A/N: And here we have another distraction from the stories I really need to update. On the upside, though, I have this one mostly written out, so should be able to update fairly regularly. This one will be about ten chapters long, give or take, and I hope to update weekly. As always, I'm never sure if posting is a good idea, so reviews are a good way forward. Let me know what you're thinking.
Chapter titles are all song lyrics. Guess the song if you're that way inclined. Otherwise, enjoy.
ON BROTHERHOOD
1
KEEP ON WALKIN'
Dodge. Slash. Dodge.
It is all he can think. He is a dancer, a machine, performing a strange, twisted act, killing a man here, turning, fighting. Athos has warned him not to let his instincts take over - as soon as he does, everything he has learned fades away - but in the heat of the moment, only the attacks programmed into his memory are the ones he uses, and even then it is hard for him to focus. He fights two, three men at once, turning like the wheels of a carriage, smooth and regular and deadly.
A sword slices through the air towards him, catching his side, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins stops him from feeling it, and his own blade slams through the bandit's stomach. Again he turns, sword raised and ready, but his friends have finished the rest of them off. They stand in silence, staring at the scene around them.
"Well," Aramis says, breaking through the haze, "that was unexpected."
"Thieves?" Porthos asks.
D'Artagnan kneels beside a still breathing attacker. The man appears to be in considerable pain from a wound in his arm, but it is not life-threatening and, given the opportunity to recover, impermanent. "Did somebody pay you to do this?" he hisses in his ear. "Did someone tell you where we were?"
The man simply gives him an eerie smile, unsheathes a dagger and - before d'Artagnan has time to react - stabs himself through the heart. Damn.
"What was that?" Athos frowns.
"I don't know, but it doesn't look good."
He fights off the wave off dizziness that washes over him when he stands, putting it down to tiredness after a long day's ride and then a fight. They are in the courtyard of an inn, hoping to catch a breath of fresh air before Porthos drinks himself into the realms beyond all hope of sanity. It seems that the bandits, whoever they are (or were) followed them out, having been sat inside the inn. Which means ...
"They were waiting for us," he says suddenly. "Somebody must have hired them; how else would they have known?"
Aramis nods. "Enclosed space ... this was certainly planned. We should leave. Presumably the innkeeper was aware of their presence - someone would have come to investigate by now."
"It could be some sort of robbery ring, though," Porthos reasons. "I mean, they just sit in there and wait for someone to go into the courtyard ..."
"Men don't die for robbery rings," says Athos.
"Not one this size, anyway."
They all look around: indeed there are only a dozen or so men on the floor around them. Judging from their techniques and ease around swords, they have received training, if only to the minimum level. As musketeers - or cadets, in d'Artagnan's case - the four are highly disciplined and trained, and while an evenly numbered battle would have ended far more quickly, the sheer number of assailants put the group at a considerable disadvantage, skilful or otherwise. Looking around, however, d'Artagnan spots only a black eye on Porthos and the shallow cut on his own side, meaning that they are all relatively unharmed.
"We should move," Aramis points out. "There's a back exit. Let's go."
D'Artagnan begins to move towards the door, hoping fervently that it leads straight towards the stables, where their poor tired horses are waiting - "I know the terrain," Athos tells them, "there is another village with an inn an hour or so east. We can rest there for the night."
He scarcely feels as though he can manage another hours' or so ride; his eyelids are drooping, his muscles drained of energy. This is the eighth full day they have spent riding back to Paris, and at their current rate of travel they hope to reach home by noon tomorrow. At this stage, all of them except, perhaps, Aramis, whose abilities to run on fumes astound even the strongest of soldiers, are half dead on their feet with exhaustion. D'Artagnan's legs are stiff and aching from the ride over such uneven ground, and having grown up on a farm, he is accustomed to hard riding. He can hardly imagine the states of the others. (Each of them walk with the certain stagger that can only come from this sort of exertion.)
