Apocabigbang: Fic: Postremus Regum Britanniae; Merlin; R; Chapter 9
Chapter 8: Memory is a Tricky Thing
Chapter 9: The Call of the Dead
It was five days after the end of the world had begun that the dead began to rise.
The first sign of this was the suddenly deserted street that had previously been littered with bodies. When Arthur and his recovery party first stuck their heads out of the tube entrance, they had been met with a world like the Marie Celeste. The cars were still parked sideways, the buildings still open, but the bodies that had been lying there were gone, vanished into thin air.
“I don’t like this,” Arthur said, looking around, he could see a similar expression on the faces of Lance and Tristan, but then Tristan’s face was always twisted in suspicion. Arthur was never sure whether it was a side effect of the whole apocalypse thing, or if Tristan had always been cynical, but it seemed appropriate.
Percival looked around and smiled faintly though.
“The army,” he said, nodding to himself. “The authorities have started cleaning up the bodies.”
“There are no authorities,” Tristan said, glaring at the back of Percival’s head. “There’s no one out there but the bastards who are behind all of this, and maybe another few handfuls of survivors, growing smaller day by day. No army is going to sweep through and make everything better. That’s not what armies do.”
“How else do you explain the clean up, then?” Percival asked, adjusting his tie. Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. You couldn’t pick your companions these days and, if Percival insisted on wearing a full suit at all times, then they would have to accept that.
Lancelot, who had moved ahead, bent down to pick something up, as he turned around Arthur realised that it was a severed arm and fought down the bile in his throat.
“I think a clean up crew would have noticed this,” Lance said, laying the limb down again gently. “I say we get what we need and we get down, out of sight again as quickly as we can.”
“I agree,” Arthur said quickly, before Percival could interrupt. “Let’s try the shop over there.”
It was a small newsagent. Drinks, chocolate, paper, some pasties and things that hadn’t gone off yet and a variety of toiletries. Arthur scooped armfuls of things into baskets and bags, noticing Tristan helping himself to cigarettes from behind the counter. The boy couldn’t have been sixteen - probably more like fourteen - but it wasn’t like they were going to shorten his life expectancy at this point.
“Batteries,” Lance said, like he had found hidden treasure. He grabbed as many packets as he could and stuffed them in his pockets, all sizes.
“Hey!” Tristan said, sounding happier than Arthur had ever heard him. “They’ve got Frisbees here, and kids’ tennis.”
“Hardly essentials,” Percival pointed out. “I’m sure we have better things to do than waste our time on childish luxuries.” Arthur thought for a moment, looking at Tristan as he put back the cheap plastic toys a little reluctantly. They could do with something to take their minds off things. So far their nights were spent listening to Jeff and his guitar or huddling together around their small heaters, trying to imagine they were miles away.
“Good idea,” he said to Tristan, “Grab a couple of things.” The boy did not smile, he was too teenage and cool for that, but there was a definite lifting of his perpetual frown.
Arthur looked down at the newspapers on the stand, and the glossy covers of the magazines. Headlines so trivial in hindsight: bankers’ bonuses and upcoming elections. He wondered if, had the presses survived another day or two, they would have been full of ‘THE END IS NIGH’ or ‘APOCALYPSE NOW?’
The paper made good kindling though, so he took a few broadsheets anyway, tucking them in the edge of a time, and imagined the chancellor’s face darkening to ash before burning away entirely.
Politics and politicians, so confident in their own ability to screw up the world, and then everything had gone to hell. None of that had survived.
Thinking about it, the way everything had crumbled so easily, made Arthur feel like he was walking a tightrope. Everything he had ever known was solid and consistent had gone, disappeared and burnt away. Life had changed irreconcilably. Survival was now everything.
“Hey,” Percival said. The other three looked over at him, where he stood by the door, looking out through the empty frame. “I told you.”
“Told us what?” Arthur asked, stepping forwards so he could see more clearly out of the shop.
Walking down the street, in the dazed stride of the drunk or shocked, there were a handful of people.
“That things were getting back to normal. The army is probably evacuating the city,” he said, stepping out through the door. “I’ll just go and ask them what’s going on.”
Arthur remembered Gwen talking in the dark about the people being herded from their homes, the lines walking vacantly in synch, as though hypnotised, and then he looked back at the people walking down the street. They did not look normal. There was something in the way they moved that was almost a lurch, something in the way they made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck that made him shiver uncontrollably.
“Percival,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I think you should come back inside.”
“Nonsense, Arthur. We need to get out of here. I’m not going to miss my ticket out of here just because you’re paranoid.”
It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you, Arthur almost said back, but Lance tapped his shoulder once to attract his attention.
“What?”
“Look at those people, look carefully,” Lance said. There was a hint of fear in his voice that Arthur could never remember having heard before, it chilled him to the bone. He looked again, more carefully, and he could see what Lance had meant. He could see what had him so uneasy.
They weren’t completely people who were walking past them. Not that they weren’t people, but they weren’t all of people. Of the ones he could see, one was missing an arm, another had half their face gone, one was blackened and charred down one whole side of their body, and many were missing parts of their torso.
“Are they?” he asked, knowing that Lance and Tristan could only know as much as he did.
“I think…” Lance trailed off.
“Percival!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “Get back here, NOW!” Percival turned around, but that movement was enough to attract the attention of the… things lurching, Arthur couldn’t deny the word any longer, lurching down the street.
“What, Arthur?” he said.
“Arthur,” there was an eerie echo around the street and Arthur didn’t realise for a second that it was not the reverberation of Percival’s voice, but the people, the walking wounded (wounded, not dead, because Arthur’s world refused to be turned that far upside down) speaking in unison. “Arthur.”
It was an effect that he thought belonged only in horror films, a hundred voices speaking his name, calling to him eerily, like they were beckoning him to join them.
“Arthur?” Percival asked, taking a step backwards. The people in the street stepped towards him again.
“We have to get out of here,” Lance pointed out, bringing Arthur back to himself again, and he shook off the strange trance that that call had put him in. The people were still moving forwards, but Percival seemed frozen to the spot, stuck there, like a child playing stuck in the mud or musical statues.
“We can’t leave him there,” Arthur pointed out, stepping towards the door, but Lance held him back, firmly.
“You’re not going out there,” he said.
“Arthur,” the people said again, “Hail Arthur,”
“What the…” Arthur said under his breath.
“Greetings Mortal King,” they said, still in chorus, like they spoke with one voice, one brain controlling them. “Come out, come out, King Arthur.”
