A/N: This one ended up long. That's why it's a bit late…
Chapter 7: How They Crossed the Border
Arthur lifted a hand to give the conventional signal, even though he wasn't the lead vehicle. Slow to stop.
Gwen gave her head a slow, disbelieving shake.
Merlin grinned.
Then the psychic threw his head back and laughed out loud. And if he was a bit giddy with the sudden freedom following so close on the heels of imminent danger, Arthur could understand that.
He twisted to look back. They'd come thundering a good fifty paces down from the pass before managing a mostly-safe stop. None of the mountaintops near Ealdor were in view; the Essetirians couldn't physically place their sniper anywhere that might threaten the four of them before… tomorrow night, maybe.
By then, they'd be long gone.
"I think this is a good place to stop for the night," Arthur said to Lancelot. His body felt like a house of cards as he released the steering bar and dismounted – stiff and fragile at once.
Lancelot's face was the color of his flight suit – dingy white, and dark eyes enormous with pain and fading fear. "I'm going to throw up," he whispered through cracked lips – but he didn't.
"Give me a minute," Arthur said unsteadily. "We'll get you off there and resting more comfortably."
Turning, he watched Merlin stand up on the boot-rests to either side of the skid-cart seat, spread his arms, and let himself fall backward into the snow. Arthur waded carefully toward them as Gwen swiveled on the seat, leaving her off ankle hooked over the saddle and her leg twisted sideways beneath her. Her face was expressionless, her eyes focused vaguely over Arthur's left shoulder. She unfastened the chin-strap of her helmet and removed it; Arthur knocked his face-plate up.
She said, "That was crazy."
Exhilarating. Terrifying. He could count on the fingers of one hand experiences like this in the line of duty – the helicopter jump being one of them – but usually the missions went more smoothly. Though he was pretty sure, if the Essetirians blamed anyone for helping their psychic escape, they'd have to blame random citizens of Ealdor – possibly students of Mercia, if their investigation took them to the B-and-B.
"You were magnificent," Arthur told Gwen. Her eyes found his, and focused. He tried a grin – Hooray we're not dead! and, We won!
She took a deep, involuntary breath, and launched herself at him, arms tight around his neck, pressing his helmet into his right ear. Her whole body was trembling and he could think of nothing better to do than just hold her. She was a well-trained scout, but she was also a person.
We're not dead. And we won.
And was it terrible that for a split second, he regretted the layers and the thick weatherproof gear between them?
Then she let go and stepped back, composed. "Lancelot?"
"No worse than before," he said. "I don't think. But we didn't have time to get him a new meramine patch."
She moved away, and he took the opportunity to survey their surroundings.
The southern foothills of the White Mountains were thickly forested, he already knew that. The bottom of the slope was out of view, but the slant was too steep for a straight-down shot on skid-carts, even if they could maneuver between trees, and they'd lose time zig-zagging. Still having to dodge the trees.
He wasn't worried. They had the slide-boards, and were nearly out of fuel for a second time anyway.
Here was a good spot. Between the slope of the hill and the rise of the trunks – four pines growing thickly together just there, and he could see dozens of slender twiggy limbs no longer growing needles but just waiting to be blown dead to the ground by a stiff breeze. Dig down in the snow, pile it up all around for a windbreak, use the rest of the fuel on those dead-broken limbs, snapped to manageable lengths between fist and boot… Not bad. Not bad at all.
"I've never done anything like that," Merlin confessed from his bed in the snow. His grin had settled to a twitch at the corners of his mouth, his gaze fastened on the sky above, like a pale-gray sheet settling gradually down on them. Twilight within the hour, and dark soon after.
Arthur looked at him, and thought of the white room, and the child hemmed in by hard, angled surfaces.
"Would you do it again?" he said. "I mean, was it worth it?"
Merlin's mouth twitched down.
Was it worth it to risk your life for freedom? An age-old question. Arthur knew his answer already; he lived it frequently in his job.
"I suppose," Merlin said eventually, "that remains to be seen. Because what if it's…"
Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
"Yeah," Merlin concluded, sitting up in his snowbank.
"No use borrowing trouble," Arthur told him. "And, if you lay there much longer, your thermals are going to soak through and you'll be pretty miserably in trouble. Come on, give me a hand."
Together they repositioned the skid-carts to further provide shelter, moved the snow to clear an area sufficient for the four of them and a decent-sized fire. Then Merlin took the hatchet from the tool kit and went chopping sticks for the fire – delighted as a first-year junior cadet to wield it – and Gwen got Lancelot settled.
When she wasn't looking, Arthur opened a second purple packet and slipped another stimulant patch down to his right bicep. What? Adrenalin crash was the worst, especially when he was running on so little sleep.
Gwen directed Merlin in the positioning of the sticks and twigs while Arthur siphoned fuel into one of the water bottles. They soon had a crackling fire to contrast with the gathering gloom of the slowly-dying day, and a stack of dry wood to further feed it.
"Did your fellows give up and return to Ealdor?" Gwen asked Merlin, stripping the lining-pads from their helmets and packing them with snow to melt for water.
Arthur grimaced, thinking of the taste of hair in their drinking water – but Gwen hadn't so much as questioned the use of the skid-carts for the morrow out loud. Maybe she had a plan of her own – and how closely did it resemble his? Or maybe she just thought along the same lines of plan that he did.
"I don't know about giving up," Merlin said, hunkering down next to Lancelot and feeding them both, bite by bite, pastry by granola. "I don't know about Ealdor. They aren't close, and I don't think that they think they can get me back, by any means."
"Or kill you," Arthur grunted.
