Abide with Me, 4/6
Part 3
Perhaps half an hour before teatime, Merlin was reunited with Morgana and Gwen in the foyer of the manor. They both smiled widely at him as they emerged from the other side of a vast staircase, and Gwen proudly held up her arm, now in a Velcro brace.
“I'm free at last,” she said.
Merlin laughed. “Does it hurt?”
She stopped in front of him and braced her arm against her other palm as Morgana came up to stand to her right.
“There's no pain, but it itched like you would not believe when the medic sawed the cast off and all the air hit the skin again. I'm meant to be careful and not strain my arm until the flexibility is back, or I'll break it again, but this brace they've given me will help.” Gwen grinned again and Merlin couldn't help noticing that the stress had melted from her face. He hadn't noticed the signs when they had been there, but now the furrow in her brow was smoothed out and she looked quite happy.
Morgana smiled indulgently at her and then reached out one graceful hand to settle on Merlin's elbow, drawing the rest of his attention toward her. “Have you seen Arthur, then?”
He shook his head. “I got the grand tour-they have a sodding Infected captive in the back garden, if you can believe that-but I haven't seen the prat yet. I suppose he's still chatting with his dad. They must have a lot to catch up on, right?” As far as Merlin could gather, they hadn't seen each other since before the outbreak and had likely assumed each other dead. He had a brief flashback to finding his own mum in her bed and swallowed hard, trying to redirect his thoughts.
“Oh, there he is,” said Gwen, doing the job for Merlin.
He turned and there was Arthur strolling casually toward them, his hands jammed in his trouser pockets and his boots scuffing nonchalantly across the parquet floors. His face was a mask and his eyes flicked over the three of them, lingering briefly on Gwen, probably noticing her arm, and then settling last on Merlin's face.
“All right?” Merlin asked.
Arthur nodded and stopped between Merlin and Morgana, making them a circle.
“Cast came off all right?” he asked Gwen.
“Yeah, everything's fine there,” she answered.
Arthur nodded again, maddeningly silent.
“Food's nearly ready, apparently. Come on, then, let's go to the mess.” He inclined his head back the way he'd come, his hands still in his pockets, and they fell into line behind him, for want of something better to do.
The mess was a large room near the kitchens and obviously not the original dining room, although the long table in the middle undoubtedly had come from there. As they approached it, the noise of rowdy, hungry military men built upon itself until the door opened and Merlin didn't know if he could handle a whole meal of roaring at that level. There was some cheering and whistling added to the din as they found their seats, four clear ones in a row along one long side, directly across from a large, empty chair that probably belonged to Maj. Penn.
Merlin sat between Arthur and Morgana and looked at the array of food in front of him: plastic bowls of tinned peas and carrots, a platter of what looked like cocktail sausages, and a silver, covered dish that must have been a relic of the manor's former owners. He wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to know what it concealed.
The noise died down; Merlin turned to the door and there stood Maj. Penn in a red and blue dress uniform. He walked to his waiting chair with the bearing of a king among his subjects.
“Welcome,” he said, standing at his chair and smiling round the room, lingering longest on Arthur, “to our guests. I understand that Jones has prepared something special in honour of your arrival.”
He gripped the ornate handle on the dish cover and removed it with a flourish. Merlin leaned into Morgana's space to see what the special thing was.
“Omelet!” Penn said. “Jones, you've outdone yourself. Well, I was going to make a toast but a bite of this will do nicely.” He picked up his fork and speared a piece of egg with bits of mushroom in it. “To our continued safety and survival.”
Merlin watched him put the fork in his mouth and saw the instant his expression changed from expectation to horror. The look on the man's face made him swallow a smile; discomfort didn't suit his features. Penn spit out the egg into a napkin in a way that looked surprisingly refined. Decorum in all things, Merlin thought.
“Jones. These eggs are off.”
Jones went pale. “I, er, thought the salt would disguise it. Sir.”
Penn reached for water. “Get rid of it.”
Two marines obeyed, picking up the rotten omelet with looks of loathing toward Jones.
“My mouth was all set for omelet, too,” one of the marines near Merlin muttered.
The meal lasted another five, quiet minutes in which Merlin chased peas round the plate with his fork, under motherly disapproving looks from Gwen, and then a siren went off from possibly right under his chair, judging from the volume. It was all he could do not to throw the fork in alarm, he was so startled.
Arthur rose half out of his seat, looking questioningly at his father. The Major waved him back down.
“Positions, boys,” he said calmly, taking a drink as the marines scrambled for the door, and getting up to follow them out as if sirens at mealtimes happened daily.
Morgana and Arthur were on their feet straight away, racing for the door, and with a simultaneous sigh, Gwen and Merlin went after. Frankly though, Merlin was fine with the end of that meal. He wasn't much for peas or silence during tea.
The siren stopped after another minute and was followed by rather a lot of gunfire. Arthur, naturally, was still heading for the front door, Morgana hard on his heels, because obviously running toward the guns was an excellent plan. Merlin skidded to a stop near the large staircase in the foyer, feeling Gwen at his shoulder, and saw Arthur and Morgana finally stopped, arguing with a marine who was blocking the front door with a very large gun. You didn't, Merlin thought, argue with a gun that size. But probably Arthur was trying to convince the soldier to let him borrow it or something else equally mad.
He couldn't hear the content of the argument anyway, over the shooting, so he wandered over to a large window instead to look outside. It had gone dark but muzzle flashes and floodlights trained on the lawns lit up the scene for him: a mob of Infected, ten or fifteen strong, was trying to rush the estate from the far tree line, and the marines were mowing them down with their assault rifles and their bloody enormous cannon-things.
With morbid fascination, he watched the battle go on. Most of the Infected seemed to fall after four or five hits, their skeletal, ragged bodies jerking with every explosive contact, but some ran on as if they were being hit with pebbles from slingshots instead of bullets, and it was these few that the cannon operator turned on with probable glee. An Infected in Merlin's direct line of sight was hit by it and-there was no other word for it-it exploded. Bits of carrion flew for several feet in every direction, hitting the other unstoppable Infected, who barrelled on as if nothing had happened. The remains, if there was enough still there even to call them that, fell to the grass almost gracefully. Merlin had once seen a woman in a film faint with that precise movement. At that thought, he had to turn away, his stomach churning as he shut his eyes against the bright lights and carnage outside. Now that his ears were growing used to the gunfire, he realized he could hear the loud, joyful whooping of the soldiers outside. He walked back over to Gwen, who was sitting on the stairs now.