“Bloody, fucking hell,” Arthur swore, “Not them as well.” He looked at Lance, hoping for a glimmer of amusement, but there was only serious concern as his friend scanned the back of the shop.
“We will kill you quickly, insect king,” the corpses promised, before wheezing out a rasping laugh, like a death rattle. “We will crush you and it will be over.”
“Arthur,” Lance whispered fiercely into his ear. “I don’t know what to believe right now, but they seem to be after you and that makes me think that Morgana’s right. You’re important. If they kill you…”
“They’re going to kill Percival,” he pointed out.
“I’ll get him,” Lance said.
“No,” Arthur said, stubbornly. Percival might be a prick, he might be the most infuriating, ridiculous human being that Arthur had ever had the mischance to meet, but he was under Arthur’s protection.
Arthur couldn’t remember at that time that he just worked in an office, that he had never had anything more important to protect than a few private documents. That was all past.
“One man,” Lance said, brutally honest. “He’s one man, Arthur. There are more people out there than that, and how can you protect them if you die here, die now. Morgana’s plan is the only thing we have going right now, it’s the only thing giving people hope. If you die then that’s gone, nothing left. It’s just us then, no destiny, no fate on our side. You might not believe in that, but other people do, and that’s what matters.”
“I can’t just watch.” Arthur said.
“No… but you can run,” Lance told him. “There’s a door at the back, there’s probably a back door to the building as well. We can get out that way. One man or everyone, that’s the choice, and I know you don’t like it, but that’s how it is.”
“Why can’t we save everyone?”
“Because life sucks,” Tristan said, setting down the bags he still carried.
Out on the street Percival still stood, rooted to the spot, and the dead crowded round him, close enough to reach out and touch.
“Arthur,” they said still, always, on and on, like a stuck record. “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, ArthurArthurArthurarthurarthurarthur,” until his name meant nothing anymore, just meaningless noise.
He fought against Lance’s arms, guilty that he wasn’t trying harder as he allowed himself to be dragged back, but then Tristan was running forward, out of the door.
“No! You idiot!” Lance shouted, as Arthur bellowed in impotent rage. It was getting out of his control. For a minute there he had almost believed it, believed he could save them without a plan, with nothing more than hope.
But Tristan was fast and Lance was still holding Arthur back, neither of them could stop him. He was out of the door so quickly, and at Percival’s side, smacking him round the face, and then Percival regained control of his limbs and they were running,
Arthur found he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t struggle any longer, as Percival and Tristan ran back to the door. Percival got through first and Tristan, held up behind him, a shield between Percival and the living dead, was caught from behind. He shook off a hand, managing to get one foot through the door, but another hand and another came back to hold him and pull him back, away again, until he was forced off his feet, dragged along the ground.
Lance didn’t let Arthur go after him, Percival didn’t even look back; they were hurtling towards the door, Arthur’s feet working on automatic. Finally, the switch had been flicked inside him. The fight or flight reflex chose flight, and all he could think about was running, still holding on to the food. He knew they needed that still. They needed to survive.
Tristan’s face was etched on the back of his eyelids so he told himself not to blink, run through the corridor, barrel down the back door and out into the alley behind the building. Right he went, following Lance back towards the underground entrance.
He didn’t look back. He did not know how fast those… bodies could move, but he hoped that the lurch was their fastest pace.
He was only dimly aware of Lance and Percival running at his sides, both also clutching their bags of loot.
When they emerged onto the main street, there was no sign of anyone else - alive or dead, just the abandoned cars they were used to. The station entrance was ahead, and they almost fell down the stairs, tripping over their own feet in their own eagerness to get down.
It wasn’t until they were out of sight of the entrance that they finally came to a stop. They were at least two stops away from their own ‘base of operations’ so to speak and there was silence apart from their ragged breaths. They stayed silent for a long moment, listening frantically for the hollow call of a hundred dead voices.
“We shouldn’t have left him,” Arthur said, glaring at the wall, before punching it soundly.
The pain shot up his arm from his knuckles, a wave of sensation that released something inside him. He pulled his arm back to do it again, but his arm was grasped from behind. He turned round, expecting to see Lance there, but it was Percival who was holding his forearm, looking serious.
His tie was half undone, the top button ripped from its thread, and the jacket of his suit was torn and filthy from running too close to walls, cars and lampposts.
“If you’re going to hit something,” he said, sounding terrified, “then it should be me. It’s my fault. I…”
“I’m not going to hit you,” Arthur told him, firmly, though there was a part of him that wanted to punch him right in the nose, to see blood spurting down. It would not help.
Tristan was gone, he told himself. He had known their number would diminish, he had known that he was not leading them to salvation. He had known that the light they saw at the end of the tunnel was probably just the orange glow of dragon’s fire.
“I should have moved, as soon as I saw… As soon as I saw…” Percival turned and began to retch against the wall, his guts, what he had in them, emptying all over the ground. Arthur couldn’t quite bring himself to feel sympathy for him, couldn’t summon up any emotion other than the burning rage that smouldered and sparked in the pit of his stomach. The fear was gone now and it made him angry that he had been afraid at all; he was angry that Percival had been stupid, angry that Lance had held him back, angry and himself for not being able to keep them all safe, angry at Tristan for saving the life of someone he hated.
But he didn’t speak, he wanted to shout, but he didn’t bellow out his rage. He took a breath and crushed it down inside himself, feeling one more finger give way where he clung onto the edge of his sanity.
“We need to get moving,” he said, looking over to where Lance stood, unable to watch Percival any longer.
“Yes,” Lance agreed, nodding.
They did not talk as they made their way back to camp, picking up what remained of the things they had taken from the shop.
Their legs fell into synch with each other with no conscious effort, until their footsteps sounded together. They walked apart a way, though, holding a safe distance between each other, unwilling to look either way or touch their companions.
When they made it back to their makeshift camp, the excited greetings of their arrival quickly fell into a shocked silence as people noticed their expressions and the lack of Tristan, who had never spoken very much anyway, was suddenly felt like a gaping wound.
Arthur looked over to where Merlin and Morgana sat together, somehow separate from the rest now, over a fire and he gave them as meaningful a glance as he could muster. They needed to talk.
Merlin nodded, a little nervously and a little resigned, Morgana looked almost amused.
Arthur wanted to wipe the smile off her face, but he rolled his hands into fists and swallowed the rage down again.
*
“I lost him,” she snapped, pulling herself away from the minds of the dead violently. Across London millions of bodies dropped to the ground, as though their strings had been cut. “I had him, I couldn’t see him, but he was cornered, and then I lost him. All I got was some boy, some idiot child who was willing to die for him.
