Resurrection- Part III
~§~
Athos looked from where the door was supposed to be to the men following him. Besides the wounded man and the one he had coerced in to helping him, two more wounded had joined them. However, when he had set out to find the location of the garrison's medical quarters, he had not imagined that the place would be half-collapsed. They would have to find some other place to gather their wounded. "Anyone there?" he yelled, on the faint chance that there might be someone alive on the other side.
He had not expected the enthusiastic voice who answered him. Settling the wounded man he was carrying against the wall, Athos gave the debris a closer look. Whoever was in there would be in need to get out as much as they needed to get to the medical supplies inside. "How many?"
The sound of hurried steps paused just at the door. "Just three of us."
The voice sounded so near that Athos found himself looking around before realizing from where the sound had truly come. Above.
There was a young man perched on the one of the ceiling beams, looking positively at home where most men would tremble to stand. "I can see why some would confuse the ceiling for a door, but what do you propose we do about the rest of us who prefer a more...conventional entry way?"
In a motion that defied gravity, the man quickly turned around and let himself hang from his arms for a few seconds before dropping to the floor.
The whole descent would have been worthy of applause if the man had not staggered and almost fallen on his face once his feet hit the ground. It seemed he was more at ease upon the high beams than on solid ground. "Are you injured?" Athos asked. Now that he could look the man more closely, he could see the bleeding gash in the middle of his forehead and the sweat covering his skin.
The man pushed his hands away, giving him a fake smile to hide the rudeness of the gesture. "I am perfectly fine. It's just that... hadn't done that in years, I fear I'm a bit out of practice," he offered, his smile widening into something approaching sincerity.
"Very well," Athos stated, more to move matters along than because he believed the man's words. Which, incidentally, he didn't. "Are you a physician? These men are in need of urgent aid."
"No," the other man said bluntly. However, the way he moved towards the man with a bone sticking out of his leg, unbuckling his belt as he went, belied his words. Without a word, he pressed two fingers under the man's jaw and, deeming him alive, fastened the belt around the man's tight. "This man needs the attention of a surgeon, as soon as possible!"
"Our thoughts precisely," Athos agreed, looking at the blocked door once more. "What is the condition of the room? Does it have what we need?"
The younger man pushed to his knees, looking at the wounded around them. He looked haunted, distracted by the sight. Athos grabbed his shoulders, bringing the man's attention back to himself. "Can you do this?"
At the other man's faint nod, Athos looked at all that could move and gave the order to start pushing the debris away. No one even thought to question him.
~§~
Porthos had fallen into a dazed state of sleepy exhaustion when he heard the noise. Scratching and grinding, like rats behind a wall. He truly didn't like rats.
He opened his eyes, alert and on edge, not remembering where he was. The place was gloomy, but what little light came through the cracked wall allowed him to get his bearings. The sick room, where he had been forced to go by the Captain because of a minor injury.
Looking at the heavy beam laying across his chest, Porthos smirked. Next time the Captain forced him to go somewhere he didn't want to, he would be sure to remind the older man of these events.
The smile fell from his face when he recalled what had brought him away from his stupor. Rats in the walls. "Oi! Who goes there?"
The noise stopped for a moment. "Porthos?"
It took him a second to place the voice, remembering the young man who had climbed out the ceiling. "Ara-René?" he called out, stopping himself at the last second from using the name that seemed to cause so much distress. Looking up, he couldn't see the man anywhere. "Where tha hell are ya?"
"Almost there," the other answered breathlessly, his voice quickly followed by more scraping and crumbling.
He listened carefully, finally pinpointing the source of the noise at the door of the infirmary and waited. Help was coming and he couldn't help but feel relief. The young man had not abandoned him, just as he had promised.
A hand closing over his startled Porthos into awareness. He came to swinging, satisfied to hear a grunt of pain in response.
"Alive, then," someone dryly offered.
"It's René, Porthos," a now-familiar voice told him. "We are going to move the beam now, but you need to help us, yes?"
Porthos opened his eyes properly, finding himself looking at René. In the dark, his eyes were nothing more than two large dots. "Us?" he asked, looking around to find more unfamiliar faces around him. All but one. He knew that man. "Hey, didn' I beat ya up this mornin'?
The man in question gave him a poignant raised-eyebrow look. "I believe the same can be said about half the men in Paris," he said without resentment, revealing himself as the owner of the dry tone Porthos had heard before. "If everyone is quite ready...?"
Porthos helped as best as he could, which wasn't all that much. But, unlike before, there were two more men helping now. With a grunt, all the men pushed up at the same time and, after what felt like an eternity, the beam finally moved enough for Porthos to push it aside.
