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Chapter Text

Lancelot woke up on the hard dirt floor of some hut. He bit back a groan and looked around to try and judge his surroundings. His arms were tied behind his back and he felt weak.

He vaguely remembered riding through the woods on patrol when some smoke had come out of nowhere, choking him, and the last thing he could recall was falling off his horse.

Apparently, it had been a deliberate attack.

Footsteps sounded nearby and a figure came into view, a middle-aged man with long, dark hair. He bent to peer at Lancelot.

"Ah, so you're awake. I hope you won't be any trouble for me."

Lancelot grunted, tugging weakly as his bonds. "Won't make any promises," he slurred.

The man snorted and straightened up again, heading over to a table where a large tome and several bowls and bottles of ingredients and herbs sat. He muttered to himself while he measured things out, and Lancelot started to get a bad feeling about this. This man didn't seem like a healer, so it stood to figure that he was some kind of sorcerer. In which case, Lancelot had no idea what his purpose here was, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to find out.

It wasn't long before he was given an answer though, because the man finished measuring what he had on the table and then grabbed an empty bowl and a knife, turning to advance on Lancelot.

The knight tried to sit up, move even a little, but whatever had knocked him out was obviously still affecting him because his body felt incredibly heavy and his head swam when he tried to sit up even partially.

"I just need one more ingredient for my spell," the man commented. "It was lucky you came along when you did. The recipe calls for blood of a brave soul, and who could be braver than one of the famous knights of Camelot?"

Lancelot felt trepidation come over him. as the man crouched, grabbing his shoulder and turning him over, grabbing him by his bound arms and stretching them out. The man grunted.

"It will be a bit difficult to do in this position, but I really don't want to risk you running away."

Lancelot struggled, making it only harder for the man who slammed his head into the floor, making the knight see stars. Lancelot gasped, dazed for only a second, but it was long enough for the man to get his arms positioned over the bowl and raise his knife.

"Don't!" Lancelot started before he felt the bite of the blade across his wrists. His cry of pain preceded an instant feeling of weakness as his blood drained from his body at an alarming rate. He could hear it trickling into the bowl as he still tried to struggle weakly.

"Yes…perfect," the man said after a long while, standing up with the full bowl, but not bothering to try and stop the bleeding as he released Lancelot and the knight collapsed limply to the floor, his blood continuing to trickle out onto the dirt beneath him.

"P-please," he managed to get out, eyelids heavy. "Help…"

The man ignored him and continued with his spell. Lancelot moaned, trying to press his wrists to his back to apply pressure but he couldn't get the right angle and he only resulted in soaking the back of his tunic with blood.

He felt his heart pounding laboriously in his chest, and knew he would pass out soon and…then what? If he kept bleeding, he doubted he would wake up again.

As Lancelot contemplated this dark inevitability, there was a sudden flurry of sounds coming from outside the cabin and as he craned his head weakly to look, the door was slammed open, Gwaine and Percival barreling through.

"That's him!"

The sorcerer cried out in terror, tried to throw something at the knights, but ultimately failed as they took him down.

"Lancelot!"

Merlin appeared in Lancelot's blurry vision, worriedly looking him over. "There's blood—where are you hurt?"

"Mm, wrists…" Lancelot managed to slur, raising his wrists for Merlin to see.

Merlin's expression blanched and he hurriedly went to work, ripping up the tail of his shirt and pressing the cloth to the wounds. Lancelot cried out from the pain, but was glad to see his friends.

"Help me cut him loose!" Merlin was shouting.

Someone else ran a knife through the ropes around his wrists and ankles, lying him out on his back as Merlin tied the cloths around his wrists to put as much pressure as possible onto the cuts, pressing them up against his chest.

"We need to get him someplace warm and comfortable," Merlin instructed.

Lancelot wasn't really listening much anymore though. Now that he knew he was safe with his friends, his body was deciding it was a good time to give out. Everything faded into the background and he slid away…

XXX

He woke to the comfortable atmosphere of Gaius' chambers, on the cot that was a little too familiar too him.

He shifted, a small groan escaping his throat as he pulled his arms from under the blankets and saw bandages wrapped up to his forearms on both of them. They twinged with sharp pain and he winced, figuring it was going to be a little while before he was back to training in the lists.

The door to Gaius' chambers opened and Merlin came in, smiling when he saw Lancelot's eyes open. The knight smiled back.

"You're awake," Merlin said with relief. "Well…you did wake up last night when we got you back and gave you some medicine and everything, but you might not remember that."

Lancelot shook his head wearily. "No. Last thing I remember was the cabin."

Merlin nodded grimly. "Yeah. I guess that sorcerer was trying to make a spell to attack Arthur with. But, luckily, we got to him—and you—in time. Funny thing is, if he hadn't thought to capture you to use your blood, we might not have figured out his plan until it was too late."

Lancelot's mouth turned up again. "Well, I always try to be of service to my Prince."

Merlin grinned. "You know Arthur appreciates it. But you won't be much good until you get back to strength, so how about some breakfast?"

"That sounds amazing," Lancelot told him, relaxing back against the cot, once again grateful for all the blessings he had in Camelot, his friends at the top of that list.