“Perhaps next time?” a tall, emaciated looking man suggested from the corner of the chamber. He leant on a tall staff, and the wrinkles of his face had settled into deep angry lines that made him look like he was permanently sneering.
“There might not be a next time?” she yelled at him, her voice rising to almost screech like proportions.
“Patience,” he counselled, not perturbed by her outcry. “We have waited for this world for millennia, ever since we were cast out of it, since the powers of humanity sealed us on the other side of the boundary. Since they dared to banish us - the powers and beings that they had worshipped and feared. We can wait a few more days to crush their puny King.”
“Waiting does not come naturally to me,” the Lady sad ruefully, lifting one hand to examine the long red curves of her nails.
“We were around before them, and we will still exist when they were long gone,” the man said soothingly. “We have the blade, their only possible weapon, so there is nothing they can use against us. Even their magic is less than nothing to us.”
“I will pick them off one at a time, if I must,” she said, relaxing again as her face curled into an expression that could only be called a smile, though no smile so cold and cruel had been seen on this side of the boundary for millennia. “I will make the boy-King beg for death. I will show him that he can save no one.”
*
“You can’t save everyone,” Gwen told him, patting his arm in a way that was meant to be assuring, but Arthur couldn’t look at her, couldn’t accept clichés and platitudes.
“Right,” he said, as calmly as possible. She frowned and walked away.
The enthusiasm over the new goods was muted, though no less because of it. The batteries were greeted like they were made of gold, and the drinks - water, juice and fizzy, were passed around gratefully.
Someone, Arthur didn’t know whether it was Percival or Lance, had picked up Tristan’s bags, on the way out. He wondered whose brain had been working well enough to even think of it, and the cigarettes were found, with a couple of lighters and, also, the Frisbees.
A moment of silence passed as Gawain drew one out of its bag and hit a button that made lights start to flash all around the rim. Then someone, somewhere, began to laugh.
It spread like wildfire, creeping up on people, until half of them were helplessly giggling, though no one knew what was so funny.
Eventually, everything had been sorted out and packed away, and Will, Percival and Gareth had gone down onto the rails to play with the Frisbee.
Jeff pulled his guitar round and started to strum, the resonating chords were a familiar sound these days.
“So clever, whatever, I'm done with these endeavours…”
Arthur let the words blur past him, taking a sip of the last bottle of whisky they had, before passing it on to Lance who sat beside him.
“It's not enough, it never is, but I will go on until the end…”
He stood up, looking around the small circle they made, Gawain, above them all for once, talking to Will and Merlin, Gwen and Lance trying not to make it obvious that they were sitting practically on top of each other, Morgana, still separate from the rest, her head on one side as she stared into the light of the few torches they had turned on.
Arthur caught her eye, and began to move away, knowing she would follow him. He picked up his own torch as he went, into the colder parts of the station, shivering as he got further away from the small heat source.
“They were…” he said as he turned around to speak to her. “They were calling my name.”
“What did they say to you?” Morgana asked, unsurprised.
“That’s it?” he asked, “Not ‘who’ or ‘how did they know’ or ‘that’s strange’?”
“You’re Arthur,” she said, shrugging, “It would be stranger if they didn’t know your name, and as for who, Lance already told me, when you were making the… official announcement.”
Arthur shuddered, he couldn’t remember the words he had used to tell everyone about Tristan’s death, but he knew he had somehow done it.
“The dead walk the earth,” she said, “in more ways than one.” She stared into the darkness beyond Arthur for a long moment, before shaking off her trance and nodding. “I always hated reanimating corpses; it’s such a horrible way of doing things.”
“How…?” Arthur asked, still not able to get his head around the whole ‘dead walk the earth’ part.
“A powerful sorcerer, or sorceress,” Morgana told him. Arthur bit back a sarcastic ‘of course’. Magic was still not something he wholly believed in, but if there were dragons and zombies around, then the concept was looking more plausible. “Most likely someone with an affinity for earth magic.”
“What?”
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” Morgana muttered, “dust to dust. The new religion tends to be a bit hit and miss on some of the finer points of lore, but that part it got right. Human bodies might be mostly water, but they are things of earth and they return to earth. It’s why burial is so common. Necromancy is rooted in earth magic. It- but then you don’t want to know the ins and outs.”
“Not particularly,” Arthur said. “I want to know how they knew my name.”
“Did they talk individually or as a group?” Morgana asked, all business once again.
“As a group.”
“Then it wasn’t them that knew your name. It was whoever was controlling them. He or she used them as a mouthpiece to speak to you.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes, it means they also use their eyes and their ears. They see everything the dead see and hear everything the dead hear. Essentially, whoever is in charge now has millions of spies and they are all focussed on you.”
“I should leave,” Arthur said immediately.
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“If I’m what they are searching for then I should go away, help the rest of you stay safe.”
“Without you, we’re all dead, and you’re no good on your own. Two lifetimes and I still haven’t managed to get that through your thick skull,” Morgana snapped, frowning.
“I don’t believe that I’m some prophesied saviour, Morgana. Staying here I just put you at risk.”
“They knew your name, Arthur. What else did they say?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“They just spoke rubbish,” he told her, shrugging and looking away. “Nothing important.”
“What did they say?”
“They… they called me King Arthur, they said they would kill me quickly,” he told her, twisting his mouth to make the words ooze with scorn.
“And you still refuse to believe me?” Morgana asked, laughing. “The dead call you king and you still insist on believing that you’re unimportant.”
“I’m not a king.”
“Merlin crowned you, didn’t he?” she asked. Arthur blinked, remembering the strange rush he had had as Merlin placed that crown on his head.
“Merlin told you about that?” he asked. “It was just some fun… it was the crown jewels, and it wasn’t as though it was a proper coronation or anything.”
“Yes, it was. You’re king again Arthur, but you need Excalibur.”
“Ah yes, the mythical weapon… I was wondering when that would come up-” He was going to continue, but he heard his name, spoken in a way that chilled him to the bone.
“Arthur,” came the call again. He started, turning round in shock, but all he could see was the rest of their group around the heater again. He realised that the words were coming from Percival. He stepped forward, ready to stop the idiot from relating the tale, but Morgana stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.
“They don’t need to know,” he snapped at her, angry again that she was fuelling this absurd hero worship idea.
“Yes they do,” she said. “It’ll help.”
“It’ll just make them believe your craziness more,” he pointed out.
“How is that a bad thing?”
“False hope will get us all killed.”
“With no hope at all we might as well be dead anyway.”