"Ah!" he let out, partly from the pain that flashed through his chest, partly from pure happiness at being able to move. "Finally!"
"Move him to one of the beds," René instructed from afar. Porthos hadn't even noticed his departure from his side. The man positively seemed able to be in two places at the same time.
The men around him seemed to obey René's commands without hesitation and soon after, Porthos found himself propped against a bed, more or less free of debris. He closed his eyes in relief, as his ribs thanked him for the reclined position.
An unholy scream, sounding like it had been dragged from a condemned soul at the darkest pits of hell, echoed through the room, waking Porthos with a start. With his heart hammering against his chest, he finally risked a glance up. He could see now why the others dared not interfere with anything René said.
The man was fierce when tending to others. Fearless.
Someone had cleared a portion of the rubble from the window, allowing a bit more light into the room. René's hands looked hideously red under the beam of sunlight, although the man seemed to hardly notice it as he ran a dirty one over his forehead, pushing the dark curls away from his eyes.
On the floor, lying on top of someone's cape, there was a man writhing in pain, as René methodically sewed his leg. It was impossible to distinguish between needle, fingers and flesh, all of them covered in the same bright color.
Porthos had no idea how the young man could see anything beyond the mess of blood and flesh, or even breath, for that matter. The whole room stank of sweat, piss and blood.
Fighting the bile rising inside his mouth, Porthos looked the other way, telling himself that there was no shame in being disgusted by such a sight. A man's insides were not meant to be on display like that and it seemed like an act of complete heresy to try and put back together such a thing. Or absolute bravery.
~§~
Treville woke with a gasp, his heart racing and the urgent sense that there was something he need to stop from happening eating hungrily at his brain.
"Where...where am I?" he asked groggily. There was a strong scent of burned wood and gunpowder in the air and he could feel people moving around him, but for the life of him, Treville had no idea where he was or who they were.
"Yer safe now, Cap'ain. Mindin' yer don't go around movin' much, tha' is."
The Captain blinked heavily, begging his eyes to come into focus, even though he now that he knew who was talking to him. Everyone knew Serge.
"Serge, what happened? Where are the men?"
The other man scrubbed his head, looking like someone had emptied the pantry and burned all his pots. Now that his eyes were more inclined to work, Treville could see he was lying on the kitchen table, surrounded by Serge's pans and pots and sharp knives.
"Hell, happen', Sir...the devil came to burn us all!"
Treville let out a string of words not fit for a man of his position. He remembered now. The men at the arsenal, the gunpowder... "Help me up, Serge," he ordered. "We need to find the men responsible and-"
"'Fraid I can't let ya do tha', Cap'ain," Serge let out, sounding pained from voicing such blatant disobedience.
The Captain turned his furious gaze towards the older man. It wasn't like the veteran soldier to defy orders like that.
"I'm no doctor or anythin' fancy like tha'," the man went on, "but I reckon yer leg's broken, Sir."
Looking down, Treville stared at his lower limbs. As if due to the power of his stare, pain flared from his right leg in such a vicious way that it brought tears to his eyes. From the impossible angle at which his foot sat from his knee, the experienced soldier figured that the garrison's cook was more than right.
Still, this was no ordinary situation, where a broken leg meant lying back and waiting for someone with medical skills to come and set it right. His garrison was under attack, and his men needed him. Looking around for something he could use, Treville let out a feral smile. "Fetch me that broom, will you, Serge?" he asked, ignoring the man's confused stare. "We have some villains to catch!"
Outside the moderately-quiet kitchen, the word was in chaos. A somewhat organized chaos, Treville was relived to find, as his men's training slowly surpassed the shock and pain and they set about helping the wounded and searching the ruins of most of the garrison's buildings for survivors.
Looking up at where his quarters and the armory used to stand, Treville realized how lucky he had been when he had raced for the door upon seeing the sort fuse about to reach the gunpowder barrels stored there. Ten barrels, as of the last account, if he was remembering correctly. Enough to blow himself and the other three men inside to little, unrecognizable pieces.
The force of the explosion must've send him hurtling through his balcony, to land in the yard with his leg in its current condition.
He had been truly lucky to survive such fall. The other three men, racing in front of him, might have fared better, for all he knew. Though he doubt that very much. The fuse had been too short and at least one of the assailants had been wounded by him, so they could not be far.
Still, as he looked around, he couldn't see the bodies of any of the attackers. "The dead?" he asked a passing Musketeer.
The man, startled and eyes lost in some inner battle to ignore his surroundings while doing his duty, took a moment before he could recognize the soot-covered face as his commanding officer.