They'd emptied the skid-carts of all kits, packs and tools, fuel containers and slide-boards and the rolled material that zipped over the machine to protect it from the elements. He rocked the second one from a braced crouch now, grunting to get it to tip over so he could access the necessary bolts.
"Or kill me," Merlin repeated.
Gwen settled the helmets near enough the heat to melt snow without warping the plastic, and scooted back to rest on Lancelot's other side, choosing her own dinner from the snacks pilfered from the bed-and-breakfast.
"I've never met a psychic before," she said candidly.
Arthur nearly snorted, clattering tools in the red-metal box to find the spanner. Gwen did not seem to feel the same reticence he did, saying things to someone who could tell what you were thinking.
"I've never met a scout of Camelot before," Merlin answered, with the warmth of a grin obvious in his voice.
"You're young for it," she observed. Layers of, she already knew Merlin was different, that was why Lancelot was recording the Essetirian base in his flyer, that was the reason for their mission, and Merlin probably knew that – and they knew he knew that, and he knew that, too.
The bolt wasn't loosening. Arthur blinked and rubbed the side of his eye with his wrist, calibrating a wrench to hold the nut in place to the inside of the spindle-leg holding the skid to the engine block while he worked the bolt loose.
"Yeah, I…" Pause. "I remember my mother telling me, don't talk to strangers. Even when she was there, she'd talk to them for me, answering questions. And… everyone was a stranger. I don't think she had friends, y'know? She must've known, about me, pretty early, but I… I didn't realize. Even after they took me to the Institute, it was a while before I knew why, really. It was a while til I realized how… different I was, and how other people didn't just… hear what folks didn't say out loud."
Gwen hummed sympathetically. The skid came away in his hand, and Arthur wanted to sneer at how well the psychic was reading her at the moment. Instead he scrunched himself prone on the ground, contorted into a better position to loosen the bolt on the second spindle of the machine on its side.
But part of him wanted to believe that boyish sincerity, right along with Gwen. In spite of instincts and the more logical requirements of their job.
"How old were you?" she asked.
"It was… a few weeks before my seventh birthday."
The second skid came off, and Arthur shoved it next to the first, taking the opportunity to glance over at the psychic as he pushed himself up from the ground to tackle the other set of spindle-bolts on Gwen's skid-cart.
Merlin had his chin tucked into his chest, staring into the fire that glinted reflection back in his own eyes. But he didn't need eye contact to be effectively psychic.
"So how does it work?" Gwen queried, as he plied wrench and spanner to remove the third skid. "I imagine you've got to learn to control it, or how to exercise or focus on it, right? I mean, if you just heard all our thoughts like we were constantly speaking out loud, it would be hard to concentrate if you've around more than a couple people. And if you've got a decent range – d'you have to be looking at someone, or in the same room, or have a line of sight? Does it go through walls? Because if you were in a crowd, or a city – an apartment building…"
"The barracks," Arthur tossed over his shoulder, grinning to think what an inexperienced boy like Merlin would be shocked to overheard.
No answer.
The second spindle-bolt on Gwen's skid-cart, the one that faced the ground after being tipped off the skids, was stuck but good. He closed his eyes and felt his fingers tremble and he couldn't tell if it was his own weakness impeding his progress or maybe a reaction to two stimulant patches and no sleep.
"Arthur?" Gwen said.
"It's fine." He forced the cheer into his voice, and struggled to his feet to retrieve a hammer from the tool-box, knowing they were watching him. He whacked the spanner strongly several times with no appreciable result, and had to pause to catch his breath.
Can we make it with just three? Do we really need this last one?
Do I really want to admit defeat in this ridiculously small thing?
"You want me to-" Merlin started.
"No, I've got it."
Gripping hammer and wrench tightly between slowly-numbing fingers, he banged the spanner resolutely and impartially and determinedly – and finally the last spindle-bolt loosened its hold.
Don't do this at home, he thought, not the way these tools are meant to be used… Probably too heavy to carry with them, the possibility of needing them quite low if they were leaving the skid-carts disabled at the top of the pass. He tossed the wrenches and hammer back at the metal tool-box anyway, dragging Gwen's two skids over to the others from his vehicle.
Settling himself across the fire from his companions, he began to fashion the four skids into a usable downhill sled for the morrow. Lucky they had three shock-cords included in the tool kit, short elasticized sections equipped with a hook at either end. Merlin toyed with a pastry wrapper, frown lines faint between his brows as he watched Arthur bind the four skids in a line, two lifted feet facing each direction.
"When I was little," he began haltingly, like he was trying to figure out not only what to say or how to say it – but whether or not to say it to them, at all. "My mother would take me on long walks. Because I wasn't allowed to play outside by myself… Through the streets of our neighborhood, around the park, turn left or turn right or go straight – we just wandered. And when the sun goes down, and people start to turn lights on inside their houses? It's like that."
He glanced at Gwen, attentive but uncomprehending, then across at Arthur.
"I mean. You can ignore the houses and walk right down the sidewalk, and see nothing going on inside. You can glance over and see – just a glimpse. Furniture, maybe a person or two, walking through the front room, sitting and reading. Just a glimpse, and you have to guess the rest – does that person live there, or are they visiting? Are they family or roommates, are they heading to the kitchen or the bathroom or a bedroom? Just a glimpse, you know."
He took a deep breath as if to steady himself, and it occurred to Arthur, he might not have said this, said it like this, to anyone ever. If he hadn't understood it til after he was taken from his mother.
"Or you can stand still and watch. Still just the one room, but the more you see, the better you can guess. How many people in the family, how they get along, what they do with their time. Or… you can cross their lawn and walk right up to the windows, and look in. You see a lot more – you hear a lot more – but there's still a lot of guesswork."