“You look a bit green,” she said.
“Yes. Funny. After all, I've seen worse in the last few days.” He collapsed on the step next to her and put his head between his knees until his meagre tea stopped threatening to leave his stomach.
Gwen was frowning when he could raise his head again. “Well, I hardly blame you. This is all a bit intense, isn't it.”
“Do you regret coming here?”
She shrugged. “Nothing's happened to regret, yet. We've only been here half a day.”
Her wait-and-see attitude was somehow not comforting. Merlin was certainly having second thoughts. Then again, if a determined Infected could take five bullets without slowing down, perhaps they would all have died horribly that afternoon at the roadblock, armed with only their handgun and taser, had Sgt. Blakely not ridden in on his white horse to save them all.
Merlin put his head back between his knees until Arthur and Morgana rejoined them.
Morgana instantly put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Merlin, are you--” and the rest was drowned out by the banging of the doors as the marines poured back inside, loud with adrenaline and dusted with dirt and gunpowder.
“Fucking hell!” shouted Jones, once again accepted by his comrades. “I love it when they come out to play. Just....” He mimed shooting an apparently vast number of Infected and the three soldiers around him laughed, slapping him on the back.
Morgana snorted (and she hadn't even seen him in the frilly apron). Unfortunately, it attracted Jones' and Sgt. Blakely's attention from their discussion of Infected and guns and possibly steroids. Jones sauntered over, looking her up and down rather obviously as she crossed her arms over her chest and assumed a blank expression. Merlin thought that he didn't like the look of her blank expression.
“Morgana, was it? Were you watching us?” He sidled into her personal space and winked. “You like big... guns, do you?”
His mates all laughed and Merlin found himself beginning to stand. Gwen's hand squeezing his elbow made him sit again, though, and watch warily. Arthur sat on the stair below Gwen, his spine a taut line under his shirt.
“I don't know,” Morgana replied smoothly, a smile with no humour in it crawling across her lips. “You seem the type to pull the trigger a little early.”
The men laughed louder and Blakely stepped forward, shoving Jones aside.
“You heard her, Jones; step aside for a real man.”
Merlin tensed up, his legs burning with the need to jump to his feet and Gwen's fingernails still digging through his jumper; Morgana's taser had appeared in her hand.
“You will not touch me,” she said softly, looking pointedly at his hand wavering near her arm, “or I will apply this to your bollocks.”
Blakely's face froze in shock for an instant, but in the next he was laughing so hard that Merlin might have just imagined it.
“This what you've been carrying?” he exclaimed, seizing it before she had a chance to avoid him and holding it back when she made a lunge after it. “It's a wonder you ain't dead already, love. Oh, don't you worry,” he added, when she made another grab for it, “you won't be needing it now. I'll protect you. Won't I, boys?”
Morgana was obviously about to put her foot where she'd just been threatening to stick the taser, and Merlin moved to try and hold her off at the same time as Arthur surged to his feet, heading for Blakely. The marines witnessing the scene were still laughing and catcalling, and then Maj. Penn appeared in their midst.
“What in the name of God is going on here?” he thundered.
The marines shut up almost at once, drifting back as a unit and isolating Blakely, Jones and Morgana. Arthur and Merlin had both been shocked into stillness at the bottom of the stairs, a few feet away, by the sound of his voice.
Blakely immediately stood at attention, with Jones quick to follow. Merlin eyed Morgana eyeing the taser still in Blakely's hand, rigid at his side.
“Sir. Just a bit of fun, sir.”
“Sergeant, what have you got there.” The Major did not phrase it as a question.
Blakely didn't respond. Penn's eyes narrowed, and three seconds ticked by before he cracked like a bad egg and held the taser out for inspection.
Penn took it. “This is not military issue.”
“It's mine,” Morgana said curtly.
Penn levelled a glare at his troops that should rightly have killed them both on the spot, and then silently gave Morgana back her weapon. She checked the safety before stuffing it back in the pocket of her jumper, and then walked off without another word, Gwen jumping up to follow her.
The Major looked around at the scene: a squad of guilty-looking marines and Merlin and Arthur, both still unmoving. Merlin was still frozen in mid-step.
“Sergeant, what should you be doing right now?”
Blakely straightened a bit more, if that was possible.
“Sir! Checking the perimeter and clearing the bodies off the lawn, sir.”
“Well then, get to it. Where is Lance-Corporal Lott?”
“Went ahead to the armoury, sir,” a voice piped up from the crowd.
Penn looked toward the voice. “You and Moore will go and assist him, Smith.” He looked around. “Why are you all still standing here?”
They dispersed at a remarkable speed. When Merlin, Arthur, and the Major were alone in the entryway, he finally allowed himself to sag fractionally and suddenly seemed more like Arthur's dad than a commanding officer.
“Come to my office,” he said.
Maj. Penn's-Uther's-office was a study on the main floor with most of the original furniture still present, as far as Merlin could see. It was warm and wood-panelled. Once he and Arthur were seated in front of the desk, each with a finger of whiskey in a glass, the bottle of which looked like one of the ones they themselves had brought, Arthur's father sat in the high-backed chair behind the desk and rested his own drink on the paper-stuffed blotter.
“What, precisely, happened out there? Will your friend be all right?”
Merlin found himself nodding before Arthur had a chance to open his mouth.
“She'll be fine, I think, once she calms down. Sgt. Blakely and Pvt. Jones said some sort of inappropriate things and she didn't appreciate it, but it was nothing very serious.” He paused. “She might kill the next person to touch her taser, though,” he added.
Uther nodded, but frowned at him. “I see....”
“Merlin,” he supplied, sipping at his drink. It tasted smoky and sharp at once and created some much-appreciated warmth when it reached his stomach.
“Merlin. Thank you.” Uther shifted in his chair. “My boys are good boys; they just haven't seen women in a long time, and they all lost their wives and girlfriends, of course, and things are a bit strange for them right now. They should calm down soon enough but I'll have a chat with them about boundaries, all the same.”
“That would be best,” Merlin said. “Morgana has quite a temper.”
Arthur swirled his drink, saying nothing. Merlin glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Should I...?” he tried, half-rising and jerking a thumb toward the door behind them.
Uther gestured at his chair. “No, please sit. We should talk. For instance, what brought you here? Arthur was certainly surprised enough to see me when you arrived, so what was your purpose in coming?”
This, at least, was an easy one.
“Your radio message. You promised the answer to Infection,” Merlin said. “It was difficult to resist.”
