all the noise you're making only means it's taking us longer!"
Now he was making as much noise as his clumsy servant, stomping through the forest. This holiday was a day free from duties for them, since his father had anyone and everyone assigned to the search for Morgana for weeks. Weeks, and nothing to show for that hunt, either. In Arthur's experience, that meant magic and unless they got lucky by accident, they wouldn't find her unless and until the blonde witch who'd taken her from Camelot wanted them to find her.
Gaius and the council agreed, for the good of morale, that Samhain should be a day of rest. But Arthur didn't do well with inactivity, or failure, in spite of the exhaustive search, so he had volunteered himself for this hunting trip alone with Merlin. A little bit of proven success would be better than a day of doing nothing – and maybe that happy accident would find them today.
"…Should not be out here," Merlin was mumbling again. He was carrying their shared pack of supplies – solely medicinal now as it had been lightened of breakfast and the noon meal – and the extra bolts for Arthur's crossbow. "…Today, of all days."
Arthur loosed a rough, aggravated sigh. "That's superstitious nonsense, Merlin. Samhain is just a day like any other."
Mumble, mumble. It sounded a bit like one of Gaius' history lessons, half fact and half fancy, repeated with Merlin's own twist of absurd conjecture. The veil between realms thinning, on this day of the year… what utter nonsense.
Arthur turned his feet down a hill, heading for the coppery glint of a lake between the trees. Surely there would be more wildlife around a small body of water – maybe he could pick up the tracks of a stag who'd come to drink…
"Nobody ever hears a word I say," Merlin griped under his breath, following Arthur.
"Everybody hears you, Merlin," Arthur corrected, feeling his spirits and hopes lift at the prospect of a trail. "And nobody listens."
"I'm just saying, today is not a day to be careless."
Now that was a different tone. A dark and serious tone, that so rarely issued from his boyish and slightly-ridiculous servant, Arthur didn't know what to do with it. So he teased.
"When am I ever careless?" he demanded, angling to saunter down a sort of natural lane between the willows leaning over their reflections in the mere on the right, and the taller, harder trees looming somberly to the left, spreading branches over them in an almost-archway.
"Every day," Merlin snapped back.
Arthur stopped, turning on his heel to refute that insult – just because he didn't take exaggerated and girlish care of Merlin's feelings didn't mean he wasn't careful when it was important.
But Merlin halted abruptly, straightening and pulling back slightly in alarm. Almost as if Arthur's swift turnabout intimidated him into silence for once – but his blue eyes, startled wide, were focused over Arthur's shoulder.
Instinctively he whirled, handling the crossbow as a weapon rather than a burden, even though there could be nothing there, he'd just been scanning the area-
They were surrounded. By…
Something. Someone.
People, at least they looked like. But everyone was dressed alike in a green jacket, gaping slightly open over bare chests, even the females, with a red cap set over hair too light in color to be termed brown, any of them, and all with hairless chins. The trousers – skirts? robes? – that covered their legs to mid-shin were made of some impossible floaty-misty white material that looked like feathers, of all things.
They stood motionless in a half-circle – a full circle, hells – around Arthur and Merlin. No sound had signaled their arrival, as if they'd just… materialized from thin air.
"Arthur…" Merlin whispered, and he could not spare a moment to decipher which emotion the younger man's tone primarily betrayed.
He leveled the crossbow at one of the beings stood in front of them, glancing about again to determine a leader by movement or attitude – and couldn't. It was a bit unnerving. He looked at their faces, and noticed something. Each and every one of them exquisite. Unearthly beauty, and boundless arrogance, and so they all looked alike, even when they didn't.
"I don't know who you are or what you want." He spoke calmly with an effort, and clearly for them all to hear him. "But I am prince of Camelot and these are our lands. I accuse you of-" His throat clicked as he swallowed dryly; half of them shifted posture at once and half remained unmoving and it was eerie enough to make his hairs stand on end. "Nothing, but I warn you not to hinder our passage."
"We should go back," Merlin was whispering to himself. "We should go back, we should go back…"
There was no apparent signal, but each blond person moved forward, tightening their circle, fluidly overlapping each other, more like a flock of starlings wheeling and dipping and turning than people, who always bumped and jostled in a crowd. Their eyes were all blue, he realized, and an inexplicable sliver of cold terror shot up his spine; unblinking and unwavering they focused on him even as they folded themselves more tightly together.