That made a surprising amount of sense. And brought a feeling of relief, because it hinted at a certain amount of intent and control, that not everything would automatically wing straight and clear to the psychic's understanding.
"So, for instance, with me," Gwen suggested.
Arthur's chin came up. And was it his imagination that the psychic's pale skin glowed with more than just fire-heat?
"No," Merlin said, without looking at her. "You're a lady. I don't – I wouldn't…"
He had, Arthur thought, in the past. And it had embarrassed him badly enough to write a private code… maybe a training exercise? He and Gaius had only seen the tip of that iceberg, after all.
"Thank you," Gwen said with candid appreciation. "I hate to be suspicious, but it is a relief to know."
So she believed him. Or only wanted him to think she did. Except if he was lying, he'd know she was lying… I hate to be suspicious, too, he thought wearily.
"What about your troop?" she went on.
"That was like, an apartment building," he said. "Different windows for different people, all in one space. They didn't even try to hide how they felt about what I can do. That's like – opening your window and shouting out to a person on the sidewalk. It's hard not to hear that stuff."
Huh. Arthur reflected, that answered certain moments when he was certain Merlin had heard his thoughts. If he was projecting them right at the psychic without warning.
"And it's…" Merlin paused. "Some streets, some houses – the paint is fresh and the fence is straight and the roof is new and the grass is cut. You relax, because nothing too dangerous or uncontrolled or unexpected is coming out of a house like that. Some places though, you feel like you have to watch them from the corner of your eye and hurry your step a little more. Just in case."
"I know what you mean," Gwen agreed, lifting a water-bottle for Lancelot to drink from. The pilot's eyes were half-closed, and he showed no inclination to follow or join the conversation. "That's just… self-preservation. Being smart about protecting yourself, and aware of your surroundings."
"I've always thought that."
"It's not really that different from what we're taught," Gwen said across the fire to Arthur, her chin up in faint challenge. "To read people – what they wear, what they carry, how they act. To anticipate response, to plan for how to control a situation with strangers, make them think what you want them to think."
She wasn't wrong. Merlin was just – taking short-cuts with that. Taking the guesswork and detecting out of the situation.
"What about Arthur, then?" Gwen said deliberately.
He froze over the last shock-cord, stretching to bind the four spindles together in the middle of the makeshift sled, and met Merlin's eyes as the psychic's gaze flew to his face. For an instant the younger man tensed warily, as he'd done when he opened the shed door and Arthur's first reaction was to consider neutralizing him.
Maybe this felt like an interrogation to Merlin – maybe he wanted to be honest with them, but it felt like a risk, making himself vulnerable with the truth, or maybe he wanted to control the interrogation.
"Have you peeped in his windows to keep an eye on his suspicions?" Gwen added, sounding careless. "Or has he opened a window to shout out at you?"
Arthur glared at her and said gruffly to Merlin, "You don't have to answer that."
He shifted his weight, flicking a glance to Arthur, too fast to be read. "Arthur's house is more like a… stone castle. No windows. Just arrow slits. There's light inside, but it doesn't… reveal anything. And he doesn't so much shout out at me, as… I don't know, chuck stuff over the battlements. Fire an arrow or two."
Arthur focused on stretching the two hooks to link together, the tension of elasticity binding his homemade craft more tightly, and tried to swallow around the dryness in his throat.
The castle worked, then.
But it made him feel… just a little bit sorry.
"Merlin, the stone wall," he said. Because the psychic was here with them, was alone now. Who was he going to tell, who was he going to report to about the things he gathered out of Arthur's brain? "That's honestly – more about me than about you, mate."
"It's all right," Merlin mumbled.
"Pendragon," Gwen said. When he looked up, she tossed a wrapped pastry to his instinctive catch. "I'll take first watch, if you like."
"Yeah, I'm done here," he said, ready to leave the awkwardness behind – or at least forget about it for as long as possible. "Here, take this."
He stood, holding the pastry between his teeth and bent to retrieve one of the skid-cart covers. Shaking it out and rezipping it, inverted it was long and deep and wide enough for two people to huddle in together, pulling the sides close. Body heat would radiate and collect and remain, mostly, he thought. Hoods and scarves and freezing night air and stars above the swaying treetops and the solid black of the mountain shape above them.
"You two also," Gwen commanded, spreading out the cover and coaxing Lancelot to roll and shift and lie back.
Well, awkward anyway. More for the psychic element than anything else – he didn't care that Merlin was a stranger or another guy. Most soldiers wouldn't. Merlin himself felt the awkwardness though, climbing into the upside-down cover and trying to leave enough room for Arthur.
Probably none of the Essetirians had made him feel like a comrade, needed and welcomed and so on.
"Dunno if you sneaked snacks into your bunk, where you were trained," he said to the younger man, settling in beside him and pulling in the edges. "Rules about crumbs in your bed and attracting mice and ants? But we broke those rules routinely in our barracks…" He proceeded to open the pastry packet, stuffing strawberry paste and sprinkle-frosting in his mouth.
Merlin relaxed noticeably. "Just don't chew in my ear," he quipped. "Trying to sleep."
Arthur shifted to give Merlin more of his back, and caught a firelit gleam of approval from Gwen's dark eyes as she snuggled up to Lancelot's prone body.
And he discovered that the second stimulant patch wore off abruptly and completely. Things got hazy – warm and cold at once, gripping the edge of the skid-cart cover even though Gwen was in his arms for some reason, clinging to him in relief at their survival.