*
“Arthur,” Merlin called, quiet enough that his voice was drowned by the rugby songs that Jeff, Gareth and Gawain were teaching Percival at the other end of the platform, on one of the cold plastic seats. Arthur looked up from where he was sitting next Lancelot. The two had been discussing things in hushed voices for a couple of hours now, lit only by Arthur’s torch. “Can I talk to you?”
There had been a time, not in this lifetime, of course, but there had been a time when all he would have needed to do was give Arthur a significant look and the king would have automatically dismissed anyone else, or separated from the group he was talking to. There had been a time when Arthur had been as able to understand him as he was now able to understand Arthur.
Lancelot was looking at him shrewdly, like he could read Merlin’s intentions as clearly as Morgana really could.
“What is it?”
“I…” He debated for a moment asking to speak to Arthur alone, but there was no need, Lancelot’s presence might actually help him. “I think Morgana’s right.”
Arthur’s double take was almost worth it, and Merlin had to bite his lip to hold back the grin that was threatening him. No matter how dark it got, whether it was wars or unexpected apocalypses - was that even the plural of apocalypse? - as long as he was him and Arthur was Arthur he would always manage to find something to smile about.
“Don’t tell me what she’s got is infectious,” Arthur said, but there was something under his words that made even Lancelot blink. Merlin couldn’t keep this smile back, Arthur’s voice sounded almost like it had used to. There was an undercurrent of affection, warmth and almost connection. It was as though that moment in the Tower when he had joined Arthur to the earth, or whatever it was that Morgana had said, he had rebuilt the connection between himself and Arthur as well.
He wondered for a second whether Arthur had recovered his memories, but he couldn’t see a deeper recognition in Arthur’s eyes, just that connection.
“No it’s just- I think- I think we need to find the sword.”
“The magical world-saving sword.”
“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” Merlin muttered. He knew it wasn’t. He knew that Excalibur wouldn’t make everything magically better, it would just give them the chance to win, the outside chance. The odds arranged against them, especially with the new armies of zombies (and Merlin was simultaneously horrified and fascinated by that. It was strange but since his memories had come rushing back, he had found himself marvelling at the skill and power involved in every aspect of the forces against them. You would need to be skilled in working with every element and have the power to sustain it. He had not mentioned it to Morgana, but he had no clue whether or not he was going to be good enough to overpower them).
“I know. It’s just that Morgana always seems to say that as long as I have this sword everything will work out.”
“Morgana is oversimplifying,” Merlin said without thinking. Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing, just that she’s trying to keep people believing, and they need to see some hope.”
“So they’ll work hard to get this sword and then they’ll expect everything to magically get back to normal as soon as I’ve got it?”
“I don’t think normal’s a word that really exists at the moment,” Lancelot interjected. They both looked at him for a moment, and the tension seemed to flow out of the atmosphere.
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or to worry,” Merlin commented, sighing a little. “I always hated the idea of being normal, but if that doesn’t exist then…”
“Maybe we are normal,” Lancelot pointed out.
“What were you going to say?” Arthur asked, interrupting them, clearly uncomfortable. If Merlin knew Arthur, which he did, then he had probably spent his life trying to live up to normal and better than normal. Everything he had fought for before had disappeared. Merlin’s life, even before the… slight past life issues… hadn’t been anything to write home about (or email home about, if you were keeping up with technology). A job he didn’t understand, Will and enough money to survive, but not enough money to live.
“Morgana and I have a plan to find it.”
“Of course you do,” Arthur said with a sigh. He looked at Merlin with amusement again, another thing that Merlin had not been expecting.
“Look, it just needs you and me,” Merlin told him. “No one else needs to get involved.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, there’s an army of dead bodies marching around up there, with my name on their lips,” Arthur told him. “If we go out we’re not going to get further than three streets away before we’re ripped to pieces. I’ve already lost one. I’ve already lost Tristan; I’m not going to lose you as well, whether you want to try some stupid suicidal search for an imaginary weapon.”
Arthur, while he had no problems going out on his own, he wouldn’t take anyone else out to die with him if he could help it.
“I know the problems,” Merlin pointed out, “I’m choosing to do this; it’s not your fault if anything happens to me.”
“I’m in charge,” Arthur pointed out. “You talked me into it and now you expect me to ignore that.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Merlin said, but he could already see in the set of Arthur’s jaw that he wasn’t having any of it. He sent a wordless plea to Lancelot, hoping that, as he had done before, the knight - no, not knight any more - could help Merlin out.
“Distraction,” Lancelot said out of the blue.
“What?” Arthur asked.
“We’ll provide a distraction,” Lancelot expanded. “You two slip out through another exit and we’ll make sure that people are looking in another direction. You said it was like one person was operating the… puppets, one person can’t pay attention to everything at once.”
Merlin wanted to drop his head into his hands; Lancelot had just tried to distract Arthur from the idea of sacrificing one life with the idea of sacrificing everyone. There was no way…
“You can’t-”
“We’re not getting out of here, Arthur,” Lancelot said. “We’re hemmed in like animals, there’s nowhere safe. No one’s saying it, but we either die down here or we die out there and I’d prefer the monsters to starvation or freezing to death, or waiting for them to find us. It won’t take very long for them to think to look underground. It’s the most obvious place. We’re just lucky that the Tube is so extensive.”
“Lance…”
“You might be in charge, but that’s only to solve disputes, to make the difficult decisions if other people can’t. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think other people are going to disagree with me. If there’s a chance, even if it’s just in the ramblings of a mad woman, then we’re going to take it. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world’s turned upside down. If Morgana thinks upside down in the first place then perhaps she’s the best person to follow.”
“That logic is ridiculous,” Arthur commented. “I’m not going to let you.”
“Remember when we were at university?” Lancelot asked. Merlin blinked, but apparently he was the only person who didn’t get the reference, because Arthur was colouring.
“You cheated.”
“I don’t think rules really apply here,” Lancelot said, smirking. “I beat you then, I’ll beat you now. There’s no question of you ‘letting’ me do anything. Don’t get me wrong, Arthur, I would die for you, but I’m not going to let you make a stupid decision because that scares you. It’s not just you who’s involved, it’s all of us, and we all need to fight.”
“I can’t…”
“We can.”
“Arthur,” Merlin said, pitching his voice low. His eyes locked with Arthur’s and he tried to convey words without words. Earlier Arthur had trusted him, he needed to trust him here as well.
“It’s suicide.”
“Let’s hope not,” Lancelot said, standing up. “I’ll go talk to people.”
“Don’t…”
“I’m not going to order them to do anything.”