“Yes, the message. Of course, this place is well-defended, and we have supplies enough to last a year at least, with our population. That's with very little rationing. Hot, clean water, even. That certainly feels like a luxury these days.” He settled back in his chair. “We're quite glad to have you here with us, and I hope that you'll all be quite comfortable and safe, given the circumstances.”
Merlin scrunched his brow, considering the words. So, no actual cure, then. Still, there was something to be said for showers and beds and a full night's sleep, wasn't there? He finished his drink and stood, sensing it was time for him to leave Arthur and his dad to bond a while, or whatever it was that fathers and sons did. With a nod of thanks to Uther and a grin for Arthur, he left to find his bed.
They'd been given a room each on the second floor, which was nearly empty since the marines were barracked in the large rooms he'd seen on his earlier tour. He didn't actually know which was his, as he hadn't been upstairs yet, but he followed a light from the corridor to find Gwen sitting on her bed, playing with her arm brace. She smiled at him as he wandered in.
“How's Morgana?” he asked.
She grimaced. “Went to bed. Still furious, frankly. I hope she's better in the morning.”
He sat down beside her, feeling the expensive mattress dip slightly.
“Well, it was hardly an experience I'd wish for; I can't say I blame her. Arthur's dad said he'd have a talk with the men about keeping it in their pants or something.”
“Oh, rubbing elbows with the officers already, are we?” she teased.
“He invited us for a drink,” Merlin muttered. “In fact, a drink of stuff we brought with us.”
Gwen laughed.
“So what's he like, then?” she said.
Merlin thought a moment, then shrugged. “As imposing as he seems from a distance, I suppose, but he relaxes rather a lot when he's not around his men.” He scratched his ear. “He seems quite glad to have Arthur here.”
“Well, naturally. Think if you were him. Arthur's his son, maybe his only child.”
“Arthur's very quiet, though,” he found himself saying.
Gwen cocked her head to the side. “Well, I think there's a load of history there.”
Merlin looked at her quizzically and she stared back at him with a look insultingly close to utter disbelief.
“You really don't see it? He's got a chip on his shoulder about the military the size of....” At a loss for comparisons, she flailed expansively for a moment. “And he looked astounded to see the man standing there in front of him. Not in a good way, either. I certainly wouldn't stand there like a stick in a bog if my father came back from the dead and gave me a hug. I had quite a good relationship with my dad,” she said with a wistful smile.
Merlin had no response to that and found himself once again trying not to think about his mum. “I dunno,” he said weakly. “Maybe it's shock.”
“Maybe.”
He stifled a yawn, feeling his jaw crack a little. “Hey,” he said, “do you know where--”
She pointed at the wall. “Morgana's on my other side, so you and Arthur can fight over the two rooms on this side.” She smiled. “Goodnight, Merlin.”
“'Night, Gwen,” he grinned, getting up to leave her alone. “See you tomorrow.”
Peeking at both options, he chose the room beside Gwen's and quickly shucked his clothes for bed, crawling under the slightly musty but very soft duvet with a sigh. The bed in Morgana and Gwen's extra room seemed a year ago already, and frankly, he'd never slept in a bed this nice. He felt sure he'd drop right off to sleep until the sun shone again.
He heard Arthur shuffling around behind the wall perhaps an hour later.
Two hours after that, he was still staring at the shadows on the ceiling.
Merlin sighed.
He let several more minutes pass before throwing off the covers and pulling his clothes back on again, considering the trainers but deciding to carry them instead until he worked out where he was going; banging about audibly in the middle of the night in a house full of trained killers would probably be unwise of him.
The door mercifully didn't creak as he slipped into the corridor and tiptoed past Arthur's room, from which no snores or other sleep sounds emanated. Maybe Arthur was still awake, too, he thought. He kept moving, down the wide staircase, past the barracks rooms, and toward the back corridor of the house before he even realized exactly where he was going.
He tried to remember if the shed was locked or not as he paused to slip on his trainers at the door to the back garden. The moonlight outside illuminated the shed just enough to reassure him that there was no padlock, and he picked his way carefully across the soggy, muddy grass.
The creak of the shed door opening, although Merlin did his best to keep it quiet, disturbed Mailor from one of his sleep-like trances. The Infected awoke with a jolt as Merlin stepped inside and pulled the door shut, conscious that he had no weapon with him.
Mailor got to his feet quickly and took a breath to scream, to lunge, something, and so Merlin thrust his right hand out in front of him, palm toward his target, and focused all his attention on the thing before him (not a difficult task, honestly, as they tended to draw it anyway). With a deep breath of his own, he thought calming thoughts, hoping he was projecting them at Mailor.
Mailor froze as if someone had pressed a pause button, staring curiously at Merlin.
The realization that they probably wouldn't find his lifeless body on the floor of the shed the next day hit Merlin quite suddenly; his shaking knees finally gave out and he thumped to the floor, but his hand stayed out toward the Infected and it stayed stationary, obeying his command for calm.
He licked his lips and then dropped the hand. Mailor jerked, rattling his chain, and sniffed the air deeply. He put his palm back up again quickly, thinking more of calm and standing still, and watched in morbid fascination as the Infected relaxed again.
“Sit... sit down,” he whispered softly, making eye contact, creepy as it was to stare down those beyond-bloodshot eyes. Mailor sat, slowly, looking as if he didn't know why or how he was doing it.
Merlin smiled.
***
“Merlin, for God's sake, you're going to be facedown in your breakfast in a minute,” Arthur snapped, rousing Merlin from a fog of drowsiness. He jerked upright, his attention slamming back to the present, and realized he'd likely spent the last several minutes staring fixedly at Arthur's nose.
He dug his spoon back into his cooling porridge.
“Honestly, did you sleep at all?”
He had, in fact, remained in the shed with Mailor until the pearly grey of dawn crept up on him. Merlin had cursed a bit and left the softly dozing Infected to stealthily make his way back up to his bed for a few hours' rest, finally bone-tired. He'd managed two hours before Arthur was banging on his door and making noise about food.
Arthur, for his part, looked maddeningly like he'd spent the whole night sleeping like a baby, the bastard. Merlin jabbed his spoon upright into his flavourless mush and watched it topple in slow-motion to clatter against the rim of the bowl.
“Oh, Merlin, eat your food,” Gwen chided him.
He knew that she was being the voice of sense and reason yet again, but continued to stare and poke at it for another several minutes until his friends were finished.
