More Than A Servant

Chapter 4

Morgana can't comprehend what she's seeing. There are scars everywhere, some old some new. The one the stuck out to her most though was a giant burn mark covering half of his chest. She walked around to his back, and what she found was even more surprising. A serket sting right in the center. No one ever survives a serket sting, not even the strongest man.

She quickly think back to almost two years ago when she and Morgause left Merlin chained in the middle of the forest. How could he have survived? She always assumed that he was rescued before a serket got to him, but clearly she was wrong.

She racked her brain for possible solutions, but she could not think of how he could be alive right now. Then she stopped. There is only one person that could heal someone that has been stung by a serket: Emrys. This could be the chance to finding her mortal enemy and killing him once and for all.

She looked back at the book she had open with the page flipped open to a femora. She walks over, closes the book, and approaches Merlin.

"So it looks like my plan will have to wait," she says, even though he could not hear.
"It seems that you and I have a lot of catching up to do."

***

Arthur and the other knights arrive in Camelot in the late afternoon. Right away they are greeted by Guinevere and Gaius. Gwen runs up to Arthur and Elyan giving them both hugs.

"I was worried sick!" She exclaimes, "You were supposed to be back yesterday!"

"I'm sorry Gwen. There were... complications," replies Arthur.

"Complications? What do you mean?"

"Where's Merlin?" Gaius hesitantly asks.

From the moment Arthur met Gaius's eyes, he knew that something was wrong.

"We were attacked by bandits. Merlin and I were separated from the rest of the knights because Merlin got struck with a mace." Gwen gasped. "So I helped him escaped and we spent the night in the woods. The next day the bandits found us. As we were running, we were being attacked, so I set Merlin down to fight. Then sometime during the fight there was a rock fall that separated us. When I went back to search, Merlin was gone."

Gaius's head is bowed low and he seems to be trying to contain emotion. Every few seconds he would shake his head, almost as if he was asking why it happened.

"I'm sorry Gaius. It was my responsibility to protect him. We could not have predicted the rock fall."

Gaius looks up at Arthur sadly, and almost... knowingly. If Arthur wouldn't have known better, he would've thought that Gaius knew how the rock fall started.

"Let's all go inside," interjects Leon, "there we can discuss the plans to go out and find Merlin. We can get a search party out right away."

"Yes, thank you Leon. I promise I will not give up until we find him."

A/N
Soooo... this is definitely a shorter chapter. As the story goes on the chapters start getting longer. I really hope you're enjoying the story! Please let me know by voting or commenting! Also, very open to constructive criticism. Thanks!!!