Her chin lifted and her eyes smoldered and he pressed his mouth to her, breathing her in as she gasped and lifted up to him. And he was convinced neither of them was wearing anything and they floated on a foamy mattress separated only by the sheet and he groped, trying to find the edge because-
He loved her. He wanted to love her, he wanted to please her and make her happy and content and satisfied, make her feel confident and strong and beautiful because that's what she was, and he could willingly lose himself in her while exhaustion faded and expectations waned and if she chose to love him, then nothing anyone else thought mattered at all…
Where was the damn edge of the damn sheet? She murmured and inhaled, approval and encouragement, and-
"Bloody hell, Pendragon!" someone hissed from too close, and he jerked awake.
Cold, dark night. Gripping the skid-cart cover with gloved hands, packed snow hard beneath them, curled away from the defecting psychic as much as was possible in the cramped, shared space.
"Mind your dreams," Merlin grunted ungraciously, like he was criticizing Arthur for snoring, or kicking him in his sleep.
"Sorry," he managed, his heart pounding and his breathing hot against the inside lining of the skid-cart cover. Not because the dream had the power to arouse him physically – but because he'd never felt so emotionally vulnerable before.
Please don't remember that. Please don't say anything, if you remember…
Arthur shifted the cover enough to see that Gwen and Lancelot were wrapped up tight, her head on his uninjured shoulder and her gloved hand over his heart. He wriggled minutely from his left hip to his back, blinking and determining to remain awake and on watch, though the chance of anything happening was pretty much none. She hadn't stayed awake – the psychic was snoring, inches away – Arthur's eyelids slid subtly closer together…
And then he was blinking up at the first streaks of dawn spreading across the sky.
Trade-off. Whether it was better to give his body and mind those extra hours of sleep, or to remain awake to handle… whatever emergency might crop up. The increasing need for the one balanced against the improbability of the other.
Arthur turned his head and pushed down the edge of the skid-cart cover enough to see that a fine layer of snow covered them and the tipped and dismantled vehicles, and the charred bones of last night's fire. He watched Gwen and Lancelot for several long moments til he was sure the pilot was still breathing, then thought of dividing the rest of their stores into halves or thirds – whether he was certain of reaching someplace offering food and shelter by dinnertime. In which case, breakfast and lunch. But then there would be pressure to find that place of safety and civilization by evening if they consumed the last of their food – but there was pressure anyway, because of Lancelot's injuries…
Beside him, Merlin twitched. And mumbled, "No…"
Arthur shifted away from the psychic, sitting up inside the skid-cart cover.
Merlin's face was scrunched under the edge of his knit-cap, pulled over ears and eyebrows, his hands fisted in his gloves and the opposite edge of their sleeping-tent.
"No," he moaned, and sucked in a sound of distress.
"Hey," Arthur said, grabbing and shaking his shoulder to wake him, though not ungently.
Merlin gasped his way to wakefulness, eyes flaring wide and another extended, "Nnnooo!" pushing its way from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Whoa," Arthur said, keeping a hand on the younger man til he saw awareness and recognition on his face – but Merlin didn't relax into cheerfulness, only panted a little in reaction. Arthur tried a bit of levity to normalize their interaction. "Mind your dreams…"
"What?" Merlin managed.
Arthur paused, wondering if the psychic didn't even remember waking in the night to Arthur's wayward vision. He repeated, "Mind your dreams."
Merlin still looked confused. "Yeah, all right. Sorry."
"It's all right." Arthur dismissed the nightmare. "Everyone has them, don't worry about it."
Merlin freed a gloved hand to rub at his cap over his eyebrows, as if trying to erase whatever images he'd seen, and didn't answer.
"How's Lancelot?" Arthur called over to the pair tucked in the other skid-cart cover.
"Not good," Gwen said shortly, struggling to her feet. "We haven't got much of the meramine left, and this weather is keeping his fever from climbing dangerously high, but he needs professional help, Arthur, and as soon as possible."
Arthur stepped to them, trying to stretch the weary aches from his body. Lancelot's eyes were half-open again, as if they wouldn't go any wider anymore, and beads of perspiration stood out on his face. Gwen bent to him with one of their water-bottles, filled from the snow melted in their helmets.
"Eat and pee," Arthur said shortly. "Then we'll be off down this hill."
Quarter of an hour, he thought. Merlin took over from him coaxing pastry crumbs past Lancelot's lips while Gwen packed their kits for what he hoped was the last time. Then he and Merlin helped Lancelot position himself on the four skids Arthur had rigged the night before – two facing forward, two facing back, knotted firmly with the spindles in the middle. Enough room for the injured pilot to lean back on the spindles and prop his boots on the upturned skids in front of him, knees bent.
Arthur didn't even have to say to Gwen, I'll take him. He met her questioning look with a firm nod, and she ducked her head, gratitude in her eyes.
"Have you ever done this before," he said to Merlin, crawling onto the back set of skids behind Lancelot, carefully wedging his boots under the pilot's knees. "Downhill sledding?"
"It wasn't really done, where I grew up," Merlin said lightly. He shouldered their second pack and watched Gwen perch and balance on the other slide-board, before cinching the chin-strap of his helmet.
This slope was too steep and too thickly wooded to use the boards properly, boots locked into the sockets and traversing the pitch in long easy swoops – and it would be both risky and time-consuming to try to teach Merlin how to manage his like that, when Arthur and Lancelot had to go straight downhill anyway.
"You can lean to steer, a bit," Gwen told him, buckling her helmet under her chin. Even without the padding inside anymore, it would be safer than going bareheaded, and they all had knit caps and hoods. "Don't let yourself get going too fast – let your heels drag to manage the pace. Stay close to us-"
"And don't run into any trees," Arthur finished.
