Hello y'all. I apologize for the extremely long wait. I wish I could chalk it all up to Uni but that's not entirely true. Uni has been brutal, yes, but this chapter was a little like pulling teeth out. The good news is that now that I got this chapter out of the way I've written out the rest so this fic will be entirely uploaded in what I think will be no more than three weeks.

Thanks for being so patient. I hope that this is worth the wait. :)

No blood will spill if we both get out now
Still it's hard to put the fire out
What seemed like a good idea has turned into a battlefield
Feelings are shifting like the tide
And I think too much about the future
What seemed like a good idea has turned into a battlefield.

- Lea Michelle, Battlefield.

III. The Hunt (Part I)

The road is nonexistent- Leon and the royal masons will plan it after he's crowned High King- but Arthur knows it nonetheless.

Merlin does too.

His warlock's hands, Arthur notices, though tiny and delicate, are not soft. Merlin's childish fingers are callous, overworked- and yet he holds the horse's reigns as if they're made of silk.

"D'you reckon I'll have a horse someday?" Merlin asks, "Mum wouldn't have to carry firewood, would she?"

Arthur's throat closes up and he must blink twice before he can answer. When he does, his voice is still not quite steady. "Yes of course. Of course you will."

"Really?" and Arthur realizes that Merlin was expecting a different answer- a negative one- when the boy almost jumps out of the saddle. He turns around with ease, the reigns entirely forgotten, and wraps his small fingers around Arthur's wrist. "Do you really think I will?"

The King thinks back on the day after Merlin's proclamation as Court Sorcerer. Quietly and teasingly, as only he could, Merlin had told him of how unnerving it was to be the third most powerful person in the whole of Albion, second only to Arthur and Guinevere. Arthur had mussed his friend's hair in reply and laughed. Only now, after the world they'd built has caved in, does he see the true weight of Merlin's words.

"Why wouldn't you?" Arthur asks gently, dreading the answer but needing to hear it all the same.

Merlin's hand still over Arthur's and he sighs deeply, as if he's taking a great weight off his heart. "Will went off to the market last Sunday to sell milk and potatoes. He says that his mum wants him to do that from now on. We're not going to be able to play now. Will's mum says that she wants him to learn how to do trade-"

Arthur's only too familiar with his best friend's babbling. It takes him two heartbeats to put together the pieces. "You thought you'd grow up to become a farmer."

He stifles the strange urge to laugh. Merlin would become one of the most powerful political figures in the land and Arthur's absolute, irreplaceable right hand. The thought of him as a farmer is ludicrous at best. But, and the laughter dies in the King's eyes as sudden as it rose, what magical renegade has the means to own a horse, really?

It makes him pale with rage but he knows with absolute certainty that had his father ever decided to search Ealdor for sorcerers Merlin would have had to escape on foot and so would have Hunith.

His knuckles are white over the horse's reigns but he doesn't realize it until Merlin's fingers smooth over them. His warlock has chosen to mull over a different matter entirely. "What do you mean 'thought'?"

"Uh…" the High King can't think of an answer to that. He raises his eyes to look away from Merlin's own and sees that the woods have opened up. A trace of cooked venison hangs in the air, taunting and inhumanly appetizing; Arthur's long-suffering stomach growls like an awakened beast.

"Look!" Merlin says it for him, and his last question is all forgotten by both of them. " There! There's where mum buys apples!"

Arthur quickens the horse's pace and they are dismounting in a matter of minutes. Though Merlin insists that he can get off the horse on his own, Arthur will hear none of it. Merlin's skinny enough for Arthur to carry around like a half-full sack of flour, clumsy enough to fall faceless to the ground and terrified enough to not use magic if it happened.

He's too tired for another round of verbal sparring and, miraculously, Merlin's attention is elsewhere. He lets Arthur swing him off the horse without protesting further, choosing instead to point at the apples that a young man carries over to a wooden table.

"There they are!"

"Yes, indeed." And Arthur's arms are empty much too soon; Merlin runs like only an eight-year old could, free of any thought but that of his mum.

In a different time, when both of them were still quite young, Ealdor had been raided yearly and Merlin's bravado had been enough to convince Arthur of going after him. Now, as he ties the horses to a post, the King cannot help but think of how little it took then and how little it takes now.

A soft, wonder-filled gasp, reaches his ears and so does Merlin's enthusiastic prattle.

