Chapter Text
The final breaths of dying men echoed throughout the eerie halls of the fortress, the ring of Arthur's blade piercing through the hum as he dispatched the final guard. It was only him now, the quiet growing. Isolation crept up on him and he shivered, gut twisting with bad omens as he continued to march down into their dungeons, desperately pleading that the suffocating lonesomeness he felt was false. Surely, they had come all this way. There had to be another soul in this wretched place.
Most of the cell doors hung open, prisoners having been auctioned off or slain. A few were still locked, with rotten bodies lying about inside, neglected. Towards the end of the corridor, there was another locked cell, the grime on the floor marking a clear gap in the accumulating dirt where the door must have recently swung open. A sliver of hope bubbled up in Arthur's chest, making him nauseous, and he surged onward.
Struggling with the keys, the silence on the other side left his heart pounding, nearly drowning out the jangle as he tried to force the lock open. He tried two more. Then another. Growling with frustration, he finally slid a key comfortably into the lock and turned.
The door creaked open and he stomped inside, eyes, wide and bright, staring down at the sight that greeted him.
He was there, sat slumped against the back wall, body folded over itself in odd angles. His clothes were torn, dirtied into foul colors, but mostly intact. Dirt littered his skin, but he was thankfully free of blood with no visible injuries. His eyes, however, were open and staring blankly ahead in an unsettlingly relaxed position.
"Merlin?"
He didn't move.
Arthur's breath caught in his throat and he swallowed, slowly kneeling down beside his friend, eager to check his state and yet hesitating, hand shaking as it hovered around his neck. He gently placed his fingers below his jaw and waited.
He blew out a sigh of relief, continuing to asses his condition. He was no physician, but there didn't seem to be any obvious head trauma. He was, however, bound to the wall with shackles, thick and heavy about his wrists.
Once he decided Merlin was physically fit to travel, he went about trying to free him, but the cuffs had no locks, and the chain was bolted to the wall with a great, sturdy ring. He tried to break the chains with his dagger, by leveraging them against anything that he thought might work, but they held strong, not sporting so much as the slightest bend.
With no other option, he retrieved his men from elsewhere in the fortress, opting to make camp within the dungeons for the night as they discussed how to deal with the issue at hand. The fire burned warm and stuffy in the dank cell and they were thankful for the grates high on the wall that circulated the air just enough so that it wasn't unbearable.
Merlin hadn't moved once since he'd been found, hadn't even blinked. His body laid prone like an empty vessel, propped up with a saddlebag and a few furred coats to make the cell more comfortable. The knights pondered if this effort was wasted, if Merlin couldn't feel in the slightest. Still, if there was a chance he was aware, they'd rather err on the side of caution and make him as comfortable as possible.
"I'm going to try and get some water into him," Lancelot announced, cupping the back of Merlin's head with his hand. He'd poured some water from their skins into a small bowl, thinking it would be easier. Holding it to Merlin's lips, parted slightly from the angle of his neck, Lancelot trickled some water into his mouth.
To everyone's horror, the water filled Merlin's mouth before it simply spilled over and dribbled down his chin. His eyes still stared vacantly and he didn't move to swallow or expel the liquid.
Gwaine cursed as Lancelot tilted Merlin's head forward to drain the water out in fear that he may choke, the sight of his limp form hung over the knight's arm making his stomach churn.
"We need Gaius," Elyan said, staring hard at the chains that kept them there. Fear laced his voice and his breathing was loud as he fought down the panic that Merlin's condition sparked in him.
Percival hung his head. Being the strongest of the group, he had tried to break the chains as well, armed with rocks and knives and even a few broken pieces of cell doors. None of it worked. They were clearly placed on him using magic, and could not be broken by ordinary means.
Leon perked up after a moment, eyes wide and ogling the bolt that attached Merlin to the wall. "Oh."
"What is it?"
"If we cannot break the chains . . ." He stood, the dirt in the cell grinding under his boots. Surveying the ring that was driven into the hard stone, he silently proposed a solution.
They could take the wall with them.
"Regardless," Arthur said with a sigh, gently closing Merlin's eyes with his finger and his thumb, "we need to rest. We stay here tonight. We'll try to free him come morning."
Outside the ruins, Arthur, Elyan, Percival, and Gwaine waited for the others to return from a nearby village. With a large chunk of the cell wall still chained to Merlin's person, riding on horseback wasn't an option, so they had sent Leon and Lancelot to fetch a carriage to support what was essentially a large rock at the end of Merlin's chain.
It had taken the better part of the morning to break him free, chiseling at odd angles until they were able to knock the bolt loose from the wall. And yet, the others still had not returned with their transport.
With good reason, it would seem, for instead of arriving with a simple draft horse and cart, Leon and Lancelot had managed to commandeer an entire caravan.
"Where in the hell did you get that?" Arthur asked as they arrived, proud grins on their faces.
Lancelot stepped down from the entrance and sauntered over. "Was parked outside an inn. The keeper said it'd been abandoned there and we paid a good price for it."
Arthur barked out a laugh in disbelief before stepping up to it to inspect the insides. It was in decent shape, though many of the windows were missing or broken, and there was a good deal of leaf litter on the floor.
"You'll be able to tend to him much better in there," Leon noted.
The merriment died quickly as the task at hand returned to them, though the satisfaction of having such a suitable ride lingered. Elyan and Gwaine loaded Merlin into the caravan, sitting him in the corner on the back bench. Percival lugged the small boulder in behind them, settling it down beneath the seat.
Gradually, they began to make their way back to Camelot. It had taken them ages to find Merlin's captors – footmen of Morgana's – when usually they could travel this distance in two days, but with a caravan and precious cargo, it seemed it may take as much as double to reach the city.
The party was determined to get there in three.