Merlin made a sarcastic noise, and Arthur ignored it in favor of shoving at the ground to get their skids loosened in the snow. In a moment gravity grew interested in them, and the real work began.
The slide-boards were narrow but flexible and light and ridden by only one person. Arthur had to bob and weave to see around Lancelot's head, try to veer one way or the other around the trunks rising vertical from the slanting slope, avoid the bushes and saplings and naked snow-flecked underbrush on the stiff-heavy lashed skids.
It was fast-jolt-scoot-fast. Different muscles in use today – not arms and hands, but feet and legs and core. Keep track of the other two in quick glimpses to either side, so a sudden stop wouldn't endanger someone else too close behind.
Below and through the trees, he began to glimpse the bottom of the hill and the terrain beyond. Another foothill rose high nearly due south, and they'd have to circle around it one way or the other. But between it and the slope they descended was not a concave hollow, but a rounded inset plain – snow-covered, so he didn't recognize it for what it was until almost too late.
Frozen lake.
Less than fifty paces to the bottom edge of the forested slope, Lancelot began to lean. Arthur instinctively dodged the opposite direction to balance them out, but the pilot didn't correct himself, as if he'd simply stopped caring about holding himself upright – or conscious, maybe. He was tipping over – he was tipping them over.
Bloody-
Arthur lunged, reaching for Lancelot to protect his fall off the accelerating sled, swiveling his whole body sideways. He kicked at a passing trunk to push them clear of it, but then he was low enough for the snow they were dislodging to fly in his face. And they weren't slowing down. They were nowhere near aerodynamic anymore, plowing down the slope on the side of the skid-sled and Arthur's back as he cradled the pilot's body and tried not to let gravity and their momentum roll them into a tumble.
Gasp a lungful of snow and think of outstretched arms caught between their bulk and any given obstacle on the slope – remember the state of Lancelot's arm and his pain – remember the responsibility for Gwen and Merlin-
THUNK
He didn't even see the tree – and then it was all he could see. Dark brown, spongy-solid bark flecked with snow. Strength and control vanished and the white world rushed blindly around him-
And he slid, finally, to a stop.
Lancelot's unmoving weight pinned down his right leg past his hip. Everything else dipped and swung and spun, but he needed to… get up. Check Lancelot… and then…
Voices called to each other from far away, hollow and slow. Pressure rolled beneath his skull and he blinked, raising his hand, but his gloved fingertips brushed the rim of his helmet, scoring his inner ear with the sound. He clicked the chin-strap loose and lifted his head away from the helmet, then tried to touch – roughly, wince. The weatherproof material of his glove scraped his forehead and came away smeared with blood.
"Merlin – be careful!"
That was the name of… oh. The psychic of Essetir. We're taking him with us.
"Arthur? Lancelot?"
He blinked and rolled his skull on the hard, cold surface he was sprawled on to see Merlin approaching in an odd manner – crouching sideways, shuffling like he was trying to keep his weight on both feet, wide apart, rather than stepping on one foot and then the other. And it felt like the ground bent beneath Arthur at each movement…
The trees were beyond the psychic by twenty paces or so. Meant he and Lancelot had slid out onto the frozen lake.
"Grab him first," he told Merlin, his voice rasping in his throat like it was swollen, and the words throbbed through his head. "Lancelot first. Grab his ankle – slide him back."
Merlin bent – slowly, smoothly, cautiously – to obey. "What about you?"
"I'm fine," Arthur told him, blinking to make his eyes focus. "As soon as you're clear. Then I'll come."
Merlin didn't respond, but Lancelot's weight began to slide off Arthur, and he could feel the echoes splinter through the ice beneath him. The pilot roused to mumble and try to roll.
"Easy there, Lancelot," Merlin soothed. "Take it easy – just relax – I've got you…"
Where was Gwen? Good thing she wasn't trying to call out to Lancelot – that might do the opposite of settling and calming.
Arthur tried to roll over his elbow to get up, but it was abruptly too far away, and he rocked back down. No. Will not make them deal with me the way we have to deal with Lancelot. Will not leave them another burden, instead of helping them carry what we already have… He tightened his muscles, ignoring the way his vision dimmed with every throb of his heart, and reorganized his limbs to obey him, turning to he faced the ice rather than the sky.
A crack! skittered away under his palm like vertical lightning, audibly ominous. There was a wide shallow puddle forming under his knees from somewhere – and shouldn't it freeze over right away?
Maybe he shouldn't stand, only crawl… Pride refused, and he lurched to his feet with another warning crack! of the ice.
There were the tied skids, canted on their side with a deep gouge in the ice from the joined spindles. Merlin was hauling Lancelot up the little bank, where Gwen was on her knees, reaching to help as soon as she could. Her eyes were on Arthur, and her face was pinched.
Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Not going anywhere – except back to safety and the shore.
Arthur didn't even pick up his boots and set them down again. Crouching for balance like he was riding a slide-board, he scraped his soles over the rough surface of the frozen lake.
How deep? Not deep, if he was close to the edge. If the ice broke and he went in, anything over his boot-tops meant an immediate need for fire, to warm and dry his body and clothing. There was dry wood up the slope in the trees, but was there a lighter or even matches in one of the kits?
Crack! Bloody… Leap for it, or go completely still?
"Come on, come on come on!" Merlin hissed, on one knee next to Lancelot but watching Arthur.
Why does he care?
The distraction was just enough. The ice bowed palpably under his left boot but he launched himself shoreward and crunched through three inches of edge-ice and slush. His foot chilled – but even without laces, the tongue was attached to the lining halfway up his calf, and proved sufficiently waterproof. He scrambled up the bank and didn't stop til he reached the top.