"…We'll take all of them! Yes! D'you think these are enough for two horses to carry? No? D'you have more on that cart?" and Arthur can just see Merlin jump up to take a peek at it. "Brilliant!"

He turns to Arthur at the exact moment the King stops beside him, as naturally as he's always done.

"Oi!" the vendor seems skeptic and well, Arthur thinks, why shouldn't he be? Here a man that looks as if he's crawled through mud, crown-less and grim faced, who's apparently offered to buy a season's worth of apples.

The vendor sticks out his chin towards Merlin's happy face. "Is he with you?"

"Yes." and Arthur feels foolish when it comes out more forcefully that he'd intended. In the Camelot that he's left no one's ever questioned Merlin's presence by his side. It's surreal and wrong. "Yeah," he attempts to soften his tone. "…he's with me."

"Will ya really buy all of my apples?"

"Yes."

"Mum's going to be so happy." Merlin says joyfully and Arthur's heart leaps when his tiny hand slips into Arthur's own. "Thank you Sire-"

Arthur looks down when Merlin's head whips around to stare at him, so fast that his small neck cracks.

"I don't know your name!" he seems horrified, overly so. Arthur fights the urge to shush him and, though the vendor shots them an odd look, answers softly. "That's because you never asked for it."

Merlin shakes his head with wide eyes. "How could I not?"

Arthur cannot answer that. You didn't have to. You've known me, nameless, since before your birth. Is it really so surprising that we've journeyed together with such ease?

He swallows before answering. "My name is Arth- my name is Antor." (1)

"Antor?" Merlin's eyebrows shoot up. "That's an odd name."

The boy frowns next, as if the name doesn't quite add up and Arthur's whole being shudders with the possibility of Merlin somehow- someway- recognizing him for who he is.

He doesn't know if he dreads it or wishes for it.

But, like a shadow passing over, the glint in Merlin's eye leaves. He adds slyly. "That's a very odd name."

"And Merlin is not?" the king retorts easily with the beginning of a smile.

When he looks down Merlin's eyes shine brighter than the Uther's most prized crown. Arthur cannot help it and he is not sure he wants to; the warmth of Merlin's eyes spills over and towards him, magic-born, greater than the king's every fear and he feels his back muscles loosen and his own eyes soften.

"…you'll want a cart for all this, mate." Looking away from Merlin almost reluctantly, the King turns to find that the vendor has finished piling up and counting the apples. The man shakes his head and scratches it and Arthur suddenly realizes that he's probably never seen anything more valuable than a single silver coin. "That'll be- blimey, that'll be seven gold coins."

Arthur takes out his pouch and lays ten of them on the table. "Keep the change." he says lightly. He feels like a playful stripling; the man's eyes look about ready to leave their sockets. Merlin's choked wheeze beside him, though, has him wincing. You can't possibly be thinking about arguing with me on this….

But that seems to be, of course, exactly what Merlin is thinking. He pulls on Arthur's hand insistently until the king has to look over. "I can't pay you back!" he whispers, wide eyed and pale-faced.

Keep breathing and we're even. Arthur thinks ferociously, smile like you just did a minute ago forever and I'll have to pay you.

"Hey," he touches Merlin's jaw lightly and waits until his soul-brother looks into his eyes to speak. "You don't owe me anything."

Though something akin to gold flashes in Merlin's eyes Arthur cannot dwell on it- a gloved hand slaps the wooden table beside him and the warmth in his best friend's gaze is replaced by pure, unadulterated terror. He shrinks against the King's side, as if he hopes to disappear and the light grip on the King's hand tightens so much that Arthur feels his fingertips turn white.

When the man clears his throat Merlin turns to hide his face against the king's hip. Arthur instinctively cradles the back of it. The intimacy of it is not lost to him. It is as if Merlin's soft cautiousness is replaced by deep-rooted, basal instincts.

What is it? his heart already quickens. This is not like you.

"Merlin?" he calls softly, brushing the pad of his thumb against his friend's forehead. There's no answer and instead he feels Merlin's whole body shift so that he can better position himself against Arthur's ribs. Though he still wears his leathered armor, Arthur can feel Merlin's little heart race madly through it.

Rage rises to the king's throat like bile, clawing its way out of the place Arthur has kept it reigned in for months. All of it comes back- the heat of battle with its bloody tempestuousness and the desperate, animal madness with which he'd tried to butcher every last one of Morgana's mercenaries and-

He's left Excalibur fastened to the saddle but Arthur thinks that he might kill this man with his bare hands.