“What's on for today, then?” he asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets as they strolled out of the mess hall, dodging the soldiers milling about on their duties.
“I've been asked to sort out the kitchen and organize lunch,” said Gwen.
“I'm helping,” Morgana said brightly.
Arthur snorted. “You can cook, can you?”
She glared back. “Well... no. But I'm a champion with a knife.” Her smile was the sweetly venomous one she seemed to favour.
“Morgana can chop vegetables with the best of them,” Gwen said, “it's just the mixing and cooking bit that she seems defeated by.”
Morgana crossed her arms smugly, as if this settled the matter with Arthur the clear loser.
“How about you, then?” Merlin said, nudging at Arthur with his elbow.
“My father wanted to see me,” he answered. “I might spend the day with him.”
And so Merlin was at loose ends. He debated going back out to the shed for a moment, but in the end he went back up to his musty bedroom for a long nap, instead. At least he had plenty of sleep to catch up on; somehow being in a coma hadn't been very restful.
***
Except for being thrown out of his bed by Morgana for lunch and then Arthur for tea, Merlin was staggered to realize on the way down for breakfast the next morning that he'd slept the better part of twenty hours in the past twenty-four. At least that explained why he felt slightly more alive. Arthur, once again bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and sharp-tongued, nevertheless only had two sarcastic comments for Merlin, one of them having to do with hibernation and the other merely being about his ears.
They trailed behind the girls as they left the mess and Merlin was pleasantly distracted by the idea of a walk about the grounds, followed by another nap, when he heard a commotion from the front of the house.
When a very loud, angry and female voice cut through the din, he and Arthur shared one brief look before taking off at a run.
The tableau was surprising and yet it wasn't: Morgana was in a standoff with Sgt. Blakely and appeared to have a short knife in her hand of unknown origin, possibly the kitchen. Gwen, her braced arm cradled against her chest, stood a pace behind her, where Morgana had likely shoved her out of the way. Gwen looked nearly as angry as Morgana, and clearly would not be the one holding her back from the murder she was about to attempt. Three other marines were ranged around Blakely, their faces unreadable.
“I am going to cut them off and stuff them down your fucking throat, and then I am going to kill you,” Morgana hissed, shifting from foot to foot as she stared down Blakely, who unfortunately did not look a fraction as scared as Merlin would be in his place.
The sergeant smiled. “I like them feisty. I'll have you first, then.”
Morgana made to lunge, bringing the knife in low in a scarily capable manner, and fucking Blakely even moved back a step, but two marines leapt forward and seized her arms, taking away her knife and forcing her to her knees. The third grabbed Gwen and Blakely stepped up close to Morgana with a smile on his face, even as she showed him all her teeth, and it was going to end so very terribly.
Merlin and Arthur rushed in to intervene and even as he ran for the man holding Gwen by her good arm, Merlin suddenly realized they had just picked a fight with Royal Marines who outnumbered them two to one, that he was unarmed, and that any muscle mass he had once possessed was long since deteriorated. Arthur, at least, had a better-than-nil chance of survival in this.
Two good things happened in the next minute: first, the man he was attempting to enter single combat with had to release Gwen to hit him, which allowed her to slip away, hopefully to somewhere very safe.
Second, another marine had appeared in the fray, and since he was shouting at Blakely, he was likely on Merlin's side. This, he thought as he dodged a punch, probably evened things up considerably.
Then Merlin's opponent, who apparently was a private named White, hit him in the jaw and everything went downhill from there.
Merlin staggered back, reeling from the pain, and tried not to fall over. White swung at him again and he ducked, taking a blow meant for his stomach on the shoulder instead, which still hurt like hell but he stayed on his feet. Instincts from a brief period as a teenage hoodlum kicked in and he landed two fast punches on White's stomach and the side of his ribcage before White, who had nearly 100 pounds on Merlin, caught his fist and squeezed, using it to push him to his knees as the pressure on his fingers became white-hot pain. Merlin gritted his teeth.
Morgana, who had apparently been able to escape her captors and also was not possessed of the good sense to run like hell, appeared behind White, grabbed his ear, and twisted hard with a look of malice on her face, until he cried out and released his grip on Merlin. Merlin decided that fighting with honour was right out the window and dove on White, taking advantage of his distraction to knock him flat onto his back, pin his arms under his knees, and start beating him round the head before he had time to react or fight back.
Morgana ran back to Arthur and Merlin looked up from his ministrations long enough to see that Arthur and the nice marine had knocked one of Morgana's assailants unconscious and were now brawling with Blakely and the other one. Blakely landed a punch on Arthur that knocked him several steps backwards, Merlin winced in sympathy, and then suddenly White had pulled an arm from under Merlin's knee and seized him round the neck, choking him.
Spots were blooming in his vision when Maj. Penn's strident voice cut through the fight, rendering everyone motionless.
“Blakely! Lott! What is the meaning of this?”
Merlin, wheezing, turned to face Penn. Their helper-Lott, was it?-stood at attention along with the other three marines who were still conscious. The fourth, damn him, seemed to be coming around as well.
“Sir,” said L.Cpl. Lott, facing straight ahead and bleeding freely from a split lip, “the sergeant and these three privates were harassing-“ He was cut off by Uther's imperiously raised hand.
“Sgt. Blakely,” he said instead, “what happened here?”
Blakely gave Merlin, Arthur, and even the still-murderous Morgana a glare as he replied. “They attacked us unprovoked, sir.”
Morgana made a choked-off noise and Arthur laid a hand on her arm. “Father,” he started, but Uther silenced him as well.
“Where is the other one?” he asked, and more marines who had appeared on the scene pointed behind Merlin. He turned slowly, dreading, and there was Gwen, held between two more soldiers. Half of her hair had been knocked from its ponytail and hung in her face.
The major nodded to himself. “Sergeant.”
Blakely stood at attention.
“Arrest these two and Lott.” He gestured at Arthur, who stared at him in shock, and Merlin, who might have gasped if he could breathe without pain in his throat.
Morgana clenched her hands into fists, her face going stony, but she was seized again before she could move, and suddenly there were guns pointed at Merlin and urging him up to stand next to Arthur and L.Cpl. Lott. Moore, who was apparently a Corporal, and Blakely, who had a possibly-permanent smug look on his face now, stayed with them, guns trained, as everyone else filed away in a startlingly quiet manner, dragging Gwen and Morgana off with them to who knew where.
The major strolled over to them with a thoughtful look on his face.
“I promised them women,” he said.