"Answer me, man!" Treville snapped, knowing that, even if his mind couldn't cope with the events, the soldier in him would make the Musketeer answer. "Where have you put the dead?"
The Musketeer raised a shaky hand, pointing to the stables.
It made sense. The place was shielded from the sun and the straw-covered ground would help soak up the blood. Using his broom-turned-crutch and Serge's help, the Captain made his way there as fast as he could.
Later, he would stop and try to discern who could possibly be behind such an attack; later he would sit and mourn the list of those they had lost that day. Much later he would ponder on what future the King's Musketeers could have if they kept being slaughtered in such a manner.
For now, though, he just needed to find the men responsible for the attack amongst the dead. Because if they were not...they could be anywhere, with anyone at their mercy.
~§~
René grabbed onto to the wall, willing the world to stop spinning around him. The light outside told him that a mere couple of hours had passed since the explosion, but it felt like a lifetime had gone by in the rush of tending to all the wounded that kept arriving at the sick quarters. Somehow, word had spread that help could be found there.
All who were able were still working at clearing debris from the room, allowing him space and conditions to work. Despite the exhaustion, he could do no less than to make sure that their hard work was not wasted.
The man with the scarily large gash on his leg was now either sleeping in exhaustion or unconscious. Even though René had pushed the bone back inside and painstakingly sewed the limb back together, he feared the man would lose it anyway. If he ever woke back up.
His eyes hurt from the strain of stitching so many wounds, not only that man, but all the others who had followed. One with a rip across his chest, caused by a flying piece of iron that had left behind a wound very similar to a sword slash. A few others had burns, caused by the blast itself, but for those he couldn't do much but clean the wounds and pray to God that they lived through the fever that would certainly come.
The strangest wound he had found, however, was that of the man currently in front of him. René had never seen the man before, which wasn't surprising with the amount of strangers coming in every day for the tryouts. However, how someone could get himself a gunshot wound in the midst of an explosion, escaped him. "Hold still, I fear the ball is still inside," he instructed. "I will try to remove it."
The man turned fright-filled eyes to him. He tried to bolt from the bed, panic giving him more strength than he should've had with a ball in his leg. "I won't be hanged for t'is!" the man grunted between his teeth, looking around wildly.
René followed his gaze, confused. Why would the man hang for being wounded? "Calm yourself," he tried again, his voice soothing, as he figured pain and fear were sowing confusion in the man's mind. He had, after all, seen it happen before and to soldiers much more experienced than this stranger. To a degree, it was something he had to fight every day. "Once the ball is out, we can clean the wound and you will feel much better, you will see."
The stranger, however, kept swatting his hands away. "No!" Suddenly, there was a sharp dagger in his hands and René froze.
They were at a garrison, after all, and the sight of men carrying weapons was all too familiar and expected. It had never occurred to him to relieve the wounded man of his weapons before he approached him.
René stared at the dagger, mesmerized. The blade was tarnished dark red, probably left uncleaned since the last time it had been used.
He knew he should react, that he should do something before that blade turned on him, but for the life of him, René was frozen. Frozen, in cold and snow. Waiting to die.
"Stan' 'way from me!" the man shouted, attracting the attention of others. "I won't go down for t'is!" he warned, pulling René to his side and pushing the blade against his throat.
René barely felt the icy-cold touch of the blade against his skin. His mind was far away, trapped amongst the dead. He could only feel cold...
"Drop the weapon, Monsieur," Athos' voice sounded from across the room, the click of a pistol ready to fire filling the space. "Or down is precisely where I will send you."
"I'll kill 'im," the man warned, the despair in his voice lending credibility to his claim. "I swear to ya, I will!"
~§~
Athos' eyes bore into the wounded man, conveying nothing more than absolute resolution. He would kill the man, if he did not drop his menacing stance. The one snag in his course of action was the fact that there was a blade pressed tightly against the throat of the young medic who had been so diligently tending to the wounded.
The injured man's hand was unsteady and already Athos could see a trickle of blood running down from underneath the physician's trimmed beard. One slip of the hand and the young man's life would be forfeit.
The young man being held hostage was shaking like a leaf. However, as he looked into the medic's brown eyes, Athos was surprised to see no fear. In its stead there was sorrow and grief, his gaze distant as if the events unfolding right now were barely worthy of his attention and his mind was elsewhere entirely.
If he had not seen him at work, if he had not witnessed the swift and efficient way in which the young man mended broken bodies as if he could see inside them, Athos would think him touched in the head.