A hundred yards around the rim, then curve down to pass this last tall foothill…
Arthur's knees disappeared and he collapsed to his hands, pushing himself back to sit on folded legs. Merlin moved to him immediately, stripping his gloves and reaching for Arthur's head. "You're bleeding."
"It's not dripping, is it?" Arthur said, fending him off. He'd feel it, then, wouldn't he – or was his skin too numb and cold?
"No. Kinda smeared, though…"
"Let it scab over and leave it," Arthur said, half-expecting the younger man to throw his sarcastic quip back in his face – don't run into any trees – but he didn't. "Won't take long, in this cold." He eyed Lancelot, sitting curled over into Gwen's lap and inattentive, but his eyes were open. She had one hand inside his collar, checking temperature or heart-rate or both.
"He's all right," she said, before Arthur could ask, but she shook her head to herself immediately after, as if wondering how Lancelot was still all right, or doubting that he'd remain so for long.
"We'll have to put him on the slide-boards," Arthur said. "Like we did…" Yesterday? No, the day before.
"I'll get them," Merlin said immediately, turning as he rose to slog through the snow back to the trees of the slope. The boards and both kits were abandoned haphazardly, and Arthur could easily imagine the panic of the other two to see him and Lancelot capsize out of control.
"I'm sorry," he said to Gwen. "We tipped, and then… I couldn't stop."
"He tipped – you saved him," she corrected softly. Speaking to him though she was working with Lancelot, trying to get him to sit upright on his own, coaxing him with gentle hands.
Briefly Arthur envied… but no. Better if she had no need to help him. He stripped off his gloves, noticing that his hands were shaking on their own. Adrenalin, maybe. He felt for the spot of pain that interrupted him raising his brows; his skin was tacky, and flinched away from his touch. "Is it bad?"
"You've got a lump," Merlin said, wading back to them at a half-jog, kits on both shoulders and the boards gripped awkwardly together in his hands. He'd abandoned his helmet, and Gwen unbuckled hers to discard also. "The scab is a little less than an inch long."
And of course his fingertips magnified it for him without the convenience of a mirror.
"Concussion?" Gwen asked, leaning over Lancelot's knees to snag her kit and pull it closer.
"No," Arthur said, having had a couple before and knowing the difference. "Just a headache. Merlin I need your bootstrings."
The psychic blinked at him, and Arthur snapped his fingers impatiently; his hands were cold. They were all cold, and still hours from even a hope of the road.
"Oh, for the-" Merlin said, realizing. "Why not get those stretchy-cords from the-"
Arthur twisted to look out at the skid-sled on the ice. A good twenty paces away, and the cracks were visible. The place where his boot had splashed through at the edge showed ice that was not thick enough to risk again, in his opinion.
"Right, well…" Merlin said, and plopped down on his butt to untie his uniform boots, where the bottom hem of his trousers was tucked in, and the dark material meant Arthur couldn't see any damp patches to worry about.
"Still all dry and thermal under there?" Arthur asked him.
"Under where?" Merlin said, his voice entirely too innocent, eyes and hands busy unthreading the laces.
Gwen snickered – then giggled, then laughed out loud.
"Underwear," Arthur said, trying for disgust in his tone and not quite filling it. "That's terrible, Merlin."
But Gwen was smirking and still erupting into little bouts of chuckles as she pulled out pastries and granola and helped Lancelot drink helmet water, and Merlin's sneaky-eyed grin remained firmly in place.
"I'll do this," he said to Arthur. "You eat something."
Granola for the protein. Pastry for the sugar. He wasn't sure the fruit filling actually counted as nutritious… "Can you do the knots? Use a highwayman's hitch."
"What?" Merlin said. "No, just show me – I'll do it."
His fingers were long and clumsy – probably as cold as Arthur's – but he finally go the two slide-boards lashed together, and looked so proud of himself that Arthur hoped for his sake the pieces of the makeshift sled stayed together.
Arthur, still chewing, spliced the rest of their line together, before he and Merlin rolled the semi-conscious pilot onto the slide-boards and secured him once again.
"Elyan would be proud," Gwen said. Merlin, his granola bar half out of his mouth as he chewed it down, bite by bite, glanced up at her. "My brother. He's a sailor."
"Wow," Merlin said, appropriately – and genuinely – admiring.
"That probably sounds a lot more glamorous than it is," Arthur told him.
"Much like scouting," Gwen agreed, catching Arthur's eye with a tired smile. Then, as he rose and turned his back to the slide-boards, curling his fingers into the line at the small of his back, objected, "Oh, Arthur, no – he's heavy, and you've hit your head, you pulled him all day before…"
"I got it," Arthur said shortly, digging his lace-loose boots into the lake-bank to start circumnavigating the rim. "You two carry the packs."
"I can-" Merlin started.
Arthur cut him off. "I'd rather. Just – break my trail a little for me. Easier going."
Gwen shouldered her pack, still finishing her pastry and carrying the half-empty bottle of water.
Yet another reason to hurry, today. Water water everywhere, but too cold to drink safely in enough quantities, without risking hypothermia. And if they were dehydrated, their strength for hiking and carrying and pulling would wane more quickly.
Merlin followed her, ahead of Arthur by a few steps, but constantly glancing back. Maybe he was admiring the hold of his knots – but more likely, he was making sure Arthur didn't faceplant into his bootprints in the snow.
The high point of the last hill rotated slowly to their left rear flank as they traveled, snow crunching and breath puffing and Arthur found himself drifting in the monotonous repetition of weary movement, trusting their direction to Gwen's discretion. Maybe because there was no chance the Essetirian troop would surprise them, up the next cliff or around the next bend. Maybe because he wasn't the only one watching out for Lancelot and Gwen.