Chapter Text

Lancelot knew he was losing ground, but he was not going to worry about that yet. He still had a little bit left before he would be too close for comfort.

Unfortunately, the bandit he was fighting seemed insistent upon pushing him only closer to the edge of the waterfall.

It didn't help that the man was taller and much stronger than Lancelot, raining continuous, heavy blows down on the knight as he fought to keep his footing on the slippery rocks.

They locked swords and Lancelot gritted his teeth as he planted his feet, attempting to keep himself steady at the risk of him being bent backwards in a precarious position as the bandit just continued to bear down with his sword.

The others couldn't offer him assistance right now either, as they were all occupied with the rest of the bandits, so Lancelot was on his own.

"You may as well admit that this is futile," the bandit growled.

Lancelot grunted. "Never," he snapped.

He made a calculated move and disengaged from the other man's sword at the same moment he dodged to one side.

The bandit staggered slightly, but that was enough for Lancelot to be able to drive his sword up through his torso.

The problem was that his sword was now stuck and as the man fell, he took Lancelot's sword with him, and then as Lancelot foolishly reached for it, the bandit grabbed his wrist in one last defiant gesture.

Lancelot tried to break free, but the slippery rocks and the man's firm grip sent him into the river. Cold water hit him and he gasped, choking, trying to get his head up. He flailed, the man's grasp finally releasing him as he died, but it was too late for Lancelot to get out of the current now. He was already slipping, scraping across the rocks as he tried to grab at them.

It did no good, Lancelot could only hold his breath as he slid over the waterfall and fell, along with thousands of gallons of crashing water.

XXX

Merlin and the others raced along the river frantically. He had seen Lancelot go over the falls, had been too slow to get to him before then. There was nothing he could have done with magic either.

But the falls weren't too tall and he really hoped that Lancelot would still be okay, somewhere at the bottom.

If he hadn't hit any of the copious amounts of rocks on the way down.

"Lancelot!" Gwaine called a little further down the river. It wasn't easy to hear anything over the crashing of the falls.

"I found the bandit!" Elyan called and he and Percival hauled the dead bandit out of the water, yanking Lancelot's sword free.

Merlin looked around frantically. Lancelot had to be somewhere nearby, he had to be.

"Here!"

Leon was wading into the water, reaching down where a web of branches had formed a catch in a bend of the river.

Merlin sprinted toward him as he saw him hauling something out of the branches and debris. Gwaine also rushed over to help and the three of them managed to haul Lancelot's waterlogged body out of the river, laying him on his back on the riverbank.

Percival and Elyan rushed over from the other side where they had been searching, as Merlin knelt, checking Lancelot over, making sure he was even alive…

"Give me a knife," he told Gwaine who handed him one from his boot. Merlin held it over Lancelot's lips, waiting for the metal to fog, but it didn't. Heart in his throat, Merlin pressed his fingers to Lancelot's cold throat, searching for a pulse.

He let out a breath of relief to feel a weak pulse fluttering against his fingertips, but that didn't change the fact he wasn't breathing.

"We need to get the water out of his lungs. Help me get this chainmail off of him."

They stripped Lancelot to his shirt as quickly as they could and Merlin winced as bruises and various bloody injuries were revealed, but what he had to worry about now was getting Lancelot breathing again.

"What do we do?" Gwaine asked.

"Just stand back," Merlin told them and started pushing on Lancelot's chest, surreptitiously using magic at the same time to push the water out more quickly.

"Come on," he urged as it didn't have the desired effect. He gritted his teeth, wishing the others weren't around right now so he didn't have to be so subtle, and tried again. This time, he pushed more magic through Lancelot's body, just barely concealing the glow beneath his hands and Lancelot's eyes flew open as he started choking.

Everyone flew into action, turning him over to cough up the water and before long Lancelot was just lying on the ground, looking exhausted, and starting to shiver from the cold water.

"Here," Leon said, handing over his cloak which Merlin wrapped around the injured knight.

"Thanks," Lancelot croaked.

Merlin squeezed his shoulder. "How do you feel? Anything broken?"

Lancelot winced as he shifted, trying to take stock of everything. "Like I fell over a waterfall. But…nothing broken I think."

"That's good," Merlin said, relieved. "You got scraped up a little, but I'll tend those once we get back to camp."

Lancelot nodded and Percival came over and simply picked him up as Merlin took his chainmail and sodden cloak as they made their way back to the camp.

Once there, they gave Lancelot dry clothes and handed him extra blankets from all of their bedrolls. Merlin pulled his healing salves and bandages out of his bag and started patching up the other injuries Lancelot had sustained from the rocks.

Before he was done Lancelot was nodding off over the cup of tea Elyan had made and Merlin smiled. "Don't worry. We'll let you rest for a while. There's no need to leave quite yet."

Lancelot smiled back and slumped back gratefully. "Thank you, all of you."

"Always here to rescue a damsel in distress," Gwaine smirked as Lancelot made a face at him before he fell asleep almost instantly.

Merlin tucked him in so he wouldn't catch a chill and moved the cup of tea aside. He really wished that they could have one mission where something like this didn't happen, but then…that was probably too much to ask.