***
Part 5
Perhaps half an hour before teatime, Merlin was reunited with Morgana and Gwen in the foyer of the manor. They both smiled widely at him as they emerged from the other side of a vast staircase, and Gwen proudly held up her arm, now in a Velcro brace.
“I'm free at last,” she said.
Merlin laughed. “Does it hurt?”
She stopped in front of him and braced her arm against her other palm as Morgana came up to stand to her right.
“There's no pain, but it itched like you would not believe when the medic sawed the cast off and all the air hit the skin again. I'm meant to be careful and not strain my arm until the flexibility is back, or I'll break it again, but this brace they've given me will help.” Gwen grinned again and Merlin couldn't help noticing that the stress had melted from her face. He hadn't noticed the signs when they had been there, but now the furrow in her brow was smoothed out and she looked quite happy.
Morgana smiled indulgently at her and then reached out one graceful hand to settle on Merlin's elbow, drawing the rest of his attention toward her. “Have you seen Arthur, then?”
He shook his head. “I got the grand tour-they have a sodding Infected captive in the back garden, if you can believe that-but I haven't seen the prat yet. I suppose he's still chatting with his dad. They must have a lot to catch up on, right?” As far as Merlin could gather, they hadn't seen each other since before the outbreak and had likely assumed each other dead. He had a brief flashback to finding his own mum in her bed and swallowed hard, trying to redirect his thoughts.
“Oh, there he is,” said Gwen, doing the job for Merlin.
He turned and there was Arthur strolling casually toward them, his hands jammed in his trouser pockets and his boots scuffing nonchalantly across the parquet floors. His face was a mask and his eyes flicked over the three of them, lingering briefly on Gwen, probably noticing her arm, and then settling last on Merlin's face.
“All right?” Merlin asked.
Arthur nodded and stopped between Merlin and Morgana, making them a circle.
“Cast came off all right?” he asked Gwen.
“Yeah, everything's fine there,” she answered.
Arthur nodded again, maddeningly silent.
“Food's nearly ready, apparently. Come on, then, let's go to the mess.” He inclined his head back the way he'd come, his hands still in his pockets, and they fell into line behind him, for want of something better to do.
The mess was a large room near the kitchens and obviously not the original dining room, although the long table in the middle undoubtedly had come from there. As they approached it, the noise of rowdy, hungry military men built upon itself until the door opened and Merlin didn't know if he could handle a whole meal of roaring at that level. There was some cheering and whistling added to the din as they found their seats, four clear ones in a row along one long side, directly across from a large, empty chair that probably belonged to Maj. Penn.
Merlin sat between Arthur and Morgana and looked at the array of food in front of him: plastic bowls of tinned peas and carrots, a platter of what looked like cocktail sausages, and a silver, covered dish that must have been a relic of the manor's former owners. He wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to know what it concealed.
The noise died down; Merlin turned to the door and there stood Maj. Penn in a red and blue dress uniform. He walked to his waiting chair with the bearing of a king among his subjects.
“Welcome,” he said, standing at his chair and smiling round the room, lingering longest on Arthur, “to our guests. I understand that Jones has prepared something special in honour of your arrival.”
He gripped the ornate handle on the dish cover and removed it with a flourish. Merlin leaned into Morgana's space to see what the special thing was.
“Omelet!” Penn said. “Jones, you've outdone yourself. Well, I was going to make a toast but a bite of this will do nicely.” He picked up his fork and speared a piece of egg with bits of mushroom in it. “To our continued safety and survival.”
Merlin watched him put the fork in his mouth and saw the instant his expression changed from expectation to horror. The look on the man's face made him swallow a smile; discomfort didn't suit his features. Penn spit out the egg into a napkin in a way that looked surprisingly refined. Decorum in all things, Merlin thought.
“Jones. These eggs are off.”
Jones went pale. “I, er, thought the salt would disguise it. Sir.”
Penn reached for water. “Get rid of it.”
Two marines obeyed, picking up the rotten omelet with looks of loathing toward Jones.
“My mouth was all set for omelet, too,” one of the marines near Merlin muttered.
The meal lasted another five, quiet minutes in which Merlin chased peas round the plate with his fork, under motherly disapproving looks from Gwen, and then a siren went off from possibly right under his chair, judging from the volume. It was all he could do not to throw the fork in alarm, he was so startled.
Arthur rose half out of his seat, looking questioningly at his father. The Major waved him back down.
“Positions, boys,” he said calmly, taking a drink as the marines scrambled for the door, and getting up to follow them out as if sirens at mealtimes happened daily.
Morgana and Arthur were on their feet straight away, racing for the door, and with a simultaneous sigh, Gwen and Merlin went after. Frankly though, Merlin was fine with the end of that meal. He wasn't much for peas or silence during tea.
The siren stopped after another minute and was followed by rather a lot of gunfire. Arthur, naturally, was still heading for the front door, Morgana hard on his heels, because obviously running toward the guns was an excellent plan. Merlin skidded to a stop near the large staircase in the foyer, feeling Gwen at his shoulder, and saw Arthur and Morgana finally stopped, arguing with a marine who was blocking the front door with a very large gun. You didn't, Merlin thought, argue with a gun that size. But probably Arthur was trying to convince the soldier to let him borrow it or something else equally mad.
He couldn't hear the content of the argument anyway, over the shooting, so he wandered over to a large window instead to look outside. It had gone dark but muzzle flashes and floodlights trained on the lawns lit up the scene for him: a mob of Infected, ten or fifteen strong, was trying to rush the estate from the far tree line, and the marines were mowing them down with their assault rifles and their bloody enormous cannon-things.
With morbid fascination, he watched the battle go on. Most of the Infected seemed to fall after four or five hits, their skeletal, ragged bodies jerking with every explosive contact, but some ran on as if they were being hit with pebbles from slingshots instead of bullets, and it was these few that the cannon operator turned on with probable glee. An Infected in Merlin's direct line of sight was hit by it and-there was no other word for it-it exploded. Bits of carrion flew for several feet in every direction, hitting the other unstoppable Infected, who barrelled on as if nothing had happened. The remains, if there was enough still there even to call them that, fell to the grass almost gracefully. Merlin had once seen a woman in a film faint with that precise movement. At that thought, he had to turn away, his stomach churning as he shut his eyes against the bright lights and carnage outside. Now that his ears were growing used to the gunfire, he realized he could hear the loud, joyful whooping of the soldiers outside. He walked back over to Gwen, who was sitting on the stairs now.