Who called back over her shoulder, "Arthur. Look. We're in Camelot."
He lifted his head, huffing against his scarf. Beyond the foothills the land was by no means level, but they were beyond the foothills. Two leagues or so to the road, unless he was lost and didn't realize it.
Merlin tramped back to him, letting Arthur's kit slide from his shoulder. "Trade me. You carry, I'll pull."
Arthur didn't want to stop. Just like before, it felt that if he didn't keep moving, he'd never be able to start again. But he couldn't go through Merlin, and the thought of going two steps around, into fluffy weedy snow that hadn't been stamped by Gwen's and Merlin's boots, was exhausting.
"How's your head?" Merlin added, checking Lancelot and settling the bootlace-lines in the palms of his gloves at the small of his back.
Arthur headed toward Gwen, who headed out. "Hurts like a sonuva-"
He stumbled, losing the thought. Not very important, then.
Toting the kit was different. The balance was different, and he didn't like it. He felt top-heavy and loose-kneed, and maybe his feet had shrunk because they shifted and slid inside his unlaced boots. He'd rather be tethered to Lancelot's weight, behind and below, and lean into that anchor.
For the second day in a row, there was no sun, and no visible clouds. Just a medium gray cover like an opaque lid on the world. Daylight without shadow and no indication that time was passing at all. The mountains loomed at their back, following them, and he had no energy to turn to peer at the tracks they were leaving for a visual measurement and confirmation.
They drank sparingly, and no one had to pee.
"Let me take him back," Arthur told Merlin, who'd been loosing little grunts of exertion at every other step for longer than Arthur could deal with, anymore.
Merlin didn't argue.
"Arthur," Gwen called, twenty paces ahead while they traded burdens. "Arthur. I see the road."
Merlin swung around, almost unbalancing himself with the weight of the kit over one shoulder but not yet the other. Lancelot shifted and mumbled like he was trying to turn and look; Arthur blinked and squinted, and she was right.
Two, two-fifty paces distance, and some of it hidden by the rolling landscape – actually rolling, if he tried to concentrate too hard.
Gwen didn't wait for a response but marched on, breaking their trail. Merlin followed, and Arthur leaned staggering into the line, getting the pilot's weight on the sled moving. Think while he walked, anyway.
What they needed, in what order. Medical attention for Lancelot, primarily. Food and water and shelter for the night – they were probably still a good five-hour-drive from Fort Fuller. To turn Merlin over to the proper authorities and make their report…
That still meant avoiding border guards. If they reached and followed the road til dark and met no one, then the guards would be an option, but there was no set routine for patrols here, to keep that routine from being exploited. Which meant, patrols at any time. Couple of trucks and at least half a squad… and Merlin's black uniform and overcoat wasn't going to blend and camouflage with the countryside. His own men had shot at him – so would Camelot's soldiers, at least initially.
But this road doubled as a trade route. Deliveries by truck in either direction, between Stansford and Lyster. What day is it? Friday, Saturday? On the weekends there would be more overnighters, restocking supplies and orders for the beginning of a new week. No headlights yet in either direction, but they were a hundred paces closer, now.
"Stop," Arthur croaked, without slowing his pace. "Merlin – stop. Tell Gwen…"
"Gwen!" Merlin called, then turned to wait for Arthur to take the last few steps to catch up.
He leaned the upper ends of the slide-boards against his legs, bracing himself to keep Lancelot's upper body vertical, and Gwen came tramping back, eyes dark with exhaustion and lips pressed together.
"This is what we should do," Arthur said, unzipping his parka and retrieving the pilot's flip-knife from his sweatshirt pouch pocket. "Cut off Lancelot's sleeve." Trapped inside the air cast, which they weren't removing anyway. "Then he and I will trade – the flight suit for this weatherproof gear."
Gwen blinked at him, then silently accepted the knife. Flipping it open, she knelt at Lancelot's side and began explaining to him what she was doing in a low soothing tone. Arthur dropped the parka and pulled the hood of the sweatshirt over the back of his head, not stopping til his arms were free and the cold was wrapping excited fingers around each of his muscles.
"What are you doing?" Merlin said, frowning.
"Put this on over your coat," Arthur told him. "I think it's big enough…" He bent to maneuver his legs out of the weatherproof trousers, over his boots, without falling on his butt in shin-deep snow.
Lancelot was making sounds of pain, trying to cooperate with Gwen, and Merlin pulled the sweatshirt over the coat without further question, the faster to help her.
"Where's his ID?" Arthur asked, stepping into the flight suit – unsteady and slow – and pulling it up over his jeans.
"Breast pocket," Gwen said shortly, tugging to get Arthur's trousers over Lancelot's hips while the pilot was mostly-prone. Merlin stuffed Lancelot's good arm into the corresponding parka sleeve.
"All right," Arthur said, zipping the flight suit up and gripping his right arm close to his chest. Long sleeve shirt was all; his t-shirt beneath, the next-to-skin layer, wasn't protecting his arm, and the flight suit stopped in a jagged tear just below the shoulder. At least he had his gloves. "Now I'm the pilot with the military ID, and you three are students. Training accident, you found me, he was injured trying to help me. Yeah?"
"If they look at the photos," Gwen started.
"Not if we find a delivery truck driver," Arthur said, trying for a grin but finding his face too cold to comply.
"We're not hiding from border patrol, are we?" she said sharply. "He can't – we, we probably don't have hours and hours to wait, if…"
"We'll take the first transportation that comes by," Arthur said. And if that was border patrol – they'd all be in a good deal of trouble. But she wasn't thinking past Lancelot's injuries, and he wouldn't tell her she was wrong. Better to deal with the trouble than the regret.