*
Chapter 10: A Shattered Skyline
Chapter 9: The Call of the Dead
It was five days after the end of the world had begun that the dead began to rise.
The first sign of this was the suddenly deserted street that had previously been littered with bodies. When Arthur and his recovery party first stuck their heads out of the tube entrance, they had been met with a world like the Marie Celeste. The cars were still parked sideways, the buildings still open, but the bodies that had been lying there were gone, vanished into thin air.
“I don’t like this,” Arthur said, looking around, he could see a similar expression on the faces of Lance and Tristan, but then Tristan’s face was always twisted in suspicion. Arthur was never sure whether it was a side effect of the whole apocalypse thing, or if Tristan had always been cynical, but it seemed appropriate.
Percival looked around and smiled faintly though.
“The army,” he said, nodding to himself. “The authorities have started cleaning up the bodies.”
“There are no authorities,” Tristan said, glaring at the back of Percival’s head. “There’s no one out there but the bastards who are behind all of this, and maybe another few handfuls of survivors, growing smaller day by day. No army is going to sweep through and make everything better. That’s not what armies do.”
“How else do you explain the clean up, then?” Percival asked, adjusting his tie. Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. You couldn’t pick your companions these days and, if Percival insisted on wearing a full suit at all times, then they would have to accept that.
Lancelot, who had moved ahead, bent down to pick something up, as he turned around Arthur realised that it was a severed arm and fought down the bile in his throat.
“I think a clean up crew would have noticed this,” Lance said, laying the limb down again gently. “I say we get what we need and we get down, out of sight again as quickly as we can.”
“I agree,” Arthur said quickly, before Percival could interrupt. “Let’s try the shop over there.”
It was a small newsagent. Drinks, chocolate, paper, some pasties and things that hadn’t gone off yet and a variety of toiletries. Arthur scooped armfuls of things into baskets and bags, noticing Tristan helping himself to cigarettes from behind the counter. The boy couldn’t have been sixteen - probably more like fourteen - but it wasn’t like they were going to shorten his life expectancy at this point.
“Batteries,” Lance said, like he had found hidden treasure. He grabbed as many packets as he could and stuffed them in his pockets, all sizes.
“Hey!” Tristan said, sounding happier than Arthur had ever heard him. “They’ve got Frisbees here, and kids’ tennis.”
“Hardly essentials,” Percival pointed out. “I’m sure we have better things to do than waste our time on childish luxuries.” Arthur thought for a moment, looking at Tristan as he put back the cheap plastic toys a little reluctantly. They could do with something to take their minds off things. So far their nights were spent listening to Jeff and his guitar or huddling together around their small heaters, trying to imagine they were miles away.
“Good idea,” he said to Tristan, “Grab a couple of things.” The boy did not smile, he was too teenage and cool for that, but there was a definite lifting of his perpetual frown.
Arthur looked down at the newspapers on the stand, and the glossy covers of the magazines. Headlines so trivial in hindsight: bankers’ bonuses and upcoming elections. He wondered if, had the presses survived another day or two, they would have been full of ‘THE END IS NIGH’ or ‘APOCALYPSE NOW?’
The paper made good kindling though, so he took a few broadsheets anyway, tucking them in the edge of a time, and imagined the chancellor’s face darkening to ash before burning away entirely.
Politics and politicians, so confident in their own ability to screw up the world, and then everything had gone to hell. None of that had survived.
Thinking about it, the way everything had crumbled so easily, made Arthur feel like he was walking a tightrope. Everything he had ever known was solid and consistent had gone, disappeared and burnt away. Life had changed irreconcilably. Survival was now everything.
“Hey,” Percival said. The other three looked over at him, where he stood by the door, looking out through the empty frame. “I told you.”
“Told us what?” Arthur asked, stepping forwards so he could see more clearly out of the shop.
Walking down the street, in the dazed stride of the drunk or shocked, there were a handful of people.
“That things were getting back to normal. The army is probably evacuating the city,” he said, stepping out through the door. “I’ll just go and ask them what’s going on.”
Arthur remembered Gwen talking in the dark about the people being herded from their homes, the lines walking vacantly in synch, as though hypnotised, and then he looked back at the people walking down the street. They did not look normal. There was something in the way they moved that was almost a lurch, something in the way they made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck that made him shiver uncontrollably.
“Percival,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I think you should come back inside.”
“Nonsense, Arthur. We need to get out of here. I’m not going to miss my ticket out of here just because you’re paranoid.”
It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you, Arthur almost said back, but Lance tapped his shoulder once to attract his attention.
“What?”
“Look at those people, look carefully,” Lance said. There was a hint of fear in his voice that Arthur could never remember having heard before, it chilled him to the bone. He looked again, more carefully, and he could see what Lance had meant. He could see what had him so uneasy.
They weren’t completely people who were walking past them. Not that they weren’t people, but they weren’t all of people. Of the ones he could see, one was missing an arm, another had half their face gone, one was blackened and charred down one whole side of their body, and many were missing parts of their torso.
“Are they?” he asked, knowing that Lance and Tristan could only know as much as he did.
“I think…” Lance trailed off.
“Percival!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “Get back here, NOW!” Percival turned around, but that movement was enough to attract the attention of the… things lurching, Arthur couldn’t deny the word any longer, lurching down the street.
“What, Arthur?” he said.
“Arthur,” there was an eerie echo around the street and Arthur didn’t realise for a second that it was not the reverberation of Percival’s voice, but the people, the walking wounded (wounded, not dead, because Arthur’s world refused to be turned that far upside down) speaking in unison. “Arthur.”
It was an effect that he thought belonged only in horror films, a hundred voices speaking his name, calling to him eerily, like they were beckoning him to join them.
“Arthur?” Percival asked, taking a step backwards. The people in the street stepped towards him again.
“We have to get out of here,” Lance pointed out, bringing Arthur back to himself again, and he shook off the strange trance that that call had put him in. The people were still moving forwards, but Percival seemed frozen to the spot, stuck there, like a child playing stuck in the mud or musical statues.
“We can’t leave him there,” Arthur pointed out, stepping towards the door, but Lance held him back, firmly.
“You’re not going out there,” he said.
“Arthur,” the people said again, “Hail Arthur,”
“What the…” Arthur said under his breath.
“Greetings Mortal King,” they said, still in chorus, like they spoke with one voice, one brain controlling them. “Come out, come out, King Arthur.”
“Bloody, fucking hell,” Arthur swore, “Not them as well.” He looked at Lance, hoping for a glimmer of amusement, but there was only serious concern as his friend scanned the back of the shop.