“You look a bit green,” she said.
“Yes. Funny. After all, I've seen worse in the last few days.” He collapsed on the step next to her and put his head between his knees until his meagre tea stopped threatening to leave his stomach.
Gwen was frowning when he could raise his head again. “Well, I hardly blame you. This is all a bit intense, isn't it.”
“Do you regret coming here?”
She shrugged. “Nothing's happened to regret, yet. We've only been here half a day.”
Her wait-and-see attitude was somehow not comforting. Merlin was certainly having second thoughts. Then again, if a determined Infected could take five bullets without slowing down, perhaps they would all have died horribly that afternoon at the roadblock, armed with only their handgun and taser, had Sgt. Blakely not ridden in on his white horse to save them all.
Merlin put his head back between his knees until Arthur and Morgana rejoined them.
Morgana instantly put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Merlin, are you--” and the rest was drowned out by the banging of the doors as the marines poured back inside, loud with adrenaline and dusted with dirt and gunpowder.
“Fucking hell!” shouted Jones, once again accepted by his comrades. “I love it when they come out to play. Just....” He mimed shooting an apparently vast number of Infected and the three soldiers around him laughed, slapping him on the back.
Morgana snorted (and she hadn't even seen him in the frilly apron). Unfortunately, it attracted Jones' and Sgt. Blakely's attention from their discussion of Infected and guns and possibly steroids. Jones sauntered over, looking her up and down rather obviously as she crossed her arms over her chest and assumed a blank expression. Merlin thought that he didn't like the look of her blank expression.
“Morgana, was it? Were you watching us?” He sidled into her personal space and winked. “You like big... guns, do you?”
His mates all laughed and Merlin found himself beginning to stand. Gwen's hand squeezing his elbow made him sit again, though, and watch warily. Arthur sat on the stair below Gwen, his spine a taut line under his shirt.
“I don't know,” Morgana replied smoothly, a smile with no humour in it crawling across her lips. “You seem the type to pull the trigger a little early.”
The men laughed louder and Blakely stepped forward, shoving Jones aside.
“You heard her, Jones; step aside for a real man.”
Merlin tensed up, his legs burning with the need to jump to his feet and Gwen's fingernails still digging through his jumper; Morgana's taser had appeared in her hand.
“You will not touch me,” she said softly, looking pointedly at his hand wavering near her arm, “or I will apply this to your bollocks.”
Blakely's face froze in shock for an instant, but in the next he was laughing so hard that Merlin might have just imagined it.
“This what you've been carrying?” he exclaimed, seizing it before she had a chance to avoid him and holding it back when she made a lunge after it. “It's a wonder you ain't dead already, love. Oh, don't you worry,” he added, when she made another grab for it, “you won't be needing it now. I'll protect you. Won't I, boys?”
Morgana was obviously about to put her foot where she'd just been threatening to stick the taser, and Merlin moved to try and hold her off at the same time as Arthur surged to his feet, heading for Blakely. The marines witnessing the scene were still laughing and catcalling, and then Maj. Penn appeared in their midst.
“What in the name of God is going on here?” he thundered.
The marines shut up almost at once, drifting back as a unit and isolating Blakely, Jones and Morgana. Arthur and Merlin had both been shocked into stillness at the bottom of the stairs, a few feet away, by the sound of his voice.
Blakely immediately stood at attention, with Jones quick to follow. Merlin eyed Morgana eyeing the taser still in Blakely's hand, rigid at his side.
“Sir. Just a bit of fun, sir.”
“Sergeant, what have you got there.” The Major did not phrase it as a question.
Blakely didn't respond. Penn's eyes narrowed, and three seconds ticked by before he cracked like a bad egg and held the taser out for inspection.
Penn took it. “This is not military issue.”
“It's mine,” Morgana said curtly.
Penn levelled a glare at his troops that should rightly have killed them both on the spot, and then silently gave Morgana back her weapon. She checked the safety before stuffing it back in the pocket of her jumper, and then walked off without another word, Gwen jumping up to follow her.
The Major looked around at the scene: a squad of guilty-looking marines and Merlin and Arthur, both still unmoving. Merlin was still frozen in mid-step.
“Sergeant, what should you be doing right now?”
Blakely straightened a bit more, if that was possible.
“Sir! Checking the perimeter and clearing the bodies off the lawn, sir.”
“Well then, get to it. Where is Lance-Corporal Lott?”
“Went ahead to the armoury, sir,” a voice piped up from the crowd.
Penn looked toward the voice. “You and Moore will go and assist him, Smith.” He looked around. “Why are you all still standing here?”
They dispersed at a remarkable speed. When Merlin, Arthur, and the Major were alone in the entryway, he finally allowed himself to sag fractionally and suddenly seemed more like Arthur's dad than a commanding officer.
“Come to my office,” he said.
Maj. Penn's-Uther's-office was a study on the main floor with most of the original furniture still present, as far as Merlin could see. It was warm and wood-panelled. Once he and Arthur were seated in front of the desk, each with a finger of whiskey in a glass, the bottle of which looked like one of the ones they themselves had brought, Arthur's father sat in the high-backed chair behind the desk and rested his own drink on the paper-stuffed blotter.
“What, precisely, happened out there? Will your friend be all right?”
Merlin found himself nodding before Arthur had a chance to open his mouth.
“She'll be fine, I think, once she calms down. Sgt. Blakely and Pvt. Jones said some sort of inappropriate things and she didn't appreciate it, but it was nothing very serious.” He paused. “She might kill the next person to touch her taser, though,” he added.
Uther nodded, but frowned at him. “I see....”
“Merlin,” he supplied, sipping at his drink. It tasted smoky and sharp at once and created some much-appreciated warmth when it reached his stomach.
“Merlin. Thank you.” Uther shifted in his chair. “My boys are good boys; they just haven't seen women in a long time, and they all lost their wives and girlfriends, of course, and things are a bit strange for them right now. They should calm down soon enough but I'll have a chat with them about boundaries, all the same.”
“That would be best,” Merlin said. “Morgana has quite a temper.”
Arthur swirled his drink, saying nothing. Merlin glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Should I...?” he tried, half-rising and jerking a thumb toward the door behind them.
Uther gestured at his chair. “No, please sit. We should talk. For instance, what brought you here? Arthur was certainly surprised enough to see me when you arrived, so what was your purpose in coming?”
This, at least, was an easy one.
“Your radio message. You promised the answer to Infection,” Merlin said. “It was difficult to resist.”