The emotions die down as quickly as they come when Merlin brushes against him and takes a fistful of his cloak.

"Let's go, please." The murmur's so quiet that Arthur would've missed it where it not for the insistent tugging on his hand. Merlin's eyes are wide, terror-filled and the King is overcome with an impulse to take him up in his arms and run towards the horse.

"Alright." He soothes softly, not unlike he would have done with a certain bed-ridden, sick Court Sorcerer. "Let me just get the apples and we'll be on our way."

Merlin's eyes are uncertain, as if he's trapped half-way between desire to get his mum's apples and fear. But he says nothing and Arthur can only frown. I've seen you bad-mouth kings and bandits that could take your head off. It's hard to believe that as a child you were any different so why…?

He lets his hand settle on the base of Merlin's neck and turns around, intending on pulling the cart towards the horse and start loading the apples.

That's when the stench hits him. He doesn't quite believe it at first- it's something that he's become quite accustomed to in a battlefield or during a siege but he invariably recognizes it for what it is: the foul odor of old, rotten bloody rags.

Then he sees it.

A rather imperious looking black horse huffs impatiently a few feet away from him; a donkey is tied to it with what seems like a sack of old, copper-stained clothes on its back. Arthur realizes quickly that those are not clothes but a shriveled, bloody human being tied to the back of the animal.

Merlin's little fingernails almost draw blood and Arthur understands, aghast, that this is what has terrified Merlin so.

"Merlin…" he doesn't know what to say. His best friend's small hand clutches his with a vice like grip when he finishes Arthur's half-maddened thought quietly,."….he's a sorcerer, isn't he?"

And Arthur can no longer think straight, not after this. He turns around, fully intending to scoop Merlin up and run like hell when the well-trained, cold part of him remembers how suspicious it would be to leave a paid purchase behind.

I've trained to chase after people who do this. The King all but groans out loud, it'll only put Merlin in danger if we take off right now.

A low tone rumbles from his left. "It's an unpleasant sight, I must admit."

It is so unexpected that Arthur's hand immediately settles upon his scabbard only to remember that Excalibur is not there. The man beside him is cloaked so heavily that the King almost thinks him a Mercian mercenary.

"I rather regret having to transport him like this." The man continues. "It's a perfectly good donkey. Well, it's no matter. He'll be dead in a few hours. Turns out he was not the sorcerer I was looking for though he damn-well showed signs of shifty behavior."

Arthur's hand fumbles for a bit until he finds Merlin's wrist. The boy has burrowed so deep into his cloak that Arthur can no longer tell where the fabric ends and Merlin's black hair begins.

Years of regal training allow him to keep a carefully unemotional mask and, not for the first time, Arthur thanks the gods for it. He remembers enough of his own childhood to know that showing disapproval of those days' sorcerer-hunting methods was as big a crime as doing magic itself.

"I see." he says cautiously. The man turns towards him and pulls back his hood, perhaps thinking he'd found a fellow magical-hating mindset in the Once and Future King. His steely blue eyes, Arthur knows, must not be unlike his own at the very moment. There's something in the man's features that is painstakingly familiar though, and he feels his muscle tighten with adrenaline. I've seen you before, Arthur studies the man's expensively embroidered cloak in an effort to summon something into mind, Of that I am certain. But who…?

Arthur feels Merlin move against him. He shifts uselessly; the man's eyes are immediately drawn towards the disturbance. There's new warmth in the man's pasty face when he smiles at Merlin with yellowed teeth.

Merlin's hand digs through the king's flesh and Arthur remembers that smile and the laugh that accompanies it, he remembers the silver-blond hair and his own father's insistence that he must learn all he can from a man so learned in magical beings…

Aredian, Arthur's soul falls to his feet, it is you. The witchfinder.

Merlin lifts his face towards Arthur's, perhaps seeking the king's eye, but Arthur cannot look away from the man that had singlehandedly accused and condemned (oftentimes falsely) hundreds of men and children. Aredian is younger than Merlin ever knew him but older than Arthur's first memories of him. Uther had longed to meet him after the purge had begun and Aredian had quickly grown to become one of his father's most trusted allies in his war against magic.

Though Aredian's hair is not yet silver and he sports a crude beard, his smile remains as unpleasant as ever. And when he extends a hand towards Merlin's chin as if to take it, Arthur's whole being becomes taut like a ready whip, his blood boils and thrums; he feels more than commands his hand to lash out and grab Aredian's in an unyielding grip.