“We will kill you quickly, insect king,” the corpses promised, before wheezing out a rasping laugh, like a death rattle. “We will crush you and it will be over.”
“Arthur,” Lance whispered fiercely into his ear. “I don’t know what to believe right now, but they seem to be after you and that makes me think that Morgana’s right. You’re important. If they kill you…”
“They’re going to kill Percival,” he pointed out.
“I’ll get him,” Lance said.
“No,” Arthur said, stubbornly. Percival might be a prick, he might be the most infuriating, ridiculous human being that Arthur had ever had the mischance to meet, but he was under Arthur’s protection.
Arthur couldn’t remember at that time that he just worked in an office, that he had never had anything more important to protect than a few private documents. That was all past.
“One man,” Lance said, brutally honest. “He’s one man, Arthur. There are more people out there than that, and how can you protect them if you die here, die now. Morgana’s plan is the only thing we have going right now, it’s the only thing giving people hope. If you die then that’s gone, nothing left. It’s just us then, no destiny, no fate on our side. You might not believe in that, but other people do, and that’s what matters.”
“I can’t just watch.” Arthur said.
“No… but you can run,” Lance told him. “There’s a door at the back, there’s probably a back door to the building as well. We can get out that way. One man or everyone, that’s the choice, and I know you don’t like it, but that’s how it is.”
“Why can’t we save everyone?”
“Because life sucks,” Tristan said, setting down the bags he still carried.
Out on the street Percival still stood, rooted to the spot, and the dead crowded round him, close enough to reach out and touch.
“Arthur,” they said still, always, on and on, like a stuck record. “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, ArthurArthurArthurarthurarthurarthur,” until his name meant nothing anymore, just meaningless noise.
He fought against Lance’s arms, guilty that he wasn’t trying harder as he allowed himself to be dragged back, but then Tristan was running forward, out of the door.
“No! You idiot!” Lance shouted, as Arthur bellowed in impotent rage. It was getting out of his control. For a minute there he had almost believed it, believed he could save them without a plan, with nothing more than hope.
But Tristan was fast and Lance was still holding Arthur back, neither of them could stop him. He was out of the door so quickly, and at Percival’s side, smacking him round the face, and then Percival regained control of his limbs and they were running,
Arthur found he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t struggle any longer, as Percival and Tristan ran back to the door. Percival got through first and Tristan, held up behind him, a shield between Percival and the living dead, was caught from behind. He shook off a hand, managing to get one foot through the door, but another hand and another came back to hold him and pull him back, away again, until he was forced off his feet, dragged along the ground.
Lance didn’t let Arthur go after him, Percival didn’t even look back; they were hurtling towards the door, Arthur’s feet working on automatic. Finally, the switch had been flicked inside him. The fight or flight reflex chose flight, and all he could think about was running, still holding on to the food. He knew they needed that still. They needed to survive.
Tristan’s face was etched on the back of his eyelids so he told himself not to blink, run through the corridor, barrel down the back door and out into the alley behind the building. Right he went, following Lance back towards the underground entrance.
He didn’t look back. He did not know how fast those… bodies could move, but he hoped that the lurch was their fastest pace.
He was only dimly aware of Lance and Percival running at his sides, both also clutching their bags of loot.
When they emerged onto the main street, there was no sign of anyone else - alive or dead, just the abandoned cars they were used to. The station entrance was ahead, and they almost fell down the stairs, tripping over their own feet in their own eagerness to get down.
It wasn’t until they were out of sight of the entrance that they finally came to a stop. They were at least two stops away from their own ‘base of operations’ so to speak and there was silence apart from their ragged breaths. They stayed silent for a long moment, listening frantically for the hollow call of a hundred dead voices.
“We shouldn’t have left him,” Arthur said, glaring at the wall, before punching it soundly.
The pain shot up his arm from his knuckles, a wave of sensation that released something inside him. He pulled his arm back to do it again, but his arm was grasped from behind. He turned round, expecting to see Lance there, but it was Percival who was holding his forearm, looking serious.
His tie was half undone, the top button ripped from its thread, and the jacket of his suit was torn and filthy from running too close to walls, cars and lampposts.
“If you’re going to hit something,” he said, sounding terrified, “then it should be me. It’s my fault. I…”
“I’m not going to hit you,” Arthur told him, firmly, though there was a part of him that wanted to punch him right in the nose, to see blood spurting down. It would not help.
Tristan was gone, he told himself. He had known their number would diminish, he had known that he was not leading them to salvation. He had known that the light they saw at the end of the tunnel was probably just the orange glow of dragon’s fire.
“I should have moved, as soon as I saw… As soon as I saw…” Percival turned and began to retch against the wall, his guts, what he had in them, emptying all over the ground. Arthur couldn’t quite bring himself to feel sympathy for him, couldn’t summon up any emotion other than the burning rage that smouldered and sparked in the pit of his stomach. The fear was gone now and it made him angry that he had been afraid at all; he was angry that Percival had been stupid, angry that Lance had held him back, angry and himself for not being able to keep them all safe, angry at Tristan for saving the life of someone he hated.
But he didn’t speak, he wanted to shout, but he didn’t bellow out his rage. He took a breath and crushed it down inside himself, feeling one more finger give way where he clung onto the edge of his sanity.
“We need to get moving,” he said, looking over to where Lance stood, unable to watch Percival any longer.
“Yes,” Lance agreed, nodding.
They did not talk as they made their way back to camp, picking up what remained of the things they had taken from the shop.
Their legs fell into synch with each other with no conscious effort, until their footsteps sounded together. They walked apart a way, though, holding a safe distance between each other, unwilling to look either way or touch their companions.
When they made it back to their makeshift camp, the excited greetings of their arrival quickly fell into a shocked silence as people noticed their expressions and the lack of Tristan, who had never spoken very much anyway, was suddenly felt like a gaping wound.
Arthur looked over to where Merlin and Morgana sat together, somehow separate from the rest now, over a fire and he gave them as meaningful a glance as he could muster. They needed to talk.
Merlin nodded, a little nervously and a little resigned, Morgana looked almost amused.
Arthur wanted to wipe the smile off her face, but he rolled his hands into fists and swallowed the rage down again.
*
“I lost him,” she snapped, pulling herself away from the minds of the dead violently. Across London millions of bodies dropped to the ground, as though their strings had been cut. “I had him, I couldn’t see him, but he was cornered, and then I lost him. All I got was some boy, some idiot child who was willing to die for him.