“Yes, the message. Of course, this place is well-defended, and we have supplies enough to last a year at least, with our population. That's with very little rationing. Hot, clean water, even. That certainly feels like a luxury these days.” He settled back in his chair. “We're quite glad to have you here with us, and I hope that you'll all be quite comfortable and safe, given the circumstances.”
Merlin scrunched his brow, considering the words. So, no actual cure, then. Still, there was something to be said for showers and beds and a full night's sleep, wasn't there? He finished his drink and stood, sensing it was time for him to leave Arthur and his dad to bond a while, or whatever it was that fathers and sons did. With a nod of thanks to Uther and a grin for Arthur, he left to find his bed.
They'd been given a room each on the second floor, which was nearly empty since the marines were barracked in the large rooms he'd seen on his earlier tour. He didn't actually know which was his, as he hadn't been upstairs yet, but he followed a light from the corridor to find Gwen sitting on her bed, playing with her arm brace. She smiled at him as he wandered in.
“How's Morgana?” he asked.
She grimaced. “Went to bed. Still furious, frankly. I hope she's better in the morning.”
He sat down beside her, feeling the expensive mattress dip slightly.
“Well, it was hardly an experience I'd wish for; I can't say I blame her. Arthur's dad said he'd have a talk with the men about keeping it in their pants or something.”
“Oh, rubbing elbows with the officers already, are we?” she teased.
“He invited us for a drink,” Merlin muttered. “In fact, a drink of stuff we brought with us.”
Gwen laughed.
“So what's he like, then?” she said.
Merlin thought a moment, then shrugged. “As imposing as he seems from a distance, I suppose, but he relaxes rather a lot when he's not around his men.” He scratched his ear. “He seems quite glad to have Arthur here.”
“Well, naturally. Think if you were him. Arthur's his son, maybe his only child.”
“Arthur's very quiet, though,” he found himself saying.
Gwen cocked her head to the side. “Well, I think there's a load of history there.”
Merlin looked at her quizzically and she stared back at him with a look insultingly close to utter disbelief.
“You really don't see it? He's got a chip on his shoulder about the military the size of....” At a loss for comparisons, she flailed expansively for a moment. “And he looked astounded to see the man standing there in front of him. Not in a good way, either. I certainly wouldn't stand there like a stick in a bog if my father came back from the dead and gave me a hug. I had quite a good relationship with my dad,” she said with a wistful smile.
Merlin had no response to that and found himself once again trying not to think about his mum. “I dunno,” he said weakly. “Maybe it's shock.”
“Maybe.”
He stifled a yawn, feeling his jaw crack a little. “Hey,” he said, “do you know where--”
She pointed at the wall. “Morgana's on my other side, so you and Arthur can fight over the two rooms on this side.” She smiled. “Goodnight, Merlin.”
“'Night, Gwen,” he grinned, getting up to leave her alone. “See you tomorrow.”
Peeking at both options, he chose the room beside Gwen's and quickly shucked his clothes for bed, crawling under the slightly musty but very soft duvet with a sigh. The bed in Morgana and Gwen's extra room seemed a year ago already, and frankly, he'd never slept in a bed this nice. He felt sure he'd drop right off to sleep until the sun shone again.
He heard Arthur shuffling around behind the wall perhaps an hour later.
Two hours after that, he was still staring at the shadows on the ceiling.
Merlin sighed.
He let several more minutes pass before throwing off the covers and pulling his clothes back on again, considering the trainers but deciding to carry them instead until he worked out where he was going; banging about audibly in the middle of the night in a house full of trained killers would probably be unwise of him.
The door mercifully didn't creak as he slipped into the corridor and tiptoed past Arthur's room, from which no snores or other sleep sounds emanated. Maybe Arthur was still awake, too, he thought. He kept moving, down the wide staircase, past the barracks rooms, and toward the back corridor of the house before he even realized exactly where he was going.
He tried to remember if the shed was locked or not as he paused to slip on his trainers at the door to the back garden. The moonlight outside illuminated the shed just enough to reassure him that there was no padlock, and he picked his way carefully across the soggy, muddy grass.
The creak of the shed door opening, although Merlin did his best to keep it quiet, disturbed Mailor from one of his sleep-like trances. The Infected awoke with a jolt as Merlin stepped inside and pulled the door shut, conscious that he had no weapon with him.
Mailor got to his feet quickly and took a breath to scream, to lunge, something, and so Merlin thrust his right hand out in front of him, palm toward his target, and focused all his attention on the thing before him (not a difficult task, honestly, as they tended to draw it anyway). With a deep breath of his own, he thought calming thoughts, hoping he was projecting them at Mailor.
Mailor froze as if someone had pressed a pause button, staring curiously at Merlin.
The realization that they probably wouldn't find his lifeless body on the floor of the shed the next day hit Merlin quite suddenly; his shaking knees finally gave out and he thumped to the floor, but his hand stayed out toward the Infected and it stayed stationary, obeying his command for calm.
He licked his lips and then dropped the hand. Mailor jerked, rattling his chain, and sniffed the air deeply. He put his palm back up again quickly, thinking more of calm and standing still, and watched in morbid fascination as the Infected relaxed again.
“Sit... sit down,” he whispered softly, making eye contact, creepy as it was to stare down those beyond-bloodshot eyes. Mailor sat, slowly, looking as if he didn't know why or how he was doing it.
Merlin smiled.
***
“Merlin, for God's sake, you're going to be facedown in your breakfast in a minute,” Arthur snapped, rousing Merlin from a fog of drowsiness. He jerked upright, his attention slamming back to the present, and realized he'd likely spent the last several minutes staring fixedly at Arthur's nose.
He dug his spoon back into his cooling porridge.
“Honestly, did you sleep at all?”
He had, in fact, remained in the shed with Mailor until the pearly grey of dawn crept up on him. Merlin had cursed a bit and left the softly dozing Infected to stealthily make his way back up to his bed for a few hours' rest, finally bone-tired. He'd managed two hours before Arthur was banging on his door and making noise about food.
Arthur, for his part, looked maddeningly like he'd spent the whole night sleeping like a baby, the bastard. Merlin jabbed his spoon upright into his flavourless mush and watched it topple in slow-motion to clatter against the rim of the bowl.
“Oh, Merlin, eat your food,” Gwen chided him.
He knew that she was being the voice of sense and reason yet again, but continued to stare and poke at it for another several minutes until his friends were finished.
