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Their boots were leaving clear tracks in the mud, but there was little he could do about that now. It was still at least two hours of hard riding to the nearest friendly village, but Arthur had faith that if they kept moving south, the Knights of Camelot would find them.
Assuming the bandits pursuing them didn’t find them first.
“Come on, Arthur. You have to keep going. What’s the point of…”
Arthur’s boot snagged on a gnarled root, and Merlin’s breath caught as he shouldered the prince’s full weight. Arthur clenched his teeth against the hot wash of pain radiating up his leg, but somehow Merlin managed to catch him before he collapsed. Arthur bit back a frustrated curse. He was slowly losing sensation below the ankle, the deep ache turning to an angry prickle of nerves, and it was making him clumsy. The wound on his side pulsed with his too-quick heartbeat.
Don’t slow him down, Arthur cursed himself. Those four words repeated in his mind, over and over, as he forced his legs to move. Don’t slow him down. You’ll get him killed if you do.
A few more harsh breaths, and Merlin nudged him back into motion, his words coming haltingly as he caught his breath.
“What’s...the point of all that training if you can’t keep up with a servant?”
Arthur huffed a laugh, and the grave expression on Merlin’s face cracked just briefly, a flicker of a fond smile in his direction before his clammy and bloodless face chased it away again.
They pressed on through the shadowed woods, the only sound their own harsh breathing. But as the minutes stretched, another problem was becoming increasingly clear to him.
It was getting dark.
“Merlin,” he said seriously, breaking stride. “Stop.”
The darkness would be in favor of anyone fleeing on foot. Their pursuers lost their advantage in numbers if they could lose them in the cover of night. But that was for someone who was light on their feet, someone able to take advantage of the shadows to hide and put some distance between them, not for someone with a three inch gash in his calf.
Merlin fought to keep him moving. “Not yet. Just a bit further, and then I’ll… I’ll…”
“Merlin!”
He slowed, and Arthur fixed him with a grim expression.
“My sword, Merlin.”
Merlin stared at him, a flicker of frantic energy creeping into his voice. “You’re joking. Absolutely not. There were dozens of them, and that was before they called for reinforcements, which they’ve surely done by now. There’s no way we can face them like this.”
“We are not doing anything,” Arthur said. “I’m going to buy you some time, and you’re going to run.”
“The hell you are!”
Arthur could feel his foot sliding inside his boot, slick blood pooling where it flowed freely down his calf. There hadn’t been time to bind the wound earlier, not while they were running. He tore a strip from his flayed pant leg with jerky motions, fighting the black haze that clouded his vision as he bent over. He staggered, and Merlin caught him around his middle, hands gentle as they avoided exacerbating the gash on his side.
This was the point where Merlin should make a snide remark, needling him on his ability to stand, let alone fight. The fact that he held his tongue was a testament to their situation.
The gash on his side, at least, they’d had time to deal with after the first ambush, before they’d realized just how many were following them, and how close, and how truly deep in the shit they were.
Arthur glanced back the way they’d come, and Merlin followed his gaze. Was he hearing the sound of the hounds pursuing them, or was he imagining it? Had they really caught up to them so quickly?
Merlin hissed an oath and tugged Arthur further into the brush. Arthur tried to argue, but it was easier to give in and focus on binding another untended wound on his arm more tightly as Merlin steered them further out of sight. Damn him and his stubborn refusal to listen to reason.
The maneuver was surely so he could continue to argue with him. In all the years he’d known him, Arthur doubted that a single command had passed his lips that Merlin had not seen fit to argue with. While Arthur normally appreciated that he didn’t mince words or mindlessly obey simply because Arthur was king, it was times like this he found himself feeling less tolerant of Merlin’s recklessness.
They’d been following a game trail, trying to put more distance between their pursuers, but they abandoned it now for the thicker foliage of the forest. Merlin pressed him back into the shadows in the pit beneath the roots of a felled tree, forced him down into the brush. Arthur’s traitorous leg seemed to side with Merlin, and he only just caught himself on a root and lowered himself down before he could crash down any more gracelessly. With the falling night and away from the thinner brush of the game trail, the darkness swallowed them.
It wouldn’t matter. The hounds would find them, anyway.