Fortunately, the stables are easily within reach once they have stolen out of the crowded inn, and when D'Artagnan's horse gives a soft whicker of protest at its short rest period, he murmurs a few soft words to it and rubs its neck soothingly before gently climbing back on. So short was the time they spent fighting that the stablehands have not yet been able to intact the poor creatures. He rides out at a slow walking pace, legs and back creaking in protest. He is the first: Athos follows and so does Aramis thirty seconds later. Porthos is apparently having difficulties and cannot even coax his horse from the stable.
D'Artagnan finds himself slipping to the side and corrects himself immediately. He can hear his father's reproachful voice ringing inside his head and automatically straightens himself until his posture is flawless - Alexandre taught his son to ride as a nobleman, nothing less. Aramis snorts. "Feeling lordly, d'Artagnan?"
"Stiff back," he replies casually, but does not lower himself back into a slouch. Instead, he remains with his spine as stiff as a board, his shoulders back, and his chin slightly raised in what Alexandre termed as "proudly defiant". In his peripheral vision, he half sees the ghostly form of his late father, but turns his head sharply and sees nothing. His horse shifts at the movement, exposing d'Artagnan's injured side to Aramis.
"You're hurt." Aramis trots over. "Let me see."
"It's nothing. Just a scratch."
He lifts his shirt to prove it, and Athos, satisfied that it is not severe, calls boredly, "Come on, Porthos. Not all of them are dead."
At last a somewhat bedraggled Porthos emerges from the stable block atop his horse and, though Aramis squints at the wound and moves as if to touch it, the other men are riding away and d'Artagnan, beginning to feel the pain after the adrenaline wears off, follows before the medic can try to stick his fingers into it. (Doubtless he would, given half the chance.)
"Do you think it was a targeted attack?" d'Artagnan asks, catching up with his friends.
Athos shrugs. "It could have been. More likely they had no idea who we were until it was too late. We'll soon find out - if they follow us, either they will want vengeance or they will want whatever it is they think we have."
Porthos, shuddering, chimes in, "I hope not. All I'm in the mood for now is a bottle of wine and a nights' sleep."
The night is bitingly cold, especially for mid-November. They are riding through woodland now, and d'Artagnan wishes he had thought to bring an extra layer, for a fine sheen of sweat has worked its way across his brow - from the fight, he assumes - which is nearly frozen from the air surrounding it, and the tear in his doublet where the sword cut through it is doing horrors to his insulation. He makes a mental note to ask Aramis to sew it up tonight: the man has better stitching that any other in Paris, or so it seems.
His eyes at last are too heavy to hold open and he finds himself sliding sleepily off his saddle. He falls bonelessly to the forest floor, which is thankfully thick and soft with a blanket of dead leaves and twigs and unlike the frozen dirt path they are making their way along. Nothing is hurt but his ego.
Porthos and Aramis immediately fall about laughing, Aramis so much so that he just barely manages to hold on himself and almost joins d'Artagnan on the ground. Athos, at least, has the grace to ask if he is alright, but even he bears a poorly concealed smirk. "I suggest you remain on your horse until we actually reach the inn, unless you wish to sleep there for tonight," he commented. There is a slight frown on his face that is not quite placeable.
D'Artagnan stumbles to his feet with all the grace of an elephant and clambers back onto his horse.
Something is wrong.
Athos can see it in the way the boy lists sideways in the saddle, the way his head keeps snapping to the side as he thinks he sees and hears things that nobody else can. D'Artagnan, perhaps unwittingly, has fallen asleep on horseback on many an occasion and not once have the musketeers ever seen him fall off. Born on a farm, the Gascon clearly is so at home on a horse that he does not notice when he drifts off atop of one - he is the only man within the garrison Athos knows who willingly spends time with the horses (his own in particular) training them and, he claims, gaining their trust. And, despite the continuous taunting he endures, still persists in doing so, long after learning that it is not the done thing. Athos admires that in a man.
But however good d'Artagnan is at standing out from a crowd of people, something is wrong with him today. Perhaps he is distracted - a man did commit suicide at his feet, after all. Yet the boy's stomach is as tough as iron. No, he must be hiding something. A secret, perhaps, one that could be dangerous (it would explain the jumpiness and the pale, glistening skin), or, more likely in d'Artagnan's case, an injury. Aramis had let the cut in his side go without complaint, but it could be bothering him. Perhaps there is something trapped in the wound, or it is slowly becoming infected. It could even be another wound altogether.