I'll be damned if I let you touch a single hair of his head. He pushes Merlin back with his free hand, strategically measuring the distance between them. I stood by and watched it happen once. I've grown since then. Had he been a lesser man, less trained in the art of politics, Arthur knows he would've said it all out loud.

"We're leaving." Arthur announces when he sees that his maneuver has caused Aredian's eyes to snap into attention, like those of a hawk that's caught scent of its prey. "We want no trouble."

But Aredian's no longer listening. He is unmoving and silent, too silent for Arthur's liking. The king follows Aredian's traveling gaze with a heaving chest and feels faint when he sees the tailored gemstone shining in the light of the setting sun, hanging from his wrist and softly oscillating with the wind.

Aredian's eyes are trained on it, animal-like. Arthur knows that look. It's a look that he has seen on men calculating how to kill.

"So you're not taking that load of apples, are you?" Aredian asks with a politeness that would shame the great house of Du Bois. "Perhaps you need a hand?"

The sun sinks down further, draining it all from light, but the king's trained eyes have already found the scabbard of a costly Camelotian sword striped to Aredian's belt.

"I've quite got it." Arthur manages to spit out. "Thank you for offering your assistance."

Merlin's hand is soft and warm in his when he turns around and covers him entirely with his worn, leather-bound cloak.

"I need you to run." he whispers urgently into his sorcerer's ear, hugging him to his side. "I need you to run towards the horse, is that clear?"

Merlin's young, terrified face is fit to haunt him forevermore. "What? No! Not without you!"

If there had been biting tenderness in his warlock's tone instead of mind-numbing fear Arthur knows he could fool himself into believing his Merlin is talking. But the small, tired and hungry version of his best friend is terrified beyond belief and Arthur's heart aches for the both of them. "No, I won't…" leave you. He bites his tongue. Adult Merlin can understand all unsaid behind those words much better than his younger self will ever can. "I'll be right behind you," he whispers instead and his lips brush against black hair once. "I promise." He pushes Merlin's small frame forward. "Go."

Merlin looks into his eyes as if to reassure himself and then takes off, protected by the elongated shadows of the trees. Arthur squares his shoulders. He's not quite sure of what exactly can be done but maybe, just maybe, he can throw Aredian off the scent before he chases after the King and his sorcerer like a rabid dog.

"I don't know who you are." Aredian comments casually. Arthur turns slightly, trying to shield Merlin from view. "but it seems you know who I am."

The King has to bite his lip to stop himself from crying out when Merlin trips and falls only a few feet away from where the horse is tied.

"It's been at least three years since I last saw an artifact like the one you've got around your wrist." Aredian continues, sounding as if he's just been offered a king's ransom. "King Uther's got quite of collection in the vaults of Camelot. It is mainly used to ward against evil, is it not? However, they're quite useless. All that scum ended up dead despite them, didn't they?"

Arthur turns around so fast that for a moment the world's just a blur of color. Aredian's smiling, smiling like a drunken sailor.

"And that boy of yours." he continues tauntingly. "Oh, he just must have it, doesn't he? You asked your boy to run instead of keeping him beside you, where he'd be objectively safe, because you wanted him as far away from me as possible-"

Silence weighs between them and Arthur can barely remember who he is in his fury. It's as if this nightmare Morgana's created has made his heart half-feral. He moves blindly and when he blinks again he has Aredian by the throat and against the ground, gasping and flailing like a dying fish.

When Arthur speaks next his voice is far calmer, deadlier, than he remembers it being for five months.

"I wouldn't cross me when it comes to him." He presses tighter. Aredian claws at the ground. Good. "If you ever do, Uther Pendragon's purge will be nothing compared to what I -"

"Sir Antor!"

And just like that Arthur's snapped out of it- not by the improvised version of his name but by the voice that's said it, Merlin's, and then killing Aredian, as appealing as it is at the moment, is an inconceivable thing- He presses Aredian's face to the filthy dirt twice before he gets up.

Merlin has managed to untie the horse, mount it, and guide it towards his companion. Even in the dying light and the heavy shadows Arthur can see the fear in his friend's countenance but there's a steely resolve present in Merlin's young eyes that reminds Arthur of better days and spurs his own heart. In one fluid movement he mounts behind Merlin and takes a hold of the reigns. His friend's soft hair immediately makes contact with his stubbly chin and the King's whole being is filled with warmth.

