A/N: Thank you SnidgetHex, Undertheoaktrees, pallysAramisRios, and Musketball1 for reviewing!
Chapter 3
Aramis waited until Louis's broken sobs had petered out completely before breaking the solemn silence.
"We should return to the palace," he tentatively suggested.
Louis slowly got to his feet, looking utterly drained and more sickly than when they had set out that morning. Or perhaps that was just Aramis noticing it more, now that he knew the dark secret shrouding the King in its doom. Louis had left his walking stick propped against the door, so Aramis went to get it for him. But he'd only made it halfway down the aisle when the door swung open, spilling in blazing light. Aramis saw two silhouettes backlit by the sun enter the mausoleum, and he slowed his pace cautiously. The heavy door swayed shut behind them, and Aramis had only a split second of shocked realization to set in before two pistols came swinging up to take aim.
"Get down!" he yelled to Louis, ducking behind a column as the pistol shots cracked the air and the musket balls ricocheted off the marble. Aramis whipped out his two pistols and fired one back.
As the men darted for their own cover—including none other than Boudier—Aramis dashed back to the King and pushed him back toward the rear of the mausoleum. Another round of musket balls whizzed past them, but Aramis saved his loaded pistol for when he'd have a better shot, not when he could only shoot blindly behind him.
He ushered Louis toward a back door, bursting out into the space between the street and the cemetery outside, only to find more armed men waiting for them. Shouts went up along with several more pistols aimed their direction. Aramis yanked the King down behind the balustrades as balls peppered the wall above them.
"Back inside!" he yelled, giving the King a rough shove. Aramis needed to find a defensible position if he was going to have any chance of holding off this many armed foes.
They dodged more gunfire from Boudier and his man inside the mausoleum as they scrambled along the back wall. Aramis found a set of stairs that led down into the catacombs, and while it wasn't preferable, he pushed Louis that direction. There was a door at the bottom of the steps, which Aramis slammed closed. He then grabbed a candelabra stand and wedged the crooked top under the doorknob to prevent it from opening.
"No, no, no," Louis was wailing. "I'm not ready!"
Aramis whirled and grabbed his coat at the shoulder. "Keep going!"
He propelled Louis through the catacombs. There had to be another way out of here from when the place was first built, a secondary shaft for air and escape in case of cave-ins during construction. It was probably blocked up, but if Aramis could just find it…
There were a lot of aisles, centuries' worth of royal bloodlines entombed in a series of dark tunnels.
A crash echoed from behind that sounded like the door getting kicked to pieces. Aramis dragged Louis down one of the aisles. It was a dead end.
"I can't- I can't do this…" Louis sounded on the verge of hyperventilating, but Aramis didn't have time to assuage his fears when he was busy trying to protect his life.
He tried to backtrack, only to be cut off by two men rounding the corner and charging them. Aramis dropped his spent pistol in order to draw his sword and leaped forward to parry their attack. He blocked one man's swing and used the barrel of his pistol to clobber the second in the head. Kicking the first backwards, Aramis then ran the second through with his blade, twisting around and slicing across the first's chest as he scrambled to get up. They fell in a heap at his feet.
Aramis sheathed his sword and snatched up his pistol, then gestured sharply at the King; he could hear more men coming. "Hurry!"
He abandoned the hope of finding a back way out of here and instead pushed the King into a walk-in vault and down behind the granite tomb inside. He then quickly reloaded his first pistol and took up position over the lid of the tomb, ready to shoot anyone who came at them. It didn't take long.
A man passed by the alcove, pausing when he caught sight of them. Aramis shot him dead before he could take another step, but the gunfire was going to alert the others to their location. He started to duck down to reload again when Louis exclaimed,
"There!"
Aramis swung back around and fired his second, taking down yet another man. How many were there? At least a dozen from what he'd seen outside, but there could have been more around front. He had no way of knowing.
"Give me a pistol," Louis said.
Aramis shook his head as he frantically tried to reload both before any more men came upon them.
"If I am to die, I would have it be with honor," Louis said earnestly.
Aramis hesitated for only a second before handing over the weapon he'd just loaded. He finished with the second, then dumped all his powder packets and ammunition on the floor between them. More men found their position and fired into the vault. Aramis and Louis ducked behind the tomb, then leaned out around the sides to shoot back. The barrage of pistol fire within the catacombs echoed like thunderclaps, and soon the air was hazy with smoke. The assassins had gotten wise to their targets' aim and were trying to stay behind the corners. Aramis held a hand up to hold their fire, waiting for their opponents to give ground first.
