Alive
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The snow is tainted with blood. The air echoes with the cry of ravens.
Athos is standing in a forest of trees and corpses.
He looks down. This one is lying apart from the others. He's been wounded in the head, but someone's wrapped a makeshift bandage around the injury. It has done very little to stop the blood from flowing.
Athos wishes he could recall the names of the twenty-one. Then he remembers that he didn't bother to learn the names of half of them. He doesn't even know the name of the body he is looking down on, but he remembers the face. This Musketeer was a marksman, a man with dancing eyes and a smile filled with life and laughter.
Then he hears it: a faint rattle of air through parted lips. He kneels down and leans in close, daring to hope, something he has not felt for a long time…
Athos hears it again. He feels a faint wisp of warmth in the cold air.
"He's alive!" he cries. "This one's alive!"
Before he knows it, someone else is kneeling beside him and placing a hand on the marksman's throat.
"He's alive, but he's freezin'. He needs help now or he'll die."
xxx
There are twenty corpses. Athos knows that they are lucky to even have one survivor.
"What's his name?" he asks the man riding on the opposite side of the cart. He recognises this Musketeer as well: a fighter with a fiery spirit.
They both look down on the figure lying in the cart. The twenty have been left where they are – for now. If they don't want another to be added to that number, they have to get him to safety.
"Aramis," is the reply. "Mine's Porthos."
There is a short silence. Then Athos realises that Porthos is looking at him expectantly.
It would be rude not to say anything. "I'm Athos."
"Know what's botherin' me?" The words come out as a growl. "How many bodies were there?"
"Twenty. Why?"
Then Athos realises. Twenty bodies. One survivor.
Twenty-two Musketeers were sent to Savoy.
Hope you enjoyed it!