"Stand back!" He raised his voice, though they were closer now than a moment ago. "We will defend ourselves!"
Merlin was still muttering nonsense, words Arthur couldn't make out, but he sounded close to panic.
And Arthur really did mean to loose the trigger. He focused on one male; his eyes slid involuntarily to the person's neighbor – and then next – and his finger hovered over the trigger and his muscles were already so taut it couldn't tighten to release the bolt even when he squeezed-
Merlin shouted, but it was still nonsense and it sounded blurred and distant, like underwater. Two of the blond people reached out at once to touch Arthur's crossbow and he let go, hand and fingers immediately dropping limply. Three more had fingers at his waist, unbuckling his swordbelt and he let them, suddenly disinterested.
Hells. What was happening to-
Someone touched the back of his shoulder, the light brush immediately followed by four or five more, then too many to count. His flesh crawled, but his muscles didn't so much as twitch to shrug them off.
The world glowed bronze-yellow and indistinct around the edges of his vision – and tipped. He had no sensation of moving – of falling, or landing – but he smelled the musty fallen leaves that tickled his lips and nose and their bare feet were all around him, on a level with his eyes. Merlin's boots shuffled backward – turned to run toward Arthur, before his servant appeared to trip, landing full-length on the ground.
Arthur felt the vibrations even though he didn't seem to be lying on the hard earth, exactly.
Merlin's eyes fastened to him in an agony of fear and apology. He pushed one hand toward Arthur, through the carpet of decaying leaf mold, fingers clawed in desperation-
Arthur's eyes closed before Merlin could touch him.
("Here Be Dragons" from Past Faults and Future Perils)
Of course Arthur was the foremost horseman. Merlin had no time to recognize any of the others.
Scramble up, snatch his drawstring bag – with appropriate care for precious contents – stumble heavily-stiffly-desperately for the far side of the clearing.
Thunder of the horses' hooves vibrating under his soles, the shouts of the riders-
Incongruously, "Stop! Stop right there!"
And, "Come on! Faster, boy! Hyah!"
Into the trees – through the underbrush – can't trip. Can't… trip. Down that hill, up the next, swerve to the north…
Merlin figured, he was familiar enough with his own Camelot ten years from the present, he could have lost the tracking party in less than an hour. As it was, he kept-
That stand of beeches were just saplings! No cover - dodge southeast down the bank and splash through the-
Stream that should have been chest-deep here! and he could have ducked below the surface and floated up or downstream, magic aiding a hidden escape because he could hold his breath til he was far enough away. It barely splashed over the tops of his boots, soaking his feet without giving him anything more useful.
Dammit.
Growing desperation burned in his chest, rose in his throat with every panting-gasping breath.
When he stopped, his side burst an entire row of stitches.
When he heard hoofbeats – or voices calling in a search to collectively regain his tracks – and he started again, charcoal spots gathered around the corners of his vision. His muscles throbbed and his skin wept sweat from every inch, dampening his clothing into clinging and chafing.
Diverting and diverting again, he angled his course toward the thickest parts of the forest, where the ground was broken, cracked too widely to leap across, sunken too low to jump down. Places where horses slowed his pursuers.
Magic didn't help much. He could burrow under the thickets, freeze and hold his breath and erase his tracks as far as he could see his backtrail, or cling like a ground-squirrel to the trunk of a tree and veil himself from sight, but he daren't use too much, after Kilgarrah's warning.
But Arthur was good at this. And he brought men who were good at this. He knew his land, and Merlin could not shake them.
About midday, he finally managed to gain a quarter-hour lead. Forcing leaden limbs to stretch and climb and ignoring the stickiness and snapping twigs, he made his way up an old spruce, hidden quite comfortably by the thick needles – unless they were keeping an eye on trees that afforded that possibility… But rather than erasing his tracks, he deliberately created more, onward from where he was. Not too obvious, and following the course he would have chosen, on foot.
Then he waited, trying to slow his breathing and calm his heart and rest, feeling through the burlap of his sack that nothing had been damaged through all the bumping and banging about. Sweat slid down his body and his ribs cramped together unhappily.