He had no idea why Treville would keep someone on his payroll only to tend to the wounded. It seemed like a waste of coin when there were plenty of physicians in the city and the good will of their comrades-in-arms would see that the sick were tended to. However, it was not his place to judge how the Captain spent the garrison's money and it certainly didn't mean that this young man's life was any less worthy because of it.
He could see the wounded man starting to falter, most likely the still-bleeding wound sapping the strength out of him. He had no inkling why the man would react so badly to having his wound treated, but then again, he didn't much care about his reasons. Athos could wait him out, his pistol unwavering as he gambled that the man would lose his senses soon.
"Help me, Gerard!" the man suddenly screamed, looking at someone behind Athos. "Do somethin', ya bastard!"
All too late, Athos understood the meaning behind those words. He turned around a split-second too late, just enough to see the butt of a pistol coming straight at his face.
After that, there was only darkness.
~§~
Porthos aroused to the sound of shouting. He almost opened his mouth to tell everybody to shut the hell up before he remembered what had happened.
The offending sound, however, was not the screams of pain that one would have expected. There had been those earlier on, he remembered that too, when René had set about mending broken bones and sewing wounds. No, what he was hearing was shouts of anger. Menaces being hurled in the air.
Porthos pushed himself up on his good arm, looking around. There were a few other beds occupied along the wall, the injured men in them either sleeping or unconscious, oblivious to what was going on.
Porthos' view was partially hindered by fallen beams, crisscrossing the room like a maze, but he could see well enough to realize what was going on.
Athos was on the floor, one of the men who had arrived with him standing menacingly over the fallen Musketeer while he argued with someone Porthos could not see.
Holding his good arm against his ribs, the big Musketeer pushed himself to his feet as quietly as he could. His insides protested the movement like hungry dogs, snarling and biting at his flesh. Grinding his teeth, Porthos pushed through the pain and nausea, sweat traveling down his back to pool at the waistband of his breeches.
Someone had taken off his boots and he was pleased to find that his feet hardly made a noise against the wood.
The arguing men were too distracted to notice his movements and Porthos took advantage of that, slowly moving forward. Now that he was standing, he could see the second man, sitting behind René on one of the beds, holding a blade to the young man's throat.
"Couldn' keep ya trap shut, could ya, Jacques?" the man holding the gun snarled. "'It's bad enough ya can' light a proper fuse, now 'his too, ya cunt? Wha' a bloody waste of skin, ya are!"
The man holding René, Jacques, shuddered at his partner's words. Anger replaced the fear in his eyes, as he waved the dagger in front of him rather than at René's neck. "'t was yer fuckin' idea, now wasn' it? Not me fault that one decided ta bring me up here an bollock tha 'hole situation!" he yelled, pointing the sharp weapon in Athos' direction, sagging against the wall as strength started to desert him.
Porthos didn't waste the opportunity. The second the blade was away from René's neck, he was on the move.
His large bulk crashed against the man holding the pistol, sending the firearm flying to the ground. Caught by surprise, Gerard staggered forward, arms flailing aimlessly, as he tried at once to repel his attacker and regain his balance.
By pure chance alone, one of his arms managed to hit Porthos' chest. The big man howled in pain as his broken ribs exploded in pain, whitening his vision into near blindness for a few precious seconds.
Gerard, still stunned by Porthos' initial blow, scrambled across the floor, desperately searching for his pistol.
Porthos couldn't let him do that. Pushing the pain away and ignoring the tears that leaked out of his eyes, the big man grabbed onto Gerard's leg, pulling him away from the weapon. With his good arm occupied with holding the squirming man and his right arm all but useless by his side, Porthos used what he could to strike. His legs weren't as nimble as most of his comrades at the barracks, almost all of them used to riding horses since a tender age. But what he lacked in agility, he more than compensated for in strength. And he had bloody long legs!
The kick landed squarely on Gerard's chest, robbing the man of his breath long enough for Porthos to use his head to smash the man's nose in. He was rewarded for his efforts with a satisfying crack, sending the other man howling in pain even as his fingers closed around the pistol's grip.
The next few seconds were a blur of failed insights.
Jacques failed to see that his partner had gripped the pistol and jumped from the bed, murderous intent in his gaze as he forgot about René and looked at Porthos.
Porthos failed to estimate how much bloodlust could lend strength to a man and snarled at Gerard as he lunged forward, to wrestle the weapon from his hands.
Gerard failed to pull the trigger before Porthos was on him, struggling to get the upper hand.
Everyone failed to see René's glassy look snap to attention and become lethal just as a shot rang out in the closed space.
~§~
Parte IV