"Is that headlights?" Merlin asked, pointing.
Faint golden glow behind one of the gradual mounds of the terrain. "Run for the road," Arthur ordered. "Flag him down – we're coming."
Merlin didn't move. And it occurred to Arthur, like a scene in a nightmare, the vision of the psychic of Essetir bathed in headlight-glow, arms waving for attention and assistance, and the patrol somehow, against all logic, realizing and recognizing – misunderstanding, and opening fire. The black collar of the coat was visible at Merlin's throat, and the bottom inch or so below the stretched sweatshirt hem.
"I'll run," he decided. "If you've got him?"
Merlin nodded, bending to help Gwen, and Arthur took off for the road.
Each step threatened to dislodge the untied boots from his feet. Each thud of landing sent a reverberation of pain through his skull. Snow was harder to run through than sand – not as bad as water, though – and he pushed himself mercilessly. The chill in the air sliced his lungs and the lining of his nostrils and he was only inhaling crystals of ice, not oxygen.
Keep going. Don't stumble on hidden tussocks or rabbit-holes, rocks or tangled weeds treacherously smoothed by the blanket of snow. Get to the road – not just before the vehicle, but with plenty of time to-
Crawl up the incline to the level paved surface, over the slush splashed by passing tires. Stagger out into the lane, spreading himself wide and expecting his right arm to freeze solid. And what happened if the driver didn't see him in time to-
The lights widened, exploding exponentially with each breath he panted, and the horn blared – ridiculously high-pitched, it seemed to him – and he signaled an emphatic Emergency Stop. Hoping there was no ice, that it wasn't a tanker, that the brakes could-
Protest the need to stop for several long hair-raising moments. The truck shuddered into Park, and the driver's window was cranked down.
"What's going on? What happened?" a male voice hollered, and Arthur moved around to that side, out of the lights, to see-
The long rectangular shape and man-size painted red crest of one of the largest shipping companies in Camelot. Arthur breathed in relief, and managed a half-grin for the driver, grizzled face under a ball-cap framed in the open window.
"There's been an accident," Arthur called up to him, fumbling with gloved fingers in the flight suit pocket for the military ID, recognizably green-tinted and handily official, and the driver wouldn't be able to see the tiny photo clearly enough to call his bluff. "We need your help."
"Sure." The driver looked up, over Arthur's head, and opened the vehicle door, preparing to climb down. "Is everyone all right?"
Arthur turned to see Merlin and Gwen struggling to get Lancelot up the bank to the roadside, slide-boards abandoned somewhere in the snow. "We're going to need a lift to the trauma ward in Stansford."
"Yeah," the driver said distractedly, diving beneath Lancelot's good arm. Gwen moved back, and Merlin shifted to accept the additional help with a relieved-grateful expression. "Can you get the back doors, miss? I've a small load 'cause it's heavy – machine parts – so there's plenty of room for you all. Blankets in the cab, sir – and there's a cannister of coffee…"
Gwen headed for the back end of the rumbling, vibrating truck. Arthur turned to put his boot on the step and haul himself up to the cab level, wakened anew by the wash of heat escaping the vehicle. The scent of fuel and black coffee, and radio music he recognized-
They'd made it. They'd almost made it.
Hospital, and a phone call to Gaius, who'd probably bring Leon… Spending a few hours in a trauma ward waiting room was nothing to where he'd spent the last few days.
Grabbing an armful of blankets from behind the seat and a silver cannister of coffee so big he almost couldn't grip it with one gloved hand, he dropped back down to the road, knees nearly buckling, and met the driver halfway to the back.
"You don't want to ride in the cab with me, sir?" the man said, hopefully. "It'll be almost an hour til we get to Stansford."
"No, I should stay with them," Arthur said decisively, gesturing to the back of the truck with the cannister. "They're my responsibility. But I thank you for your assistance – you are a true hero. You've saved lives tonight, I promise you."
The man beamed bashfully, and let Arthur pass.
There were two doors at the back, one of which stood ajar for him. He placed his offerings on the floor of the container, and set his boot into the square metal step to haul himself up. An electrical work-light hung from a hook in the ceiling to offer sufficient if not bright illumination.
"Blankets," he said to Gwen, who immediately grabbed them to cushion Lancelot's ride, around and under the prone pilot, reclining against the two packs.
"Did he say-" she asked.
"He said it would be about an hour," Arthur told her.
Merlin leaned to swing the door closed behind Arthur, and shoved the locking mechanism into place with a screech of rusted metal. Arthur leaned against the container wall and slid down to sitting on the gritty floor, unwilling to risk his balance against the movement of the vehicle when the driver pulled forward and made speed again. Merlin, only a little slower, lurched and caught himself on the wall as the truck shifted to Drive, then collapsed to an ungainly sprawl between Arthur and Gwen.
And maybe he was more apprehensive than relieved, and Arthur was actually genuinely sorry for that.
He grinned at the psychic and offered the cannister. "And coffee."
Merlin took it, but didn't move to open it, and didn't smile.
"Hey," Arthur said, displeased that any of their little company could feel worse about the prospect of reaching their destination than about the journey itself. "You said you trusted me, right?"
"Yeah?" Merlin gave him a wary look.
"Then trust me. We're going to be fine, now."
Gwen gave him a look, her lips pressed together; Lancelot's eyes were closed and she was slipping what might be the last meramine patch down inside the collar of Arthur's parka on the pilot.
It was going to take more than coffee and reassurance for that to be true – but at least Merlin sighed and slumped more naturally against the container wall beside Arthur.
You're going to be fine, Arthur thought determinedly.