And there they came – on foot themselves to rest their mounts, their pace held to follow his tracks rather than chase a visible target, but inexorable. Percival was the only one he recognized in spite of distance and branches and needles in the way, but Merlin watched long enough to tell that they were eating, as they moved. Flat-bread, or dried meat or fruit…
His stomach pinched him, grumbling softly to itself. He hadn't had a chance to eat even the few supplies Gaius spared for him before he fled the citadel.
Arthur halted a dozen paces from the base of the spruce, and Percival paused next to him, though the others continued. If they looked up – if they saw him…
They couldn't get him down without chopping the tree, and he could prevent them doing that. They could wait him out, if they had the patience for it. But he had to get down eventually, and if he wanted to do it without being captured or seriously injured, it meant more magic, recognizable magic. Push them back, blind them momentarily, drop branches to make them scramble far enough to break ranks and allow him passage and time for escape – defensive magic often turned into an attack.
Damn that traveling spell and its fickle response. Damn the need to save his strength…
Expend magic, and saunter away somewhere to eat and rest. And maybe get to the end of the week and try to complete the ritual, and he was certain he would be successful, except…
Maybe only half successful.
"…Not heading in a straight line," Percival was saying. "Not to the border. Not to her."
"Because he knows better than to lead us to her," Arthur responded. "She'd be furious with even an ally who gave away her position, being tracked. Until he shakes us…"
"Maybe he has another reason for staying close," Percival suggested. "He was dressed like a noble, but… Sire, we haven't caught him yet."
From above, Merlin watched Arthur's head turn completely to face the big knight. Neither of them said anything further; Percival shrugged, and Arthur strode onward, tugging at his horse's reins. If he muttered something else, Merlin wasn't sure of it.
They weren't out of sight before Merlin began to slide down – wary of any sound, jostling limb or rubbing clothing, that might catch their attention back to him, but it didn't happen.
And he turned his steps down their collective backtrail, holding a slow-jogging pace to cover ground.
They weren't more than two leagues from the citadel, here. When they reached the end of his magically-laid tracks, they'd cast about for a while. Maybe it was too much to hope that they'd blame magic for an actual disappearance, and return to Camelot, but he hoped it would take some time before they guessed what he'd actually done. And even more time before they found where he'd departed again from their backtrail. Arthur would have to be very clever and keen to find footprints facing this way.
They'd crossed a dry stream-bed half a league back. All stones and pebbles, and he could hide his tracks, turning up or down the stream's path. He hadn't before, because that was slower going and haste threatened turned ankles and capture.
Weariness dragged at him, even as birds cut the air with their chirps – warning him or each other, cheer-upping their contentment with sunshine and intermittent clouds, twittering a message of a berry bush, or a particular spread of seeds-and-bugs. The heat thumped in his temples, and each noise generated by yellowhammer or woodpecker made him flinch reactively.
The apple had been bruised by the rims of the bowls, but it was moisture as well as food and he ate it down to stem and seeds, pocketing them so Arthur's men should not find the evidence.
Rustle of squirrels and chipmunks hunting also. Further, subtler shadow of fox or marten. Quick furtive slip of grass-snake…
He drank from his waterskin and turned down the dry wash, in the direction of Glaestig and a charcoal-burner's hut he knew of. If it wasn't absolutely necessary to sleep under nothing but leaves and stars, he wouldn't choose it. He ate the bread also; if he was free from pursuit he could forage for more edibles later, and if he was to meet Gaius in a few days anyway, he could buy or barter for bread in the lower town market.
Noon was past, so the thistle he needed for the ritual would have to wait for another day, but lowlands lay just past that shallow ridge. If he'd truly lost the hunters and he was free so long as he remained cautious and lucky… if he was lucky, he'd find yellow-dock there.
Blood and water and earth, six bowls and niwiht geniwian.
I was going to say goodbye. I was going to say be careful, to all of them. I was going to say…
His boots squished through the mire, and tall reeds bent to let him pass, then obligingly concealed his presence. Yellow-dock seeds were contrarily dark purplish-red, growing in a tapering cone and often bending the stalk under their weight. He could uproot a whole plant and try to keep the roots damp in a twist of cloth, or simply – strip half a handful of the seeds and make do with magic later. Mud oozed around his soles as he crouched to balance his sack on his knees, and added the yellow-dock seeds to the same twist of cloth that kept the feverfew seeds safe.