Louis's eyes were wide but determined as he waited. The assassins wasted a few more bullets shooting at granite before two ventured into the aisle. Aramis nodded, and he and Louis swung up to shoot them down. Then came another round of enemy fire and them waiting it out. But the cycle would only get them so far. Aramis glanced down at the four rounds left on the floor. Soon they would be out of ammunition and their attackers would realize it, and then it would only be Aramis and his blade standing between them and the King. It looked like they were both going to become more personally acquainted with death this day. Aramis was not blind to the irony that they were already inside a giant tomb…
And like for every man who found himself facing death, there was more Aramis yet wanted to do, loved ones he wanted to see one last time. He had faced death so many times in his life as a soldier, had gone to the very brink and back more than once. Each time he'd thought this was it, only for a miracle to arrive and spare him yet again.
He wasn't sure he could hope for such a miracle again now.
He turned to Louis, expression grim with resignation as he traded his pistol for his sword. "It was an honor, Your Majesty."
Louis stared at him, wide-eyed, as Aramis shifted to make his last stand. He swallowed hard. "Likewise."
Aramis nodded, then braced himself for the final charge. But then gunfire and clanging steel echoed from further back in the catacombs, away from their position. Shouts rang out from the mercenaries and a few broke cover to run down the aisle. Aramis nearly collapsed with relief. He was blessed, indeed.
But even if reinforcements had somehow arrived unlooked for, Aramis couldn't depend on that solely to save the King. He still had to get Louis to safety, no matter what.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Aramis charged out from behind the tomb. Only four men were left blocking the juncture, which normally would have been a challenge for Aramis by himself, but in these close tunnels, only two were able to reach him at a time, giving him a chance to dispatch them first while the other two fumbled to find a way through.
Aramis stabbed one man, then caught the blade of the second. He pushed the man's arm up and twisted beneath it, thrusting his main gauche into the man's exposed stomach. He then had to spin around before he was impaled by the men coming up behind him. One barreled into him, driving him back against the wall. Aramis grunted at the impact but kicked out at the man's kneecap. There was no such thing as fighting dirty when the King's life was at stake.
He punched the man with the hilt of his sword, then followed through with the other end of his blade into the man's back. A shot rent the air, making him jolt, and Aramis whirled toward the last mercenary just in time to see him topple backward, his own pistol falling from a lax hand. Aramis whipped his gaze back toward the tomb as Louis stepped out, smoking pistol in hand. Aramis canted his head at him in gratitude and appreciation of the shot.
"Now let's move," he said, beckoning the King urgently.
Aramis led him away from the sounds of fighting and deeper into the catacombs.
"Shouldn't we be going toward our rescue?" Louis bleated.
"Not while they're currently engaged with the enemy," Aramis replied, scanning the walls for any signs of that escape tunnel. Even if it had been walled up, there should still be a small gap for ventilation.
He finally spotted it: a round hole left in the top corner of one panel, covered in cobwebs. And when Aramis ran his hands over the surface, he found it was made of wood, not stone. He drew his main gauche and began hacking at the wood.
"What are you doing?" Louis exclaimed.
"Finding another way out of here," he grunted as he made a hole large enough to get his hands through so he could more easily yank the wood panels apart. Dust motes puffed in his face, irritating his nose and throat. Aramis poked his head into the shaft to get a better look. It was dark, and he had no choice but to count on there being another opening at the end of it.
Ignoring the King's spluttering protests, he grabbed Louis's arm and pushed him into the tunnel. They didn't have to go far before a haze of light began suffusing through the shaft, and not long after they found a dead end with a grate in the ceiling. Aramis set his feet into notches in the wall and reached up to push the grate aside. He then hopped back down and gave Louis a boost to climb out of the tunnel. Aramis went up last, using the footholds in the wall to scale the few feet needed for him to get a purchase on the rim of the hole and heave himself up. They found themselves in the cemetery out behind the mausoleum, thankfully devoid of assassins waiting for them to pop up out of the ground. They all must have gone down into the catacombs from the front.
"Keep going," Aramis urged, placing his hand on the King's back and propelling him forward. He needed to get Louis to better cover, just in case any stray assassins happened upon them.
A shot suddenly skimmed across a tombstone right next to their heads, and Aramis pushed Louis down behind it, practically throwing himself on top of the King as he dove for cover as well. Boudier was climbing up out of the shaft opening. Aramis mentally cursed the man as he fired back.
But that was his last round, and he didn't know if Boudier had another loaded pistol on him or not.
Then a dragon shriek echoed from the front of the mausoleum, and a moment later four Musketeer dragons came lumbering around the corner at the sound of gunfire. Aramis nearly crowed with relief at their timely arrival.
Boudier bolted for the tree line.
"After him!" Aramis yelled, gesturing wildly.
Rhaego and Ayelet immediately veered off after Boudier while Savron and Vrita quickly surrounded Aramis and Louis in a protective circle. The King slumped back against the tombstone and closed his eyes in exhaustion. All that excitement couldn't have been good for his health. Still, they'd survived.
"Death will have to wait another day," Aramis said softly.
Louis cracked his eyes open to look up at him. "Yes, I suppose it will."
Aramis sheathed his sword and clipped his pistol to his belt, secure in the knowledge that the King was safe and well protected with two dragon sentinels at their side.