“Perhaps next time?” a tall, emaciated looking man suggested from the corner of the chamber. He leant on a tall staff, and the wrinkles of his face had settled into deep angry lines that made him look like he was permanently sneering.
“There might not be a next time?” she yelled at him, her voice rising to almost screech like proportions.
“Patience,” he counselled, not perturbed by her outcry. “We have waited for this world for millennia, ever since we were cast out of it, since the powers of humanity sealed us on the other side of the boundary. Since they dared to banish us - the powers and beings that they had worshipped and feared. We can wait a few more days to crush their puny King.”
“Waiting does not come naturally to me,” the Lady sad ruefully, lifting one hand to examine the long red curves of her nails.
“We were around before them, and we will still exist when they were long gone,” the man said soothingly. “We have the blade, their only possible weapon, so there is nothing they can use against us. Even their magic is less than nothing to us.”
“I will pick them off one at a time, if I must,” she said, relaxing again as her face curled into an expression that could only be called a smile, though no smile so cold and cruel had been seen on this side of the boundary for millennia. “I will make the boy-King beg for death. I will show him that he can save no one.”
*
“You can’t save everyone,” Gwen told him, patting his arm in a way that was meant to be assuring, but Arthur couldn’t look at her, couldn’t accept clichés and platitudes.
“Right,” he said, as calmly as possible. She frowned and walked away.
The enthusiasm over the new goods was muted, though no less because of it. The batteries were greeted like they were made of gold, and the drinks - water, juice and fizzy, were passed around gratefully.
Someone, Arthur didn’t know whether it was Percival or Lance, had picked up Tristan’s bags, on the way out. He wondered whose brain had been working well enough to even think of it, and the cigarettes were found, with a couple of lighters and, also, the Frisbees.
A moment of silence passed as Gawain drew one out of its bag and hit a button that made lights start to flash all around the rim. Then someone, somewhere, began to laugh.
It spread like wildfire, creeping up on people, until half of them were helplessly giggling, though no one knew what was so funny.
Eventually, everything had been sorted out and packed away, and Will, Percival and Gareth had gone down onto the rails to play with the Frisbee.
Jeff pulled his guitar round and started to strum, the resonating chords were a familiar sound these days.
“So clever, whatever, I'm done with these endeavours…”
Arthur let the words blur past him, taking a sip of the last bottle of whisky they had, before passing it on to Lance who sat beside him.
“It's not enough, it never is, but I will go on until the end…”
He stood up, looking around the small circle they made, Gawain, above them all for once, talking to Will and Merlin, Gwen and Lance trying not to make it obvious that they were sitting practically on top of each other, Morgana, still separate from the rest, her head on one side as she stared into the light of the few torches they had turned on.
Arthur caught her eye, and began to move away, knowing she would follow him. He picked up his own torch as he went, into the colder parts of the station, shivering as he got further away from the small heat source.
“They were…” he said as he turned around to speak to her. “They were calling my name.”
“What did they say to you?” Morgana asked, unsurprised.
“That’s it?” he asked, “Not ‘who’ or ‘how did they know’ or ‘that’s strange’?”
“You’re Arthur,” she said, shrugging, “It would be stranger if they didn’t know your name, and as for who, Lance already told me, when you were making the… official announcement.”
Arthur shuddered, he couldn’t remember the words he had used to tell everyone about Tristan’s death, but he knew he had somehow done it.
“The dead walk the earth,” she said, “in more ways than one.” She stared into the darkness beyond Arthur for a long moment, before shaking off her trance and nodding. “I always hated reanimating corpses; it’s such a horrible way of doing things.”
“How…?” Arthur asked, still not able to get his head around the whole ‘dead walk the earth’ part.
“A powerful sorcerer, or sorceress,” Morgana told him. Arthur bit back a sarcastic ‘of course’. Magic was still not something he wholly believed in, but if there were dragons and zombies around, then the concept was looking more plausible. “Most likely someone with an affinity for earth magic.”
“What?”
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” Morgana muttered, “dust to dust. The new religion tends to be a bit hit and miss on some of the finer points of lore, but that part it got right. Human bodies might be mostly water, but they are things of earth and they return to earth. It’s why burial is so common. Necromancy is rooted in earth magic. It- but then you don’t want to know the ins and outs.”
“Not particularly,” Arthur said. “I want to know how they knew my name.”
“Did they talk individually or as a group?” Morgana asked, all business once again.
“As a group.”
“Then it wasn’t them that knew your name. It was whoever was controlling them. He or she used them as a mouthpiece to speak to you.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes, it means they also use their eyes and their ears. They see everything the dead see and hear everything the dead hear. Essentially, whoever is in charge now has millions of spies and they are all focussed on you.”
“I should leave,” Arthur said immediately.
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“If I’m what they are searching for then I should go away, help the rest of you stay safe.”
“Without you, we’re all dead, and you’re no good on your own. Two lifetimes and I still haven’t managed to get that through your thick skull,” Morgana snapped, frowning.
“I don’t believe that I’m some prophesied saviour, Morgana. Staying here I just put you at risk.”
“They knew your name, Arthur. What else did they say?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“They just spoke rubbish,” he told her, shrugging and looking away. “Nothing important.”
“What did they say?”
“They… they called me King Arthur, they said they would kill me quickly,” he told her, twisting his mouth to make the words ooze with scorn.
“And you still refuse to believe me?” Morgana asked, laughing. “The dead call you king and you still insist on believing that you’re unimportant.”
“I’m not a king.”
“Merlin crowned you, didn’t he?” she asked. Arthur blinked, remembering the strange rush he had had as Merlin placed that crown on his head.
“Merlin told you about that?” he asked. “It was just some fun… it was the crown jewels, and it wasn’t as though it was a proper coronation or anything.”
“Yes, it was. You’re king again Arthur, but you need Excalibur.”
“Ah yes, the mythical weapon… I was wondering when that would come up-” He was going to continue, but he heard his name, spoken in a way that chilled him to the bone.
“Arthur,” came the call again. He started, turning round in shock, but all he could see was the rest of their group around the heater again. He realised that the words were coming from Percival. He stepped forward, ready to stop the idiot from relating the tale, but Morgana stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.
“They don’t need to know,” he snapped at her, angry again that she was fuelling this absurd hero worship idea.
“Yes they do,” she said. “It’ll help.”
“It’ll just make them believe your craziness more,” he pointed out.
“How is that a bad thing?”
“False hope will get us all killed.”
“With no hope at all we might as well be dead anyway.”