The afternoon was warm, and the marshy low-lands shaded. Every dry screech of the cicadas, every click and chirp of grasshoppers made his eyelids feel sticky and his hands sluggish. Blisters smoldered beneath damp boot leather and socks that never had a chance to dry.
Merlin wasn't so foolish as to sprawl heat-heavy in the middle of the first patch of dry grass he found, but headed into the thicker shade of the woods. Red-orange clay packed and clung to the root-base of a tree fallen victim to a storm, rising to eye-height in a half-arch. There was a hollow just below that, where the earth had been ripped up and flung and lifted as the tree tipped, and he curled up around his drawstring bag there, hidden by tree and roots and earth.
He hadn't been so tired since…
Arthur was speaking to him. His friend looked terrible, like he hadn't slept; he was trying to tell Merlin something important, explain or apologize and he couldn't hear, and Arthur reached out and-
Clenched him with a grip like a pair of maces slammed into front and back of his shoulder simultaneously.
Merlin woke gasping in pain, twitching away – and coming face-to-snarl with one of the royal blood-hounds. Muzzle wrinkled in ferocious enmity, teeth buried to the gum in Merlin's jacket, hostility rippling out from the throat in a menacing growl.
Very clearly, Hold still til the master comes to relieve my hold on you.
"Let go!" Merlin managed, trying to free a hand to grab scruff or windpipe in self-defense without leaving his weight dangling from fangs. "Off! Bad dog! Release!"
If he could only remember what their names had been, the hunting dog-pack from ten years ago.
"Don't you know my scent? Why are you-"
White-hot agony snapped around the front of his shin, yanking his attention down. A second lean blood-hound had a grip on his leg – a younger animal, maybe, it felt less certain of its intent.
"Ah! no!" Merlin panted. "Dammit – no! Turn loose!"
A dark-gray third arrived in a rush to his other side, miserable at the failure to keep up and arrive first at the prey – and blaming Merlin for the situation. It snapped at his bicep repeatedly like it had been flung a chunk of meat from the feast-table.
Instantly more excruciating than a single hard clamp.
Merlin cried out, loosing his magic involuntarily. All three dogs were flung backwards – one tumbling in a roll, one flipping up into the air before crashing down in the underbrush, one driven halfway into the earthen bulwark he'd taken refuge behind. Startled yelps – pained yelps – silence.
He whimpered. Groaned himself upright… Two were unmoving – the third tried to claw its way home, dragging limp and useless back legs.
The hunters would be close. Without the dogs, he could lose them again. Rocky ground, or enough water to wash any trace of his passage away. He searched, shivering with reaction, but saw no horsemen and heard no sound of pursuit catching up with the hounds.
Bloody hells, Arthur. No wonder the king had such difficulty working himself up to addressing any explanation of this week, much harder any details.
We hounded you for the better part of a week…
Was this as bad as it was going to get? It had only been one day.
Time felt like a trickle of water through his fingers, and he cupped them, holding time in place – wind-swept leaves motionless, bird and beast silently still. He'd have as many minutes as he had fingers, til his hands filled and time began to trickle away again, moment by moment…
Limping – though there was only the hot tickle of blood from his left bicep – Merlin headed again for Glaestig, away from the direction of the hunters and the kennel-master following his trail. He adjusted the string of the bag further up on his neck, huddling his arms to his body to decrease the pain that throbbed from elbow to temple.
There was a cabin in Glaestig that should be empty. That would afford him some shelter, and maybe some salvageable supplies. And there he could lay some magic that would shelter him as he surrendered for a second night.
("The Most Feared Assassin" from The More Things Change)
The second day of the tournament was different.
The tournament itself wasn't organized to be a simple winner-advanced, loser-eliminated outcome, but rather a re-matching of winners to winners and losers to losers, a tallying of points and second chances. The second day, however, was more straightforward, intended to present the king and crowd with a pair of finalists for a single afternoon match. The combatants themselves were more determined, the audience more divided – no longer cheering everyone, there were now groans of disappointment when a particular favorite took a hard hit or missed points or had their token removed from the display board.
Arthur was more relaxed also, as if his body had finally accepted it would not be allowed to participate, due to the reported threat of an assassin hired by King Odin. He found himself enjoying the matches more than he had previously, bickering with Morgana over the details of a hit or the likelihood of a future match's outcome. Uther ignored them for the most part, focused on the clash of armor, the splintering of lances, the thunder of the chargers' hooves, applauding the exhibition of skill and bravery.
