The clockroom

Death

When one fights a dragon, there is no clashing of metal, against that of your own arms hitting your chest plate. Your opponent isn't equal to you, so the mobility you sacrificed for protection now dares to become a death trap.

Their only advantage was the darkness of the night. And only as long as the dragon wasn't breathing fire. Which it did often. Arthur did his best to not scatter his knights. Whether or not that was a good idea was left to be seen. Alone, the Dragon would have room to just kill them one by one. As a group, they might trick it's mind that they were a larger creature. It would draw it's attention, but at least then they could use many spears at once, or swords, or whatever else his men had on them.

Arthur concentrated. He would have to give the order to attack. The Dragon closed in on them, making sweat gather in Arthur's neck, and not because of the heat. It growled and bared it's wide fangs. 'Kilgharrah,' Arthur remembered it's name.

"Hold!" Arthur told his knights and repeated it until the Dragon was close enough to be approached. "NOW!"

They were on horseback and Arthur kept wondering if that was wise. Horses were easily spooked. It also made them slower to react. The attack failed and the Dragon hit Arthur square in the chest. Him, Merlin and a few other knights were thrown off the horses.

Sputtering, Arthur clutched a hand to where he had been hit and looked around to see who was still alright. As anticipated, the horses fled in several directions. Some of the knights weren't moving and Arthur's heart sank at the sight of it.

Merlin yelled next to him, but the words made no sense to Arthur. "No. Stop!" Perhaps it was the heat of the battle, making Merlin do stupid things like trying to TALK with a dragon. Even in the Clockroom, Aithusa had been unable to talk. Okay... technically Arthur knew why, damaged throat and all, dream Merlin had mentioned it, but it didn't exactly serve as proof right now.

At Merlin's words, the Dragon turned it's attention to Merlin and Arthur. Arthur cursed and picked up a spear. Why couldn't Merlin just shut up? It happened quickly after that. Arthur rearranged his grip on the lance, targeting where he imagined the Dragon's heart would be. The Dragon stared Arthur down, it's eyes yellow and wide and angry. Arthur gritted his teeth, as flames approached him. Without a horse, Arthur was quicker to react and rolled out of the way. Arthur could smell singed hair, and tasted salt on his own lips. Then, he lunged. He could see how it broke against Kilgharrah's scales. A second later he felt a great pain against his head. After that... everything was black.

...

Voices filtered in and out of his conscience. One of them belonged to Merlin but Arthur couldn't hear what he said. The other he didn't recognize. Arthur opened his eyes just a bit, but all he could see were burned corpses not too far from him. His head was ringing, he couldn't hear a thing. His eyes were blurry and hardly able to recognize anything beside the color of the sky and a bloody figure not far from where he lay. Blond hair caught his attention. Empty eyes stared at nothing, clothes half shred to pieces. Was this a person or was Arthur looking in a mirror.

The figure still wore armor, but it was flooded with the blood of the owner. The wind carried the smell of singed hair and burned flesh to Arthur's nose, making him feel sick.

A name popped into Arthur's mind, but right now it didn't really ring a bell. 'Leon,' Arthur thought and when his brain gave out again, he knew that the man was dead.

...

The sound of flapping made Arthur regain his senses. Disoriented, he opened his eyes and allowed his eyes to focus on a familiar silhouette. Merlin's black mob of hair stood out against the starry sky. His scarf waved in the wind, as did his jacket. Arthur's eyes trained on his wide shoulders first. Merlin turned around, relief widening his expression.