“What's on for today, then?” he asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets as they strolled out of the mess hall, dodging the soldiers milling about on their duties.
“I've been asked to sort out the kitchen and organize lunch,” said Gwen.
“I'm helping,” Morgana said brightly.
Arthur snorted. “You can cook, can you?”
She glared back. “Well... no. But I'm a champion with a knife.” Her smile was the sweetly venomous one she seemed to favour.
“Morgana can chop vegetables with the best of them,” Gwen said, “it's just the mixing and cooking bit that she seems defeated by.”
Morgana crossed her arms smugly, as if this settled the matter with Arthur the clear loser.
“How about you, then?” Merlin said, nudging at Arthur with his elbow.
“My father wanted to see me,” he answered. “I might spend the day with him.”
And so Merlin was at loose ends. He debated going back out to the shed for a moment, but in the end he went back up to his musty bedroom for a long nap, instead. At least he had plenty of sleep to catch up on; somehow being in a coma hadn't been very restful.
***
Except for being thrown out of his bed by Morgana for lunch and then Arthur for tea, Merlin was staggered to realize on the way down for breakfast the next morning that he'd slept the better part of twenty hours in the past twenty-four. At least that explained why he felt slightly more alive. Arthur, once again bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and sharp-tongued, nevertheless only had two sarcastic comments for Merlin, one of them having to do with hibernation and the other merely being about his ears.
They trailed behind the girls as they left the mess and Merlin was pleasantly distracted by the idea of a walk about the grounds, followed by another nap, when he heard a commotion from the front of the house.
When a very loud, angry and female voice cut through the din, he and Arthur shared one brief look before taking off at a run.
The tableau was surprising and yet it wasn't: Morgana was in a standoff with Sgt. Blakely and appeared to have a short knife in her hand of unknown origin, possibly the kitchen. Gwen, her braced arm cradled against her chest, stood a pace behind her, where Morgana had likely shoved her out of the way. Gwen looked nearly as angry as Morgana, and clearly would not be the one holding her back from the murder she was about to attempt. Three other marines were ranged around Blakely, their faces unreadable.
“I am going to cut them off and stuff them down your fucking throat, and then I am going to kill you,” Morgana hissed, shifting from foot to foot as she stared down Blakely, who unfortunately did not look a fraction as scared as Merlin would be in his place.
The sergeant smiled. “I like them feisty. I'll have you first, then.”
Morgana made to lunge, bringing the knife in low in a scarily capable manner, and fucking Blakely even moved back a step, but two marines leapt forward and seized her arms, taking away her knife and forcing her to her knees. The third grabbed Gwen and Blakely stepped up close to Morgana with a smile on his face, even as she showed him all her teeth, and it was going to end so very terribly.
Merlin and Arthur rushed in to intervene and even as he ran for the man holding Gwen by her good arm, Merlin suddenly realized they had just picked a fight with Royal Marines who outnumbered them two to one, that he was unarmed, and that any muscle mass he had once possessed was long since deteriorated. Arthur, at least, had a better-than-nil chance of survival in this.
Two good things happened in the next minute: first, the man he was attempting to enter single combat with had to release Gwen to hit him, which allowed her to slip away, hopefully to somewhere very safe.
Second, another marine had appeared in the fray, and since he was shouting at Blakely, he was likely on Merlin's side. This, he thought as he dodged a punch, probably evened things up considerably.
Then Merlin's opponent, who apparently was a private named White, hit him in the jaw and everything went downhill from there.
Merlin staggered back, reeling from the pain, and tried not to fall over. White swung at him again and he ducked, taking a blow meant for his stomach on the shoulder instead, which still hurt like hell but he stayed on his feet. Instincts from a brief period as a teenage hoodlum kicked in and he landed two fast punches on White's stomach and the side of his ribcage before White, who had nearly 100 pounds on Merlin, caught his fist and squeezed, using it to push him to his knees as the pressure on his fingers became white-hot pain. Merlin gritted his teeth.
Morgana, who had apparently been able to escape her captors and also was not possessed of the good sense to run like hell, appeared behind White, grabbed his ear, and twisted hard with a look of malice on her face, until he cried out and released his grip on Merlin. Merlin decided that fighting with honour was right out the window and dove on White, taking advantage of his distraction to knock him flat onto his back, pin his arms under his knees, and start beating him round the head before he had time to react or fight back.
Morgana ran back to Arthur and Merlin looked up from his ministrations long enough to see that Arthur and the nice marine had knocked one of Morgana's assailants unconscious and were now brawling with Blakely and the other one. Blakely landed a punch on Arthur that knocked him several steps backwards, Merlin winced in sympathy, and then suddenly White had pulled an arm from under Merlin's knee and seized him round the neck, choking him.
Spots were blooming in his vision when Maj. Penn's strident voice cut through the fight, rendering everyone motionless.
“Blakely! Lott! What is the meaning of this?”
Merlin, wheezing, turned to face Penn. Their helper-Lott, was it?-stood at attention along with the other three marines who were still conscious. The fourth, damn him, seemed to be coming around as well.
“Sir,” said L.Cpl. Lott, facing straight ahead and bleeding freely from a split lip, “the sergeant and these three privates were harassing-“ He was cut off by Uther's imperiously raised hand.
“Sgt. Blakely,” he said instead, “what happened here?”
Blakely gave Merlin, Arthur, and even the still-murderous Morgana a glare as he replied. “They attacked us unprovoked, sir.”
Morgana made a choked-off noise and Arthur laid a hand on her arm. “Father,” he started, but Uther silenced him as well.
“Where is the other one?” he asked, and more marines who had appeared on the scene pointed behind Merlin. He turned slowly, dreading, and there was Gwen, held between two more soldiers. Half of her hair had been knocked from its ponytail and hung in her face.
The major nodded to himself. “Sergeant.”
Blakely stood at attention.
“Arrest these two and Lott.” He gestured at Arthur, who stared at him in shock, and Merlin, who might have gasped if he could breathe without pain in his throat.
Morgana clenched her hands into fists, her face going stony, but she was seized again before she could move, and suddenly there were guns pointed at Merlin and urging him up to stand next to Arthur and L.Cpl. Lott. Moore, who was apparently a Corporal, and Blakely, who had a possibly-permanent smug look on his face now, stayed with them, guns trained, as everyone else filed away in a startlingly quiet manner, dragging Gwen and Morgana off with them to who knew where.
The major strolled over to them with a thoughtful look on his face.
“I promised them women,” he said.
***
Part 5