“I won’t just hide here, waiting for my death,” Arthur hissed.
“They’ll kill you, you absolute idiot, don’t you see that?”
“I’m aware,” Arthur said angrily. Disgust and self-loathing rising in his throat, he clutched at Merlin’s sleeve and shook him. “As little as you might think of me, I am not so foolish to think that I can see a way out of this. I can’t protect you like this, Merlin, so you have to run while you still have a chance.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You’ve just helpfully pointed out how many of them there are. Unless you’ve suddenly developed some incredible ability to defend yourself, you’ll just be throwing your life away.”
Merlin went very still. It was hard to read his expression in the darkness, but when his wide eyes met Arthur’s he could see a strange glimmer behind his gaze.
Rustling, the sound of a twig snapping, and suddenly Merlin was in front of him, between Arthur and the source of the noise. Before Arthur could even hiss out an angry demand for Merlin to get back the shadow of a man stumbled into view.
He saw Merlin and froze.
It was a scout, not a full search party. His gaze flicked to Arthur, and he saw the moment he saw the blood on Arthur’s clothes and the pallor of his skin, the moment he weighed his odds against the wounded king and the servant and decided not to retreat for reinforcements. His fingers flexed around the hilt of his knife, and Arthur, slow, too slow, tried to stand.
Merlin raised one hand, palm flat as though commanding the man to halt, as though that would do anything other than get him killed—
The man froze, choking on a gasp, and a sword bloomed in his chest.
He slumped to the ground, the blade sliding free with a whisper. Behind him, Gwaine cursed, chest heaving as he caught his breath.
“Bit close, that one,” he said, still breathing hard from running, and wiped his blade clean on the man’s trouser leg. It was a flippant joke, but Arthur heard how his voice quavered with tension.
“Gwaine!” Merlin cried in relief.
Gwaine pulled Merlin forward in a one-armed hug, drawing him in until his lips pressed firmly to his temple. His chain mail chimed faintly as Merlin gripped him tight.
“You two are hard men to find. Anyone else might have felt a little left out.” He drew back, flicked his gaze down. Gwaine turned Merlin’s wrist over, revealing the blood on his hands. His gaze flickered over Merlin’s face quickly, tight with an uncharacteristic anxiety, searching for injuries. “This yours?”
“Arthur’s.”
“Right.” Gwaine nodded and hopped down into the tree hollow, kicking loose a shower of dirt clumped around the roots. “I brought your pack, Merlin. Dropped it a ways back that way when I spotted this one creeping up on you lot. Hopefully I didn't break all your tiny little bottles.”
Merlin nodded and followed Gwaine’s directions into the trees. Arthur watched him slip into the dark with an anxious knot coiling in his gut.
“You’re looking a little rough, Princess,” Gwaine said, far more tenderly than the insult deserved. He crouched in front of him, gently cupping the back of Arthur’s neck, and leaned forward to touch Arthur’s forehead against his own. “You all right?”
“You should go with him,” Arthur said.
“He’s perfectly capable of waving menacingly at any stray scouts without me,” Gwaine said easily.
“I don’t see how you’re joking about this. That was beyond reckless, even for him,” Arthur said. “He had my sword. He didn’t even try to draw it.”
“What, for that small fry?” he teased.
“I’m not in the mood, Gwaine.”
“You’re always in the mood. It’s one of your best qualities. But fine,” he said, growing serious. “You know he’s more capable than you’re giving him credit for.”
Arthur knew that. Despite what their bickering might have someone believe, he did trust Merlin to take care of himself. It was just…
Gwaine squeezed the back of his neck, and in a rare lack of impertinence didn’t seem to expect an answer from him.
“Ready?” Arthur gave a short nod. Gwaine dragged him up on his feet, the mud clinging to their boots, and shouldered Arthur’s weight as they staggered out of the brush-covered wallow.
Merlin appeared as though from thin air beside him, arm snaking around Arthur’s waist until he could shrug Arthur’s other arm over his shoulder.
“Don’t suppose you brought a horse with you?” Arthur asked.
Merlin laughed, a much lighter sound than the strained facsimile from before, and Gwaine in his mock-outrage began to extol them on the benefits of a romantic nighttime stroll.