Authors note: One of the reviewers on another story I wrote mentioned that there is not often Porthos and d'Artagnan brotherhood. Obviously, that made me want to write a story just for them. It's short and it's nonsense. But I enjoyed writing it.
Natural Enemy
The fight that they had found themselves in, was unexpected. They had stopped for a quick lunch, and now found themselves fending off three men who clearly had an issue with Musketeers.
Porthos pushed one of the men who was enthusiastically fighting him back a few paces. The man had some training, but not to the extent that he had been trained. The other man he was fighting was very uncoordinated. Porthos wondered if the man was drunk. The swings of the second man were weak and poorly made. All Porthos needed was for the first man to make another mistake that he could take advantage of. If he could take out one of the men, the second, whichever was left would not be a problem to deal with. Of course it would all be a lot easier if d'Artagnan could finish off the third man and come to his assistance. But Porthos would never admit that to his friend.
The enthusiastic man swung his, slightly too heavy sword at him again, Porthos twisted his main gauche around the sword. The man, without a parrying dagger of his own was forced to bring his left arm up in an attempt to defend himself. Porthos thrust his sword under the rising arm into the man's stomach. The injury would prove fatal.
But the action had left Porthos vulnerable to the second man's attack. He was pushed backwards hard. He could not stop the momentum.
The last thing he felt before the darkness won was what felt like hundreds of stings across his back and arms.
MMMM
D'Artagnan dodged another predictable swing of the man's sword. He had quickly worked out that the man had three moves. The next swing, would be a bizarre over the head, downwards movement. D'Artagnan simply pushed his main gauche forwards, into the man's gut, twisting it as he wrenched it out. As the man collapsed to the ground, he gurgled and coughed up blood before lying still.
D'Artagnan was not afforded the chance to take a breath, as he turned to see how Porthos was doing he found himself facing one of the two men who had been fighting his friend. With no time to think about Porthos or where he was d'Artagnan plunged straight into his second sword fight.
The man was tiring, faster than the highly trained Musketeer. It did not take d'Artagnan long to work out the man's skill level. His sloppy sword work, would be easy for d'Artagnan to overcome, he just had to patiently wait for the opportunity.
With his peripheral vision d'Artagnan tried to find his friend. He wondered if Porthos had been injured and collapsed but there was no sign of him.
His attacker aimed a low swing, trying to catch d'Artagnan's ankles, but the young musketeer jumped over the poor attempt to make him lose his footing. As he landed he twisted his sword around and smashed it down upon the unfortunate attackers head. The man crashed to the ground, unconscious.
Two bodies and one unconscious man littered the ground around his feet. Panting d'Artagnan turned slowly on the spot. Where was Porthos?
Still looking around d'Artagnan crouched beside the unconscious man. He unthreaded the man's belt and used it to bind his arms behind his back. The last thing he needed whilst he was worrying about the whereabouts of his friend was the attacker coming around causing further problems.
'Porthos?' said d'Artagnan as he stood up.
The area they had stopped in was level, there were no trees that Porthos could have somehow ended up behind. D'Artagnan's eyes settled on the thick tangle of blackberry bushes that stretched across one side of the clearing.
Surely not, he thought.
But, as he looked closer at the brambles it was obvious what had happened. The tendrils of the thorny plant were disturbed. From the edge backwards a few feet there was a distinct area of damage.
D'Artagnan stepped forward, stopping right on the edge of the prickly hedge. Porthos was lying, unconscious, in the centre of the brambles. He was covered in cuts, and had several of the brambles stuck to the fabric of his shirt. His shirt was ripped and bloody. Had the musketeer been wearing his doublet he probably would not have received quite so many injuries, but Pothos had taken it off after being unfortunate enough to be hit by the droppings of a passing bird. They had laughed about it at the time. D'Artagnan was not laughing now.
MMMM
How to extract one unconscious fully grown man from a vicious clinging prickly plant? This was not a question d'Artagnan had ever thought he would have to answer, let alone ask.
He considered trying to cut the brambles aside, but it was just too thick and would take too long. There really was only one way d'Artagnan was going to get his friend back. He was going to have to wade through the waist deep foliage and drag him out. He knew the chances of Porthos sustaining further cuts and scrapes from the action was high but d'Artagnan could not think of another way to deal with the situation. He could not simply leave his friend where he was, he did not know how seriously he was injured.
After checking that the unconscious attacker was showing no signs of waking d'Artagnan undid his weapons belt and dropped it on the floor. He did not want to give the spiky bush anything more than necessary to get itself tangled around.