He wondered if maybe his father was more relaxed also, with his son and heir seated next to him in safety, rather than watching him gallop down the lists. With Uther, it was hard to tell which course of action pleased his father more.
Conversely, he thought Merlin was more on edge. Of course the young sorcerer-physician's apprentice would not be allowed to sit in the king's box, so he leaned over the side and back of Arthur's chair as he had the day before.
Arthur glanced up at him, catching a distant look in the younger man's blue eyes, focused on the crowd in the stands opposite them, rather than on the pair of mounted knights. He shifted to be able to address his friend without his father overhearing.
"Relax, Merlin," he said. "The guards are deployed throughout the crowd, stationed strategically at the exits of the stands and the corners of the list itself. We'll catch him."
Merlin hummed in optimistic agreement, but his expression didn't change.
Arthur studied his face for signs of the weariness he'd hinted at the previous evening, holding the magical shield in place over and around Arthur's person, and didn't see anything but unfaltering determination. He'd never felt safer, he realized. As long as Merlin was conscious, the magic he could neither see nor feel was in place.
"Hey," he said, formulating some teasing insult in his mind, as he reached up to grab a handful of Merlin's neckerchief and yank his friend's head and attention down to a level with his own face.
His friend's face wrinkled with a childlike confusion, his eyes clouding as they met Arthur's. "Ouch," he said.
"Oh, please," Arthur said, releasing the scrap of material. "That didn't–"
Merlin straightened, frowning at something just beyond Arthur's range of vision on his right. "No, I mean – ouch," he repeated.
Arthur twisted to see six inches of a slender wooden shaft protruding from the side of the back of his wooden seat, pinning Merlin's sleeve in place. A small red stain marred the blue material where it was stuck between the narrow shaft and Merlin's forearm.
He eased himself up from his chair, aware as always of the high visibility of his position, the necessity of keeping the crowd from alarming. Encouraging Merlin to move slightly, he took in at a glance the angle of the – damn – crossbow bolt. Arthur leaned over the edge of the box, searching the crowd beneath – a dark face, a hooded figure, someone looking upward at them rather than watching the knights position themselves to joust… nothing. Not a single hint of the assassin that he could point out to the guards to follow, to track down. He followed the line the bolt must have flown with his eyes – there were fully ten men along its course that might have shot the thing, none any more suspicious than the others, and three of whom had dark skin.
He cursed, viciously and shortly, keeping his shielded body between Merlin and the open side of the box. Uther glanced up, and a moment later Morgana did the same, and he jerked the bolt free from the wood of his chair. Merlin's eyes were wide, on him, but he said nothing.
"Are you all right?" Arthur asked him. He peeled his sleeve back to check, then nodded.
"Arthur?" the king said, a question and a warning.
He seated himself on the edge of the large high-backed chair, leaning across the arm of his toward the arm of his father's seat, showing both of them the bolt.
"This isn't working, my lord," he stated as firmly and respectfully as he could manage. "This one was aimed at Merlin."
He didn't have to say, if it had been a successful attack, he himself would have been instantly vulnerable to a second arrow before anyone could realize the first had struck. He didn't say, if he hadn't randomly yanked Merlin down, the bolt might have struck the younger man in heart or throat…
"If he can't get to me, he's going to start going through others," Arthur continued. "Like the guard he strangled, like Merlin. Maybe you, my lord, maybe Morgana. He's ruthless – more will die before we catch him. Many more, perhaps."
Uther's face was impassive as he looked down at the deadly dart in Arthur's hand, the stain of drying red that was Merlin's blood. Morgana leaned across the space between her chair and Uther's, across their father, to take the bolt from him and examine it. And seeing it in his daughter's hand – as she rubbed a bit of smeared red thoughtfully between dainty fingers, the king raised his eyes to Arthur's.
"Have you a different suggestion?"
"Draw him out," Arthur said. "Give him his opening – then catch him when he takes it."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
Arthur knew his father was not going to like what he had to say. But he refused to sit still and let others take the risk any longer. It was time to take his courage to the field.
"You're going to have to trust me," he said levelly. "And you're going to have to trust him." He jerked his head to indicate the young sorcerer behind him.
Uther's gray eyes were hard as he studied the young man over his son's shoulder. Then he gave one short nod.