The way he staggers as he gets to his feet is not lost to the lieutenant, nor the utter exhaustion on his face. Surely he is made of sturdier stuff than he currently appears? Could it just be the exhaustion of the past few days taking its toll? No. They have ridden further and harder than this many a time. When they reach the inn, Athos will insist that Aramis looks him over, checking for signs of fever or injury.
Athos sighs. The last thing they need is an outbreak of influenza.
"How far?" Aramis asks. They have been riding for approximately ten minutes.
"Far enough."
Porthos groans, raising his head to the heavens; d'Artagnan is, worryingly, completely silent. Upon further inspection he is slumped forward slightly in his saddle. His face is barely visible.
As if on cue, spots of rain hit Athos' face. A yet louder groan can be heard from Porthos behind him. Aramis is laughing. "Remember the last time we were out in weather like this? It was before d'Artagnan. An hour away from Paris in pitch darkness, no shelter, no idea of where we were."
"We circled until daybreak," Porthos says. "I remember because Aramis' horse bucked him off, and he lay for a full five minutes staring at the sunrise."
"You may laugh, but I thought he'd broken his neck." Athos' voice is dry.
They continue in silence a while. The shower of rain turns into a fully fledged downpour, so cold that his whole body aches. He wants nothing more than to find someplace warm and dry to rest.
"Does anyone have any wine?"
"Good God, Porthos," cries Aramis. "Half an hour! Half an hour before we reach an inn! Can you not wait that long?"
"It's not for me. The whelp looks like he's about to faint."
Athos turns. "I'm fine," d'Artagnan hisses.
"Bit cold for you, eh?" Porthos claps him on the back and rides on. D'Artagnan does not reply.
Shivering, they finish the journey in silence. Memories come drifting back as soon as they approach the village - this is one of the first journeys Athos ever made as a newly commissioned musketeer. He was in a large party, a guard for some lord who had insisted on full protection. Little had happened, but one man caught an infection from an unnoticed scratch across the back of his shoulder and fainted from his fever, and slipped sideways into another man's horse, panicking it and throwing both of them and the three behind them to the ground, under the horses of the rest of the group. None of the injuries proved to be fatal, but with almost half of their men incapacitated, accommodation was necessary - and the nearest village was more than adequate.
Athos is fairly sure that the beds are even clean.
"We've arrived," Aramis pipes up unhelpfully from the back. He looks half drowned. (Athos is forced to admit that he probably looks much the same.)
"Thank God."
"Porthos, Aramis, sort out the horses. Myself and d'Artagnan will secure rooms for the night." Athos turns and sends a warning glare at Porthos before he can open his mouth to protest at the sudden role reversal; usually it is d'Artagnan who looks after the group's horses, being the most comfortable around them, as well as the newest of them. Such responsibilities tend to fall to the youngest and least experienced musketeers. Break 'em in, as Porthos once so eloquently put it. However, at this point the boy can scarcely balance atop his mount, let alone find it shelter and protection enough to leave it and three others overnight.
"I can do the horses." D'Artagnan's voice is so slurred it is almost inaudible. Has he, perhaps, consumed an inordinate amount of wine without their knowing? It seems probable, given the way that he directs his words to a non-existent rider to his left, when they are travelling single-file.
"Probably best that you get an early night," Aramis says quietly. All of them have now realised that something is not right.
All of them, it seems, except d'Artagnan himself.
They come to a stop outside the inn (creatively named, Athos notes, la Vieille Auberge) and Athos, Porthos and Aramis dismount. D'Artagnan stays frozen on his horse. Each raindrop threatens to knock him down. "D'Artagnan," Porthos says cautiously. He flinches awake and slowly rises out of his saddle. Athos notes that his hands are shaking too much to even hold himself steady.
He swings his right leg over the horse, ready to step down, but his left buckles under the added weight. This time there is no slow, easy fall, and no soft landing.
He drops like a stone.