Though he knows Aredian must be getting up the dirt already Arthur doesn't spare the man a second glance. Instead he wraps his two hands around Merlin's own where they hold the reigns tightly and lets out a low "hyah!" to spur it forwards.

The horse, as it is true of all of Camelot's finest steeds, takes off immediately. Merlin's head rests against the King's arm and Arthur doesn't look back- he doesn't need to.

That's why, when the arrows start swishing past, it takes him but surprise. The horse whinnies madly, voicing the King's own state of mind as he desperately maneuvers to get lost between the trees and blind his own father's archers. He hunches above Merlin, using his arms to draw him closer and hold him tighter, putting his own sinew and muscle in between the arrowheads and Merlin's small, beating heart. He strives to move forward, blinking against the ghostly light that barely filters between the trees and the deafening darkness of night, biting his tongue until it draws blood when, out of habit and anguish, he almost asks Merlin to conjure light for them to see.

"C'mon, c'mon..." the horse pants as it is forced to zig-zag its way through the trees. Arthur no longer knows if he hears his or Merlin's heartbeat in his head. "C'mon...!"

He doesn't exactly know how it happens but suddenly Merlin's face is no longer tucked against his chest and the boy is climbing up to wrap both skinny arms around the king's neck. Merlin's chin settles against Arthur's shoulder-blade, looking steadfastly at the very eyes of the enemy.

"Merlin!" Arthur cannot help it. His soul overrides all previous training and years of experience when he lets go of the reins and puts one hand on Merlin's scalp, intending to force his friend down again. "Get down!"

"They're chasing us..." Merlin says quietly, struggling against Arthur's frantic grip. "Why are they chasing us?"

Before Arthur can think of an answer, another arrow flies past them, almost taking with it part of Merlin's small ear. The king turns sharply, almost violently. "Merlin get down!"

"We're going towards Ealdor!" Merlin shouts over the roaring wind, still fighting to remain upright. "My mum! You can't...!"

Another arrow flies past them with a high-pitched whistle and Arthur's heart sinks because Merlin is right and he is the greatest fool to ever live and gods I'm so sorry Hunith...

He risks a peek behind him and is dismayed to find that, despite his best efforts, they're still in pursuit. Merlin's arms and almost too tight around his neck, holding on for both of them. He fights it but knows that he has no choice.

"Merlin...Merlin you need to..." but Arthur can't do it. He can't ask Merlin to reveal his biggest secret in the midst of battle, even as Uther's trainer archers are closing in, knowing how it'll scar him and scare him out of his skin.

Besides, he can't help but recognize, I can't bear for him to look at me again like he did before in the cave.

Merlin turns slightly towards him. With the whipping wind, his hair tickles Arthur's cheek. "What? We're not going to Ealdor, are we?"

I can't turn now without going towards open ground, Arthur theorizes sorrowfully, we can't hide in open fields.

Arthur strives to look at his oldest friend by the ghostly light of moonlight and feels his mouth run dry. "...Your mum will be safe." he reassures softly, though the arrows still whistle past them. " just...just please duck again."

Merlin, perhaps because of the look in Arthur's eyes, obeys. He hunches over himself in front of the king, reaching over to place his hand over Arthur's and nail his gaze on the horizon. There's a look in his eyes that Arthur doesn't want to see ever again. His warlock's eyes are ancient, heavy with undeserved weight.

"I'm sorry." Merlin tells him suddenly and the hand in his tightens. The world seems to slow down and Arthur, perhaps by will alone, manages to look at Merlin's tear-filled eyes." I can't- I can't let them hurt my mum. I can't! They'll kill her!"

No, though a desperate part of him wishes for all those archers to blow up so that they don't hurt Merlin Arthur fears what such display of magic might serve as a smoke-signal to Morgana and the possibility of her tracking them down and finding them. Finding him.

No, don't do it.

But Arthur's seen Merlin like this before, taut like an unreleased arrow and desperate and willing to try anything and he knows, without truly being able to think, that he must not let go...

And, as Arthur scrambles to wrap both arms around Merlin's small body, the black night turns white and gold.

The next chapter (or the next part of this chapter, I guess) will actually go into what happened before the timeline of this fic, that is to say that it will have answers. :) Thank you so much for everything, y'all.

I love you, as always.

Ocean.