*
“Arthur,” Merlin called, quiet enough that his voice was drowned by the rugby songs that Jeff, Gareth and Gawain were teaching Percival at the other end of the platform, on one of the cold plastic seats. Arthur looked up from where he was sitting next Lancelot. The two had been discussing things in hushed voices for a couple of hours now, lit only by Arthur’s torch. “Can I talk to you?”
There had been a time, not in this lifetime, of course, but there had been a time when all he would have needed to do was give Arthur a significant look and the king would have automatically dismissed anyone else, or separated from the group he was talking to. There had been a time when Arthur had been as able to understand him as he was now able to understand Arthur.
Lancelot was looking at him shrewdly, like he could read Merlin’s intentions as clearly as Morgana really could.
“What is it?”
“I…” He debated for a moment asking to speak to Arthur alone, but there was no need, Lancelot’s presence might actually help him. “I think Morgana’s right.”
Arthur’s double take was almost worth it, and Merlin had to bite his lip to hold back the grin that was threatening him. No matter how dark it got, whether it was wars or unexpected apocalypses - was that even the plural of apocalypse? - as long as he was him and Arthur was Arthur he would always manage to find something to smile about.
“Don’t tell me what she’s got is infectious,” Arthur said, but there was something under his words that made even Lancelot blink. Merlin couldn’t keep this smile back, Arthur’s voice sounded almost like it had used to. There was an undercurrent of affection, warmth and almost connection. It was as though that moment in the Tower when he had joined Arthur to the earth, or whatever it was that Morgana had said, he had rebuilt the connection between himself and Arthur as well.
He wondered for a second whether Arthur had recovered his memories, but he couldn’t see a deeper recognition in Arthur’s eyes, just that connection.
“No it’s just- I think- I think we need to find the sword.”
“The magical world-saving sword.”
“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” Merlin muttered. He knew it wasn’t. He knew that Excalibur wouldn’t make everything magically better, it would just give them the chance to win, the outside chance. The odds arranged against them, especially with the new armies of zombies (and Merlin was simultaneously horrified and fascinated by that. It was strange but since his memories had come rushing back, he had found himself marvelling at the skill and power involved in every aspect of the forces against them. You would need to be skilled in working with every element and have the power to sustain it. He had not mentioned it to Morgana, but he had no clue whether or not he was going to be good enough to overpower them).
“I know. It’s just that Morgana always seems to say that as long as I have this sword everything will work out.”
“Morgana is oversimplifying,” Merlin said without thinking. Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing, just that she’s trying to keep people believing, and they need to see some hope.”
“So they’ll work hard to get this sword and then they’ll expect everything to magically get back to normal as soon as I’ve got it?”
“I don’t think normal’s a word that really exists at the moment,” Lancelot interjected. They both looked at him for a moment, and the tension seemed to flow out of the atmosphere.
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or to worry,” Merlin commented, sighing a little. “I always hated the idea of being normal, but if that doesn’t exist then…”
“Maybe we are normal,” Lancelot pointed out.
“What were you going to say?” Arthur asked, interrupting them, clearly uncomfortable. If Merlin knew Arthur, which he did, then he had probably spent his life trying to live up to normal and better than normal. Everything he had fought for before had disappeared. Merlin’s life, even before the… slight past life issues… hadn’t been anything to write home about (or email home about, if you were keeping up with technology). A job he didn’t understand, Will and enough money to survive, but not enough money to live.
“Morgana and I have a plan to find it.”
“Of course you do,” Arthur said with a sigh. He looked at Merlin with amusement again, another thing that Merlin had not been expecting.
“Look, it just needs you and me,” Merlin told him. “No one else needs to get involved.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, there’s an army of dead bodies marching around up there, with my name on their lips,” Arthur told him. “If we go out we’re not going to get further than three streets away before we’re ripped to pieces. I’ve already lost one. I’ve already lost Tristan; I’m not going to lose you as well, whether you want to try some stupid suicidal search for an imaginary weapon.”
Arthur, while he had no problems going out on his own, he wouldn’t take anyone else out to die with him if he could help it.
“I know the problems,” Merlin pointed out, “I’m choosing to do this; it’s not your fault if anything happens to me.”
“I’m in charge,” Arthur pointed out. “You talked me into it and now you expect me to ignore that.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Merlin said, but he could already see in the set of Arthur’s jaw that he wasn’t having any of it. He sent a wordless plea to Lancelot, hoping that, as he had done before, the knight - no, not knight any more - could help Merlin out.
“Distraction,” Lancelot said out of the blue.
“What?” Arthur asked.
“We’ll provide a distraction,” Lancelot expanded. “You two slip out through another exit and we’ll make sure that people are looking in another direction. You said it was like one person was operating the… puppets, one person can’t pay attention to everything at once.”
Merlin wanted to drop his head into his hands; Lancelot had just tried to distract Arthur from the idea of sacrificing one life with the idea of sacrificing everyone. There was no way…
“You can’t-”
“We’re not getting out of here, Arthur,” Lancelot said. “We’re hemmed in like animals, there’s nowhere safe. No one’s saying it, but we either die down here or we die out there and I’d prefer the monsters to starvation or freezing to death, or waiting for them to find us. It won’t take very long for them to think to look underground. It’s the most obvious place. We’re just lucky that the Tube is so extensive.”
“Lance…”
“You might be in charge, but that’s only to solve disputes, to make the difficult decisions if other people can’t. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think other people are going to disagree with me. If there’s a chance, even if it’s just in the ramblings of a mad woman, then we’re going to take it. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world’s turned upside down. If Morgana thinks upside down in the first place then perhaps she’s the best person to follow.”
“That logic is ridiculous,” Arthur commented. “I’m not going to let you.”
“Remember when we were at university?” Lancelot asked. Merlin blinked, but apparently he was the only person who didn’t get the reference, because Arthur was colouring.
“You cheated.”
“I don’t think rules really apply here,” Lancelot said, smirking. “I beat you then, I’ll beat you now. There’s no question of you ‘letting’ me do anything. Don’t get me wrong, Arthur, I would die for you, but I’m not going to let you make a stupid decision because that scares you. It’s not just you who’s involved, it’s all of us, and we all need to fight.”
“I can’t…”
“We can.”
“Arthur,” Merlin said, pitching his voice low. His eyes locked with Arthur’s and he tried to convey words without words. Earlier Arthur had trusted him, he needed to trust him here as well.
“It’s suicide.”
“Let’s hope not,” Lancelot said, standing up. “I’ll go talk to people.”
“Don’t…”
“I’m not going to order them to do anything.”
*
Chapter 10: A Shattered Skyline