The only weapon he took with him against his newest formidable enemy was a dagger he kept in his boot. He knew from his younger days working on the families farm that brambles had a tendency to stick fast when they wanted to.
D'Artagnan pushed his way into the bushes, his ankle was almost immediately caught causing him to need to backup and pull his foot free. But the action of taking half a step back caused his arm to become caught, the tendril wrapping itself firmly around him. Using the dagger, he peeled the offending spikes off and proceeded slowly. Porthos had not shown any signs of waking, for which d'Artagnan was glad. He knew the chances were that the musketeer would be disorientated and likely tangle himself further into his prickly prison.
As he reached his friend d'Artagnan managed to crouch down, but not before peeling another bramble limb from around his waist. The hedge was quite determined to take him to the ground and beat him into submission.
Porthos was flat on his back, a bruise on his temple explained his continued stillness. D'Artagnan managed a cursory check for any further injuries, more serious than those inflicted by the brambles. When he found none he began the laborious task of dragging his friend back out to a more comfortable resting place.
Extracting himself and Porthos from the brambles took far longer than his infiltration. Not only did he have to continually pull the spikes from his own clothing, but he had to unhook them from Porthos' bloody shirt and on several occasions his skin. D'Artagnan hated to think what state his friend would be in when they finally escaped the brambles.
One particularly persistent tendril managed to wrap itself around the unconscious man's waist to such an extent that d'Artagnan had to lay him down and physically cut the bramble before peeling it carefully away from his friend's body.
D'Artagnan was aware of several of the spiky tendrils springing back at him and scratching him across the face, but there was little he could do about it.
As he finally pulled them both free of the bramble bush he collapsed to the floor panting. Porthos had remained unconscious throughout. D'Artagnan had decided, at about the halfway point, that his friend would be keeping him in wine for some time.
MMMM
After stripping Porthos of his torn and bloody shirt d'Artagnan set about the rather thankless task of cleaning the myriad of cuts to his arms and torso. None proved bad enough to require stitching but there were a few that he had to cover with bandages.
The bodies of the two dead attackers were hauled further away and the unconscious man was tied to a tree. D'Artagnan was fast losing the strength to do much more. His war with the brambles had been more tiring than he had imagined it would be.
After building them a small fire he settled down to wait for his friend to wake up. He found himself nodding off several times, but knew he had to stay awake. There was a chance Porthos would be confused when he regained consciousness and d'Artagnan wanted to be there when he did.
MMMM
Porthos shivered. Why was he chilly? Why was it dark? And where was his shirt?
He sat up slowly, wincing several times in the process. The blanket that was covering him fell as he sat up. He looked down at his chest and arms and saw that he was covered in scratches and cuts. There were several small dressings over his arms and one around his waist.
He remembered falling backwards and thinking, for a moment, before he had passed out that he had been stung. It did not take Porthos long to realise what had happened. He looked across to the sleeping form of d'Artagnan, who looked quite exhausted. He appeared to have been trying to stay awake and had lost the battle slumping to his side awkwardly. The young man's face was covered with blood, a nasty cut across his forehead was still oozing and needed to be cleaned.
D'Artagnan must have pulled him out of the bramble bush. Porthos looked down at his breeches and saw a multitude of tears, even his boots were scuffed and scratched. D'Artagnan's clothing looked to be in much the same state.
As quietly as he could Porthos gathered water and a few left-over cloths together and gently began to clean his friend up. He guessed the sleeping musketeer had spent some time doing the same for him.
D'Artagnan stirred, he opened his eyes and made to sit up.
'Stay there for a minute, let me make sure this is clean.'
'How's your head?'
'I'll live,' replied Porthos as he continued to wipe the dried blood from d'Artagnan's face, 'I'll need to put a dressing on this, it's still bleeding.'
'I knew I had a cut there, but couldn't tell how bad it was. I'm afraid your shirt was ruined.'
'I'll get a new shirt,' said Porthos distractedly, as he wrapped a bandage around d'Artagnan's head. The younger man sat up and looked him over.
'I'm never eating another blackberry,' said d'Artagnan, eyeing the offending bushes with disdain, 'horrible things.'
'Oh, I will,' said Porthos with a grin, 'being able to devour one's enemy seems like a just dessert.'
The End.
Author note: I do conservation work locally, which for the last few times seems to have meant doing battle with blackberry bushes. I can say with authority that the above reaction of the enemy combatant (the bramble) is accurate. I have the scars to prove it.